Published November 1, 2025
by Janet Eastman for Oregon Live
The wind-driven 2020 Almeda fire that destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in southern Oregon also burned down invasive blackberry bushes. Some were as high as six feet along Bear Creek, which flows almost 30 miles past small cities, including Phoenix, until finally reaching the Rogue River.
A section of the creek centered around Phoenix’s Blue Heron Park is now called the Miracle Mile, thanks to off-duty hydrogeologist Robert Coffan accidentally stepping into a long-forgotten spring after the fire.
Coffan’s knowledge of waterways sparked an eco-restoration project that has forever changed the way people experience the area.
Volunteers like Coffan and experts eventually linked the spring once concealed by blackberry bushes to 15 nearby hidden springs. All had been blocked from flowing into Bear Creek 75 years ago by construction to redirect northbound Oregon 99.
A 620-foot-long berm, erected at the time and towering nine feet in places, also obscured the creek from walkers and bikers on the Bear Creek Greenway.
The berm has been removed and people can now put their toes in the water and dream big. Residents are imagining new possibilities, like a bridge over the creek that could connect the east and west sides of the city.
On Saturday, people will gather at Blue Heron Park to celebrate three years of grading that finally allows three of the streams, recognized collectively as Blue Heron Creek, and Bear Creek to reunite.
The free event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 4385 S. Pacific Hwy. highlights Indigenous stewardship of the land.
Activities include a guided walk along the Miracle Mile, tribal arts demonstrations and information on the Oregon Peace Trail initiative.
The initiative aims to connect 308 miles of paths from Oregon City south through Blue Heron Park and along Bear Creek to the World Peace Flame monument in Ashland.
Irene Kai of the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission, who calls the peace flame “the iconic symbol of unity and healing,” will speak at the event.
Ashland-based Lomakatsi Restoration Project hosted the event with the Inter-Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Partnership. For 30 years, the nonprofit Lomakatsi has been restoring ecosystems on a vast scale, including the Bear Creek watershed.
Lomakatsi means “life and balance” in the Hopi language, and founder Marko Bey said since its start in 1995, “Elders have provided leadership and prayer, and they will be there to lead this event.”
Bey and Belinda Brown, who heads Lomakatsi‘s Inter-Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Partnership program, will speak about the beneficial approach of using restoration science and Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge to restore and sustain healthy ecosystems.
“We are bringing people together to connect with the earth and the land in a sacred way,” Brown said.
The event honoring Native American Heritage Month will start with a prayer and land acknowledgement by Dan Wahpepah, followed by singing and drumming by the Wocus Boyz of the Confederated tribes of the Siletz, Teresa Clark of the El Dorado Band of Miwok and Wanbli Wicasa with River Rondeau.
Oregon State University anthropology professor David Lewis, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, will speak on the importance of the land’s ancestral geography.
At the end of the guided walk, where Blue Heron Creek joins Bear Creek, people will be able to see members of the Lomakatsi Inter-Tribal Conservation Corps plant bank-stabilizing willow branches.
Brown said since time immemorial, it has been “aboriginal people’s commission to care for this land,” taking a holistic approach where forests, woodlands and uplands are understood to be tied to the valley bottoms and aquatic habitat.
“It is all of our commission now,” she said.
Many helping hands
“I didn’t ‘discover’ the springs,” said Coffan, who has been working to free the landlocked springs in Blue Heron Park for five years.
“The springs have been here long before any humans,” he said. “We re-found them as a community and that has sparked interest that seems to be growing.”
At an Oct. 25 event celebrating the creeks’ reconnection, participants were given bottles that Coffan filled with Blue Heron Creek spring water to pour into Bear Creek.
“The water will flow wherever it needs to flow,” said Coffan, “into the ground, into the creek. Some of these molecules may flow into the Pacific Ocean, into the gills of the fish, dipped by a great blue heron’s beak. We don’t know and it doesn’t matter.”
The year-round streams provide clean, cool water that support salmon, birds and wildlife wetlands. Like streams to a creek, many volunteers and experts contributed to the Miracle Mile’s eco-restoration project.
Coffan said the ambitious effort started with Save the Phoenix Wetlands, a group concerned about land development after the fire.
Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife provided $250,000 through its Private Forest Accord program to return the land to a more natural state.
The Rogue River Watershed Council led the work of reconnecting Blue Heron Creek to Bear Creek, enhancing habitat and water quality for aquatic life, and creating a place for people to gather.
Boulders hauled in for the berm 75 years ago now serve as seating for a creekside amphitheater, ready for educational and community engagement events.
Coffan has seen the project inspire artists and the Phoenix Art & Culture Council. Outdoor education programs like the Blackberry Academy have embraced it, and people now gather to sit by the newly exposed streams under shady trees, away from the main greenway.
The removal of the dense blackberries also unearthed another forgotten story. In the 1920s, a dairy farm used the springs to keep containers of fresh milk cold.
Visitors to Blue Heron Park can see the concrete footprint of the long-gone milk house.
If you go: A Day of Shared Learning: Elevating Tribal Stewardship, a collaborative event celebrating Indigenous knowledge, cultural renewal and ecological restoration is 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, at Blue Heron Park, 4385 S. Pacific Hwy in Phoenix.