Latest / Go Wildly Podcast / Place, Memory & the Meaning of Wild with Mark Tveskov | Go Wildly Podcast

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Place, Memory & the Meaning of Wild with Mark Tveskov | Go Wildly Podcast · Go Wildly Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Season 2 of Go Wildly podcast.
• 0:03
  We are Emily and Heather, 2 childhood friends who carry a
• 0:06
  mic into wild places like rivers, trails, and forests with
• 0:10
  wild people to host raw, honest conversations about adventure,
• 0:15
  healing, identity, and the transformative power of nature.
• 0:19
  In this season, we're centering the voices of people who call
• 0:22
  Southern Oregon home. Outdoor enthusiasts and outdoor
• 0:25
  professionals whose lives have been shaped, changed or are
• 0:28
  continually influenced by time outside.
• 0:31
  Come along as together we go. Wildly, we are.
• 0:38
  Recording Yay, we're back for Season 2 and today on Go Wildly
• 0:45
  we are sitting down with Mark Tvescov.
• 0:47
  Not sitting down. We're going to walk and then sit
• 0:50
  down. True, true.
• 0:51
  Our standard structure is our. Do we need to change our white
• 0:56
  balance a little bit? It might be.
• 1:01
  Let's see if I can just set it to auto.
• 1:03
  Oh gosh, I got to totally remember how to color.
• 1:06
  Yeah, right now, yeah. I mean, I feel like we have kind
• 1:09
  of an ethereal glow to us, so. Well, it's the fall.
• 1:13
  I'm I'm totally OK with it. Yeah, no, it looks good.
• 1:16
  We have color with our skin house.
• 1:18
  Color. OK, cool.
• 1:18
  We're bright and shiny. I did set it up so we should be
• 1:21
  should be OK. Perfect.
• 1:22
  I love it. So yes, we are here with Mark
• 1:26
  Axel Tavasco. He is an anthropologist and
• 1:29
  archaeologist and a professor at Southern Oregon University, and
• 1:34
  someone who has spent decades studying how people shape the
• 1:38
  landscapes that they live in and how those landscapes remember us
• 1:42
  back. Mark grew up in New England and
• 1:45
  made his way West in the early 90s and has been rooted in
• 1:48
  Southern Oregon ever since. His work has taken him
• 1:51
  everywhere from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska to Iceland
• 1:55
  and northern Mexico, digging literally into stories of war,
• 2:00
  colonialism, cultural memory, and the communities, especially
• 2:05
  indigenous and historically marginalized ones, whose
• 2:08
  histories are often overlooked. Here in Southern Oregon.
• 2:11
  Mark is especially known for discovering the site of the
• 2:14
  Battle of Hungry Hill during the Rogue River War and for his work
• 2:18
  at the Maxville Heritage Site, which is an early 20th century
• 2:22
  African American logging community.
• 2:25
  And this is all work that has earned Mark and Oregon Heritage
• 2:28
  Award in 2024. These days, Mark lives in
• 2:32
  Medford with his wife Rachel and their two cats.
• 2:35
  And when he's not in the field or the archives, he's playing
• 2:38
  music with playing guitar with Southern Oregon's funk rock band
• 2:43
  The Gust Factor. Go check them out when they're
• 2:45
  in your area. Mark brings a deep sense of
• 2:49
  place, history, and curiosity to everything that he does, and
• 2:53
  we're so excited to talk with him.
• 2:55
  I know Mark because he was my one of my professors at Southern
• 2:58
  Oregon University and I started taking classes with him fairly
• 3:02
  late in my college career. And honestly, I probably would
• 3:07
  have changed my major if I'd met you sooner and switched to
• 3:11
  cultural ecology. And now I just had an epiphany
• 3:15
  the other day that I'm doing cultural ecology through this
• 3:18
  podcast. Exactly.
• 3:19
  Right, studying how people interact with the landscape,
• 3:22
  yes. So thank you for being an early
• 3:25
  inspirer to the context of this podcast before I even knew how
• 3:30
  it would come to play. It's my pleasure and I'm honored
• 3:33
  and so nice to see you. You too.
• 3:35
  Thank you. We are at Tuval State Park and
• 3:40
  we're going to go for a little walk up the Rogue River to the
• 3:43
  mouth of Little Butte Creek. That's right.
• 3:45
  Yeah. Awesome.
• 3:47
  And as we walk, we'll have you tell us a little bit more about
• 3:51
  who you are, why you're here, and.
• 3:55
  And. Yeah, sure.
• 3:56
  Where it all began. Yes.
• 3:57
  And as we begin to walk, I couldn't help but notice I don't
• 4:00
  know if it'll show on the camera.
• 4:00
  Look at that. Granary tree right there.
• 4:02
  Wow. That's a pretty awesome 1.
• 4:03
  That is a beautiful tree. Yeah, all those holes are from.
• 4:08
  Woodpeckers or what? Somebody's storing their little
• 4:12
  nuts. How cool.
• 4:16
  Yeah, get a little close up on that.
• 4:19
  I don't know if it's woodpeckers, it's some kind of
• 4:21
  bird. A bird or probably not a beetle
• 4:24
  or or other bug. I just noticed it walking up to
• 4:31
  the restroom. There, Yeah.
• 4:33
  Wow. Really cool.
• 4:37
  Anyway. Did you know when you started
• 4:42
  listening to our podcast that you were an early inspirer?
• 4:48
  I wouldn't say that. I mean, I know you a little bit
• 4:52
  from class and other things and I and it seemed like it made
• 4:55
  sense to me based on what I know about you and your interests.
• 4:58
  And so in that sense, it, yeah, it seemed like a logical thing.
• 5:03
  Cool. Yeah.
• 5:07
  All right. A good use of your skill sets.
• 5:09
  Thank you. Let's talk.
• 5:11
  About the. Weather really quick.
• 5:13
  Because the weather, just so our listeners know what's going on
• 5:18
  with our color a little bit, we got a very foggy Southern Oregon
• 5:23
  day, very cold, freezing fog. But it seems to be burning off
• 5:28
  and we're going to get lucky today, which is mucho needed for
• 5:32
  Heather. It is mid January, so we are in
• 5:36
  the heart of winter, though we don't have any snow anywhere.
• 5:44
  Yep, the sun's coming out. It's going to be great.
• 5:47
  And we're out. We're beyond Grants Pass.
• 5:50
  The bowl of Grants Pass tends to keep keep the fog socked in and
• 5:56
  so just getting just beyond Grants Pass the sun, the sun
• 6:02
  clears us much sooner. While driving over here from
• 6:05
  Medford, it was bright and sunny.
• 6:07
  It was. The fog is just tucked down into
• 6:09
  the riparian area on the Rogue. If I remembered anything from my
• 6:16
  like climatology class I could probably speak more more
• 6:21
  informed about that, but something to do with inversion
• 6:25
  and mountains and rivers. Yeah, I mean, to me, that's one
• 6:33
  of the cool things about the mountains and the rivers, right?
• 6:35
  It's like watching the fog lift off of it and or driving on
• 6:41
  those passes on I-5 when you're like a dolphin coming up and
• 6:44
  down off the clouds. Right.
• 6:46
  I love being up in the mountains and just seeing the lake of fog
• 6:50
  down below. Yeah.
• 6:51
  Exactly. Yeah, I had somebody show me a
• 6:54
  picture yesterday. I guess they drive truck this
• 6:58
  person and they're like, check this out.
• 7:00
  He was up on like Mount Sexton area and it just looked like a
• 7:04
  lake. Yeah, a fog.
• 7:06
  So that's one of my all time favorite views coming down from
• 7:10
  Sexton towards Hugo. And you kind of get out of the
• 7:15
  pass and it's just the open Grants Pass Valley.
• 7:19
  Yeah. That's an epic view.
• 7:21
  I I remember the first time I saw that coming down for an
• 7:23
  archaeological project from EU of O and just, it was, yeah,
• 7:27
  that was a pretty, that's a pretty amazing sight.
• 7:30
  And it has all different views too, like at sunset.
• 7:33
  Right. I'm almost pulled off I5, which
• 7:36
  is a stupid thing to do to take a picture there.
• 7:39
  I don't know, I've actually done that.
• 7:41
  If I painted or did any kind of like drawing art, that is the
• 7:47
  view that I know would be my first like the thing that I
• 7:53
  would want to paint or draw. Yeah, to me, that's almost like
• 7:56
  the entry point to the road about like the the welcome sign
• 7:59
  to it. Mm hmm.
• 8:01
  Same. That's how I know I'm I'm home,
• 8:04
  yeah. So somewhere along here it stops
• 8:10
  being Tuval State Park and becomes Denman Wildlife Reserve,
• 8:14
  which is a state state thing that encompasses the old Camp
• 8:21
  White military base, which is what all this landscape is part
• 8:25
  of from World War 2. This was a strategic site.
• 8:37
  Well, they trained like military units to fight in Europe and
• 8:41
  they had a POW camp around here somewhere and that kind of
• 8:45
  created a lot of infrastructure for the Rogue Valley like
• 8:48
  waterworks and things like little Butte Creek up here.
• 8:51
  And others were channelized and made really straight to feed
• 8:55
  water to the to the valley into the military base.
• 9:01
  And you can see the remains of it.
• 9:03
  There's like little like like bunkers and things in the in the
• 9:07
  around here if you poke around enough.
• 9:11
  That's really interesting. Yeah, they just leave them
• 9:13
  behind and reallocate the land to some other use.
• 9:19
  Yeah. And the the Veterans Home
• 9:23
  Hospital is like the remains of that military presence.
• 9:26
  OK. And the street grid of White
• 9:28
  City is the original military base St. grid.
• 9:31
  OK, that's why it's so just line perpendicular lines.
• 9:38
  Yeah, exactly right. And just letters and numbers of
• 9:43
  the street names. You must have heard people talk
• 9:50
  about that over the years like rafting and what not because
• 9:53
  like there's a lot of old oral history about that.
• 9:55
  Like the they some of the PO WS stayed in the valley afterwards
• 10:03
  like the German PO WS, and during the war they helped pick
• 10:07
  pairs for because there wasn't enough labor to do it.
• 10:14
  Interesting. But they weren't.
• 10:18
  They were no longer prisoners of war, or that was their like
• 10:21
  prisoner labor. That was their prisoner labor.
• 10:24
  So one time a guy sold me a car at Lithia or something and he
• 10:27
  was telling me a story how his father or somebody told him.
• 10:31
  He remembers that the So the German Pows were so happy to be
• 10:35
  here. Like he remembers watching the
• 10:37
  laborers come off of a truck and the guard handed the prisoners
• 10:40
  his gun while he got. Off the truck like there was
• 10:42
  like. No drama whatsoever, they were
• 10:45
  just doing their thing. Kind of detached from the
• 10:50
  violence of war, just part of it.
• 10:54
  OK, now we're in the Denman Wildlife Area.
• 10:58
  And there's some story with this too.
• 11:03
  Probably says it right there. Established in 1954, somebody
• 11:07
  donated to the land but mandated to the state but mandated it
• 11:11
  always had to be used, available for hunting.
• 11:14
  So people like train like they're hunting dogs out here
• 11:17
  and things like that. Do they have to be contained to
• 11:21
  a certain area since it's also a multi use or a good question, is
• 11:25
  there a risk of? Us getting shot.
• 11:28
  Yeah, good thing heathers in a bright red coat.
• 11:32
  We'll just hide behind Heather. Thanks.
• 11:36
  You'll protect us. That's right.
• 11:39
  Well, just we start hearing close gunshots, maybe venture
• 11:42
  back or we could set up right here.
• 11:44
  No, I think we should keep walking.
• 11:45
  It's. OK.
• 11:46
  If we do hear gunshots, maybe we'll fuck in color.
• 11:50
  We're yeah, we're in pretty bright colors, so.
• 11:54
  I'm going to go. We don't look like we don't look
• 11:59
  like game. Well, should we start in?
• 12:12
  Yeah, tell us a little bit more about who you are.
• 12:15
  Expand on our nice little intro bio.
• 12:18
  That was That was a nice introduction.
• 12:22
  It was. Provided mostly by you.
• 12:26
  Yeah, I am. I am a professor.
• 12:28
  I'm an anthropologist, archaeologist and sort of
• 12:30
  historian. And I think, I think you hit it
• 12:34
  on the head. I mean, I like to think about
• 12:37
  place and help communities remember or don't remember their
• 12:41
  past and how that affects who we are today.
• 12:45
  That's who I am personally. And so I am professionally like
• 12:48
  little stories like Denman and and Camp White, you know, they,
• 12:51
  they sort of reverberate through in weird ways, whether people,
• 12:59
  however they articulate them and the relationship between that
• 13:02
  and what actually happened and what people do with that
• 13:05
  information. It's really interesting.
• 13:09
  And I've been working at SOU for a long time, since 1998.
• 13:17
  Oh, wow. Yeah, starting to get on and.
• 13:22
  Have you always just done the same thing, or have you kind of
• 13:25
  floated around through your specific different subjects?
• 13:30
  I've floated around quite a bit the the through line has always
• 13:34
  been place, always been memory, always been about thinking about
• 13:40
  stories that need to be told, I think, and stories that are and
• 13:44
  how the other stories are are used in the present.
• 13:48
  But so when I grew up in New England through my in
• 13:53
  Connecticut, and I went to the University of Connecticut for my
• 13:55
  undergraduate and master's degree.
• 13:58
  And doing that was a way for me to think a lot about the
• 14:02
  landscape I grew up in back then from my early childhood on and
• 14:07
  discover things like the wars against indigenous people there,
• 14:11
  which I was involved with research on and just ecology
• 14:17
  writ large. You know, like I'd always
• 14:20
  naturally been inclined to thinking about environment and
• 14:24
  places in the environment and then to sort of systematically
• 14:26
  think about it professionally Was was fun.
• 14:32
  What did that childhood look like that led to that
• 14:36
  inspiration to get into the subject matter?
• 14:39
  Who are you? Would your like family describe
• 14:43
  you as A and yourself as a really curious investigative
• 14:47
  kid? Were you spending time outside a
• 14:49
  lot? I was always getting into sort
• 14:52
  of trouble, getting lost and covered in mud and things.
• 14:54
  This is not a terrible spot to think about, but maybe we should
• 14:57
  walk up a a little bit further the mount that's a little bit of
• 15:00
  Creek coming in right there and then Table Rock in the
• 15:02
  background, upper Table Rock. Beautiful.
• 15:05
  Yeah, it actually is a sweet little spot.
• 15:07
  Yeah, it's a good steelhead spot.
• 15:13
  A good, good bend in the river and that cold water coming in
• 15:16
  from the Creek, Yeah. Is it speaking to us or do we
• 15:19
  want to go? I think.
• 15:21
  I think maybe just walk up a little bit further and just take
• 15:23
  a peek and then and then this might be the spot, but there's
• 15:26
  another spot I'm also thinking of.
• 15:28
  OK, cool. Sounds great.
• 15:35
  Yeah, yeah. There was a swamp behind my
• 15:38
  house when I was a kid at Wetland and I I remember my
• 15:43
  mother being really upset because I would come home.
• 15:46
  It's like covered in mine but I couldn't help it.
• 15:51
  She couldn't hold you back. No.
• 15:54
  It was your destiny. Did you have a big family?
• 15:58
  I'm the youngest of four. OK.
• 16:01
  Wow, brother and two sisters. Are they also in similar paths
• 16:07
  in life as you or? No, they actually took different
• 16:11
  different ways. My brother is an artist and my
• 16:15
  sister worked for the United Way, like nonprofits, for a long
• 16:19
  time, and then my other sister was a lawyer for a long time.
• 16:23
  And what'd your parents do? My dad was an engineer by
• 16:27
  training, but he ended up, he ended up managing facilities at
• 16:34
  universities like their physical plant and groundskeeping and
• 16:38
  energy infrastructure and things like that.
• 16:40
  You know, I'm, I'm thinking maybe that is the spot.
• 16:43
  Yeah, except the sun. It's so nice.
• 16:47
  Yeah, I feel like a. Little chasing the sun.
• 16:50
  Yeah, that's probably it. Yeah.
• 16:52
  Shall we? Yeah.
• 16:53
  Let's do it. Cool.
• 16:54
  OK, Gorgeous. And then my mom was a a mother
• 17:02
  for a long time. And then she went back to work
• 17:05
  as a in the student loan office at Yale University of New Haven,
• 17:10
  where over the years, I don't know why I just thought of this,
• 17:14
  but a lot of famous people, I'll get these messages from my mom.
• 17:19
  He was one of my deadbeat students.
• 17:26
  She remembers their. Like these people you see on the
• 17:29
  news, including in the Trump administration?
• 17:32
  Like, Oh yeah, that guy. He got bad grades and didn't
• 17:37
  attend class and. Well, her job was to was to help
• 17:41
  them. Pay their loans back.
• 17:44
  The loans they got to go to school.
• 17:46
  So they were delayed on their loan payments.
• 17:49
  Yeah, I don't want to slander anybody, but that's a funny
• 17:53
  thing that happens. We won't name names.
• 17:54
  If they listen, they'll they'll know who they are.
• 17:59
  She also was really kind of those students I remember 1 of I
• 18:03
  remember my mother is Italian and we had these big
• 18:07
  Thanksgiving and and she would sometimes bring these poor Yale
• 18:11
  students to Thanksgiving who were homesick, including this
• 18:13
  one kid from Oregon. That was the first time I ever
• 18:16
  remember really thinking about Oregon.
• 18:18
  That must have been 10. Yeah.
• 18:22
  What called you to Oregon? Well, yeah, what do you think?
• 18:32
  So I came out in 1993 and I had just finished my master's degree
• 18:38
  in archaeology and anthropology, and I spent my whole life in
• 18:43
  Connecticut and I've been at the University of Connecticut for
• 18:49
  undergraduate and masters. And it was also the grunge era.
• 18:53
  So everybody was kind of migrating to the Northwest was
• 18:56
  kind of a place to go at that point in time.
• 18:58
  So I was, I think I was part of that to some extent.
• 19:01
  So I applied to a bunch of schools out West and I got into
• 19:04
  the University of Oregon, Eugene.
• 19:06
  Cool. OK, quick breaks while we set
• 19:13
  up. So do you find it makes?
• 19:15
  Sense to like, do I look at the camera or you guys?
• 19:18
  Or whatever you feel comfortable, doesn't matter.
• 19:20
  Yeah. Whatever's comfortable.
• 19:21
  We, I mean, we generally like the kind of the vibe to be that
• 19:26
  we're just friends hanging out shooting the shit.
• 19:29
  Yeah, you can. So you can speak to towards us.
• 19:34
  So like only looking at the camera can feel a little
• 19:39
  detached from from us. And you know, I don't know,
• 19:46
  sometimes I'm like, don't break the 4th wall.
• 19:49
  Don't, don't look at the audience.
• 19:51
  But also like they want to be included too so.
• 19:56
  And it's also inherently DIY a little bit.
• 19:58
  Yeah, yeah. And, and really whatever your
• 20:03
  comfort is, if, if the the camera lens is the better eye
• 20:10
  line for you, we'll set up our chairs and.
• 20:22
  Heather will find the right view and angle.
• 20:29
  I'm always a little covetous. Of your guys's chairs, I I'm
• 20:31
  strictly a $7.00 Fred Meyer chair kind of guy.
• 20:35
  We're we're hoping someday to to get a chair sponsor because we
• 20:40
  do, we do love these chairs. It's just.
• 20:48
  It's got tied shut. Right now the chair pod sponsor
• 20:56
  is Bike Craft. Yeah.
• 20:59
  And my dad, yeah, You know, and I think one of one of my
• 21:06
  favorite things about being outside is.
• 21:10
  I gotcha. Is remembering that we don't
• 21:12
  necessarily need fancy gear and, and name brand custom
• 21:20
  specialized things like granted we are, but we, we are
• 21:25
  outdoorsy. So we already have these things,
• 21:27
  but just using what we already have, right?
• 21:29
  Right, and. And then as we grow and we
• 21:32
  become sponsored, then we can get some nice stuff 'cause they
• 21:35
  send us. Yeah.
• 21:36
  Has everybody sponsored you? Yet, not yet, not yet.
• 21:39
  That's our one of our aims for this year is to gain some
• 21:43
  sponsors and really turn this into more of a paying full time
• 21:49
  job and not just a hobby because it's.
• 21:58
  Oh, the Sun's. It's a great hobby and it's
• 22:01
  really what I want to be doing with most of my time.
• 22:06
  And I feel like there's no shortage of fascinating, amazing
• 22:13
  stories here and and everybody deserves to have their story
• 22:20
  told and have a have a platform for it that is nurturing and and
• 22:30
  interesting. Does that feel?
• 22:35
  All right, which one is going to be me?
• 22:37
  You get the centre chair. On the.
• 22:41
  OK, are we? Sweet, all right about falling
• 22:45
  backwards. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:47
  Make sure we don't have too hard of a lean, yeah.
• 22:51
  Not too bad. That would be a good comedic
• 22:53
  moment, yeah. It's it's happened before.
• 22:58
  I don't remember which side I'm on.
• 23:01
  I think this one. I think so too.
• 23:04
  Is it? Yep, that's the side perfect.
• 23:08
  How beautiful would Table Rock in the background?
• 23:12
  Yeah. I just kind of got to get a
• 23:13
  little bit of like a forward, yes.
• 23:16
  I. Bleed.
• 23:19
  This. This is the fire.
• 23:20
  Yes. Lean into the fire.
• 23:25
  Cool. We look good.
• 23:26
  We look great. We look good.
• 23:29
  Awesome. You're going to have an eyeball,
• 23:31
  well, some sort of an eyeball on that better than me.
• 23:35
  OK, slight eyeball. My nice sleeping bag of a
• 23:40
  jacket. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:42
  And the sun. Yeah, yeah, it's nice.
• 23:46
  We may not be looking at anybody.
• 23:48
  We may just be. Talking into the.
• 23:50
  Void eyes close to the sun, talking into the.
• 23:54
  Void it's nice to get some sun on the face because I just was
• 23:58
  complaining to Emily in the car. I was like, we haven't had a
• 24:03
  lick of sun and Grants Pass like we're just in a cloud and it's
• 24:06
  getting to me. She's like I'm embracing.
• 24:08
  It's amazing. Like yes.
• 24:11
  And I'm like, OK, well, yes, I am happy.
• 24:13
  I am still living on Earth and I'm outside and it is what it
• 24:18
  is. But I could use this more you.
• 24:21
  Know my wife. My wife was saying that
• 24:23
  yesterday about the sun. She was so happy to see it.
• 24:26
  It is nice. I mean, it's, yeah, The sun is
• 24:29
  smiling. And yeah, it's just nice.
• 24:32
  It's. Absolutely.
• 24:33
  I mean, don't get me wrong, like I chase the sun.
• 24:36
  I also, I can maintain the positive perspective on
• 24:39
  embracing the cold because most winters midway through, I go
• 24:44
  somewhere extra sunny. I go to Mexico or I go to Costa
• 24:47
  Rica and I escape it. And then when I come back, like
• 24:50
  spring has begun and. It is what it.
• 24:53
  Is I'm happy for the sun again, but I do I also like I live such
• 24:58
  an active, busy, full life that to spend a little time in
• 25:03
  winter, that encourages me to slow down and get cozy and work
• 25:08
  on indoor projects that I would otherwise put off when the
• 25:13
  weather's nice and I want to be outside, I appreciate that
• 25:18
  temptation to to just get stuff done indoors and.
• 25:23
  It is a little hibernating and I don't mind it.
• 25:26
  Yeah, you know, and I don't know.
• 25:29
  No, the cycle of it is the thing.
• 25:32
  Yeah. I kind of say I like cold
• 25:34
  though, and the kind of weird. I like fog and cold and dark.
• 25:39
  I kind of couldn't wait to get into this fog bank and see it.
• 25:42
  Lift off the river and so such kind of makes you small a little
• 25:47
  bit. Yeah, I would agree.
• 25:49
  I mean, I like the just this little bit of sun.
• 25:52
  It's like it makes me really appreciate, you know, the
• 25:56
  change, right? It's not necessarily like,
• 25:59
  'cause if I just had this all, you know, first, like we did,
• 26:03
  like we do in the summertime here.
• 26:05
  It's like when we just, we don't get a break from the heat and
• 26:09
  the sun, Of course, it makes me want to go back into the fog.
• 26:12
  So it's just that change is beautiful, you know, and it's
• 26:14
  just the change is what I long for it.
• 26:19
  But if we didn't have long periods of either or, it
• 26:22
  wouldn't. I wouldn't appreciate the other
• 26:23
  light and dark baby you got to have.
• 26:25
  Both yin and Yang. The balance.
• 26:28
  Seems like it's also a theme of your show, right?
• 26:30
  I mean like the kind of rewilding movement or whatever
• 26:34
  the term of it is. It's like if you look at
• 26:36
  fluorescent lights and plastic all day long and you kind of get
• 26:40
  disconnected from the cycle of those things, which is sort of a
• 26:44
  loss, I would say. Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing a meme
• 26:49
  pop up on on my Instagram the last week or so of in like 2006.
• 26:55
  We used the Internet to escape reality, and now we're using
• 26:58
  reality to escape the Internet. I paused on that meme.
• 27:02
  For sure it's told. That was a really, I thought, a
• 27:05
  good one. Yeah.
• 27:07
  Yeah, so true. Escaped a matrix.
• 27:09
  Yeah. And I think that's one of one of
• 27:12
  the things I love most about being in Southern Oregon is that
• 27:15
  we have multiple seasons. We have The Four Seasons and
• 27:20
  then we have the fog season and the smoke season also.
• 27:24
  And it's we get so much change and variety in our engagement
• 27:30
  with our environment and how we get to see it.
• 27:33
  You're sort of forced to engage it.
• 27:34
  I'm all right. Like, I mean, there's definitely
• 27:37
  advantages, I think, to living in a big city or a more suburban
• 27:40
  urban area. But here it's like, if you don't
• 27:42
  engage it, then what are you going to do?
• 27:45
  Yeah. So yeah.
• 27:46
  I that's like another pillar of the podcast.
• 27:49
  It's like Southern Oregon, you know, and being outside in
• 27:53
  Southern Oregon and like, what else do you do here?
• 27:57
  You know it's. You get.
• 27:58
  Outside. Outside.
• 27:59
  There's a reason we live here one way or the.
• 28:02
  Other. Yeah, Yep.
• 28:04
  So when you came over from New England side, so East Coast and
• 28:08
  you made your way to Pacific Northwest, you said you went to
• 28:12
  Eugene. That's right.
• 28:13
  That's where you kind of OK, that's where you started in your
• 28:17
  Oregon, your Oregon roots started to tap.
• 28:20
  Yeah, that's right. I, I started as a graduate
• 28:22
  student at the anthropology department working on my PhD and
• 28:26
  I got immediately involved with doing archaeology and historical
• 28:31
  research with the tribes of western Oregon.
• 28:34
  There was an elder at the University of Oregon at that
• 28:36
  time, his name was George Wasson and who became my friend and
• 28:39
  mentor and and he got me involved with some historical
• 28:43
  research and took me to the coast.
• 28:45
  And that that set me on my journey of my dissertation
• 28:49
  research which was on Coos Bay and the Coquille River.
• 28:52
  Amazing. That's cool.
• 28:55
  Yeah, we, we did a lot of different things with the tribes
• 28:59
  and, but among them was we documented these ancient fishing
• 29:04
  structures in the estuaries, fish wares that are preserved in
• 29:07
  the the unoxygenated sediments of the of the estuaries and
• 29:14
  they're up to 3000 years old. And like the showing indigenous
• 29:18
  people working the estuary to catch not just salmon, but
• 29:23
  herring and flatfish and a whole bunch of other things.
• 29:26
  And that was really fascinating work on on lots of different
• 29:29
  levels. That's really.
• 29:31
  That's really interesting. Yeah.
• 29:33
  I love that I have my sons aunt, she just got her PhD and and I
• 29:39
  can't repeat like I don't know what it is necessarily, but
• 29:42
  she's very involved with the tribes and native stuff up
• 29:47
  there. So, and she's, she's rooted out
• 29:49
  of U of O and I think she works for some sort of a nonprofit or
• 29:56
  just the tribal organization that stems all the tribal
• 30:00
  students. They have the long house up
• 30:02
  there. At EU of O, Yeah, yeah.
• 30:04
  Like their Native American Student Union, they have that
• 30:06
  beautiful longhouse structure. Yep, and she does a lot of work
• 30:09
  through that. Her name's Rochelle Weezer
• 30:12
  Nieto. Yeah, I think I know the name.
• 30:15
  I don't know if I've ever met her.
• 30:16
  She's done some great work up there.
• 30:17
  She's really an inspiration. She's just really cool gal.
• 30:22
  Yeah. Future podcast guests.
• 30:24
  Oh, definitely. We got to get, we got to get
• 30:27
  Rochelle on there. I you mentioned something
• 30:30
  earlier about exploring the landscapes that people forget,
• 30:35
  and I'm really curious on your thoughts of how and why people
• 30:40
  forget the history of the landscape and how how their
• 30:46
  ancestors have engaged in it. And kind of what that process of
• 30:50
  human evolution looks like, where we just move so fast from
• 30:56
  what once was that? Yeah, it's a really complex
• 31:00
  thing. There's a term in social science
• 31:02
  now I love. It's called hauntology, which is
• 31:04
  the sometimes it's like really about the ghosts that haunt
• 31:08
  landscapes and sometimes it's more figurative or metaphorical.
• 31:12
  And it's a fact that history is important to people even when
• 31:17
  they think it's boring, But they we all wrap biography or
• 31:21
  ancestral biography into our identities and that and the
• 31:25
  landscape kind of landscape is, is, is is important in that.
• 31:32
  And like one of my favourite ways to think about this locally
• 31:34
  is have I want to ask you guys, have you ever heard a story
• 31:40
  about Tim? What do you, what do you
• 31:42
  associate Table Rock with in terms of like Indigenous
• 31:45
  history? And it's not a test.
• 31:47
  So just like what is like, what are people on rafts when you're
• 31:49
  or when you're rafting and they see Table Rock, what do they say
• 31:53
  about it like in history or what does it mean to you?
• 31:56
  A story that I've heard is that the indigenous people of this
• 32:03
  area were relocated to the Table Rocks and like isolated there.
• 32:09
  And I've heard one that then they were like driven off the
• 32:12
  cliffsides that yeah, I think that's kind of the most
• 32:18
  prominent story that I've heard. Yeah, I I don't really have an
• 32:22
  like I don't really associate it with much, maybe more of the how
• 32:26
  they were formed, like history. Yeah, not necessarily the
• 32:32
  peoples. Because they are pretty striking
• 32:36
  on the landscape. It's they're kind of the only
• 32:39
  like elevated place. And people question like, were
• 32:43
  they risen or did the area around them a road?
• 32:47
  Yes. Right.
• 32:49
  So, yeah, and, and the very physicality of them just like
• 32:53
  makes them like we were talking about coming over that mountain
• 32:55
  pass and you have those moments like with Table Rock, with Mount
• 32:58
  McLaughlin and things like that. And like so, so people put
• 33:01
  stories onto those things, right.
• 33:03
  And another one is like the Ashland Springs Hotel.
• 33:05
  You have any story, you know, any stories about that one?
• 33:07
  I don't know, I just love it. So a common like oral history,
• 33:12
  the Rogue Valley is that it's, it's, it's built on the
• 33:15
  proverbial Indian burial ground. Another one is like, I don't
• 33:19
  like saying out loud really, but dead Indian Memorial Rd. right?
• 33:23
  Like what, where does that story come from?
• 33:25
  And what's so that your question was, is why do people forget
• 33:29
  stories? And I don't, I don't know.
• 33:32
  It's, it's a, it's a complex 1 because people use the past to
• 33:35
  like create and modify and negotiate identity, but they do
• 33:39
  so they don't always want to acknowledge sort sort of the
• 33:43
  inconvenient parts of it because you don't want to think bad
• 33:45
  about yourself. Like, so like, for example, the
• 33:48
  Table Rock story, the first part of what you said was totally
• 33:50
  true. There was an Indian Reservation,
• 33:53
  as they called it. The Table Rock reservation was
• 33:57
  established in 1853 and it ran right from here in the mouth of
• 34:00
  Little Butte Creek down to Evans Creek.
• 34:03
  And everything north of that was negotiated by Indigenous leaders
• 34:06
  as a reservation. That was their way to try to
• 34:09
  accommodate this flood of genocidal gold miners into the
• 34:12
  into the valley. But the other story there is a
• 34:16
  story of an Indigenous woman committing suicide.
• 34:18
  That's pretty credible using the techniques of history, right, of
• 34:22
  Indigenous woman committing suicide rather than succumb to
• 34:26
  like awfulness. But that Mossad like mass
• 34:31
  suicide drive off the edge of Table Rock.
• 34:33
  That is like not true. That never happened.
• 34:35
  But you see, but you see people, people tell that story
• 34:38
  routinely. And but just like there's no
• 34:41
  Indian burial ground under the Ashland Springs Hotel.
• 34:43
  So why do people like those stories like like that's to me,
• 34:46
  that's like an interesting question and it's relationship
• 34:49
  to what actually happened, you know, because.
• 34:53
  Well, what do you think I? Don't know, I'm really
• 34:56
  fascinated by how and why humans learn to lie and, and part of it
• 35:02
  being rooted in survival instinct of like fight kind of
• 35:09
  deceit to achieve something like apes learn to lie because
• 35:15
  there's a resource there that they want to retain and it's
• 35:19
  going to be encroached upon and so.
• 35:22
  Or avoiding conflict. Yeah, they make the noise of a
• 35:25
  predator. Last night.
• 35:27
  Avoiding conflict to lie, yeah. Or lying to a white line, right?
• 35:33
  So fluffing it so it's a little bit to avoid a conflict with
• 35:37
  another, that's what I was. But then doesn't that usually
• 35:40
  result in greater conflict once the lie is exposed?
• 35:45
  Occasionally. Yeah, it's really interesting.
• 35:48
  I mean, I think the truth is hard.
• 35:50
  It doesn't fit the narrative, so to speak the truth hurt and
• 35:53
  maybe lying is is is harsh because who doesn't do it, you
• 35:56
  know, right. And I don't know, like, on the
• 36:02
  on the biggest scale, what was that guy's name?
• 36:04
  Like, he was a former speaker of the House.
• 36:05
  Kevin, I don't know. Someone was talking.
• 36:08
  He said out out loud, he's like, the United States has never
• 36:11
  embarked on a war of territorial aggression ever in its history.
• 36:16
  Like, just like, is that a lie? I mean, it's clearly untrue.
• 36:20
  But does he believe it or or not?
• 36:24
  You know? And if it's true to him, yeah,
• 36:26
  if he fully believes it as truth, then it's just somebody
• 36:31
  else's story that it's not true. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:36
  So like in this case, you know, the fundamental truth is Ashland
• 36:39
  is built on an indigenous graveyard, is built on genocide.
• 36:42
  And and and then you take like the the Ashland Springs Hotel is
• 36:47
  like this this like major building, you know, that
• 36:51
  everybody can recognize and table rocks too.
• 36:53
  So like, so I don't want to seem like I have an answer to this
• 36:57
  question, but it's like those two things that are in all of
• 37:00
  our minds, like they would just wrap that the remain remains of
• 37:04
  that story in these kind of simple to understand things like
• 37:06
  a mass suicide or a graveyard when the, you know, what
• 37:09
  actually happened was a little bit more complex, right?
• 37:12
  Yeah, the simplification of it. And even if we, we tend to lie
• 37:17
  to evade the darker, scarier parts, but then also we make up
• 37:23
  ghost stories essentially to make things seem simpler and
• 37:28
  also more exciting and interesting when probably the
• 37:33
  the fundamental truth is plenty exciting and interesting.
• 37:37
  Yeah. Or not.
• 37:39
  Or not. Because all because the
• 37:41
  fundamental truth or the real truth requires you to like know
• 37:46
  things like, and I'm a totally, I don't mean because I'm a, I'm
• 37:50
  a nerd. I'm like naturally inclined to
• 37:52
  like that stuff, but I don't expect that everybody is So like
• 37:55
  the subtleties of the story, you know, maybe that's not, but also
• 38:00
  the the idea that then you have to face some things about, you
• 38:03
  know, your own privilege and your own reality, you know, And
• 38:08
  I think that's a contradiction we all kind of live with.
• 38:10
  It's like living this life of pretty incredible privilege on
• 38:13
  top of like a lot of crazy things, right?
• 38:18
  That's yeah, that that is human evolution is we only get further
• 38:24
  by yeah, kind of killing off what what we've learned from
• 38:29
  yeah, yeah. I didn't want it to be all
• 38:36
  negative. No, no, it's fine.
• 38:40
  I mean, it's a. Reality, yeah, I'm sitting here
• 38:42
  reflecting. I'm like yeah, totally like
• 38:45
  yeah, for sure, for sure. That is all of it is, you know,
• 38:52
  truth just like you know, if like the the lying part or like
• 38:58
  the covering it up or not uncovering is the truth of it,
• 39:04
  but it's literally the opposite. I don't know we're who wants to.
• 39:09
  We're doing a second recording session this afternoon and we're
• 39:12
  going to be out at Emigrant Lake, which is a lake that was
• 39:17
  man made and flooded a community and.
• 39:24
  Yes, right. And that becomes again, and I
• 39:27
  could just so story, you know, another way to, to think about
• 39:31
  this, like I know you guys are involved with rafting quite a
• 39:34
  bit and you get guests or people down on these raft trips, like
• 39:38
  they're paying money for this wild experience.
• 39:42
  And maybe they, they don't get out there that often.
• 39:45
  So like over the years I've spoken with raft guides and the
• 39:50
  federal agencies and stuff like what and the tribes, like, what
• 39:53
  is the narrative? Like if part of that experience
• 39:55
  is educational, But like how, how much do people want to hear
• 40:00
  like stories that make them uncomfortable when they're
• 40:02
  paying a lot of money? They have like this lovely
• 40:04
  experience, you know? It really depends on the person.
• 40:08
  I mean, there are definitely people who come out and just
• 40:11
  want to know what bird is that and as simple as that.
• 40:16
  And then there's others that can see they they can see the
• 40:20
  remnant of a cabin and they maybe have read a little bit
• 40:26
  about the Rogue River Wars and they want to know.
• 40:31
  And I think that's a great credential for a river guide is
• 40:36
  to have geology background, have historical background, to know
• 40:41
  more about the environment that it is, be a good storyteller.
• 40:45
  The truth maybe doesn't make somebody uncomfortable.
• 40:48
  It kind of maybe it spins it a little bit given that that fluff
• 40:52
  to. Because I've had that
• 40:53
  contradiction in my own sort of professional career, because I,
• 40:56
  I run in these circles with like local Indigenous groups and
• 41:00
  they're like, oh, we just got the bridge in Portland named
• 41:03
  after an Indigenous concept or here's some big piece of public
• 41:07
  art. And I'm like, well, let me tell
• 41:08
  you about another massacre that happens, right?
• 41:11
  I have trouble with that sometimes.
• 41:13
  Yeah, how do you pick and choose?
• 41:14
  Like what part of history? Because history is more than
• 41:18
  just one single event. There's.
• 41:21
  It's. Decades.
• 41:22
  Yeah. It's a matrix of.
• 41:23
  Everybody has their own account too.
• 41:26
  And and the least reliable testimony is a witness testimony
• 41:32
  because 10 different people can be at the same place at the same
• 41:35
  time and see and interpret the event differently.
• 41:38
  So how do how do you choose and when, Especially when you're
• 41:44
  digging up not dinosaur bones, but when you're digging up
• 41:48
  artifacts and and history in the ground and you don't have a
• 41:54
  written account of what happened and you don't have a witness
• 41:58
  story to tell, How do you piece together what happened?
• 42:04
  That's a question. Yeah.
• 42:07
  Long winded, of course, Emily fashion.
• 42:09
  No, no, it's a good question. It's like kind of foundational
• 42:12
  in archaeology and like archaeology covers a lot of
• 42:14
  things like so for example, those fishing structures, the
• 42:17
  weirs, which are just amazing and they have like spruce root
• 42:21
  twining like with the knot still in them and whatnot.
• 42:24
  And then we excavate the sites next to them that have the fish
• 42:28
  bones and shell shellfish that people gathered.
• 42:30
  So it's all about context. And you know, and you can also
• 42:34
  Indigenous oral history reaches back quite a ways.
• 42:36
  So you provide some context that gets a little more iffy when
• 42:39
  you're back 9000 years or so. But archaeology is all about
• 42:43
  context, you know, like a rock is just a rock.
• 42:46
  Like I get people bringing me arrowheads and things all the
• 42:49
  time and they're almost meaningless, you know, unless
• 42:52
  they're contextualized. So for example, close to where
• 42:56
  we're sitting, I used to bring students all the time because
• 42:59
  there's, there's a pretty significant Tacoma
• 43:01
  archaeological footprint around here.
• 43:03
  And I knew where there there was this projectile point, an
• 43:06
  Arrowhead and free. And part of the basic lessons of
• 43:10
  archaeology is like a single thing is just a, you know, a
• 43:13
  bobble, something to own and control.
• 43:17
  But if you leave it in context and it's related to other things
• 43:20
  and it has the respect of the community and everything, then
• 43:23
  that's where the experience of it and the story of it becomes
• 43:26
  more interesting. So my, that's my long story, but
• 43:30
  I had that there's this projector point over there and I
• 43:32
  had it under a rock for like 10 years.
• 43:34
  And so I, this is one of my favorite local spots to just run
• 43:38
  to. And it's, and this was up there
• 43:40
  a little ways and and so on. I'd bring students through and
• 43:43
  I'd we'd have conversations sort of like this sometimes.
• 43:45
  And I, I was like, look, and here's this right here.
• 43:49
  And and they're like, well, why did like the the impulse is so
• 43:52
  much. OK, Q dramatic cut here.
• 43:56
  This episode is brought to you by Dead Camera Batteries.
• 44:00
  May we always have a few more in our backpacks.
• 44:03
  Enjoy. And I.
• 44:06
  I always have a hope that people who listen will be so fascinated
• 44:13
  and inspired that they'll request that somebody comes back
• 44:18
  for more and that they want to hear more about somebody's
• 44:21
  story. And or that they'll find you,
• 44:24
  which we'll ask later will find you in some other part of your
• 44:28
  life to, to learn more about you and, and get a get their own
• 44:34
  personal connection and expansion on who somebody is.
• 44:40
  Yeah. We're back live.
• 44:44
  Yes, we are. OK where's the equipment
• 44:46
  malfunction? Yes, I've never had that happen.
• 44:51
  Before, yeah, that was it didn't fall backwards, but I didn't.
• 44:54
  That's good. OK.
• 44:56
  All right. Where were we?
• 44:57
  Yeah. Where were we?
• 44:58
  Oh, gosh. Emily's good at this.
• 44:59
  I usually am. Yeah.
• 45:00
  I was over there like, Oh yeah, what was it?
• 45:02
  What was happening? We're all we're lots of fun
• 45:05
  places, but we were around how to choose, how to choose the
• 45:11
  historical context that we provide the the Arrowhead, the
• 45:17
  Arrowhead under the rock and choosing to leave it.
• 45:19
  Right. And then, and you were asking me
• 45:21
  how we know things, you know, and, and that's all important.
• 45:25
  But I also, I really, for me, the experience of it is
• 45:28
  important, like working with local communities and students
• 45:32
  and Indigenous people. The act of engaging in
• 45:36
  archaeology and historical research is empowering itself
• 45:40
  and in an Indigenous context. And that's also a sovereign kind
• 45:44
  of act too, to control their own narrative.
• 45:46
  So I do a lot of work with Indigenous groups and try to
• 45:50
  follow their priorities. Like, what do you want to see
• 45:52
  happen? And I've been involved.
• 45:54
  And so to me, yeah, there there is a basic scientific puzzle
• 45:58
  often like how old is this thing?
• 46:00
  Like, what were people actually doing here?
• 46:02
  But it's also it's a political act in a cultural act, like kind
• 46:07
  of like rafting in that sense. Like if you just over stereotype
• 46:10
  it like if you have some urban dwellers who one raft guy told
• 46:14
  me about like he said someone time a person came to their
• 46:19
  charter and was like so the raft after this trip we get off the
• 46:23
  raft in the same spot right like that the river goes in a circle.
• 46:25
  That's a common misconception. And it's easy to, it's easy to
• 46:30
  like like mock that. But it's also a really profound
• 46:34
  like, you know, I want to say like, you know, it's a
• 46:40
  dysfunction of our society. It's a so like not to mock them
• 46:44
  but like to I don't know what I'm saying so.
• 46:47
  They're only maybe they're only experience with a waterway is on
• 46:50
  a lake where, yeah, you get in and get out at the same time or
• 46:54
  yeah, but a river is a a free flowing body of water that
• 46:58
  continues to move and unless you have a motor, you're not going
• 47:02
  back to your an entry point. And to profoundly understand,
• 47:07
  like the concept of a watershed, however you conceptualize it, is
• 47:10
  so important, right? To thinking about what's good in
• 47:13
  the world anyway. But the point is, is like the
• 47:16
  act of engaging, like, what if that raft trip is the only time
• 47:19
  that person ever has an experience like that, right?
• 47:22
  So it's like the experience is really important.
• 47:25
  Yeah. And making sure that it is
• 47:27
  something that they feel a desire to come back to, that
• 47:30
  they aren't mocked or discredited in their like, it's
• 47:35
  not necessarily that they're they're not dumb, they don't.
• 47:38
  But there is a lack of knowledge, there's been a lack
• 47:40
  of teaching in that vein. When somebody brings that to
• 47:43
  your attention, Emily, are you like great question and let me
• 47:47
  tell you how that works of. Course I am, yeah.
• 47:50
  And, and because it is, I've heard it so many times that,
• 47:54
  like, sometimes you kind of maybe want to joke a little bit.
• 47:58
  I mean, river guides are supposed to be gestures in a
• 48:01
  way. But really, we do want to say we
• 48:04
  want to teach, we want to educate, We want to make
• 48:08
  somebody see that there are no stupid questions, that you just,
• 48:12
  you don't know what you don't know.
• 48:14
  And if this is your first time doing this, whatever this part
• 48:19
  of life is, you're only going to learn if you ask and if you
• 48:23
  embrace it. And, and we want people to keep
• 48:27
  coming back and interacting with the landscape and seeing, wow,
• 48:30
  this opened my eyes to something.
• 48:33
  And now I'm curious about more this other thing.
• 48:36
  And do I have a river where I live that I can go raft on an
• 48:40
  experience? Yeah.
• 48:42
  Exactly. It's so interesting.
• 48:45
  So, so going back to the question, I think is that like.
• 48:49
  So yeah, the puzzle is often important and fun and
• 48:51
  interesting, but it's really the like the finding that experience
• 48:55
  that's empowering for the right reasons, you know, for people
• 48:58
  that I find interesting and fun mostly, and.
• 49:03
  That just. And that just like kind of is
• 49:05
  for me like a little like a full circle moment for the podcast
• 49:09
  too. It's like like getting like you
• 49:12
  guess are are like puzzle pieces to this bigger, like outdoor
• 49:16
  experience and inspiring people to live their life maybe more
• 49:20
  based or rooted in the outdoors. And then like getting all these
• 49:25
  perspectives on that and like how you interact with it or how
• 49:29
  you teach it and or how you, you know, advocate for it or and the
• 49:35
  list goes on for all the things. How do you frolic?
• 49:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Since your, your employment,
• 49:42
  your career, your livelihood is essentially rooted in being
• 49:47
  outside. Do you recreate outside in a
• 49:49
  different way, or do you get so much enjoyment from the ways
• 49:53
  that you interact with the landscape through work that that
• 49:56
  is? Play time is work time.
• 49:58
  Actually thought a lot about that listening to your podcast
• 50:00
  because you know, I am not outdoorsy the way many of your
• 50:04
  guests are at all, right? Like I would make it a joke that
• 50:08
  my, my chair is a Fred Meyer $7.00 chair.
• 50:11
  You know, I don't, I like to, I like to inflatable kayak down
• 50:15
  the road, but just the easy spots.
• 50:20
  I'm an incompetent fisherman. I had this experience right over
• 50:24
  here where I came out to go fly fishing at the mouth of Little
• 50:27
  Butte Creek and I got out there and pre in the pre dawn hours
• 50:31
  fly fishing and I was like looking at these ducks near me
• 50:35
  and then all of a sudden this guy like erupts out of the brush
• 50:39
  and I was standing in the water in the middle of all his decoys
• 50:43
  and he had passed out with his shotgun like 20 feet.
• 50:48
  I just thought the two of us were just should have been on
• 50:51
  field and stream or something. That's quite an experience.
• 50:54
  So no, I, I spent a lot of time for work, you know, this project
• 50:58
  in Mexico, I was in this northern Mexican desert.
• 51:00
  It was such a different environment for me and the, the
• 51:04
  cactus and the, the giant Jack rabbits.
• 51:07
  And it was. I love it so.
• 51:10
  But my actual recreation are is is pretty middle class I.
• 51:13
  Think. But in some ways, you probably
• 51:16
  know the landscape and the environment more deeply than
• 51:22
  somebody who just is, is rafting on it or, or going for a hike
• 51:28
  even. And just there's, there's
• 51:30
  different spectrums of enjoyment.
• 51:32
  Yeah. I think one of the ways I think
• 51:34
  about it is, and I really, I, I mean, I'm, I'm again privileged
• 51:38
  in that my work is fun and rewarding, like psychologically
• 51:42
  and stuff. So like my work requires me to
• 51:45
  go off the grid. So like you're on a trail, like
• 51:47
  the trail we walked in on. And then my work requires me to
• 51:51
  like ignore that trail. So it's like, take a left right
• 51:54
  here on a compass bearing. And it doesn't matter if it's
• 51:56
  BlackBerry or poison oak or anything.
• 51:59
  And to me, that's always been the thrill, like falling into
• 52:02
  the swamp when I was a kid, like, like, like going off the
• 52:05
  beaten track, right? So to me, that is recreating
• 52:08
  like, And so when I'm recreating recreating, it's like, I'll just
• 52:12
  stick to the trail because, yeah, because I love that in my
• 52:17
  work, like just looking at something that I haven't seen
• 52:20
  and just going into it. That's cool.
• 52:23
  We've had some guests bring up like Leave No Trace principles.
• 52:27
  Yeah. And, and in in some of my
• 52:30
  schooling, I learned about a lot of like kind of indigenous push
• 52:34
  back on Leave No Trace that we, we interact with the landscape.
• 52:40
  We should have a trace. I mean, granted, we aren't
• 52:42
  leaving plastic bottles and and that kind of thing.
• 52:45
  That's all good. So in your in your work of going
• 52:49
  off trail and forging your own way, how does that concept like
• 52:57
  interplay or contradict with? Leave No Trace.
• 53:01
  Well, I'm kind of curious about the Indigenous critique of Leave
• 53:03
  No Trace. Could you say just a bit more
• 53:05
  about that? That some things that I've heard
• 53:10
  have been around like one of the opposition's of leave no traces
• 53:13
  like leaving Trail Cairns, leaving a trail marker so that
• 53:17
  you can find your way and there are leave no tracers that will
• 53:20
  knock those down because we don't want to know.
• 53:24
  But also having one keeps you on the the defined area to have
• 53:29
  less impact on the broader area and that I'm trying trying to
• 53:37
  recall now. I I get the point.
• 53:40
  Yeah. And to me, this is a really
• 53:42
  interesting question and again, one that I've thought a lot
• 53:45
  about listening to your podcast and thinking about being on it,
• 53:47
  because that brings up the whole concept of the wild itself to
• 53:51
  some extent. So I'm not sure if this is the
• 53:53
  spirit of your question, but you know, that's a pretty
• 53:56
  problematic concept, the Wilds, because it, and it's kind of a
• 53:59
  colonial concept. So I understand like this
• 54:02
  concept of this idea of rewilding and I agree with it.
• 54:05
  Like you got to not think that the river goes around in the
• 54:07
  circle like for your basic societal and mental health,
• 54:10
  right? But at the same time, it's like
• 54:13
  westerners, settlers have used the wild concept.
• 54:16
  It's, it's baked into like capitalism and colonialism
• 54:20
  because like, and Christianity to some extent, I don't want to
• 54:23
  get us in trouble by saying that.
• 54:25
  But at the same time, like you have a landscape that's like
• 54:27
  domesticated and controlled and that is like sanctified and
• 54:32
  proper and safe. And then that gets contrasted
• 54:35
  with this, this other of the wild, which is like something
• 54:41
  that is often times satanic in in that Christian context and
• 54:45
  that needs to be controlled and or fantasized about.
• 54:49
  It's like this, you know, horror virgin like fetish.
• 54:53
  It's like, like fascinated by it.
• 54:56
  Or afraid of it? Or.
• 54:57
  Afraid of it at the same time. Like one of my favorite
• 55:01
  illustrations of this from my research was what's his name?
• 55:04
  I'm getting old and forgetful. There was a missionary from the
• 55:07
  Jason Lee mission in the 1830s and he was given the task of
• 55:12
  going down the Umpqua to see about setting up a mission on
• 55:16
  the lower Umpqua, right? Gustavus Hines was his name.
• 55:20
  I might have had it in one of my classes you were in because it's
• 55:22
  to me. This is epic account.
• 55:24
  This is like in 1834. So he comes down and he left a
• 55:28
  very detailed he a very detailed account of it that he sold as a
• 55:32
  best seller back east where people like ready to go across
• 55:37
  the Oregon Trail like this was like their travel propaganda and
• 55:42
  he's describing this trip and he was he described being in the
• 55:46
  indigenous lodges of the lower I'm called the Kala what set
• 55:48
  people and how he tried to preach Christianity to them.
• 55:52
  But the head member, like you're saying that we can't have more
• 55:55
  than one wife and things like that.
• 55:57
  And they, and he was disgusted by the fact that they wouldn't
• 56:00
  listen to him. And then they, but they politely
• 56:03
  rode it or paddled him all the way down to the mouth of the
• 56:06
  Umpqua. And he just, he left this epic
• 56:09
  account where he he said like, like the doom of extinction
• 56:14
  settles over this wretched race of this land of satanic doom.
• 56:18
  And he's, you know, the stretch like between Scottsburg and
• 56:21
  Reedsport, that beautiful stretch of the lower Umpqua.
• 56:24
  Not, not intimately. It's like.
• 56:26
  I forget it's the main road between like Eugene and
• 56:28
  Reedsport but and it's and I remember coming out to Oregon.
• 56:31
  It's like I've only taken that maybe once so.
• 56:34
  But it's a beautiful stretch of the lower Umpqua with these
• 56:36
  amazing mountains. And this guy looked at that
• 56:39
  landscape and he saw like satanic.
• 56:42
  He saw literally he was a Christian, like a devout
• 56:45
  Verulian Christian. And he saw it as satanic.
• 56:48
  And he and he, he decided that he couldn't missionize to those
• 56:51
  indigenous people because they were dying of smallpox and they
• 56:54
  were going to be extinct in any, in any case.
• 56:57
  So it wasn't worth his time. But then he also pointed out
• 57:00
  that there was a he's line was there was a snug little harbor
• 57:04
  at the entrance to the river and that he saw the environment
• 57:07
  around what is today Roseburg as like ripe for agricultural
• 57:10
  potential. So by the way, when these people
• 57:12
  are dead, you guys all come out here and unwild this area,
• 57:16
  right? So that was a long story.
• 57:18
  I apologize for that. But the whole point is like
• 57:21
  this, like the, the, the wild is like this concept that people
• 57:25
  use in, in the Western tradition.
• 57:28
  And it's very like problematic, I think, because the fact of the
• 57:33
  matter is, I think like, and I think this is the indigenous
• 57:38
  critique is people are always in landscapes and anthropology and
• 57:41
  ecology teaches that all like to, to me, a person from
• 57:45
  Connecticut coming out here, this is like, oh, look at this
• 57:47
  wild landscape. But after living here in a
• 57:51
  little bit of knowledge, right? We all know that these, this is
• 57:54
  completely a human and modified landscape.
• 57:56
  And it has been for like 18,000 years, right?
• 57:59
  Even the flow, the direction of the waterways has been
• 58:03
  manipulated and changed. The US Army created this bank
• 58:06
  right here, right? It's just part of the
• 58:08
  modifications for that. So again, it's about perception
• 58:12
  of like, but the person who thinks the river goes around in
• 58:14
  circles. I get so wild here.
• 58:17
  So I kind of, I don't know, it goes back to the earlier
• 58:20
  discussion where it's like, like, how do you teach that
• 58:24
  appreciation but also teach respect?
• 58:26
  Like the Leave No Trace thing is in and of itself not bad, you
• 58:29
  know, because arguably this was bad to take a bulldozer to this
• 58:33
  1940. Like what?
• 58:35
  I don't know, I'm starting to get confused and the point I'm
• 58:37
  trying to make but. I've always thought that too.
• 58:39
  I'm always just like, because we've done a ton of work, like
• 58:43
  advocating for like new trails to be built and stuff.
• 58:47
  And while, you know, there's always that light and dark
• 58:50
  again, back to the original, like, oh, it's good.
• 58:53
  You know, like you can always find the good in something and
• 58:56
  you can always find the bad in something.
• 58:59
  But it's coming to this cultural consensus of like, OK, but we're
• 59:04
  still going to do it for the broader reason of it being
• 59:08
  inherently, not even inherently, but like, you know, it's going
• 59:12
  to. It's going to be good
• 59:14
  eventually. Good.
• 59:15
  Eventually it may seem bad now. Like something like build making
• 59:18
  a trail. Yeah, but I've always thought
• 59:20
  that too, going even. Yeah, I've I'm always like,
• 59:23
  well, leave no trace. But we built this trail here,
• 59:26
  you know that's. Weird, you know the concept of
• 59:28
  like management and conservation are again very capitalist and
• 59:32
  western. But if without that critique,
• 59:34
  just accepting it for a second. Like humans need to manage the
• 59:37
  places they're in responsibly, right?
• 59:39
  So if if there is a the need for people to recreate and trail for
• 59:45
  a million reasons. And yeah, so the question then
• 59:47
  is more about what's the most appropriate way.
• 59:49
  That's the way that does the least harm and things like that.
• 59:52
  And sometimes we don't know that harm has been caused until years
• 59:57
  down. Yeah, and as much as the Oh my
• 1:00:01
  God, it's a satanic landscape, there'd be much better if it had
• 1:00:04
  a strip mall on it. That's that's that's.
• 1:00:07
  That's that's. That's demonstrably bad, right?
• 1:00:10
  But in some ways the Orthodox of the other way.
• 1:00:12
  Like, I know I don't want to get into a can of worms here, but
• 1:00:15
  like, don't poop while you're on your raft trip, except in a
• 1:00:18
  bucket. Like sometimes I wonder about
• 1:00:19
  that. I mean, maybe there's sound
• 1:00:21
  ecological reasons for that, but I remember I did a field project
• 1:00:25
  in San Miguel Island in the Channel Islands national parks
• 1:00:28
  when I was a graduate student. And San Miguel is almost
• 1:00:31
  completely bereft of infrastructure, right?
• 1:00:34
  It has one little Ranger station.
• 1:00:35
  It was an amazing spot. And there was a Ranger out there
• 1:00:38
  at the time. And he he regarded himself as
• 1:00:41
  the guardian of its wildness. And I remember walking across
• 1:00:46
  that island with him and it was filled with seals and sea lions
• 1:00:49
  and, you know, seals and sea lions, you know, I love them.
• 1:00:54
  They're like one of my favorite kinds of animals.
• 1:00:56
  And, and, but I don't think they're necessarily too
• 1:00:59
  endangered anymore. And like we come up to this Bay
• 1:01:02
  and there's A and he's like, we have to walk 3 miles around so
• 1:01:05
  as not to disturb them. And meanwhile, I'm working on
• 1:01:07
  archaeological sites that have like 10,000 years of seal bones
• 1:01:11
  in them from indigenous people hunting.
• 1:01:13
  And I'm like, I don't think they're going to.
• 1:01:16
  I think they're kind of know humans a little bit.
• 1:01:18
  And us walking past them is not going to be, you know, I guess
• 1:01:24
  my point is, is like, you could take it too far in that
• 1:01:27
  direction too, right? I'm, I just learned yesterday
• 1:01:31
  that raccoons are becoming domesticated populated areas
• 1:01:36
  that raccoons are, and squirrels are evolving to have shorter
• 1:01:40
  snouts and becoming more domesticated because of their
• 1:01:45
  interaction with humans and human invasion of their land,
• 1:01:49
  their land otherwise. And so they're adapting to more
• 1:01:56
  interaction with human. Is it bad?
• 1:01:58
  Is it good? We don't know.
• 1:02:00
  Yeah, they are. They they're very cat like.
• 1:02:05
  Yeah, yeah, they're pretty awesome.
• 1:02:07
  Too A little trash panda. Yeah, you.
• 1:02:10
  Know what the Spanish word for raccoon is?
• 1:02:12
  What? Mapeche.
• 1:02:14
  Isn't that a great word? Yeah.
• 1:02:16
  Mapeche, Mapeche. There's.
• 1:02:18
  A cumbia band in the Rogue Valley called that.
• 1:02:20
  Cool. Find them.
• 1:02:23
  Yeah. Do you want to ask our our
• 1:02:25
  pivotal the big power core question?
• 1:02:29
  Yeah. So I'm sure you've heard since
• 1:02:31
  you've been listening in, but we we ask our listeners like what
• 1:02:36
  was that? Like what was a pivotal moment
• 1:02:38
  in outdoors for you where it was just like maybe a light bulb
• 1:02:41
  moment or just like a profound moment that maybe changed the
• 1:02:44
  trajectory or rooted you in more to what you were doing or?
• 1:02:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember this question from
• 1:02:51
  your show and I thought about that too.
• 1:02:53
  And. It's.
• 1:02:55
  Thinking about the different things that happened, but I, I,
• 1:02:57
  there is one thing I, I remember where, like I said, when I was a
• 1:03:01
  kid, I grew up in a suburb right outside of New Haven, CT.
• 1:03:04
  So it was this weird interface of extremely urban and then New
• 1:03:07
  England countryside. And behind our house there was
• 1:03:11
  this wetland that was like a universe to me.
• 1:03:14
  Like I remember like when in the winter time we would skate in
• 1:03:18
  the little trails of ice in, in the swamp.
• 1:03:21
  And I remember like lying on my belly looking through the ice at
• 1:03:25
  like the bugs skittering upside down on the ice and things like
• 1:03:29
  that. And I also fished with my
• 1:03:34
  grandpa at the mouth of it on Long Island Sound, which was a
• 1:03:37
  really a profound experience for me.
• 1:03:39
  So in a weird way I it was a watershed, even though I didn't
• 1:03:42
  know the term back then. But.
• 1:03:45
  I had this experience like, so it was a mixture of suburban use
• 1:03:48
  and dairy farms. And I remember there was a spot
• 1:03:52
  down the Creek which I just explored the heck out of and I
• 1:03:55
  had a a dive mask, a cheap dive mask.
• 1:03:58
  I must have been about 10 years old or something.
• 1:04:01
  And I remember with my little buddy, we were down there and
• 1:04:04
  the river was pretty big. At this point, I'm like, why
• 1:04:06
  can't we just go in the river and see what's in the river with
• 1:04:09
  the dive mask? And I were like, OK, so I
• 1:04:11
  remember jumping into the river or getting into it and then
• 1:04:15
  being under the water and then seeing a school of fish in this
• 1:04:18
  freshwater Little River. And I was like, whoa, I thought
• 1:04:21
  it was the coolest thing ever. And then I went home and told my
• 1:04:25
  mother what happened and she freaked out on me.
• 1:04:28
  She's like, that water is so dirty.
• 1:04:30
  There's all this. And she, I remember the word she
• 1:04:32
  used, but basically it was polluted.
• 1:04:35
  It was polluted from the agricultural runoff from the
• 1:04:37
  nearby dairy farms. And, and, and to me, I, even my
• 1:04:41
  little brain at that time, I remember like so profoundly, it
• 1:04:45
  really was a contradiction to my brain because I, my body was
• 1:04:49
  like so enamoured by that experience.
• 1:04:51
  And it was part of this larger experience of that landscape
• 1:04:55
  that I grew up in that I loved. But then all of a sudden it's
• 1:04:59
  like being told sex is bad or something.
• 1:05:02
  You know, to me, that's what if like, it was like this
• 1:05:04
  puritanical response and it was a, a serious contradiction.
• 1:05:08
  So I, I think, I mean, that's a little oversimplified as, but
• 1:05:12
  that is a moment in the spirit of thinking about like why I
• 1:05:15
  started thinking about environment and landscape and
• 1:05:18
  history, all that stuff put together.
• 1:05:20
  Yeah. Yeah, I could see that, yeah.
• 1:05:23
  And wanting to see what's under the surface.
• 1:05:25
  Yeah. So, yeah.
• 1:05:27
  And then and just another add to it again, you know, like I did
• 1:05:30
  come to Oregon as part of this cultural movement of like, oh,
• 1:05:33
  the Pacific Northwest. And in my mind then as a sort of
• 1:05:37
  young hippie, it was like, I didn't know much about Oregon
• 1:05:40
  except like Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead and stuff like
• 1:05:43
  that. So I had, I did have it in my
• 1:05:45
  mind that it was this wild place, you know, and I love
• 1:05:50
  Oregon and it's beautiful, but it isn't wild.
• 1:05:53
  It's like as domesticated as New England, just in a different
• 1:05:56
  way. You know, it does have this
• 1:05:57
  history of like every aspect of what we're looking at is
• 1:06:01
  profoundly human, modified, right?
• 1:06:04
  And sometimes in problematic ways.
• 1:06:07
  Do you ever find yourself in a place that feels less
• 1:06:11
  domesticated? Well, yeah, right now, as
• 1:06:19
  opposed to my office. True, true, true.
• 1:06:22
  But still being on a trail and like, do you?
• 1:06:26
  Yeah. Are are there places that are
• 1:06:30
  more wild than others? Oh, for sure.
• 1:06:35
  Yeah. And I'm not that big of a cynic
• 1:06:37
  too. I mean, I love the outdoors.
• 1:06:39
  I love wild Oregon. You know, there's a place like
• 1:06:42
  Coos Bay, like the South Slough of Coos Bay.
• 1:06:45
  I don't know if you know that spot, but that place is awesome.
• 1:06:48
  It was like a place where many indigenous people live through
• 1:06:51
  the colonial period. And it's a National estuarine
• 1:06:55
  research reserve now. And they're doing really good
• 1:06:58
  restoration projects in there. And you can go up there and
• 1:07:01
  there's like Beaver dams and oh so awesome.
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, sounds. Great cool.
• 1:07:06
  But yeah, there are places like that all over the place.
• 1:07:10
  Wowza. Yeah, so much.
• 1:07:14
  It's so much food for thought in this podcast.
• 1:07:16
  I'm just like, what? Like I just, you know, sometimes
• 1:07:20
  I get bogged down by I'll get into a spiral of deep thinking
• 1:07:24
  about stuff and I'm like, well, this, but I got to believe this.
• 1:07:26
  And but so I in just my personal life, I keep things like this is
• 1:07:32
  beautiful, simple, simpleton like, you know, so I can enjoy
• 1:07:37
  it more without going into deeper thought.
• 1:07:39
  But then there are times like this and when I'm like laying in
• 1:07:41
  bed, I'm just like, oh, but what about that going down the rabbit
• 1:07:45
  hole? That's just interesting.
• 1:07:47
  Oh, oh, what about that perspective?
• 1:07:49
  I don't know. So I really enjoyed just all
• 1:07:52
  your perspective on things and giving us different glimpses
• 1:07:55
  into all these other little, you know, I don't know, truth,
• 1:07:59
  beliefs, lie is like it's just interesting, just so fascinating
• 1:08:03
  just to get all of that little. Yeah, and I definitely
• 1:08:06
  appreciate that from listening to your you guys and your guests
• 1:08:09
  too. It's like, and again, it's like
• 1:08:11
  the different ways people think about a landscape, you know, the
• 1:08:14
  same landscape. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:17
  There could be 10 people. We could be.
• 1:08:19
  We could go to the same location with 10 different people and
• 1:08:23
  have 10 very different. It's in.
• 1:08:27
  It's so cool. This is what it's all about, you
• 1:08:31
  know, just like all the perspectives.
• 1:08:33
  It's just so interesting. I love people.
• 1:08:35
  Yeah. And places.
• 1:08:36
  There's so much to know and every time we learn something
• 1:08:40
  new, there's something new to learn about that that's my
• 1:08:44
  upbringing is rooted in Judaism and Judaism is rooted in
• 1:08:49
  curiosity. And that there really are
• 1:08:52
  there's infinite answers. And and once you think you know
• 1:08:55
  something, you have to keep asking.
• 1:08:58
  If you think that you know everything about something, then
• 1:09:00
  you don't, you don't, You're like that's, that's the lack of
• 1:09:04
  intelligence is thinking that you know everything about
• 1:09:06
  something. And the humility in there is
• 1:09:08
  like so essential. I think that's like a real
• 1:09:11
  beauty of that point of view. Yeah.
• 1:09:13
  And for me, in my perspective of, you know, my just like
• 1:09:18
  Christianity, I'm like that perspective on like, you know,
• 1:09:21
  that that guy that did and I'm just like, wait, like this is my
• 1:09:25
  church. This is like, so to think like
• 1:09:29
  somebody is thinking like that, I'm like, oh, that poor
• 1:09:31
  individual to think like that. To be limited and.
• 1:09:35
  Limiting even to like. To me a lot of Christianity and
• 1:09:39
  and missionary work of Christianity is that they want
• 1:09:42
  to save every soul for for God for Christ and dismiss a group
• 1:09:47
  of people even though the indigenous people were saying or
• 1:09:50
  not interested. But to say, oh, you're going to
• 1:09:54
  die soon so you're not worth my time seems like a contradiction
• 1:09:59
  of the mission to save every soul.
• 1:10:02
  Yeah. And that's why when I was like,
• 1:10:05
  like that individual is like it's lost touch.
• 1:10:09
  But that was so long ago. I don't know, like there was
• 1:10:12
  some weird stuff like our history again, we don't want to
• 1:10:15
  think about all that dark shit, right?
• 1:10:18
  The Judaism part, the any, any like, you know, fraction of
• 1:10:23
  religion. It's just like there's such dark
• 1:10:25
  stuff. And then going back to original
• 1:10:26
  point of like, yeah, we don't bring up the dark shit because
• 1:10:29
  like that would not, that would make it uncomfortable, that
• 1:10:32
  would make it maybe not fun, but.
• 1:10:34
  Then if we do bring it up, we only bring up the dark.
• 1:10:36
  And yet the dark is only a a portion of the whole history,
• 1:10:42
  right? Hopefully.
• 1:10:44
  Yeah, and there and there were as many heroes in some of those
• 1:10:46
  histories as villains, you know, guys reading about what's the
• 1:10:50
  guy the Finley, You know that guy Finley, he was like a
• 1:10:54
  Oregons big conservationist like.
• 1:10:56
  He was named after Finley Bend. Well, Finley Bend probably named
• 1:10:59
  after that. Right.
• 1:11:00
  And he was, he was responsible for creating like the Mahira
• 1:11:03
  Refuge. And he was part of the first
• 1:11:05
  wave of like, quote UN quote, environmentalists.
• 1:11:07
  And he went out there. He was like a naturalist, I
• 1:11:10
  guess, and he went out there to Eastern Oregon and he was going
• 1:11:13
  to look at birds and mouth here and he had been there earlier.
• 1:11:17
  I might have the story a little bit wrong, but he was this the
• 1:11:20
  the story is he was outraged by the lack of all the migratory
• 1:11:24
  birds because people in the Victorian age were mowing them
• 1:11:27
  down for feathers for their hats.
• 1:11:30
  And that he that prompted him to prompted him to advocate for the
• 1:11:36
  creation of what we think of as Wildlife Refuge is now.
• 1:11:39
  So there's Finley Wildlife Refuge up near Salem, which is a
• 1:11:41
  beautiful spot, and Malheur, which is just an amazing place.
• 1:11:46
  My dad would really enjoy talking to you.
• 1:11:48
  He's so big. He was.
• 1:11:49
  I have a whole clip of him like 20 minutes randomly.
• 1:11:52
  We were playing soccer out in the field with the with with my
• 1:11:55
  kids and he's just goes off. He's like, Oh, I just was
• 1:11:59
  reading a book and I don't know the book or anything.
• 1:12:01
  He's a big historian on like the, you know, native, just like
• 1:12:06
  native stuff. And he was giving me a lesson in
• 1:12:09
  the and if it was a lesson, we don't know because, you know, I
• 1:12:13
  don't know. But about the Oahe River and how
• 1:12:17
  that got came to be, you know, named and the he's like
• 1:12:22
  everybody thinks it was this, but it was actually this and
• 1:12:26
  what was it? If I can I have it on Maybe when
• 1:12:29
  we're walking I'll bring it up. It's Hawaii.
• 1:12:31
  Yes, it was 2 Hawaiians these. Young Hawaiian guys that came
• 1:12:35
  over to work in the fur trapping industry.
• 1:12:37
  Early on, yes, Yes, correct. It was misheard.
• 1:12:42
  Yeah, yeah. So he was telling me how it was
• 1:12:44
  like, anyway, it was really interesting.
• 1:12:48
  But yeah, my dad's all about trying to, you know, really get
• 1:12:52
  different perspectives on, you know, different cultural and
• 1:12:56
  another. Way to say that is just being a
• 1:12:58
  total nerd. Yeah, he's my dad's a total nerd
• 1:13:01
  for sure when it comes to that sort of stuff, so it's
• 1:13:03
  interesting. Which I see as a virtue.
• 1:13:06
  We're making being a nerd cool again.
• 1:13:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool to know stuff, yeah.
• 1:13:11
  It's cool to be curious. It's cool to be inquisitive and
• 1:13:15
  and to retain and share the knowledge that you learn and I
• 1:13:21
  love that not hoard it to yourself.
• 1:13:23
  But I just started watching the animated Avatar series, and the
• 1:13:28
  episode we watched last night was in In the Desert.
• 1:13:33
  And the, like, owl spirit that has this giant library of
• 1:13:40
  knowledge and is protective over it and has had people come and
• 1:13:45
  take the knowledge. And then he buries the whole
• 1:13:48
  library so that people can't take the knowledge and use it
• 1:13:51
  for evil. But it that also prevents people
• 1:13:54
  from using it for good. Yeah.
• 1:13:56
  Yeah, crazy. Yeah.
• 1:13:59
  Yeah. We don't do that.
• 1:14:00
  We. Don't do that here.
• 1:14:03
  Well, should we do some rapid fire?
• 1:14:04
  Yeah. But let's do our little wrap UPS
• 1:14:08
  because the sun's going behind that tree and that is.
• 1:14:11
  Cool and the warmth. See.
• 1:14:14
  We love you, son, We. Love you son, and we'll find you
• 1:14:17
  again on the trail. All right, so a piece of top of
• 1:14:22
  mind insight or advice for your younger self.
• 1:14:26
  Oh, that's. A.
• 1:14:28
  Good one. I think it, I, I would say learn
• 1:14:35
  about privilege faster. I think like a lot of people in
• 1:14:40
  my position and demographic, I fairly arrogant about things,
• 1:14:45
  hopefully not too toxically so. So, and maybe I still have, but
• 1:14:49
  it's, it's been a learning experience, Yeah.
• 1:14:52
  Definitely and your favorite or most trusted outdoor gear?
• 1:14:57
  Oh yeah, I think I thought about this one, too.
• 1:15:02
  I love my compass, my analogue Silva compass.
• 1:15:08
  We're learning how to use that, and to get through the woods was
• 1:15:11
  like magic to me. So yes.
• 1:15:14
  Yeah, I've never learned how to. My dad taught me how to do the
• 1:15:17
  compass object. Yeah, it's really cool.
• 1:15:19
  And it's just like Earth. It's Earth magic.
• 1:15:22
  Yeah, and you might, and it might save your life some time.
• 1:15:27
  And recommendations for outdoor life in Southern Oregon or
• 1:15:31
  beyond. Oh well I love this spot.
• 1:15:35
  I love like the like the idea that I can get in my car and my
• 1:15:39
  wife and I could go from Dodge Bridge to Tuval in an afternoon
• 1:15:43
  with 0 planning is just lovely. So this is one of my favorite
• 1:15:48
  outdoor spots and like I said, the coasts like Boardman State
• 1:15:51
  Park or South Slough and Coos Bay right now.
• 1:15:54
  Awesome. Oh, the lava beds like out
• 1:15:57
  there? Oh, that's Mal here.
• 1:15:58
  Steam. OK, I can just go on Steam.
• 1:16:00
  Yeah, I know. I love that area too.
• 1:16:03
  Or Oregon is really is full of spectacular landscapes.
• 1:16:06
  I think one of the most coolest spots for me historically, you
• 1:16:10
  know, do you know Mount Blvd. You ever been up there?
• 1:16:12
  It's like the tallest peak in Coos County, right on the, I
• 1:16:16
  guess, Douglas County, Coos County line.
• 1:16:18
  There's an old fire lookout on the top of it and you can go to
• 1:16:21
  the top of that. It's like an hour hike straight
• 1:16:24
  uphill. And I've camped there a couple
• 1:16:27
  times and there's like no artificial lights. 360° horizon
• 1:16:31
  with no artificial lights, Yeah. Awesome.
• 1:16:34
  True darkness. Yep.
• 1:16:36
  Yeah. And when your body expires from
• 1:16:40
  this plane of existence, how do you want to be remembered?
• 1:16:44
  I. Don't know.
• 1:16:45
  It's probably, probably not much at all.
• 1:16:51
  I hope. I guess you could only hope to
• 1:16:52
  do something good in the world, but I don't.
• 1:16:55
  I don't want much memorialization, I don't think.
• 1:16:59
  Even though you're in books and awards, if.
• 1:17:03
  That information is useful to somebody great, but as a person,
• 1:17:07
  I don't really care. Great.
• 1:17:09
  And if people want to find you or learn more about you or work
• 1:17:12
  with you, where can they do that?
• 1:17:15
  Well, I'm a teacher at SOU, so students there could take my
• 1:17:17
  classes and hear these kinds of stories.
• 1:17:19
  Highly recommend. I've published some articles
• 1:17:22
  about the Rogue River War. I'm working on a book about the
• 1:17:24
  Rogue River War which will hopefully will come out before
• 1:17:27
  I'm dead. And yeah, do.
• 1:17:31
  You have any other books? Have you written any other?
• 1:17:32
  Books. I published a book that was an
• 1:17:35
  edited volume on archaeological and anthropological studies of
• 1:17:39
  battles of of indigenous wars across North America that came
• 1:17:44
  out a couple years ago. Oh, it's called Beyond the
• 1:17:46
  Battlefield is what it's called. Cool.
• 1:17:48
  Because I got to get it from my dad, yeah.
• 1:17:50
  Yeah, you might like it. It's got some.
• 1:17:52
  Will you sign it for me? Sure one. 100%.
• 1:17:55
  Yeah, he loves all that. He loves I get.
• 1:17:57
  I mean, he reads everything, so I'm excited.
• 1:18:02
  Just give them something new because usually I'm finding
• 1:18:04
  books and I'm like, I hope he likes it, but this is specific.
• 1:18:06
  He'll like it, you know. Anyway.
• 1:18:09
  Awesome. Thank you so much Mark for your
• 1:18:12
  time and your insight and continuing to educate me and all
• 1:18:17
  of our listeners. Hopefully I'm I'm confident that
• 1:18:20
  they will find value here and I. Really respect what you guys do.
• 1:18:25
  It's it's fun and interesting and educational.
• 1:18:27
  Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 1:18:29
  Thanks for. Being a listener too, an early
• 1:18:31
  listener, a continuing listener and and saying yes to I.
• 1:18:36
  Was waiting for the salacious joke though.
• 1:18:40
  Do we need to come up with one off?
• 1:18:41
  No, that's that's too much. Pressure.
• 1:18:44
  I mean, we still have to walk out so.
• 1:18:46
  Missing anything? Just just, yeah, just a dirty
• 1:18:50
  joke. Oh gosh, I don't have any off
• 1:18:54
  the top of my head. Usually I do there's.
• 1:18:59
  It's hard to put on the spot, but we should keep one in our
• 1:19:01
  pocket. Probably we should.
• 1:19:05
  Yeah, I'm well, we still have to walk out.
• 1:19:08
  So anything could happen between now and then though I think, I
• 1:19:14
  think we've, we've gotten more professional in our, in our
• 1:19:18
  time. We're getting, we're getting
• 1:19:20
  better and better at podcast. We're getting more straight
• 1:19:21
  edge. Don't put me in the corner.
• 1:19:23
  Yeah, that's and that's one thing that in the podcast we try
• 1:19:26
  to like keep it we, I mean, even though we go deep with our
• 1:19:30
  people, we also try to keep it silly and funny because like,
• 1:19:33
  what is life without jokes and humor?
• 1:19:37
  I mean, if you're not laughing when you're having sex, then
• 1:19:40
  what kind of fun or you haven't there?
• 1:19:41
  You go, yeah, there's something. Awesome.
• 1:19:46
  Thank you everybody. We'll pack up and we just got
• 1:19:50
  the camera, probably can't see it, but I was watching them out
• 1:19:53
  of the corner of my eye. We've got some fishermen
• 1:19:55
  floating down and we've had a lot of.
• 1:19:56
  Polar buyers. Walker Buyers.
• 1:19:59
  Walker buyers, yeah. Those people.
• 1:20:04
  Those people walking their dogs, you see that?
• 1:20:06
  Guy, did you see that guy sitting here or standing here
• 1:20:09
  looking up the one? I don't think I did.
• 1:20:11
  He was all in camo. Wasn't he?
• 1:20:12
  Yeah, Yeah, you. Can I couldn't see him, he said
• 1:20:16
  yes, absolutely. There we go our our sack chairs.
• 1:20:21
  Yeah, we you really get leaned in.
• 1:20:23
  Yeah, get real, real comfy in them.
• 1:20:29
  Go find some more sunspots. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:20:32
  I want to come back here again. This is gorgeous view.
• 1:20:40
  I'm guess. I'm guessing this place gets
• 1:20:41
  busier on a on a warmer, sunnier day.
• 1:20:45
  You know, it used to be that a lot of the Latino community in
• 1:20:49
  Southern Oregon would be out here like families of them.
• 1:20:53
  And that was like a spot for a while.
• 1:20:55
  I don't know if they still do that.
• 1:20:56
  You could wade into the river a little bit.
• 1:20:59
  Yeah, it feels like a really safe place to to go swimming.
• 1:21:03
  There's a rope swing right here in this tree.
• 1:21:06
  Yeah, it doesn't, doesn't look very well.
• 1:21:08
  It's not very deep right now, but really a nice spot.
• 1:21:13
  And is there the other side of the river?
• 1:21:17
  Is that private land? Yeah.
• 1:21:19
  OK. Private land not accessible to
• 1:21:21
  the public. No.
• 1:21:23
  There's a couple of spots I think you can get down there.
• 1:21:26
  But that area, there's like a lot of big old estate houses,
• 1:21:31
  like the old money in the Rogue Valley branches along the river
• 1:21:34
  there. There's I am always amazed at
• 1:21:37
  that. There is a surprising amount of
• 1:21:40
  money in the Rogue Valley girl. Blue Cheese Ranch.
• 1:21:43
  It's like right up here a little bit.
• 1:21:45
  Yeah. And that's where, what's her
• 1:21:47
  name? The dancer Ginger Rogers at her
• 1:21:51
  place somewhere near here. There's people, people have a
• 1:21:56
  tendency to think that Grants Pass is just or that Southern
• 1:21:59
  Oregon is just like, yeah, wilderness and podunk or
• 1:22:04
  something. But there's there is some
• 1:22:08
  discreet luxury out here. Discreet.
• 1:22:11
  Luxury. I like the sound of that.
• 1:22:14
  And that's part of why we're really focusing this season on
• 1:22:20
  on the people of Southern Oregon and the stories of Southern
• 1:22:23
  Oregon to kind of hopefully change the narrative a little
• 1:22:27
  bit about what's here and not necessarily to invite more
• 1:22:35
  people to move here. I would like that.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah. As a real estate agent, Heather
• 1:22:39
  would love that. Or more just to have people who
• 1:22:42
  already live here embrace it more and see more opportunity
• 1:22:47
  for themselves here and maybe move within the valley, buy a
• 1:22:52
  new house. Well, I would just hope that
• 1:22:55
  people moving here have, you know, good intentions are rooted
• 1:22:58
  in the outdoors and that are aligned with me and that's why
• 1:23:02
  we will link. Yeah.
• 1:23:03
  So that's really it. That we're attracting the right
• 1:23:06
  kind of people, right? For real.
• 1:23:08
  And. Stuff like that.
• 1:23:10
  Yeah, more people who love, love this place for what it is and
• 1:23:14
  choose to be here for, for good reasons, not just not just
• 1:23:21
  because it's cheap and they can sell their million.
• 1:23:24
  It's not cheap, yeah, but if they can sell their $1,000,000
• 1:23:28
  home somewhere else and. Yeah, they do do.
• 1:23:31
  That is a thing. I love the fact that you pretty
• 1:23:35
  much have to at least be a little bit of a hippie and a
• 1:23:38
  redneck to be here, or else, yeah, you just have to be, yeah.
• 1:23:43
  Yeah. All the good parts of that
• 1:23:45
  stereo, those stereotypes. They I've heard a new term for
• 1:23:48
  that the the kind of the hippie redneck collision of being a
• 1:23:51
  green neck, a green neck and a redneck.
• 1:23:57
  Let's take this, dear. Thank you.
• 1:23:59
  Thank you. OK, we did record.
• 1:24:05
  Awesome, it all worked. Just second season back at it.
• 1:24:11
  Yeah, this is our, this is our first official recording session
• 1:24:15
  of this new season. And what's the turn around time?
• 1:24:19
  Start. Putting them out.
• 1:24:21
  We are planning to release our first episode of the new season
• 1:24:25
  on February 4th. We have two maybe 3 episodes
• 1:24:32
  already in the queue. So and I think that we're well
• 1:24:38
  last year we weren't very consistent with our like release
• 1:24:43
  day and like we weren't doing every week or.
• 1:24:48
  We were at 1st and then it was just like.
• 1:24:51
  It was just kind of when we could.
• 1:24:54
  So we're going to probably we'll just kind of see how it feels,
• 1:24:59
  how it feels. Part of this is that we want it
• 1:25:04
  to feel good for us too. And since we're working on it
• 1:25:09
  becoming more of a full time job, we want to treat it as
• 1:25:12
  such. And also because it's not a full
• 1:25:16
  time job, we do have other jobs so.
• 1:25:19
  It's a delicate balance such as life, delicate balance of all.
• 1:25:27
  So it may be once an episode a week, it may be every other
• 1:25:30
  week, it may be every 10 days or so.
• 1:25:36
  But you could probably expect this episode to be out, if not
• 1:25:43
  by March, then beginning of March that sounds.
• 1:25:47
  Good. Yeah.
• 1:25:55
  Oh yeah, moving, moving in the sun.
• 1:25:57
  I'm glad I were. Yeah.
• 1:26:02
  I mean, you know, we were talking earlier about
• 1:26:05
  appreciating the fog, appreciating the season.
• 1:26:09
  Though I did say to Heather that I have practiced acclimating
• 1:26:14
  myself to the cold more. I do that also while in
• 1:26:18
  movement, so just sitting in the cold.
• 1:26:22
  Is its own form of hell. Is its own yeah, little icicle.
• 1:26:31
  Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to heating heated seats
• 1:26:35
  because my bum is a little cold but.
• 1:26:39
  Then, you know, I, I think people have, again, people have
• 1:26:42
  been living in this landscape for near eons and the, the
• 1:26:50
  climate has been more or less the same.
• 1:26:54
  So they were sitting in the cold and probably doing just fine.
• 1:27:02
  I don't know. So how did they accommodate?
• 1:27:07
  And not every, not every culture here was nomadic and chasing the
• 1:27:12
  sun. So people were living here in
• 1:27:15
  this cold long before we were, and they didn't have heated car
• 1:27:20
  seats and I think. We're spoiled privileged.
• 1:27:24
  People just get used to it. You know how like when you're
• 1:27:27
  camping, you get used to being dirty?
• 1:27:29
  Yeah, it's just like a. Feeling.
• 1:27:31
  It's like a what you're used to a lot.
• 1:27:35
  Yeah. You just don't have anything
• 1:27:38
  different to compare it to. Yeah, it just kind of is what it
• 1:27:44
  is and embrace it. So they probably also had like
• 1:27:51
  Otter pelts and Beaver pelts and they were harvesting animals for
• 1:27:59
  that were doing just fine and had adapted to the landscape and
• 1:28:04
  and seeing how they were doing and saying, OK, how can we be
• 1:28:08
  more like that animal? We can take their skin and wrap
• 1:28:12
  ourselves in it. It's.
• 1:28:13
  Quite warm in like sleeping in. Well, I mean, I just have
• 1:28:23
  experience because my dad has a teepee cool built.
• 1:28:27
  So having the fire in the teepee, not that that was what
• 1:28:31
  the natives used around here. They probably use something
• 1:28:34
  else, not a teepee structure, but it gets it's warm in there.
• 1:28:39
  Yeah. Totally.
• 1:28:40
  So just like in a house, I mean, you can really heat that thing
• 1:28:44
  up. Yeah, with fire.
• 1:28:47
  Fire and other bodies. What were the kinds of houses,
• 1:28:51
  housing structures that. People around here lived in
• 1:28:54
  plank houses, like houses built to cedar or pine that were built
• 1:28:59
  into the ground, had a big central hearth and then so they
• 1:29:04
  were pretty warm and cozy I imagine.
• 1:29:09
  That were are they like our modern houses kind of similar
• 1:29:13
  shape to that or? Yeah, they were like a like a.
• 1:29:16
  Rectangle. Rectangle House.
• 1:29:17
  With a gabled roof. Cool.
• 1:29:20
  A circular door on one end and then they were so into the
• 1:29:28
  ground and that was some edges. So you can there be like all
• 1:29:31
  stored like salmon and I think of them as fruit roll ups but
• 1:29:39
  the way they would process like berries and things and dry.
• 1:29:41
  Them out and make rolls of them. Fruit roll ups without all the
• 1:29:44
  high fructose corn syrup. Yeah.
• 1:29:46
  Yeah, my well, she's my ex sister-in-law Rochelle.
• 1:29:50
  She puts on, I think every year a big native feast for the kids
• 1:29:58
  and for the youth program she's involved with.
• 1:30:01
  And she had her brother Jesse, who we'd like to get on the
• 1:30:06
  podcast, but he's a Fish and Wildlife biologist.
• 1:30:11
  I don't know what he's doing now.
• 1:30:12
  He's always changing it up his career.
• 1:30:15
  But he did a they went and harvested.
• 1:30:20
  Gosh, I thought, I think they harvest harvested a Buffalo,
• 1:30:24
  Yeah. And then they had a native chef
• 1:30:26
  come, yeah, and prepare it and all this native, native food.
• 1:30:31
  And that's a. Big movement right now amongst
• 1:30:34
  the tribes like food sovereignty and recreating indigenous food
• 1:30:38
  ways and diets and and even in like high end restaurants and
• 1:30:41
  things. That's another one of these
• 1:30:43
  cultural acts of reasserting sovereignty.
• 1:30:47
  There's a new restaurant in Ashland that is popularizing
• 1:30:52
  that locally, yeah. It's I guess a indigenous
• 1:30:55
  version of like the local food kind of movement.
• 1:30:57
  You'll. Have to go.
• 1:30:59
  Yeah, I'd like to go do a Go Wildly episode.
• 1:31:01
  Yeah, but with Emily, go wild. Yeah, I've seen really good
• 1:31:06
  reviews on it and the the Ashland food scene has changed
• 1:31:13
  so much since I lived there. And I've I want to do a an
• 1:31:16
  Ashland food day and when I try all the new places.
• 1:31:20
  Yeah, yeah. You mean Asia for sure.
• 1:31:23
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 1:31:24
  We have to get Asia. Involved.
• 1:31:25
  She's the food expert. I.
• 1:31:30
  Think one of the most interesting like house
• 1:31:32
  arrangements around here among indigenous people is some of the
• 1:31:35
  groups would have like each woman would have her own house
• 1:31:39
  with her kids and then all the men would sleep in the sweat
• 1:31:43
  lodge together. So like and that was that was
• 1:31:49
  the domestic arrangement. I would love that can your
• 1:31:51
  house. But each woman had their own.
• 1:31:57
  There wasn't like communal, communal women house.
• 1:32:01
  Well, maybe. Like the families had their own
• 1:32:04
  houses like with a woman, but the the and I'm sure the man was
• 1:32:09
  there quite a bit. What about lonely women that
• 1:32:11
  don't have kids? It's even better.
• 1:32:17
  Remember when I got? Divorced and my first wife, my
• 1:32:22
  my friend George, I just talked about he said to me he told me
• 1:32:25
  that story and he's like, Mark, what makes you think men and
• 1:32:27
  women are supposed to live together at.
• 1:32:28
  All. Totally.
• 1:32:32
  That is, that is a that is a question.
• 1:32:36
  This is why I want to build my she shed so I can get the heck
• 1:32:38
  the wife. Your she shed is that?
• 1:32:40
  What you say? Yeah, I want to build a little
• 1:32:42
  office at my house. We have a very small house.
• 1:32:45
  Yeah. And right now I'm, like, driving
• 1:32:48
  all the way up to the office, which is on the opposite end of
• 1:32:50
  town and very unrealistic. For once, I put the kids to bed
• 1:32:54
  and like working, you know, because I get good work done.
• 1:32:57
  I'm kind of a night owl. And so I want my goal this year
• 1:33:02
  is to build a office that's just my own, my own little space.
• 1:33:06
  I can get away. Can't wait.
• 1:33:09
  Yeah. It's nice.
• 1:33:10
  I mean, I think it's really valuable to have independent
• 1:33:14
  spaces. That's right.
• 1:33:15
  Well, just and, and communal space.
• 1:33:17
  I mean, we are meant to live in community, but also to have our
• 1:33:22
  own, our own zones, to be ourselves.
• 1:33:26
  Yeah, totally. That is exactly it.
• 1:33:27
  Like all the creative voice over work.
• 1:33:30
  I just want my own little creative space.
• 1:33:32
  That's all I'm asking. Yeah, my own little bunker.
• 1:33:36
  Yeah, bitch, bunker or cave? No too much, she said.
• 1:33:44
  There's a bunch. They're all good.
• 1:33:46
  I love the. Alliteration of all of it.
• 1:33:48
  Have to be alliterated. Yeah, you do.
• 1:33:49
  And I'm going to make a sign. Yep, and.
• 1:33:51
  I'm going to just all. Of them I'm going.
• 1:33:53
  To put a doorbell on my. Awesome cave.
• 1:33:55
  Yeah, Ring. We like it with the camera.
• 1:34:00
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:34:01
  Awesome. Try to keep my mouth shut right
• 1:34:03
  now. Thank you so much.
• 1:34:05
  Thank you. Really awesome to to see you
• 1:34:08
  again and get to chat with you and Share your story and be part
• 1:34:12
  of your story it. Was useful for you.
• 1:34:14
  Absolutely. Very much so.
• 1:34:16
  Thank you guys for listening and catch us on the next episode.
• 1:34:19
  Bye. Cool.
• 1:34:22
  Awesome. That's a wrap on this episode of
• 1:34:25
  Go Wildly from the bottom of our backpacks.
• 1:34:28
  Thank you for listening. We know you enjoyed the show, so
• 1:34:31
  tap, follow, tell a friend or two, and leave a quick review if
• 1:34:34
  you can. It makes a real difference.
• 1:34:36
  Your support allows Go Wildly to reach new listeners and bring
• 1:34:40
  more outdoor stories to the mic. Until next time, go Wildly and
• 1:34:45
  go outside.