Blog Description

Weekly Posts Concerning my Sabbatical Research and Writing Project


Friday, December 7, 2012

Final Post for 2012

I am taking a break for the holidays from writing until January.  I have lots of data to go through, analyze and enter into my GIS database. That will keep me busy for the month.  I plan to leave for Idaho again after Christmas.

 

I have created a E-Portfolio site.  I am going to add an assignment to my Introduction to Human Communication course for my students to create one for themselves.  I stole this assignment from Dr. Arini's Writing Creative Nonfiction course, one of the best on-line courses I have taken at MCC.  I recommend this one to anyone who writes seriously.  CRW180


Here is the link to my portfolio site.

https://sites.google.com/a/mesacc.edu/bruce-a-peterson/welcome

 

It still needs editing, of course, but the idea is that it is an ongoing process of updating and improving. I hope you do not find it too tiresome or vain.  


I will return to blogging from Idaho in January; until then, Merry Christmas, Hanuka and may 2013 pursue you with Grace.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Heading Back to Arizona for the Holidays

Pink and I are packing up today, hoping to hit the road in the morning, Saturday.  I will be returning to the Canyon after Christmas, but Pink hasn't decided what she is going to do, stay at home or come back with me.  When I get back, I will no longer be up here on the snowy prairie but  down in the Canyon embraced in her arms.

I still have court records to search in the two Prairie court houses in Grangeville and Nez Perce, but I have plenty of data to sort through for the month of December before I am ready to give organized search terms to the Court Recorders.  They have to request the actual courtroom transcripts from an archive in Boise.  I will send them the search parameters before I leave Arizona, so the records will be here when I get back.  Court cases are tremendous sources for a historian.  Because the transcripts are taken down word for word you can write in dialogue, moving from past tense to a present tense voice which enlivens any story.  There is a great story about Peter Licker shooting Fabian Laizer over a dispute concerning Fabian's housekeeper in "A Brief History of the Flying B Ranch", an article I wrote back in 2000.
Moon rise over the Canyon

Being back down in the Canyon will be warmer, sheltered and even mystical.  I'm looking forward to a few months of intimacy with the subject of my prose.  Wallace Stegner wrote, "No place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments." Then he went on and added, "Fictions serve as well as facts."*  I will make sure my readers know what are fictions, what are facts and most important what are myths, but to capture the spirit of a place, Stegner is right, the story of place is more than just facts.  


Cali insisting I scratch behind her ears.
Well, it is time to pack up my computer and prairie office, head down to the Canyon to bring Cali back to Redneck Joe and  spend one last night in the bosom of Lawyer's Canyon before we head to the Valley of the Sun for a brown Christmas, where every December day is just another perfect day.





* Wallace Stegner, The Sense of Place, Random House, 1992.




Monday, November 26, 2012

Joseph of Lawyer Canyon

My younger brother Joe lives in Lawyer Canyon.  He is famous for his dumpster diving escapades, his dedication to frugality, and he posted this on Facebook the other day.  I thought it should be shared here on the blog.


 
"I had just one day to deer hunt using my special mule deer buck tag, and today was the day [Nov. 21st]. I was going to use the tag on the first buck I saw, so I could get back to work to meet some guests arriving that evening.  I saw a buck at about 7:30 AM and got in position for the shot at 10:00 am. I shot the deer and it rolls quite some distance down the hill into a steep, brushy draw.  As I am dragging it through the thorns, over rocks and past steep side hills, I spied what I thought was an old bottle, but what it turned out to be was a big, un-opened bottle of Coors Lite.  I took a break to drink the beer (my first one in ages) with two pieces of cold pizza Bethany gave me yesterday. Cold beer and pizza in a thorn thicket in the middle of nowhere.  I would have far preferred a DQ Blizzard, but even I am not that blessed in my finding and scavenging skills."

 
 

Lewis & Clark's Visit to Lawyer Canyon

On May 10th, 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition rode down the Suzie Creek ridge into Lawyer Canyon.  The expedition came to reclaim horses Twisted Hair and Broken Arm cared for over the winter, while the expedition had gone down the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia in dugout canoes to the Pacific.  They camped in the Canyon for three days before going to a month-long camp in Kamiah, while they waited for the snow to melt atop the Bitterroots.

Lewis wrote in his journal that Broken Arm's lodge sounded like a nail factory, a sound familiar to him because Jefferson had a nail factory at Monticello. The sound came from women grinding Camas root with pestle and mortar.

The Indians raised an American flag on a pole beyond the lodge, and set a special tipi for Lewis and Clark's use.  The flag had been presented to Twisted Hair the previous fall.  Here in the canyon near the spring, they held an official council with the headmen delineating the United States desire for peace and trade.  They asked the Indians to make peace with neighboring bands to facilitate trade.  The Nez Perce said peace might be made with the Shoshone, but no one could have peace with the Blackfeet.



Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Hunt

 I have hunted animals all my life.  I come from a place where the standard fall greeting in the cafe is, "Get your deer yet."  Here in Idaho it's "elk."  Even so, I admire vegetarians.  They may have some moral ground to despise the hunt.  I have always thought, "People who eat meat should be required to kill, clean and prepare their meal at least once, so they know the price that is paid for their meal."  Going to the store (where no animals are hurt) to buy your hamburger, is not only ludicrous, it's really just hiring a contract killer.  The town slaughter house across the field from my boyhood home was an active and ugly place.  Nevertheless, I prefer to be intimately acquainted with who I eat, which is the norm in an agrarian society.  Bessy gave milk and eventually her life to those she loved.

I have only been out hunting deer a couple times so far this fall.  The first time out, the mountains glowed with softness and the flicker of light off forest colors, making them vibrant, enchanted me anew. 

Warm sun peaking through a dark canopy, rays of sunlight stretching down to highlight tufts of lime green mosses, light glistening off yellow leaves dancing in the breeze, a red squirrel scolding me for intruding into his realm: this for me is the hunt.

Much younger, I chose a bow rather than a rifle.  It allowed me to play with deer I chose not to kill; the closeness an arrow requires brings you into the big brown eyes of the animals' domain.

Redneck Joe's Mule Florence. 
(Everyone else that day rode horses.)
This day I climbed, only 1500 feet up from the Selway river, about 3000 foot elevation.  The snow didn't begin until past 4000 that day.  In Arizona we call the phenomenon Sky Islands, traveling from desert to tundra by climbing Mount Graham.  In these mountains it is seasons you travel up through.

Joseph had clients to take up to the top of Glover Ridge that day, but he had Florence to take him up, not that he doesn't relish the opportunity to look like he is effortlessly striding up a mountain side for the sheer pleasure.  I mosey up mountains.  "Slow and steady, steady and slow, that's the way, we always go," to quote Goofy telling Donald how to travel.

Whether on horseback, muleback or moseying up from a Bitterroot river, any day in this, the largest expanse of forest in the lower forty-eight states, is a good day.  I didn't see any deer, so my 30.06 rifle was just extra weight.  I stopped hunting with a bow years ago.  It's just too much work.
Looking back down to the Selway River.
I have been away from the forest too long this time.  Being granted a Sabbatical ought not be a gift, but a requirement for people who stand day after day in front of the hope of our world, expected to dispense something of value: an idea, a formula, an enlightening story, the beginning of a skill, a dream.

Everyone can remember being changed, appreciated, accepted, motivated, or just helped along the way by a teacher, a mentor, and if you're are really fortunate, a sage.  But for a teacher to do that, be that person, they must have something to say, something to share, something to give.  Full containers need to be emptied, and empty containers need to be filled.

Harold, a man Maricopa Colleges and especially MCC owes much to, once mentored me saying, "Sabbaticals should be mandatory.  One semester, every seven years, you should be required to take one."  I suppose that is what God had in mind with "Shabbat." The seventh day; the seventh year, fallow for the fields; the Year of Jubilee, every slave free every debt canceled: these are commands, times set aside for Him, Holy days of obligation, consecrated.  It's an old idea.

Last week, maybe longer ago, time is losing some of its grip on me, Joseph and I went up to the highest hill of the Camas Prairie, called Craig Mountain; he to hunt Mule Dear out of the trees and over the edge into the Salmon and Snake drainage, me to stay atop looking in the forest for Whitetails.  This place is vertical.  Joseph decided not to shoot a pretty nice buck; it was too far up to carry it back to the Jeep.  He did video tape him with his does to show me.  I moseyed around the top, not going too far from a trail, not too far down so I would be able to climb back up, safe places.  It looked a lot different than hunting uphill from the Selway.
Atop Craig Mountain
I saw Mule Deer does hopping around.  Unlike the remote seclusion of the Bitterroots, here other hunters  abounded.  I visited a couple camps.  I fell down in the brush, shook snow out from my neck, retrieved my hat from brushy fingers and again, carried a gun for little purpose.  I actually got to terrify my younger brother driving down Craig's hill on the 7 and 8% curvy grade sliding back and forth at 10 miles an hour.  I tried 13, not smart.  It was a good day and a scary night.

I have been stuck in front of a keyboard for at least a week now.  I haven't even gone outside for days.  I finished my first attempt, at a first draft, (which means I have only edited it three times) of a chapter for the book I am writing for this time of Shabbat.  The 20 pages are still too academic, the voice too scholarly, but I am closer to finding Lawyer Canyon's voice.  I know I won't find her voice sitting in front of a computer though.  I can only practice here at capturing it.  This week, I will walk her Canyon and listen.

I might even take a nap in her bosom.  The one thing this Sabbatical has brought graphically to my attention, I'm getting a little slower.  I think mosey is my top speed.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Allen Slickpoo tells a Story


For many years now I have used Allen Slickpoo's story telling to entertain and enlighten my classes  and shore up writings.  I met Allen in 1993, my senior year at the University of Texas, doing research for an undergraduate Honors thesis entitled "Words of Prophecy in the Story of the Nez Perce".  My history professor, Chris Miller, advised me to look up Allen Slickpoo when I got up to Kamiah, ID.  Someone at a store in Kamiah directed me to the tribal health clinic  to ask Mary Tall Bull, Allen's daughter, where I could find him.  Mary told me he was at home in the gray house with the red doors on Nez Perce Lane. 

When I found a house with red doors, a man sat outside watching children playing.  I got out of my pickup, proceed up the walk and said, "I'm looking for Allen Slickpoo.  Mary Tall Bull said I could find him up here on Nez Perce Lane."

"Nez Perce Lane or Nez Perce Drive?" the man asked looking confused but with a sly sparkle behind his apparent confusion.  

Taken aback, I looked at the man; I looked at the red Doors.  "You're Mr. Slickpoo, aren't you."

He smiled, nodded and welcomed me to his home.  I knew very little then about the Nez Perce people, only what I had read in my professor's book, Prophetic Worlds: Indians and Whites on the Columbia Plateau.  Al put up with my ignorance, invited me into his gray house and spent the day with me answering my questions and enlightening me on his years as tribal historian. 

His graciousness that day made it one of the most captivating days of my life.  I owe him much for his warm welcome, his writings and his stories.  Here is a story of his I found this past week:

Coyote Breaks The Fish Dam At Celilo

Once Coyote was walking up the river on a hot day and decided to cool himself in the water.  He swam down the swift river until he came to the waterfall where the Wasco people lived.  Five maidens had dwelt there from ancient times.  This was the place where the great dam kept the fish from going up the river.

While he was looking at the great waterfall, Coyote saw a maiden.  Quickly he went back upstream and said, “I’m going to look like a little baby, floating down the river on a raft in a cradle board, all laced up.”  As Coyote was drifting down the river, he cried, “Awaa, awaa.”  The maidens, hearing this quickly swam over, thinking that a baby might be drowning.

The eldest maiden caught it first and said, “Oh, what a cute baby.”  But the youngest maiden said, “That is no baby.  That is Coyote.”  The others answered, “Stop saying that.  You will hurt the baby’s feelings.” Coyote put out his bottom lip as if he were going to cry.

The maidens took the baby home and cared for it and fed it.  He grew very fast.  When he was crawling around one day, he spilled some water on purpose.  “Oh Mothers,” he said, “Will you get me some more water?”

The youngest sister said, “Why don’t you make him go get it by himself?  The river is nearby.”  So the maidens told Coyote to get the water himself.

He began to crawl toward the river, but when he was out of sight, he jumped up and began to run.  The oldest sister turned around and said, “He is out of sight already.  He can certainly move fast.”

“That is because he is Coyote,” the youngest said.

(Drawing from Nez Perce National Historic Park)
 When Coyote reached the river, he swam to the fish dam and tore it down, pulling out the stones so that all the water rushed free.  Then he crawled up on the rocks and shouted gleefully, “Mothers, your fish dam has been broken!”

The sisters ran down and saw it was true.  The youngest maiden said, “I told you he was Coyote.”

Coyote said, “You have kept all the people from having salmon for a long time by stopping them from going upstream.  Now the people will be happy because they will get salmon.  The salmon will now be able to go upriver and spawn.

Allen Slickpoo Sr. (Idaho Public Television Photo)

 This is how Celilo Falls came to be, where the Wasco people are today.  As a result of Coyote tearing down the fish dam, salmon are now able to come up river to spawn on the upper reaches of the Great Columbia River and its tributaries.

Allen Slickpoo Sr. (Nez Perce)


Fishing at Celilo Falls (Nez Perce National Historic Park)

Monday, October 29, 2012

Moseying Across the Nez Perce Rez

It may have been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, but for Pink and I it has been a hectic week on the Bird Farm.  We moved to another house, as the one we were in is rented as of the first.  The new house is nice but also a Hobbit Hole.  Under the hill and walled with thick concrete, the internet signal doesn't reach into the house.  Now I work in the Farm's barn-like office.  My seemingly endless attempts to coax the signal downhill and through impenetrable structures created high levels of frustration for me.  We drove seventy miles to Lewiston to purchase a more powerful router and a Wi-Fi extender, but after many tries arranging the transmitters, no luck and no signal.  I  decided to be content with working in the muddled, little-office barn.

On a brighter note, as we traversed the reservation to Lewiston, we visited the Nez Perce National Historic Park and stopped at every Historic Marker along U.S. Highway 95.  The highway crosses Lawyer Canyon near the Canyon's head.  Here the canyon is only about 300 feet deep.  The creek is the border between Idaho and Lewis Counties.  

Idaho County is one of the largest counties, in size or area, of any county in the United States.  It is also one of the least populated counties.  Survivalists claim it is the safest place to be when Armageddon arrives.  The region is too far from populated areas like cities to get here on one tank of gas.  So if the infrastructure of the nation breaks down, people will have a difficult time getting here.  The area is rich in natural food resources, and every local is armed.  There are many more guns here than people.  I read this in some magazine article a while back.  I don't remember where though, probably some doctor's office or possibly a survivalist's office.  These survivalist speculations hold some water though; this area was protected the longest in the Eighteen-hundreds from White peoples' diseases and intrusions.  It was just too remote and hard to get to; something Lewis and Clark experienced after crossing Lolo Pass into the dark Bitterroots.

But both sides of Lawyer's Canyon are in the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.  Lawyer's Canyon bisects the southern half of the Reservation.  
Lawyer Creek below U.S. Highway  95 Bridge
The Camas Prairie wheat farmers chose this part of the upper canyon to cross with their trains full of grain.  
Lawyer's Canyon Camas Prairie Railroad Trestle
Subject-verb agreement?
The reservation is only a fraction of the size first agreed upon in treaty negotiations.  The 1855 Treaty set the boundaries from the Bitterroots across into Washington and Oregon.  It was Chief Lawyer who led the negotiations in 1863 which reduced the size of the reservation to today's boundaries. 
Negotiated Nez Perce Reservation Boundaries
(Map from Ansestry.com, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idreserv/npmap.html)

Nez Perce Translation of the Gospel of Matthew
The southwest region in Oregon that Lawyer had no authority to negotiate away, is the land where the Joseph bands of the Nez Perce lived.  Old Joseph was the first Nez Perce to be baptized a Christian.  When he found Lawyer had signed away his homeland in the 1863 Treaty, he tore his translated Gospel of Matthew up, threw it to the ground, and said he would have nothing more to do with the White-man or his God.  He instructed his son, the famous Chief Joseph of the 1877 Nez Perce War, never to sell or give up their land.  


Henry Harmon Spaulding came to Nez Perce country because four Indians sent by Lawyer to St. Louis, asked William Clark, then Governor of the outpost, to send missionaries and Bibles.  Spaulding and Marcus Whitman responded to what a newspaper called, "The Macedonian Call."  Both men brought their wives with them, the first women to cross the Rocky Mountains.  Whitman's mission to the Cayuse became a way station of the Oregon Trail, which evolved when it was known women had crossed the Rockies safely.  The Cayuse later killed the Whitmans believing they brought measles to the tribe.  Spaulding and his wife Elisa, Presbyterians, were the first Whites, to settle in what is now Idaho in 1836.  They developed a written script for the Nez Perce language,  translated and printed the Gospel of Matthew, and baptized the first Nez Perce Christians, Old Joseph and Timothy in 1839.  The Nez Perce National Historic Park Headquarters and Visitors Center is located near the mission in Spaulding, Idaho.
The museum is rich in artifacts, most of them collected over the years by Mylie Lawyer, the great-great granddaughter of Hallalhotshot (Chief Lawyer).  The National Park Service has an excellent article about her entitled, "Mylie Lawyer And Her Collection."  The Museum displays are stunning and worth the visit.

Tribute to Mylie Lawyer in the museum.
The Historic Sites across the Rez are rich and numerous.  The Nez Perce National Historic Park consists of 38 sites across north-central Washington, northeast Oregon, north-central Idaho and western Montana.  I took pictures of the exhibits in the museum, but as I exited the front door, Pink pointed out the sign that said no photographs allowed.  I won't post the photos I inadvertently captured.  You will just have to visit the museum when you drive through Idaho and see for yourself the rich exhibits.  

The slideshow below consists of the Historic road signs Pink and I found on our short road trip across the Reservation.  Chief Lawyer's legacy and influence is far-reaching here in the Pacific Northwest.
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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Cold & Windy on the Camas Prairie

The sky has finally filled with rain instead of smoke up here on the prairie.  The Camas Prairie is bounded by deep river canyons and dense mountain forests.  The average elevation of the rolling fields of wheat, grass, and canola is 3500 feet.  The river valleys cut deep and are plus-and-minus 1200 feet on the waters.  The drop from the Prairie to the rivers is abrupt and precipitous.  The west edge of the Bitterroot Mountains encompass the east side of the high prairie, dark and vertical.
Camas Prairie Idaho
 Three counties share the Prairie: Nez Perce to the west, Lewis the center and Idaho County the southeast.  Lawyer Creek cuts the Prairie through the middle and is the boundary between Lewis and Idaho Counties.

The Heart of the Monster, which I spoke of in an earlier blog, the most sacred place of the Nez Perce Indians, is just south of the mouth of Lawyer Creek.  Pink and I are currently staying at the Flying B Farm, the southern yellow pin.  I am soon to finish collecting data from the two Prairie county seats and will then move down to the Canyon on the Ranch, the portion of the canyon directly to our north, the southern dip of the creek, and following the creek to the east and entrance to the canyon.  The Flying B owns most of the eastern canyon.


Portrait of “Chief Lawyer” or Hallalhotsoot, portrayed as the Nez Perce 
leader of the Walla Walla Council by artist Gustav Sohon.
I have had a few locals tell me the Canyon is named after "Crooked Lawyers", because the canyon is so crooked and so are Lawyers -- not true (Well at least about the name origin).  Cartographers can't make up their mind if the Creek is named: Lawyer, Lawyers or Lawyer's.  Every version is used, but the correct "Lawyer's" is the most seldom used.  The creek and the canyon it has gouged is named for Chief Lawyer or "Hallalhotsoot" of the Nez Perce.  Fur trappers named him Lawyer because of his eloquence and ability to argue.  With a hat like that, who could argue?

Hallalhotsoot was about nine years old, and one of three Nez Perce boys who first met William Clark in 1805, when the advance party of the Corps of Discovery Expedition stumbled out of the dense Bitterroot Mountains, starving and reduced to eating dogs. 

The next few days may have been the most dangerous days of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  The Nez Perce gave the men of the expedition a couple horses to eat and fed them Camas root.  The root of the Camas flower, the flower the Prairie is named for, makes a rich, starchy paste.  The root was a staple crop of the bands of the Colombian Plateau.  The expedition, having eaten nothing but meat for months, all became sick with nausea, and lay recovering from ingesting such a rich sweet food.  While sick and in their beds, the Nez Perce held council to decide what they should do with these new men.  Years before, a prophecy had come to the Plateau people:
Soon there will come from the rising sun,
a different kind of man from any you have yet seen,
who will bring with them a book (leaves) and will teach you everything,
and after that the world will fall to pieces.
(Silimxnotylmilakobok, theSpokan Prophet, c. 1790)
[Miller, Christopher, Prophetic Worlds: Indians and Whites on the Columbia Plateau, Rutgers University Press, 1985, p45.]
The elders argued.  Should we kill these men now?  Obviously they are the men of the prophecy; their heads are upside down, and they have eyes like fish (bald with beards and blue eyes).  Because of them the world will fall.  Should we learn from them?  Lewis had the book he wrote in, on the journal's  leaves.  A woman spoke up.  She encouraged them to be good to the men.  They were like the man who had once helped her.  After being captured by the Shoshone, she had been sold to a French fur trapper, who brought her to the Red River post and then helped her to return to her own people.  The elders agreed; they would help these new men.
(Story told by Allen Pinkham, Nez Perce story keeper.)


The Nez Perce could have just as easily killed the entire Expedition while sick from the Camas. Again, a woman saved the Expedition.  The Shoshone woman, Sacajawea, saved them on the other side of the Bitterroots, when she secured horses for the expedition from her people.

 Hallalhotsoot's father, Twisted Hair, befriended the expedition, took care of their horses over the winter, and he guided them down the Clearwater and Snake Rivers to the Columbia.  Twisted Hair and Broken Arm wintered the expedition's horses in Lawyer's Canyon, which of course did not bear Little Lawyer's name at the time.  Meriwether Lewis called Lawyer's Creek "Commearp Creek"
[Lewis, Meriwether; Clark, William (2005-07-01). The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 (Kindle Location 19110). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.]

The Cold and Windy Camas Prairie, looking north toward Lawyer's Canyon fro the Flying B Farm


Well, as I write, the sun is begining to peek out.  Maybe I'll go deer hunting.  The standard greeting in the stores and restaurants of North Central Idaho these days is "Got your Elk yet?" or the equivalent, "Got your deer yet?"  Pinky likes to sleep with this guy looking down at her.  

I have always been of the opinion that it is better to be acquainted with who you eat, rather than hire a contract killer to wrap your meat up in sanitary plastic for you.  People who eat meat and dislike hunters take a hypocritical posture; isn't it double-minded?  Oh well, maybe I'll just go shoot a bird or catch a fish.  I've always respected the morals of the vegetarian, but I don't have any Camas to eat.  I think today is a good day to eat some meat.  Even though we are on the rich Camas Prairie, few Camas flowers remain after all.  Wheat, Canola oil and grass seed for golf courses have replaced the Camas flower.  The scene Lewis described in the spring of 1806 is gone from this high prairie:

Camas Flower

"The quawmash (Camas) is now in blume and from the colour of its bloom at a short distance it resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete in this deseption that on first sight I could have sworn it was water." [Lewis, Meriwether; The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 (Kindle Location 20756). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.] 
The spring scene on the high Camas Prairie is today Canola yellow and green wheat.  Now that the sun is appearing, the pastel tans of harvested wheat and the black burns of the fields of grass seed are brightening into golden hills, and the deep black burns show signs of spouts of green grass.  Yeah, today is a good day to hunt birds.  Here comes the sun.  I'll stay on the Prairie today, not the dark Bitterrot forest.

Spring Canola on a stormy Camas Prairie day.


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Pink and I have been somewhat distracted this week.  Pinky had a kidney infection and had to go to the hospital for antibiotics.  She eventually got sent to Lewiston for a couple days but is home now.  My left eye has been acting up, and I have to go to Spokane on Monday, tomorrow to see an eye specialist.   Spokane is about four hours away.
On a more postitive note, there has been a little bit of precipitation which has cleared some of the smoke out of the air.

I think fire season should be over now.  I can't see the mountains clearly from here on the Camas Prairie, but I expect them to start to appear more clearly this week.  At least scenes like this pic should be past now.

Pink and I did get up into the forest for a day.  The smoke still dominated the landscape then, but we did watch a fawn trying to convice its mother that nursing should still be an option.

I am still buried in Idaho County property and court records.  The back rooms of the Courthouse is not the place to take off some weight, obviously.
















The work is going well, even though it is a little tedious.  I'm reminded of my days as a bricklayer, one brick after another all day long.  Research is a similar chore.  Pick up a piece of data, put it in its proper place (organize it), pick up another . . .  I hope to be moving to the Nez Perce County Courthouse by the end of the week, depending on how long it will take for my eye in Spokane.  On the other hand, Moscow is not that far from Spokane, and I hope to go through the artifacts from the 1999 Kittle Rockshelter dig conducted in Lawyer Canyon.  I will be choosing pieces to be displayed in the Flying B Ranch Lodge.  The University of Idaho stores nine cubic feet of artifacts from the excavation.

The rock shelter contained a ten-thousand year record of use and even evidence of habitation before the Masama eruption that created Crater Lake filled the shelter with four to five feet of ash that washed into the cave.  A summary of the dig can be found in: "A Brief History of the Flying B Ranch".

City of Grangeville, ID Visitor Center's Mammoth Display

The Camas Prairie which embraces the arms of Lawyer Canyon is rich in Archeology.  This replica of one of the Mammoth skeletons uncovered at Tolo Lake, just a few miles from the house we are currently staying in, is displayed at the visitor's center in Grangeville, ID. 

No one is entirely sure how long these "Columbian" Mammoths lived here on the Prairie.  Mammoths appeared on the North American continent around one and a half million years ago.  They disappeared around the same time most scholars point to humans arriving to this continent, +/- 12,000 years ago.  Thomas Jefferson wanted Meriwether Lewis to be on the lookout for a live Mammoth on the Corps of Discovery Expedition.  Lewis of course didn't find any, but here at Tolo Lake, for unknown reasons, hundreds of the animals died here.

Well that's about it for this week's update.  The air is clearing up, the leaves are colored and blowing in the wind, and I am beginning to miss having students.  As a closing bit, I have always enjoyed the following video describing one of the reasons why the Lewis and Clark Expedition got along so well with Native Americans:



Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Fire in the Lawyer Canyon

This past week there was a 600+ acre fire on the Flying B Ranch, the North side of the canyon from Suzie Creek east. Redneck Joe took a jump off the top of the cliffs to give us an aerial view of the burned area.  This is Joe's description:
"I took a flight to show where a recent fire burned. You can also see where water drops and retardant drops took place. The fire started near the sporting clays course and went east until it met up with the burned area from another fire started along the highway about a month ago."


One of the noxious weeds that plagues the Camas Prairie is Star Thistle.  I will be addressing the effects of and war against this weed in the book I am writing on the Canyon.  Concerning this fire and the weed, Joe says,
"The only benefit fire can have with star thistle is if you take advantage of the ground being bear to spray herbicide and or plant cover. We are going to be doing some seeding via fixed wing aircraft soon!"
This past week I have been trying to make sense of property data I scanned at the Idaho County Courthouse.  To collect the data I used my Galaxy2 phone which has an 8 megapixel camera.  I downloaded an app. called "Camscanner".  I was very impressed!  The documents I captured were clearer and easier to read on my PDF scans than the sheets of the actual book which are faded with age.  Technology is making this kind of research much easier. 


These records are not only central to mapping historic ownership, they also give me names to look up in court records and other archives.  I am currently entering the pertainate data from these property documents into my GIS database, so I can project and analyze the history of ownership in and adjacent to the Canyon. 
As I add dates and owners to the database, I will be able to project property ownership by decade from 1912 to the present.  This will give me a visual perspective of the people and ownership involved in the story of the Canyon as I write.

I have also been successful in "geo-referencing Google images into the map (attaching geographic coordinates to the captured images).  I can look closely now at features of the canyon.  Each close-up pic from Google has to be added to the map and correctly positioned with the added coordinates.  Each picture can then be turned on or off to make accurate layers for the map of vegetation type, trails, and so on.

Using the pictures, I mapped the forested areas this week.  I will use old Soil and Water Conservation Department and Idaho Lands Department photos which go back to the 1930s to look at how the surface has changed over the decades.

To the right is the current forested area of the Canyon and her arms.  Forested areas are a rather new addition to the landscape.  Historic pictures from the Kamiah Historical Society show very few trees.

So, the past few days have been tedious to say the least, sitting in front of multiple computer screens analyzing documents and doing what GIS cartographers call "digitizing features". 

The weather out side is gorgeous.  The leaves are turning; last week's smoke is disappearing, and being a computer geek is crazy.  I'm going to take a break this week and go up into the forest Ruffed Grouse hunting.  Maybe if Redneck Joe comes down from the sky, I can convince him to go along.  I do have one of his dogs staying with me, Cali.  I have no idea if that is the correct spelling of her name.  She has her picture in an earlier blog entry.

If you haven't already, make sure you go flying with Joe in the video above.  He gets to regularly have this unique view of the Canyon, as he sails over it most every week..  It is a close as I will probably ever get to jumping off a 1500 foot cliff. 



Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Reservation Lands

I got a very cool map the other day.  It shows how much of the land on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation is acctually owned by Indians.  The reservation boundary is outlined in red.  The lower left portion outside the red line is not part of the Nez Perce Rez.  Only the colored plots inside the red boundary are indian lands.  The rest is owned by people other than Nez Perce Indians.





I am only working on a small portion of the reservation, Lawyer Canyon.  Here is the portion of this map I have been researching historic property records.


The pink and green plots are Indian.  The blue is State Trust Land.  The rest is private ownership, primarily farmers.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Getting Set Up to Begin Work



For the first week we stayed at the Ranch in the Lodge while we set up our house up on the Camas Prairie 30 miles away.  I will move back down to the Ranch in the Canyon after I finish the research up on the prairie in Grangeville, Idaho, the Idaho County Seat and in Nez Perce, Idaho, Lewis County Seat.

The Camas Prairie is up on the top of these cliffs, 1500 feet higher than the bottom of the Canyon.


Our house at the Bird Farm up on the Prairie is finally set up and we have moved in.
Front of House

View out the back of the house toward the main Farm buildings.
Cali heading into the house.  She will help me hunt birds for dinner.  One of Redneck Joe's dogs from down on the Ranch.
  Getting a solid Internet connection was one of the challenges to getting set up in the house on the Bird Farm.  Matt, the Manager of the Bird Farm put this dish on the top of his house and hooked up a powerful outside router and antenna, so I have a good connection since yesterday.  Driving the 30 to 40 miles down to the Ranch to use the Internet has made for a difficult week.
I will begin at the Idaho County Courthouse on Monday going through Court and Property records.  I will cover all records since the 1860s from the entrance to Lawyer Canyon to where Highway 162 crosses the head of the canyon.  There the Lawyer Creek valley is only 200 feet deep.  This 20 miles +/- of the Lawyer Creek drainage is what I am planning to consider as the boundary of Lawyer Canyon proper.
Lawyer Canyon

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Releasing Quail in Lawyer Canyon on the Flying B Ranch

Chad Weber (Kennel Manager, Hunting Guide)
 We have been staying at the Flying B Ranch

Today I went with Chad to release 250 Quail on the Ranch.  They were very happy to be free and they found resident quail friends right away. 





Chad grew up in central Kansas hunting and fishing for as long as he can remember.  Following his fathers footsteps as an avid outdoorsman, Chad knew that someday he would make his passion his livelihood.  Chasing pheasans, quail, deer, turkey and waterfowl is a passion.  Working for numerous outfitters in Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, and now Idaho, Chad has guided for many species including  birds and big game. 

This bird took a while to decide where to go.
I

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