Drift Smoke : a Meditation on Fire and Loss in the West
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University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1999 Drift smoke : a meditation on fire and loss in the West David J. Strohmaier The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Strohmaier, David J., "Drift smoke : a meditation on fire and loss in the West" (1999). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 5806. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5806 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I i I Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY The University ofIVIONTANA Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. * * Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature * * Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature Date /~ Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DRIFT SMOKE: A Meditation on Fire and Loss in the West by David J. Strohmaier B.A. Seattle Pacific University, 1989 M.A.R. Yale University, 1995 presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science The University of Montana 1999 Approved by: —I Chairperson Dean, Graduate School Date Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: EP36607 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT DiM«rt«tion njblwhing UMI EP36607 Published by ProQuest LLC (2013). Copyright In the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQ ^st' ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Strohmaier, David J., M.S., May 1999 Environmental Studies Drift Smoke: A Meditation on Fire and Loss in the West Director: Don Snow Throughout much of this century, free-burning fire has been considered a thing to be eliminated, an anomalous force threatening both humans and nature. Today, ecologists and land managers tout fire as a natural process to be restored. However, in exchanging one paradigm for another, it's all too easy to forget that fire is inextricably bound to loss—loss that can be painful, that is worthy of grief and mourning. Through personal narrative and reflections, I examine four categories of loss associated with fire in the American West: (1 ) loss of fire, (2) loss of life, (3) loss of livelihood, and (4) loss of place. Fire. Following European settlement in the mid-19th century, the amount of fire upon the landscape of the West has been drastically reduced due to the virtual elimination of indigenous people’s use of fire and the aggressive suppression of lightning-caused fires. Such loss of fire has led to profound biological changes in both vegetation and wildlife distribution and abundance. Ufe. Undoubtedly, as long as humans have resided in North America, people have lost their lives to fire. But in recognizing this, we must continue to question whether human life is ever worth risking for homes, timber, or other pieces of the landscape we value that are susceptible to fire. Uvelihood, Even when we acknowledge fire as beneficial to plant communities and ecosystems, people’s livelihoods may suffer loss if natural resources are consumed by fire. Sometimes this justifies suppressing fire, but not always. Regardless, such losses are real. Place. Finally, fire has the potential to influence our sense of place (i.e., loss of place). Human identity is bound up with specific places, so when a tree, grove, forest, or other natural feature is damaged by fire, we suffer loss. All of these losses must be viewed together and acknowledged as genuine, even when rebirth and renewal follow. Only by recognizing irretrievable losses can we envisage how fire should reinhabit the West, and how we should reinhabit lands that burn. II / Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Introducticm 1 P a rti W inds 8 P a rti! Slow Smother: Loss of Fire 21 Learning to Remember: Loss of Life 42 Winter Feed: Loss of Livelihood 73 Threescore and Ten: Loss of Place 92 Part III Drift Smoke 106 Notes 117 III Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements There are many people I'd like to thank for their assistance with this project. The University of Montana’s Environmental Studies Program granted me B & B Dawson Award that aided with travel to Storm King Mountain and Mann Gulch. And through the generosity of Ron and Nancy Erickson, I was able to research fire fatality sites throughout the northern Rockies. The staffs of The University of Montana archives and the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Region archives were extremely helpful in tracking down documents and photographs of the 1910 fires in the Bitterroot Mountains and the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire, northeast of Helena, Montana. I’d especially like to thank Dave Turner, with the Helena National Forest, for his time and cooperation in responding to my frequent queries for Mann Gulch documents and information. Clint Dawson, with the Shoshone National Forest, provided invaluable access to documents and photographs of the 1939 Blackwater fire. I want to thank my thesis committee members—Don Snow, Christopher Preston, and Jim Burchfield. Their textual “cold-trailing," and incisive comments on drafts of this manuscript, have made this a much improved work over what it would have been otherwise. M y CO workers with the Prineville District of the Bureau of Land Management and the residents of Sherman County, Oregon, have been my friends and neighbors for many years. They’ve taught me much about loss, about sweating and laughing and crying while fighting the fires of summer. They’ve also given me pause to think IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. about what It means at the close of the 20th century to live with fire in the West, in a land that has evolved to burn, will continue to burn, and in many cases ought to burn. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my wife, Gretchen. Without her prodding, love, encouragement, and advice, this project would have never reached its current form, and may never have been written at all. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For The ‘^Unknowns' VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction We find a place for what we lose. Although we know that after such a loss the acute stage of mourning will subside, we also know that we shall remain inconsolable and will never find a substitute. No matter what may fill the gs^o, even if it be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something else. —Sigmund Freud, Letters of Sigmund Freud^ The American West is a storied landscape inscribed by loss; loss of species, loss of peoples, loss of cultures, loss of lands, loss of livelihoods, loss of hopes and dreams. This is an old story, at least as old as the late Ice Age extinctions of megafauna some 10,000 years ago; it’s a story still being written. For anyone who calls the West home, part of writing—that is living— this story, involves remembering how these manifold losses have shaped the land upon which we live, who we are, and who we want to become. And smoldering under each of these losses is the story of fire. Maybe it’s so obvious as to seem trivial, but fire exists only because of loss. As an event in space and time, fire necessarily consumes life. Wood melts into charcoal and ashes; it also evaporates in radiant energy and drifting smoke. This is nothing new, for as long as lightning and cured tinder have commingled across the North American landscape, there has been fire. But there are other losses associated with fire, all very real, all very significant, too often ignored and forgotten. Fire in the West is a four-act story of loss—the loss of fire, loss of life, loss of livelihood, and loss of place. In 1845, Stephen Meek led a wagon train on a near disastrous journey 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. through a waterless section of Oregon’s high desert, all for the sake of a shortcut to the Willamette Valley. When the wagons traveled at night, advance scouts would ride ahead and kindle fiery cairns of sage and juniper to mark the way.2 Each act in this four-part story of loss is itself a fiery cairn, meant to mark a way through the grief and tragedy of fire and loss, yet unlike Meek’s trail, these cairns needn't be traversed in order: where one begins depends on where one starts, and where one starts depends on one’s experience of fire.