Oregon ash is the only ash tree native to the Pacific Northwest, and is common along rivers and streams in the entire Willamette River watershed.  As part of a healthy riparian forest, it provides great value stabilizing soils, cycling nutrients, attracting birds and pollinators, and contributing large wood to the stream when it falls.  Though it can withstand long periods of flooding, it can also endure long periods of drought. Given its resiliency and important contributions to habitat, it is a common tree species planted at streamside restoration sites. It is easily distinguished from other common riparian hardwood trees by its compound leaves (see photo).

 

Perhaps the best-known use of Oregon ash by local Native American tribes has been canoe paddles.  Ash makes great canoe paddles (as well as baseball bats) because the wood, although strong, flexes slightly when engaged with resistance.  This produces a springboard action that helps propel a canoe further without expending more energy.  Oregon ash is known as 'isik-stik' in the tribal trade language Chinuk Wawa, which translates literally to "paddle wood".  Traditional uses of the tree also include buckets and canoe bailers (from the bark), medicine, digging sticks, and firewood.

 

Oregon ash's symmetrical grain and high burning temperature make it ideal for firewood, which prompted Captain William Clark to write the following passage when the Lewis and Clark expedition made camp on the Columbia River nearly opposite the location of modern-day Cascade Locks:  "a wet disagreeable evening, the only wood we could get to burn on this little Island on which we have encamped is the newly discovered Ash, which makes a tolerable fire."