The Grant County Gazette

For Residents:

For Visitors:

Greetings from a remote corner of your world

In the cultural and social senses, things are so different here that we live on another planet. Most of you live in cities because that is where most of the human race lives these days. In Grant County and eastern Oregon generally, we live in the non-city, the un-city, the anti-city. In some ways this can be a burden. Cell phone reception can be spotty. There are many parts of the county where there is no internet. Movie theaters, medical specialists, professional sports and luxury shops are all at least three hours drive from here.

There are compensations. Some of us like an environment where time is measured in seasons instead of gigahertz. For some, seeing bald eagles every morning and elk herds in the evening is better than having a 3D movie theater nearby. This is a place of sun filled days and star filled nights. If you consult a dark sky map, you will see we have some of the darkest skies anywhere. Couple this with elevations that start at around 2000 feet above sea level and our usually dry air and our night sky has a splendor that no city anywhere can match.

For most of us here, wilderness starts at our back door. Nothing is easier than a walk in the woods without another human being in sight. This is the real wilderness with real bears, mountain lions, and wolves. We don't have as many lawyers because you can't sue a bear or rather the bear won't care if you do. Cyclists who are willing to leave the pavement have almost 7000 miles of public roads available for exploration. We have our cultural side too. Grant County is home to one of the largest assemblages of mammal fossils on the planet. We are home to a surprising number of writers, painters, poets, and musicians. People who are passionate about biology, geology anthropology and history find plenty to work with here as well. We are especially eager to reach out beyond to borders of the United States - to welcome visitors from around the world to a special place. We hope that you will find what the Grant County Gazette has to offer educational, enjoyable and enlightening and that you come back often.

We hope everone finds this site useful. If you have any thoughts on how we can make it more useful, please let us know.
Dave Driscoll, editor of The Grant County Gazette