Ghost Towns, Shaniko and Basque Sheepherders

 

One of the things I decided that I had to do when I went on this trip was take my kids to a real, live ghost town. When I was very young, my parents took us to explore one. I had to have been less than six years old but the whole idea of a town standing empty was fascinating and that fascination that still holds for me. There are several websites that list the different ghost towns in Oregon, complete with  banjo music. Each county has its own listings, coordinates and last known condition of the towns. Some are quite remote. That was worrying. I didn’t want to drive up into the mountains and get lost with my three children and become one of those tragic stories Live at 6!

Lucky for us not too far after Grass Valley we were set to make a turn to go to Fossil. At this intersection was a small town. I suppose it isn’t actually a ghost town since it had residents. Twenty of them. Seasonally. It also had a hotel, ice cream shop, a goldsmith (who wintered in Arizona) and a two curio shops, as well as a hitching post and the wooden sidewalks. There were several empty buildings all of which were from before the turn of the century (the last one anyway) and even a dentist! Probably the most exciting thing for Noah and Zack was the jail. You could go inside and shut yourself in a cell. Also there was a wagon for transporting prisoners that the kids could climb in.

I asked what happened to the town. An age old story. The industry that the town was built on experienced a massive downturn. What was that industry? Wool. There were millions of pounds of wool going out seasonally. That is until synthetics and cotton took hold on the clothing industry. The town withered away.

“If this was a wool town were there Basque sheepherders?”

The goldsmith replied, “Oh sure. In fact a good friend of mine is Basque. He would take me out four-wheelin in the hills. The man drove like a crazy person. I thought I would die everytime we went out.”

I wanted to ask why he kept going but went with, “Does he still speak Basque? I always wondered if the retained their language and culture.”

“Oh sure. He spoke the language. But never out of the house. That was only for at home.”

Basque sheepherders living in American, in fact Americans themselves many generations over, yet they still retain their language. Amazing.

P.S. I have more pictures but the internet is so slow I can't upload them. Will add some later.