Salem Statesman Journal

Hunting for gold: The art of finding Oregon’s prolific, and delicious, golden chanterelle

In 1999, the Pacific golden chanterelle was declared Oregon's official state mushroom, making Oregon one of only two states that has an official mushroom (spoiler: the other state is Minnesota, who championed the morel).
Read More
Filters & Sorting

Taking A Trip Without Leaving Your Front Door

Throughout the pandemic, I had a lot of free time. A lot of us did. And thus, we began to seek out things to occupy that free space. For me, it was rekindling my long lost relationship with books. A study produced by Global English Editing, an online proofreading service, found that Americans alone read recreationally (as in, not for academia or work purposes) 35% more in 2020 than previous years, and 25% more than that in 2021.

14 things to do in SW Oregon's Illinois Valley, from swimming holes to marble caves

My family moved to the Illinois Valley in Oregon's southwest corner when I was just a few years old, where my conscious memories begin and my formative years flew by. Growing up in one of Oregon’s most lush and simultaneously rugged areas, the same valley where my mother spent her own childhood, I find myself often thinking about the river valleys and mountains of home no matter how far I travel today.