On a September evening, 170 years ago, a military engineer named Lieutenant Henry Abbot got off his horse and pitched his tent on Indian Ford meadow. He was awed by the scene and wrote, “This little opening, amid forest-clad mountains and grand snow peaks, furnished a camping place, the wild beauty of which I have seldom seen equaled. This was enhanced, in the evening, by a magnificent lunar rainbow, and a beautifully tinted halo round the moon: both of which appeared at the same time in different quarters of the heavens.”

The expedition artist captured a scene of the camp with men on horseback, little white tents, and a backdrop of Black Butte and Mt Jefferson. Thanks to a conservation minded landowner, county employees with a dream, and a group of neighbors, today’s view is much the same as what Lt. Abbot saw in 1855. This was the birthplace of the Deschutes Land Trust in 1995.

The small channels of Indian Ford Creek may not impress with their size, but the creek is unique for its low gradient stream type and soils which sustain hundreds of acres of moist meadows, aspen groves, and thick stands of willows, wild roses, and spirea. It is a spring fed tributary of Whychus Creek with headwaters, called Paulina Springs, on Black Butte Ranch. The snow melt waters emerge ice cold, south of Big Meadow, in a deep shady glade. Its confluence with Whychus Creek is near the base of McKinney Butte by the Sisters Airport.

The creek got its name from its long association with Native American trails and camps that are described in many accounts by early explorers and pioneers. Its Native American name was recorded as “Que-y-ee”. Peter Skene Ogden fed his horses on the meadows of Indian Ford in 1825, 30 years before the expedition of the Lt Abbot and the Pacific Railroad Survey engineers set up their camp. Soldiers on their way to setting up Camp Polk traveled through the meadows in 1865. The Santiam Wagon Road followed their path when Charles Hindman took over the old camp in 1868, providing Hindman station, a rare stop for travelers on their way to Prineville. In 1871 the first recorded water rights were from Indian Ford creek, beginning a pattern of using most of its water to sustain farms and ranches.

Martin Oliver homesteaded Willows Ranch in 1910, and other meadow ranches and a sawmill were built along the creek. As the timber industry began to wane in the late 1950’s, Donna Gill's Indian Ford Guest Ranch began a new phase of the tourist economy of Sisters bringing families and the fun of being a weekend cowboy. Lei and Scott Durdan saw an ad for the Guest Ranch in Sunset magazine in 1961 and brought their family from Hawaii for a vacation. Like many others they fell in love with the place and eventually created what would become Indian Ford Ranch Homes, a slow-paced development that eventually included The Hill, Sage Meadow, High Meadow, and other subdivisions. When they sold the Willows Ranch headquarters, they created a covenant that “set aside more than 300 acres of meadows for permanent enjoyment by would-be cowboy homeowners.” So how did 63 acres of Indian Ford meadow at the corner of Camp Polk and Indian Ford Road become the first property acquired by the Deschutes Land Trust?

Meadow protection, seeds a land trust

The genesis involved after work beers for a group of County Land Use planners and attorneys, and an occasional biologist. Founding Executive Director Brad Chalfant tells the story. “We would get together after work and would go to either the Deschutes Brewery, known to us as Brew 1, or the Bend Brewery, otherwise known as Brew 2. It was a group of friends who really cared about the community, had a distinct conservation bent, loved the concept of land use planning, but were painfully aware of the limitations. We all felt like land use planning was a great thing, but it's one size fits all, and sometimes it protected things we didn't feel like necessarily needed protection, and in other cases, it didn't protect places we felt very strongly needed protection.”

Chalfant gave credit to attorney Bruce White, who sadly passed away in 2015. “We informally gathered for several years to blow off steam, and one evening in late ‘94 or ’95 Bruce White suggested that we ought to start a land trust, and I had never even heard the phrase before.”

“Bruce was familiar with land trusts back in New England. He was an Assistant County Attorney and was thinking about the big picture and the long term. He thought that doing something nonpolitical, non-adversarial, and nonregulatory, might be an alternative way, of conserving not everything, but conserving some of the places that we were seeing being lost or we feared would be lost.” Chalfant termed this approach the “Middle Way”.

He jokingly named several accomplices, who like himself were “a bit of a rabble rouser”; Dave Leslie, Brian Harrington, Catherine Morrow, and Ted Wise. When a stubborn land use conflict arose in Sisters, with neighbors citing the Indian Ford meadow covenant, habitat, and watershed concerns in opposition to a development proposal, Brad and his compatriots realized they might have a solution.

Those involved were offered the opportunity for formal mediation. The landowners had been exploring conservation options, including a land trust, which simply stated, offers land owners tax benefits for voluntarily restricting or reducing development. With the mediators help, the parties discovered shared interests in love of community and the land. All agreed to stop the conflict and work toward a common goal.

However, the Deschutes Land Trust was still more a concept than reality, so the Oregon Community Foundation played a key role in accepting and holding the property until the new group was approved for non-profit status. Chalfant commended other key players like Bob Chandler of the Bend Bulletin (co-founder of the Oregon Community Foundation) and Attorney Win Francis (co-founder of the High Desert Museum) who provided the effort with credibility and concluded, ““While the Land Trust germinated in two different places, it clearly found fertile soil along Indian Ford Creek. Certainly, if you can't grow a land trust here, I don't know where you could do it. With so many people believing in community and holding a deep love of the land it is truly a fertile place for that sort of thing.”

Deschutes Land Trust today
This year the Deschutes Land Trust celebrates 30 years of conservation, community, and caring for the land reflected in protecting over 18,700 acres, connecting over 12,500 people to the land, with over 125,800 hours of volunteer labor.

Today Rika Ayotte is the Executive Director and noted its growth. In 1995, the Land Trust had 6 board members, no staff, 10 volunteers, 493 hours volunteered, and 10 donors. By 2024, the Land Trust had 14 board members, 16 staff, 5,651 hours volunteered, 1,712 donors and was recently named one of 100 Best Nonprofits to Work for in Oregon by Oregon Business. It has 26 properties under protection and has expanded its range beyond Sisters to projects in Klamath, Deschutes, Crook, Jefferson, and Wasco Counties.

Ayotte said “We’re incredibly proud to be celebrating 30 years of conservation and stewardship in Central Oregon. None of this would have been possible without the support of the communities where we work. We stand on the shoulders of the forward-thinking folks who founded the Land Trust and everyone who has volunteered, donated, attended a tour, or told a friend or neighbor about our work. Our amazing staff and Board are committed to stewarding our conserved lands and serving our communities in perpetuity, and we look forward to celebrating many more of these anniversaries alongside those who help to make them possible.”

A version of this story was first published in the Nugget Newspaper on July 15, 2025.

Learn more:

• Land Trust Celebrates 30th Anniversary
• The Story of Indian Ford Meadow Preserve

Maret Pajutee is a retired Forest Service ecologist. She worked for more than 25 years protecting the natural resources of the Sisters Ranger District. She is a founding Board member of the Deschutes Land Trust.