Dispatcher's Cabin in Winter
Click here to open the January 2023 Friends of Fish Lake Newsletter
MAY 2022 NEWSLETTER
We’re excited to see our members in July this year during Fish Lake work week, July 11 – 15, with the annual membership meeting and potluck with District employees on Tuesday, July 12. As always, members have the option to extend their stay a few days to continue to work on projects in self-contained campers or RVs or tents.
Host Program
The onsite host program is back in 2022! Utilizing the Passports in Time Program, and some of our members, the District and the Friends hope to extend onsite coverage from June 1 through September 30. If you are interested in hosting, contact Lowell.Evans@usda.gov.
Fish Lake in the High Cascades
After nearly 2-1/2 years in the making, the “Fish Lake in the High Cascades” book is going to the printer! We have had tremendous support from reviewers, contributors and granting foundations to make this vision a reality. We hope to have copies available for purchase during the Fish Lake Work Week. The book is dedicated to the employees of the Cascadia and McKenzie/Mckenzie River Ranger Districts who have been caretakers of the site since 1906, and to you – the members of the Friends of Fish Lake – who incorporated in 2010 to help the Forest Service continue site stewardship into the future.
Summer Activities at Fish Lake this Summer
HistoriCorps will be back onsite this summer to continue project work at Clear Lake and will again use Fish Lake as their base camp from May 31 to June 25. They will relocate base camp to Lost Lake during the Girls in the Woods week.
Girls in the Woods will be back this year and is scheduled for the week of June 26 through July 1. The Friends of Fish Lake summer Board meeting will be held onsite on June 28.
The Friends of Fish Lake will be hosting our first-ever Professional Educators Workshop August 2-4. We will host a dinner for participants the first night, and Phil Hufstader will have stock in the corrals during the week. The workshop will be facilitated by our partners with Oregon State University Extension.
Board of Directors
We have 5 current Board Members whose terms expire on 12/31/22: Kathy Harbick, Dick Grace, Mike Kerrick, Doug Macdonald and Phil Raab. All members in good standing who have worked hard to achieve our Vision for Fish Lake. Mike Kerrick has asked to move into a Director Emeritus position to serve as an advisor at the end of his term. Cara Kelly, retired Forest Service Archaeologist of the Willamette National Forest, has accepted our offer to fill a Board position beginning in January 2023. Our Board of Directors voted to recommend to our full Membership that these five individuals will serve 3-year terms as Board Members of the Friends of Fish Lake from 1/1/2023 to 12/31/25. In addition, we will be recommending an addendum to our Bylaws to add a non-voting Director Emeritus/advisory position to our Board.
John Allen, retired Forest Supervisor of the Deschutes National Forest, has accepted our offer to replace the position Tracy Beck vacated earlier this year, and will begin serving the remainder of Tracy’s term.
FRIENDS OF FISH LAKE 2021 ANNUAL REPORT
We experienced another unique year in 2021. Contrary to our expectations, the virus pandemic stayed with us, affecting how we did business and how we communicated as an organization. Similar to 2020, we worked within the protocols to accomplish key work and meet as a group.
RESTORE, MAINTAIN AND PROTECT BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS
Site manager Jim Denney was welcomed back to Fish Lake after his absence in 2020. We held a one-day Work Day this year instead of our usual Work Week. We were fortunate to schedule a day as the COVID 19 was waning and before the Delta variant came on strong. We accomplished some site and building maintenance work, held our Annual Membership Meeting, held a Board Meeting and spent time visiting and renewing acquaintances.
Throughout the summer and into the fall we continued our work converting the left-hand side of the Bunkhouse to accommodate the needs of our planned Educators Workshop and other group activities. Led by Project Chair Ron Skrip, Doug Macdonald and Jim Denny, and partnering with the McKenzie River Ranger District, on-site work was accomplished by a small group of skilled volunteers. A new wood plank floor was put down by Kenny Gabriel and Guy Cohoon, of the Ranger District, and Jim Denny.
Fred Dutli organized a work party to plane cedar boards to trim standards for use in the bunkhouse. The planer was made available by Margaret Beilharz. Most of the bunkhouse interior work was completed, with the installation of bathroom fixtures planned for the spring of 2022.
Throughout the year we benefited from over a dozen volunteers accumulating 580 total hours of work.
THANKS to those of you were able to work on site and THANKS to all of you who continue to support the Friends in many other ways!
INTERPRETATION
Our volunteer Passport in Time (PIT) host program was canceled again this summer, suffering the same fate as our other people-oriented on-site activities.
HistoriCorps, a group of volunteers with a hands-on experience preserving historic structures, used Fish Lake as their base camp from August into October while performing major restoration work at the pavilion at Clear Lake and at Santiam Lodge. Stacey Forson was the Friends Liaison to interact with the Ranger District and HistoriCorps. Jim Denney, Rolf Anderson and Stacey gave site tours to the volunteers.
MIKE ASH ARTISTIC BOWL
Member Mike Ash crafted a beautiful decorative wooden bowl and donated it for a Friends fund-raiser. The raffle, won by Dawn Pozzani, brought in $1,000. Thanks Mike!
EDUCATION
We jointly agreed with Oregon State University/Oregon Natural Resource Education Program (ONREP) to postpone our Education Workshop to 2022, but held several planning sessions preparing for that event.
MANAGEMENT
At our Annual Membership Meeting our Members re-elected Dick Connelly, Randy Dunbar, Phil Hufstader and Dawn Pozzani to our Board of Directors to terms expiring 12/31/24. We also elected Tracy Beck, retired Forest Supervisor of the Willamette National Forest and long-time supporter of the Friends to become the 15th member of our Board. Alyssa (Al) Archer, from Cascade Volunteers, brought us up to date about the Santiam Wagon Road Interpretive Project.
We postponed our regular fall Board Meeting to January 2022. At that meeting we will elect an officer slate for 2022 with Stacey Forson, President; Rolf Anderson, Immediate Past-President; Dawn Pozzani, Secretary; and Randy Dunbar, Treasurer.
FISH LAKE in the HIGH CASCADES: Exploring a Historic Legacy
Work on our book about Fish Lake is progressing on schedule to be ready for distribution at our Annual Work Week in June 2022. Our book will be about 250 pages with color and black and white photographs.
SCHOLARSHIPS REMINDER
Donations to the Anita Leach Scholarship fund may be mailed to YBGT (Youth Benefit Golf Tournament) c/o Mike Long, P O Box 107, Mill City, OR 97360. Make the check payable to YBGT with a note on the check "A. Leach Fund”
Donations to the Doug Dunbar Scholarship fund may be mailed to: McKenzie River Ranger Station, 57600 McKenzie Highway, Blue River, Oregon, 97413, Attn: Doug Dunbar Scholarship.
LOOKING AHEAD
We are hoping the virus variants will have slowed down and the vaccine will have been effective enough that we will be able to re-establish our Annual Work Week in June. We plan to finish work on the left-hand side of the bunkhouse and we know Jim Denney will have a list of renovation/restoration projects.
MEMBERSHIP
We counted 70 paid members in 2021. Dues and donations totaled $8,845. Major donors were Jodi and Mike Hughes $2,500, Jim Northrop recognizing Dave Predeek $1,000, Lone Rock Resources $400, and Greg Byrne $250.
Our most consistent, most reliable source of funding support comes from our Membership dues and donations. We have been fortunate to secure grants in some years to help with major projects but you members are what gives us the confidence and means to initiate site enhancing programs
THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST AND SUPPORT!
Some of you have already renewed your membership for 2022 – another Thank You! If you haven't yet renewed, Now is the Time! If you aren't a member yet, please jump in and join us! And tell your friends about us, too!
-Rolf Anderson, President FFL
FRIENDS OF FISH LAKE - Membership Application or Renewal
Make your check out to Friends of Fish Lake. 60295 CREE CIRCLE, BEND, OR, 97702
Name_________________________________________
Street address__________________________________
City, State, Zip code____________________________
e-mail address__________________________________
Annual Dues –
Student: $15____ Individual: $35____ Family: $50 ____
Patron: $150_____ Life: $2500____ Business: $75_____
Please indicate if you can help in any of the following categories:
Volunteer for the annual work week_______
I have specific skills:
Carpentry___ __ Restoration____ Computer support____
Fund raising_____ “Site host” late June___ July____ August___ Sept___
FRIENDS OF FISH LAKE 2020 ANNUAL REPORT
Welcome to 2021! Whew! 2020 was a unique year. The virus pandemic and the catastrophic fires affected our lives and the business of the Friends of Fish Lake. While we had to conduct our business differently, we did manage to accomplish many of our original objectives.
RESTORE, MAINTAIN AND PROTECT BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS
Pandemic restrictions and common sense led us to cancel our annual Work Week, and for the same reasons Jim Denney chose to not travel from his home in New York for his usual summer job managing on-site projects and hosting visitors.
Led by Ron Skrip, we were able to continue our work converting the left-hand side of the Bunkhouse to accommodate the needs of our planned Educators Workshop and other group activities. We worked in small groups of three or four people at a time, following the virus safety protocols. Doug Macdonald took the leadership for on-site activities, including procurement of materials, recruitment of help and coordinating with the McKenzie River Ranger District.
In the Bunkhouse we were able to contract with an electrician to improve the existing system and contract with a plumber for modifications to accommodate American Disability Act/ABA standards, sharing costs with the Forest Service for this work. We installed sheet rock on the bathroom walls and ceiling, did additional work on the walls and ceiling of the large room and sleeping rooms, procured and installed the bathroom door and the door into the small sleeping area,, and began to plane rough cut cedar planks into finish material for molding and trim. Dave Leach constructed two Murphy Beds for the large room sleeping area.
Our plans are to finish work on the left-hand side of the Bunkhouse in 2021.
We were able to have the Hughes Network installed before snowfall, providing internet service and cell phone service through WiFi, including linking to on-site security cameras. Further work and evaluation will continue next year.
As usual, operations support from Engineering Technician Kenny Gabriel and advice and counsel from District Archaeologist Lowell Evans was most helpful.
Despite canceling Work Week and the severe restrictions to large group activities, we benefited from over a dozen volunteers accumulating 523 total hours of work. That is a little over 60% of our hours for last year, and given the circumstances a great accomplishment.
THANKS to those of you were able to work on site and THANKS to all of you who continue to support the Friends in many other ways!
WILDFIRES
We share the concerns for the people and resources affected by the catastrophic wildfires on the Willamette National Forest – the Holiday Farm Fire in the McKenzie River watershed and the Beachie Creek and Lionshead Fires in the North Santiam River Watershed. Fortunately, the fires remained a distance from Fish Lake.
We established a FFL Fire Relief Fund to contribute in a small way to Forest Service employees and retirees displaced by these fires. Donations to the Fund included a $2500 grant from United Way Lane County and $2,200 in donations from seven individuals. We sent $1,500 to three individuals affected by the Beachie Creek/Lionshead Fire and $3,200 to eight individuals affected by the Holiday Farm Fire. Doug Macdonald worked closely with the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Association (Old Smokeys) who also allocated funding from their Elmer Moyer Emergency Fund to these folks.
INTERPRETATION
Our volunteer Passport in Time (PIT) host program was canceled this summer, suffering the same fate as our other people-oriented on-site activities.
EDUCATION
Due to the need for an early-in-the-year commitment and the continued uncertainty of pandemic restrictions we jointly agreed with Oregon State University/Oregon Natural Resource Education Program (ONREP) to postpone our Education Workshop to 2022.
MANAGEMENT
We are terribly saddened by the loss of Anita Leach, Board Member and Board Secretary, to cancer in September. Anita was an avid volunteer and a leader in everything she took on. She received many awards and accolades, including induction into the Santiam Canyon Hall of Fame, Mill City First Citizen, and numerous Forest Service Superior Achievement Awards. Her FFL Board Meeting notes were a work of art. We will miss her positive approach not only as a Board Member but also in on-site projects.
As described in our Summer Newsletter, we were fortunate to take advantage of an opportunity in June for our Board to meet and interact with the new Willamette National Forest Supervisor, Dave Warnack.
Membership Chair Dick Grace conducted a vote by our Members, mostly by e-mail (a first) to approve changes to our By-Laws and to elect/re-elect Ron Skrip, Steve Mealey, Stacey Forson, Jim Denney and Rolf Anderson to the Board of Directors. The response was good for an e-mail vote; almost 50% of our Members participated.
In another first, our Board, joined by McKenzie River District Ranger Darren Cross, met via ZOOM in December. Among other business we elected Dawn Pozzani to our Board and elected officers for 2021 – Rolf Anderson, President; Stacey Forson, President-Elect, Dawn Pozzani, Secretary; Randy Dunbar, Treasurer.
LOOKING AHEAD
Our Board of Directors will most likely have to hold our Spring Board Meeting via ZOOM. We will have to wait and see, but hopefully the virus vaccine will have been effective enough that we will be able to host an on-site get-together this summer. We plan to finish work on the left-hand side of the bunkhouse and we know Jim Denney already has some renovation/restoration plans in mind.
MEMBERSHIP
We counted 75 paid members in 2020. Dues and donations totaled $5540. Mike Skrip donated $300, in turn generating a double match of $600 from his employer Lone Rock Resources.
Our most consistent, most reliable source of funding support comes from our Membership dues and donations. We have been fortunate to secure grants in some years to help with major projects but you members are what gives us the confidence and means to initiate site enhancing programs.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST AND SUPPORT!
Some of you have already renewed your membership for 2021 – another Thank You! If you haven't yet renewed, Now is the Time! If you aren't a member yet, please jump in and join us! And tell your friends about us, too!
-Rolf Anderson, President FFL
