Black Canyon

Black Canyon wildfire in early July was sparked by lightning on the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. Luckily contained at 1500 acres. Recalling, camping a few years ago with friends near Black Canyon. The July fire was further south than Black Canyon proper and rock art on a rough low ridge. (Black Canyon - Lorings’ site 151)  With good fortune, a stony walkabout, guided by indigenous Mule Deer, may reveal an outcrop of rough stone which holds forth petroglyphs. 

 

The Lorings: "The most unique design resembles a large elaborate lizard. 19  inches high by 12  inches wide, with concentric circles for head, feet, and  tail."

 

CODA
Lewis Hyde tells this story:  Said John Cage to the painter Philip Guston, "When you start working, everybody is in your studio—the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, you own ideas—all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you're lucky, even you leave."

Taking this to Black Canyon, let's say as you walkabout, your ideas start leaving, one by one, and...

HART :: FIRE

INCIWEB file photo

Fire and heat provide modes of explanation in the most varied domains, because they have been for us the occasion for unforgettable memories, for simple and decisive personal experiences. 

Fire is thus a privileged phenomenon which can explain anything. If all that changes slowly may be explained by life, all that changes quickly is explained by fire. 

Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate and it is universal. It lives in our heart. It lives in the sky. —Gaston Bachelard

In August the Warner Peak Fire swept over Hart Mountain burning across 66,000 acres of Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge.

All significant concentrations of rock art on the Refuge were outside the fire zone. 186,000 acres of the Refuge were protected from the fire.

These photos show examples from some of the several concentrations of rock art on the Refuge.

Above, three bear paw glyphs.

The fire resulted in the closure of 82,000 acres of the Refuge until June 2025. Details:
https://www.fws.gov/refuge/hart-mountain-national-antelope

 
https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2024-08/wildfire-damage-forces-parts-oregon-refuge-remain-closed

Map shows extent of the fire. 

NOTES
—Gaston Bachelard, from Chapter One: Fire and Respect in The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938, French)
—Fire effects on rock images and similar cultural resources (2012). US Forest Service Report available as a PDF: https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/40430
 

FIRE : Murderers Creek

Murderers Creek, a tributary to the wild and scenic South Fork of the John Day River, lies  at the heart of the Rail Ridge Fire: 175,000 acres September/October this year and not fully contained as of this writing.

Murderers Creek, a 19th century naming of a valley in traditional Northern Paiute country. The Northern Paiute arriving several centuries before Euro-American incursion, conflicts, and displacements began 200 years ago. The Creek’s name holds diverse tellings of origins.  What is to be believed?

Indigenous Peoples’ Day, recognized on October 14 in Oregon, offers a time to reflect on dramatic changes in the lifeways of the Northern Paiute beginning with the Hudson Bay fur traders in the 1820-1830s.  Murderers Creek figures prominently, yet elusively, in the 1850-1870s — an era of movement, mining, fighting, tracking, killing, capturing, and claiming in Oregon. Including the infamous and devastating Paiute War, 1864-1868. Well-documented, by Anglos — military, newspapers, settlers reports, histories, etc. — in various ways and styles.

Another kind of document:  I speculate that some of the many rock paintings in places of movement and conflict in Central and SE Oregon were made during that era, 1840s-1870s.  This may apply to some of Murderers Creek’s complex of rock paintings by indigenous people. 

Unusual image combines incising and abrading, appears to intentionally connect with the visible power of the natural stone.

Black grid/net: origin and intent unknown

NOTES
— Rail Ridge Fire Sep-Oct 2024 LINK with maps and updates
— Aurora Borealis over the Rail Ridge Fire and other photos LINK
— Photos above May 2018. Click to enlarge. Feel free to inquire. Most of these images, in Grant County, documented by the intrepid Lorings in the 1960s.

— Murderers Creek also imaged and discussed July 20 2023: https://rockartoregon.blogspot.com/2023/07/beneath-us-other-order-already-moves.html

 

CODA

        The Valley of Birds

We'll lock the door
and head for the valley of birds.
Hold on,
while I douse the fire
to ensure that no one
can block our path.

Sit down for a minute and rest
by the tree where the doves sing.
And if I don't appear,
don't turn around,
don't let out a scream.
Let the silence protect you.

If I don't appear
it means the fire is unquenchable.
But a swift is flying circles
above you!
Lift your head up
and watch it.
        — Anzhelina Polonskaya

Slow Fire

look at me
i am not a separate woman i am a continuance
of blue sky
i am the throat
of the mountains
a night wind
who burns
with every breath
she takes 

—Joy Harjo

One Village, Many Hearts mural (detail) by Kari Johnson, 2018, Eugene

Tracing path

kindled blaze

sunrise then set

leading into light.

Stealing fire red

pearling raven’s beak

kindred eye

black night eye.

How many languages

have a word for fire

following fear in translation

desire.

No two flames the same

every ember becoming…

…

Reverse the image: Racing past

Daring fire

Lavablack unseeing simmers

Every flame one flame

Prometheus, outdoor sculpture by Jan Zach (1958), UO. (Image-color-shifted)

Child

You are in a blind 

desert     child 

your "too-muchness" is written 

in the Torah 

child    it is written

in the pit 

written in black fire 

on white fire 

deer star 

black star 

third star 

who sees

— Jean Valentine

NOTES

—Photos public art/street art, poem Tracing path, Douglas Beauchamp

—Joy Harjo from the poem Fire in What Moon Drove Me to This? (1980)

—Jean Valentine, Child in The Cradle of the Real Life (2000) 

Below:

—Sandy Denny from Who Knows Where The Time Goes (1967)

Across the purple sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming

I have no thought of time

—Sandy Denny