Learn about efforts to reconnect Native American culture with Metro lands, and catch up on the latest parks and nature news with the spring issue of Our Big Backyard magazine.
Learn about efforts to reconnect Native American culture with Metro lands, and catch up on the latest parks and nature news with the spring issue of Our Big Backyard magazine.
Like any good Native American storyteller, I need to start at the beginning. Not with a creation story, not at 1492, but where this story begins for me.
Portland is home to the nation’s ninth largest urban Native American population. Native American people did not come to Portland by accident, but through a series of federal policies that forced the removal of Indians from tribal homelands.
Four times during the last two decades, voters across the greater Portland area have invested in a network of regional parks, trails and natural areas. Learn how Metro uses the money to support clean water, healthy fish and wildlife habitat, and opportunities to connect with nature.
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Nature in Neighborhoods grants support community projects and programs across the region, from local park improvements to stream restoration to hands-on nature education for people of all ages and backgrounds.
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Twelve hundred miles of connected trails and greenways in the Portland region: that was the vision in 1992’s Metropolitan Greenspaces Master Plan. Since then, huge progress has been made to bring trails from concept to planning to opening day.
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Nestled on the Clackamas River just upstream from Barton Park, River Island provides 240 acres of habitat for plants and wildlife, including endangered salmon and steelhead, native turtles and migratory birds. Metro worked with community members and experts to design plans to restore fish and wildlife habitat and improve water quality at this voter-protected natural area.
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Learn more about efforts to close a 6-mile gap in greater Portland’s most iconic trail system.
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The regional Native American community works in partnership with Metro to access cultural resources within Metro’s parks and natural areas.
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Discover every park, trail and natural area in the Portland-Vancouver region.

Whether your roots in the region run generations deep or you moved to Oregon last week, you have your own reasons for loving this place – and Metro wants to keep it that way. Help shape the future of the greater Portland region and discover tools, services and places that make life better today.