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Third-annual Camas Festival grows to include pop-up restaurant, Indigenous Creator's Market, panel on food sovereignty.The event also includes tours of the camas blossoms led by Grand Ronde community members and Linfield professors, an exhibit from 2024 IPKA fellow Leland Butler, displays from Chachalu Tribal Museum and Cultural Center, senior capstone presentations and more
Exhibits at the 2023 Camas Festival
When: 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Friday, May 10
Where: In and around Linfield University’s Nicholson Library, plus tours of the camas in the Cozine Creek natural area of campus
Cost: Free and open to the public
More information: Visit linfield.edu/camasfest
McMinnville, Ore. — April 23, 2024 — 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 Indigenous foodways and food sovereignty, a guided artist’s talk from 2024 IPKA fellow Leland Butler and more.
The Camas Festival is a partnership between Linfield, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Greater Yamhill Watershed Council that celebrates 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. It celebrates the art, culture and history of the Grand Ronde tribal community, as well as the work of some of Oregon's most compelling young Indigenous voices.
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 a.m.-5 p.m.: Exhibits from Chachalu Tribal Museum and Cultural Center and Linfield environmental studies senior capstone projects
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 winner of the 2023 James Beard Foundation's Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
900 SE Baker St, McMinnville, OR, United States, Oregon 97128