HOW TO MAKE A HAYSTACK BREAD It is midnight and Cannon Beach is silent and dark, but in the back of the Cannon Beach Bakery, co-owner Dan Christensen is just getting to work. Along with assistant baker Rafael Juarez, Dan is preparing loaves of his signature bread, the Haystack. He has had plenty of experience with this particular item, since he produces over 10,000 loaves of Haystack bread every year. It is a must-have purchase for many returning visitors. "It's a cross between a French bread and a white bread," says Christensen as he cuts 1.4-pound chunks off of a huge slab of glistening, yellow dough, weighs them and rolls them into balls. "It's all hand done, from a hard-gluten flour mixed with sugar, shortening, milk, salt and water." He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt under his baking apron, and with his white moustache and friendly eyes, he looks a little bit like a taller Geppeto from Pinocchio. His father was a baker in Denmark before moving the family to Eugene, and Dan has been baking for over forty years, since he was twelve years old. Making Haystack Bread at the Cannon Beach Bakery While the bread rises, the bakers mix flour, cinnamon and yeast for a cinnamon-raisin bread, prepare another dough for apple-cinnamon loaves ("It makes killer French toast," said Dan) and prepare an enormous, 30-pound slab of dough for the five varieties of doughnuts that will appear on the bakery's shelves in the morning. There are cakes and Danish to produce before the night is finished, as well as croissants, rolls and turnovers. Dan reaches into a cabinet and hands me a Swedish Tosca pastry - almond cakes with a layer of raspberry jam, dipped in chocolate. Delicious. "That's my favorite thing," he says, smiling. I think it's mine now, too. At one a.m., when the Haystacks have risen, Dan and Rafael grab the balls of dough, slap them hard on the big, butcher-block baking counter, fold them twice and roll them into balls. Rafael places each ball onto an oiled pan, and then zips them up under a plastic-covered baking rack for the second rise. Before baking, a topping of rice flour with sugar and salt will be added, giving the Haystack its distinctive rough coating. In the morning, they'll be snapped up by locals and visitors, or even shipped - "We sent one to Pennsylvania last week," said Dan. One of these days, I vow, I'll have to eat a Haystack Bread while sitting on Haystack Rock. Only at Cannon Beach can one achieve such cosmic symmetry.

MANAGER'S CHOICE: TOP-5 THINGS TO DO AND SEE Ben Van Osdol, the manager of Mo's restaurant at Cannon Beach, grew up on the Oregon coast and offered his list of favorite things to do: 1) VISIT ANY BEACH. "Stand there and take in the vast openness of the sea." 2) SEE THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. "Some of the most treacherous waters on Earth are where the Columbia meets the Pacific." 3) TOUR ASTORIA. "If you like old, historic buildings, it's the place to go. I love going by the second, lesser-known Flavel House at 15th & Grand. It's the nicest house in Astoria." 4) CLIMB A MOUNTAIN. "I like to go to Saddle Mountain State Park on Highway 26 and hike to the top for a lookout over the whole coast." 5) TALK TO A LOCAL. "Get to know people here; it's a very friendly community." BAKER'S CHOICE: TOP-5 LIST FROM THE CANNON BEACH BAKERY'S DAN CHRISTENSEN 1) GO TO ECOLA STATE PARK FOR THE VIEWS AND HIKING 2) HIT THE BEACH! "It's always great." 3) VISIT ARCADIA STATE PARK 4) SHOP 'TILL YOU DROP AT CANNON BEACH'S STORES 5) RIDE BIKES THROUGH TOWN. "Stop in and see us and sign our guestbook: People come from all over."

TAKE A HIKE TO THE TILLAMOOK HEAD VIEWPOINT IN ECOLA STATE PARK ANOTHER LEWIS & CLARK BLUBBER STORY CLICK HERE FOR A 360-DEGREE VIEW OF THE COASTER THEATRE READ ALL ABOUT IT: THE OREGON.COM GAZETTE Want to read up on local stories and issues? The Seaside Signal is the community newspaper of the north coast, and covers the communities of Cannon Beach and Seaside.

LOVED IT LIKE A ROCK
by Jim Gullo, for Oregon.com

Rock of Ages: Haystack Rock at dusk

It took me about twenty minutes to figure out that even though you may come to the northern Oregon communities of Cannon Beach and Seaside for any number of reasons -- the beaches, the ocean views, the clam chowder, the recreational opportunities -- you stay for the rock. You look for the rock, you photograph the rock…you basically fall in love with the rock. I did, and I'm not ashamed to say so. I'm so taken with this particular rock that I'm gazing at it as I write this, after moving my comfy leather chair to frame a better view of the rock through my patio door. It is my new main squeeze, the object of my affections, my pet rock. This is my touching story.

The rock in question here is Haystack Rock, a 235-foot basalt monolith that juts straight up out of the ocean just a few feet offshore from the town of Cannon Beach. It dominates the landscape from Tolovana Beach to the south, all the way through Cannon Beach to the slopes of Tillamook Head, the rocky headland that separates Cannon Beach from the neighboring resort town of Seaside (and is not to be confused with the cheese-making town of Tillamook, forty miles south of Cannon Beach on Highway 101). It is, in fact, the third-largest coastal monolith on the planet. With its supporting cast of rocky islets that dot the ocean landscape here - including the Tillamook Lighthouse that sits on a solitary island, two miles off-shore -- Haystack looks like something that the rugged Coast Range of mountains coughed up and spat out into the water, a geologic afterthought and a kind of fond farewell to the continental landmass.

It is beautiful in its way, but the words that my rock evoke have less to do with pretty, and more to do with rugged, imposing, wild. From where I sit, in an oceanfront room at the Tolovana Inn, one of several local lodgings that offer great views of Haystack Rock, the cold, relentless Pacific Ocean is showing five separate wave breaks as it rolls onto a hard, sandy shore. When a storm kicks up and the winds start to blow, the waves merge into a single giant cauldron of spray and foam and surge. This is not a watery landscape that beckons, like a Hawaiian bay or a South Pacific lagoon. "Stand back and admire me," the ocean here says, "but enter at your own risk." As if to prove the point, the waves batter the ocean side of Haystack Rock and its two satellites that are appropriately called The Needles, throwing up great plumes of spray.

There are many rocks around the world that travelers go to admire: Diamond Head on Oahu, Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro, the white cliffs of Dover. Haystack Rock is as significant to Oregon as those signature rocks are to their locales. I couldn't keep my eyes off it as I explored the area.

CHOWDER, SLAW AND A ROCK

Ocean Avenue in Cannon Beach

That big ocean has a magnetic quality, and my first order of business was to allow myself to be drawn to it. Lemming-like, I walked the sands of Tolovana Beach, but not to throw myself into the chilly Pacific. I was looking for food, and found it at Mo's, the chain of friendly seafood-and-chowder restaurants that dot the Oregon coast. Here, the restaurant sits right on the sand - on stormy days, the waves can crash onto the restaurant's windows, said manager Ben Van Osdol - and the views of the surf and Haystack Rock are superb.

I ordered the signature clam chowder, which puts me in good company. "Chain-wide, we sell 500,000 gallons of it a year," said Van Osdol, "and on a good day here, we go through 120 to 180 gallons of soup." Creamy with milk and dotted with butter, it made a fine, hearty meal with a side order of coleslaw topped with bay shrimp.

Thus fortified, I set out to explore. The population of Cannon Beach ranges from 1,000 to 1,600 people - "depending on how you count the second-home owners," said Kim Bosse, Executive Director of the local Chamber of Commerce -- and visitors to the area top 750,000 a year. There are 22 restaurants registered with the Chamber, from pizza joints to fine-dining venues, and 1,189 hotel rooms, many of which, like mine, provide epic ocean views. There are also numerous vacation rental properties, and I set out to find two of them, always with the thought, of course, of getting closer to my favorite rock. One charming cottage on Neilson Street, which is located on the rocky outcropping between Tolovana and downtown Cannon Beach, framed my favorite Haystack in the picture windows of its living room. Another, called the Crabshack, was a historic, wooden home on Ocean Avenue with a patio that was steps away from the wide, sandy beach in the middle of town. Both properties are available through Cannon Beach Property Management, which, according to owner Tami Florer, has 44 such homes to lease on a short-term basis.

I reflected on all this while munching on a chunk of Haystack Bread from the Cannon Beach Bakery, a fine white loaf that, unlike its namesake rock, is light and chewy and makes darned good sandwiches. See the rock, eat the rock, be the rock.

GETTING TO KNOW MY ROCK

Down North Hemlock Street from the bakery, the Coaster Theatre was preparing for another season of shows. Built in the '20s as a roller rink, the theater has become one of the great community stages in Oregon since it became a playhouse in 1972. As manager Pia Shepherd explained, the theater stages new shows throughout the year, including Bus Stop and Dames at Sea this spring, and in the summer, it becomes a full-blown repertory theater, with three shows running at once. "That way, people who visit can take in several shows over the course of a week," she said. Slated for the summer of 2009 are the farcical Bullshot Crummond, Sherlock's Secret Life, and Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn. A big, extravagant staging of Hello Dolly! will finish this year's season in November and December.

As I watched, director Tyson Stephenson was directing his actors in preparation for William Inge's Bus Stop. And who was playing the lead role of Bo Decker, the amorous cowboy? None other than Ben Van Osdol, the manager from Mo's restaurant. Paths cross often in a small, close-knit community like Cannon Beach, and Stephenson explained that most of the actors who tread the boards at the Coaster live on the coast between Astoria and Tillamook. It truly is a community theater.

View from Indian Beach Lookout

I spent the afternoon visiting Ecola State Park, which occupies the Tillamook Head bluff on the north side of Cannon Beach and has hiking trails, picnic areas, and striking views and access to Indian Beach, a crescent of protected sand that is a favorite of area surfers. The parking lot above Indian Beach is said to be a great place to watch for the whale migration that takes place in these waters in November and March. As I left, I happened upon a herd of elk grazing alongside Highway 101, another testament to this wild, rugged landscape where the mountains meet the sea.

By dusk, I decided to get even more familiar with my favorite rock. I never realized that Haystack Rock was so close to shore, and indeed, at low tides you can walk right up to it. I strolled down long, wide Cannon Beach as the waves crashed and the ever-present wind sent fine streams of sand scuttling across the surface of the beach and collecting into polyglot drifts. The eastern side of the monolith was exposed, and showed a boulder field of barnacle-encrusted rocks and shallow tidepools. Several seastars in orange and red had attached themselves to the base of the Haystack, and waited for the tide to return.

During the summer, you can explore the rock up close through guided nature tours offered by the city of Cannon Beach's Haystack Rock Awareness Program, which meets on the beach every day at low tide from April 1st through the summer months. "We teach the public about the tide pools and the puffin nests on the north side of the rock," said program coordinator Lisa Sheffield Guy. "We see sea-stars, crabs, anemones and my personal favorite, the nudibranchs or sea slugs." School groups, she added, can book private tours with the department's volunteer environmentalists.

My favorite rock deserves nothing less than such heartfelt admiration. Tell her hello for me when you go to visit.

Elk grazing alongside Highway 101

Bartender Dave Butler pours a round at the American Legion, Cannon Beach