The annual Oregon Country Fair is one of the longest-running arts and craft fairs in the United States, as well as one of 28 designated Oregon Heritage Traditions.
Each year, the fair attracts tens of thousands of visitors seeking eclectic art forms — as well as echoes of Lane County’s counterculture past.
The event started in the fall of 1969 as the Oregon Renaissance Faire in Eugene, not to be confused with the fair that happens in Canby, organized as a fundraiser for an alternative school focusing on creative expression.
At that time, Eugene was a counterculture hub and home to one of the movement’s iconic founders, Ken Kesey.
“The Register Guard in 1968 had a story, maybe 2,000 hippies had come to town,” said Suzi Prozanski, author of Fruit of the Sixties: The Founding of The Oregon Country Fair.
Many of those new arrivals lived in communes and made a living selling handicrafts, like at the inaugural Oregon Renaissance Faire.
“The fair is just a magical event. And I feel like it’s been a privilege to have a booth there all this time.”
- Sue Kesey
“People would sell bread that they baked or crafts that they had made,” Prozanski said.
“They enjoyed talking about what the world could be like if it were different. And I think that was a big part of the energy that kept the early fairs going.”
‘Miraculous gathering’
Seeking a larger space, in 1970 the fair moved 13 miles to its current location: Outside the town of Veneta along the banks of the Long Tom River.
Occupying over a mile-long trail for booths to set up, the stage was set for a more established event.
“It evolved into this miraculous gathering of like-minded folks who had great things to offer to the public. Food, crafts — whatever,” said Sue Kesey.
Sue and her husband Chuck, Ken Kesey’s brother, co-founded Springfield Creamery (makers of Nancy’s Yogurt), the first company in the country to add acidophilus to its products. Their booth has been slinging frozen probiotic yogurt and ice cream to fair goers for over half a century.
In 1977, the annual gathering officially changed its name to Oregon Country Fair to avoid an injunction by the Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Marin County and Los Angeles, who claimed copyright on the “Renaissance” label.
Another inflection point came in the early 1980s. Fair organizers had rented the site up to that point, and there came a point when the landowners wanted to sell.
“In 1982, the fair started thinking about how they could buy the land,” said Prozanski. “And they didn’t know how to do it, but they came up with a plan.”
Fair organizers asked Ken Kesey — who was friends with Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia — if the band would play for a benefit concert on the fair site.
The Grateful Dead agreed to perform but, as Prozanski recalls, the fundraising effort didn’t quite go as planned.
“When the music started, the people at the entrances all came in to listen to the music and quit taking tickets. And so that didn’t make money to help the fair.”
Fortunately, the band donated $10,000 to the fair anyways which was enough to help with a down payment to purchase the land, which happened in December of that year.
“The reason the fair could buy [the land] so inexpensively was because it was flooded every year,” Prozanski said. “You couldn’t build a house there, you couldn’t do other things with it.”
Over 10,000 years of human activity
The Oregon Country Fair site sits on a floodplain that is inundated most winters by the rising Long Tom River.
Come spring, however, camas blooms erupt from the earth and blanket the landscape in vivid colors.
“A lot of the prairies around here had so much camas, they called it a sea, because the blue looks like a sea—like an ocean,” said David Lewis, PhD, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Indigenous Studies at Oregon State University and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
Inexpensive as the land was for modern developers, it held inestimable value for the Chela Mela band of Kalapuya peoples who lived there.
In 1986, University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History archaeologists unearthed earth ovens dating to over 4,000 years ago — most likely for roasting camas and wapato.
Further excavations by the fair’s archaeologists revealed sites dating back to 10,500 years ago, creating a picture of ancient and sustained wetland agriculture.
“They were a part of what’s called the Columbia River Trade Network,” said Lewis, who is also a descendant of Santiam Kalapuya peoples.
“Kalapuyans would add camas and wapato and acorns and things into the network and trade for salmon.”
Despite Oregon Country Fair’s efforts to preserve the integrity of these archaeological sites and acknowledge Indigenous history, there is ongoing tension.
Cultural experts like Lewis think the fair should relocate to prevent disturbances to the historic — and potentially sacred — former Kalapuyan land.
There have also been instances of cultural appropriation from tribal communities. Teepees on the fairgrounds put up by non-Native people. An infamous totem pole was planned and made without First Nation involvement.
“I think there’s a part of hippie culture that thinks that they can take any culture from any part of the world and make whatever they want of it,” said Lewis.
“We understand that we have our own artisans among Native communities and that if you really truly want to honor Native peoples, hire those artisans to do the work.”
Evolving the fair
At the urging of some of those Native artists, fair organizers took recent strides towards fostering a more authentically inclusive atmosphere.
The Ritz Sauna, home to the aforementioned controversial totem pole, commissioned Tlingit artist Pattrick Price in 2020 to adorn the Ritz with authentic Northwest tribal art.
“I see a new generation coming up. They might be uncomfortable but they want to listen. I can see change happening.”
- Marcy Middleton
In 2024, at the request of Native crafters, the Oregon Country Fair constructed space for a new Native American Arts and Crafts Market — featuring seven vendors representing various tribes and cultures.
Diné artist Marcy Middleton creates jewelry and has attended the fair for many years, but never experienced a dedicated space as an Indigenous artist.
When she stepped up to help create the new Native market space, it was a clarifying moment of the fair’s enduring counterculture spirit — crafting and imagining one’s way to a better world.
This story was written and reported by Kunu Bearchum, edited by Arya Surowidjojo and Eric Slade, digitally produced by Meagan Cuthill, with photos by Brooke Herbert and Jeff Kastner. In partnership with Oregon Art Beat.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
