Day 39: The Q Abides

Day Thirty-Nine: The Q Abides

7/19/11:

Rumbling around in the Tusayan District, I quickly learned that Margaret—the KNF’s Forest Heritage Program Manager—was a wealth of information. On our drive into the Tusayan, Margaret told us about her latest KNF project: researching and interviewing Basque sheepherders and their descendants. 

First arriving in the States in around 1850 from Spain and France, the Basques were spurred to the West by the gold rush. However, “many of the Basques soon found that gold was hard to find and turned to working and owning livestock on ranches. Basque-owned itinerant sheep bands ranged from the Pacific coast to the High Sierras. By the early 1859s, many Basques had become established ranchers. Basque names were so prominent in the western range sheep business that they were regarded as the industry’s founders.” A “people with a homeland, but without a nation…the origins of the Basque people are still a mystery.” 

To this day, Basque sheepherders continue to guide their livestock around parts of the KNF. Earlier in the summer, Yelena and I had seen one such sheepherder on the southern side of Bill Williams Mountain. A number of Basque sheepherders remain in the area, and Margaret was working to collect their stories and get a sense of the Basque community as it existed in the KNF.


By about this point, Yelena, Margaret and I had wrangled through a maze of forest roads to the Emerald Mine and Lockridge Cabin. The Emerald Mine had produced ore, and beginning in 1898, the ore had been shuttled from Emerald Mine to Williams via the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (prior to this, ore from the area had been hauled by mules). The railway and mine gave rise to the nearby town of Anita and the mining camp Copperopolis. According to Neil’s article “Shafted!,” the railway to this area was regarded as “the little baby railroad born with a copper spoon in its mouth.”

In 1901, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway had kicked its tracks north from Anita and up to the Grand Canyon. This route, dubbed the Grand Canyon Railroad, ran sixty-four miles from Williams to the South Rim, ferrying passengers to the steps of the El Tovar Hotel and putting a swift end to the Flagstaff to Grand Canyon Stage Coach Line.

The Grand Canyon Railroad had operated until 1968, when the prevalence of cars forced it out of business. Restored in 1989 by Max and Thelma Biegert, the Grand Canyon Railroad continues to operate from Williams to the South Rim, despite a few more re-sellings.

The Emerald Mine, Lockridge Cabin, Anita, and Copperopolis, however, weren’t nearly as lucky.

Our job on July nineteenth was to lead construction workers to what was left of the Emerald Mine and Lockridge Cabin. As Margaret explained it, the KNF didn’t currently have the funds to try and restore the ruins (a broken-down structure), but instead of ignoring their existence, an informative sign was to be placed before it. As Yelena and I ambled around, poking about in colorful refuse, Margaret gave instructions to the construction workers.

A few minutes later, and we were back in the rig and headed for a Tusayan Lookout Tree which would also be receiving its very own informative signboard. Listed with the National Register of Historic Places, the Tusayan Lookout Tree (along Forest Road 2607 if anyone cared to venture forth) was a holdover from days when lookouts found themselves clambering up trees to keep an eye out for forest fires. When we arrived, the lookout appeared like nothing more than a scrap of wood delicately balanced at the top of a very tall tree. I am not fearful of heights, and yet a climb into those branches, especially under the threat of a fast raging fire, was not particularly appealing.

Heading back to the Supervisor’s Office in Williams, our conversation turned toward a topic I couldn’t help but find interesting: that of the free range cattle in the KNF (being from Iowa, where livestock are also behind fences, wandering cows was a startling sight). As a national forest, the KNF was public land and therefore, its resources—to an extent—were available to American citizens. In real world terms, this meant that the KNF allowed ranchers to house their livestock on its lands for a light fee, provided ranchers followed KNF policies. Despite the number of cows I’d seen wandering the KNF, Margaret guessed that only thirty or so ranchers were actually grazing their animals on forest land.

After so much talk of roaming cattle and the wandering life, I suppose that it was only fitting that I should close out my day with The Big Lebowski’s cowboy (Howdy, Stranger) narrating to me the wily adventures of el Duderino. Quentin, preparing to depart from the KNF in a matter of days, had requested the film and been met with zero resistance from Joe, Noah and me.

So it was that, White Russian in hand, I felt myself bespelled by the Stranger’s sultry tones and big caterpillar of a moustache. And, as Joe was quick to correct the Stranger, it did feel good knowin’ that yes, the Q abides.

Photos: 1. Sheeps in the KNF 2. Emerald Mine and Lockridge Cabin remains 3. Road 2607 4. Cattle roamin'