More Lightning Wednesday Evening in Siskiyou County

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YREKA, CA—In Siskiyou County, more lightning occurred on Wednesday, July 11, as about 118 more down strikes hit the forest. Luckily, some rainfall came with this lightning storm. Overall, about 55 fires were started by storms this week, with approximately 32 of the fires active as of Thursday morning. The other 23 fires have been either contained or controlled. Most of the fires are less than 10 acres in size; however, some fires are just now being looked at due to their extremely remote and rugged locations.

As of Thursday, July 12th, the Klamath National Forest formed the Elk Complex in the Happy Camp Ranger District that has a number of the lightning-caused fires close to private property, as well as many others scattered throughout the district. A Type II Incident Management Team, with Kent Swartzlander as Incident Commander, is taking over management of the Elk Complex starting at 6:00 pm tonight. Three of the known fires within that complex are causing some concern (the Elk Fire, about 10 acres; the King Creek #2, about 40 acres; and the Tom Martin, about 10 acres). The Tom Martin Fire is about one and a half-miles south of the small town of Hamburg along Highway 96. No structures are threatened at this time, and an air tanker is being used to help the firefighters on the ground.

The Oak Knoll Ranger District has five confirmed fires, with three of them controlled. Of the two active fires, the China Fire is one mile north of China Peak, and is using an air tanker to help firefighters tackle this blaze. It is currently about 10 acres in size. Smoke from this fire may be seen from the Yreka and Fort Jones area, as well as from along Highway 96 near the town of Klamath River.

The Scott River Ranger District has seven fires in total, with five of them staffed at this time. Two of the fires are within or near the eastern edge of the Marble Mountain Wilderness. The Back and Sky Fires are about 10 and 25 acres in size, respectively. Heavy fuels and extensive mop-up are the concerns for these fires.

As of the morning of Thursday, July 12th, about 16 fires have been reported on the State Responsibility Areas protected by California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE); the largest is about 10 acres in size. All of these fires are contained.

The CAL FIRE information line is now available at (530) 842-2266. This number will have information on the fires managed by the Forest Service and CAL FIRE in the county, and will be updated as the situations change.

Fire Fighting, Fires, Forest Fires, Forest Service

Happy Camp Future To Be Discussed At Meeting July 16

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There will be a meeting of the Happy Camp Community Collaboration Project on Monday, July 16 at 5pm. This will take place at the USFS Conference Room. Enter via the back door. There may be a change due to the current fire situation, so phone Nadine McElyea at the Family Resource Center, 493-5117 to see if the location changes.

According to McElyea, “Discussion items include the expenditure of some remaining funds from the first half of our planning grant; the need to submit a request for the second part; and some planning around small projects that can positively impact and improve our community, as well as some brainstorming for the future.”

All Happy Camp residents are welcome and encouraged to attend, especially if they are interested in the future of Happy Camp.

Family Resource Center

Karuk Tribe helps Good Teachers of Klamath River Valley

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Karuk Tribe helps Good Teachers of Klamath River Valley
by Judy Bushy

“Good teachers can become better teachers” was the theme of classes at the People’s Museum. A number of teachers from local schools went back to class for a couple of days last week for the Northern California Writing Project. Their goals were to be better prepared when they return to the classroom next fall to teach Karuk students to write.

One very special item that Jennifer Goodwin and Erin Hillman shared with teachers was the creation of regalia for a girl to dance in ceremonies last weekend. It took many hours of work over weeks to sew and decorate the skin skirts with fringes, shells, beads abalone, deer toes, and braided bear grass, It was beautiful and made a pleasant sound as it moved around. The design on the top of the apron-like skirt, was “friendship design.” The skirts were made by grant of $5,000 and worn by Frankie Snyder in the brush dance, her first ceremonial dance.

The Karuk Tribe of California Education Program Director, Jennifer Goodwin, arranged an exciting opportunity for teachers in the Happy Camp Schools and Down River in Junction School, to learn more about the cultural background of the students in their classes.

It was a pleasure to have Tom Fox of the Northern California Writing Project and transferring soon to the National Writing Project share current resources for teaching writing. Besides delving into discussions on “What connections there are or could be between writing in school and writing in real life in Happy Camp,” there were opportunities to talk to tribal members about their culture and Tribal employees about how they use writing in their employment. Some examples were working with language as Susan Gehr does, writing grants or writing lessons to teach, reports, minutes, agendas and articles.

Much is happening in Happy Camp to help us in learning and understanding each other better. This is sure to help the community.

Karuk Writing Class 1

Karuk regalia, Karuk Tribe, People's Museum

Lightning Sparks Fires in Siskiyou County

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YREKA, CA—Lightning filled the sky over most of Siskiyou County on Tuesday, July 10, and employees of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and the Klamath National Forest (KNF) are busy working on the fires that started from over 1,200 down strikes from the storm.

As of the morning of Wednesday, July 11th, about nine fires have been reported on the State Responsibility Areas protected by CAL FIRE; the largest is about 10 acres in size. Six of these fires are contained. On the KNF-managed lands, about 30 fires have been reported, with most being less than one acre in size. There are about two fires over 20 acres in size. Many of the fires have firefighters walking in to staff the fires, and smoke jumpers have been ordered for the larger fires.

“It’s a dry year, and though we received rain on some of the forest, it wasn’t enough to stop any of the larger fires from spreading.” said Patty Grantham, Deputy Forest Supervisor for the KNF.

Reconnaissance flights are in progress this morning, and more fires may be found once the day warms. More lightning is predicted for today with increased precipitation.

As a reminder, CAL FIRE suspended dooryard burning permits as of July 1st. Though fire restrictions for the KNF are not in place yet, forest vegetation is very dry. All who are in the forest are asked to be extremely careful with fire.

The CAL FIRE information line is now available at (530) 842-2266. This number will have information on the fires managed by the Forest Service and CAL FIRE in the county, and will be updated as the situations change.

Source: Forest Service Press Release

Fire Fighting, Fires, Forest Fires, Forest Service

Teacher’s Learning about Karuk Culture

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One very special item that Jennifer Goodwin and Erin Hillman shared with teachers this week was the creation of regalia for a girl to dance in ceremonies this weekend. It took many hours of work over weeks to sew and decorate the skin skirts with fringes, shells, beads albalone, deertoes, and braided bear grass but it was beautiful and made a pleasant sound as it moved around. The design on the top was “friendship design.” The skirts were made by grant of $5,000 and worn by Frankie Snyder in her first ceremonial dance. 

 The Karuk Tribe of California Education Program Director, Jennifer Goodwin, arranged an exciting opportunity for teachers in the area schools learn more about the cultural background of the students in their classes. Not only were teachers from Happy Camp Elementary and High Schools but Jefferson Continutation school and Junction School from Somes Bar. It was a pleasure to have Tom Fox of the Northern California Writing Project and transferring soon to the the National Writing Project share current resources for teaching writing.

 A panel was assembled to answer all the questions that the teachers cared to ask about the Karuk culture, past and present. Jennifer and Erin shared the regalia project. Dan Goodwin, tonyu, Blanche, Bud Johnson,  of fisheries, Paula McCarthy, Clayton Tuttle, Ben Harrison and Phinuggtuuf took part in the panel. The brush dance was traditionally done at the home of a sick child for healing and although it is still done for healing, it is done on a regular basis for good health and prosperity to preserve the tradition. There isn’t alot of “pow wow” dancing here but war dancing was mentioned. Community is always open to watch and usually food for all. It’s a way of balancing, a way of living, they said. Because the Karuk never had a reservation each family had their own place that they lived from Bluff Creek to Seiad Valley. When the gold rush intruded into this place, the government wanted to ship them all out to Hoopa, not realizing there was differences between Hoopa Tribe, Yurok Tribe and Karuk Tribe who didn’t speak the same language at all.  The Yurok were “downriver “people and the Karuk “upriver people.” Paula McCarthy siad her mom was sent to Indian School in Riverside and Native Americans there were punished for speaking their native languages. The Karuk Tribe of California started with 10 or 12 acres donated to the Tribe in Orleans and has purchased and developed nearly 600 acress in Orleans, Witchepec, Happy Camp and Yreka since being recognized.  Verna shared how she learned basketweaving from Grace and Madeline Davis and they wanted her to “pass it on.” Kenneth Brink said, “Red devils, blue devils or dust devils”, the Putawan is a devil, but “not so scarry anymore.” The mascot of the Happy Camp Elementary School has been the Putawan for many years. So the teachers learned many new things from the panel on the Karuk culture and hopes are to share further in the future. 

 Besides delving into discussions on “What connections there are or could be between writing in school and writing in real life in Happy Camp,” there were opportunities to talk to tribal members about their culture and Tribal employees about how they use writing in their employment, working with language as Susan Gehr, writing grants like   or writing lessons to teach. reports, minutes, agenda’s and articles.  

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Art “Walk” around Happy Camp

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By Judy Bushy

Saturday was a celebration in Happy Camp. It was Buster Pence’s birthday. Happy Birthday Buster!

Also, it was the Art Walk, sponsored by one of the art organizations in town, the Klamath Knot Arts Council, which organized in July 2003. They propose to do whatever they can to bring our communities together through art. It was the grand opening of their new gallery in the building downtown by the 2nd Ave Bridge. You will see their new sign above Indian Creek Road on the new art gallery. They call their building “the Knot”.

The theme of the art at the Knot was “Creatures at Water’s Edge” with Connie Rasmussen, Loretta Montinye, Amanita Mullier, Gail McDowell, Karen Davis, and Rebecca Cote. There was also a performance of ‘Tales from the Book of Egret’ by Randell Reed, Ann Kelly and Todd Gilbert.

One of my very favorite things about Happy Camp is the Basket weaving skills of Wilverna Reece and others who are learning the ancient art of making baskets of all sorts, sizes, shapes and purposes. The first stop on Saturday’s Art Walk is the Karuk People’s Center Museum where Reece had baskets on display.

Right across Indian Creek Road at the Happy Camp Resource Center was artwork by Melissa Culbert, which was fun to see. You would be amazed at the cougar portrait! It was good, and done when she was in high school with one of my girls, I believe.

Down Washington Street at the Happy Camp Community Computer Center you’d enjoy art, digital art and writings by the high school students. Their publication, Indian Ink, was only $2 and had some exceptionally talented pieces in it.

Across Fourth Avenue in the Memorial Log Building built during the depression, people here showed everyone that working together they could accomplish what had been thought impossible when it meant an education for the children of Happy Camp. Today, Violet Anderson was there and we got to see many of her paintings. Not only her art, but her family must have inherited artistic talent also. Her family was also showing other art, photography. Isabel Goodwin also had really nice fish pattern quilt and other quilts and very nice art displayed.

A fun gathering was at Evans where Beth Buchanan and Eddie Davenport were making music, the little horses were waiting to be petted, and Jean was showing her horseshoe creations. Live Music by “The Rainy Day Trio” was enjoyed by people shopping booths at Old Town Park. Atwood’s skilled blacksmithing creations from triangles, to call the crew to lunch, and utensils to serve up lunch, to wrought iron gates and beautiful flowers were for sale. Dave and Glenna’s, metal sculptures come from Somes Bar. There were fabric arts and even a bake sale. Bill Latten’s walking sticks were with Peggy Whealon’s quilts.

The Frontier Café had Kathy Harvey’s photography, Up the hill, George Swem had art done by his mother up to the time she was 95, displayed. He shared some of the gold gilding that she had learned in Spain. That was the place to get my favorite strawberry lemonade made by Dolly Elliston. G & L Tires had jade jewelry by John Harkschin.

There were botanical themed art pieces at the Forest Service Information Center. Watercolors by Sheryl Alex were were displayed at Napa Auto Parts. Right next door, Kind and Gentle Dog Grooming had photography and oil paintings by Jill Livingston displayed. While I didn’t get to see Joe Emerson’s artwork at Forest Lodge Motel, the new manager, Dinah, was very friendly, inviting all in to see the art. She said the workmen are texturing the walls and it won’t be long until Forest Lodge has more rooms again. There was a large native American sculpture out front that I would have liked to see if Joe carved it.

Veronica Salvage had her paintings on display at Double J Sports & Spirits and the frames made by Jason Rasmussen set them off very well. It looked like an elk strolled in to enjoy the art also.

Ann Stranton had her photography at Pizza House. Bigfoot Towing was the site for Wayne & Margie Scott and Ron Kelly’s rocks, gems and jewelry. Tim Britton’s photography was at Al’s Auto Repair. Al Garrett’s photography was where the Chamber office is supposed to be, down the walk, Linda Davis paintings were to be displayed. Time was running out to do all the sites in three hours.

Parry’s Market had Nancy Kilmer demonstrating her art, Gloria Chappelear was showing oil paintings at the New 49ers Prospecting Club. Right next door Diann Hokanson had oil paintings and pastels at Siskiyou House. Klamath Siskiyou Art Center was getting ready for the monthly potluck and show which was for Alan Crockett’s oil paintings. This gallery at the Bigfoot Corner, the Klamath-Siskiyou Art Center, and the group working on construction of a new building working with the Forest Service and the Tribe to obtain RAC funding for their building project.

I doubt it possible to really stop and spend as much time as you wished looking at all the art you wanted to study closer. The hiking wasn’t for many of the patrons of the arts but some did. There were great things to see and a lot of wonderful people to stop and visit with. Perhaps the difficulty with completing the entire art walk, was stopping to visit too.

The Klamath Knot Arts Council is encouraging community-oriented arts (painting, sculpture, music, dance, theater – all the arts!) like the Kids’ after-school art program, gallery shows for members, the April Spring Performing Arts event at the High School, this Art Walk, and yet to come, in August, their 3rd Annual Free Dance at the River Park.

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