It’s been a year of extremes: heat domes and ice storms, flooding and drought, political violence and peaceful protests. It’s been a year of poverty and abundance, life and death. As we look back on 2021, here are some of the images that will linger on in our memories.
A trio pushes a car spinning out near the Sunset Transit Center in Portland, Feb. 12, 2021. Heavy snow and ice that blanketed the Pacific Northwest left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in February, in some cases for days.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Door Dash driver Nalik Jackson of Portland struggles to put on snow chains in Beaverton, Feb. 12, 2021, so he can complete a food delivery. Heavy snow and ice that blanketed the Pacific Northwest left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in February, in some cases for days.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Brooke Penaluna and Kevin Weitemier filter samples of river water on the banks of the Santiam River's south fork east of Cascadia, Ore., Wednesday, March 10, 2021. These tiny scoops of water are unlocking worlds of information about Oregon watersheds with environmental DNA, or eDNA.
Bradley W. Parks
A great gray owl perches beside an open meadow near Sunriver, Ore., Friday, March 26, 2021, after being released from the wildlife hospital. The owl struck a residential window, which caused hemorrhaging behind his eye. Great gray owls are known as "ghosts of the forest" because they're so hard to find. I felt fortunate to meet this handsome fellow up close.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Family members of Robert Delgado, from left to right: his brother Kirkpatrick Fries, niece Savannah Dennis, 10, sister Paulette Martin, and daughters Kennedy Garrett, 24, and Madison Scott, 30, on Friday, April 23, 2021. Delgado was killed by Portland Police in Lents Park earlier in the month.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Nikeisah Newton talks with customers during the Come Thru BIPOC market at The Redd on May 17, 2021. Newton founded Meals 4 Heels in 2019, a meal delivery service catering to Portland’s sex worker community. Newton has since started serving food from a space at The Redd.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
An evening demonstration held on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death was a contrast to the peaceful demonstration held earlier in the day, May 25, 2021, in Portland. A crowd of approximately 150 people, most dressed in black, lit a dumpster on fire outside of the Multnomah County Justice Center, then walked through downtown breaking windows and painting graffiti before the crowd finally dispersed.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Marty Swinehart picks up litter and debris near Southwest Columbia Street and Southwest 13th Avenue in Portland, June 24, 2021.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Autumn Muir picks stalks of native and invasive grasses for comparison outside Paisley, Ore., Monday, June 28, 2021.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Record-breaking heat contributed to more than 500 deaths across the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. and Canada. Here, an unnamed man slumps over a garbage can as the temperature rises to over 110 degrees in Portland, June 28, 2021.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
A woman who goes only by Jamie helps her dog Prince into a swimming pool at a homeless camp under an overpass on June 29, 2021, in Southeast Portland. Temperatures in the city reached 116 degrees at the peak of the summer's deadly heatwave.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB
Keifah Sayed, far right, takes a selfie with friends and family to capture the celebration for Eid Al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday, at Hillsboro Stadium in Hillsboro.
Hanin Najjar / OPB
Portlanders rally against the renewing the city's contract with Clean & Safe on July 27, 2021. Downtown Portland Clean & Safe, a nonprofit that provides extra security and cleaning services over a 213-block area of the central city has been criticized over how private security guards paid by the district treat people experiencing homelessness and whether those guards should be armed. The contract was ultimately renewed.
Hanin Najjar / OPB
Men and women raise flags to honor slain Clark County Sheriff's Office Detective Jeremy Brown on Aug. 3, 2021. Brown died July 23 while investigating a trio suspected in a firearms heist, records show.
Troy Brynelson / OPB
An array of masks is displayed for the "Be Nice (White) You're In Bend" exhibit at Scalehouse in Bend, Ore., Friday, Aug. 6, 2021. The masks represent the ways many BIPOC people feel they must mask who they really are in the very white community of Bend.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
A biker dressed as Commander Data from Star Trek Next Generation holds up the Vulcan hand signal for "Live long and prosper" at Pedalpalooza's Star Trek ride in Southeast Portland, Tuesday, Aug. 5.
Hanin Najjar / OPB
Jennifer "JJ" Jones stands in the background of diorama she made in celebration of the Agnes Varda Forever film festival. She was one of two Portland artists who used street art to celebrate the work of the iconic French filmmaker, ahead of the August festival held in Portland.
Claudia Meza / OPB
Proud Boy Tusitala "Tiny" Toese raises a beer during the group's "Summer of Love" rally in Northeast Portland's Parkrose neighborhood on Aug. 22, 2021, in Portland, Oregon. The Proud Boys and anti-fascist counterprotesters engaged in a violent brawl for about an hour throughout the neighborhood.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB
Simultaneous rallies between the Proud Boys and anti-fascists culminated in a shooting in downtown Portland, Ore., Aug. 22, 2021. Dennis Anderson, 65, of Gresham, gets into a brief firefight with anti-fascists. Witnesses say Anderson made racist remarks to two people and pulled a gun after a crowd confronted him for being racist.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB
Kellogg Middle School in southeast Portland on Sept. 1, 2021. The school was one of two Portland Public Schools buildings that students entered for the first time this year. Many students had not been in any school buildings for over a year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elizabeth Miller / OPB
Anthony Tashnick rides a wake on a surfboard on the Willamette River in Portland. As the river gets cleaner, it’s also getting overcrowded, prompting new boating restrictions aimed at reducing conflicts among river users in congested areas.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
Sean McConville (Nez Perce, Yakama) pulls in netted salmon with the help of two other fishermen at the Avery Treaty Fishing site on the Columbia River Gorge, Sept. 17, 2021.
Arya Surowidjojo / OPB
Franklin High School student Grace Wilde speaks through a bullhorn while she and other youths march to Portland City Hall on Sept. 24, 2021, to urge policymakers to act to curb carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.
Monica Samayoa / OPB
Adah Crandall marches to Portland City Hall on Sept. 24, 2021, to urge policymakers to act to curb carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. It was the first such public gathering since before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Monica Samayoa / OPB
Hikers stand atop Tam McArthur Rim in the Three Sisters Wilderness outside Bend, Ore., on Sept. 24, 2021.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
People trap juvenile fish stranded in a side channel of the Deschutes River on Oct. 18, 2021. Without intervention, the fish would be left without water and die as flows are diverted upstream to refill Wickiup reservoir.
Emily Cureton Cook / OPB
A Mercedes is parked on the street near a tent painted with the words “get money” on Northwest Glisan Street in Portland, Nov. 9, 2021.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Farmer and Camas Country Mill owner Tom Hunton inspects his field of einkorn wheat—an heirloom grain that harks back to the Fertile Crescent.
Arya Surowidjojo / OPB
A memorial to Kevin Peterson Jr. commemorates the anniversary of his fatal shooting during an attempted drug sting. Peterson is one of eight people — including five people of color — killed by law enforcement in Clark County since 2019.
Troy Brynelson / OPB
Flooding from the Salmon River in Otis, Oregon, on Nov. 12, 2021. Heavy rains drenched coastal communities in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington, stranding livestock and prompting evacuations.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
A family of four arrives at Portland International Airport, Nov. 20, 2021, some of the hundreds of refugees who have recently made their way from Afghanistan to Oregon. The state has plans to welcome over 570 people by end of February 2022.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Juliette Fernandez, right, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky and Doug Kruger with the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership dig holes for wapato bulbs in the newly restored wetlands at the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge on Nov. 22, 2021.
Cassandra Profita / OPB
On Dec. 7, 2021, demonstrators marched from the Deschutes County courthouse to a memorial for Barry Washington Jr., after 27-year-old Ian M. Cranston pleaded not guilty in Washington's killing. A trial date has been set for November 2022.
Emily Cureton Cook / OPB
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Joel Ophoff cradles a Lost River sucker hand-caught in the Williamson River. Ophoff is part of a crew collecting fertilized eggs from the fish to raise in a conservation hatchery.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
Beavers are known as "nature's engineers" because of the way they reshape the landscape with dams and canals, turning simple streams into messy wetlands. Science shows beavers make landscapes more resistant to wildfire and drought, inspiring a growing movement to partner with them against the worst effects of climate change.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
Honey drips from the extractor at the Southpaw Bees facility in Lebanon, Oregon, July 15, 2021
Hanin Najjar / OPB
