2 min
Overview
Two Lake Oswego parks, Bryant Woods Nature Park and Canal Acres Natural Area, offer trails through forest, thickets, and meadow in the vicinity of the old Oswego Canal (not to be confused with the much larger waterway in New York). The latter was constructed between 1871 and 1873 using Chinese labor, and was meant as a passage for steamboats traveling between the Tualatin River, Oswego Lake, and the Willamette. The headgate at the Tualatin now serves to regulate water levels in the lake. Ironically, the route of the canal follows the former channel of the Tualatin River which became dammed by sediment during the Missoula Floods at the end of the last ice age. This created Oswego Lake, and forced the Tualatin into a new channel on its course to meet the Willamette. While some trails in Bryant Woods can be under water at times, this is an excellent birdwatching spot, and there is an interesting array of spring wildflowers. Canal Road extends from the parking area. Walk towards a shelter, but before reaching it, go left on a boardwalk and into a thicket of cottonwoods, hawthorn, big-leaf maple, salal, hazel, sword fern, Douglas-fir, and Indian plum. At a junction, go left on a rocky tread. The trail winds right to another junction and you go left across a creek that issues from nearby Indian Springs on a shaky, makeshift log crossing. The trail heads up a slope and then drops. Pass a spur and at a junction, go straight on a wide trail into Douglas-fir woods. You can see the grassy expanse in the center of the park on the right. Small clumps of camas bloom here in mid-spring. At a junction, head up to the left and then to the right along the rim of the park, with homes to the left. The trail drops down the slope. The main trail goes right and then left. Enter a clearing rimmed by rose bushes and keep left in the meadow. Finally, reach Canal Road and go straight. There’s a network of use trails in the narrow strip between the road and the abandoned canal. Douglas-firs shade this strip and one has fallen to bridge t
Trail Stats
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12 m
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Photos
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400px-BryantWoodsCanalAcresMap
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