Hot off the press: Our Fall 2010 newsletter!
- At December 17, 2010
- By admin
- In Conservation, Education, Science
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Our Fall 2010 newsletter is out! Read all about:
- the new dinosaurs discovered on the Monument
- our work in promoting conservation on the Monument
- the Southern Utah Oral History project
- our new executive director, Roger Cole
Click on the link below to view the PDF version.
Listen: Clips from the Oral History Project
- At December 8, 2010
- By admin
- In Education
- 0
The Southern Utah Oral History Project was one of the first projects begun on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Since 1998, historians have gathered nearly 300 interviews with long-term residents of the dramatic and wild country in and around the Monument. This year Partners helped add two dozen more histories, by funneling BLM and matching state of Utah money to the project.
We’re planning on posting a solid dozen or so of these interviews on our website in 2011. In the meantime, here are a few brief excerpts.
Arnold Alvey, born in Escalante on Dec. 23, 1928.
Arnold Alvey, one of 11 children, ran cattle for years between Escalante and Fiftymile Mountain. He rode for various outfits, including one that turned out to be pretty persnickety about Alvey’s compensation. Click on the link below to hear him tell historian Marsha Holland about it. (The audio will open in your media player.)
George Thompson, right, with his wife Ada.
But life wasn’t all work. When people had free time, there was backcountry to explore and dances to go to. In the first clip below, George Thompson of Cannonville describes outrunning a flash flood on the Paria. He was with a friend who had a Jeep, but George was in his Model A Ford. In the second clip, he sings us a song he used to play at area dances.
Historian and Tropic resident Marsha Holland (at left) has been collecting these interviews since 2002. Here’s what Marsha says about her work:
When I conduct an interview for the Project, it is generally at the hearth of the home. In this setting there is comfort and memories tend to flow freely. Likewise, on a field interview we cross through the landscape where ranching, herding, and farming have taken place and which generate stories of adventure, adversity and a stalwart relationship to the land. Each interview for me is a gift given to the preservation of a unique culture and life way that is fast disappearing.
Since the project began in 1998 many of the people we have interviewed have passed on, but their life stories have been preserved. The richness of life, the values that they hold, and the strong and enduring connection to this unique region are revealed and safeguarded through these oral history interviews.
– Beth Kampschror, Communications Coordinator
