Saying Goodbye to Winter-Spring & Searching for Basalt Words.

It has been almost two weeks since I uploaded a blog post.  I apologize for keeping you all in such great suspense. (Alright, that was sarcasm at my own expense.)  I like sarcasm and satire, but in the online world of texting, it can get you into deep trouble (oh sorry, that is the Communication Department part of me).  I don't want you to forget that I am a Communication scholar first at Mesa Community College and a historian/geographer/cartographer second, even though most of my degrees are as a historian.  I am definitely starting to miss seeing students everyday.  I think that is the main purpose of the college sabbatical tradition.  If you are starting to despise your students, it is time for you to go on sabbatical.  You can't teach what you no longer have to people you can no longer stand to see walk in!  Teachers need times of refreshing from the Holy Spirit (oh crap, that's the Jesus Freak in me!).  Maybe I've been a hermit too long?  I better get back to the task at hand:

It's been a quiet two weeks in Lawyer Canyon, and it looks like winter's spring-days are drawing to a close here in her bosom.  I have been out visiting her (the Canyon) while this anomaly of sunny days have been here.  There is no doubt in my mind now why Lawyer Canyon has served people as a winter shelter for so many countless generations.  Winter is more than comfortable enfolded in her arms.

February Winter Day on the Upper Flat

The famous Twisted Hair,  Lawyer's father, and the Nez Perce Chief who befriended the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Expedition had a winter camp somewhere near the above picture.  Later that day I saw 12 Whitetails relaxing here.  The deer revel in this false spring too and meet in the early evenings to socialize.  I have seen herds of 40 Mule Deer on the sunny north side of the canyon during this warm winter spell.

Walnut Flat Tree

 I visited Walnut Flat this week.  This wooded meadow has always been one of my favorite places in the canyon.  As one of the MCC Red Mountain Campus earliest faculty (I started teaching at Red Mountain in 1997), I have discussed the problem of "signage" in many meetings over the years.  When building a new campus, the signage issue seems to be a reoccurring topic.  There are a few "signs" in Lawyer Canyon, not many, but they hold power.  

Here in the Canyon, rather than argue about the need for more signage, I debate what names to call places in the Canyon, not where to put signs.  As I have come across the historic names of places in the canyon, I endeavor to use the most significant historic name on my maps, and try to convince the people of the Canyon to use them.  But when there is a sign nailed to a gnarled old tree, no other name seems valid.  Beyond the enduring statement the sign makes, the character of the tree holding Walnut Flat's sign is such that no one could deny its commanding presence.

With the current melt associated with this springlike weather, Lawyer Creek is full.  I hesitate now when having to cross it, watching carefully for the depth of fjords and the strength of the rushing water. 

I'm told fish like a deeper channel, and the tendency of the creek toward the desire to braid out on the flats is constant.  The stream needs to meander through the flats to reduce flooding downstream in the town of Kamiah, but too much braiding is not good for the fish.  To maintain some good stream depths, yet encourage meandering, the Flying B Ranch is planting Black Cottonwoods, Black Hawthorn, Service Berry, Choke Cherry, Snow Berry, Willows, Wild Roses, Ponderosa Pine and Junipers, all native species.  The plants will stabilize the stream across the flats and provide bird and animal habitat.  This ongoing restoration of a natural habitat has been a central mission on the Ranch and the dedication of the people here to this ongoing work is inspiring.  The MCC, Red Mountain, 100-acre Campus could use the level of dedication to natural habitat restoration that I have seen here.

Lawyer Creek near Walnut Flat

One of the biggest struggles I have encountered this week is finding adjectives, analogies, metaphors and similes to describe basalt.  The rock of the canyon is the product of expansive Miocene lava flows.  Lawyer Canyon was born in Mother Earth's fire.

Between 17 million and 12 million years ago, lava flood after lava flood covered this area.  As each layer of lava cooled into basalt, the rate of cooling determined how the lava crystallized and formed.  Fluffy(can rock be fluffy?) looking tops of flows and slower-cooling, architectural-looking columns below grace the hills and sides of the Canyon.

Columnur Basalt

 One of the most intriguing places formed in the basalt of the Canyon is Kittle Rockshelter, which I mentioned in the last blog post.  Its name historically was the Kitchen Cave, named after one of the pioneering families, F. L. Kitchen.  But in 1999, in a decision contrary to my normal conduct, I rejected using the historic name.  In the 1970's, Lauren Kittle, an amateur archeologist, heard school kids talking about rock art in a cave in Lawyer Canyon where they were having beer parties.  Lauren worked for many years to collect evidence and convince the University of Idaho to conduct a dig.  Much to Lauren's delight, the Flying B Ranch financed the project in 1999.  The title of Brian C. Herbal's Master's thesis describing the results of the dig is, The Prehistory of Lawyer Canyon as Evidenced by Recent Investigations at Kittle Rockshelter Near Kamiah, Idaho, (2001).  Brian records a 10,000-year human use of the shelter in his finely written thesis.  Out of respect for the years of diligence on Lauren Kittle's part, Kitchen Cave is now "Kittle Rockshelter."

While out photographing basalt formations the other day, I stopped by the shelter.  With this special winter-spring melt, Kittle Rockshelter appeared exceptionally mystical to me.

Looking Out of Kittle Rockshelter

Old Cave Art

Newer Cave Art

The rock art in the cave  has weathered significantly over the past decade.  Even so, some people have endeavored to continued the tradition, as evidenced by the picture below.  I wonder what the anthropologist of the future will make of the "New Cave Art" symbol in a couple thousand years or so?  Maybe it's a Medicine Wheel symbol like Circlestone? (Sorry, that first paragraph spirit captured me again for a second.)

I am currently trying to track down Lauren Kittle's early photographs of the art.  They were in envelope "LP0001," the very first envelope in the "Lillian Pethal Archive," a collection she housed at the Kamiah Library.  Lillian showed me the folder there in 1999.  After she past away, the security in the small local library was established primarily on trust.  When the collection was moved to the Kamiah Historical Society Museum, Lauren's folder could no longer be found.  A lot of things had disappeared over the decade.  Nevertheless, I have tracked down a woman who assisted with Lauren's estate when he passed.  I know Lauren had the negatives and numerous copies of his photos.  I shared a picture of Carolyn Merrill's map of the art in the previous blog post.  I believe I can track Lauren's photos down.

(I'm beginning to understand why
Professor Wintz and I are never in the
marketing pictures of the school.)

I am enjoying being a hermit, but Pinky is coming back to the Canyon next week, so my hermit days are coming to a close.  (Thank God!) It has been lonesome without her, and my cooking skills have diminished significantly.  Maybe in the next blog I can share a couple of Chef Ryan's recipes.  He is making swordfish tomorrow I hear.  Maybe I can get some leftovers.  

Bird hunters are descending on the Ranch for the next few weeks.  The lion hunters are five for five so far.  There is only one more coming this season in March.  Six for six would be nice, and Idaho Fish and Game will be almost pleased.  They wish the Flying B could take a few more.  Predator control is a complicated science, and taking as many lions as the biologists say need to be harvested from the Bitterroot Forest is difficult.  I did read an excellent article on the Idaho wolf harvest the other day.  It almost made the science understandable.

  "Understanding Predation Management in Idaho."

As much as I have been struggling with turning the language of geomorphology and science into metaphor and dramatic prose, my writing is going well.  Taking time out to write these blogs helps a great deal in the quest for the voice of Lawyer Canyon.  

Thanks for visiting. 

Winter Takes a Break in Lawyer Canyon

The sun has burned away the fog and the Canyon is taking a break from winter. The streams are full and fuming, and the Canyon has seen three to four hours of sunshine the past couple days. The deer are elated with the sun. Joe and I counted over forty mule deer the other afternoon on a sunny hillside.

Even the Grass is Greening

Suzie Creek

Having a first of February spring experience has been refreshing. I don't know if there are any groundhogs in the Canyon. I'll have to ask Joseph, but I'm sure this spring experience won't last.  

I received an e-mail from a man who is planning a March trip into the Superstition Wilderness to visit Circlestone.  His polite comment about my Circlestone GIS Mapping Project website was, "It appears that your Circlestone content is excellent, but your web site is non-performing."  I decided it was time I updated the site, especially since it reflects on our Mesa Community College Undergraduate Research Program.  The 2006 MCLI Learning Grant funded Circlestone Expedition was the first major Undergraduate Research Project at the Red Mountain Campus.

The Mysterious Circlestone Ruin of the Superstition Mountains

I haven't had any students with the web-design skills necessary, and interest in participating in the project, to do anything with the site since the original project team created it in 2006. I took a break from writing about Lawyer Canyon this week, and I spent the past few days reworking the Circlestone site.  It looks better now.  I still have a couple expedition reports to put up, and hundreds of photographs to upload when I get back to civilization and powerful upload speeds, but I could use some volunteer editors.  If interested in assisting with the project, visit the site at http://www.mesacc.edu/~bruwn09481/circlestone/.  Send me an email with mistakes, errors or anything that needs to be changed on the Home, Map Collection and Expeditions pages.  The Photographs and GIS Data pages will have to wait for my return to the city this summer.  The bandwith required for those uploads is not for satellite connections.  Also, if anyone plans to hike out to the remote site, please contact me ahead of time.  Much of the data collected for the project has come from hikers interested in the site.

Although dissimilar PLACES, Circlestone and Lawyer Canyon, hold special places in my heart.  The idea of "Place" captured my interest many years ago as a youth exploring the "Great Northern Swamp" of the George Washington State Forest  in Minnesota.   To this day, the aroma of skunk transports me back to my family's northern Minnesota lake cabin in an instant, no matter where I am when the stripped critter reveals its scent.  Places have power over us human animals.  I am intrigued with the identity of places, how they acquire their personality, their spirit.  The natural environment of places captures me.  Place names: what they say and how they influence places, appeals to my imagination.  Our individual identities are wrapped up with the identities of the places we have visited, lived in and loved.

Archeologists Brian Herbal and Candace Warner. 
Candice is standing in  an ancient fire pit.

My first encounter with Lawyer Canyon was vicarious.  I found the place while conducting the literature review for my undergraduate Honors thesis, "Words of Prophecy in the Story of the Nez Perce."   Chief Lawyer's brand of Christianity played a central role in my paper, and many of the events I wrote about occurred in this Canyon.  And even though I visited the reservation in 1993, I had never seen the Canyon until conducting the research for my first Master's thesis, Dancing in the Shadowlands with Coyote, in 1995.  But even then, I only visited for a few hours.  I didn't become enamored with the Canyon until 1999, when I had the opportunity to represent the Flying B Ranch, during the University of Idaho's Kittle Rock Shelter archeological dig.  Joseph had gone to work for the Ranch as a hunting guide in 1995 giving me the opportunity to meet Bob Burlinggame, owner of the Flying B Ranch.  Bob kindly gave me a summer project to research the Ranch's history and participate in the archeological dig, which the Ranch financed.  Brian Herbal's U of Idaho thesis concerning the Kittle Rockshelter reports a 10,000 year use of the site.  I will be discussing Brian's analysis in the book I am writing.  The cave is also rich in rock art. Ms. Merrill's map below is excellent.

The Flying B Ranch is a testimony to sustainable private land management.  The 5000 acre ranch covers six miles of Lawyer's Canyon.  When Bob purchased the property in 1982, the Ranch had a local reputation as a Star Thistle factory.  The invasive weed is common to open areas like roadsides, rangeland, wildlands, hay fields and pastures.  Areas disturbed by cultivation, poorly-timed mowing, road building and maintenance, and overgrazing are the weed's favorite haunts.  The canyon had fallen victim to all these practices.  The thorny weed rapidly colonizes once it is introduced creating dense infestations which rapidly deplete the soil of moisture.   The weed makes establishing other species extremely difficult.  It is also poisonous to horses.  The Flying B ranch has worked diligently to heal the Canyon.

Thirty years later, the Ranch has been restored to a natural habitat.  Native grasses and trees cover her hills and ravines.  Food plots and habitat for game birds, deer, bobcats, lions and many other native fauna abound.  Lawyer Creek meanders across natural meadows again; the flats are no longer grazed or mowed for hay. The ranch works with Idaho Fish and Game and the US Forest Service to promote healthy populations of native fish and animals, both on the Ranch and in the Nez Perce and Clearwater National Forests. 

Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, Aldo Leopold were right; there are places so magical, so mysterious, so inspiring and so historic, they need to be protected and preserved.  The Flying B Ranch and the hunters and fisherman who support it have been excellent stewards of one of my favorite places.  I pray my book will serve the Canyon as well.

Real Spring Looks Like This in the Canyon

The Lower Flat