A hike up Marys Peak promises wildflowers, views and echoes of Kalapuyan legends. The highest point in Oregon’s Coast Range was sacred to the tribe. It’s still a hallowed place to walk. I’ll tell you about the hike in a minute. First let me tell you about the legend.
The Kalapuyans of the Willamette Valley had already been decimated by disease when pioneer settlers arrived. As much as 100 years earlier, seafaring explorers had unknowingly brought measles, smallpox, diphtheria and influenza to the Northwest coast. The Luckiamute band of Kalapuyans, including the Marys River subgroup at Corvallis, might once have numbered 1,000. By 1905, 28 survived. By 1910, there were only eight.
As a result, most Kalapuyan legends have been lost. But fragments reveal that the trickster Coyote was a central character in their dramas. As with most Northwest tribes, the Kalapuyans set their tales in a protean age before humans.
In those days, animal spirits walked the earth as people do now. Coyote, a schemer whose plans often went awry, was the most powerful of these legendary demigods. And Marys Peak was Coyote’s favorite retreat…