...landscape, development, land ownership, economy, and culture differ greatly from those of other areas of the Basin and Range Region. This is the Trans-Cascade Timberlands Region.

This unique Region is a roughly triangular area in south-central Oregon and adjacent California (Figure 1). It is unique because it constitutes the only sizeable wooded area in the vast Basin and Range Region, which extends from Oregon to Mexico and is almost entirely sagebrush or desert. Elsewhere, timber in the Basin and Range is largely restricted to narrow strips along the crestlines and upper shady slopes of the higher mountain ranges, mainly in Nevada, and to a small area in northeastern California separated from the present study area.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The Timberlands are not only unlike any other area but also geographically unknown. They are virtually missing from most geography books and articles about Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, almost passed over as if they were no different from the sagebrush Basin and Range to the east of them.

The purposes of this article are to (1) emphatically make the point that the Trans-Cascade Timberlands are absolutely unique and (2) fill in the blanks in the geographic literature by describing their location, extent, and geographic personality.

A Timbered Triangle

The Trans-Cascade Timberlands are a three-sided area in southeastern Oregon, overlapping slightly into northeastern California. A city or town is located at each of the three points of the triangle: Bend, Klamath Falls, and Lakeview. The region spreads eastward from the east foot of the Cascade Range to the vast, empty, sagebrush lands of southeastern Oregon. The southeastern appendages of the region extend into the northeast corner of California near the Nevada border. A fourth town, Alturas, is located here. The boundaries of the region are the foot of the Cascades on the west and the edge of the timber to the east and south.

Finding no local name for the entire timbered area, I named it the Trans-Cascade Timberlands, meaning the timbered lands across the Cascades (meaning on the other side of the Cascades) from the Oregon Heartland, which is Portland and the Willamette Valley. The region is also across the Cascades from the California Heartland. The name I formulated was inspired by the late Professor David W. Lantis, California State University-Chico, who used the name "The Trans-Sierra" for one of the regions in his book on California (Lantis 1963, pp. 19-31).

This region is characterized by low, timbered mountains separated by rather wide valleys and basins, most of which are also wooded (Figure 2). The mountain landscape is quite ordinary in the context of the West and is not spectacular by any means. The only spectacular thing about it is the view from the western side of several towering volcanoes strung along the crest of the Cascade Range (Figure 3).

[FIGURE 2-3 OMITTED]

Most of the area is national forest or other public lands. It falls entirely within four counties: Deschutes County (county seat, Bend, population of the urbanized area about 70,000), Klamath County (Klamath Falls, 55,000), and Lake County (Lakeview, 3,000) all in Oregon, and Modoc County (Alturas, 3,500) in California. All four of the county seats, which are also the headquarters of the four national forests involved, are outside the boundaries of the region as drawn. Within the region itself are only villages, hamlets, and crossroads. For the most part, the Timberlands Region is a rather empty land.

Traditionally, the economy of the region was based primarily on the timber industry and agriculture: logging, wood processing, irrigated farming, and livestock ranching. Minerals and mining are not, and never were, important. Today, more and more, the economy is becoming oriented towards the leisure industry and communications services.

Geographically Unknown

The Trans-Cascade Timberlands are almost overlooked, or completely ignored, in most books on or relating to Oregon geography. This is true of the fairly recent geography of Oregon Uniquely Oregon by Larry King et. al. (1994). The schematically drawn regions portrayed in this book (p.135) include the southern part of what I call the Trans-Cascade Timberlands, along with all the sagebrush lands east of them, in a region called "Southeastern Oregon" and the northern part in another region named "Central Oregon." Clearly the authors did not recognize that the Timberlands are a very distinct and rather uniform region. Likewise, the distinctive character and timbered nature of the Timberlands Region are not brought out clearly in the books by Samuel N. Dicken, the "grand old man" of geography at the University of Oregon (Dicken 1973; Dicken and Dicken 1979; Dicken and Dicken 1982).

It is apparent that in delimiting his regions of Oregon, Sam Dicken (1973, pp. 7-8 and 10-11) was looking mainly, probably solely, at landforms, with little...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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