Applegater., November 01, 2017, Page 14, Image 14

14 Winter 2017 Applegater
Discover
Stories on the Land
Below is the third excerpt from the
unpublished 1996 book, Stories on the
Land: An Environmental History of the
Applegate and Upper Illinois Valley, by
George McKinley and Doug Frank. The
Applegate Valley Community Newspaper,
Inc., will be publishing the book in its entirety
in 2018.
Establishing the route
In the 1830s and ‘40s the expeditions
of the Hudson’s Bay Company established
a known route through southwest Oregon.
Ogden’s journey (recounted in the Fall
2017 Applegater) was not atypical of the
first Euro-American encounters with the
region. Later, Michel LaFramboise guided
several expeditions: in 1833 (under the
leadership of Alexander McLeod) and
in subsequent years. In September 1833,
John Work’s expedition camped along
Bear Creek.
Many of these Hudson’s Bay groups were
large and of varied membership. Work’s
encampment comprised 63 men, women,
children, and Indian guides. Ogden may
have traveled with his wife. In some ways,
these groups imitated the lifestyle patterns
of the natives they encountered, moving
across the landscape as nomadic hunter-
gatherers and relying upon the land for
sustenance. They regularly engaged the
natives in trade relations. Their obligation,
however, was not to the land and its long-
term diversity, but to the furtherance of
the commercial and imperial goals of their
employer, along with whatever personal
goals they may have had. Their relations
with the Indians, in marked contrast to
those of the later American settlers, were
largely nonviolent.
When McLeod and his company
moved through the area in 1827, they
established friendly relations with the
Kelawatset Indians, but when Jedediah
Smith and 14 other men moved some
300 pack animals loaded with furs up the
southern Oregon coast the following year,
Smith, not long out of a Mexican jail in
California, moved rapidly and recklessly
across the land, losing animals to rivers
and traveling hungry. In the vicinity of the
lower Umpqua, Smith and company were
attacked by Kelawatset Indians. Most of
the party were killed.
In 1834 and 1837, en route from the
Sacramento Valley to the Willamette,
Ewing Young pushed cattle, horses, and
mules along the Hudson’s Bay Company
trail. Besides hoping for personal economic
gain, Young was aiming to promote the
self-sufficiency of the Willamette region,
to show that Americans “could settle in
the Willamette Valley with an assurance
of being self-supported,” completely
independent of the company. With the
establishment of a viable cattle population,
this possibility became apparent, and the
Willamette region began a new era of
development.
However, both the 1834 and 1837
journeys by Young through southwest
Oregon were marked by skirmishes and
tension with the native inhabitants. The
reasons are perhaps matters of speculation,
but it could be presumed that natives might
consider Young’s small band of men driving
700 cattle over the Siskiyou Summit or
300 up the coast an essentially different
threat from that of McLeod’s, Ogden’s,
and Work’s nomadic bands of hunters and
traders of differing age, sex, and ethnicity
that they had previously encountered. In
History of Southern Oregon, A. G. Walling
attributes the success of the English in the
fur trade to the overwhelming percentage
of French-Canadian and mixed-blood
participants, people known to display a
high level of professionalism and expertise.
The Americans, on the other hand, were
more interested in the lifestyle of drinking
and rowdiness than in the need to run
a successful company. J. Ross Browne
describes the earliest Americans as “a wild,
reckless, and daring race of men, trappers,
and hunters, whose intercourse with the
Indians was not calculated to afford [the
Indians] a high opinion of the Americans
as a people.”
We can speculate other reasons
for increased tension with the native
inhabitants. Simply the numbers of people
coming through could have raised concern.
By the time Young drove his first band
of cattle over the crest, some 250 British
and Americans had already traversed this
“Siskiyou Trail” between Oregon and
California. Another reason might be
that the natives were aware of settlement
activity in the Willamette and perceived
the connection between these large drives
and their own future in the region. Or
perhaps the ravages of disease, evidenced
in original contact with natives across the
continent, had already begun to appear in
this region as well. At any rate, the hostile
encounters between the first settlers and
the natives stand in marked contrast to the
earlier, more congenial relations between
Hudson’s Bay Company trappers and
those same native peoples. This difference
anticipates an era only a few years distant
when all manner of civil relations failed.
A well situated country
Though the earliest travelers through the
region were inattentive to detailed record-
keeping and the production of historically
retrievable information, the Emmons
party of the Wilkes Expedition marked a
significant step toward cataloging the land.
Officially termed the United States
Exploring Expedition and sent to explore
the Antarctic, South Pacific, and Pacific
Northwest, the Wilkes Expedition set out
from Norfolk, Virginia, on August 18,
1838, with 346 men under the command
of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.
By the spring of 1841, they had
r e a c h e d t h e Pa c i f i c N o r t h w e s t
at the mouth of the Columbia
River. Their arrival was less than glorious,
though, as Lieutenant George Emmons,
who had been sent ahead to scout the
Columbia, ran his ship aground at the
mouth of the river and could only stand
ashore and watch as the ship came apart
against the rocks.
By August, the whole of the expedition
was reunited at Fort Vancouver. Emmons,
having recovered from his ignominious
arrival, was put in charge of an overland
exploration south into California. He
traveled with 76 horses or mules and 39
people including a surveyor/cartographer,
a naturalist, an artist, two botanists, a
geologist, a surgeon, a number of native
guides, and a small band of settlers
(four women and eight children among
them). The exploration generated a wealth
of information and carefully recorded
observations, though not about the
Applegate and Illinois valleys, as the
company adhered to the well established
Hudson’s Bay Company route and did not
enter this area.
After nearly a decade of exploration
and reflection, Wilkes, writing in 1849,
anticipated the contemporary discussion
surrounding the Pacific Rim. “No country,”
he said, “is so well situated to communicate
with all parts of the Pacific Ocean as
Oregon.”
Note: Excerpted by Diana Coogle from
pages 19-21 of Stories on the Land: An
Environmental History by George McKinley
and Doug Frank.
■ HEROES IN THE APPLEGATE
Continued from page 1
there are showers in big semitrailers and a
giant 2,500-gallon drum of water to keep
them flowing.
Next we headed to Main Street, just
past the big yellow awning where the
early morning briefings are held. Here,
in the communications tent, is where
communication is facilitated among
on-site fire crews, helicopter crews, and
medical evacuations, and fire information
and maps are updated.
Along Main Street were other offices
and services, such as medical, ordering,
planning, training, operations, air
operations, safety, and public information,
where Meg was based. We also visited
the copy shop—they had thought of
everything.
With firefighters out fighting fires, all
was quiet in the open-air dining area. I
could only imagine what a hub of activity
this deserted place must be at mealtime.
Many calories are expended fighting fires,
and it must be hard to keep up with all
those hungry champions. What do the
firefighters do for entertainment, you
might ask? They sleep. (There is a no-
alcohol policy at the camp.)
This pop-up town even had an airport!
We trudged up the “Stairway to Heli” to
get to the Helibase, which housed three
different sizes of helicopters that could
accommodate different jobs, environments,
and weather conditions. Some features of
the Temsco Eurocopter—like the spacious
interior that holds five to six passengers
and the mechanism to which up to 2,400
pounds of external loads, like buckets of
water, are attached—were pointed out to
me by Ben Dean, a strapping helicopter
crew member, with great relish. This
enthusiasm was pervasive at the Helibase.
Ben explained with a big smile, “We all
just like to be outside.”
Donations
Our community was so grateful for the
firefighters and many wanted to bring over
a casserole or a pie. Through Meg, I learned
that the most meaningful action the public
can take is to donate to the Wildland
Firefighter Foundation, which
benefits fallen or injured
firefighters and their families.
We can show our gratitude as
a community by contributing
to this worthy cause. To help,
go to wffoundation.org or call
208-336-2996.
I left the Incident
Base with a sense of awe
and gratitude for all the
individuals, teams, crews,
resources, and equipment
brought to our community to
protect us. They travel across
the country as fire season
peaks in different locales.
When a fire is contained, they
move to the next fire.
By mid-October, the fire
camp had vanished. The
heroes had moved on. All
that was left was a tidy, rain-
drenched field.
Shelley Manning
manningshelley@icloud.com
Fedeila Rivera, part of a nine-member camp crew from Note: See the Miller Complex
Arizona, organizes firefighting clothing in the supply tent at Fire progression map online at
the Miller Complex fire camp. (Photo: Shelley Manning.) applegater.org.
Prevent
flue fires!
In the past few years, the Applegate
Valley Fire District has seen an increase
in flue fires, most of which could have
been prevented. Flue fires are especially dangerous because they can spread to
the attic within minutes. The best way to deal with a flue fire is to prevent it.
According to the Chimney Safety Institute of America (csia.org), here are some
ways to help prevent flue fires:
• Clean your chimney at least once each year, before the colder
season begins.
• Use only seasoned hardwoods.
• Build smaller, hotter fires that burn completely and produce less smoke.
• Never burn trash in your fireplace or wood stove as this can spark a
chimney fire.
• Do not store combustible items near flue and chimney pipes.
• Use a metal bucket when cleaning out ashes from the fireplace or wood
stove.
• Be sure smoke alarms are working—early detection is key! Install a smoke
alarm on every level of your home and outside each sleeping area. Test
smoke-alarm batteries every month and change at least once a year.
If you do have a flue fire, know how to recognize the sound (a rumbling
noise like a moving freight train), and call 911. Then:
• Immediately close down the air intake into the stove or fireplace. This
deprives the fire of oxygen and will help cool and extinguish the fire.
• Never, ever put water into the chimney. This can cause cracks to form in
the lining of the flue and lead to a house fire.
• Have your flue examined by a professional before using it again.
Wood stoves and fireplaces are great ways to heat a home and save money
at the same time. Follow these safety tips to safely enjoy your heat source as
the colder weather sets in.
Tallie Jackson • tjackson@applegatefd.com • Applegate Valley Fire District #9