A Klamath Story Map
Dan Scollon, Educator/Geographer/GISP
Siligo Meadows, Trinity Alps Wilderness
The Klamath. The name evokes wildness and mystery. Deep river gorges cloaked with evergreen forests, broken by soaring granite peaks. The land of Bigfoot and home to Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa, and Wintu. Towns dispersed across the mountainous terrain, each as isolated from one another as they are from the rest of California. Among those who call this home are miners, loggers, ranchers, wilderness enthusiasts, growers, government workers, hunters, fisherman, and Native Americans.
Klamath Physiographic Province
In his 1964 book California and Man, David Hartman describes the Klamath Mountains as being characterized rugged terrain, steep mountains, alpine lakes, occasional valleys, v-shaped gorges, and fast-flowing rivers. He states that this area represents a physiographic province based on its unique geology, tectonic setting, geomorphology and hydrography. This physiography in turn influences climate, soils and, ultimately, the spectacular floristic diversity and a biological abundance. This natural setting has had profound impacts on those who live and work in the Klamath Mountains, since the first indigenous people arrived here..
Klamath and Trinity River drainages, Klamath Province boundary based on multiple sources with major rivers, reservoirs and summits.
Follow this story map for a more generalized summary of Klamath.
A graphic designer's view of the Klamath (Map by Carol Montgomery)
"All living creatures use the immediate environment as a source of livelihood. Man is no different, except that he now has so much power that in transforming the world according to his own desires, he transforms everyone else's world as well."― Rafael, An Everyday History of Somewhere
Thompson Peak, Trinity Alps
The beauty, productivity, diversity and isolation of the Klamath Physiographic Province is the product of complex geologic, tectonic, climatic, hydrographic and biological conditions. Those very elements that are at the heart of any physiographic region are, in the Klamath, revealed with a complexity that is without match, even in the diverse physiography of California. Plants and animals flourish here. Native Californians were once densely populated with a high degree of cultural differentiation. Deep connection to the land creates wisdom that words cannot express. Yana, Yahi, Shasta, Achewmawi, Pit, Wintu, Winnemun, Pomo, Hoopa, Yurok, Karuk. Hana ho!
Today the region remains isolated by California standards, but is increasingly travelled by adventurers, fisherman, hunters and backcountry folk exploring the roads and trails. Sleepy towns of loggers and fisherman, foresters and biologists, are now infiltrated by marijuana growths. The economic shot-in-the-arm comes with elevated crime and a changing local culture. Humans now struggle with the vast scope of global problems we've created. Climate change is driving profound ecological and fire-regime changes while an extinction crisis threatens the very foundation of our planet's biogeography. Yet the Klamath persists with processes that are outside of human influence, even as it weathers tumultuous anthropogenic changes. In the end, it is the role of individuals to try to manifest the type of change they want to see in the world. Each one reach one, each one teach on (GSH). Community is the most powerful tool we have. Period.
"The faster we consume the resources that eons of creative wildness have left us, the faster will the wild forces of deterioration pull us down. So it is not enough to look back and admire wildness as our heritage, we must look forward to it as well.” ― David Rains Wallace, Idle Weeds: The Life of an Ohio
Maps, photos, research, and narrative (except where noted) by Dan Scollon, Instructor and Program Coordinator for Geography and Geospatial at Shasta College, Redding, California.
