Meet our Guests: John Brennan and Emily James

Emily James

Associate; Brennan, Jewett, & Associates

Colusa, CA

John Brennan

Founder/Owner; Brennan, Jewett, & Associates

Davis, CA

11/14/18

To most people, California is not the place for rice farming. Years of drought and groundwater pumping so extreme that the Central Valley is literally sinking are not generally conditions that are conducive to a water-intensive crop like rice. Emily James is an associate at John Brennan’s land management firm, Brennan, Jewett, & Associates, and work together to manage the historic Davis Ranch, near Colusa, CA. The ranch has been owned by the same family since 1857, so its water rights predate the damming and overallocation of the Sacramento River. Wielding the power of these rights, John and Emily are helping the farm find direction and stay relevant in a changing world.

That relevance initially came from restoring habitat for shore birds. By shifting the flooding of rice fields, the ranch was able to mimic the historical Central Valley floodplain and provide habitat for waterfowl. Today, the ranch works with the Audubon Society, Nature Conservancy, and Point Blue Observatory, and its fields are home to 230 species of wildlife in an area where wildlife has been pushed out by agriculture and urban sprawl since the nineteenth century.

Since, the ranch has also begun to plant hedgerows with native plants that provide corridors for animals like deer that are otherwise left without contiguous habitat. They have also begun a project to plant milkweed and other flowering plants to support monarch butterflies in their migration. Emily and John stressed how starkly these choices strayed from the pesticidal practices that farming in the United States has embraced since the 1970’s. These projects are not just benefitting habitat connectivity, they are serving Davis Ranch economically. Brennan’s push to commodify labels and certifications from partners like the Audubon Society on packaging help to sell and create a market for sustainable farming. Rather than work backward in an area where water is highly monitored and controlled by humans, through the help of John Brennan and Emily James, Davis Ranch and others like it are finding ways to create habitat for wild animals by working within the limits of human development.

By Darby Williams

Meet our Guests: Samantha Arthur

Samantha Arthur

Conservation Project Manager, Audubon California

Sacramento, CA

11/14/18

Sami Arthur stands, neck craned back, below a cotton candy sky as waterfowl take flight from the ponds surrounding us. Birds turn into black specks as they rise, joining the flow of thousands of others to the neighboring rice fields. Sami picks out Snow Geese, Egrets, and Pinstripe Ducks from the nearly liquid mass of birds with an expert’s eye. But Sami has not always been into birds. Upon getting her current job at the California Audubon Society, she had to study up on birds, but this was part of the allure of her position as Program Director: “I love that sort of learning.” Before her current position she described herself as a “fish person.” She graduated from Whitman with an Environmental Studies—Biology degree and wrote her thesis on salmon populations. She attended graduate school and debated getting her PhD, but decided that she was more interested in community engagement and ground-level conservation than research.

One of her first jobs was with a land trust in Northern California, where she learned that working with farmers and landowners on conservation projects was what she was excited about. Sami met with us at the Davis Ranch outside Colusa, just north of Sacramento, and shared her work with tri-colored blackbirds and groundwater recharge. Both of these projects involve engagement from the agricultural community, which Sami emphasizes as one of the reasons she loves her job and stays engaged. Sami explains that on projects, “I speak for the birds,” but also emphasizes the importance of making sure conservation works well for everyone involved.

By Clara Hoffman

Meet our Guests: Ray Bransfield and Peter Sanzenbacher

Ray Bransfield

Biologist, USFWS

Ventura, CA

Peter Sanzenbacher

Biologist, USFWS

Yucca Valley, CA

11/11/18

The Dumont Dunes ORV area in Death Valley is not especially picturesque. The dun hills are scabbed by tire tracks and there are few plants, leaving the dust and sand free to be flung about by the regularly passing winds.

Ray Bransfield and Peter Sanzenbacher, employees of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), squinted into the day’s wind and struggled to be heard over the sound of the child’s dirt bike that buzzed wide circles around us. Historically, local ORV clubs came to the dunes to race and ride illegally. As multiple-use pressure mounted on management agencies, the dunes became a designated ORV area in recognition of this historical usage. But, as we asked Ray, why? Why reward illegal recreation with an official designation?

If you were to follow Ray’s thumb across the highway, you might find an endangered desert tortoise wending its leisurely way through the sagebrush. These creatures, resilient and rare, face an embattled future in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts against long odds of habitat fragmentation and degradation. ORV recreationists, notably, have been known to accidentally crush the slow-moving tortoises—their desert camouflage, while effective protection against natural predators, proves their undoing in the face of children on ATVs.

Much of Ray’s and Peter’s work has been to mitigate these instances in which recreation impacts wildlife. Desert tortoises are not the only potential victims: gesticulating in excitement, Peter provided an animated explanation of the spadefoot toad, which, mistaking the rumble of an ATV motor for the sound of thunder, will rise from its subterranean refuge in hopes of rain. As Ray explained, Dumont Dunes are a sacrifice zone, a place where extractive uses are concentrated to preserve habitat elsewhere.

Ray is approaching his retirement after decades with the USFWS, while Peter still has much of his career left ahead of him, and their work provides some hope that future reconciliation between recreation and conservation of public lands might move at a pace faster than a desert tortoise’s.

By Noah Dunn

Photos by Abby Hill

Meet our Guests: Graham Chisholm and Jon Christensen

Graham Chisholm

Senior Policy Advisor, Conservation Strategy Group

San Francisco, CA

Jon Christensen

Professor of Environmental Humanities, UCLA

Los Angeles, CA

11/12/18

Next to a stone house in a small canyon in southern California, buffeted by wind, Semester in the West met with Jon Christensen and Graham Chisholm, an author and environmentalist, respectively.  Graham Chisholm has spent much of his life in the conservation world of California, working as the head of conservation for the California branch of the Nature Conservancy, and now as an independent consultant helping small environmental non-profits get established.  One of the biggest lessons which he has taken with him through his work in the conservation sector, has been that “to be human, you have to think that things can get better”.  It is with this optimism that Graham sees the future of the environmental movement: green spaces in cities are as influential as our national parks in informing a person’s view of what nature is. 

Jon, tall and wearing an inquisitive smile as he speaks, has spent much of his life as a writer.  With a writing history including a stint as a contributing writer at High Country News, he is currently a professor of Environmental Humanities at UCLA.  There he tries to tell his students to find stories that don’t close in “dead-end standoffs”, a lesson he learned at HCN, and that the most important thing your writing can do is to have an impact.  He explains one of the most important lessons he gained from a lifetime of writing: you have to let things have a point of view, and an agenda in order for their impact be felt.       

Both Graham and Jon, though past middle age, and having worked in their respective fields for many years, remain positive in their thoughts for the future. And as they both said, we should look forward to the future as well. 

By David Dregallo

Photos by Jessie Brandt

Meet our Guests: Susan Sorrells

Susan Sorrells

Town Manager

Shoshone, CA

11/12/18

 “We were just scrambling, those of us who wanted to stay, to have some kind of economic base… We consciously made the decision to move from tourism to eco-tourism.”

Susan Sorrells, born and raised in Shoshone, California, is now the leading force in bringing environmental and economic life back into the small town of. After the closure of railroad and mining industries which once brought riches to the town, Shoshone is now revising its priorities. “It’s a clean slate, so to speak…it was a mining area historically, so for a long time (environmental) places weren’t valued…Most of us are here because we love the land…we revel in being a community that interacts and supports one another, and we’re hoping to incorporate healthy communities into our environmental work that we do.”

Partnering with the Amargosa Conservancy, Susan’s hopes for environmental consciousness and eco-tourism have come alive. Just within the last decade, the accidental discovery of natural springs and endangered Shoshone Pupfish on Susan’s land have led to wetland restoration and legally protected environmental sanctuaries for multiple threatened species. “Those of us here really have an opportunity to mold how we so call ‘develop’…in Shoshone, we’ve chosen to develop by incorporating the natural resources,” says Susan, excited and proud of how far the town has come.

By Hannah Morel

Photos by Amara Killen

Meet our Guests: Tanya Henderson

Tanya Henderson

Executive Director, Amargosa Conservancy

Shoshone, CA

11/10/18

Tanya Henderson, a funky and driven transplant to the Mojave Desert from California’s Bay Area, leads the Amargosa River Conservancy. After graduating from Whitman College in 2005, Tanya sought out ways to fulfill her passion for conservation, bringing her to the small town of Shoshone, California (population 31). Tanya and the Conservancy strive to protect the wilds, waters, and communities of the Amargosa River Basin which starts at Yucca Mountain (a proposed nuclear waste storage site) and ends in the lowest point in Death Valley. It contains the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, home to more endemic species than any other place in the United States.

In an area with so many critical habitats and endangered species, Tanya and the Conservancy are making huge environmental strides. A small organization, they work to involve the communities of the basin in important decision making, hold educational events, develop work projects that connect people to the land, and monitor endangered species populations. While with Tanya , Semester in the West participated in one of the Conservancy’s work projects, removing invasive cattails from important desert pupfish habitat and sweeping away off highway vehicle (OHV) tracks in the desert to prevent further destruction of desert soils.

Tanya has creatively found ways to engage and involve the communities near and far in protecting the unique water source that is the Amargosa and the desert oases it nurtures. Tanya’s dedication and obsession for desert ecosystems is exemplified in her work to protect the Amargosa vole and the desert pupfish species endemic to the Mojave. Tanya and the Conservancy hope to protect their small oasis while connecting it to the larger desert ecosystem through education, science, and community involvement.

By Whitney Rich

Photos by Nina Moore

Meet our Guests: Cristina Perea

Cristina Perea

Urban Projects Department Assistant, Sonoran Institute

Mexicali, Baja California

11/8/18

“El restoración no pelea con las necesidades economicas,” explains Cristina Perea, a 31-year old with feisty energy, contagious laughter, and a keen eye: restoration and economic needs don’t fight with each other, they can go hand in hand. Cristina studied International Relations in undergrad, and mastered in Planning and Sustainable Development, both from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California at the Mexicali headquarters. As part of the Delta team for the Sonoran Institute, Cristina has worked as the Urban Projects Department assistant for two years. It’s clear that this woman is excited about working with other humans. Strolling along the Rio Hardy with misty peaks in view above the flat desert, Cristina spoke about two land owners working with the Sonoran Institute to restore the riverside for a future camping and cabin spot. One land owner is a fisherman, the other a government official, and both realize the economic possibilities that come with supporting the Rio Hardy native ecology.

Cristina shared the lesson learned when cottonwoods and willows were planted—they died due to a lack of water. Since, with the help of volunteers, Sonoran Institute has introduced mesquite along the bank. One day last July, 900 trees were planted, and we were asked to imagine the density of the shore in just a few years.

Cristina told us that this project is major because since its fruition, other land owners have been asking the Sonoran Institute to start restoration work on their land as well. While land owners, like the two involved in this project, are able to take hold of an opportunity for economic development, the Institute is able to manifest watershed restoration on that private land, which ultimately benefits the surrounding communities—both human and non-human. After the first two years in which the Institute pays for the Rio Hardy re-planting, the adjacent land owners will fund a percentage of future ecological work with the income they receive from their improved land.

People don’t move away from their home in Mexicali often, but there is an influx of outsiders from other parts of Mexico that settle in the area. Cristina admits she is happy to continue to live and work in the fertile valley because there are plenty of restoration projects yet to be carried out.

By Jessie Brandt

Meet our Guests: Gabriela González Olimón

Gabriela González Olimón

Environmental Education and Investigation Coordinator, Sonoran Institute

Mexicali, Baja California

11/8/18

In the middle of the Baja Californian desert, the sun is hot, water is scarce, and vegetation is rare. The trails of the Colorado River remind of what once was a vegetated area fed by the river. Suddenly, a forest of cottonwood trees appears. These were replanted five years ago and refuse to give up to the harsh conditions of the desert. They stand strong, the same way Gaby Gonzalez does when she confidently talks to us about her work and passion as a conservationist.

Gaby is a biologist, currently working as Environmental Education and Investigation Coordinator at the Sonoran Institute in Baja California, Mexico. Before, she spent six years of her life volunteering at different conservation projects across the US. SITW first met her back in 2014, interning at Grand Canyon National Park. Gaby mainly works in the Laguna Grande conservation area, designing educational programs and overseeing the monitoring of projects.

One of Gaby’s most important goals is to introduce communities to the reserve and raise awareness for the restoration projects there. She explains that when people visit the reserve, they are often surprised by nature. Gaby claims that people don’t often listen to the sounds of nature and animals. She mentions that one of her most impressive experiences with guests has been “people crying when they listen to the sound of trees being moved by the wind.” She regrets that lots of locals don’t even know that a century ago, the Baja California desert used to look like Laguna Grande currently does.

Gaby and the Sonoran Institute employees represent a new generation of environmentalists whose work goes beyond the environment. They also work in outreach by developing a relationship which empowers communities to take on and sustain the conservation projects in the future.

Gaby shares the Sonoran Institute’s dream of bringing people closer to nature so they can develop a relationship with it. She even looks at herself as two different people: “office Gaby” is sometimes moody, confined in the city of Mexicali, and “forest Gaby” is always happy with internal peace and closeness to nature.

By Juan Pablo Liendo Molina

Meet our Guests: Francisco Zamora

Francisco Zamora

Colorado River Delta Program Director, Sonoran Institute

Mexicali, Baja California

11/10/18

“We need to tell more positive stories, especially today. You guys can tell them.” I’ll start with the story of the very man who gave us this encouragement: Francisco Zamora. He directs the Colorado Delta region for the Sonoran Institute in Mexicali, Mexico. Francisco saw a barren desert and dreamed of a river winding through a dense forest. After several years of perseverance, his dream came true. He talks to us at Laguna Grande, one of the sites where he’s created life. The banks of the river are green, and beyond them grows a beautiful forest consisting of coyote willow, mesquite, and cottonwood.

The haven has ameliorated the lives of a host of species, including humans. Locals come to the newly created biome and are often profoundly moved, seeing nature for the first time. “At the beginning there was no recognition from the people about the environment, and now I see a new attitude towards restoration…People in Mexicali know about the Grand Canyon, but not the Colorado River that’s in their own backyard.” The Sonoran institute is finally getting discovered, one planted tree at a time.

He began his talk by saying “this morning, I got a flat tire, and two policemen came and helped me change the tire. That tells me there’s still a lot of hope, and there are still good people on the Earth.” Francisco reminds us to dream, care, give, and remain positive. If just a quarter of the world embodies his sentiment, we’ll be just fine.

By Luke Ratliff

Photos by Luke Ratliff

Meet our Guests: Paul Arbetan

Paul Arbetan

Consulting Ecologist, Natural Heritage New Mexico

Albuquerque, NM

11/3/18

Through his work with New Mexico’s Department of Military Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management, Paul Arbetan is a frequent visitor to the savannas and deserts of southern New Mexico. During our time with him as our guide, we explored the ecosystems of the Chihuahuan Desert through just a few of his many projects, including grassland, lichen, cactus, and Gray Vireo surveys.

Paul taught the Semester in the West students to read and understand a landscape and all its players through many lenses and places. Hiking to the snowy summit of Lake Peak outside of Santa Fe, he challenged us to consider how the adaptive suites of alpine plants might be altered due to climate change. Under the scorching sun of Roswell, we scoured arroyos and sinkholes in search of a rare, tiny, lime green lichen. Paul asked us the hard questions: why protect such a small, seemingly insignificant organism? To guide us toward answers (or perhaps just more questions), he incorporated regular philosophy readings and discussions into days spent counting grasses in the field.

Serenaded by the wrens of Boquillas Canyon amid a 3-day canoe trip on the Rio Grande, Paul paused in a discussion of Hegel’s dialectic to ask us why the little birds might be calling so late in the season. On one of our last days with Paul, we walked along the basalt talus slope of Black Mountain outside Deming, New Mexico, in search of a rare cactus that only grows under creosote bushes. We asked Paul how he keeps faith in his work and conservation as he watches this cactus population plummet towards extinction. He answered simply, “This is what I love to do. I’m selfish — I’m just having fun.”

To that end, Paul brought a lightheartedness to the otherwise science-heavy segment. Highlights included the company of Paul’s curious 6-year-old daughter, Esme (who impressed us with her fluency in the ecological vernacular of the New Mexican savannah), slurping Blizzards during a crash course on statistics conducted in a gas station Dairy Queen, and some first-class dance moves on our final night together. A close college friend of Director Phil Brick’s, it didn’t take long for Paul to likewise become a dear friend and mentor to the Westies.

By Nina Moore and Clara Hoffman

Photo by Whitney Rich

Meet our Guests: Stanley Crawford

Stanley Crawford

Author & Garlic Farmer

Dixon, NM

10/18/18

The clock ticked forcefully against the silence of the scarlet living room, warmed by the yellow hues of cottonwood shining through a well-centered six-pane window. Adjacent to the neat panes stood a tower of novels, two stories high, each level tilted in discord with the last, elegant in its tenuousness. In every sense of the phrase, Stanley Crawford’s home is self-made. From the adobe bricks to the pinyon pine crossbeams, the house reflects his hard-working and passionate character.

Crawford is a writer, professor, and garlic farmer who owns and operates the El Bosque garlic farm in Dixon, New Mexico, a small town of 800 people nestled between Taos and Santa Fe. Since his arrival in 1969, Stanley has been integrating himself into the Dixon community, serving as a mayordomo (water channel manager), while helping to establish the local co-op. Primarily, Stanley is a garlic farmer, producing many different varieties throughout the spring and summer growing seasons to sell at the surrounding farmers markets in the fall. Stanley also teaches part time in the Southwest Studies department at Colorado College and is a renowned writer of non-fiction. His works primarily focus on ecological issues, including the nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory, water management, and of course, garlic farming.

In his parting words to the group, Stanley emphasized the importance of unpacking abstractions, writing shorter sentences, and embracing creativity in writing. Additionally, the students were also introduced to the routines of life on a small farm. Peeling garlic, planting garlic, and eating garlic became our second job. From Stanley, students learned as much about how to live a valuable life as they did about writing and garlic.

By James Baker

Meet our Guests: Adrian and Dan Herder

Adrian Herder

Teacher

Pinon, AZ

Dan Herder

Rancher

Hardrock, AZ

10/14/18

We sat huddled around a small fire on the Black Mesa Reservation with multiple generations of the Herder family. A delighted smile flashed across Adrian Herder’s face as he narrated ghost stories in the last bit of the day’s light. At twenty-six years old, Adrian is full of enthusiasm and is eager to share stories and the history and heartache of the Navajo land. Continuing in his family’s footsteps, he is a dedicated activist and originally connected with the Semester in the West program through contacts he made at an environmental conference held by the Grand Canyon Trust in 2014.  Like many young people on the reservation, Adrian left to pursue his education at Northern Arizona University but, unlike most, he was able to find a job back home coaching cross country and teaching art at the small high school in Pinon, thereby avoiding the all too common migration from reservation to city in search of work.  

In our few days on the Navajo Reservation with the Herder family, we were welcomed with a rare openness and warmth. As we introduced ourselves, the Herders asked us why we were there and what we wanted to gain from our experience. In resounding unity, we answered,  “to listen.” Adrian’s grandfather, Dan, told us that the animals used to lead them to the water sources, but now, due to the repercussions of the coal plant on the reservation and the rising impacts of climate change (the southwest being at the forefront of it), the soil has become dry and barren, almost uninhabitable. A sense of urgency and heartache emanated from each member of the Herder family as they spoke to us about how Peabody Coal has impacted their home and Black Mesa. “Our pristine aquifers have been sucked dry,” Dan explained. The only spring that flows near the Herder residence now is beneath a large rock canyon, and according to Dan, “It’s barely enough water to wet your hands and knees as you crawl through the rock wall tunnel.”

The next day, Adrian led us to a site where we helped lift rocks and move fallen trees to create gabions: small dams used for erosion control.  The Herders work vigilantly to divert rainwater, slow erosion, and create nutrient rich soil for vegetation growth. We listened, and the concerns were heard loud and clear. What will this land look like with the absence of water? What will it mean for the livestock, wildlife, and residents of Black Mesa, all of whom depend on water as a vital, life sustaining resource.

By Lauren Ewell

Photo by Jessie Brandt

Meet our Guests: The Herder Matriarchs

Lorraine Herder

Edith Simonsen

Linda Henley

Hardrock, AZ

10/13/18

Big Mountain was set ablaze by the orange of the setting sun. A juniper-tindered fire scorched my skin, casting its umber glow upon the faces of the three matriarchs that sat across from me: Linda, Edith, and Loraine; “The Grannies,” the voices of reason, women’s voices that speak for the land and the Navajo community.

The light reflected upon their aged faces, accentuating their wrinkles and kind, wise eyes. Wool, artistically stained with juniper, prickly pear, and sage, slipped through their hands-- hands worn and weathered from a lifetime of weaving, herding, and tending to land, children, and their communities. Edith delicately ran her hands over one of her intricately-patterned woven rugs as she talked about raising her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren on these very lands, about their struggles with industry interests that seem to care little about their impact on the land, water, and air upon which the Navajo people depend.

 As our bodies rested on the rugs and our fingers felt the wool made from the sheep tended by these women, The Grannies recounted their most recent fight: a trip to New York City to protest the Navajo Generating Station, a nearby coal-fired power plant, from being purchased. Their resistance paid off; the prospective deal was stopped and the station will be closed in a year--a success for these women, their families, and others who spoke up for renewable energy, pure water, and clean air. Edith recalled her pride and admiration for Axheenaba, her youngest great grandchild and a budding activist, who united people together and led the chants saying, “water is life.” She remembers a time when the aquifer was pristine and full and feels called to fight for the land, the water, the animals, and of course, her children, grandchildren, and all those who will come after her. These are The Grannies--grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters, wool makers, rug weavers, and fierce protectors of their homeland. In a place of abundant sunshine and winds, they seek clean energy and jobs that won’t make the people sick.

By Lauren Ewell

Meet our Guests: Roger Clark

Roger Clark

Grand Canyon Program Director, Grand Canyon Trust

Flagstaff, AZ

10/9/18

Roger Clark seems at home on the rim of the Grand Canyon. With only open air below, Roger stands atop limestone explaining to us the layers of rock that comprise this awe-inspiring view. Before the geology lesson, we sat beside hunks of metal bolts that had been installed to transport engineers from the US Bureau of Reclamation, who were studying the canyon below as a potential site for Marble Canyon Dam. The work of David Brower and the Sierra Club stopped this project in its tracks and set a precedent of permanent protection for this canyon.

Roger began his career as a college professor and museum curator but after years he decided that was not what he truly wanted to do. Leaving academia, he naturally became a river guide on the Colorado River, forming a bond with the water and walls of the canyon. This love of the natural world is clear when he speaks about the multitude of topics that he is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about, ranging from uranium and coal mining to Native American tribal rights to development along the rim and preservation of the Canyon’s unique vistas. These are areas of immense challenge for environmentalists, and it would be difficult for a single person to take on any one of them. Yet Roger handles the entire Grand Canyon program with a subtle confidence and deep knowledge of history and politics.

As an educator, Roger has a deeply welcoming and helpful spirit that encourages every question and always leaves the asker satisfied. After spending his life in this chasm of political and economic interests, natural and indigenous resources, and absurd beauty, Roger Clark showed us his Grand Canyon, and took us over the edge.

By Eliza van Wetter

Photo by James Baker

Meet our Guests: Jason Nez

Jason Nez

Archaeologist & Artist

Tuba City, AZ

10/9/18

We bounce, rattle, and roll with the potholes and washouts as we skip along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, listening to the hits of the 80’s. Jason Nez is at the helm, a Navajo archaeologist who spent the day out in the field showing us archeological sites that consisted of old ruins, pot shards, and petroglyphs. Driving along, Jason flashes a broad grin as we pepper him with questions, he seems to have a thoughtful response to all of them and appreciates our enthusiasm for learning about archaeology and asking him why he dedicates his time to it. He believes in the power of sharing these sites, educating people on the history of them and current cultural traditions as a means of conserving resources and protecting them into the future.  Jason’s passion stems from his desire for people to see that Native Americans have belonged as an integral part of the narrative in the history and future of this place. This is why he works to educate people about the importance of protecting cultural sites.

Jason emphasized that he wants others to see and feel the way he does when in a landscape or looking at a prehistoric site. He stated, “I want them to love these places. I want them to appreciate them, because when you love somewhere and when you love something, you will fight for it”. Jason’s breadth of knowledge and love for what he does stressed the importance of not taking projectile points, pottery shards, or remnants of other cultures home for one’s own selfish desires. Jason hammered home the necessity to leave artifacts in the dirt of the landscapes they inhabit, as they help to provide context, cultural significance and act as evidence highlighting the importance of native peoples.

By Liam Voorhees

Meet our Guests: Amy Irvine

Amy Irvine

Author

Norwood, CO

10/5/18

“We’re not going to survive if we think we’ve already lost”.

Amy Irvine, 6th generation Utah native and author of the books Trespass and Desert Cabal, joined us for a three-day writing workshop during our stay on Comb Ridge, a central location to the Semester in the West program. On Amy’s first night with us, we discussed our hopes and fears with one another and felt the gravity of the environmental crisis on our hands. The concerns held but previously unstated by the group washed over us harder than the night’s pelting rain.

Using the consuming guilt and fiery passions held by everyone, Amy harnessed our drive, and helped us uncover the potential of 21 driven individuals, allowing us to regain a sense of power in a moment of vulnerability and despair. “Every one of your voices counts in a way you can’t imagine”, Amy announced after giving us our cumulative project: writing a comment letter on Bears Ears National Monument’s precarious fate. “Can you say the thing that nobody has said in a way someone might listen?” she asked. The comment letters we wrote were designed to be different than the typical letters sent in comment periods, focused on place and moments within the place that had inspired us to write a letter. The goal of the letter was to invoke a similar feeling of familiarity with the location to readers who may have a part in the decision-making process regarding Bears Ears.

Amy helped us gain confidence in nature writing, focusing deeply on our location at Comb Ridge and bringing to mind the late author Ellen Meloy’s “Deep Map of Place.” Bright colorful sunrises and sunsets falling across the sandstone ridges, along with sneaky cacti and black sagebrush growing in small stone cracks provided bountiful inspiration. As our visit with Amy went on, many members of the group became increasingly self-assured, sharing pieces with the group which evoked a new sense of hope and confidence. Each of us submitted a final comment letter to the BLM, hopefully guiding the agency as it struggles with how to best manage the unique resources of this remarkable place.

By Kate Dolan

Photo by James Baker

Meet our Guests: Joe Pachak

Joe Pachak

Artist

Bluff, UT

10/2/2018

Joe Pachak walks slowly through a fine drizzle, long goatee brushing his Patagonia jacket as he scans the rain-plumped red earth. Pausing, he kneels down, running his fingers over a protrusion of chert, a jagged scarlet patch of hard stone in a sea of soft limestone. He explains that these pockets of acidic chert formed in the basic limestone back when the crest of earth we are standing on now was at the bottom of an ocean. Picking up a piece of chert no larger than my thumbnail next to his knee, Joe’s hands mime the movements a flintknappers hands would make while forming a point.

Joe is an artist residing in Bluff, Utah, and has long been obsessed with discovering rock art and artifacts created by native peoples. Today, we are walking with him along the rim of a dried oxbow of the San Juan River just outside of Bluff, in southern Utah. He stops, showing us shrines, rocks that were used to knap flint, flakes, and potsherds ranging in color from yellow to red to black and white. We carefully place each artifact back in the spongy soil, tucking them under bushes and overhanging stones, but never burying them. We are in an area where archeologists from the BLM have removed many artifacts, and I ask Joe what his thoughts are on scientists removing artifacts versus leaving them in the field. He responds with a story-told softly through his white beard.

Growing up in Colorado, Joe followed his father in practicing a “finders keepers” methodology when they encountered artifacts and accumulated a huge collection of arrowheads. Obsessed from this young age, Joe eventually transitioned into a “finders leavers” mentality and practiced it so adamantly that his own father did not give him their arrowhead collection, for fear Joe would toss it back out into the sagebrush whence it was found.

Joe knows the power of an artifact left in place, from his many times guiding artifact hunting trips and witnessing the transformation of a person after finding an artifact. He also knows that many people don’t have the same mentality he does and would rather see artifacts safely scooped up by archeologists than in the private collections of people like his father. Throughout our drizzly walk, Joe encouraged us to feel the power of the pieces we found and their ancient spirits, and how we would like to continue encountering artifacts in their “native” environments.

By Clara Hoffman

Meet our Guests: Ann Walka

Meet our Guests: Ann Walka

Poet/Author

Bluff, UT

9/30/18

When Ann first arrived to our camp, the sky was pink, and the sandstone a golden glow. I watched as she strolled, her eyes scanning the horizon in every direction. She paused to look up at Comb Ridge and the big sky all around. In this moment, her calm presence, and deep connection to this place were already palpable.

Ann Walka is a poet who splits her time between Bluff, Utah and Flagstaff, Arizona. During our time with her, she encouraged us to investigate this place with the full depth of our senses. Under Monday morning’s blistering sun she brought us down to the shade of a canyon, with Tuesday morning’s rain she brought us to the shelter of a grotto. From each of these bases she encouraged us to disperse off and find a place of solitude from which to explore our language. Each day she gave us loose assignments to encourage this exploration. We made maps, wrote weather reports, personal essays, list poems, and imaginative place-based stories. We sat in observation and free wrote, returning with philosophical quandaries, poems, personifications of the land and much more. With each assignment, she gave us time to ourselves, time to wander and enter the writing from our own place of curiosity.

In our final chair circle with her, underneath the starry sky, she commended how each of us had such distinct, individual voices. I wonder though if she realized the role she played in reminding us how to access this voice. Ann placed herself, a published poet, on a practically equal level with us, a group of students, some of whom couldn’t even remember the last time we wrote creatively. This humble presence, in combination with the space to wonder made it natural for us to put pen to paper and let our voices come through.

By Aliza Anderson-Diepenbrock

Meet our Guests: Mary O'Brien

Mary O’Brien

Utah Forest Program Director, Grand Canyon Trust

Castle Valley, UT

9/28/18

Mary O’Brien, ecologist for the Grand Canyon Trust, sits with dusty, Chaco-clad feet outstretched under the shade of a pinon pine, explaining our assignment: an ecological assessment of a spring near Monroe Mountain in southern Utah. She’d like us to report on the spring’s habitat, its species and their relationships to each other and the spring. Simply stated, she wants us to observe. “I see science as a way to interview the world,” she explains. This sentiment represents Mary well. She possesses a curiosity and devotion to the natural world that is hard to come by. Melding biology with politics, activism, and passion, Mary understands the intersectional way that science merges with other disciplines.

Mary often wears a wide, eye-crinkled smile or an intensely serious frown. While showing us a dying aspen stand, she wears the latter. Leaning over a juvenile tree, she notes its buds have been browsed, explaining that its opportunity for growth this year has been stunted. It’s something most of us wouldn’t notice, but Mary is acutely aware of the destruction that ungulates, especially cattle, are inflicting upon our public lands. During our two weeks with her, she teaches us how to notice the signs of an ecosystem in trouble, from overgrazed bunchgrasses to murky brown creek water. But Mary doesn’t just immerse us in her world of ecology. On a crisp, sunny afternoon at the Koosharem Guard Station in the Fish Lake National Forest, she introduces us to two men she works with in a collaborative. The collaborative aims to bring people of different backgrounds together to decide how best to manage grazing on public lands. Mary is the only environmentalist and only woman in the group and uses her voice to “speak for the plants,” as she puts it. She is not intimidated to be in the minority: it fuels her fire.

One thing that’s clear about Mary is that she is tireless in her environmental efforts. For the past 35 years, she has worked sixty hours a week, pushing against the strong conservative forces that seek to destroy the land. After some wins, but many defeats, she still remains steadfast. Walking in an aspen grove, I asked Mary how she stays hopeful. “Well, if I feel defeated then they’ve won,” she replies, chuckling. Knowing Mary as I do now, I’m certain she won’t back down until she’s won.

By Abby Hill

Photo by Whitney Rich

Meet our Guests: Steve & Robin Boies

Steve & Robin Boies

Owners, Hubbard-Vineyard Ranch

Jackpot, NV

9/15/2018

Robin and Steve Boies smile down at us with welcoming eyes and lean back casually against the propane tank in their yard, the word “LOVE” graffitied on the side in big white and blue lettering. We gather on the residential portion of their Hubbard-Vineyard Ranch, located just outside of Jackpot, Nevada. The ranch has been passed down through four generations and is equally a profession, passion and lifestyle for the couple. As we watch their countless dogs roam free under the gentle late-summer sun, the Boies admit their only complaint is the constant whoosh of passing cars on Highway 93, which runs parallel to their property.

Steve and Robin own 13,000 acres of private land, and the rest of their 130,000 ranching acres are under control of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). At the center of competing interests between state and federal bureaucracy, mining companies, environmental groups, and fellow ranchers, the Hubbard-Vineyard ranch reveals the great complexities that arise for the modern-day rancher in Northeastern Nevada.

The Boies are major proponents of combining ranching with conservation. They practice an Allan Savory-esque holistic management style which supports grassland regrowth and requires two years of pasture rest for every year of use.

 As our conversation turns from crested wheatgrass re-emergence to the impact of the Paris Agreement withdrawal, it is clear that the Boies are well informed and deeply passionate about resolving the multipronged issues they face. While there are no obvious solutions, it is comforting to know there are people like the Boies willing and dedicated to push in the right direction.

By Amara Killen