Art, environmentalism, and Indigenous cultures are coming together at a new Education Pavilion at Tryon Creek State Natural Area in Southwest Portland.

The $2.6 million Pavilion is being constructed by Friends of Tryon Creek, a nonprofit organization that supports and operates educational programs at the 665-acre Oregon State Park located on Southwest Terwilliger Boulevard between Portland and Lake Oswego. It is scheduled to open Sept. 20, and will include two classrooms and a community gathering space to boost the programs that are already being conducted by the Friends group.

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“The Educational Pavilion will allow Friends of Tryon Creek to better expand its community and educational activities year-round,” said Jessica Green, chair of the Friends group board of directors. “It will increase the number of schools and organizations we can partner with at this valuable regional resource, which is welcoming to all.”

The Pavilion’s design is based on the wooden Plankhouses with cantilevered roofs built by the Chinookan peoples of the lower Columbia River for living, working, gathering, and ceremonial spaces. It will be augmented by new works created by four regional Indigenous artists. Classes for children and older students will cover the geographic history of the region, changes caused by climate change, how to restore the environment, and more. Arts and crafts are integral to the teachings.

The structure was designed by Richard Woodling, international principal at the Veritas Design Group in Portland. Although traditional Plankhouses do not have windows, he modified the design to include large windows on the back and sides to maintain the views of the surrounding forest; the windows can still be covered with sliding panels when needed. The two classrooms are separated by a hallway that runs from the front door to the rear deck that will always be open to the public. They represent two Indigenous tribes trading across a river.

Original carved wooden pieces were commissioned from three renowned Northwest Indigenous artists. They include: Shirod Younker of the Coquille Indian Tribe, who also manages the Journeys in Creativity: Explorations in Native American Art Program at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.; Gregory Archuleta of the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde, who also teaches about the culture and history of the Tribes of Western Oregon, including ethnobotany, carving, cedar hat making, Native art design, and basketry; and Greg Robinson of the Chinook Nation, who also received the U.A. Department of the Interior’s Cooperative Conservation Award for his leadership and involvement in the planning and building of the authentic Chinookan Cathlapotle Plankhouse in Ridgefield, Wash. In addition, Earl Davis of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe created unique metal fish-shaped pieces. He is also a master woodcarver who served as the tribe’s culture director from 2006 to 2023.

“The goal is to combine historic Native America lore and community knowledge with modern technologies for educating children,” Woodling explained.

Woodling said much of his inspiration came from conversations with Friends group Executive Director Gabe Sheoships, a Cayuse citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation with a background in fisheries ecology. He is also a co-founder of the Oregon Land Justice Project.

“This project was a huge lift to fundraise for, alongside our regular fundraising efforts to maintain our organization. We are still accepting donations towards the Education Pavilion project as we inch towards our goal,” Sheoships said.

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Friends evolving with the times

The Tryon Creek State Natural Area is the only Oregon state park within a major metropolitan area. It was created as the result of a grassroots drive that began in the 1960s to preserve the heavily forested Tryon Creek Canyon from encroaching residential development. Volunteers including area residents Lucille Beck and Jean Sidal worked tirelessly for more than a year to create the first Friends group in state park history in 1970. They rallied hundreds of volunteers and connected with 1,400 families, who donated $27,000 for the very first Tryon Creek land purchase.

The two volunteers also persuaded Glenn Jackson, a powerful civic leader and head of the Oregon Department of Transportation, that the state should buy more land. Jackson provided state support, and the first significant land purchase – more than 200 acres – soon followed. Oregon Gov. Tom McCall to announce the formation of Tryon Creek State Park in the Tryon Creek Watershed in 1970.

Now known as the Tryon Creek State Natural Area, the land is dominated by large red alder, bigleaf maple, Douglas fir, Western red cedar, and Western Hemlock trees. The park itself is bisected by Tryon Creek, which is among the few streams in the region with runs of coho salmon and steelhead trout. In addition to the Nature Center, it includes hiking trails, horse trails, and a three-mile paved bike path that runs along Terwilliger Boulevard on the east edge of the park to Lake Oswego.

Fifty-five years after it was formed, Friends of Tryon Creek is easily one of the largest and most successful park support groups in the country. While many other support groups are satisfied with cleaning up litter and fighting invasive species, the Tryon Creek group not only does that, but also operates a wide range of programs at the park through a formal agreement with Oregon Parks and Recreation, the state department that owns the property.

In 2021, following the racial justice protests that swept Portland, Oregon and the nation, the Friends board and staff welcomed an expanded mission, vision, and strategic plan. It is intended to create programming, space, and pathways for all people to feel welcome and comfortable in the forest. 

“We recognize that this is not and has not been possible across many public lands due to the ongoing legacy of colonialism and white supremacy,” reads the group’s website. “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and marginalized communities have faced physical and structural barriers to natural areas, like Tryon, and have had their communities’ cultural knowledge erased from narratives of the land. For much of our organization’s history, Friends of Tryon Creek has engaged in the sort of exclusion that we are now working to reverse – we have committed to internal work that prioritizes BIPOC leadership, in addition to decolonizing traditional nonprofit organizational and environmental education models.”

In addition to its executive director, the Friends group has 10 other staffers who manage the organization and operate its programs at the park.

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The programs include: Forest Adventures, designed for youths 6 to 14 to learn about nature and create art using natural materials; School Field Trips for students from schools in the region; Green Leaders Workshop Development Program for those interested in learning environmental skills; Restoration Programs to enhance the health of the natural area; Backyard Habitat Certification Program for those who want to restore native habitats at their homes; and multiple community programs.

Growing but honoring the past

Until now, Friends of Tryon Creek has operated out of the Nature Center at the park, where its staff shares space with Oregon State Parks employees. Their office doubles as the classroom and shelter from rainy weather. It is just south of a former open-sided shelter that provided shade from the sun and cover from inclement weather, but was not suitable for larger year-round activities. Originally built in 1975, it was named the Glenn Jackson Shelter in honor of the park’s early supporter.

Enclosing the structure to create year-round classroom space has been in OSP’s Comprehensive Long-Range Plan for Tryon Creek State Natural Area since 2013. In 2021, Sheoships worked to secure an initial $250,000 in American Rescue Plan Act set aside for infrastructure from the State of Oregon. The Friends group then took the lead on the project, commissioning its design and raising its construction budget.

The new structure will be 1,960 square feet, approximately double the square footage of the original shelter. The renovated building will cantilever out to the sides from the original foundation, adding more usable space without increasing the impact on the forest.

Groundbreaking for the project took place in fall of 2023, followed by deconstruction over the winter and into spring of 2024. Much of the wood was repurposed for the new Pavilion. Additional wood was sourced regionally, similar to the work done for the wood ceiling at the acclaimed redesigned Portland International Airport. Construction began in the summer of 2024, with the project scheduled to be completed in little more than a year.

“We are really honoring the past as much as possible,” Woodling said.

In addition to Woodling, the design and construction team includes Matthew Lillard of Baysinger Partners Architecture and Jackson Swanson of InterWorks LLC.

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The Tryon Creek State Natural Area is located at 11321 S. Terwilliger Blvd., Portland. It is open daily from 7 a.m. to sunset. Friends of Tryon Creek can be reached at 503-636-4398. Their website is tryonfriends.org.