Travelogue: on expedition @ the Oregon Country Fair

 
If you're traveling… in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy… on the borderline
Remember me… to one who lives there
For she was once… a true love of mine
 
- from “Girl from the North Country” by Bob Dylan

 
The “Oregon Hippie Scene” is alive and well in Veneta, Oregon (just outside of Eugene… home of the U of O and the mighty Ducks). Each summer, on the second weekend of July, the Tribes gather in the Pacific Northwest for the Oregon Country Fair. The OCF has been a psychedelic, vaudevillian timebomb that has exploded in day-glow brilliance in the very heart of the Willamette valley, for the last 44 years.
 
The Oregon Country Fair is held in a 280 acre wooded fairy glen, along a meandering black, muddy river known as the Long Tom. Nestled within the woods and meadows are miles of winding footpaths with over 700 artisan and food booths and 18 different performance stages. Lurking in the wooded shadows, one will find a wild assortment of magicians, jugglers, gypsy fortune tellers, fauns, satyrs and wood nymphs.
 
Like Prometheus, our field operative, Jack Heart …went on assignment into the “belly of the beast” to steal the magic fire that is the OCF, and bring it back to the delight and wonder of all the intrepid readers of this blog. What follows is a picto-travelogue of this amazing festival.


the main stage
 
 
toward the main stage
 

"video" game at the fair
 
 
 toward the community village
 
 
 in between performances at the main stage
 
 
 along the path
 
 
Here are some bonus pictures, not of Jack Heart's camera... 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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