project date: 2001 | by peter reedijk

Catherine Creek Trail meanders through the windswept, sun-drenched, rocky basalt shoreline of the Columbia River Gorge. This site has a long history of attracting wildflower enthusiasts who begin looking for the first spring flowers in May and then return to follow the succession of flowers that bloom all summer and late into the fall as the landscape changes through the seasons from wet and cold to an arid grassland.

Sea Reach was contracted by the US Forest Service to plan, design, and fabricate interpretive exhibits. Each of the eight panels focus on a subject related to the wildflowers specific to Catherine Creek. A subtle color palette, fine-line pencil illustrations, and an open, airy design create exhibits that are elegant and do not compete with the beauty of the natural surroundings. While the best interpreters strive to develop strongly thematic exhibits, it is not often that a project lends itself, both in location, subject, and audience to a single theme. Catherine Creek allowed us to focus on one overriding theme: "Catherine Creek supports a wide variety of wildflowers because of an unusual set of environmental circumstances."

We let wildflowers "tell the story." Concepts such as pollination, adaptation, seed dispersal, seasonal changes, and stewardship are all presented in relation to the wildflowers of Catherine Creek. Each exhibit cited site-specific examples and illustrations of wildflowers.