Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... [ ♪♪♪ ] MAN: My rappel!

MAN: Oh, my gosh, it's beautiful.

MAN: Good morning, everybody.

Woo!

Let's do it again!

MAN: Nicely done!

MAN: Oh, yeah!

Fourteen and a half.

Yes, that was awesome!

[ people cheering ] There you go, up, up... ED JAHN: Tonight on Oregon Field Guide: MAN: Okay, you ready?

Hang on.

It's a special edition of stories about people with really cool jobs.

First, meet the makers behind these unique fishing boats that make a splash whenever they land on the beaches of Pacific City.

Then meet a woman who carries on a rope-making tradition with roots over 100 years old in the Jordan Valley.

But first, we introduce you to a man who has spent countless hours just waiting for the right sound.

[ bird tweeting ] Anyone who has ever fallen asleep to the sound of a river or the rustling of trees or the howling of coyotes will appreciate this next story.

John Hartog heads out into the countryside with a microphone to capture the beautiful natural soundscapes of the Northwest.

HARTOG: This is a great location at Sauvie Island, because it's so close to Portland.

Often I drive quite a distance to try to get quiet locations to record.

[ birds warbling ] I'm John Hartog, a nature sound recordist.

I got into this about ten years ago.

I was studying art and ecology, and I thought that making a nature sounds CD would be a fun complement to the studies, and that was my introduction to it.

[ birds chirping ] [ geese honking ] [ cranes chittering ] I have two setups out here, and they're both recording the same general perspective.

One of them is more of a new and experimental setup, and I like to compare it to this one, so it gives me an idea of the similarities and differences between the sounds from the two setups.

[ geese honking ] We're about an hour before sunset, so it's a time of transition where a lot of the cranes and the geese seem to have been more active, like they're moving around and getting situated for the night.

[ cranes chittering ] [ geese honking ] You know, it was-- when I first started doing this, it was the first thing I noticed: most of what I was hearing all the time was highway traffic and airplanes, and it doesn't stop me, it just means you have to wait longer for moments of time in between the noise.

[ cow bellows ] [ frogs ribbiting ] [ geese honking ] Waiting things out is, I think, a big part of just observing nature in general.

[ frogs ribbiting and crickets chirping ] It gives me an opportunity, also, to sit still and observe and wait for things to happen.

[ coyotes howling in distance ] If you expect things just to be there quickly, they don't happen and you miss it.

[ coyotes howling ] [ wind whistling ] There's something about Hart Mountain that's definitely special to me.

I spent about eight hours of driving to get to this location.

For a lot of people, it seems like a long way to go for recreation or to enjoy peace and quiet.

I would say that this sort of solitude is very satisfying.

I definitely don't feel alone when I'm out here.

It's more of just an expanded sense of presence.

[ wind howling ] I have my moments of doubt whether camping in weather like this is a good idea.

But my whole reason for coming out here is for the natural experience, and I think weather is part of that.

[ wind whistling ] I try to go out of my way to create a recording that can bring people to a place and time and actually have a sense of the experience of what that location is really like.

I think it's similar to photography in that you're capturing a moment in time and presenting it in a way that's beautiful.

[ bird tweeting ] That's great.

I've been waiting to record a canyon wren for a very long time, and it's kind of a long, descending-- it's almost like a twirl, I guess, like... [ imitates wren tweeting ] [ sighs ] Okay.

[ wren tweet plays on recording ] I see some very interesting signatures of a bird call.

[ bird calling on recording ] So that's a pretty good recording of a Wilson's snipe.

[ snipe call repeats ] So I'll look for, like, a series of little-- it might just be pinpricks of this hour-long section.

As an artist, I'd hope that my recordings could have a value as a painting might.

I treat my recordings as unique representations of a specific time in history.

It's interesting, through these ten years or so that I've been doing this, I've met a lot of recordists.

There's this commonality that they see the natural sounds disappearing, just like wildlife habitat is disappearing from development.

[ geese honking ] There's a lot of sandhill cranes out there.

[ cranes chittering, honking ] When you think about it, there's a lot of people that travel the entire globe searching for natural sounds.

[ geese honking ] But for actually getting out into nature, Oregon has really all I need.

[ ♪♪♪ ] [ boy exclaims ] This next story is about the craftspeople who spend their time making a very specific kind of boat, one that's only used in a few countries around the world, boats that we know locally as Pacific City dories.

[ gulls cawing ] [ boat horn blares ] MAN: There's not very many people, which is good.

VINCE PATTON: Toss any notions you have overboard of a slow, calm boat landing.

Okay, ready, hang on.

In Pacific City, the fisherman come in full throttle.

Boat after boat zooms straight for the beach.

[ boy exclaims ] MAN: I have to be extremely careful with surfers or kids jumping in the surf or pedestrians on the beach.

Their only brake to slow them down is the sand.

All right, just hold on, hold on.

Hold on.

Yeah, baby!

That was a good one.

This is one of only a handful of places in the world that lands fishing boats in such a daredevil fashion.

Pacific City, Oregon, has followed this tradition for more than a century.

That spurred a major project by a group of students from Linfield College.

Hi, how you doing?

Get a hug.

I'm going to hug you.

You betcha.

Hi.

Terry's the name.

They have decided to chronicle the histories of the people who depend on very special craft... dory boats.

What the heck is a dory?

You know, I had to go look it up and figure out what they were and just as much background as I could get online, which, you know, was pretty sparse.

That's a big reason this project is happening.

To learn about dory boats, the students have come to an undisputed expert.

Okay, and this here... Tuck that in your back pocket or put it in your front pocket.

Would you please tell us your full names and when you first became involved with dory fishing?

Terry Learned built his first dory boat with his father in 1967.

We had a real good year.

I fished with my dad that summer.

And so I said, "I've got to get into this fishery bigtime."

At the age of 71, Terry's one of the last commercial dory boat builders.

Drive her in.

Ah, first one!

That's it, coming over, coming over.

With three or four of us, it'll probably take about three hours.

And if we get on the line at the top here, which we're almost there...

Right there.

The only thing I ever wanted to do was built boats and commercial fish for salmon.

For some of us, they call it the fever.

It's in your blood.

There was never anything else you can do.

We use a lot of high-tech tools here, ha-ha!

Terry's daughters Annie and Pam pitched in on Terry's 82nd dory boat.

TERRY: The hardest part is probably getting everything lined up right so your boat is not cattywampus.

Are we coming up?

Yep.

PAM: Yeah, there you go.

TERRY: It's an eyeball game for us.

You've just got to eyeball it and say, "Hey, look, it's got to be right or we're not going to put a nail in it."

About two-thirds of what I do is in the book with pencil scratchings that have been improved over the years.

About one-third's up here.

Get a little putty on that one.

We can move the clamp to the outer.

Oh, everybody asks me, "How many sticks of wood go on a dory, too?"

And I say, "I have no idea.

I don't want to know."

The Learneds pride themselves on hand-craftsmanship.

That's the only way to build a quality boat.

To me, it's a hobby that I make a few dollars at.

ANNIE: All right.

TERRY: Okay, are you ready in there?

Yes, sir.

TERRY: If you don't have fair curves in a boat, why build one?

Terry and his family have gotten so good, they finish this frame almost twice as fast as any they've ever built before.

Okay, whoo!

[ all cheer ] [ sighs ] Hour and a half.

It's a record.

Oh, it's a record!

What?

It's only noon.

You're kidding.

WOMAN: When people tell us their stories, they're so excited to tell us and so interested.

What they do is completely amazing.

TERRY: Got dory stories that won't quit here.

WOMAN: Everyone has a story to tell, so it's just a huge group effort to try and collect all these histories and personal stories and experiences.

The history the students study reveals that Pacific City probably would have no fishing industry at all if it were not for this very special design of boat without any keel.

This town doesn't have a port.

There is no dock or marina.

Just one section of surf, protected by Cape Kiwanda, and a very smooth beach.

The dory's flat bottom allows fisherman to launch directly from the sand through the surf.

On many days, waves fight back.

They build wall after watery wall which must be breached.

Old timers have home movies to remind them just how fickle and dangerous those waves can be.

MAN: And, yes, it shows double-enders going over backwards and many boats swamping.

I think we used to fish tougher oceans than we do now.

And our boats are better, our gear's all better, our electronics are better.

But even at that, we've only had three people ever drown since 1900 here.

CASEE: It's very terrifying to watch it, because I don't think I could ever do it.

Just watching how strong people have to be and kind of how they know the ocean and how they understand when the waves come in and when is a good time to leave, it's a real art almost, trying to figure out when to leave.

MAN: Okay, hang on.

If it's a big surf and the boat ever gets sideways in deep enough water, these boats can roll completely over, so you don't-- you don't want that to happen.

Fishermen like Mark Hall must calculate the risk day to day based on the waves.

What they love is how close the beach here puts them to good fishing.

They can have their lines out within five minutes.

MAN 1: Ah, right there!

MAN 2: We got him now.

MAN 1: Yeah, I think so.

Oh, that's a nice ling cod.

Oh, wow.

TERRY: I guess you'd call it a unique fishery in that within a half a mile of shore, you're catching fish already.

MAN 1: There we go.

MAN 2: Got him?

MAN 1: Yeah, I think so.

TERRY: Hey, Sandy.

SANDY: Hi, Terry.

TERRY: Hey, how you doing, hon?

It's one my dad worked on.

They are an excellent boat.

This is the fourth boat I've owned, and it's everything I wanted in a boat.

Pacific City gives thanks for dories at the annual Blessing of the Fleet.

Let us bow our heads and pray.

Hundreds turn out every year.

Lord, we bless these dories and dedicate them to your honor.

We ask the guardian angel of fishermen to be with us.

MAN: It's a big ocean out there, it's a dangerous ocean.

Do we pray going out?

Absolutely.

Do we pray while we're out there?

Eh, sometimes hope we catch some big fish.

Do we pray coming in?

You got it.

We can't do it by ourselves, you know, so it's a blessing to all of us to be able to participate in this.

[ ringing ] Each year, the ceremony ends the same way: a scattering of flowers to remember those dorymen who have come before, like Annie Learned's grandfather.

This one is always for Little Skipper Victor Learned.

It's a time of remembrance and respect and, for me, family heritage.

And remembering my grandpa, of course.

All the other fishermen, too, but my grandpa especially.

He never thought it would continue like this.

He never thought there would be a turnout like this.

He never thought I'd be 37 years old and still building boats.

By the end of their oral history project, Linfield students have done 77 formal interviews and learned about a world they probably never would've experienced on their own.

WOMAN: It's a community I have great respect for, that it's such an honor to get to listen to these stories because they're so personal and individual, but what these dory fishermen have done is so remarkable when you stop to think about it.

CHRIS: The fact that it's so under the radar but so unique, and in the state of Oregon that very few people have heard of is just kind of baffling to me that this community has been here for over 100 years and maybe like 5 percent of the people who live in the state know about it.

How many other places on earth can you hop in a boat and be fishing in five minutes on the ocean?

I mean, that's a really special thing.

We're about the only place in the world where fishing off the beach with boats like we do is increasing in popularity instead of fading out and being lost forever.

TERRY: It's a very practical boat to have.

We're proud of them.

Definitely are.

[ ♪♪♪ ] You want to watch it pick some hair?

JAHN: I would love to.

Would you?

Over the years, we have met a lot of people with truly exceptional skills who live their lives completely out of the spotlight.

One of those people is Frankie Dougal.

She died a few years ago, but her rope-making craft is a piece of the Northwest worth remembering.

JAHN: At the end of one of Oregon's most rural highways, past the one-cafe town of Jordan Valley, there's a 28-mile stretch of dirt road that leads to Frankie Dougal's house.

Are you going to bring your horses out?

How do you get any light in there without electricity, kid?

You're shoeing in the dark.

Frankie is 98 years old.

She keeps her life simple.

JAHN: No electricity out here, huh?

FRANKIE: Nope.

Only when we create ourselves with the generators.

Frankie has lived her whole life without TV, cell service, and Internet, too.

What she does have are her horses.

Her name is Oly.

Yes, Oly is a good little mare.

Uh-huh.

Now, the reason we stopped to see Frankie is because a lifetime in the saddle has given Frankie a talent for making these.

This is a horse-hair mecate, 22 feet long.

Frankie makes mecate ropes like this by hand and using horse hair, something very few people do anymore.

And what is a mecate?

Well, it goes with a hackamore.

And to feel like a city slicker, all you have to do is ask what that is.

Well, it's used to guide the horse with.

That's what it's used for.

That's what you want to know?

This right here is the hackamore.

You turn her this way, she chose that way, and you can use this rein to turn her this way, okay?

[ whinnies ] Now, the feel of a mecate matters a lot to anyone who spends all day in the saddle.

And style matters, too.

Frankie sticks to simple patterns and colors in use in the Jordan Valley as far back as the 1850s.

JAHN: How old is that one?

Could be over 100 years old.

JAHN: It's in terrific shape.

FRANKIE: Uh-huh, it is.

But we've used it a lot.

We've used that rope a lot.

Frankie has actually made mecates out of horse hair as well as human hair.

JAHN: Do you like working with that?

FRANKIE: Mm-hmm, I do.

I love to.

But cheap synthetics have no place in Frankie's world.

JAHN: What's different about these?

Why can't I pick these up in Wal-Mart?

Ha, oh, my cow!

There's no way in the world.

No way.

Making mecates starts in what Frankie calls her hair house.

Frankie first collects hair that's been cut or roached from either living or dead horses.

So this is the way the hair is when you roach it off from a horse, just like that.

Then, with the help of a generator, Frankie fires up a contraption that detangles the hair.

Now, my husband and I built this out of an old wringer that come out of a washing machine.

The other part is an air cooler out of an old trailer house.

And then he built the rest of this.

You want to watch it pick some hair?

JAHN: I would love to.

Would you?

So when you pick your hair, it looks like this.

That's picked hair right there.

And then you start spinning it from an end.

Now, before we met Frankie, we assumed making mecates was how Frankie spent her days.

But it's actually just one more thing she does in addition to feeding ranch hands, looking after a small herd of cattle, all on a sprawling 3,200-acre ranch.

And, mind you, she does all this at 98 years old.

I had a sister who passed away, she was 102.

I told her I wouldn't live that damn long.

Now you want to see me spin that?

JAHN: So what is this?

FRANKIE: It's to make ropes with, my dear.

To make horse-hair mecates.

In Frankie's world, such technology is as obvious as an iPhone.

I love to get out here early in the mornings.

The air's beautiful and it's so wonderful.

JAHN: So how many of these will you do in a year?

God, that's a question, isn't it?

Making a mecate is actually fairly straightforward: four pounds of hair are spun into eight strands.

Those strands are then twisted into colorful combinations like this.

All these colors are natural.

All come from horses.

This here's off three grays and one white.

Frankie then finishes up with a signature knot or tassel that all but says, "This is a Frankie Dougal mecate."

When I was about 9 years old, I started making ropes.

My mother taught me, taught my sister and I how to make ropes, mm-hmm.

The family craft is so prized that it earned Frankie a trip to the Smithsonian.

It was a lot of fun for an old hillbilly like me, go back to Washington, D.C., can you imagine that one?

Raised in a canyon, and go back to Washington, D.C.?

Oh, my gosh!

Even though her mecates are sold around the world, Frankie doesn't see her mecates as art.

She makes them for people to use.

Because where she grew up, if you didn't have what you needed, you made it.

And if you didn't make it, you lived without.

This is the Five Bar from the Owyhee River, where I was born and raised.

Born in 1918.

Taken in there when I was three weeks old.

It was probably a good 16 mile to the nearest neighbor, uh-huh.

They went a-horseback, of course.

It wasn't a hard life.

It was an easy life.

A lot better than it is nowadays.

Microwaves, oh, my God!

No, I don't go for that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Cooked on a wood stove all my life.

One of my husband's nieces come from San Diego one time, she stepped in my house and she says, "Oh, my, what peculiar designs you have on your cupboards."

"Well, you're in the West, my dear.

That's all irons from the cows, the different ranches around here."

And there's a kerosene light sitting on the table.

"May I ask what that is?"

"A kerosene light's my electricity."

"Oh, my land," she says.

She didn't know what a kerosene light was.

I spin the string for her, but I don't do the cinches.

Frankie has passed down her old ways to daughter Charlene and great-grandson Russell.

Both use techniques and tools that haven't changed in a century.

CHARLENE: This is to hold your saddle under your horse's belly so you don't turn over.

My grandpa taught my dad, and my dad taught me how to do it.

And my mother taught me to make the cinch strings for 'em, right?

CHARLENE: Yep, that's right.

Here, on a ranch that seems one long dirt road away from the 21st century, there's just no reason to change a good thing.

I think people nowadays don't have time for this.

FRANKIE: Different lifestyle altogether.

I couldn't live anywhere else.

Other than a tent, maybe.

I'd live in a tent.

[ laughs ] [ ♪♪♪ ] You can now find many Oregon Field Guide stories and episodes online.

And to be part of the conversation about the outdoors and environment here in the Northwest, join us on Facebook.

[ gulls cawing ] Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... Additional support provided by... And the following... and the contributing members of OPB and viewers like you.