Zion – Ten Years After, Part 2

Grafton

Shifting sands, foundered fortunes.

 

 

Follow the Virgin River a few miles out of Zion's canyon and you'll come to the ghost town of Grafton, current population 0.

Far as I can tell.

Grafton didn't used to be where you'll find it today. The Great Flood of 1862 washed away the original and when the river finally receded, Grafton got relocated to what was hoped would be a better spot along the Virgin River.

It wasn't, much.

Eager for a cash crop, the settlers planted cotton but not enough food. After surviving their critical mistake, keeping irrigation channels clear of sand was a regular, backbreaking chore. The Virgin giveth, then giveth some more.

During the "Indian troubles" of 1866 – 1868, white settlers in the region went for strength in numbers and the residents of Grafton relocated to other nearby towns. After the Troubles, some of them returned.

Apparently, the last resident of Graton left in 1945 and now it's part of Zion National Park.

I've got multiples the image below, captured at different sites from Tennessee to Kentucky, through Wisconsin and all over the wilds of Superior. It's a commonplace at such sites.

So I found Grafton a bit of a bore, because I didn't travel all that way just to spend time on easy stuff like I'd already seen dozens of time before:

Robert M. Berry, his brother Joseph and Robert's young wife M. Isabelle Hales were "killed by Indians" on April 2^nd, 1866.

The Internet tells us their deaths didn't happen in Grafton, but there they are in the local graveyard just the same. Surrounded by well maintained wood fencing, out of respect and for "added protection."

Isabelle wasn't quite twenty. Utterly unmolested by all but sun and sand, her stone provides a lasting record that once, she was there.

And despite her briefly anonymous life, is still treated with respect even today.

Preserved cultural artifacts such as Grafton often encourage tourists to confuse culture for history. Tourists buy into that at their own peril, as the confusion gives birth to foundational narrative.

Then they take cherished myth into the voting booth with them and imperil us all.

Travelers, they dig deeper.

Every chance they get, wherever they are…

 

Zion - Ten Years After

The Canyon

 

Ten years ago this week, a convention in Utah sidetracked my Odyssey around Superior, which by then was a regular workflow routine. Squeezing opportunity from necessity, Heather and I built in a few days pleasure before business ever began.

I left the Linhof and my irreplaceable stack of 4x5 film at home. Utah was 'off topic,' after all. But I went to the great western wilderness well armed with the Mamiya and plenty of transparency film.

And of course, the unassuming if nonetheless revolutionary toy Canon. I pointed that at all the wonders I'd not dare waste precious film on.

If not at least fabled Olympus beyond that, then what?

At one point a fellow traveler told me I shot film like my "hair was on fire." I barely slept, it's true.

Somewhere I read that white folk who early on entered this canyon fell to their knees and wept at the sight.

I don't care if that's true. It should be, considering the likely beliefs they carted in with them to the place, which early on they called 'Zion.'

In 1919, Pres. William Howard Taft federally protected the area and named it Mukuntuweap in honor the Paiute people who used to live there but mostly didn't, anymore. The name was thought to mean 'straight canyon', but that's not necessarily so.

In 1919 and afraid the name was scaring the white folk away, the assistant director of the newly formed National Park Service took it upon himself to rename the place 'Zion', with the actual director was suffering from depression and otherwise unavailable to do the job.

A year later Monument was changed to National Park and Zion it's been ever since. The rest, as they say, is history.

What's true is that at Zion, even stone weeps.

I can attest to that, I've seen it.

Late one night in particular, the solid dark walls of the place and the sound of a barely seen Virgin River running through it damned near enveloped me. Names didn't matter.

At the canyon's base, there's enough water to get by on. Early white settlers farmed there and maybe an Indian they dubbed Muggins, too.

No trace of any of them remains, except in story.

1st of Spring, 2022

 

By overwhelming consensus, spring has arrived.

On or about the exact vernal equinox, I went out to see for myself.

On the ground in real time, the truth proved complex.

Even weirdly unsettled.

Land looking for life turned to light looking pretty quick.

Signs of renewed life weren't abundant.

But they were there if you looked hard enough…

…and for the right thing.

 

In Search of Honest Spring...

 

Going on three weeks ago, the weatherman declared the official opening of spring, 2022. Sunday, it's said the heavens will agree and off we go towards summer when theoretically at least, everybody eats.

Except this far north, both science and our position relative to celestial bodies lies.

Nearly 25 years ago and weary of the typical prairie spring that looks and feels like just more winter, Heather and I headed straight south.

I went armed with the Linhof, and a modest amount of transparency film.

Along the way we paid our respects to Mr. Lincoln.

And later the Gods, at their eponymous "Garden of."

At the Cache River, ill-tempered water moccasins are said to thrive. You couldn't prove that by me, but I don't doubt it.

We made it to where the Ohio River and the mighty Mississippi meet, then we turned back around and traveled all the way back home in a day, so to await the arrival of honest to god spring.

Which most years on the northern prairie during March, lives best in the imagination...

The 1st day of Meteorological Spring, 2022

Science tells us that in the Northern Hemisphere, spring began today.

I'm far enough north where practical spring, when the light's not so long and the wind blows sufficiently warm to melt winter's last snow hanging tough in the shadows, is still a few weeks away.

But then, all science begins with dreams…

Prairie Smoke

Geum triflorum