N I S E N A N / T E R R I T O R Y

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The past few years I have spent mostly the winters just downhill from Lake Tahoe, California in the Sierra foothills, by the Yuba River. This river actually makes three separate forks of itself, North, Middle and South. The forks spread out into the county, cutting deep gorges and canyons into the rock, with the majority of people living up above.

People who live here do so mainly because of this river. In the Winter, it roars wildly from the storms that come through, sweeping away the old and muck and bringing in new glacial cold water.

In the summer, it is so hot here that you have to go to the river every day to stay sane. Even if it is to take a quick dip to reset from the oppressive temperatures and dry air, the Yuba seems to have a kind of magic.

These forks used to have tons of salmon and fish. Unfortunately, they don't now due to dams that have been put up and gold mining which happened in the late 1800's. Actually not that long ago, when you really think about it.

The native folks here were more brutally treated than in other areas because of the $ gold was worth at the time. Everyone came here to get their share, and since the land was practically governless in the west back in those days, these folks did whatever they needed to do to be able to mine gold.

Chinese folks were brought in to build the railroad. Many of them were unable to get back to China and settled here, also trying to mine. They got paid substantially less for their findings or working for a bigger mine. They were routinely robbed in their Yuba Riverside encampments, sadly.

The mining practices here were terrible. Mainly it was hydraulic mining which used high pressure powered mining 'guns' of sorts, that were fueled by massive ditches dug around the county, (that still run with water) that carried water from the high country. These guns 'shot away' at the hillside, and was also used in the rivers to break up the rock. Mercury was used to capture gold. A GREAT idea and GREAT for fish. Kidding.

Some areas like Malakoff Diggins, one of the largest hydraulic mines on earth, look like the moon, still today. They shot away hundreds of feet of hillside and the mountain is just gone in some places. The land has barely regenerated in some mines, and in others, plants have begun to grow. A few winters, my partner and I camped on one of these mines while we worked a temporary job. It was owned by a friend of ours, and it was a pretty eerie experience. I watched the wildlife. There were tons of birds, frogs, even bears! I saw fox tracks in the silt. We were at the top of a hill above a fork of the Yuba, and much of the sludge from the mining got washed down to the waters. There's probably some writing and art I could pour out of me to process the experience of living on an old mine. I'm still working on it.

This mining doesn't happen anymore, though the price of gold could easily push the mine owners to reopen them with the more modern technology out there. Some mines didn't shut down until the 70's.

DO we learn from the mistakes of the past? A question I ask myself in our current tumultuous world.
The mining days have been over for a bit, but often people put it in the back of their mind, try to firget. That which fueled miners back in those days, also still fuels us today: capitalism.

The immense amount of wild foods that existed in this area was enough to feed everyone. There were tons of trees to build homes. So many salmon they say, you could catch one with your hand. Why need more than you really need?

I think about this all the time when I'm navigating what I'm doing, where and why, how. It's hard to escape that pressure. We all feel it.

The Yuba is permanently changed because of the pressure to 'get wealthy.' Of course it still inspires people to go to it, and admire it, find relief from it. I find studying this river over the years has taught me something about history and our relationship with the natural landscape. What are we willing to remember or forget in order to change things moving forward?

(35 mm film shot!)