What began in 2022 with tours of the camas blossoms in the student-restored Cozine Creek natural area has grown significantly. The third-annual Camas Festival, runs 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Friday, May 10 on Linfield University’s McMinnville campus. It will include food from celebrated Portland pop-up Javelina, an Indigenous Creators’ Market, a panel on historic indigenous food and food sovereignty, a guided artist’s talk from 2024 Indigenous Place Keeping Artist Leland Butler and more.
The Camas Festival is a partnership between Linfield, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Greater Yamhill Watershed Council to celebrate the cultural, biological and artistic significance of the camas flower.
The festival is timed to coincide with the camas blooms. For generations, purple camas lilies have been cultivated, traded and consumed by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest including the Kalapuya, who were removed to the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation in 1855. Though much sparser now than in the days it turned the Willamette Valley purple each spring, it remains a central piece of Kalapuyan lifeways.
The Camas Festival honors their enduring significance. It is a chance to engage not only with camas flowers but to learn more about the habitats — wet prairie, oak savannah and oak stand — of Linfield’s McMinnville campus.
Grand Ronde staff members, supported by Linfield faculty, will lead tours of the camas patch in Cozine Creek natural area at the north end of campus; all other events are held in and around Nicholson Library at the southern end of campus.
The event is free and open to all. The closest street address to Nicholson Library (location) is 1660 SE Lever St. in McMinnville. Visitors may park in any non-reserved spot.
Note that while Linfield’s campus and Nicholson Library are fully accessible, the Cozine Creek tours include some slightly steep terrain. Sturdy, mud-resistant shoes are recommended. For more information, please visit linfield.edu/camasfest.
Full schedule:
11 a.m. Opening remarks
11:30 a.m., 12:30, 1:30 and 2:30 p.m.: Guided tours of the Cozine Creek camas patch depart from Nicholson Library.
11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Javelina Indigenous Dining pop-up, with historic and comfort food from Alexa Numkena-Anderson will be outside the library. Inside, visit the Indigenous Creators’ Market for art, design, prints, beading, basketry and more.
1-4 p.m.: Children’s activities including face painting, games, art and cornhole
3:30 p.m. “Camas” reading from Kathy Cole, Grand Ronde tribal librarian and children’s book author
5 p.m. Guided artist’s talk from Leland Butler. The photographer and 2024 Indigenous Place Keeping Artist (IPKA) Fellow will discuss work from his Linfield Gallery show, “Connected to the Land”
5:30-6:30 p.m. “Food is Medicine: Reclaiming Indigenous Foodways and Sovereignty” panel discussion.
Panelists:
- Sara Calvosa Olson, author of the 2023 cookbook “Chími Nu’am: Native California Foodways for the Contemporary Kitchen” a “valuable addition … that will connect Native and non-Native Americans to the earth and its abundant gift of ingredients.” (Library Journal)
- Michelle Week, founder and operator of x̌ast sq̓it (Good Rain) farm, which grows indigenous First Foods like rose hips, salmon berries, wood sorrel and more on Turtle Island, outside of what is now known as Camas, Washington
- Alexa Numkena-Anderson, chef and founder of Javelina, a pop-up restaurant that “celebrates the eclectic cuisine of Indigenous populations throughout the Americas”
- The discussion will be introduced by Brooke Jackson-Glidden, editor of Eater Portland and adjunct instructor of food writing.
