A Storybook Farm

A Storybook Farm, a photo by DeForestRanger on Flickr.

Over a hundred years ago, immigrant farmers came to this area looking for fertile land in a river valley, a place where they could pasture herds of cattle. Meandering Ohop Creek held promise as a continuing water source, but little did the settlers realize until some years had past that the boggy nature of the valley was not an occasional phenomenon, but rather a permanent situation. In an effort to drain the land and make it more arable, they excavated Ohop Creek and straightened out its channel, intending to create a faster run-off, but they were defeated by the clayey nature of the underlying soil. The straightening of the creek's channel had another unexpected side effect. It destroyed the habitat for spawning salmon.

In the last twenty years, restoration of the wetland has been a project for a variety of groups. Contractors were brought in to restore the natural meander, native plants have been reintroduced to the flood plain and invasive species have been removed. Today, visitors to this lovely valley will see farm buildings such as this only above the flood plain. Most lowland structures have been removed.