Happy Camp Dream Catcher Reborn on 4th of July!

Did you have a special weekend, celebrating America’s Birthday? It was a perfect weekend to cool off at your favorite creek swimming hole!

When you are retired, as husband, Dan is, or on summer vacation as Happy Camp High School students and I share, holidays aren’t much different than other days. Summer has been busy, always the garden and keeping up with yard-work. Yet it is was good time to remember the legacy we have as Americans, especially when Dave Gordon of Cave Junction Community Bible Church shared the founding fathers’ praise for the blessings of how God has blessed America.

Saturday was the culmination of many months of work by Dennis Day of Happy Camp! A number of years ago, Dennis built a very large dream catcher on the Health & Harmony site at the north end of Davis Road. Through the years, it withstood all the elements. Recently, however, he took it down and rebuilt the dream catcher. Saturday it was complete down to over a thousand lights, nearly half again that many really, and it was lit at 9:05 Saturday evening. The blue, green, and gold lights were beautiful and as the sky darkened, it became even more beautiful in contrast!!
Accompanied by live music of Lou Tiraterra, Sr on the keyboard, and Jim Wainwright on his guitar made it more special. I loved hearing them play, “I’ll fly away,” and one of those I associate with, This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is Mine…but I can’t recall at the moment.

Dennis expressed his great appreciation for the help he received from friends in soaking the ropes in preservative and paint, gathering the natural materials for the frame, and all the other steps. He has a quote from Chief Seattle displayed on the Dream Catcher with words in Karuk at the top. This is part of Dennis’ website on the Dream Catcher philosophy, which he will be updating on his website www.wolf96039.com.

There were a number of people, besides this writer, taking photographs of the lighting, and one of those had an ingenious method of getting photos. Jim Mc Millan, a member of the Veterans Community of Happy Camp, sent his remote control helicopter style calendar buzzing up in the air as it took photos, both video and stills of the lit Dream Catcher. It was fascinating to see the contraption fly and learn how it could adjust its situation if a breeze came up and return to the launch site which it did by gps.

The Dream Catcher was a truly beautiful sight and a credit to the work that Dennis and his helpers have put into the project!

On the way home, we passed the sandy beach near the beach of Elk Creek where there was a traffic jam. Yes, in Happy Camp, a traffic jam, and it wasn’t five o’clock at the Happy Camp Post Office!! Vehicles were parked all the way up watching a few sparklers, this being the only place where it would be safe. In the middle of the Klamath National Forest fireworks aren’t allowed, to say nothing of the drought conditions of the last few years!In Happy Camp we have a healthy respect for wildfires in the forest. We have lost firefighters who have come to fight our fires, and seen homes and even the town of Happy Camp threatened to take such matters lightly. Thanks to all who are respectfully cautious with any possibility of fire.