Talking Water Gardens

The parking lot near Simpson Park and Talking Water Gardens is currently closed while our contractor finishes routine road and parking lot maintenance. They expect to be finished tomorrow. You can park along the road south of the bridge to access both facilities.

The Talking Water Gardens and Simpson Park parking lot is receiving some much needed maintenance today March 13th through Friday March 15th.

The parking lot will be closed, but you can park on Waverly Drive (before the bridge), walk over from Waverly Park, or use alternative transportation like a bicycle.

Please be cautious of grading equipment!

Promise.

The 2022 Albany Summer Passport program for kids will kick off Saturday, June 11, at 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with an event in Monteith Riverpark. Kids can get their FREE passports, have their passport photo taken and see a living history demonstration by the Monteith Historical Society. There will also be face painting, a scavenger hunt and trolley rides!

We will have fun rain or shine under the big shelter in Monteith Riverpark! The 2022 Albany Summer Passport program for kids will kick off Saturday, June 11, at 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with an event in Monteith Riverpark. Kids can get their FREE passports, have their passport photo taken and see a living history demonstration by the Monteith Historical Society. There will also be face painting, a scavenger hunt and trolley rides!

Today, Oregon joins 10 other states in recognizing the significant contributions of Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes to the culture of our state through the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Kalapuya refers to a group of people living in tribal territories containing numbers of related and like-speaking, but basically autonomous villages, near one or more tributary watersheds of the Willamette and Umpqua Rivers.

For generations, Kalapuyans subsisted on a wide range of animals and vegetables specific to these different habitats, moving across their tribal territories in response to seasonal availability. Bulbs of the camas lily were harvested, layered between leaves, and roasted in pit-ovens. Brown and sugary when done, they were then dried for storage. Some were further processed into small cakes, which were important articles of inter-group commerce. In drier months, the local Kalapuyans camped under minimal shelter near the confluence of the Calapooia and Willamette.

The Kalapuyan people suffered catastrophic population declines due to introduced diseases such as smallpox. In 1782-1783 almost two-thirds of the Kalapuya were wiped out due to the disease. By the time the first census was taken at Grand Ronde Reservation, to which all Kalapuyans were removed in 1856, a small fraction of their population remained. Life did not get easier. The services provided by the US government, such as sanitation and health care, were poor and mortality was high.

The Kalapuya treaties were eventually restored through bills in 1977 and 1983. There are an estimated 4,000 Kalapuyan descendants.

Learn more:
https://libraryguides.lanecc.edu/kalapuya
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/kalapuyan_peoples

The last two weeks we've had the pleasure of hosting South Albany Youth Activism (SAYA) to conduct turtle surveys at the wetlands! Students volunteered their time to help record turtle species, age, and location to be entered to iNaturalist.org. We all learned how to take photos through binoculars and spotting scopes and we discovered how difficult it is to ID turtles when they've got duckweed all over them!

Thanks to Calapooia Watershed Council for organizing the activity!

Last Thursday was a great day for formal tours at TWG! In the morning, we hosted City of Salem's Stream Crew (pictured here). We nerded out about native plants and commiserated over the philosophical dilemma of nonnative ones. We capped the experience with a stunning display of FIVE green herons in flight 😲! In the evening, we hosted the Albany Planning Commission and talked about the 'Triple Bottom Line' (environmental, social, and economic) approach to planning community projects like the TWG and how important healthy shade trees are for walkability and livability.

What's That Bird Song? Merlin Bird ID Can Tell You It’s an almost universal feeling: the thrill of hearing a mysterious new bird song. And it's usually followed up by the question: What was that bird? Today, the question got much easier: the Cornell Lab’s Merlin Bird ID app can now identify bird sounds. At the time of the initial launch, Merlin ...

We are conducting maintenance activities on the southern walking trail and at the northern influent point today. Alternative trails at TWG will remain open. Please respect signage and ensure you're keeping clear of the machinery.

Welcome to Pollinator Week (June 21st-27th)! Want to help out pollinators where you live? Check out The Xerces Society's initiative Bee City USA:
https://beecityusa.org/

And watch their short introductory video here: https://youtu.be/chvXwNbs3SA

Bring Back the Pollinators Bees and other pollinators are critical for food production and sustaining the world's natural ecosystems. In this introductory video, learn about the lives ...

Today is the last day to sign up for Wild Wacky Water trivia night. We hope to see you there. You can register for the event at – https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wild-wacky-water-trivia-night-by-mid-willamette-outreach-group-mwog-tickets-158041469289