News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Plans to transfer Wildhaven Preserve north of Sisters from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to the U.S. Forest Service are still operative - but the timeline has become less immediate.
TNC Director of Stewardship Derek Johnson told The Nugget last spring that the organization intends making a donation of the 160-acre preserve in Stevens Canyon to the U.S. Forest Service in order to "move resources into places where they can have more impact." He said then that the transfer might be completed before the end of the calendar year.
That is unlikely now.
Last spring, longtime caretakers Mark and Leslyn Grape had been given 90 days notice that they would have to vacate the property. Leslyn reports that their tenancy has since been extended on a month-to-month basis, which may last through the end of the year.
Johnson told The Nugget last month that the planned transfer is "still slogging along." TNC and the Forest Service have to work out an issue around third-party mineral rights.
"There is a third-party mineral reservation on the property," Johnson said. "That doesn't mean there's any minerals on the property."
Such reservations were long a common feature of land transactions in the West. The reservation on this property dates to 1953 and belongs to Oregon & Western Colonization Co., Johnson reported.
That reservation has to be removed from the property before the Forest Service can take ownership.
Transfer from TNC to the USFS remains a controversial plan for some of those who care deeply about the preserve. They are concerned that simply managing the property like surrounding lands will lead to a degradation of conditions for trees and wildlife. And many think that transfer to the Forest Service violates the intent of the late Gil and Vivian Staender when they donated the property to TNC some 35 years ago.
There is particular concern about the fate of Nature House, the stone house the Staenders built on the property, which has been the home of the Grapes in their role as caretakers.
Local rancher Gary Wehrle noted, "Aside from the value of the preserve for flora and fauna, there is this amazing rock and pine 2,000-square-foot house hand-built by Gil and Vivian. I have seen no off-the-grid house that compares to this anywhere in Central Oregon... (the Staenders') entire life was a life of total dedication to conservation, particularly wildlife - all this love was embodied in Wildhaven and the Nature House they hand-built. I hope we can find a way for TNC to honor their legacy by continuation of the preserve and Nature House."
Sisters District Ranger Ian Reid told The Nugget that "we're still trying to sort out the house idea and what's going to happen with that structure. We're still exploring all ideas."
Reid noted that the Forest Service is not looking to take on new facilities.
"We have a large backlog on maintenance on all our facilities - our existing facilities," he said.
Reid said that ideas such as creating an interpretive center at Nature House would be considered, as would the idea of carving out a smaller parcel from the transfer to include the Nature House. The agency would prefer that an independent party operate and maintain any program at the house.
"If somebody wanted to manage it on a special-use permit, that is something we would entertain," he said. "For the Forest Service, that would be the path of least resistance - that somebody would retain it besides us."
Reid said that the transfer is not at the top of the priority list for the Sisters Ranger District, which is wrapping up its post-Milli Fire work and determining how to handle a thousand or more dead trees along the Highway 20 corridor.
Wehrle said that he and other "friends" of the preserve would be eager to work to come up with a solution.
"We could easily put together a small Wildhaven community volunteer committee to monitor the property and ensure the property is well-maintained as a nature preserve - and report periodically to TNC as often as desired," he told The Nugget. "We could also do some fundraising to offset some of TNC expenses on the property - with the funds going directly to TNC. I will volunteer to be the catalyst on these efforts if TNC desires and would be happy to meet with them in Portland to discuss and refine this further."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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