Sparks will fly as Blacksmith Week returns to Government Camp

By Justin Andress, The Mountain Times

The historic Forest Service buildings of Government Camp will once again ring with the sound of hammer on anvil as the Cascadia Center for Arts and Crafts hosts its annual Blacksmith Week, Aug. 12-16.

The event — the only public-facing gathering CCAC puts on all year — brings master blacksmiths from across the Pacific Northwest to Mt. Hood to demonstrate a craft that predates the mountain's oldest cabins. Just don't come expecting a carnival.

"What somebody would expect would be a pretty humble setup," says CCAC president Lisa Riversong. "A really tight camaraderie of ironworkers of the Pacific Northwest."

That camaraderie runs deep. The organization has been putting on blacksmithing demonstrations in some form for at least 20 years (minus an understandable gap during the COVID years). The tradition itself is strong enough to draw smiths from Central Oregon, the Portland area, Seattle, and the rural corners of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, many of them veterans of the Northwest Blacksmith Association and like-minded groups.

This year's invited demonstrators are a well-traveled bunch: Patrick Maher of Seattle's Blu Skillet Ironware, the Bushey brothers, Aaron and Jesse, of Bushey Ironworks, Evan Scott of Knob Hill Forge in Chesaw, Washington, and Ben Czyhold of Artificer Forge in Kennewick, Washington. Between them, they've apprenticed across the Northeast, Europe and the West, and their work runs from hand-forged cookware to sculpture, gates, and railings.

Outside of those established talents, the setting itself has history to spare. CCAC began as an umbrella organization under the Mt. Hood Museum and Cultural Center in Government Camp, holding its first classes in the museum's basement. As the program grew, it took over a cluster of historic Forest Service buildings — cabins that once housed forest service personnel and have since been revamped into studio space, plus a working blacksmith shop that has stood on the site since the 1930s.

"It sounds like it's one space, like a huge, beautiful, big center," Riversong says, "[It’s] a collection of some historic Forest Service buildings that have been revamped as studio space and a blacksmith shop."

Throughout the event, a schedule of invited demonstrators will showcase techniques both traditional and modern — most of them weave the two together — transforming raw metal in front of anyone who cares to stop and watch. Riversong describes the smiths at work as "doing their dance," and encourages visitors to "watch them demonstrate and create some beautiful artwork with their craft."

Those hoping to take some of that artwork home should seek out Czyhold, who sets up a classic forging rig near the Mazama trailhead, where he both demonstrates and sells his work. Don't expect a sprawling bazaar beyond that, though. On-site sales require a special agreement with the Forest Service, and CCAC prefers not to press its luck. "We don't set up a marketplace like a farmer's market or anything like that," Riversong says, "just because we don't want to risk our operating permit."

Instead, Blacksmith Week serves as the nonprofit's annual fundraiser. Together with its regular classes, the event covers the considerable, year-round cost of keeping five historic cabins operational.

For families, the week fills a particular niche. CCAC's two-day blacksmithing classes, which run nearly every weekend, are restricted to ages 18 and up. Blacksmith Week, by contrast, welcomes all ages — with one caveat that becomes self-explanatory the moment a length of glowing steel emerges from the forge. The demonstrations are strictly watch-only.

"This is an opportunity to kind of close up the summer and have that camaraderie," Riversong says, "and to be able to invite the general public to be a part of that at all ages."

Practicing smiths can take advantage of one perk: an open forge on Friday night. Run as a casual open studio, the open forge allows anyone who blacksmiths to work alongside masters of the craft. "It's pretty relaxed," Riversong says. "It's a really cool setting."

Riversong is quick to credit the event to the center's master blacksmiths — the same instructors who teach its weekend classes — rather than to herself. "I am an artist," she says, "but I'm not a blacksmith artist."

Admission is available in one-day and three-day tickets, with adult, student, and family pricing. Details, along with photographs from Blacksmith Weeks past, can be found on the CCAC website.