With the devastation of the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire, Blue River has needed healing. But for Rowena Jackson, a Native Oregonian with Klamath and Molalla ancestry, true healing needs to go back much further than 2020. “We all know that healing has to start from the beginning,” Jackson says. “Because it’s like putting a band-aid on a big burn, well, that’s not going to help. You gotta go within.”
The need for healing that Jackson speaks of goes back hundreds of years.
The opening of the McKenzie Crossing & Native Welcoming Center seeks to create that healing and community. McKenzie Community Partnership, which owns the property, a former gas station, wanted a Native welcoming center. The location of the center is in the heart of Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes.
Katherine K’iya Wilson, who has been an Indigenous mentor at the University of Oregon’s Many Nations Longhouse and acts as a bi-cultural liaison for the center, says the placement of the new center is significant. “It just happened to be right on an ancient Native trail,” Wilson says. “The Native Welcoming Center is right there at the McKenzie crossing, where our ancestors crossed. That has a lot of impact on me.”
Its location is significant for Jackson, who recently learned she has Molalla ancestry in addition to her Klamath heritage, because the Klamath and Molalla would have crossed the area hundreds of years ago.
Jackson refers to the area as “McKenzie Still Crossing” because “We’re still here. We’re not extinct.”
The area is also a sentimental one for Jackson. When her mother died 12 years ago, she and a friend painted her mother’s casket in Blue River, further connecting her to the area.
For many in Oregon’s Native communities, this Saturday, June 14, will be a full-circle moment. To celebrate the opening of the center, there will be traditional Native drumming and flutes and food, like Indian fry-bread tacos. There will be vendors, including Jackson, who creates shirts with Native themes and who will be creating specifically for the opening of the center.
Wilson says the main focus for Saturday’s opening event is “to come and break bread together.” The day will also include a ceremony about new beginnings, with a formal blessing. She says she sees the opening of the Native center as a way to give back to Oregon tribes and to create community and solve problems together.
Although the Holiday Farm fires occurred nearly five years ago, deeper healing from older wounds is still needed. But it’s a start. “It’s the beginning of healing beyond the burn scar,” Jackson says.
Wilson is amazed by all that’s come together for the creation of the center. “I can’t believe how this opportunity presented itself and the support. It’s time, the time has come.”