Bog of Big Lagoon

I've mentioned this bog before, so let's finally have a tour. This is the bog of Big Lagoon. It's a mucky inaccessible place, especially after the winter floods, but that's how it has been so well preserved.

I walk very carefully when I visit, not because of the muck (which is unavoidable), but because I don't want to step on too many plants. After all, there are a few endangered species in the mix. Luckily once I got in there I found a good elk trail and stuck to it.

This place is diverse. Big time. I found this great checklist online that's helping me identify things. Click on the checklist link for a full species survey of the area.

This is the Macloskey's violet, Viola macloskeyi

And nestled underneath those lovelies are Drosera rotundifolia (!). Tiny.

Much more subtle are these little spike rushes, Eleocharis pachycarpa.

The elk trail lead me back into the old spruce forest. There I saw an A-frame fort, coming along nicely.

And, the most "exotic" of native wildflowers, the elusive Calypso orchid, Calypso bulbosa. I do have a secret patch of these, but this one was all alone and nowhere near the patch.

It's named after Calypso, the beautiful blind enchantress from the Odyssey. She was secretive, and so is this little dragon of a flower; their blooms are unpredictable. While this lone plant in the dark forest had a bloom, my secret patch had none.

Tsurai

I've been reading a book called The Four Ages of Tsurai, which is a compilation of the European accounts (including one by botanist Archibald Menzies) of the small Yurok village of Tsurai, which was just below the modern town of Trinidad, where I go for internet and library books.

"Olega’ “where they come.” A place near the end of the present wharf which got its name because objects continually drift ashore there."



Trinidad Head is a great place to see plant diversity.

Ribes sanguineum.

The flowers, as you can see, are very beautiful. They're one of the most popular CA natives in cultivation.

I don't know what this litte plant is. Shame.

This is the old lighthouse (but it still lights the way).

Equally exciting is what I can't see.

"Ko’ixkulole’gwo m, “perforated stone where it is covered.” The spot is a cave just below the lighthouse. People took aromatic angelica root (wo’lpei) into the cave and put it into a pool of water in a recess of the cavern. The water would whirl when this was done. If this root (used in many religious and ceremonial connections) was employed by the person in some undertaking,
it would turn out well."

And here's where you get the root, Angelica (lucida?). I wanted to introduce this plant to our property because it's flowers attract pollinators. I had no idea it also attracted luck.

Salal (Gaultheria shallon) is a common plant along the coast. The berries are good in muffins, and have an interesting crunch to them.

This is the silk tassel shrub (Garrya eliptica). The catkins are very showy this time of year and give the whole plant a "mossy bayou" look.

Trinidad Head may be the best place to find Mimulus aurantiacus in this area. I saw it in gardens before I noticed it in the wild. Here's a tiny plant growing on a rock.

Fringecup (Tellima grandiflora) is a common ground cover in the shade, yet we don't have any in Bayside. (Even stranger is our very sparse amount of Oxalis oreganum, the most common redwood forest plant anywhere else.)

There are many beautiful old Ceanothus thyrsiflorus trees here. (They really should be called trees, in Trinidad at least.) They remind me of African accacia trees because of their form and the many little thorn-like branches.

Much of the head is covered in deciduous thickets. Thimbleberry, Twinberry, Blackberry, Gooseberry, and...poison oak.

It seems the Tsurai had a name and story for every rock along the coast. I wonder if today's fishermen have named all the rocks (I bet they have).

Joseph Cambell says, "People claim the land by creating sacred sites, by mythologizing the animals and plants—they invest the land with spiritual powers. It becomes like a temple, place for meditation."

History, hikes, and gardening are great ways to build your temple.

Through intermarriage with whites, disease, and migration to reservations, Tsurai faded away and was completely abandoned by 1914. California has a violent history, especially in respects to the orginal inhabitants. (The Wiyots, the Yuroks southern neighbors who inhabitted Bayside, were massacred nearly to extinction.) But the town of Tsurai faded quietly away.

I haven't confirmed this, but according to the book, the site of Tsurai is grown over, but is marked by a great pepperwood tree (Umbellularia californica).

"If aromatic angelica root was burned beneath its branches and a person prayed for rain, the rain would come in two days...Children were warned to stay away from this tree lest bad luck befall them. If an infant died, the mother...hung the cradle in its branches."

The world is composed of sacred sites.

Hidden Road to Patrick's Point

Go alone. Bring a knife. Put food in your pocket (and a cell phone). This is where the hidden road at Big Lagoon begins. Yes, you have to cross a perilous "bridge" where the road has eroded into the ravine on both sides.

Then the road dives into spruce and redwood forest.

See, it's a highway, forgotten.

Many, many paces later the road dissappears completely. Don't think about bears or mountain lions.

You see a trail that sharply veers to the right. Follow this through the redwoods.

After many, many paces, and after climbing over trees fallen by winter storms, you'll emerge on a road. If you look closely through the trees you'll see a Yurok house through the spruce and alders. Find the path into Sumeg Village.

You see no one there. Crawl through the circular door of a house and enjoy the extremely dark and quiet moment.

You emerge from the earth and walk around the village admiring the structures, like this sweat house.

You find a narrow mossy path to a native plant garden. You wonder when it was last tended; it's the wildest garden you've seen in a long time. But would you really want to change anything?

Then the forest opens and you see a vast coastal prairie: douglas iris, salal, native blackberry, yarrow, and pacific reed grasses.

You step onto the Rim Trail because you've never been there.

And discover a meadow of sedges just around the corner.

And notice first flowers of spring: salmonberry barely unfurling their petals.

You wander aimlessly. It's imperative to lose yourself for a while.Tthen you can find the trail back home. Here it is: the beach below the sandy cliffs.

You watch as a few dark figures pick through the rocks looking for agates. You ask the ones you pass if they're having any luck. Just small ones. Then you jog home to give your lungs a stretch.

Not a bad place to live, really.

Casino on Big Lagoon?

There is a Rancheria adjacent to Big Lagoon, composed of a small group of Yurok and Tolowa tribe members, that has seriously considered building a casino on its shores for some time.

I remember a few years ago a friend and I canoed to that part of the shore and saw the foundation for a large buidling, that had been abandoned, and that had been grown over with blackberry and jubata grass. Well, the foundation was for the casino. According to my dad, the foundation has been around since at least 1996. But nothing has happened so far, and this video explains why.

But the latest word is that the US Department of the Interior is NOT going to let them build in Barstow.

Concerns about impacts on water quality, endangered species and scenery from a
casino on serene Big Lagoon had state environmental agencies and conservation
groups supporting the Barstow compact. With that upended, and the tribe pushing
harder for a casino on their reservation, a battle is likely over who approves
the project. The California Coastal Commission has vowed to sue, claiming that
states which adopt federally approved coastal programs have the right to review
federal projects, like an Indian casino.

(Full story from the Eureka Times Standard.)

A casino and its tourists would be a serious ecological, aesthetic, and personal tragedy. I worry about the Rancheria, but this is not (morally and culturally) the right answer to their problems. I feel it in my bones. While the lagoon is not in immediate danger, I must keep up with story and prepare my war cry.

New Trails

Yesterday, I worked on a new segment of the trail with my dad. Eventually, the trail will be a great loop through the property. We keep it simple, with dirt, logs, and leaf-litter mulch.

While we were clearing the ground for the stairs above, I found this weird burly root. I don't know what it is.

My top 2 guesses:

1. Part of a redwood root system, since the trail was below a large redwood

2. Part of a root belonging to Marah oreganus, the Wild Cucumber, also called Coastal Manroot, because it's supposed to have a massive tuber. It also happens to be dormant this time of year and we do have tons of them on the property, so it's possible.

I put it in a pot, so we'll see what comes up.

There are many rewards for traveling down the new segment of the trail, including

mushrooms red as tomatos,

old alders in a skunk cabbage bog (cabbages dormant),

and cool Polypodium scouleri growing on an old stump.

I won't be working on this trail again for some time. Today I followed my brother and his family back down to Woodland, to find my next step. The cab of my truck is loaded with the bare necessities and I'm on the quest to find a cool place to live and work while I think about graduate school or whatever's coming next. (It's going to be tough to garden without some land.) This week I'll be exploring Sacramento, San Francisco, Davis, and Woodland. If nothing feels right, I may head south. I'm going to wing it for a while.