Habitat Restoration
Ascension School Camp and Conference Center sits on approximately 100 acres. For nearly a century, 80 acres of the property has been farmed. Through the discernment of our values around creation care and racial reconciliation, we were compelled to reimagine our stewardship of this land. In November 2019, the land was returned to Ascension School’s direct care, and we began implementing the vision to re-establish the native riparian and prairie eco-system and build a nature trail throughout the 80 acres.
About half of the project is part of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which seeks to support landowners in establishing vegetation along streams, protecting water quality, and restoring fish and wildlife habitat. The restoration is monitored in partnership with the Grande Ronde Community Science Project.
All Ascension School visitors can view the project via a nature trail, which meanders throughout the property and creates a conservatory and sanctuary for those who visit.
We contract with Naknuwithlama Tiiachamna, Caretakers of the Land, for the management of the project.
A Word from Bobby Fossek, Co-Director of Caretakers of the Land:
Caretakers of the Land is an Indigenous-led organization (Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla) serving to steward and strengthen the symbiotic lifeways, languages, habitats, and traditional ecological knowledge of the Blue Mountain Bio-region and the Columbia River Basin. This mission is carried out through seasonal round immersion camps and ecosystem restoration projects.
We are guided by the seasonal patterns of the land and work with the cycles of the first foods, medicines, and materials. Many of our priority projects involve knowledge and skills that are fading from our collective memory but are crucial aspects of our unique cultural identity that our Ancestors sacrificed and worked hard to preserve for us.
In the Fall and Winter, we shift our attention towards ecosystem restoration work, hide collection for our buckskin camp, some plant material and medicine collection, and administrative needs. During the late Winter/early Spring, we hold an annual five-day Buckskin Making Camp during which indigenous participants learn to work a deer hide into buckskin in a traditional method from beginning to end, leaving with their finished product. In the Spring and Summer, we focus on a series of Cultural Immersion Camps, through which the practice of monitoring, gathering, processing, preparing, and preserving a plethora of first foods, medicines and materials is carried out.
We end each Summer with a three-day Camas Bake and cultural skill-share event at Ascension School where many families bring their summer diggings together to be baked in the traditional method. The Earth Oven is like the heart of our people and many foods are cooked in this manner.
The Camas Bake project was funded in 2021 by Oregon Humanities and was recently nominated for the 2022 Helen and Martin Schwartz Prize. They just recently received news that the Oregon Community Foundation awarded $35,000 to support 2023 operations.