Willamette River Festival
Talking Stones Tour

Join the Citizen Planning Committee of the Whilamut Natural Area for a tour of the Talking Stones. The Talking Stones were designed as educational and cultural reference points, to reintroduce the Kalapuya language and connection to the land. Enjoy an interpretive walk of Stones 1-4, and a self-guided tour of Stones  to the Whilamut Transportation Crossover Mural by artist Susan Applegate.

Please meet at the Alton Baker Canoe Canal Pond near the Festival Registration tent at 10AM. This is a walking tour, covering an approximate distance of 1.2 miles. Please wear comfortable walking shoes and come dressed for the weather. Sunblock and water bottle recommended!

The Talking Stones were installed in December 2002 in the Whilamut Natural Area of Alton Baker Park. Quarried from a basalt deposit in traditional Kalapuya territory, the Talking Stones were designed to serve as educational and cultural reference points, as well as being beautiful art objects. The stones reintroduce words of the Kalapuya language onto land where the people once hunted, and onto waters that carried their canoes. Now the land is part of Alton Baker Park, a primary open-space component of the Willamette Greenway. In September of 2002, the park’s eastern 237 acres were given the name “Whilamut Natural Area” in recognition of the environmental ethics of this area’s first people and their descendants.

For more information about the Talking Stones, please download a copy of the City of Eugene and Willamalane Parks and Recreation District Talking Stones Map here.

The Whilamut Transportation Crossover Mural, finished in 2013, is among the largest anamorphic distortion murals in the nation. Artist, Susan Applegate, drew the image and graphic designer, Niki Harris, configured it to be anamorphically distorted so that when laser carved into the 30 degree slanted concrete footing of the Whilamut Passage Bridge (spanning the Willamette River which carries the I-5 traffic) it would appear as though it were standing more or less perpendicular to the canoe canal that borders its base and the jogging path on the other side. The mural can only be seen from the canoe canal and jogging path. 

To learn more about artist Susan Applegate, please visit her website here. For more information about the Whilamut Passage Bridge, please check out the Oregon Scholars Bank special insert here.