Friday, September 5, 2025 | Vol. 49, Issue 9
www.cannonbeachgazette.com
Russian quake triggers Cannon Beach tsunami advisory WILL CHAPPELL Gazette Editor
Attendees wait to enter a house during the 2024 cottage tour. File Photo
Cottage tour returns September 13 STAFF REPORT
Cannon Beach’s cottage tour will return on September 13, for its 22nd annual edition in support of the Cannon Beach History Center and Museum. This year’s tour will focus on homes in the Tolovana Park neighborhood and features events
on September 12 and 14, in addition to the tour. Friday, September 12, will be the Opening Night Benefit Bash held at the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event includes live music by Gayle Ritt and Mike Soto. There will be food provided by Rainy Day
Boards & Bakery and The Chocolate Café. Drinks will be provided by The Wine Shack and Pelican Brewing Company. There will also be a silent auction. Admission is by donation. Saturday, September 13, will be the Historic Cottage Tour from noon to 5 p.m. A shuttle will be provided
this year due to Tolovana Park being further away from the city center. Tickets are $50 in advance, $55 beginning September 1, and $60 on the day of the tour. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased on the history center’s website or in person at the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum, or over
Portrait of Passion PIERCE BAUGH V for the Gazette
It started when she was ten. The family artist gene kicked in, and Hazel Schlesinger had a desire to paint. While most of her family were musically inclined, brushstrokes won over piano key strokes, and though Schlesinger never met her great-grandmother, she inherited her passion for painting. “It’s interesting, because I get inspired by her,” Schlesinger said of her late greatgrandmother. “Almost like a voice of the ages, where you kind of feel like maybe you know this person through their work.” Many people know Schelsinger through her work. Her paintings have been featured in movies, television and commercials. Northwest by Northwest gallery owner, Joyce Licoln, who has carried Schlesinger’s work for 15 years, said it’s not surprising to be watching television and see one of her pieces appear in the background. Scenic and color-filled, Schlesinger’s work captures some of the most beautiful landscapes and seascapes and presents them to viewers through the prism of gentle brushstrokes. “I love painting the ocean. I was born a block away from the sea,” said Shlesinger. She also has a fondness for abstractions, describing the style as “aha.” “It doesn’t have a recognizable form, but it still makes me go ‘aha,’” Schlessinger said, “because the colors are pleasing, because I can enter the painting and wander around in the painting just through shapes and color.” Specializing in oils and acrylics, she’s known for her plein air approach to painting — “plein air” being a French term for painting outdoors in front of a subject, something she does across the world. “I travel a great deal. I mean, a great deal,”Shlesinger said. Soon,
the phone at 503-436-9301. Sunday, September 14, will be two candle painting workshops, one at 11 a.m., and another at 1 p.m. Tickets are required and can be purchased on the history center’s website or in person at the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum, or over the phone at 503-436-9301.
PIERCE BAUGH V for the Gazette
PHOTO COURTESY NORTH BY NORTHWEST GALLERY
she’ll be returning to Auverssur-Oise in France to paint next to the burial site of Vincent van Gogh. Though van Gogh has long been dead, Schlesinger believes that his work, as well as the work of other painters, continues to speak. “Artists will die, but their voice still comes from the painting. It still communicates,” she said. Schlesinger believes that art is ultimately a form of communication. “Why people need art is probably for communication, for release. I think that people need a visual release,” Schlessinger said. A teacher as well as a painter,
Schlesinger loves to see her students grow as artists and surprise themselves with their skill. For those looking for what they’re passionate about, she advises them not to be afraid to fail a few times. Schlesinger says she would need three lifetimes to adequately pursue her passion for painting. And for her, finding something we love is necessary. “We all need to fall in love with something to do that sustains us.” She will be featured through Northwest by Northwest Gallery at the Stormy Weather Arts Festival, which will be from November 7th to the 9th.
See QUAKE, Page A6
Human Interference Makes a Tough Year for Wildlife Even Tougher Human interference has been negatively impacting Cannon Beach’s wildlife this season
Schlessinger with one of her pieces.
A projected 8.8-magnitude earthquake off the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia triggered a tsunami watch, subsequently upgraded to an advisory, in Cannon Beach and across the United States’s Pacific coast early in the evening of July 29. By midday Wednesday, the alert had been canceled. A tectonic summary of the quake from the United States Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center said that the quake was the largest globally since the 2011 9.0-magnitude Tohoku, Japan earthquake, and among the ten largest since 1900. The earthquake occurred at 12:24 p.m., July 30, local time (4:24 p.m. pacific daylight time, July 29) 80 miles off the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east where the Pacific Plate moves west-northwest against the North American Plate, which extends beyond the continent. The report said that the fault event was likely to have caused a slip around 240 miles long by 85 miles in length and had been preceded by ten days of quakes in the region. In Clatsop County, residents signed up for Everbridge Nixle alerts received a first warning at 5:21 p.m., letting them know that a tsunami watch had been
It hasn’t been an easy year for many of the seabirds that live on Cannon Beach’s Haystack Rock with birds of prey, like bald eagles, disrupting the nesting patterns of the iconic tufted puffins and others like black oystercatchers, causing issues raising chicks. And, on top of that, this summer, human interference has been adding to the challenges. In August, a video was released showing someone aiming a laser at Haystack Rock, where puffins nest, resulting in the abandonment of chicks. While Jenny Gooldy of the Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) is glad that the incident was captured on video, she believes more could have been done to intervene: “We wish they would have just gone one step further and just called PD,” Gooldy said, “and PD would have been more than happy to come down there and see if they could figure out what’s going on.” Unfortunately, the laser incident hasn’t been the only human disturbance Cannon Beach’s wildlife have experienced this season. Gooldy received reports of people climbing on Haystack Rock at night, which affects birds like black oyster catchers. Black
oystercatchers have already had a difficult season for raising chicks and human interference has caused a pair to lose their chicks. Common murres are a non -nesting species of birds that keep their eggs on the rocks. If disturbed, the birds will flee, leaving their eggs vulnerable. In an egregious incident of human interference, over the summer, a helicopter hovered over Haystack Rock, flushing birds from their burrows. The incident was reported to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Last month in Seaside, people tried harvesting 33 sea stars from the beach, putting the sea stars in Ziploc bags. People who witnessed the illegal harvesting intervened, preventing the theft and calling the police. The culprits have not been found, but the onlookers’ intervention made a meaningful difference. HRAP had noticed mussel harvesting at Haystack Rock, where it isn’t permitted. “Yes, you can harvest mussels. You can get licenses. There are areas to do it, but Haystack Rock is a protected state garden. Those mussels are food for our sea stars,” says Gooldy. Making things even more chilling for HRAP is people’s lack of understanding of the ecological significance of Haystack Rock. “We’ve had people push back and go, it’s just a rock,” Gooldy said. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, but they’re endangered.’ There are animals on that rock that are species of concern.’ See WILDLIFE, Page A3