Agriculture

Icons of eastern Oregon
Grain elevators, Pendleton
Windfarm, Gilliam County
Looking to Mt. Adams
Condon grain elevators
Pendleton grain elevators
Pendleton street scene
Pendleton, spring evening
Grain Craift building
Farmland near Pendleton

(Click on each image to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

During the past two months, I have traveled widely in Oregon. I always enjoy an Oregon road trip. The high and wide-open plateaus of north central and eastern Oregon, just before the Blue Mountains, rekindled my love of the open road and empty places.

I made two separate trips: one to Condon, in Gilliam County, and another to Pendleton, in Umatilla County. Gilliam County is bisected by the John Day River, a popular fishing and rafting destination. The landscape is dominated by a high plateau and constant wind, making it an ideal location for massive wind farms that sprout majestically above wheat fields. The county seat, Condon (pop. 682), is a charming community that felt alive and loved by its residents.

Pendleton (pop. 16,682) sits on the Interstate 84 corridor, further to the east, straddling a valley near the start of the Blue Mountains. The community is a true Western town. It is famous for its rodeo, woolen goods, and also whiskey. Nearby Umatilla is also famous for the now decommissioned 20,000-acre Umatilla Chemical Depot, run by the U.S. Army that was home to a massive stockpile of chemical weapons.

Agriculture, along with wind energy, are two major economic drivers in this sparsely populated area of Oregon. Native Americans have lived here for millennia. Pendleton lies within the ancestral lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, whose designs adorn Pendleton’s famous woolen blankets and more. The tribe also runs the Wildhorse Resort & Casino, a major economic resource for the area.

Visually, I was mostly struck by the iconic imagery presented by the grain elevators in both areas, along with the towering wind turbines. The site of large, manmade structures in mostly open spaces has always appealed to my visual sensibilities, wherever I may be.

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Some of my fondest memories of summer
Young Greenland women wear their traditional costume in Sisimiut.
A full moon rises over Nuuk’s harbor.
The Greenlandic dog is one of the toughest breeds in the world.
Arctic light illuminates Eriksfjord in southwest Greenland, near Qassiarsuk.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

This “midsommar,” or midsummer as Americans might call it, marks the 20th year since I first flew to Greenland to explore, pursue some old passions of Viking exploration and colonization of the arctic, and do some serious backcountry travel.

I succeeded on all fronts. I ended up visiting Greenland three summers in a row, in 1998, 1999, and 2000.

I made some amazing treks (Sisimiut to Kangerlussuaq, Igaliku to Qaqortoq, Brattalid/Qassiarsuk, to Narsaq) during each trip.

I made friends with local Greenlanders, who invited me into their homes and took me seal hunting and fishing.

I befriended several Danes, including two doctors, who made sure to extend hospitality to me when I visited their country.

I also participated in a celebration of the 1,000th anniversary of Leif Ericson’s arrival in southwest Greenland.

I thought about Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat in Greenlandic) this week as we entered that magical time of 24 hours of daylight in the arctic. In 1998, I hiked all night on June 21, 1998, north of the Arctic Circle, where the sun never set and the mosquitos never slept!

Here are a few photos highlighting the magic of that place, its people, its culture, and beauty. I hope they bring you some joy as in the northern hemisphere celebrates the arrival of summer.

Where we will see the impact of a trade war first, in our ports
A grain cargo ship at the Port of Seattle
The Axel Maersk at the Port of Seattle
The Port of Seattle looking north from the main cargo terminals

(Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The ongoing escalation of threats since March between the administrations of President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, have many economists and industries in the United States seriously concerned about a possible trade war.

This week, Trump’s administration suggested it might add an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports, on top of the $50 billion in of tariffs that were announced in March 2018. For its part, China had retaliated this week with proposed trade duties valued at $50 billion on U.S. products, including airplanes produced by Boeing and commodities like soy and pork. It threatened on April 6 to meet the latest Trump administration proposal with additional tariffs on $100 billion in U.S. imports.

Most of these goods pass through the United States’ main cargo ports, including the Port of Seattle. According to the port, it shipped 5.2 million metric tons of agricultural cargo in 2015. Primary products included soybeans, and China, along with South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, are the port’s primary markets. The tariffs likely mean less ag exporting business at the port. The port also handles many consumer and finished products coming from China. It is not clear how American consumers will respond to higher prices.

Whatever happens, daily movement of global cargo at the port will not stop. Trade with China represents more than half of the port’s trade. In 2017, the port’s trade was valued at more than $26 billion. There is simply too much mutually dependent trade taking place to halt the flow of goods both ways. However, the percentages of exports and imports to and from China may fall, and businesses will feel the pinch throughout the supply chain. They simply may feel it first at the big West Coast ports like Seattle, Tacoma, Oakland, and Long Beach.

(Contact me if you are interested in licensing my photographs.)

 

A field of strawberry dreams

Memorial Day for me now has become my strawberry picking day. Two years in a row makes a tradition. I drove to Sauvie Island, just north of Portland on the Columbia River. It has several U-pick farms. This year I picked my berries at Sauvie Island Farms.

Half of the people around me were speaking a language other than English. I heard Hindi, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese. Family fruit picking clearly is popular with Portland’s East and South Asian families. Strawberries signal the end of spring and beginning of summer, and they taste so darn good.

Looking at all the little kids being pulled by their well-off moms and dads made me think of all the kids who are not that much older working in the fields with their families in our land of plenty, for up to 10 hours a day. Sometimes, it is fate of birth that separates one world from another. I am glad I never had to and do not have to do this for a living. It is incredibly hard work bending over, sorting through fruit, gently picking it one by one. Something to think about as you pick out your fruit at your local store. Someone always had to pick it.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Strawberry fields for picking

Paying tribute to The Beatles and picking fresh Shuksan strawberries makes for a nice combo. I visited Kruger’s Farm this weekend on Sauvie Island, near Portland. The owners told me this has been the earliest harvest they can ever remember. Definitely another signal of climate change in the Northwest.

A final takeaway I always get from u-pick experiences is how hard manual farm labor is. Imagine doing this for 12 hours a day? It is always important to make the connection between the food you put on your plate and the field it came from.

It’s all about the grain, and the global marketplace
Shot with a GoPro at the Port of Vancouver.
This is the largest grain elevator on complex on the West Coast.
Shot with a GoPro
Shot from Frenchman’s Bar Park, in Clark County, Washington.
This ship will soon be filled with grain for markets in Asia.

Vancouver, Wash., is home to the United Grain Corp.’s export terminal. According to the company, the grain elevator complex is the largest grain elevator on the West Coast. This is a massive facility. The complex dominates the landscape on the banks of the Columbia River north of Portland. Cargo ships will line up on the Columbia River and basically park in the river until there is a berth for at the terminal or across the river at the Port of Portland’s export terminal on the Willamette River. Wheat grown in western Washington is one of the main exports, mainly for global markets.

I took the photos of the anchored cargo vessels from Frenchman’s Bar Park, in Clark County, just north of Vancouver. It is a beautiful spot to see how the global commodities market works–one ship and one train at a time.

Christmastime at Concordia Seminary
Luther Tower stands majestically at the entrance to Concordia Seminary.
A scene from the campus of Concordia Seminary.
The photo was taken from the main courtyard at Concordia Seminary.

Concordia Seminary is one of the most beautiful academic campuses in the country, in my book. The seminary is affiliated with the more conservative branch of the Lutheran Church in the United Stated (Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod), but that is not why I have an affinity for this place.

I used to live very close to here, and I always pay a visit when I visit family in the St. Louis area, mainly because I find the campus to be so lovely. The seminary was built like many homes, churches, and public buildings in the St. Louis area, with a sense of permanence and with stones and slate roofs. If I were to pick any place to shoot a film that needed an “elite university look,” this would be the place.

All of these photographs were taken with my GoPro.

(Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Turkish laborers near Antalya
Laborers pause inside a hothouse in southern Turkey near Antalya.

Hothouses growing crops for local and international markets were common sights on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean Coast. During my trip in 2001, I travelled the entirety of that coast by bus (loved it!), and had a chance to visit a hothouse by a bus stop. The workers reminded me a lot of the male laborers I saw in my home state of Washington. They were friendly, their clothes revealed the dirt and sweat of their hard labor, and they had pride in who they were. It is a reminder to always stop and just look around the corner and see what you may find. More pictures of my travels in Turkey can be found on my Turkey photo gallery. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Grain Silos in the Palouse

 

Silos like the one seen here just of Highway 195, dot the landscape between Spokane and Pullman, Wash.

Washington’s wheat, barley, and lentil country is dotted with silos that hold the crops til they find their buyers on the national and international markets. Some of that grain eventually arrives where I live, in Seattle, and is moved onto ships that sail off to faraway ports, in China, Japan, and wherever the market dictates. In many ways these silos serve as landmarks to the global trade upon which nearly all of these farmers and this state are dependent. (Click on the photography to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Washington wheat, the golden grain

 

The sun was setting in Lincoln County, Washington, one of the state’s main wheat growing areas, when I snapped this photo near Wilbur.
Wheat fields are a golden yellow, stiff, and dry when they are harvested for the global commodities market, in this case from a farm in Lincoln County.

Washington state is famous for many crops. We produce about 80 percent of all beer hops in the nation (yes, bow before our hops growers, please). We produce fruit of all kinds, from wine grapes to cherries. We grow many grain crops too, including wheat, particularly in the middle and eastern half of the state. Right now, harvesters are running night and day, grain is filling silos, and farmers are calculating their earnings. You can learn about the different varieties of wheat grown in the state, including durum for pasta and hard red wheat for Asian noodles and general flour, from the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. This is the fourth most productive wheat-growing state in the country, and yes, the golden wheat definitely does have golden rewards, relative to other crops on the global markets. As for me, I think I would be miserable without my pasta, bread, and cookies. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)