Hopkins Demonstration Forest is a 140-acre privately-owned forest open to the public for self-guided exploration, tours, workshops, and education programs. We welcome guests during daylight hours, seven days a week throughout the year. Property maps are available at the information kiosk near our main parking area.
Five miles of trails crisscross our woodland, connecting you with a variety of habitats and forestry demonstrations. Enjoy a peaceful walk on our Watershed Interpretive Trail to see how we manage the riparian area to protect water quality in Little Buckner Creek. Families and groups enjoy the Cedar Grove Picnic Shelter, while Scouts and schools like to meet in our amphitheater. There's something for everyone and something different in every season at Hopkins Demonstration Forest where learning and growing go hand in hand.
Dosha, in partnership with Aveda Institute Portland, has focused for many years to raise awareness and funds to contribute to local non-profit organizations who have an environmental impact in our Pacific NW. Together we have raised over $100,000 throughout the past 10 years. We are pleased to announce our 2019 non-profit recipient is an outstanding organization, Hopkins Demonstration Forest! We believe that #ForestsForever can make a difference in so many ways. Here is what you can expect and how you can get involved! Thank you for your support! ~ Dosha Salon Spa
If you are looking for a new or different location to have a meeting, retreat, conference, or reception consider the newly built classroom-meeting facility which we call "Everett Hall" located at the Hopkins Demonstration Forest.
We are excited to announce that the reconstruction of the Molalla Log House at Hopkins Demonstration Forest will begin this summer, with grant funds from the Kinsman Foundation. The logs of the building have been in a storage warehouse since 2015, awaiting a site for long term placement, stewardship and educational interpretation. In 2017 the Board of Forests Forever, Inc. agreed to provide the Molalla Log House a new home.
Hopkins is the perfect location for this rare historic log building, where it will be a part of the overall educational programming for students and visitors. Here it will be interpreted for its wood craftsmanship and historic association. All rehabilitation work has been done carefully by experts in woodcraft to ensure that the logs and design of the building retain its historic integrity and that it is preserved to the greatest possible extent.
The building will be sited near the newly constructed ponds at Hopkins and will present a fitting historic landscape for this unique and highly crafted log building. The Molalla Log House may be the oldest building in Oregon, if not the entire Pacific Northwest. It was made of Douglas fir, without the use of nails, and was possibly felled in the forest and hewn by axe by fur hunters and trappers who migrated from Canada over the Rocky Mountains in the late 1790s.
The craftsmanship indicates that the original creators were expert builders who had learned their craft from centuries old techniques. The logs were hewn square and stacked horizontally to create a tight fitting 1 ½ story, 18’ by 25’ log building. Prior to dismantling the log building for preservation and rehabilitation in 2008, the beautiful half dovetail notching held the corners of the building together securely for over 200 years in the Molalla region of the foothills of the Cascades.
Even after 12 years of careful study of the building and its possible history, the origins of the Molalla Log House remain a mystery. The original builders did not write in journals or document the building or their early stay in the wilderness of the Oregon Territory. What they did leave is evidence of their brief occupation – an example of expert woodcraft and a fortified log building that stood on the landscape for two centuries – which was probably later used by French Canadian Freemen fur hunters, early American pioneer farmers and later 20th century owners.
You can join our team and help support the educational programs offered at Hopkins by becoming Friend of Hopkins today.