Southeastern Oregon Is Now Home to the World’s Largest 'Dark Sky Sanctuary' (2024)

It’s called sky glow: that orange-gray film blooming from the horizon of a city after dark, coating the night in a dull murk. Caused by artificial light pouring into the sky and scattering through the atmosphere, it’s the reason you’re unlikely to see stars from somewhere like Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Look at a light pollution map of the US, and nearly everything east of the Mississippi is agleam. On a clear night in Portland, were you to start tallying the visible stars, you’d likely top out around 200.

But there are still a few expanses of the country where a skyward gaze finds velvety blackness, the dusty ring of the Milky Way, and too many stars to count. One of those places is southeastern Oregon, a 2.5-million-acre swath of which was certified in March as the largest “dark sky sanctuary” in the world—and, if all goes according to plan, will soon expand to 11.4 million acres, reaching across Lake, Harney, and Malheur counties.

The designation came from DarkSky International, a nonprofit that works to protect night skies from light pollution. It was the culmination of a four-year process involving sky quality measurements, public outreach, and (no joke) an inventory of every single outdoor light bulb in the area. Eight federal and state agencies—90 percent of the land is publicly owned—had to agree to a rigorous lighting management plan.

“I had to pinch myself, really pinch myself, on the day the news came,” says Dawn Nilson, a Portland-based environmental consultant and amateur astronomer who authored the application. “All my peers in advocacy thought this was too ambitious. [But] you have to commit to a lofty idea, or else the needle doesn’t move.”

The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary, as it’s officially named, comprises a rugged, sparsely populated part of the state where scrubby sagebrush plains give way to dramatic fault-block escarpments and shallow alkali lakes. A few small, unincorporated communities—Adel, Plush, and Summer Lake, the last known for its charmingly ramshackle hot springs—dot the area, but you’re as likely to spot American pronghorn or bighorn sheep as you are people.

When Nilson talks about moving the needle, she means drawing attention to the damaging effects of artificial light. Astronomers were the first to sound the alarm on light pollution in the 1970s, but since then—and especially over the last 15 years, as nights have grown ever brighter—there’s been more research on the issue. Studies show that artificial light confuses circadian rhythms, leading to disturbed sleep and potentially increasing risk of health problems such as depression, diabetes, and cancer.

For wildlife, nighttime light can affect reproduction, nesting, and foraging. Sea turtle hatchlings scuttle inland to urban glow rather than to the moonlit ocean. Nocturnal pollinators are much less likely to visit plants under bright illumination. Migratory birds, including many of the one billion that pass through southeastern Oregon on the Pacific Flyway, depend on the night sky for navigation and are thrown off course by artificial light.

“It’s another stressor in an environment full of stressors on wildlife,” Nilson says. “And not just wildlife—you can see changes in a bean crop.” (Indeed: plants also have circadian rhythms, and artificial light can scramble cues about when to flower or to drop leaves.)

As attention to light pollution has grown, so too has an interest in traveling far from its reach. National parks host stargazing festivals and night sky programs. Amateur astronomers gather to throw star parties; in Oregon, one takes place July 30 to August 4 in the Ochoco National Forest.A certification from DarkSky International—the organization has granted more than 200 across the world—serves as a powerful marketing tool, and recent years have seen a significant uptick in applications.

Just two other Oregon destinations, Prineville Reservoir State Park and Sunriver Nature Center & Observatory, have received designations from DarkSky. But according to Bob Hackett, executive director of Travel Southern Oregon and a facilitator of the Outback nomination, more could be coming. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon Caves National Monument, Cottonwood Canyon State Park, and Wallowa Lake State Park are all, he says, “at early engagement levels with DarkSky.”

Ana Reservoir RV Park, a 24-site campground in Summer Lake, removed or replaced several of its fixtures to reduce light at night. Manager Alicia Waters, who grew up in the area and got her first telescope at 14, was a champion of the effort, which she says has been met with appreciation by the stargazers who’ve long booked stays at the park. Waters lived for a while in Grants Pass and says the Outback’s dark skies helped bring her home. “I’ve been other places, and the skies are not comparable,” she says. “It’s just amazingly dark, especially in the winter, and the whole Milky Way comes out. It’s brilliant, and I kind of forget that not everybody has that.”

Waters has occasionally set up a telescope to show visitors Saturn’s rings or the shadows of Jupiter’s moons. She loves seeing the wonder it sparks. “When you’ve been in the Portland area where you never see the stars, you come out here, and it makes even the adults turn into kids,” she says. “They’re like, Wow, I didn’t know there were that many stars. Because until you come to a place like this, you don’t realize how dark it can be.”