Author: bigdiff

Missouri National Recreational River

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“O, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Away you rolling river.
I’ll take her ‘cross yon rolling water.
Ah-ha, I’m bound away, ‘cross the wide Missouri.”

American folk song

Above looks upstream from the hill above Mulberry Bend in the 59 mile eastern park district, where Lewis & Clark scouted some 219 years ago, along with other places introduced by the Yankton Sioux, one of many tribes that helped the expedition. The Yankton Sioux relinquished most of their land 165 years ago before either South Dakota (right) or Nebraska (left) were states, but they are still considered defenders of Pipestone in Minnesota. Their reservation runs along the north bank of most of the 39 mile western park district, above the confluence of the Niobrara, and they are park partners. Both districts of the park preserve the natural river flow, without commercial traffic, and most power boaters stick to Lewis & Clark Lake in the middle.

Further up the ‘big muddy’ Missouri River, at the confluence of the Knife River in North Dakota, teen mom Sacagawea joined their expedition with her French fur trapper husband and their infant. Like Pocahontas, her story is part of America, and similar stories are part of our heritage. As a child, I loved the song “Shenandoah” but was confused whether it was about the Shenandoah River in Virginia or the Missouri River. Turns out, Skenandoa was an Iroquois Chief, whose daughter was stolen by a French fur trapper and taken away across the wide Missouri River. Romantic stories about natives are part of our cultural heritage, albeit often one-sided. Especially given current tragedies of missing and murdered indigenous women, more effort—and funding—is needed to protect these women and tell more stories from a Native American perspective.

Niobrara National Scenic River

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Smith Falls above is the largest waterfall in Nebraska, and it makes a good picnic stop when floating down river. I got a ride with Little Outlaw from Brewer Bridge up to Fort Niobrara and kayaked back. Most people start at Berry Bridge and just float down on giant tubes ‘lazy river’ style, but they miss the pretty part at the beginning. I suppose the nature reserve doesn’t allow alcohol, so that may explain it. Either way, it’s very pleasant, with thick grassy banks, high bluffs, a couple of Great Blue Heron, several smaller waterfalls and no boat engines.

The interesting little town of Valentine is a decent base, with the small visitor center and places to stay. It’s in a well known Dark Sky county, which makes sense since the area is remote & peaceful. There’s a large nature reserve to the south, where I spotted a bald eagle but no bison. With all the space, they should have even more wildlife areas. Somewhere downriver were likely hideouts of bank robbers Frank & Jesse James. There are a number of reservations in the area, especially in South Dakota. There are not many places to charge, so I had to plan and drive a little slower than usual. Be sure to try a Runza—meat pie/ sandwich—if you see the local chain restaurant in one of the larger towns. I recommend mushroom Swiss.

Waterton Glacier International Peace Park

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Canada is to the left of the mountain with the historic Prince of Wales chalet on the far left bluff, and to the right is Glacier National Park in the US. This World Heritage Site includes both parks. Waterton village is accessed from Canada, uses Canadian dollars, but is mostly on US soil. Not that it matters. I saw no border officials here, and it indeed very peaceful. There’s a classy old tour boat which runs down into Montana, as well as camping and lots of interesting trails.

Unfortunately, there was a terrible forest fire here in 2017, and the only glacier above is far off in the distance to the right, a shadow of its former self and a reminder that we all must reduce our carbon footprint. I was happy to spend several hours charging my car at the marina’s destination charger, walking the shoreline, eating, trying the local beer and just soaking in the view above. I enjoyed my detour to Alberta’s five world heritage sites very much, and I didn’t have any trouble charging in Canada. The Tesla even converts the speed limit to mph, so you don’t need to do any math.

Dinosaur

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This is the Canadian World Heritage Site in Alberta, not the American Dinosaur National Monument.

Josh guided us into the restricted area, explained how to look for fossils and we sat down on a bone bed to look. I saw something with a pretty pattern, picked it up and showed it to Josh. He confirmed that it was part of a T-Rex—Gorgosaurus libratus—tooth, roughly 75 million years old. I just sat there for a while, stunned to be holding a real fossil like that in my hand after picking it up off the ground.

The park is the most productive dinosaur fossil ground on earth. And it’s also very beautiful, with camping and hiking along the river among the Cottonwood trees, some 200 years old. I saw a family of deer on the trail. Even the Badlands in Canada are nicer than the US.

It’s definitely worth signing up for a guided tour, although there’s also a drive with exhibits and places to look for fossils on your own. The above diorama is in the visitor center. Most of the assembled skeletons are at the Royal Terrell Museum a couple hours drive north, but the field work takes place here, especially in summer. Josh even stopped to mark and protect a new find from another group a week before. Impressive!

Writing-on-Stone

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While hiking the Hoodoo Trail, I turned to a view point above the Milk River on top of the steep cliffs above. I stopped suddenly when I heard native singing, resonating beautifully between the sandstone crevices. Not wanting to disturb the prayers, I stood silently, entranced. Eventually I retreated and continued out to the Battle Scene rock art depiction, one of the highlights of this World Heritage Site in Alberta Canada.

Later I took the guided tour of the restricted area where Blair showed and explained the rock art in this spiritual place of the Blackfoot Tribe. The tour started at 5 pm, perhaps to take advantage of the light as well as coolness. While I disagree with those who look for extraterrestrial interpretations of some of the unusual petroglyphs and pictographs, the details and 2500 years represented here are intriguing and fascinating. Still, for me, I will never forget the living voice I heard echoing among the hoodoos.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

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While the view from cliff trail is impressive, the interpretive center is the best part of this Canadian World Heritage Site. There’s a graphic film depicting a bison hunt and exhibits about the Blackfoot Tribe modern and prehistoric. Tribal records were kept on Winter Count Robes, and a beautiful one is on display. The tribe got its name from walking through the burnt grasses during the hunts. Before they acquired horses from the Shoshone, the tribe used dogs to help carry their belongings (photo). Wonderful place to learn about the fascinating history of Alberta.

Rocky Mountain

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This is the Canadian World Heritage Site, not the American Rocky Mountain National Park. If you don’t like this picture of Emerald Lake, my homepage background photo was also taken in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The site includes many national and provincial parks including Banff, Jasper, Yoho (above), Kootenay, etc. I visited several of the parks with my son a few years ago, before I converted to electric. Maligne Lake in Jasper is a favorite, along with Radium Hot Springs in Kootenay. I also love the dozens of double arched wildlife bridges that allow animals to cross the highways safely.

Near Banff and Lake Louise it gets crowded. Even though I intended to visit Lake Louise to follow my Uncle’s travel log, I had to skip it. One problem is that the Canadian parks reservation system is not foreigner friendly. If you’re Canadian, you simply sign up for the short shuttle ride on a system you’re likely already using. If you don’t have a Canadian bank account, signing up for the shuttle is an overly complex affair involving copious personal information. Of course, if you spend $900 US for a night at the Chalet, then you can visit at your leisure. The other options are equally troublesome, so I chose Emerald Lake instead, which is very similar and maybe slightly larger.

Ross Lake National Recreation Area

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Ross Lake is atop three dams on the Skagit River which provides power to Seattle, but it still has some old growth forest near the visitor center which you can hike through on the River Loop and To Know a Tree Trails. Since the park is managed and surrounded by the North Cascades National Park, they run the visitor center. The Gorge High, Diablo & Ross Dams can all be seen in short hikes, and the good news this year after decades of tribal petitioning is that ‘fish passage’ will be added to all three dams! Hydroelectric power is zero carbon, but it must not be at the expense of salmon and other species that we’re driving extinct.

Anyway, I highly recommend those two hikes which total about three miles, and include waysides explaining the different types of trees, their niches in the forest and the natural cycle of wildfire. Another improvement would be building wildlife bridges along the highway & over the river, so that animals like Grizzly Bears could migrate between north and south sections of the park more easily. Well, in any case, Ross Lake extends to the Canadian border and has many paddle-in campsites for folks who rent gear from the resort or somehow portage their kayak around the Ross dam after paddling across Diablo Lake. Seemed like too much work to me to explore an artificial lake, but maybe if I had more time to try fishing, it would make a nice vacation.

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve

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In the 1970s locals wanted to prevent a housing development in this historic area, one of the first settlements in Washington, still mostly unchanged from the 19th century. The result was our first ‘historical reserve’ where all landowners sold their development rights in perpetuity to the government (or a private natural conservancy). It makes for an interesting park, where the town is protected from development, but otherwise operates normally. There’s a good museum in Coupeville, and there are three state parks to visit, Fort Casey with a lighthouse, Fort Ebey with nature trails and a kayak launch, and Ebey’s Landing with a section of beach along the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Jacob Ebey’s blockhouse above is a good place to start a 4 mile hike along the bluffs returning on the beach. Jacob’s son Isaac settled here first, inviting his parents to join him from Independence Missouri, but Isaac was killed by natives in a reprisal for US attacks on native villages. Jacob’s home is open on weekends during the summer, and the staff will tell you the gory details if you ask. The bluffs are not for the feint of heart, but the views of the strait and the mountains are stupendous: Olympic, Rainier and Baker.

Wing Luke Museum

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“Holy Breakthrough Hollywood Star!”

—Robin

In 1967 above, Kato and the Green Hornet appeared on TV with Batman and Robin, and they even faced off ready to fight. That was 55 years before Asian Americans finally won Oscars for Everything… All At Once. While the park service affiliated Wing Luke Museum is named for a popular local man who became the Civil Rights AG for Washington state and City Council member for Seattle, at a time when Asian Americans were segregated from white society, the museum celebrates the experiences of all Asian American immigrants and the next generations. So, Bruce Lee, the son of a Cantonese opera performer, who became a superhero, movie star, martial artist and philosopher admired around the world for generations, and who changed the world through determination, is very much at the heart of the story here.

Bruce went to school in Seattle, worked as a busboy, began teaching and opened his first martial arts school here. He also met his wife and is buried here. His favorite restaurant, Tai Tong is down the street from the museum, so feel free to sit in his booth and order his favorite oyster beef dish. But the museum is about more than Bruce Lee or even Seattle’s Chinatown, as it includes specific, community and art exhibits on many different Asian cultures in Seattle and the US. The staff will also recommend Vietnamese, Cambodian, Japanese and other restaurants in the diverse neighborhood. Be sure to take the excellent guided tour of the shop, hotel, mahjong and family association rooms while you’re at the museum.

While I was visiting, there was a special exhibit on the Japanese Internment, which included video testimony of US citizens of Japanese descent who were incarcerated, robbed, lied to and dehumanized by the US government, while their brothers and sons served in Europe in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit of its size and service in US history. One man made the point that although his family opposed reparations, hearing the testimony and sharing his own family history was a necessary catharsis for all of them and for the nation. Another woman, a clinical social worker, explained that her own behavior and those she observed among her friends and family were most similar to battered children, who desperately wanted to love their country, no matter how much damage was done to them, because the US was the only country they knew. Well worth learning from this important history.