Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... [ ♪♪♪ ] WOMAN: Come on!

There he is, there he is, there he is.

[ exclaims ] Get him out of there, buddy!

Good boy!

[ laughing ] WOMAN: Whoo, high five!

Yeah!

JAHN: Next, on Oregon Field Guide: These visionaries are taking model railroading to another level and turning their backyards into full-blown train towns.

Then, for tired hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail... How about some Trail Magic?

...surprise appearances by trail angels are a welcome sight.

I love this.

[ chuckles ] But first, a story from Portland's wild oasis.

Portland's Oaks Bottom Refuge is a remarkable sanctuary for wildlife located in the heart of a city of millions of people.

But its protection is no accident.

It came about in large part thanks to the efforts of one man, Mike Houck, and his awareness that this is also home to the Great Blue Heron.

[ birds chirping ] HOUCK: Okay.

I'm hearing a white-breasted nuthatch.

There's a song sparrow.

There's a Bewick's wren singing.

[ whistles ] [ bird trills ] Hear that trill?

That's a spotted towhee.

He's up there advertising himself.

GILFILLAN: Walking around with Mike Houck is a little like hanging out with Dr. Dolittle.

Red-tail hawk!

Beauty.

[ Houck whistles ] He's not going to call back.

[ chuckles ] For decades, first as urban naturalist for the Bird Alliance of Oregon, and today, as director of the Urban Greenspaces Institute, Mike has been an advocate for bringing nature to cities.

If you look up into the tree, there's a screech owl.

When I started as urban naturalist in 1982... [ shutter clicking ] ...the very first land-use planner I talked to said, "Mike, there's no place for nature in the city."

Nice.

And that's been the struggle for over 40 years now, is to get places like this protected.

By "places like this," Mike means Oaks Bottom, a 160-acre wetland in southeast Portland.

This is what is now the South Meadow, and it used to be called the South Fill because it literally was a landfill and it was on fire-- there was smoke.

And in '88, we called for this to be protected as a wildlife refuge.

There's a huge diversity of wildlife here.

Something on the order of 150 species of birds have been seen here.

There are river otter here, there are beaver here, there are mink here, there are coyotes here, there are deer here, and, of course, Great Blue Herons.

Ah, there we are.

Perhaps more than any other bird, the Great Blue Heron would become one of Mike's most powerful partners in the fight to bring nature to the urban landscape.

[ bird calling ] The iconic bird used to be found almost everywhere in the Willamette Valley.

But bald eagles move in.

The herons took off because of the eagles continuing to harass them.

So, you know, nature is dynamic.

With the return of bald eagles, finding a heron colony has become challenging.

This is awesome!

Mike took us to this one just south of Portland, where we could follow these magnificent birds as they pair up and raise their offspring.

Great Blue Heron nesting begins in February, where they come back.

They do reuse the same nest frequently.

We've got pairs in the nest.

And once that's occurred, there's a lot of remodeling that goes on.

And the male will fly off and snap twigs off trees, fly back to the female, beak the twig to the female, she will grab it, but they'll also just kind of-- I don't know, I'd call it cuddling almost, where they maybe rub their necks together.

So there's a lot of physicality to it.

They've got these fabulous plumes that flare up and they're like, "Hey, baby," right?

That-- like a lot of humans.

And through that process, they bond.

They're very solitary birds, but in order to be safe in their nesting, they come together in a colony, because bald eagles will prey on the young.

And what they've documented is a 60% decline of herons from 1975 to present and a more than doubling of the population of bald eagles.

So one of the most surprising things to a lot of people, I think, is the region is full of nature.

But that wasn't the conventional wisdom back in the day.

While Portland was being touted as this green oasis, the fact of the matter was, at that time, nature did not play a role.

And it wasn't until the late '80s, early '90s that people started rethinking the city.

And I just came along at the right time, and we rode that wave.

But riding that wave sometimes requires some creative maneuvers.

In the urban nature game, there are no silver bullets.

So you try every strategy you can.

You cannot rely on just one approach.

Efforts to protect Oaks Bottom went back decades, but the city's reluctance to declare it a wildlife refuge drove Mike to tap a backdoor contact at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

I talked him into giving me 40 wildlife refuge signs, and a friend and I went all around Oaks Bottom and tacked up signs high enough that nobody could reach them.

Though there's no actual proof this helped, pretty soon, the city declared Oaks Bottom its first official urban wildlife refuge.

[ birds chirping ] By April, heron parents are busy looking after up to four chicks.

You have to struggle to see their little feathery heads popping up over the edge of the nest.

They look really kind of cute, you know, like all young do.

Alas, that cuteness does not last.

They're in their awkward teen stage.

They more look like feathered dinosaurs.

[ cawing ] And everybody's fighting for food and just making a racket.

Oh, look at that!

So this guy... the top of his head is totally punked out.

He's a young punker.

You know, the adult is truly a spectacularly beautiful bird with those long plumes, and they're so graceful.

People love them, so it just seemed logical to have that be the city bird.

In 1986, Mike was at a meeting of wildlife managers listening to a speech by Portland mayor Bud Clark.

In addition to being turned on by art, Bud was also a heron fan.

He mentioned Great Blue Herons probably 20 times in the course of his talk.

I literally grabbed him by the arm: "Bud, I think you should declare the Great Blue Heron as Portland's city bird."

He said, "Whoop-whoop!"

Whoop-whoop!

And on December 10th, 1986, the city council declared the Great Blue Heron Portland's official city bird.

After the meeting, Mike headed over to a local brewpub and told the brewmaster about the new city symbol.

And he said, "Hmm, I just brewed a new ale I haven't named yet.

What do you think?"

The eponymous ale also helped lubricate deals with the city's local power brokers.

Everybody got to know one another.

And without that, we would not have accomplished a tenth of what we have with regard to nature in the city.

Mike then talked a local muralist into painting a heron on the Portland Mausoleum... with donated paint, of course.

Just another strategy.

It's like, there's another thing.

People will stop and look at that heron and ask why that's on that building.

[ beeps, engine rumbling ] There's an osprey.

By late May, the young herons have grown out of their awkward teenage stage.

Oh, my God!

You know what, I think we have a young one.

It's almost adult size, wow.

They're not quite-- Ooh!

One looks like he's ready to jump onto another branch.

We're going to have branchers here pretty soon.

These branchers, as they're known, are starting to venture away from the nest and try out their wings.

But they have company.

Oh, bald eagle right overhead, right-- he just landed right here.

[ eagle calling ] And a second one coming in.

Oh, my God!

[ laughs ] When an eagle comes in like this, the young can get knocked out of the nest.

You know, they start flailing around and they're not ready to fly yet.

So that would be tragic.

I'd hate to see this colony abandoned like a lot of the others have been.

Hope they can coexist in this case.

A few weeks later, it looks like Mike may have gotten his wish.

He's walking.

He turned around.

He's looking like he wants to take off.

Stretching his wings.

Upper left, he's standing up again.

Come on, buddy.

Boom!

Awesome.

Obviously this heron colony's been pretty successful.

The fact that eagles have more than doubled is good news.

The fact that herons have gone down 60-70%, is that bad news or is that something that existed pre-development?

Maybe we're just getting back to that equilibrium, I don't know.

But the herons are still here, I'm still here, and it's just kind of cool to think that more than half a century later, we're all still here.

[ Mike chuckles ] [ ♪♪♪ ] I loved model trains growing up, and I had the set in the basement with the villages all set out.

But eventually I grew up and I put those trains in a box and never saw them again.

But for some people, that love of world-building never ends.

Their visions just get bigger and bigger.

[ toy train horn blowing ] It's a steam train!

McCLUSKEY: These trains may be small, but the landscapes they travel are immense.

This is the meticulously crafted world of garden railroads.

One of the things that's so interesting about this hobby is there are no two garden railroads that are alike.

When you think of model trains, you probably picture a table in a basement or an attic.

But garden railroad hobbyists take their trains into their backyards.

And by that, I mean their trains take over their backyards.

BILL: That piece goes somewhere here.

Can't remember where this thing goes.

Members of the Rose City Garden Railway Society like Bill Derville are prepping their personal backyard railroads for the annual summer tour.

That's gotta be shimmed up some.

And the pressure is on to get ready.

After winter, this is what it looks like.

And it's a huge amount of debris that needs to be picked up.

Lots of pine needles, branches, you name it.

Every inch of tiny track must be cleaned.

[ vacuum whirring ] And everyone has a method: vacuum, sandpaper, or even a brushing locomotive.

It's great to see the railroad looking like a railroad again!

[ train horn blowing ] For the members of the Rose City Garden Railway Society, their passion started young.

MAN: I can remember as a little child, and this is in the early '50s, big black trains going by that would make the glass shake, and I would run to the window to see that happen.

MAN: I had a paper route, and my father would get up on Sundays and help.

And then afterwards, we'd go meet the steam engine going up the Columbia Gorge and chase it.

So it was always a race in the morning to get all the papers delivered to chase the last steam engine running out of Portland.

Many of today's garden railroaders had train sets growing up.

But then came careers, marriage, and kids, and their own childhood toys had to be put away.

And when you retire, it's, "Okay, yeah, I'm through with worrying.

Let somebody else do it.

I'm back to just enjoying life."

And what did I enjoy when I was a kid?

Playing with trains.

Well, okay, I'm gonna play with trains again.

I just play with them in a different fashion.

Transforming their backyards, they create elaborate railroads with tunnels and trestles and towns based on their own lives.

Like Alan and Nola Olson.

NOLA: I always try to put touches of humanity, because trains are trains, but I like human stories.

Their Crooked River Railroad is like a book of their lives.

They scatter tiny details in their layout.

Well, how about that?

[ chuckles ] They even have a garden railroad in their garden railroad.

And the heart on the tree is a nod to their marriage, 56 years and counting.

ALAN: Here.

Thank you, my love.

Okay.

One of the buildings has a special place in Alan's heart: a scale model of the church he attended growing up on Mount Hood.

The actual church burned down, but its memory lives on in his railroad.

ALAN: It means a lot.

It's something that is part of my childhood, part of my upbringing, part of my-- part of who I am.

[ train horn blowing ] Railroads like the Olsons' commemorate Oregon's heritage with sawmills, logging camps, and even Steiner cabins.

Some members, like Gary Lee, have picked a special area of Oregon as the setting for their railroad.

I wanted to have a railroad that went someplace, went from Baker City to Ukiah, Oregon, over the Blue Mountains.

I'm trying to create that sense of distance that we had as a country a hundred years ago, where cities were separated by hundreds and hundreds of miles.

Some members go to incredible lengths to make their railroads just like the real ones, earning them a playful nickname.

TOM: Some of our club members are what we call rivet counters.

Now, by "rivet counter," I mean you can look at one of their locomotives and you can look at a picture of the real thing, and you count the number of rivets in the picture and you count the number of rivets on the model, and they're exactly the same, precise down to the last rivet.

Gary Lee takes pride as a master builder, making the ties for his tracks from cedar and driving each spike by hand.

GARY: Four spikes on each tie.

He estimates he's driven at least a quarter-million of these teeny, tiny spikes.

[ bell ringing and horn blowing ] For Alexis Barberis, there's a bittersweet connection to her railroad.

She built the Pine Valley and Western Railroad with her husband Frank.

ALEXIS: We met at Benson High School.

He asked me to hold a small blue box.

When I asked him what it was for, he said it was a transformer to a model railroad.

I went home from school and I said, "Hey, Mom, met the man I'm gonna marry!"

It was just kind of a miracle the two of us actually stayed together.

And it was all because of a train.

And we were married for 44 years.

He passed away after a spinal-cord injury after a fall.

When Frank died, the club rallied to fulfill one of his life-long dreams: a scale replica of a roundhouse and turntable.

The wonderful, wonderful club members, all of these guys showed up and they built the roundhouse, and I just...

I cannot thank those men enough.

It was just amazing.

It was his dream.

[ train rumbling ] Although the railroads hearken to the past, the club members are focused on the future.

We're all baby boomers, so we're gonna age out.

TOM: There's a lot more people that are older in the hobby than younger, unfortunately.

We're trying to change that.

Welcome.

How are you today?

It's Father's Day weekend, and the annual tour is the big day each year when the railroads are open to the public.

More than 500 people will come to admire the creativity and hard work that goes into these garden railroads.

Look at that!

Steam tractor on that one!

But most importantly for the club members, it's a chance to capture the curiosity of the next generation.

Look at that train.

Whoa!

Can I try one out?

[ bell ringing ] Kids are handed the controllers and, for a moment, they are the engineers.

To someone who doesn't think that this is a worthwhile hobby, I'd say, "Grow up!"

[ laughs ] Or, "Grow down!"

Because this is fun, and why should we not create something that is enjoyable for ourselves and enjoyable for other people to see?

We don't have to go far to be happy.

All we have to do is open the back door.

[ toy train horn blowing ] [ ♪♪♪ ] The Pacific Crest Trail is almost 2,700 miles long, and those that complete it say it's the experience of a lifetime.

But it also comes with blisters and pain and long stretches where you wonder whether you have what it takes to pull it off.

Well, what if, during one of those long stretches, you came across someone whose sole purpose was bringing you a little shot of joy?

Well, it's 10:00, and we're officially at the halfway mark on our Oregon map.

Past the halfway mark.

Past the halfway.

So we just ran into a hiker that was headed southbound, and he was like, "There's a fun little surprise for you in two miles," so, of course, we of course thought, like, Trail Magic.

[ ♪♪♪ ] MAN: There's a saying on the trail: "The trail provides."

And it means that the trail's going to take care of you.

Something like Trail Magic or something's gonna happen.

It's gonna be okay.

THOMAS: Harold Leeson and his family just drove two hours from Eugene to the Pacific Crest Trail.

But they didn't bring any hiking gear.

They brought Trail Magic.

Trail Magic is supporting the hikers on the trail, whether it's giving them a chair, a meal, anything that's gonna help these guys get down the road a ways.

[ ♪♪♪ ] Trail Magic isn't unique to Harold and his family.

They're part of a larger community of people who create these unexpected sanctuaries.

We got another tree right up here.

So ever year, I've made a new sign for the last four or five years.

And the hikers, I think, really like 'em.

WOMAN 1: Whoo, boy!

WOMAN 2: Okay, nuh-uh.

Really?

That's a legit sign.

[ ♪♪♪ ] [ gasps ] What?

Hot dog, chips, and cold drinks and cookies?

I hope this is-- [ Robert whoops, laughs ] SUZIE: I hope this is actually, like, today.

ROBERT [ sings ]: Hot dogs, chips and cold drinks!

The PCT's no ordinary trail.

It's one of the longest trails in North America and stretches nearly 2,700 miles from Mexico to Canada.

Completing the entire thing takes about four to six months and a lot of burned calories along the way.

WOMAN: So I've got six dogs going here.

I've kind of got a system down.

All we need now are hikers!

HAROLD: Hey, welcome!

Would you like some Trail Magic?

WOMAN: Wow, yes!

All right!

How about a couple hot dogs?

Yeah, it would be great to have a hot dog.

Well, take your pack off.

[ sighs ] We've got Oreos, we've got chips.

Wow.

And we've got grapes and bananas over there.

Ooh!

I love this!

[ chuckles ] WOMAN: Good morning.

Would you like some hot dogs?

[ sighs ] I'm vegetarian.

We have vegetarian hot dogs.

Ah, yes?

Okay.

Okay.

We'll get you some dogs.

We started doing Trail Magic in 2016 when our son hiked the PCT.

I got a lot of Trail Magic when I was on the trail, and I told my parents about it, and so now paying it back.

Oh, it's nice.

Paying it back.

JEFFREY: When you've come across Trail Magic like this, it is just a godsend in the middle of nowhere.

It feels really good.

What's your name?

I'm Ducky's Dad.

Ah, okay.

And you are?

Alexandra.

There's this phenomena known as trail names, and, you know, I'm Ducky's Dad because my son Ducky got the name Ducky on the trail.

I live in the north of France.

It's quite flat.

And you haven't got mountains.

It gets better.

HAROLD: I think probably over 50% are international hikers.

And I think it speaks to the fact that they don't have a lot of long trails in their countries, and this is a pretty famous long trail.

Is it like, uh, a hiker box, or...?

Yes, yes.

Take whatever you want.

Help yourself.

Okay.

[ gasps loudly ] This has got Nutella, whoo!

[ laughs ] Our son Ducky, who did the trail in 2016, he said that there's this thing called hiker hunger, and you just can't get enough calories.

[ ♪♪♪ ] Come on in.

I'm Ducky's Mom.

Hi, nice to meet you.

Oh, man.

What a nice surprise.

HAROLD: A lot of these hikers are losing like 27 pounds in the five months they're on the trail.

With the most fat.

HAROLD: Hey, welcome, guy!

Hello.

I'll take some radioactive soda.

There you go.

[ laughs ] You're gonna be wired.

That's what we need out here, right?

A sugar rush.

How are you guys doing today?

HAROLD: We're doing great.

Would you like a couple hot dogs?

AMY: I only got five more miles to hike today.

Do you have soda, though?

Sodas are right here.

Soda!

AMY: Maybe a hot dog.

HAROLD: You got it.

I've got your dog.

Well, thank you, thank you.

How about some Trail Magic?

MAN: You betcha.

MAN: You get excited because you know that there's a good chance that something's going to be around the corner, but you don't get too excited, because you know there's a chance you'll get there and they've already gone.

But when you realize there's-- you can smell hot dogs or something, then you're like, "Okay, this is gonna be a good one."

[ chuckles ] I've seen the "daddy's dog" and I said, "Oh, I think it's Trail Magic, whoo!"

That is a... How you say in English?

La fete.

Fiesta.

The party.

This is a party, big party!

Are you ready for some Trail Magic?

Sure, yeah, why not?

Yeah, would you like some dogs?

Yes, please.

You have to stare at your feet all day long, basically.

HAROLD: I just love doing it, just to see, you know, the smiles on their faces, the fact that they could be having a bad day and somebody cares about them and is supporting them.

I cook!

[ chuckles ] Okay.

HAROLD: It keeps them going down the road a little farther.

If you could sign our Trail Magic book, that'd be great.

[ ♪♪♪ ] Crossing the PCT is a huge undertaking and pushes the physical and mental limits of many hikers.

MAN: I hadn't spoken to anyone for 48 hours before I got here.

So not only have you got a cold drink and a hot dog, you've got some company for a couple of hours, and that really makes a difference to your mindset as you're walking.

It's definitely appreciated.

It was a pleasure.

Thank you, guys, so much.

Glad we could slow you down a little bit.

HAROLD: These people are on a journey that they will remember the rest of their life, and I can play a small, little part in that.

And I...

I really like doing that.

[ ♪♪♪ ] You can now find many Oregon Field Guide stories and episodes online.

And to be part of the conversation about the outdoors and environment here in the Northwest, join us on Facebook.

[ birds chirping ] Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... Additional support provided by... and the following... and contributing members of OPB and viewers like you.