Category: Guest Blog

Field Notes: Inside Birds, Bats, and Blooms

Posted on November 22, 2024December 4, 2024 by Abby Mogollon

November 22, 2024

In the new book Birds, Bats, and Blooms author Theodore H. Fleming provides an in-depth look at the ecology and evolution of two groups of vertebrate pollinators: New World hummingbirds and nectar-feeding bats and their Old World counterparts. Today, the author gives us a behind-the-scenes look at this book and what inspired him to write it.

By Theodore H. Fleming

This book is meant to be a scientifically rigorous but engaging account of two groups of my favorite animals—nectar-feeding birds and bats—with a special emphasis on hummingbirds and bats that visit flowers in the New World. It reflects my long-term research interests from observing and studying these animals in Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, southern Arizona, and Australia. In retirement I have also spent considerable time photographing them in many of these countries.

Mexican long-tongued bat visiting Agave flowers © Theodore H. Fleming

In a sense, this book is a modern version of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories in which he tells us how various animals acquired their most notable features (e.g., a camel’s hump, a giraffe’s long neck, etc.). Thus, the major sections of this book include “How to Build a Hummingbird,” “How to Build a Nectar Bat,” “How to Build a Vertebrate-pollinated Flower,” and “What About Their Ecological Counterparts in the Old World?” It ends with an overview of the “Conservation Status” of these animals.

Here are examples of some of the species that I discuss in this book:

Nectar-feeding bat hovering over flowers. — Lesser long-nosed bat in southern Arizona © Theodore H. Fleming

Hummingbird in flight — Whit-necked Jacobin in Cost Rica © Theodore H. Fleming

Bat hovering of flowers — Dusky nectar bat in Costa Rica © Theodore H. Fleming

My “How To …” sections review the evolutionary histories of New World nectar-feeding birds and bats as well as many of their notable adaptations to an unusual food source, i.e. sugary water produced by flowers. It compares and contrasts the evolution and adaptations of flower-visiting birds and bats and discusses the botanical consequences of their behavior. Hummingbirds and nectar-bats have been interacting with their food plants for over 20 million years, and as a result, several thousand species of plants in dozens of families currently depend on these high energy and expensive pollinators for their reproductive success. A similar situation exists in the Old World where at least four families of birds (e.g., sunbirds, honeyeaters, flower-peckers, and lorikeets) and a few nectar-bats pollinate a wide variety of flowers. I discuss evolutionary convergences and differences between these Old World nectar-feeders and their New World counterparts.

Photographer set up for photography bats — Setup for photographing nectar bats in southern Arizona © Theodore H. Fleming

Finally, I review the conservation status of these animals. Most of them are not threatened currently with extinction, but habitat loss caused by human activities is always a major concern. Hunting and the pet trade threaten lorikeets in Australasia. In addition, in the New World human fear of vampire bats is a constant threat to its cave-dwelling nectar bats.

Photographer set up for hummingbird photography — Setup for photographing hummingbirds in Panama © Theodore H. Fleming

In the end, though, hummingbirds, sunbirds, lorikeets, and nectar-bats are among the most interesting vertebrates to have evolved on Earth. We must cherish and protect them for future generations to enjoy.

***

Theodore H. Fleming is a professor emeritus of biology at the University of Miami. He spent thirty-nine years in academia at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and the University of Miami, teaching ecology courses and conducting research on tropical rodent populations and plant-visiting bats and their food plants in Panama, Costa Rica, Australia, Mexico, and Arizona. He lives in Tucson.

A Yavapai Night to Remember: Presenting to Carlos Montezuma’s Ancestral Community

Posted on November 7, 2023November 6, 2023 by Abby Mogollon

November 7, 2023

By David Martínez

Every aspect of my experience writing My Heart Is Bound Up with Them: How Carlos Montezuma Became the Voice of a Generation has been profoundly rewarding and fulfilling. From delving into the treasures of the Carlos Montezuma Archival Collection in ASU’s Hayden Library to first holding the book in my hands, I felt a genuine satisfaction with the work I created and an immense amount of gratitude for everyone who has helped along the way. However, now that the book is out, the focus is more on the historic figure at the center of my book than it is on me as researcher and author. As an Indigenous scholar and public intellectual, a unique experience in my professional career is sharing my work with Indigenous communities. Of particular importance is the opportunity to speak with an historic figure’s living descendants. On the evening of October 5, 2023, I had the honor of telling members of Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation what I had written about their revered ancestor, Wassaja, also known as Carlos Montezuma. It was a night I will always remember.

While many today think of the Wekopa Resort and Casino complex when they think of Fort McDowell, for others the lands along the Verde River are the ancestral Yavapai homeland. For my Akimel O’odham ancestors, however, the Yavapai were o’ob, which is how we say “enemy” in our ne’oki, our O’odham language. In turn, the Yavapai called us jo’go ha’na. Nonetheless, as Arizona Territory was building its economy for the purpose of being admitted into the Union as the forty-eighth state, which it did in 1912, local business interests in the Verde Valley coveted Yavapai land and water. Toward that end, they convinced the Office of Indian Affairs under Commissioner Cato Sells to take steps at relocating the Yavapai from Fort McDowell to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa reservation. Needless to say, neither tribe was pleased with this proposition. Fortunately, someone arrived, a protector, who would fight the Indian Office, advocate for their rights, and avert an economic catastrophe and a humanitarian crisis. His Yavapai relatives knew him as Wassaja and always addressed him in their copious letters as “Dear Cousin.” The rest of the country, including my O’odham ancestors, knew him as Carlos Montezuma, the author of “Let My People Go” (1915). What Montezuma did for Salt River, not to mention the Gila River reservation, which would have also felt the impact of the Yavapai forced removal, was the story that I wanted to tell at Fort McDowell.

When Clissene Lewis, director of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Museum & Cultural Center, invited me to present, it was at the behest of Irasema Coronado, director of ASU’s School of Transborder Studies, where I have a joint appointment (with American Indian Studies). Clissene, in addition to other Yavapai community leaders, were given signed copies shortly after the book’s release this past February. So, it was no surprise that Clissene was anxious to organize an event. She had read the book already and had written to me to share her favorable opinion. The only restriction with respect to the event was limiting it to Fort McDowell community members. Irasema and I were amenable to this request. Fort McDowell wanted this to be just for them. Consequently, my wife Sharon and I drove from our home in Tempe to the Fort McDowell Recreation Center, which contains a ballroom and theater stage. A sign inside called this venue the “Large Room.”

While the recreation center, which stands near the museum, isn’t that far away from the casino and resort complex, it feels a world apart. The facility was decorated for Halloween and the workout room, gymnasium, pool, and other rooms were busy with Yavapai children and adults. Clissene was waiting for us in the Large Room. Having arrived early, Sharon and I were introduced to the small team of community members that were there to help make the night’s event run smoothly. I wish I could recall all of their names. But the night turned into a whirlwind. Not long before 6 pm, the room began to fill. Before I knew it, Clissene was greeting the audience. She then asked an elder to say a prayer and bless the refreshments. People ate and visited, all the while laughing and having a pleasant time. A few minutes later, it was time to begin.

After thanking Clissene for her warm introduction, I began telling my Yavapai audience why their ancestor, Wassaja, was so important to my people as well. I showed them the ooshikbina, the calendar sticks, which recounted how my O’odham ancestors at Salt River and Blackwater villages remembered young Wassaja as Hejel-wi’ikam, or “Left Alone,” when he was captured by O’odham scouts, who were working for the US Army during the late 1860s. I told them what the Indian Office wanted to do to Yavapai; how their rights were disregarded and their well-being ignored, all in the name of progress. Significantly, I shared with them my feelings when Montezuma showed compassion for the O’odham, even though they were the ones that stole him and sent him into exile from his homeland. In fact, as Anna Moore Shaw related in A Pima Past, Montezuma once visited Sacaton Village on the Gila River reservation, where he asked to meet his captors. According to oral history, Wassaja’s captors, now elderly, were apprehensive about meeting the young boy who was now a man. Yet, when Montezuma met one of these former scouts, he shook his hand and thanked him for saving him from the devastating conditions that his Yavapai family had to endure in the aftermath of the Army’s invasion. My story concluded with an account from Yavapai oral history, which said that not long before Montezuma passed away in January 1923, he was taken to Skeleton Cave, the site of an 1872 massacre that shattered the community. Ancestral remains were being recovered. However, even after fifty years, the cave walls still showed the blood stains. Montezuma wept. My presentation concluded with a reverential silence, which I honored by saying that whatever one may think about Montezuma’s political legacy—he was a friend to Carlisle Indian School founder Richard Pratt and a strong proponent of abolishing the Indian Office—no one should ever doubt that Montezuma loved his people.

In conclusion, as people applauded, a little girl, about seven years old, came rushing up to the stage. When she gestured to me that she wanted to say something, I leaned forward so I could hear her. “Can I have your autograph?” Needless to say, I was delighted. At the same time, I noticed that she wasn’t holding anything. Clissene had purchased books for community members, however, I didn’t expect a little girl to be among my readers. “What did you want me to sign?” I asked her. “I don’t know. But my grandmother said that we could get your autograph.” Naturally, like a typical college professor, I had a pen and yellow pad with me, complete with my lecture notes. I then led her to the table where Sharon was sitting. While writing a thank you note to my young autograph seeker, others began lining up to get their books signed. One at a time, they told me their names, expressed appreciation for my lecture, and asked me an assortment of questions about my book, Montezuma, and me. Among the attendees was the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation president, Bernadine Burnette; the vice president, Paul J Russell; and the treasurer, Pansy P Thomas. Only on my own reservation have I felt so moved and honored. Thank you all.

***
David Martínez is professor of American Indian and Transborder studies at Arizona State University and is enrolled in the Gila River Indian Community. He is the author of My Heart Is Bound Up with Them: How Carlos Montezuma Became the Voice of a Generation, Life of the Indigenous Mind: Vine Deloria Jr. and the Birth of the Red Power Movement, and Dakota Philosopher: Charles Eastman and American Indian Thought.

Field Notes: What’s behind ‘Sonoran Desert Journeys, Ecology and Evolution of Its Iconic Species’ book?

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Abby Mogollon

November 28, 2022

By Theodore H. Fleming

I wrote Sonoran Desert Journeys during the covid-19 pandemic, which gave me an empty calendar and lots of time to concentrate on writing – a good example of making lemonade out of lemons? At any rate, it gave me time to explore three topics that have been important in my scientific career: the history of life on Earth, how we have discovered this history, and the natural history and evolution of some of the species living together in the Sonoran Desert.

This book is thus built around two major journeys: (1) our intellectual journal of discovery about how life has evolved on Earth from the time of Carl Linnaeus to the present, and (2) the evolutionary journeys that have resulted in particular reptiles, birds, mammals, and plants living together in this desert.

Here are some of the species that I discuss in this book:

Examples of Sonoran Desert reptiles

Examples of Sonoran Desert birds

More Sonoran Desert birds

Examples of Sonoran Desert mammals

An iconic Sonoran Desert plant

A white-winged dove pollinating a saguaro cactus flower

All of these images are based on my photography and photo art.

In addition to describing the ecology and evolutionary history of these species, including their physiological adaptations and how they are likely to cope with a changing climate, I explore evolutionary topics of particular interest to me that are associated with them. Examples of these topics include how an individual’s sex or gender is determined in the desert tortoise; how male diamondback rattlesnakes deal with an operational sex ratio of three adult males to one adult female; how hummingbirds perceive their world; why adult female hawks and owls are always larger than their mates; why Harris’s hawks are social breeders and hunters; the importance of columnar cacti and century plants in the lives of lesser long-nosed bats; the evolution of warning calls in round-tailed ground squirrels; and why the saguaro cactus is considered to be a keystone species in the Sonoran Desert.

I’m also concerned with the conservation status of these and many other Sonoran Desert species so I end the book discussing this topic in considerable detail with particular emphasis on threats posed by invasive species, including Homo sapiens, and climate change. Finally, I highlight Pima County’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan as a model of how to use our scientific knowledge to develop a rational plan for preserving this unique habitat and its wildlife.

***
Theodore H. Fleming is a professor emeritus of biology at the University of Miami. He spent thirty-nine years in academia at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and the University of Miami, teaching ecology courses and conducting research on tropical rodent populations and plant-visiting bats and their food plants in Panama, Costa Rica, Australia, Mexico, and Arizona. He lives in Tucson.

Field Notes: Guarded by Two Jaguars

Posted on November 1, 2022 by Abby Mogollon

November 1, 2022

In Guarded by Two Jaguars author Eric Hoenes Del Pinal examines the role of language and embodied behaviors in producing a congregational split in a Catholic parish serving Guatemala’s Q’eqchi’ Maya people. Drawing on a range of methods from linguistic and cultural anthropology, author Hoenes del Pinal examines how the introduction of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in the parish produced a series of debates between parishioners that illustrate the fundamentally polyvocal nature of Catholic Christianity. Today, he’s provided us with field notes and insights into his work.

Guests who have been invited to eat at Q’eqchi’-Maya ninq’e (fiesta or celebration) will always leave with a bag of xeel. Xeel aren’t leftovers in the sense that North Americans usually mean by that term; they are not the remnants of a meal meant to be tucked away at the back of the fridge for later snacking. They are, in fact, typically much more food than one has personally consumed at the celebratory event itself, and they are meant to be shared with one’s family and friends so that they, too, can participate, if only at a distance, in the sacred act of convivial eating.

I share these photos and a few brief comments on them with you as a kind of xeel. What I’ve chosen to include as the “Field Notes” may not be the main meal of my book, but I hope that these images and the words that accompany will give you a small taste of life in Cobán, Alta Verapaz and share in the generosity with which my Q’eqchi’-Maya interlocutors received me in their homes and churches.

This is one of four niches along the walkway up to San Felipe. If you look closely at the details of this photo you can see representations of two visions of Catholicism that bookend the story that I tell in this book. Carved just above the opening of the niche are the figures of the two jaguars that legend says stood guard when a miraculous image of Jesus appeared in this hill. Over the years many layers of lime-based whitewash have accumulated over them and now occlude some of their features, but the sooty smoke from the candles lit beneath them ensures that their unmistakable silhouette can still be seen. Behind the niche is a cross commemorating the first anniversary of Las santas misiónes en la Verapaz (The Holy Missions in Verapaz). While some people clearly relish the new opportunities for religious agency that this new, modernizing vision of Catholicism fosters, others worry that it may lead to the loss of the distinctive spiritual sensibility handed down through generations of Q’eqchi’-Maya elders and ancestors.

New Year’s Day is undoubtedly the busiest day at San Felipe. Mayas and Ladinos make it a point to come to the church to offer prayers and light candles for prosperity in the coming year. The church’s sacristans take shifts making sure that there is space for the candles and progressively remove rows of pews to accommodate them. Votive candles sometimes explode due to the heat, and so they must also keep a watch out for any unexpected fires. For the next few days, the sacristans will clean out any remainders of wax in the votive cups, wash them out, and sell them as well as any wax remnants back to candle makers. That small influx of cash from that projects as well as the offerings collected that day help sustain the parish during the lean months it experiences after Holy Week. Sometimes they will find a votive cup with an attractive design that is also particularly good shape and will keep it to use as a drinking glass.

Although there are many reasons that people are first attracted to La Renovación, there is no doubt that the intercessory prayers they offer on behalf of their members is an important benefit of being part of the congregation. The Holy Spirit was perhaps slow to move when I first went to San Felipe in 2004, but in the intervening years its spiritual gifts (dones) have come with more frequency and several individuals are now recognized as particularly efficacious at facilitating all manner of healing through prayer. They offer their expertise both at both the groups semi-weekly prayer meetings and will also travel to people’s homes to help.

Although most San Felipe’s catechists are men, several of the women who serve in that role have emerged as strong community leaders. They work diligently as lay religious leaders and though it can be difficult to balance the demands of home and church, are amongst the most dedicated lay leaders in the parish. Here we see several of San Felipe’s catequistas are taking the Eucharist to be venerated in private homes during Corpus Christi. That feast day is meant to be an opportunity for Catholics to reflect on the mystery of the transubstantiation of the communion host and wine into Jesus’ body and blood. It is also an opportunity to bridge the spaces of home and church and cultivate a sense of intimacy with the divine.

No ethnographer can do their job alone. I include this picture in gratitude of the time, energy, and interest that people in Cobán gave to me. Of the six of us in the picture (I am second from the right), only the two at the far ends still live in Cobán. Two of my friends pictured here have passed away, and I fear that Father Augustine may have as well shortly after he returned to his native country. The advent of social media, though, means that I am in regular (if not exactly frequent) contact with others, and we are able to share in each other’s lives at least a little bit from a distance.

Eric Hoenes del Pinal was born in Guatemala. He has earned a BA from Boston University and a PhD from the University of California, San Diego. He is currently an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the co-editor (with Kristin Norget and Marc Roscoe Loustau) of Mediating Catholicism: Religion and Media in Global Catholic Imaginaries (Bloomsbury 2022), and his work has appeared in Anthropological Quarterly, Contemporary Religion, and the Journal of Global Catholicism.

All images in the post are are copyrighted. Do no reproduce without permission.

Field Notes: Preparing for the Next Hurricane over Mexico’s Sea of Cortéz

Posted on July 14, 2022July 11, 2022 by Abby Mogollon

July 15, 2022

Baja California’s Coastal Landscapes Revealed by Markes E. Johnson was published in November 2021. Therein, expert geologist and guide Johnson takes us on a dozen rambles through wild coastal landscapes on Mexico’s Gulf of California. Descriptions of storm deposits from the geologic past conclude by showing how the future of the Baja California peninsula and its human inhabitants are linked to the vast Pacific Basin and populations on the opposite shores coping with the same effects of global warming. In this update on his work on storm deposits, the author shares new experiences and new images from fieldwork conducted in June 2022.

By Markes E. Johnson

Whether or not another storm of similar magnitude can be expected to reach these same shores is not in contention, but rather how soon such an event is likely to occur. The current state of affairs in which we find ourselves living through accelerated global warming was the main reason for writing my book on the region’s coastal landscapes. In part, the book’s goal was to relate the much smaller Gulf of California to the vast Pacific Ocean basin where major hurricanes are far more prevalent and reach across to Asian shores on the opposite side, where much damage is done to places in the Philippines, mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan. After my isolation due to the covid-19 pandemic during the last two years, the opportunity arose for me to make my first excursion back to Baja California for a two-week visit in June 2022. The objective was to proceed directly to the region around San Basilio Bay (subject of Chapter 4 in the book), where a team was assembled to produce a video focused on the area’s most interesting geological features.

I have described the San Basilio area with its ancient Pliocene volcanic islets as one of the best-kept secrets hidden by a remote landscape. For me, it was like a long-delayed home-coming to finally reach the safe-haven of the Spanish Contessa’s former house overlooking the embayment. Much of the bay is surrounded by massive cliffs of rhyolite, which emerged from volcanic eruptions roughly four million years ago just as they did at Clam Bay nearby to the north. Two of the goals for the visit were to include drone footage with the video under production and to affix a set of tags to some of the boulders in the deposit at Clam Bay. The metal tags are small and unobtrusive (only an inch in diameter) but numbered and cut with a notch to point in an upward direction after attachment to a boulder’s vertical surface. The drone footage captured not only a spectacular overview of the entire deposit, but hovered overhead as I recorded dialog for the video and then worked with the crew to implant a few tags on selected boulders near the water’s edge.

Clam Bay and its coastal boulder deposit: Located on a normally placid bay a short distance north of the larger San Basilio embayment, the storm deposit at Clam Bay (Ensenada Almeja) forms an arc-shaped pattern that encloses an area of 3.25 acres behind a high wall of loosely piled boulders and cobbles. The drone image reflects the darker sub-surface extent of the deposit, which borders the source of erosion at the tip of the peninsula (center-right part of the image) and curves off to the far end where a small sandy beach appears (upper-center left part of the image). The overall shape of the deposit is due to the refraction of storm waves arriving from the east (left) and turning southward into the bay. The bottom of the image faces to the north. A 30-foot sailboat anchored in the bay (center-left part of the image) gives a sense of scale to the deposit.

Rocky shoreline at Clam Bay: The view in this image was captured overhead by the drone as author Markes Johnson (center in blue shirt) is video-taped explaining how strong wave action eroded large boulders from the jointed rhyolitic cliffs at the shore.

Preparations to affix a boulder tag: Hovering closely overhead, the drone captures action as the author (right) works with team member Norm Christie (left) to prepare epoxy for attachment of a boulder tag.

Big shore boulder: Taken at ground level, this image shows the author standing next to one of the larger rhyolite boulders in the Clam Bay storm deposit (left). Based on its dimensions and the relative density of the rock, the boulder is estimated to weigh about four metric tons.

Tag placement: In this image, the author holds a numbered metal tag with a notch pointing upward against the vertical side of a small rhyolite boulder. The surface was prepared prior to fixing the tag in place with epoxy.

More video action: Ground view with more video action showing the author (right) speaking about the storm deposit at Clam Bay. A colony of pelicans sat on an offshore rock (upper left) as the only audience in attendance.

The general climate in the American southwest and adjacent Mexico is currently in transition between a La Niña phase and the next episode of El Niño years when hurricanes in the eastern Pacific basin are expected to be more numerous due to excessive heating of surface waters stretching over the equatorial Pacific Ocean. After the next big storm enters the Sea of Cortéz, Professor Johnson will return to Clam Bay to assess the degree to which a series of tagged boulders have been displaced. The coastal boulder deposit at Clam Bay is regarded as very young in age due to its unconsolidated nature, meaning that individual rocks are loosely aggregated and not cemented together as a solid conglomerate. Moreover, it is an unfinished deposit meaning that more erosion is likely to occur in the near future as big storms lash the shoreline. The coastal landscapes at San Basilio Bay and elsewhere all along the eastern coast of the Baja California peninsula suggest that the El Niño pattern of weather was far more prevalent in the past than today, and that global warming may be returning us to a comparable time of more severe coastal erosion and coastal flooding. Time will prove the veracity of such a prediction, perhaps sooner than one might guess.

***

Markes E. Johnson is the Charles L. MacMillan Professor of Natural Science, Emeritus, at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts). He is the author of three books on the geology and ecology of landscapes in Baja California: Discovering the Geology of Baja California (2002); Off-Trail Adventures in Baja California (2014); and most recently Baja California’s Coastal Landscapes Revealed (2021) all published by the University of Arizona Press. His last two books include color plates showing landscapes photographed during various commercial flights between Los Angles and Loreto in Mexico’s Baja California Sur.

Field Notes: Stephen Strom on the Greater San Rafael Swell

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Abby Mogollon

April 29, 2022

The new book The Greater San Rafael Swell showcases the stunning natural beauty of Utah’s red rock country. It also relays the important story of how people worked for more than two decades to develop a shared vision of the future of the Swell and its protection. Today, co-author Stephen Strom shares images from the work along with extended captions.

The Greater San Rafael Swell spans most of Emery County, located in east-central Utah.

Location of Emery County, Utah – home of the Greater San Rafael Swell

The county is located near the western edge of the Colorado Plateau, the 130,000-square-mile uplift that lies a mile and more above sea level and spans the region between the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the Great Basin. The plateau’s vividly colored rocks, mesas, canyons, towers, badland hills, and hoodoos compel the eye and move the soul. Millions are drawn to explore its world-renowned national parks and monuments, while others seek solitude and inspiration in the rugged wilderness of red rock country.

On Emery County’s western boundary lies the Wasatch Plateau. At its highest, the plateau stands more than ten thousand feet above sea level. During the winter, it captures moisture from Pacific storms and stores it as snow. Snow melt in spring and summer feeds four major creeks which flow eastward, irrigating the arid Castle Valley, which lies three thousand to four thousand feet below. This gift of water enabled Mormon settlers and their descendants to farm this otherwise arid land and, before that, nourished Native peoples for more than ten millennia.

Cottonwood Creek emerging from the Wasatch Plateau and approaching Castle Valley (aerial image)

Located between the Wasatch Plateau to the west and the San Rafael Swell to the east, Castle Valley is home to 90 percent of the ten thousand citizens of Emery County.

Just east of Castle Valley lies the Molen Reef, a twenty-five-mile-long shale ridge topped with hardened sandstone. The reef’s strata reveal traces from mollusks, oysters, and now-extinct creatures including ammonites. Thousands of dinosaur bones are scattered across the expanse of its badlands territory.

The reef is rich as well in artifacts: stone working sites, vessels, and rock art left by Indigenous people that preceded European arrival. The region paints a vivid picture of the First Americans, from the plants they used for food, medicine, and religious purposes, to their rock art, habitation sites, stone working sites, burial sites, and granaries.

To the south of the Molen Reef lie the Mussentuchit Badlands. The landscape in the badlands varies dramatically. On the west, the Limestone Cliffs rise above the slowly undulating Blue Flats. Farther east lie labyrinthine and brightly colored badlands.

Near Mesa Butte in the Limestone Cliffs (aerial image)

To the east of Castle Valley lies perhaps the best-known area of Emery County, the San Rafael Swell: a kidney-shaped uplift, extending approximately sixty miles from southwest to northeast, and thirty miles across from east to west. At its highest, the swell rises 1,500 feet above Castle Valley.

Perhaps the most prominent feature within this region is the San Rafael Reef, which forms the eastern edge of the Swell. The seventy-five-mile-long reef rises between 800 and 1,500 feet above the desert floor. Its surface reveals tilted layers of sandstone that have been shaped by water and wind into triangular “fins” and jagged peaks.

San Rafael Reef (extending from far left of image to the distant horizon top right; aerial image)

Near the geographic center of the swell is the Wedge, a plateau encompassing a sinuous, 1,200-foot-deep gorge, eroded over eons by the San Rafael River and popularly known as the Little Grand Canyon. The view from the Wedge into the gorge reveals layers of multicolored sandstone, the deepest of which dates back 200–250 million years.

The “Wedge”, a deep canyon carved by the San Rafael River (aerial image)

To the east of the Wedge lie a series of peaks that have held tall against the erosive forces of wind and water: Window Blind Peak, Assembly Hall Peak, and the San Rafael Knob are the most prominent. Viewed from a distance, these peaks appeared to early settlers as “castles” towering above the landscape, giving rise to the name Castle Valley.

Assembly Hall Peak (far left). Image is taken looking west toward the “Swinging Bridge” constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of a road building project to link western and eastern Emery County

To the south of the Wedge lie a wealth of canyons: Eagle, Saddle Horse, Devil’s, and Red’s among them. In the 1950s and early 1960s, during the height of the Cold War, output from uranium mines located in and to the south of Red’s Canyon.

Between the San Rafael Reef—the edge of the swell—and the Green River lies the San Rafael Desert, an area of windblown sand plains, the occasional butte, and little vegetation. The Green River, which defines the eastern boundary of Emery County, wends its way through the northern part of the desert after emerging from the Book Cliffs and Desolation Canyon to the north of the eponymous town of Green River.

Wind blown sand patterns, northern San Rafael Desert (aerial image)

North and west of the town of Green River lie Gray and Desolation Canyons. Both Gray Canyon to the south and Desolation to the north are carved into the Book Cliffs, one- to ten-mile-wide bluffs that loom two thousand to four thousand feet above the desert floor, and whose bases comprise lead- to blue-gray Mancos Shale.

Book Cliffs, north of Green River, Utah (aerial image)

***
Stephen E. Strom has spent forty-five years as a research astronomer after receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in astronomy from Harvard. He began photographing in 1978, after studying silver and non-silver photography and the history of photography at the University of Arizona. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and is held in several permanent collections, including the Center for Creative Photography and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His photography complements poems and essays in five books published by the University of Arizona Press—Secrets from the Center of the World, Sonoita Plain, Tseyi / Deep in the Rock, Earth and Mars: A Reflection, and his most recent book, Voices from Bears Ears: Seeking Common Ground on Sacred Land. He is also the author of Otero Mesa, Earth Forms, Death Valley: Painted Light and Tidal Rhythms, Bears Ears: Views from a Sacred Land, and This Desert Hides Nothing.

Field Notes: Inside the Images of ‘The Greater San Rafael Swell’

Posted on April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 by Abby Mogollon

April 6, 2022

The new book The Greater San Rafael Swell showcases the stunning natural beauty of Utah’s red rock country. It also relays the important story of how people worked for more than two decades to develop a shared vision of the future of the Swell and its protection. Today, co-author Jonathan Bailey shares images from the work along with extended captions.

1 Aerial of the San Rafael Reef

Guiding the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office over the topography of the Greater San Rafael Swell. The most prominent feature shown during this flight, the San Rafael Reef, forms the eastern and southern boundaries of the true San Rafael Swell. This geological feature was formed as an oceanic plate slid beneath the North American continental crust, dragging the land that would become the San Rafael Swell upward and eastward. While this period of mountain building happened some 60 million years ago, the geology that was uplifted (and consequently carved via wind and water erosion) is much older, dating as far back as 359-323 million years ago in Redwall Limestone. Flight courtesy of Ecoflight.

Greater San Rafael Swell from above — Image copyright Jonathan Bailey

2 Aerial of Hondu Country

On the coastlines of the supercontinent Pangea, before the continents split and shifted to their present-day positions, the Moenkopi Formation was deposited 252-237 million years ago. The Moenkopi Formation was formed after a great extinction event at the end of the Permian period, resulting in a substantial decline in aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity, and consequently fewer fossiliferous deposits in the Moenkopi Formation. Flight courtesy of Ecoflight.

aerial view of Utah landscape — Image copyright Jonathan Bailey

3 Archaic period petroglyphs

The Archaic period began around 8,000 years ago and lasted until 2500 years ago. People who lived in the Greater San Rafael Swell during this time hunted game animals using a spear throwing instrument known as an atlal and gathered plants that grew in the region’s unique semi-arid desert environments. Some of the Swell’s most iconic rock art is attributed to this period, including both pictographs (painted imagery) and petroglyphs (carved imagery).

ancient petroglyphs — Image copyright Jonathan Bailey

4 Fremont complex petroglyphs

Spanning about AD 300 to AD 1300, the Fremont complex manifests in diverse rock art; use of the bow and arrow; agricultural practices, although perhaps more peripatetic than their Ancestral Pueblo neighbors; ceramics, primarily Emery grayware in the San Rafael Swell; and the preference for wearing moccasins over sandals. As the Fremont were generally more mobile through the heartlands of the Swell, rock art in the region is consequently more widely distributed, particularly in the vicinity of important routes.

ancient petrogphys under starry sky — Image copyright Jonathan Bailey

5 Pediocactus winkleri in the Molen Reef

The Greater San Rafael Swell supports two federally listed endangered cacti species within the Pediocactus genus. These plants are remarkable in that they live almost entirely beneath the ground, rising only to flower and fruit. This poses inherent challenges to managing the species successfully, as the plants may not be visible before the area is deemed compatible with off-highway vehicles, livestock grazing, or oil and gas development. Over the last ten years, myself and Diane Orr, with the backing of the Utah Rock Art Research Association, have successfully safeguarded vast habitats for Pediocactus winkleri and Pediocactus despainii, among other rare and at-risk species.

flowring cacti — Image copyright Jonathan Bailey

6 Aquilegia flavescens var rubicunda

Endemic to the Greater San Rafael Swell and environs, the Link Trail columbine is a beautiful member of the Aquilegia genus, often growing in shaded seep springs in Mesa Verde Group sandstones. As a plant that prefers higher elevation environments in ponderosa, spruce-fir, and aspen communities, A. flavescens var rubicunda exemplifies the broad ecotonal shifts through the Greater San Rafael Swell, spanning 4,000 to nearly 11,000 feet in elevation.

flower — Image copyright Jonathan Bailey

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Jonathan T. Bailey is a photographer and conservationist who specializes in rock art. His work has contributed to the preservation of areas like the Bears Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the Uintah Basin, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Since 2013, he has partnered with the Utah Rock Art Research Association to record and protect Emery County’s fragile archaeological resources. He is most recently the author of When I Was Red Clay and. His work has appeared in numerous places such as Landscape Photography Magazine, NBC News, Arizona Highways, and High Country News. Originally from Emery County, Utah, he now lives in Tucson, Arizona, with his partner, Aaron.

A Look at Me?: An Overview of My Books Re-released by the University of Arizona Press in 2022

Posted on April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 by Abby Mogollon

By Hihdruutsi, who is also known as Simon J. Ortiz

The desk on which the laptop I use to write poems and stories and letters sits side by side with a bird kennel that houses two parakeets. Gorgeous feathers color the birds. One is a soft but pronounced green and yellow and gray. The other is mostly gray tinged with a bluish glow and has a long black tail. They talk and sing in chirps and trills almost all the time. We—a poet-writer and two birds—keep good company. They know I’m aware we’re companions. No kidding. And they roll their bright little eyes when I try to “sing and chirp and trill” with them in high airy efforts—sounds of song I surely want them to be!—I somehow make in my throat. We make and keep good company. Like above, no kidding!

The parakeets make me look at myself to some degree, causing me to think about the fact I am an Indigenous (Native) poet and writer. As they swivel beaks and heads to look at me, yes, they make me think. About what? they and you might say. About me. In speculation or wonderment. Yes, in bird perception and language. Hmmm. I mean, perhaps they do. Of course. Parakeet chirps and trills seem to be pondering noises, mixing and intermingling with my thoughts.

A few days ago, I was re-reading a story based on a fourth-grade boyhood memory from my collection of short fiction stories, Men on the Moon. I could almost hear the green and yellow one say, “When he sits at the table, he usually starts tapping away on that contraption on the table. But this time, he is reading.” Actually, I call my table that my laptop sits on a desk. I usually don’t talk directly at her or him, but I do glance at the parakeets more than a time or two in our moments together.

The short story I was reading at the moment is about Kaiser refusing to be drafted into the U.S. army. World War II was going on at the time. The federal government wanted him to gladly serve in the armed forces. But Kaiser was determined not to do so. The parakeets would have understood Kaiser, I think. Why go into the army and be sent off to war? It made sense to me that Kaiser didn’t want no part of any war far, far away in Europe or far, far away in Japan and the South Pacific.

The fiction story was set in the 1940s when I was born into the negative and constrained dynamic of WWII. I, an Indigenous (Native) American like Kaiser, was no stranger to war and conflict since we were still in a real and, at times, constant social-cultural-economic struggle for our existence as Indigenous peoples of the Americas. And we still are, needless to say. It is a struggle for recognition as the original and Indigenous population of the northern and southern American continents; U.S. public rubric was—and still is—provoked usually and simply and openly by racism against us and our stance.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas are, in a sense, like the above mentioned parakeets that are present-day descendants of their parental generations existent in past lifetimes. Perhaps that’s why at times or moments I’ve felt like I’m empowered personally by a cultural awareness that makes me “feel” a shared contextual knowledge and identity that we—the parakeets and me—have between ourselves.

My social-cultural-intellectual awareness is fostered by literature such as the short fiction stories in my aforementioned book, and it is supplemented by poetry that I read and also compose. And I shall now address the presence, function, and personal roles of poetry like those found in Woven Stone, which is a compendium consisting of three of my poetry collections: A Good Journey, Going for the Rain, and Fight Back: For the Sake of the People, For the Sake of the Land.

I have said language use came to me some time after birth, just as it does for all human beings as far as I know. My language experience also comes from mind and body dynamics that I have had. And I have acquired language and knowledge use conceptually from the very act of reading and listening. And, most of all, I believe my work has benefited from the utilization of oral tradition from two languages, namely the Indigenous Keres language that the Aacqu’meh hanoh speak, and the English language from school and other sources.

Language is an essential and obvious part of the conscious and subconscious imprint of our humanity. And we, as human beings, organically and naturally know of language before physical birth, I believe. Abiding awareness of communication is part of an implantation mechanism given us by our creator faculty as an instinct. Or something like it. A remembrance instinct? Or intuition? Who knows? But it’s there within our brain or nervous system or soul or heart, and it is also countered by a powerful and subjective stance spurred or urged mostly by Western academia, science, economy, and art. And language is there for our use to think with, to learn, to feel, to grow, to evolve with, and to be eventually aware of the creative evolution of our lives.

In all of life—this is the origin and home place of poetry. Poetry is at the core of our human existence, purpose, and intention to learn, to explore, to evolve, even to develop beyond ourselves, to appreciate, to question, and to express ourselves and the depth and purpose of our lives. And, yes, in fact, even to strive to be beyond ourselves, never mind the “troubles” that may be caused.

Poetry lives because humanity lives—that is what, in short, I mean to say. I shall also add that poetry and its capacity to go forward is beyond measure. As human beings, we must respectfully value our capacity to live completely as loving human beings with appreciation and gratitude for all of life that we can express. Yes, wholesome, simple, and straightforward as responsible and obligated humans living with each other on Planet Mother Earth. Is that possible to do? Yes. Absolutely and ultimately, I believe it is possible. Yes, I do assert that belief.

I was born and raised within the Aacqu’meh hanoh and its social and cultural tribal community and its linguistic, philosophical, and more or less traditional ways of Indigenous life purpose and intention. When I was born, Indigenous peoples of the twentieth-century era (1901–1999) were living then in the social-cultural-economic conditions of colonization since AD 1492 when America was “discovered.” Literally that means their Indigenous homelands in North, Central, and South America had been settled and taken over by the Spanish, British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, etc.—all of them from Europe.

The arrival and settlement of non-Indigenous peoples from Europe had tremendous impact on Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Things obviously didn’t change overnight or suddenly, but in retrospect, change has felt like it happened traumatically and suddenly. Columbus landed his ships on a small island in the Caribbean in 1492. And then by the 1590s Francisco Coronado led a Spanish expedition of conquistadores to what is now New Mexico. His soldiers sacked and destroyed the Aacqu’meh tribal community, killing many of the inhabitants of Aacqu per orders from Commander Coronado. To some Aacqu’meh hanoh hundreds of years later, those events almost feel resultant of traumatic change yesterday or last week—not in the past, some five hundred years ago.

Today’s Indigenous (Native) American peoples’ need for more education, better health, and sufficient income, plus peace of mind-heart-soul—and their need and quest for authentic, genuine, and sincere recognition of their Indigenous sovereignty—still constantly straddles their present-day lives from the northern Arctic regions to the southern tip of the Americas. To have obtainable and sensible practical goals like that I believe is necessary because they all make practical sense. Today’s world is not a dream; it is a practical reality. In the belief we gain from our experience in all of life, we live our lives as best we can. Sometimes we live well, and other times we do not. Presently, the whole world that Indigenous peoples know as the Planet Mother Earth is bound in a pandemic spurred by the COVID-19 virus. What the eventual outcome will be is not known yet. I compose poetry and write stories by believing in and living in all of life. I shall therefore continue composing in all of life. Wish me well. Thank you.

–Hihdruutsi, who is also known as Simon J. Ortiz

Field Notes: Landscape Gems on Mexico’s Sea of Cortéz

Posted on December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Abby Mogollon

December 7, 2021

We recently published Baja California’s Coastal Landscapes Revealed by Markes E. Johnson. In this new work, expert geologist and guide Johnson takes us on a dozen rambles through wild coastal landscapes on Mexico’s Gulf of California. Descriptions of storm deposits from the geologic past conclude by showing how the future of the Baja California peninsula and its human inhabitants are linked to the vast Pacific Basin and populations on the opposite shores coping with the same effects of global warming. Today we share a reflection from the author about his time observing this amazing coastal landscape.

By Markes E. Johnson

Conventional wisdom says that the physical act of making a journey often surpasses the traveler’s aim in reaching a chosen destination. More than 80 years have passed since the celebrated voyage in 1940 to Mexico’s fertile Sea of Cortéz by marine biologist Ed Ricketts (1897-1948) and writer John Steinbeck (1902-1968) aboard the chartered fishing vessel Western Flyer. The resulting narrative published as The Log from the Sea of Cortez become a cult classic much admired for the pair’s holistic view of nature clearly expressed well before the word ecology achieved the common usage it enjoys today.

It has been my good fortune to travel on a regular basis to the islands and peninsular shores bordering the Gulf of California over a span of 30 years, most often as a guide to college students studying geology and biology. During the 1990s, our trips were made overland from San Diego in rented vehicles that entailed long drives on the narrow, winding road of Mexico Highway 1. Later on, the logistics of air travel between Los Angeles and Loreto became more attractive, particularly in light of discounts for group travel. As a teacher, the most important advice offered to my students was to remain observant at all times, even while passing between destinations where studies were planned. The same can be said for the exceptional opportunities afforded by flights over the Gulf of California, during which I have been known to provide students with a running commentary on the landscapes passing below us under invariably sunny skies.

The most casual of travelers cannot fail to be awed by extraordinary sights as viewed from high above that reveal the bare rocks of a desert landscape juxtaposed against the aquamarine tones of a bountiful sea. To and from Loreto, I find myself glued to the window (left side of the aircraft on south-bound flights and right side on north-bound flights). I am eager to seek out places where I have personal experience or where I know from the published literature that others such as Ricketts and Steinbeck visited and commented on. Much of the attraction is the realization that our knowledge of a landscape grows through a collective process accumulated through generations of explorers, researchers, and students. Many astonishing clues are there to be found in the landscape that inform us about how the Gulf of California was formed and how it evolved through geologic time to become the stupendous physical backdrop it is for such a productive body of water. Several of my favorite localities pop up between the coastal towns of San Felipe in the north and Loreto further south.

Volcán Prieto: Located near Puertecitos, well south of San Felipe, the volcanic edifice of the extinct Volcán Prieto rises 850 feet above sea level with its central crater marked by a beige dot representing a shallow pond deposit of clay washed from the sides of the crater during rare rain events brought north by subtropical depressions. On the northwest side of the volcano, the equally large Playa Costello Delta emerges from the mouth of Heme Canyon. A large salt flat is reflected in a flat white tone on the volcano’s southeast flank.

Punta Chivato: Midway between Santa Rosalia and Mulegé, the promontory (or atravasada) of Punta Chivato rises like a “cross piece” thrust eastward into the Gulf of California. It is the region where my students and I made our first studies in the early 1990s. Red colored volcanic rocks are partially surrounded by beige limestone that define a cluster of islands roughly four million years old during the early flooding of the gulf. Telltale “Hammer-head Point” as some locals call it (upper right) is formed by a ridge of resistant limestone left in place on one flank of a former island.

Concepción Peninsula: Across from the town of Mulegé, the northwest directed tip of Concepción peninsula comes into sight as the aircraft flies over the 23-mile long Concepción Bay. The 2,362-ft. high Hawks Mountain (Sierra Gavilanes) is the highest peak on the peninsula (lower center). A series of merged alluvial fans (bajadas) spill into the shallows where the bay’s water is turquoises in color. Ricketts and Steinbeck viewed this shore from the Western Flyer on March 28, 1940. Further along at the closed end of the bay, extensive limestone penetrates deep into a labyrinth of inter-connected valleys to show that the peninsula was nearly breached during a higher stand in sea level some 3 million years ago.

Cerro Mencenares: On approach to Loreto, the aircraft starts its descent passing the western flank of the Cerro Mencenares volcanic complex covering an area of 58 square miles. The pattern of eroded valleys that radiate outward from the center of the complex like spokes on a wheel inform that the landscape below was once part of a small shield volcano. Seaward is Punta El Mangle (upper right), where extensive limestone was deposited against the volcano’s outer margin.

Isla Coronados: As the aircraft continues to descend, the lovely “Island of Crowns” comes into sight with its dazzling white beaches and halo of turquoise waters. The island was an active volcano only some 600,000 years ago and the low-lying apron of land extending to the south was part of an extensive lagoon that harbored a large coral reef. Today, the island is part of the protected Loreto Marine Park. The Western Flyer was anchored in the bay on the west side of the island on March 27, 1940.

North end of Isla del Carmen: During the months of November through May, a stiff northerly wind (viento norte) often blows down the axis of the gulf for days at a time. It means that aircraft landing at Loreto usually push farther south over the open Carmen Passage beyond the town before banking through a hair-pin turn to land into the wind on the airport’s tarmac. Spectacular views of Isla del Carmen are on offer during this process. One of the best views so afforded is the salt lagoon on the northeast side of the island (center), where salt was commercially extracted until 1960. The semi-circular embayment at Balandra (lower left) is more accessible to boaters from Loreto and it features the remains of a fossil coral reef that date from a time about 125,000 years ago when sea level was higher than today.

Lagoon at Puerto Escondido: After making the turn to line up with the runway at Loreto, the descending aircraft passes over the inner lagoon at Puerto Escondido. White flecks against a dark blue background are represented by sail boats at safe anchor within the inner lagoon covering an area of 125 acres sheltered by islets and natural breakwaters on its seaward rim. Stopping there on March 25, 1940, Steinbeck wrote that the hidden harbor is a place of magic. “If one wished to design a secret personal bay, one would probably build something very like this little harbor.”

Tabor Canyon: On final approach to the Loreto airport, aircraft descend to an altitude below the crest of the Sierra de la Giganta that form the spectacular backdrop to the coastal plain along this part of the Baja California peninsula. Steinbeck and Ricketts spent a night camped out with new friends from town who invited the pair to join their hunt for the local mountain sheep (borrego). None were encountered and Steinbeck was just as glad for that outcome.

Later in life, when John Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley (1962), he commented that: “People don’t take trips, trips take people. For me, personally, it has rarely been the final destination on a journey to Baja California. Instead, it is about all the experiences on the way.

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Field Notes: Susan Alexandra Crate Shares Insights on Climate Change and Permafrost

Posted on November 15, 2021November 16, 2021 by Abby Mogollon

November 15, 2021

Susan Alexandra Crate has conducted ethnographic research with Viliui Sakha communities of northeastern Siberia, Russia since 1991. Her new book, Once upon the Permafrost, is a longitudinal climate ethnography that explains how her collaborators are affected by and adapting to climate change in the context of their extreme climate. Sakha’s Turkic ancestors migrated north to their present home over 500 years ago and adapted a horse and cattle subsistence to a climate that is characterized by a 100 degree Celsius temperature fluctuation (-60 to +40). They did so by holding their cows in barns nine months of the year and harvesting copious amounts of hay for fodder in the brief sweltering summer. Their adaptation is contingent upon their cosmology that ascertains everything in the world has sentience. This historical belief is also the foundation of the Indigenous knowledge system that informs their adaptation.

Today, Crate shares some notes from her time in northeastern Siberia.

Figure 1: Part of Crate’s investigation involved documenting life histories of individuals who had a certain specialty that privileged them a deeper understanding of how climate change was coming into and affecting their extreme environment. One of those life histories focuses on sylgyhyt (horse breeder) Valerian Yegorovich Afanaseyev, seen here with one of his two riding horses. Valerian’s mantra, ‘Snow is horses’ home’ exemplifies how Sakha horses need a specific climate regime that will deliver the right amount of snow and temperature conditions that allow them to ‘graze’ for fodder under the snow throughout the winter. “They are to work and dig. They need 30-40 cm of snow so they don’t freeze. If it is less than that, they can’t work and so they start going from place to place and they get thin. In short, Khaar sylgy jiete (Snow is horses’ home).” Climate change has disrupted that consistent cycle and horses can no longer prosper. Picture: Valerian Yegorovich Afanaseyev with one of his two riding horses May 21, 2019. Photo by author.

Figure 2: “Since 2005 when inhabitants first began talking about how the winters were not as cold, summers not as hot, rain was ‘wrong’, and other aspects I knew were related to climate change, I sought out a natural scientist to collaborate with to bring an understanding of the physical changes into my work. Since that time I have worked with Alexander Fedorov, permafrost scientist at the Melnikov permafrost Institute, Yakutsk. We conducted ‘knowledge exchanges’ in 2010, working in eight communities in the Viliui regions, to solicit local testimonies of change in the environment and appropriate Alexander’s scientific information for community use. We continue to work to this day, proposing other such knowledge exchange activities in other regions and finding ways to educate inhabitants about how the permafrost is thawing and the effects this has and will have on their lives.” Picture: Crate with Alexander (Sasha), during a work session. Notice the permafrost map gracing the wall. Summer 2018. Photo by Kathryn Tuyaara Yegorov-Crate.

Figure 3: “In the winter of 2018, I made a journey with Alexander to present knowledge exchanges with communities in the Central regions of the Sakha Republic. The last time I had been in these regions was fifteen years ago and I was shocked at how the once flat fields were now transformed into a patchwork of thermokarst, the above ground manifestation of the permafrost layer, found 1-3 meters underground, as it thaws. Our work in the two settlements, Khatilii and Siirdaakh, verified how inhabitants were facing similar challenges that my research communities faced on the Viliui. This included not only changes due to thawing permafrost, unpredictable weather patterns and the like, but also how inhabitants were stopping cattle breeding and young people were leaving for the city, a phenomenon I termed, the complexity of change.” Picture: View out the window as we drove to Khatilii. December, 2018. Photo by author.

Figure 4: A buluus is an underground storage area that Sakha have used since they came from the south to their northern homeland. It is nothing more than a tunnel dug down to the permafrost layer with a storage space there for perishables to be kept in the temperate seasons. The entryway typically resembles a small hut due to the need for an insulative structure to maintain the permafrost cool. The inundation of the ground with water, due to increases in precipitation and thaw water from permafrost, has flooded most buluus and rendered them useless. One of several comments on this include, “We have a buluus . . . we put our meat there . . . it is deep– but we have to watch it . . . in some places it holds the freeze and in others it doesn’t . . . we know that the permafrost is thawing . . . we can see it in the buluus! It melts now . . . it is not like before.” However, simultaneously inhabitants also have access to electric freezers, which many consider more convenient. The combination of climate change, economic development, and youth out-migration are interacting drivers of change for inhabitants, which I term ‘the complexity of change.’ Picture: “As I was returning to my host’s house after a day of interviews, I saw the juxtaposition of a long-abandoned buluus entry door against the backdrop of the modern Kutana school building and realized how perfectly it visually captured the complexity of change.” Photo by author.

Figure 5: In addition to climate change, economic transformations and demographic shifts in the rural regions, the relatively recent introduction of hi-speed internet has brought about a cultural shift. As one inhabitant put it, “I want to talk about the change in people, in people’s characters . . . now it is very rare to find receptive and interactive people here, for example, on the village streets–they are hard to find. Before people used to take the time to converse with each other. You would meet someone on the street and stop and talk and know the news from each other . . . now everyone walks along staring at their phone–no one needs anyone anymore . . . there is no interaction now . . . today people only interact over WhatsApp!” Picture: Electronic devices are increasingly present in the hands of very young children in both urban and rural settings. Elgeeii yhyakh at Ugut Kÿöl, 2018. Photo by author.

The University of Arizona Press