Saturday, May 5th, the Cathlapotle Plankhouse opens to the public. Please join us as we open the door on another beautiful season of sharing the rich indigenous cultural heritage of the Lower Columbia River Peoples. Plankhouse Docents will be on hand to offer mini-tours through the House, Carty Unit Trail Stewards will be active on the Oaks to Wetlands and Carty Lake trails. We will also have a variety of self-led activities available for visitors over the weekend.
Cathlapotle Plankhouse is open from 12:00 to 4:00 on Saturdays and Sundays. The House remains open though BirdFest 2018 (October 6th and 7th), after which it closes to the public until the following spring.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: The Carty Lake Trail is only accessible through the Refuge currently. The Port of Ridgefield kiosk and gate are not open and you should not enter the RNWR from the Port. Please make sure that you are entering the Carty Lake Trail from the Carty Unit only.)
We would like to thank the City of Ridgefield for including the Cathlapotle Plankhouse Season Opening in their May Day – Spring Festival promotions this year. If you have the chance, hit up all of the amazing activities in town on your way to the Refuge on Saturday, May 5th. The City continues to be a welcome partner with the Friends in some of the most welcome ways.
Did you know? Volunteers staff the Cathlapotle Plankhouse during our open season. We could not run this portion of our programming without their extraordinary gifts of sharing this amazing place with others and their amazing dedication to community service. If you would like to be involved as a Plankhouse Docent but missed our Naturalist Training Series, please contact Juliet McGraw at cathlapotleplankhouse@ridgefieldfriends.org.
Come celebrate Mother’s Day at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge!
We are very pleased to announce Melissa Darby will be our first Second 
Sunday speaker for 2018. Darby was one of the original archaeologists at the Cathlapotle Village site and conducted ethnobotanical analysis of wapato recovered from the site. In addition to local research, she has traveled to Japan, England, Germany, and Italy exploring cross-cultural uses of this very important root food. Please come join us as Melissa shares memories of the Cathlapotle Village excavations, preparing wapato in the current Plankhouse. She will also cover the importance of indigenous women’s labor and women’s status within the community.
If you are not already familiar with Darby’s work, check out her chapter “The Intensification of Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia) by the Chinookan People of the Lower Columbia River” in Keeping it Living (editors Doug Deur and Nancy Turner 2005). “Wapato for the People: An Ecological Approach to Understanding the Native American use of Sagittaria latifolia on the Lower Columbia River” is also fascinating information.
Sunday, May 13, 2018:
11:00- Bird walk with Refuge Naturalist Terry Anderson
12:00 – 4:00- Cathlapotle Plankhouse Open – tours and family activities
1:00- Melissa Darby’s talk
2:30- Mother and Daughter led ethnobotany walk with Refuge Naturalists Juliet and Josephine McGraw
Family Activities for Mother’s Day include:
Lifeways and Landscapes will be the guiding theme for the 2018 season. Each Second Sunday of the month we will bring to you speakers, demonstrators, and other presenters focused on topics that relate to indigenous culture and the rich habitat provided by the Refuge. You can look forward to topics relating to indigenous women’s labor, ancestors and grandchildren, seasonality, ancestral oak stands, and of course our always popular Traditional Technologies Day.
Second Sundays begin in May and will continue through December. This year we are experimenting with a longer series and have added three additional events to the tail end of our series, extending it to the end of the year. This is an exciting development in our programming, as the final three Second Sundays will be held off-Refuge with some of our partner organizations throughout Clark County. Stay tuned for future locations! We hope that you enjoy this additional programming and hope to see you often!
When Amazon removed AmazonSmile, we lost our Amazon Wishlist access. Now, we have finally started one back up! Shop for items that the Friends and the Refuge Complex need to help with everything from habitat restoration to events like BirdFest & Bluegrass, and help support wildlife in little and big ways.
Learn More »
Sign up for the Community Rewards program by linking your Fred Meyer Rewards Card to Friends of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge (PK822). For more information, please visit the link below.
Learn More »
