Siuslaw National Forest: The Coast Range Forest Between the Dunes and the River

The Siuslaw National Forest covers about six hundred thirty thousand acres of the Coast Range and coastal lowlands between Lincoln City in the north and Coos Bay in the south. It is the only national forest in the Pacific Northwest with both substantial old-growth forests and ocean frontage. Most of it is not visible from Highway One Oh One. The highway runs close to the coast. The forest is in the hills behind it.

What the Siuslaw has that most national forests do not is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, a forty-mile stretch of coastal dunes between Florence and Coos Bay that is the largest expanse of temperate coastal dunes in North America. The dunes reach heights of five hundred feet and move inland at measurable rates every year, driven by prevailing coastal winds. Where the dunes have migrated over forests, the tops of dead tree snags still protrude from the sand.

The Siuslaw also administers Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, north of Florence, where the visitor center sits on a forested headland at eight hundred feet and the ocean views extend thirty miles in clear conditions. The tide pools at Cook's Chasm and the Spouting Horn below the headland are among the most accessible on the Oregon coast.

The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians have ancestral territory throughout the Siuslaw watershed and coastal zone. The tribe was terminated in nineteen fifty-four and restored in nineteen eighty-four. Their traditional fisheries on the Siuslaw River, the namesake of the forest, ran the length of the river corridor that the Forest Service now manages.

The forest's name comes from the Siuslaw people. The Siuslaw language is a language isolate with no established relationship to any other known language family.