ORWW Upper South Umpqua Project: Areas of Special Interest

Skookum Pond, evening, South Umpqua River, Douglas County, Oregon, January 10, 2010. (B. Zybach).

The following list is of 25 areas selected because of their special interest to the 2010 "Upper South Umpqua Headwaters Precontact Reference Study" project. The selection was made following discussions among project principals that focused on the study’s research design, combined knowledge of the landscape, personal field observations, and detailed considerations of relevant historical documents; including written and oral histories, photographs, original land survey records, maps, and government reports.

These “Areas of Special Interest” were then systematically determined based primarily on geographical location, geological formation, cultural and historical significance, and vegetation type. Every effort was made to select a widely diverse group of locations that would be best representative of the entire study area (see "Note" below). The primary research purpose of these areas is to provide a practical means to sample and test key portions of the study in greater detail so that findings might by generalized with some confidence over the entire landscape. In this manner aerial photographs, tree ring counts, direct field observations and measurements, timber cruises, tax maps and other methods can be used to more closely examine these key locations in lieu of the impossibility (because of time and resource constraints) of performing such detailed analyses over the entire study area.

Icon	Name	TSP	RNG	SEC	Acres
	500 Road	31 S.	1 W.	05
	Abbott Butte	30 S.	2 E.	23
	Acker Ranch	29 S.	1 E.	27
	Alder Flats	29 S.	1 E.	01
	Ash Valley	29 S.	1 E.	09
	Bald Ridges	31 S.	1 E.	02
	Beaver Lake	30 S.	1 W.	33
	Collins Ridge	30 S.	1 W.	11
	Devils Knob	31 S.	1 W.	23
	Donegan Prairie	30 S.	2 E.	33
	Fish Lake	29 S.	3 E.	05
	Five Lakes	28 S.	2 E.	20
	French Junction	27 S.	3 E.	32
	Grasshopper Complex	29 S.	3 E.	07
	High Prairie	28 S.	3 E.	23
	Huckleberry Lake	31 S.	2 E.	05
	Pickett Butte	30 S.	1 W.	29
	Pup Prairie	29 S.	3 E.	20
	Quartz Mountain	28 S.	1 E.	02
	Section 36	28 S.	1 W.	36
	Skookum Pond	29 S.	2 E.	33
	South Umpqua Falls	29 S.	1 E.	10
	Squaw Flat	30 S.	1 E.	10
	The Forks	30 S.	1 W.	18
	Whiskey Camp	30 S.	1 E.	31

Note: Because of the intended purpose of this study -- to assemble and document precontact land use and vegetation pattern reference conditions – particular attention has been placed on selecting special interest areas that might best represent precontact (“pre-1826”) conditions, or contain information by which such conditions might be more readily inferred or determined: such as relict plant populations (including old-growth trees and other persistent vegetation patterns) or archaeological remains. For that reason, selection bias was given to known and suspected seasonal Indian villages, campgrounds, and other primary precontact destinations; such as likely hunting, fishing, gathering, trading, and food growing and processing sites.