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The Llŷn Peninsula extends 30 miles (50 km) into the Irish Sea from North West Wales, south west of the Isle of Anglesey. It is part of the historic county of Caernarfonshire, and historic region and local authority area of Gwynedd. Much of the eastern part of the peninsula, around Criccieth, may be regarded as part of Eifionydd rather than Llŷn, although the boundary is somewhat vague. The area of Llŷn is about 400 km2 (150 sq mi), and its population is at least 20,000.
Historically, the peninsula was travelled by pilgrims en route to Bardsey Island (Welsh: Ynys Enlli), and its relative isolation has helped to conserve the Welsh language and culture, for which the locality is now famous. This perceived remoteness from urban life has lent the area an unspoilt image which has made Llŷn a popular destination for both tourists and holiday home owners. Holiday homes remain contentious among locals, many of whom are priced out of the housing market by incomers. From the 1970s to the 1990s, a group known as Meibion Glyndŵr claimed responsibility for several hundred arson attacks on holiday homes using incendiary devices, some of which took place in Llŷn.
The Llyn Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers approximately 62 sq mi (160 km2).
Following the death of Owain Whitetooth (Ddantgwyn), king of Gwynedd, Owain's son Saint Einion seems to have ruled Llŷn as a kingdom separate from his brother Cuneglas' kingdom in Rhos. He is credited with having sponsored Saint Cadfan's monastery on Bardsey Island, which became a major centre of pilgrimage during medieval times. There are numerous wells throughout the peninsula, many dating back to the pre-Christian era. Many have holy connotations and they were important stops for pilgrims heading to the island.
The Welsh Triads record regional resistance to Edwin's incursions into Gwynedd by a regional ruler Belyn ap Cynfelyn and his Gosgordd who were allied with Cadwallon ap Cadfan. In subsequent years Llŷn was raided by vikings, most notably by Olaf in the late 10th century.
The most rural parts are characterised by small houses, cottages and individual farms, resembling parts of south west Ireland. There are small compact villages, built of traditional materials. The only large-scale industrial activities were quarrying and mining, which have now largely ceased. The granite quarries of northern Llŷn have left a legacy of inclines and export docks, and were the reason for the growth of villages such as Llithfaen and Trefor. Copper, zinc and lead were mined around Llanengan, while 196,770 long tons (199,930 t) of manganese were produced at Y Rhiw between 1894 and 1945. The Penrhyn Dû mines have also been extensively mined since the seventeenth century around Abersoch. Shipbuilding was important at Nefyn, Aberdaron, Abersoch and Llanaelhaearn, although the industry collapsed after the introduction of steel ships from 1880. Nefyn was also an important herring port, and most coastal communities fished for crab and lobster.
Farming was originally simple and organic, but underwent major changes after the Second World War as machines came into widespread use. Land was drained and fields expanded and reseeded. From the 1950s onwards, extensive use was made of artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, leading to drastic changes in the appearance of the landscape.
Tourism developed after the railway to Pwllheli was built in 1867. The town expanded rapidly, with several large houses and hotels constructed, and a tramway was built linking the town to Llanbedrog. After the Second World War, Butlins established a holiday camp at Penychain, which attracted visitors from the industrial cities of North West England and the West Midlands. As car ownership increased, the tourist industry spread to the countryside and to coastal villages such as Aberdaron, Abersoch, Llanbedrog and Nefyn, where many families supplemented their income by letting out rooms and houses.
Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.
Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.
The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).
The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.
In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.
Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.
The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.
The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.
The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.
A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.
The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.
There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.
The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.
Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.
The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.
Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.
The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.
The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.
Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.
It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.
The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.
The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.
Notable people
Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth
Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon
Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd
Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle
Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University
Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.
Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd
John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog
Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia
T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog
David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy
Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd
Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas
Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion
Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.
Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI
The sign on this vacant building in downtown Raymond, Washington, built in 1911, indicates it was once the site of the Sears, Roebuck & Co. store. The lettering used in the sign doesn't strike me as being old, but rather a 1970s notion of what a turn-of-the-century sign would look like.
Here's the very long story of Raymond, Washington:
The blanket of old growth forest that covered the Willapa Hills surrounding Raymond, on the Willapa River in Pacific County, fueled the town's growth from a handful of farms to a mill town bustling with trains filled with freshly cut logs, mills running 24 hours a day, and ships laden with lumber bound for the East Coast, South American, San Francisco, and Hawaii in less than a decade after its founding in 1903.
When a combination of overharvesting, environmental laws, and changes in the global market severely reduced logging and milling in the 1980s and 1990s, Raymond residents looked to new, more sustainable ways to utilize the surrounding hills, rivers, and bay to create jobs and sustain their community.
First Peoples
The Willapa River, with headwaters in the Willapa Hills, winds through the Willapa Valley until it is reaches the sea at Willapa Bay. A few miles upstream from the river's mouth, the South Fork of the Willapa joins the main river. Sloughs thread through the lowland forming what is called the Island, though it is not technically completely encircled by water.
Prior to contact with Europeans, three tribes lived around the Willapa's mouth, the Shoalwater (or Willapa) Chinook, the Lower Chehalis, and, seasonally, the Kwalhiloqua. Epidemic diseases brought by European and white American traders wreaked havoc in the Indian communities because they lacked immunities to the diseases. A malaria epidemic in the 1830s, probably brought to the area by sailors who had been in the tropics, decimated tribes in the lower Columbia River region.
After the epidemic, the Kwalhioqua all but disappeared, and the few remaining individuals joined the Willapa Chinook and Lower Chehalis. The northern part of Willapa Bay and the Willapa River formed a boundary between the Chinooks to the south and the Lower Chehalis to the north. The two groups intermarried and traded often.
These are the people who oystermen met when they came to Willapa Bay in the 1850s to harvest shellfish for the San Francisco market. The Indians worked with the oystermen in harvesting the shellfish.
Loggers, Farmers, and Indians
It was not long before the area's forests attracted loggers and sawmill operators. Brothers John (b. ca. 1830) and Valentine Riddell (b. ca. 1817) established a mill at what would become South Bend in 1869. Others followed, included John Adams' mill on the north side of the junction of the Willapa River with the South Fork.
Several farmers staked claims in the vicinity of the junction. The community, known as Riverside, had a school in 1875 and a post office.
The Indians in the area continued to work with oystermen, and in the more recently established salmon canneries and saw mills. They also continued to visit their traditional gathering places for berries and other plant materials.
The tribes had not yet formally agreed to allow the white Americans to live on their land, so, in February 1855, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862) met with the Quinault, Queets, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Shoalwater Bay, Chinook, and Cowlitz tribes at the Chehalis River Treaty Council (at the location of Cosmopolis today). The tribes did not object to ceding their lands, but once they heard the terms of the treaty they rejected the provision that required them to move to a shared reservation away from their traditional lands with the location of the reservation to be determined later. The tribes refused to accept those conditions and Stevens left without an agreement.
The absence of a treaty did not prevent white settlers from claiming lands along the Willapa River, thereby leaving less and less room for the Indians to live. On September 22, 1866 President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) established the Shoalwater Bay Tribes Reservation by reserving 335 acres near Tokeland for the Lower Chehalis and Willapa Chinook who lived along Willapa Bay. The reservation is and has been used by a number of the tribes' members, but many also live in the surrounding communities (and elsewhere).
Raymond is Formed
In 1889 the promise of a Northern Pacific Railway terminus in South Bend, just downstream from the river junction, led to a land boom. Lots in South Bend and along the river in both directions sold for incredible profits until 1893 when a national financial panic led to a bust in South Bend. South Bend had the county seat and retained the railroad and some operating mills, but a grant of land to the Northern Pacific on the waterfront tied up many of its choicest industrial sites.
Upriver, at the river junction, a group of residents, some with Homestead Act claims and others who had bought land at low prices following the bust in South Bend, formed the Raymond Land and Development Company in 1903.
Incorporators of the land company included Leslie (1874-1961) (often referred to as L. V.) and Stella (1875-1960) Raymond, who had a farm on the Island. Stella had inherited the land from her father, Captain George Johnson (1823-1882), who had established a Homestead Act Claim for almost 179 acres. Presumably Johnson or the Raymonds purchased part of their holdings, because they brought 310 acres to the partnership.
L. V. and Stella, who married in 1897, moved to the farm in 1899 and Raymond became the name of the town that grew up on and around their land. L. V. served as the town's first postmaster, first Northern Pacific Railway agent, and developed a water system for the town. The Raymonds donated land and their time to community projects, such as a playfield and the fire department. A bequest from the Raymonds established the Raymond Foundation in 1962 as a non-profit organization to fund scholarships and community development projects.
Building a River Town
Alexander C. Little (1860-1932) was also a partner in the land company. After a career in local and state politics that included serving as Aberdeen's mayor, helping elect Governor John R. Rogers, and serving on the State Fisheries Commission, in 1903 Little decided to shift to the private sector. According to Pacific County historian Douglas Allen, "Raymond was named for L. V. but from the beginning A.C. Little formed the character of the town" (Allen, 65).
According to Allen, Little contributed two key elements to the town's success. First, he recommended that the land company offer free riverfront lots to mills, thereby ensuring an economic foundation for the town. Second, Little brought Harry C. Heermans (1852-1943) into the partnership. Heermans's engineering background helped solve issues associated with building a town on a river. The sloughs that laced the land rose and fell with the tides, but uphill development would have taken mills too far from the riverfront. Besides, the hills surrounding the river junction rose abruptly and would have posed their own engineering challenges.
Other incorporators of the land company included J. B. Duryea, Winfield S. Cram (b.1866), and John T. Welsh (1866-1954). A second land company, the Great West Land Company, also formed in 1903, had some of the same investors and also worked to develop the town.
In 1903, the first mill, operated by Jacob Siler and Winfield Cram, began operations. Several more mills, including the West Coast Veneer & Manufacturing Company mill run by Little, followed and businesses grew up nearby.
On April 16, 1904, the Raymond Land Company filed a plat for the town of Raymond. The business district consisted of a store, a saloon, and a mess house that served mill workers. A drug store and hotel were coming soon.
Lots Sold by the Gallon
To allow people to cross the water-sodden landscape, the town constructed 2,900 feet of elevated wooden sidewalks. These sidewalks ran down either side of what would become 1st Street, which was really an open space onto which the buildings fronted. Additional wooden sidewalks crossed the void at regular intervals.
Lillian Smith (1875-1960), a teacher from Michigan who came to teach in Raymond for a year not long after the town's founding, remembered her first impressions of the town,
"At first I seemed to be crossing the river no matter what street I took. It was like losing oneself with Alice on the other side of the Looking Glass where you had to keep going in order to stand still, and vice versa. Imagine streets like long bridges built on piles driven into the slough (pronounced slu). Wooden railings on either side, and beyond these narrower wooden bridges of sidewalk width, these too with railings — a perfect maze of railings, necessary to keep careless pedestrians from falling into the slough" (Smith, 3).
Still, the town's location provided enough benefits to outweigh the difficulties of being what Smith called, "an amphibious town" (Smith, 6). It was located at the head of navigable waters, close to the bay and to the forests that fed its mills. It also had access to the Northern Pacific Railway, without having had to give up its waterfront lots the way South Bend had.
Navigation on the river depended on assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers. Early in its history Willapa Bay was known as Shoalwater Bay because of its many shallow areas. These made ideal oyster grounds, but limited ships' access to ports. The Corps, under the provisions of several different Rivers and Harbors Acts, had dredged the river up to Willapa City, just upstream from the Raymond townsite, and kept it clear of snags. The Corps also maintained a channel through the bar at the mouth of the bay.
Businesses besides lumber mills diversified the economy. In 1907 Stewart L. Dennis (1873-1952) and Perry W. Shepard (b. ca. 1871) formed a transfer company that would become an important retail business in Pacific County, now known as the Dennis Company, and John W. Dickie and his son, David, came to Raymond to establish a boatyard.
The Dickies had worked in the San Francisco Bay area and, according to local historian Ina E. Dickie, came to Raymond because the more-isolated Willapa Bay offered better access to lumber and to employees who accepted lower wages and had not yet formed unions. Dickie & Son built steamships -- the first was the Willapa -- at Raymond over the next several years. All were built for the coastwise lumber trade, which was booming following the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco.
On August 6, 1907, voters approved a measure to incorporate the town of Raymond. A handful of residents resisted the town's boundaries because they included some outlying farms in anticipation of the town's growth.
Little served as the first mayor, an office he would hold for 10 of the next 11 years. When asked in 1910 to serve as president of the Southwest Washington Development Association, Little replied that he was "disqualified because of his partiality for the place where lots are sold by the gallon at high tide" ("Southwest Part of the State Unites").
A Lumber Town
The first council consisted of seven men: C. Frank Cathcart, president of Raymond Transfer and Storage and Northern Pacific agent, Winfield S. Cram, Timothy H. Donovan, superintendent of the Pacific & Eastern Railway and Sunset Timber Company, Floyd Lewis, real estate agent, Charles Myers, sawyer at the Siler Mill, L. V. Raymond, and Willard G. Shumway a clerk. P. T. Johnson served as the first treasurer and Neal Stupp as the clerk and secretary.
By 1910 the population had increased to 2,540, but that was just the start of the flood of new residents. In 1911, there were about 5,000 people in Raymond. They were needed for the kind of production boasted of by a promotional brochure from 1912. It lists the output of the towns mills for the previous year as 27,834,779 board feet of lumber, 226,712,250 shingles, 105 million berry baskets (made from veneer), and 33 million pieces of lath for plaster walls. The newcomers included business people, mill owners, mill workers, and loggers from all parts of the world.
Labor v. Capital
The 1910s, although economically prosperous, saw a series of disputes between labor unions and mill owners up and down the West Coast. Working conditions in the lumber industry were dismal and lumber workers struck for better wages and better logging camp conditions.
On March 25, 1912, mill workers in Raymond walked off the job to prevent the lumber companies from using their Raymond mills to replace lost production at Grays Harbor mills, where workers had begun a strike two weeks earlier. The town's business community's response was swift and severe. They held a meeting the second day of the strike. A. C. Little led the discussion, railing against the strike's organizers, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. The meeting participants decided that they should protect "any man who might want to work" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills"). To that stated end, several committees formed to support the effort. Over the next several days the sheriff swore in 460 deputies to "protect property and the working men" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").
To prevent the mill workers from gathering, the city closed all the saloons and brothels for the duration of the strikes. Likewise, three "Socialists speakers," were arrested upon disembarking the Raymond depot ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").
A few days later, on March 30, 1912, the mill owners blew their whistles for the start of work. Anyone who did not heed to the call found themselves and their families rounded up by about 200 men with rifles and shotguns and loaded onto a railroad car bound for Centralia. The South Bend Journal identified those who refused to work as Finns and Greeks.
The Greek workers were taken to Centralia, where the Greek consul from Tacoma, Hans Heldner, met them and protested their treatment. The Finns had been removed by boat to Nahcotta. From there they traveled on to Astoria where there was a large Finnish American community. After the strike ended, the South Bend Journal said that the Greek mill workers asked to return, but, "American flags have been hoisted on the mills and only Americans or civilized foreigners need apply" ("Agitators Banished from Raymond"). Other strikes would come to Raymond and labor unions led fights for improved safety, better conditions, and higher pay.
Despite labor problems, the mills kept prospering in Raymond. In 1912 there were 14 mills in operation. They used an average of 50 railroad cars full of logs from logging camps in the surrounding fills. The mills produced an average of 20 railroad cars a day of lumber and other forest products. These included shingles, cascara bark, used for medications, doors, and window frames.
Growth and Development
In 1912 the town also started to fill the sloughs that ran through town so residents could have actual streets and so that houses would not flood at high tide. In 1915 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began passenger and freight service between Raymond and Puget Sound. The mayors of Raymond and South Bend presented the railroad's representatives with a wooden key "symbolical [sic] of the freedom of Willapa Harbor" (Krantz). The train service was a vital link between the Willapa River towns and the interior of Washington. Not until 1917 would a road through the Willapa Hills open. The precursor of State Route 6, it was not reliably useable. It featured steep switchbacks and its gravel surface routinely suffered from water damage.
The late 1910s saw Raymond operating at full bore. Six saw mills, two veneer plants, a box factory, five shingle mills, and a woodworking plant were joined by the Sanderson & Porter shipyard, which employed 1,000 workers in building ships for the United States Navy during World War I. In the postwar era, the population dropped to about 4,500.
Port of Willapa Harbor
In 1928 residents of Raymond joined with South Bend to form the Port of Willapa Harbor, a public port district. The Port built a public dock on land between Raymond and South Bend that allowed smaller sawmills access to the river. This facilitated the transport of logs, which could be floated down the river from logging camps in the Willapa Hills, and the shipping of finished lumber. Before the public dock was completed in 1930, sawmills and other forest-products factories that did not have riverfront property had to send their goods to Grays Harbor or Puget Sound via the railroad, adding significantly to transport costs and time.
The Port dedicated the dock on October 8, 1930, and the city of South Bend dedicated a reconstructed city dock and improved slip. The same day, state highway officials led a celebration of the opening of Highway 101 between Aberdeen and Raymond-South Bend. For the first time travelers could follow a road through the Willapa Hills to the north of South Bend. It also connected Aberdeen with Ilwaco and the Long Beach Peninsula. This provided drivers with a direct route to the ferries that crossed the Columbia River to Astoria.
The Port's dock housed a sawmill, owned first by Ralph Tozier (1920-2005) and then Ben Cheney (1905-1971), who owned Cheney Lumber Company. According to Med Nicholson, writing in the Sou'wester, in 1945, Cheney was faced with a problem of wasted wood that resulted from cutting logs for ties. In order to square up the logs, large slabs were cut off each of four sides. Cheney had the insight that the slabs were eight feet long (the length of railroad ties) and house ceilings were eight and one-half feet tall. At the time home builders were buying studs in 10- and 12-foot lengths and cutting them down, also resulting in a lot of wasted wood. Cheney cut the slabs into a "Cheney Stud," what are now known as eight-foot two-by-four and sold them to home builders. Eight-foot ceilings became standard in houses, "putting to use an enormous amount of formerly wasted timber and incidentally saving American homeowners uncounted millions of dollars in heating expense" ("The Ben Cheney Story," 10).
Raymond's Great Depression
Unfortunately, the advantages presented by the new port and highway were hampered by the Great Depression. The economic downturn resulted in drastically decreased demand for lumber and Raymond residents struggled to find jobs. The decline of the Great Depression would reduce the town's population to 4,000. A steady decline after the Depression brought the population to just under 3,000 by 1990, where it has stayed since.
Though circumstances improved slightly when Weyerhaeuser purchased two mills in Raymond and one in South Bend and reorganized them in 1931, larger economic forces made it nearly impossible for commerce to continue in Raymond. In 1932 the Raymond Chamber of Commerce, faced with a near stoppage of business following the failure of the First Willapa Harbor National Bank, printed its own currency called "oyster money" to carry people over until real money became available again.
The Port of Willapa Harbor continued its efforts to improve the port's facilities. The Army Corps of Engineers carried out at federally funded dredging and channel straightening project on the river in 1936. The dredge spoils created Jensen Island and the new channel allowed deeper-draft boats to reach Raymond.
Logging and Lumber
A 1954 report by Nathaniel H. Engle and Delbert C. Hastings of the University of Washington's Bureau of Business Research, draws an interesting portrait of Pacific County's average male citizen as delineated by the 1950 Federal Census:
"Mr. Average Citizen of Pacific County, at the last census, 1950, was white and 33 years of age. He had had two years of high school education. He was employed as a laborer or an operative in the lumber industry. His income for the year was about $3,042. He was married and had two children. He lived in a 4 or 5 room house in good condition, with hot and cold running water, toilet, and bath. He had mechanical refrigeration, and a radio, but no central heating. His home was worth close to $4,000 and was owned clear of debt. Thus Pacific County's average citizen rates as a substantial American wage earner, somewhat better off, on the whole, than the average American, although not quite up to the average in Washington state" (Engle and Hastings, 5).
The lumber industry supported a significant number of these "average" residents. Where Grays Harbor had nearly cleared much its surrounding forest lands in the 1920s, Pacific County still had considerable standing timber in the 1950s. In 1951 more than 66 million board feet of logs and more than 90 million board feet of lumber left Raymond on ships and railroad cars. This may have been the result of a high concentration of ownership by large companies such as Weyerhaeuser, which owned 380 square miles (nearly half of the county), Crown-Zellerbach, owner of 60 square miles, and Rayonier, owner of 50 square miles.
Engle and Hastings described the logging companies' success as resulting from the companies' willingness to use sustained yield practices, rather than cutting the forests as quickly as the mills could cut the logs. Sustained yield did lead to more selective and more reseeding, but it did not maintain forests that could support diverse ecosystems because most of the reseeding was of single, productive species such as Douglas fir. Wildlife populations were further damaged by hunting programs designed to eliminate animals such as deer or bear that browsed on seedlings and new growth on older trees.
In 1954 and 1955, Weyerhaeuser carried out a two-part renovation of the old Willapa Lumber Company mill that it had acquired in 1931. First they replaced all the mill's facilities and then they rebuilt the mill itself. This mill, known as Mill W, remains in operation in 2010, the last softwood lumber mill in operation in Raymond,
In the 1970s the region saw another lumber boom. According to Richard Buck, of The Seattle Times, a new generation of baby boomers began buying houses, which increased the demand for lumber, leading to increased competition and prices. Prices reached $337 per 1,000 board feet.
The next decade, the declines in the national economy devastated the local economy rather than driving it. Prices dropped by two-thirds to $102 per 1,000 board feet in 1985. According to Buck this was due to a decline in housing starts and the increase in the value of the dollar and interest rates, which made Canadian lumber cheaper. Also, deregulation of the transportation industry increased the disadvantage West Coast lumber mills had compared to Southern and Midwestern lumber mills' proximity to East Coast markets.
In addition to the economic forces battering the lumber industry, in the late 1980s the local environment could no longer support the intense logging of the previous century. Historical overharvest and increased environmental regulations reduced the acreage of public forestland open to logging. In 1990, the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. With the owl's listing, communities in Pacific County had to adjust to reduced logging and fewer jobs at the area's sawmills. The effects of the environmental regulations were compounded by plant modernization, which also led to fewer jobs in the mills. Many smaller mills could not compete with the larger companies' more efficient mills and a number went out of business.
The closure of the federal forests combined with changes in how Weyerhaeuser managed its lands and utilized mills in Pacific County led to the closure of numerous mills. This, in turn, led to fewer jobs in the forest products industry, as well as other sectors of the county's economy.
According to a Seattle Times article, "Some residents liken the area to a Third World nation, an underdeveloped colony whose resources are removed by 'foreign' corporations. Weyerhaeuser, they note, owns more than 50 percent of the land in Pacific County" (Hatch). Additionally, they accused Weyerhaeuser of using profits gained in Pacific County to build the very mills in the American South, where wages were lower, that undermined the viability of Raymond's mills. Although there is certainly a component of anger at outside companies taking a tremendous amount of natural resources out of the surrounding hills without investing a significant portion of the resulting profits in the local community, this sentiment also reflects the frustration that resulted from one company owning so much of the county's land and making decisions driven by the global market.
Strategies for Change
Raymond residents have created multiple strategies to address the changes to the regional economy. When one mill, the Mayr Brothers sawmill, closed in 1986, the Port of Willapa Harbor bought the land and buildings and leased them to Pacific Hardwoods. When that mill closed in 2001, a group of Raymond investors banded together and reopened it as Willapa Bay Hardwoods, employing 35 people. It planned to cut 17.5 million board feet a year, a far more sustainable volume than during the boom years.
The Port of Willapa Harbor has been involved in other economic development projects. The Port developed two industrial parks and received grants to construct light manufacturing buildings at one of the industrial parks and at the Port dock. A variety of industries have leased Port buildings, including a chitosan (a natural polymer produced from shellfish shells) producer, seafood processors, and an airplane prototype design company. Additionally, some of the buildings are used by retail stores, including a saw shop and a health club.
The Raymond community, in conjunction with the city government and the Port of Willapa Harbor, has developed attractions that will draw tourists to the region as a way to build the economy. The former railroad bed across the Willapa Hills has been turned into a hiking and biking trail. The city has begun redeveloping its riverfront and a regional consortium developed the Willapa Water Trail, which small boats can follow to explore Willapa Bay.
Over the past century the environment in and around Raymond has attracted people, many of whom have sought to remove as much of it as possible for sale in markets far from Pacific County. The town's future lies in a more sustainable use of those resources, including the intangible ones that have to be experienced in person.
Love's Garden
In love's garden where flowers were to bloom;
Lies nothing but darkness and gloom.
Watching the morning dew glisten;
Speaking not a word, tuned to just listen;
Remembering the memories we had shared;
It was only then that we once cared.
Hearing not a sound, but the echoes of the past;
Knowing our love wasn't going to last.
Smelling for the sweetness of love's gladness;
Recognizing only the the stench of sadness.
Yesterday's garden that once was so sweet;
Deteriorated right there underneath our feet.
Love's garden must be reseeded yearly;
Oh, how we should have cared more dearly!
MD--1997-2010
Taken at the Dallas Arboretum
Dallas, Texas
November 7, 2010
Copyright © All Rights Reserved Images are the sole property to this Flickr account and may not be reproduced without permission.
Another shot of the orange zinnia. These have been reseeding themselves for several years in my flower bed and are currently blessing me with some Fall color here in Southeast Texas...
Key information
The curlew is the largest European wading bird, instantly recognisable on winter estuaries and summer moors. Spot the curlew by its long, down-curved bill, brown upperparts, long legs and evocative, bubbling, call.
In the winter, you’ll see curlews feeding in groups on tidal mudflats, saltmarshes and nearby farmland. Whilst some of our birds spend the winter in Ireland and France, we receive an influx of Scandinavian-breeding curlews here, who take advantage of our relatively mild winters. In the spring and summer, curlews migrate to their breeding grounds in upland areas of rough pasture, heather moorland and wetlands.
Curlews breed on a range of habitats, but primarily favour rough grasslands, moorlands and bogs. Agricultural intensification of upland farmland and moorland, including drainage and reseeding, is likely to have been important in causing past declines in breeding populations, as has afforestation of moorlands. Together, these activities are having a huge impact on curlew populations.
Curlews also suffer high levels of predation on nests, with foxes their main predator of eggs, chicks and adult birds. Like many wading birds, curlews lay their eggs in a nest on the ground – known as a ‘scrape’. The parents incubate the eggs for about four weeks, before the young leave the nest and roam around with their parents for a further four weeks, until fledging.
The UK breeding population of curlews is of international importance, with around 30% of the west European population wintering in the UK. And yet, there have been worrying declines in the breeding population throughout much of the UK. In 2015, curlews were added to the Red list on the UK Conservation Status Report. Red is the highest conservation priority, with species on this list needing urgent action. Curlews are struggling, with big declines in breeding populations and ranges. They urgently need our help.
What they eat:
Worms, shellfish and shrimps.
Measurements:
Length:50-60cm
Wingspan:80-100cm
Weight:575-1,000g (Females averaging 1,000g and males averaging 770g)
Population:
UK breeding:58,500 pairs
UK wintering:125,000 individuals
Explore Nov 2, 2011 #118
Ah, depth of field. One of the great pleasures of photography!
This lovely weed daisy-like flower may be familiar as you walk through a field or pull weeds from your yard. But you may overlook it until you get home you're covered with its fierce stick-like little barbs and you have no idea where you got them. Now you know that this little plant is the culprit! Next time you're out walking or weeding stay clear of Spanish Needles!
This native plant is a summer annual about 2-5' tall; it is more or less erect and branches occasionally. The blooming period is late summer or early fall. Each flowerhead is replaced by a seedhead that is globoid in shape and about 1 inch across. The long narrow seeds (achenes) spread outward from the center in all directions. Each mature seed is linear in shape and has 2-4 short awns (awn defined- the bristle or beard of barley, oats, grasses or any similar bristlelike appendage at its tip.) Each tiny awn has downward-pointed barbs. The root system consists of a branching taproot. This plant spreads profusely by reseeding itself.
Known mostly as a weed, Spanish needles are an admirable nectar flower that attract many small butterflies like Hairstreaks and Blues and even larger species. They are a favorite of bees too.
Spanish Needles, Bidens bipinnata, Bidens pilosa Linnaeus, Aster family, Asteraceae
Arch Creek East Environmental Preserve, North Miami, FL
The morning after I am still processing what I witnessed last night. As I sat at home watching the live feeds from citizen journalists, I saw that the protest was not more than a mile from me. I knew I had to go. This was history in the making. To not see that is, is to not see the social and power dynamics at play. People have finally said "Enough."
So I set out on foot about 7PM. I didn't know where they had gone since my cell phone had died that morning and couldn't check the Twitter feed. So I looked for the helicopters. And sure enough I had found them.
There is an arrest technique called "kettling." It's when law enforcement cordons off a group of people with no way to escape even if they simply want to go home. And that was in full effect when I arrived at 6th and Hope.
The protest was peaceful. They were angry and rightfully so, but they were peaceful. And they sent in an army....
It was like watching some scene from a movie where society has broken down. The police force was in the hundreds....HUNDREDS. Streets and sidewalks were closed for blocks around. There was no way to get to those who were trapped even if you wanted to. I along with other protestors who got separated, watched as the busses moved in for the mass arrest as more and more police cars blazed by and the noose closed. All I could think was, "This is happening in my city. This is real. This is real."
And we can't go back from this. What was not normal is now normal. When something like this occurs, it cannot unoccur. A line moves that can never be moved back. And as I photographed what was before me, and talking with many people who watched helplessly, my heart quietly broke. Things will be different after this. You won't see it at first, but it will be different.
And I spoke with officers as well. They didn't want to be there either. Most are good men and women who are doing a job that is necessary. But they are part of a power structure that demands they stand with billy clubs against peaceful people on the night before Thanksgiving. They don't make the call to close down public sidewalks. These decisions are made from on high hoping that people will eventually just give in and be quiet.
But from what I witnessed people will not be quiet. The question is, like with Occupy, how many will remain silent? Nobody wants to go to jail. But to jail you will go even if you raise your voice peacefully. Where do we go from here?
I don't have an answer for this. I watched as Occupy died, the grass reseeded at City Hall and it's as if nothing ever happened. But if there is to be change, I witnessed it begin to germinate as I walked through Pershing Square on my way back home. Look at the last picture and that is it. Two men, one black, one white singing and old Gospel hymn of overcoming.
By the time I got home this secondary protest had gotten underway. They made their way to the police station and what I witnessed gave me hope. Peacefully they spoke their message and entered into dialog with officers. I was so proud of them. Revolutions are violent or peaceful. But the way of peace is the one, if it has any chance, is the one that transforms hearts.
But my fear is that it will not be that way when the right circumstances arise. Black Friday is going to be an ugly ugly day.
Today is Thanksgiving and I am grateful for very much. We gather here at Theory Labs with good friends while many are spending this day in jail. And one of the things I am most grateful for is a people who have the courage to give voice to their convictions and beliefs no matter what it costs them...
First steps towards a significant and thoughtful rehabilitation of the Jay landscape have been discussed for almost twenty years and are now visibly taking shape!
Following numerous presentations to stakeholders, Larry Weaner and his design team are now executing the proposal they prepared specifically for the Jay site - with a goal of increasing biodiversity and providing greater access to open space and cultural heritage for the community, they will reverse an unhealthy monoculture behind the mansion and create an inviting meadow habitat for birds, insects and smaller mammals.
Identifying what he has called a "Confluence of Centuries," Larry Weaner's design will also preserve the imprints of many natural and human inhabitants from the Indigenous era through an estate period that included slave ownership up to contemporary usage. Etched memorial stones telling these stories will be laid in a mown path through the meadow
Donations for the meadow continue to come in slowly but surely; as of November, these funds have allowed us to cut, rake and dispose of two acres of invasive mugwort. Reseeding the area with native grasses and wildflowers is the next step! Specimens that have been selected for us including Nodding Pink Onion and Purple Lovegrass.
Lastly, two dead beech trees have been removed and will be replaced with healthy new saplings in the spring together with a new elm tree pledged by the Rye Garden Club through the Garden Club of America!
Want to help us move this project forward? Make a donation today and earmark it for the Jay meadow. The funds will be put towards the next round of live plug plantings in Spring and Fall. THANK YOU!
Please help us with your donation made payable to:
Jay Heritage Center
210 Boston Post Road
Rye, NY 10580
(914) 698-9275
Email: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
Follow and like us on:
Twitter @jayheritage
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The last day of summer finds the weather still hot, humid and very stormy. Responding to the storm fronts, the clouds race through the sky.
I'm looking forward to some days of cool Autumn rain - Nancy and I reseeded our lawn last weekend!
The Llŷn Peninsula extends 30 miles (50 km) into the Irish Sea from North West Wales, south west of the Isle of Anglesey. It is part of the historic county of Caernarfonshire, and historic region and local authority area of Gwynedd. Much of the eastern part of the peninsula, around Criccieth, may be regarded as part of Eifionydd rather than Llŷn, although the boundary is somewhat vague. The area of Llŷn is about 400 km2 (150 sq mi), and its population is at least 20,000.
Historically, the peninsula was travelled by pilgrims en route to Bardsey Island (Welsh: Ynys Enlli), and its relative isolation has helped to conserve the Welsh language and culture, for which the locality is now famous. This perceived remoteness from urban life has lent the area an unspoilt image which has made Llŷn a popular destination for both tourists and holiday home owners. Holiday homes remain contentious among locals, many of whom are priced out of the housing market by incomers. From the 1970s to the 1990s, a group known as Meibion Glyndŵr claimed responsibility for several hundred arson attacks on holiday homes using incendiary devices, some of which took place in Llŷn.
The Llyn Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers approximately 62 sq mi (160 km2).
Following the death of Owain Whitetooth (Ddantgwyn), king of Gwynedd, Owain's son Saint Einion seems to have ruled Llŷn as a kingdom separate from his brother Cuneglas' kingdom in Rhos. He is credited with having sponsored Saint Cadfan's monastery on Bardsey Island, which became a major centre of pilgrimage during medieval times. There are numerous wells throughout the peninsula, many dating back to the pre-Christian era. Many have holy connotations and they were important stops for pilgrims heading to the island.
The Welsh Triads record regional resistance to Edwin's incursions into Gwynedd by a regional ruler Belyn ap Cynfelyn and his Gosgordd who were allied with Cadwallon ap Cadfan. In subsequent years Llŷn was raided by vikings, most notably by Olaf in the late 10th century.
The most rural parts are characterised by small houses, cottages and individual farms, resembling parts of south west Ireland. There are small compact villages, built of traditional materials. The only large-scale industrial activities were quarrying and mining, which have now largely ceased. The granite quarries of northern Llŷn have left a legacy of inclines and export docks, and were the reason for the growth of villages such as Llithfaen and Trefor. Copper, zinc and lead were mined around Llanengan, while 196,770 long tons (199,930 t) of manganese were produced at Y Rhiw between 1894 and 1945. The Penrhyn Dû mines have also been extensively mined since the seventeenth century around Abersoch. Shipbuilding was important at Nefyn, Aberdaron, Abersoch and Llanaelhaearn, although the industry collapsed after the introduction of steel ships from 1880. Nefyn was also an important herring port, and most coastal communities fished for crab and lobster.
Farming was originally simple and organic, but underwent major changes after the Second World War as machines came into widespread use. Land was drained and fields expanded and reseeded. From the 1950s onwards, extensive use was made of artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, leading to drastic changes in the appearance of the landscape.
Tourism developed after the railway to Pwllheli was built in 1867. The town expanded rapidly, with several large houses and hotels constructed, and a tramway was built linking the town to Llanbedrog. After the Second World War, Butlins established a holiday camp at Penychain, which attracted visitors from the industrial cities of North West England and the West Midlands. As car ownership increased, the tourist industry spread to the countryside and to coastal villages such as Aberdaron, Abersoch, Llanbedrog and Nefyn, where many families supplemented their income by letting out rooms and houses.
Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.
Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.
The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).
The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.
In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.
Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.
The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.
The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.
The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.
A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.
The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.
There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.
The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.
Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.
The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.
Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.
The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.
The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.
Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.
It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.
The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.
The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.
Notable people
Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth
Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon
Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd
Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle
Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University
Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.
Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd
John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog
Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia
T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog
David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy
Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd
Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas
Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion
Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.
Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI
Loofah is a climbing vine related to gourds and cucumbers, and sometimes called the “dishrag vine,” a reference to the sponge-like qualities of the dried fruit. Six species are in the Luffa genus, and they are widely cultivated for food and sponge uses. The loofah is the only plant source of sponge, and it has been used in bathhouses and kitchens for centuries. Traditionally cultivated in India and the Middle East, where the name originates, it is also grown in other warm, dry regions.
In appearance, a loofah looks like a cucumber. The trailing vines of the plant will take over any available surface, yielding drooping green fruit in the summer. These vines are often used to cover decaying fences or as privacy foliage, because they are dense and fast growing. Loofah prefers warm, dry climates, and is very sensitive to frost, generally not thriving outside of USDA Zone 10 unless gardeners sprout it indoors and keep a close eye on their young plants. They need to be watered regularly, but should not be allowed to become waterlogged.
Loofah is harvested for food in many parts of Asia. All species are edible, but they must be consumed before they mature, or they will be too woody and fibrous to eat. The fruit is cooked before eating, and is sometimes seen on menus as “Chinese okra.” When allowed to mature and dry on the vine, loofah can be harvested as a sponge. The woody exterior skin is peeled away, and the seeds shaken out for reseeding. The loofah sponge can be sold whole, or chopped into smaller and more manageable portions. It can also be compressed for shipping. The net of straw colored fibers will puff up again if the loofah is moistened.
These photos were taken in Nipomo California
it's been awhile, no?
for at least a couple of months it's been a solid line up on there of critters made by the boys in clay class this spring (a cobra snake, a zebra - i believe - or maybe it's a raccoon or a horse?, a 'very-hairy fox', a pink wolf, etc), with a few needle felted owls that we did together one day amongst the menagerie.
while i put them all up there partly to appreciate the charming, endearing qualities,and the cleverness of each creation, it was also partly just a place to put all that productivity!
well...since then, things had been increasingly reaching towards a state of utter chaos around here, and the mantle was feeling no less so, as other bits 'n' bobs 'n' things were starting to accumulate up there, and on every other horizontal surface in sight...as bits 'n' bobs 'n' things have a tendencey to do.
something had to give. we'd just spent three days living out of our backpacks and, upon returning, i suddenly needed to reclaim this small space to create a little order, serenity, and to bring a little of the outdoors inside. something like this was what i was what i kept flashing on. that was all i needed.
it all just started falling into place: the volunteer valerian coming up here and there around the yard needed their blossoms cut off so as to prevent their reseeding and becoming a nuisance in future years - there's a bouquet.
then there were the daisies - truly a noxious weed by official status, albeit the prettiest of ones - popping up all over the place, too.
and the wild white yarrow coming into bloom here and there...
and that named white yarrow, 'the pearl', blooming right next to the front door, but nearly overridden with grass going to seed, and so going almost unnoticed.
and that is where i stopped myself, even if the northern bedstraw are starting to show up in spots, and the lovely but foreboding death camas is the next white wildflower soon to be in blossom out by the swingset....
striving for some order, a little restraint, even if only here in this little spot, with this attempt at a tamed version of that naturally occurring, resplendent abundance, felt of the forests through which we walked last weekend.
all those animal figurines, where did they go? why, they're all just piled on an end table below and to the left of this pic, waiting to be adopted to their new homes, so, as you can see, the serenity is only an illusion.
What has awed me most at the Occupy Toronto site in St James Park is how incredibly articulate the young people are. They speak with passion, with conviction & with a burning belief that if they stay the course they CAN make a difference. Easy to dismiss them as malcontents. Easy to say the occupy settlements are a haven for substance abusers. To say "I don't get it....what is it exactly that they want" They want a better world. Plain & simple. A fairer, kinder, more just world. A world that doesn't revolve on money & greed & corruption. Impossible idealism, you say. We went through all that in the '60's. I agree. But that's because I'm old & jaded. They, on the other hand, these young protestors, dare to carry faith & hope & charity in their hearts. They know they're going to be ousted, that the day must inevitably come. Our inarticulate mayor, Rob Ford, has spoken. "They've made their point. Time for them to move on". That's the extent of his contribution in the past month. They are not there to make a point, they're there to make a change. They are shining a light on dire civic, federal & global issues. They intend peaceful non-compliance & will legally resist eviction if necessary but are, nontheless, accepting of their inevitable departure at some point & have plans to restore the park to its original state, including reseeding. The young people I've met are not fighters... they're peace-seekers. Any aggression comes from the troubled souls in their midst, those they have embraced, sheltered & fed, the homeless & addicted citizens the mayor ignores. Occupy Toronto is what democracy looks like. If you support them, call Rob Ford's office at 416-397 3673. Let's not have just the naysayers clogging up his line.
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Speak up for our wild horses now!! URGENT.....The last stronghold of our wild horses are being rounded up and branded, ripped from their family bands and lands, forever!
This is our last chance to save them from extinction..........
See updates @ thecloudfoundation.org..................
www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/710080115
thecloudfoundation.wordpress.com/
www.wildhorsepreservation.com/video.html
PROTEST THE REMOVAL OF OUR WILD HORSES FROM PUBLIC LANDS!!
STOP THE CALICO ROUNDUP. THIS LAND WAS DESIGNATED FOR THE WILD HORSES AND BURROS FOR THEIR WILD AND FREE ROAMING PROTECTION AS CONGRESS APPROVED AND PASSED, THE 1971 WILD AND FREE ROAMING PROTECTION ACT. NOW , BECAUSE OF THE BURNS AMENDMENT, SLID IN BY A CATTLE RANCHER FROM MONTANA TO EX PRESIDENT BUSH TO SIGN. IT REFERS TO EXCESS HORSES AND BURROS. 80 TO 90 PERCENT IS NOT EXCESS, IF IN FACT WE AGREE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS EXCESS! THERE ARE 100 COWS TO EVERY SINGLE ONE HORSE GRAZING ON PUBLIC LANDS, WHOS IS OVERGRAZING???
I BELIEVE RANCHERS ARE RUNNING THINGS WITH BLM AND LOBBYING FOR WELFARE LEASES FOR PRIVATE INTEREST CATTLE GRAZING!! THERE ARE SOME RUMORS TO A "RUBY" PIPELINE ACROSS THE TOP OF NEVADA AND GOING THROUGH UTAH AND IDAHO. THERE HAVE BEEN RECENT ROUNDUPS IN ALL THESE AREAS! DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON ROUNDUPS. ASK FOR THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES TO DO RESEARCH INTO BLM'S CLAIMS FOR REMOVING OUR WILD HORSES AND BURROS!
SOME FACTS....Horse scat improves forage reseeding the soil. There are approximately 100 head of cattle to each single horse on public lands! Cattle graze within one mile of the water they drink which they also crap in!! Horses travel 15 to 25 miles away from water and graze on higher elevations. Taxpayers are footing an enormous bill for BLM's mismanagement of our wild herds. The cost would be minimal if left wild and free!
Wild horses are beautiful and treasured by the American people. The BLM is mismanaging our wild herds and using inhumane practices to capture them. Slaughter was business as usual, not that long ago. At slaughter, horses are alive when hung upside down by their hind legs and their throats slit. Just last year, BLM proposed to send the 33,000 in their corral holdings to slaughter or be euthanized!! Public outcry stopped both of these options one year ago.! At that time BLM stated they would wait for cooler heads. (what does that mean?) BLM states the land forage cannot support them and they are starving. Photographs at roundup day, prove this to be a ludicrous lie!!! WIld horses are WILD! Wild animals take care of themselves in the wild. If they don't make it, it is the natural course of wild beings. All the wild horses I have seen looked 100 times better in the wild caring for themselves than any in captivity care at BLM holdings. Excess is not 80 to 90 percent. Is there even such a thing as excess horses?? Horses have enriched the lives of humanity for centuries. The current actions by BLM to our beautiful wild horses and burros is a disgrace and dishonor to them and the American people.
The majority of colon cancer cases are in heavy meat eating people!
HEY!! HOW ABOUT THIS!! BOYCOTT MEAT UNTIL OUR HORSES ARE WILD AND FREE ONCE MORE!! AND EVEN BETTER, GO VEGAN!!!
DON'T DISPLACE OUR WILD HERDS FOR WELFARE CATTLE GRAZING!!
TO PROTEST BY PHONE.......
PRESIDENT OBAMA / THE WHITEHOUSE....202 456 1111........202 456 1414
FAX.....202 456 2461
BY LETTER.....The WHITEHOUSE
1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20500
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR............KEN SALAZAR @ the same address
SENATOR HARRY REID ........FAX.....202 224 7327.........202 224 3542
Refuting many who believe that wild horses are neither wild nor indigenous to North America, and are a nuisance to rangelands and other livestock,recent molecular biology research compiled by Dr. Jay F Kirkpatrick, Phd., Director of the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Montana proves otherwise. He attests that wild horses are, in fact, a re-introduced native wildlife species.
Kirkpatrick states, %u201CThe genus Equus, which includes modern horses, zebras, and asses, is the only surviving genus in a once diverse family of horses that included 27 genres. Equus was native to North America 1.4 to 1.6 million years ago and migrated to Asia where it survived and flourished. It was reintroduced to the North American continent in 1519 by Hernando Cortez then continued to be imported northward by the Spaniards from Mexico. Recent genetic research has proven that the modern horse is the true genetic equivalent to E Lambei, the last horse to occupy North America prior to extinction.%u201D
That being said, it stands to reason that the horse is as much of apart of our landscape as the grizzly or the moose, or any other free roaming species that has survived the millennia.
wildsage7 (01/14/2010, 10:21 AM )
The half-million acre Calico Complex herd management area is the last stronghold of the American mustang and was designated by Congress principally for the wild horses and burros. Millions of head of livestock graze at a cost of $1.35/cow-calf pair/month.
Overall welfare livestock constitute a net loss of $123 million annually to the American tax payer.
The scapegoating of wild horses and burros for range deterioration must stop—they comprise only a tiny fraction of animals and wildlife grazing on our public lands.
Cows graze within a mile of water. In comparison wild horses are highly mobile, moving 5-10 miles from water and grazing on more rugged terrain.
BLM does not adequately control cattle on the public’s land and has does not sustainably balancing use of the “forage”, water and space.
A 1000-lb cow not only eats 26lbs. of forage daily but they consume as much as 30 gallons of water a day and defecate in it as well.
Private and corporate livestock outnumber wild horses at least 100 to 1 on public lands.
Advise to......PROTEST DIRECTLY TO THE PRESIDENT. ( Salazar and Abbey seem deaf to all complaints.)
Shinnecock Reservation: L.I., NY: Labour Day Powwow, September 2006.
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Shinnecock Tribe
Rte 27-A, Montauk Hwy
Southhampton, NY 111968
631-283-6143
State recognized; (no BIA office liason - seriously ridiculous!)
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Shinnecock Indian Nation: An Ancient History and Culture.
Since the beginning, Shinnecock time has been measured in moons and seasons, and the daily lives of our people revolved around the land and the waters surrounding it. Our earliest history was oral, passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, and as far back as our collective memory can reach, we are an Algonquin people who have forever lived along the shores of Eastern Long Island.
Scientists say we came here on caribou hunts when the land was covered with ice. But our creation story says we were born here; that we are the human children of the goddess who descended from the sky. It was she, the story goes, who caused the land to form beneath her feet from the back of Great Turtle, deer to spring forth from her fingertips; bear to roar into awakening, wolf to prowl on the first hunt. It was she who filled the sky with birds, made the land to blossom and the ponds and bays to fill with fish and mollusks. And when all was done, the Shinnecock, the People of the Shore, appeared in this lush terrain. We are still here.
As coastal dwellers, we continue to prize the bounty of the sea, the shellfish, the scaly fish, which for thousands of years provided the bulk of our diet. We were whalers, challenging the mighty Atlantic from our dugout canoes long before the arrival of the big ships, long before the whaling industry flourished in the 19th century.
In the 1700's, we became noted among the northeastern coastal tribes for our fine beads made from the Northern quahog clam and whelk shells. The Dutch, who arrived on our shores before the English, turned our beads (wampum) into the money system for the colonies.
The Shinnecock Nation is among the oldest self-governing tribes of Indians in the United States and has been a state-recognized tribe for over 200 years. In 1978, we applied for Federal Recognition, and in 2003, we were placed on the Bureau of Indian Affairs' "Ready for Active" list.
Traditionally, decisions concerning the welfare of the tribe were made by consensus of adult male members. Seeking to shortcut the consensus process in order to more easily facilitate the acquisition of Indian lands, the Town of Southampton devised a three member trustee system for the Shinnecock people. This system of tribal government was approved by the New York State legislature in February of 1792. Since April 3, 1792, Shinnecock Indians have gone to the Southampton Town Hall the first Tuesday after the first Monday in April to elect three tribal members to serve a one- year term as Trustees. In April of 2007, the Shinnecock Indian Nation exercised its sovereign right as an ancient Indian Nation and returned to one of its basic Traditions: it bypassed the Southampton Town Hall and for the first time since 1792 held its leadership elections at home, where they will remain.
The Trustee system, however, did not then and does not now circumvent the consensus process, which still remains the governing process of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Major decisions concerning the tribe are voted yea or nay by all eligible adult members, including women, who gained the right to vote in the mid-1990s. Also in that period, the Shinnecock Nation installed a Tribal Council, a 13 member body elected for two years terms. The Council is an advisory body to the Board of Trustees.
Today, we number over 1300 people, more than 600 of whom reside on the reservation adjacent to the Town of Southampton on the East End of Long Island. While our ancestral lands have dwindled over the centuries from a territory stretching at least from what is known today as the Town of Easthampton and westward to the eastern border of the Town of Brookhaven, we still hold on to approximately 1200 acres.
With modest resources, we have managed to build a community to help us better meet the demands of an ever expanding and intrusive world. In addition to the Shinnecock Presbyterian church building and its Manse, our infrastructure includes a tribal community center, a shellfish hatchery, a health and dental center, a family preservation and Indian education center, a museum, and playgrounds for our children. Also on our list of recent achievements is the design and development of an official Shinnecock Indian Nation flag and an official seal.
Our skilled craftspeople and fine artists find employment within the Tribe as well as the surrounding area. The number of tribal members holding advanced degrees in law, business, medicine, social sciences and liberal arts continues to grow, and tribal members hold positions of responsibility in all areas, including teaching, banking and counseling, both within and outside the Shinnecock community.
One of the earliest forms of economic development that the Shinnecock Nation undertook was to lease Reservation acreage to local area farmers for their crops, mainly potatoes and corn. While the project did bring in a small income for the Tribe, the resulting damages from pesticides leaking into the ground water and polluting our drinking water supply were enormous. We had great expectations for our shellfish hatchery (Oyster Project) but brown tide and general pollution forced it to close before it had the chance to develop into the business enterprise it was planned to be. In the summer of 2005, the Tribe began reseeding parts of its waterways with oysters, and celebrated a renewal harvest of Shinnecock chunkoo oysters at the Tribal Thanksgiving Dinner, November 2006.
At the present moment, the Shinnecock annual Powwow is the economic development project of record for the Shinnecock Nation. Revived in 1946 as a benefit for our church, the Powwow has evolved into an event that hosts thousands of visitors. But we are at the mercy of the weather. For the past two years, rainstorms have forced us to drastically revise our budgeting plans. We are now exploring Indian Gaming as a means of attaining the much needed self-sufficiency that will enable us to perform the sacred duties laid out for us by the Ancestors — to protect, manage and maintain the Shinnecock Indian Nation.
By Bevy Deer Jensen
Shinnecock Nation Communications Officer
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For more information on the Shinnecock Nation, please visit: www.shinnecocknation.com/
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photography: a. golden, eyewash design, c. 2006.
Peaceful, musical gathering ends
July 10, 2006
www.summitdaily.com/article/20060709/NEWS/107090056
Rainbow Family sticks around to clean-up, repair land
BIG RED PARK and STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - This doesn't happen in resort towns very often.
A miniature gathering occurred in Steamboat Springs Friday evening when approximately 2,000 people stood holding hands in a circle, spoke "Om," raised their arms in unity, then cheered for the peaceful effect and ran toward the center to dance, sing and drum with their brothers and sisters following Michael Franti, his band, Spearhead, and members of the Rainbow Family's more than three-hour set.
The band was in Steamboat to play a free show (a real double-rainbow - triple and quadruple for moments - emerged in the sky during the music), and the Rainbow family of living light had been trickling out of the woods all day long.
The sight at the end of the show was nearly as big for its significant fractions of Steamboat locals and tourists as the actual peace circle - held on July 4th around Main Meadow at the 2006 35th Annual National Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes - though the numbers differed significantly.
"It was the Rainbow Family uniting one last time and keeping the vibe and the circle going," said Summit County resident and attendee of this year's gathering Caroline Foley. "I feel like the family makes any place that they are their home, and the circle and the family concepts exist in our daily lives."
Between 10,000 and 15,000 people gathered at Main Meadow last Tuesday in the gathering. The children at the gathering traversed to Center Circle from Kiddie Village and broke the silence - thousands of individuals collectively agreed to be quiet for an entire morning - which began at dawn. Before the kids reached the middle, the masses gathered and held hands in a giant curving form that was impeded by trees in spots. The rings of people toward the center of the crowd were literally circles, and the world flag (picture of the Earth) flew above all others.
The crowd of individuals from all walks of life (Rainbow, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Wiccan, Rastafarian, members of the Baha'i faith, self-guided spiritual beings and many with atheistical perspectives) held hands in giant circles, made an Om vibration, raised their hands and cheered jubilantly before moving toward the music in Center circle or to other locations surrounding the meadow to speak kind words and hug each other.
"You are the Earth, and she is you; Gaia, mama, big and blue. Make a piece of heaven right here in this space. Do a little good for the human race," sang Dianivy on Monday afternoon at the gathering as she whaled some chord progressions on her guitar. Her son, Forest, helped strum, as his mother sang her original tune, "Eco Mama."
Dianivy has two boys (one is black and one is white) and a band, Mystery School, that takes an extra step to provide content along with the entertainment.
During the days, people worked together to cook, dig toilets and purify water. They ate meals together, taught each other's children, talked, traded possessions, made love and shared knowledge and craft.
"We're trying to spread awareness about honoring God's creation and vegetarianism," said Rick Hershey, who was in charge of the Christian Vegetarian Association booth and is the president of the St. Louis Vegetarian Society.
At night, the gathering was dominantly musical. Drum circles, jam sessions, stories and songs could be stumbled upon in nearly every camp among the dozens.
Rainbow ink and wisdom
"All Ways Free," the publication located at the Information booth inside the Rainbow Gathering at Big Red Park in Routt County/Medicine Bow National Forest, stood out among the numerous print-outs scattered throughout the groups and individuals for its depth of subject matter and range of contributors.
The bylines include doctors, philanthropists, artists, spiritual moguls and a guy called "The Butterfly Man" who breaks down the science of butterfly pollination and encourages us all to save monarch butterflies from "Monster-Santo."
The articles include an account of the Rainbow Family's heavy involvement in feeding and healing refugees from Hurricane Katrina, a meditation on the vitality of yoga and its beneficialness for everyday living, "Accupressure for the whole family," political news and judicial news regarding the 2005 gathering in West Virginia.
Robbie Gordon from the All Ways Free editorial staff writes:
Our Rainbow Family is now just what we old-timers hoped: a folk movement, with a life and evolution of its own, apart from its founders. "Youngers" are making their own styles in our family.
This folk movement will go on, without leaders. Yet, experience still has much to teach us all.
Gordon's editorial goes on to offer advice to the younger generations of the family, which are also reminders for the older folks. He asks that people spend hours listening and minutes talking, that people would give away something fine to someone needy often, calls for moderation, agreeability and:
Please - Nourish this loving organism, our Rainbow family of living light, with your best gifts.
A sizeable amount of Rainbow Family members will continue to camp in the forest where the gathering occurred, loosening the hard-packed earth and reseeding some of the trampled land in an effort to leave no trace of the large event.
On the trip to the Hawaiian island of Maui we went to the crater of the volcano Haleakala at around 10 000 feet. Unfortunately, when in touring buses, one can't stop and take photos of all the wildflowers around but at a visitors' centre at 7000 feet, and higher up I was able to get some photos of silverswords, a unique and amazing plant. I think this information underneath is adequate for the description of this plant, and it comes from two sources. I think this is the plant one of my contacts mentioned to me before I left for the trip.
Haleakala Silversword
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Haleakalā silversword (Argyroxiphium sandwicense macrocephalum) is part of the family Asteraceae. The silversword in general is referred to as ʻāhinahina in Hawaiian (literally, "very gray"), and it has been a threatened species according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife service since May 15, 1922. Excessive grazing by cattle and goats and vandalism inflicted by people in the 1920s caused near extinction of the Haleakalā silversword. The plant has been strictly monitored and protected by the government since and is considered a successful conservation story, although threat to the species remain. This plant is only found on the island of Maui in Haleakalā National Park at an elevation of 2,100 to 3,000 m on the Haleakalā summit depression, the rim summits, and surrounding slopes of the dormant Haleakalā volcano.
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Physical characteristics
Silversword plants in general grow on volcanic cinder, a dry, rocky substrate that is subject to freezing temperatures and high winds. Haleakalā silversword has numerous sword-like succulent leaves covered with silver hairs. The skin and hairs are strong enough to resist the wind and freezing temperature of this altitude and protect the plant from dehydration and the sun.
The plant's base of leaves, arranged in a spherical formation at ground level of the plant, dominate for the majority of the plant's life — which may be greater than 50 years. The leaves are arranged so that they and the hairs of the leaves can raise the temperature of the shoot-tip leaves up to 20°C, thereby adapting to the extreme high-altitude temperatures by focusing the sunlight to converge at this point and warm the plant.
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Lifecycle
At senescence, which often occurs when the plant reaches a diameter of approximately one-half meter[when?], the plant produces a tall stalk of maroon ray flowers which resemble the sunflower in just a few weeks. Flowering usually occurs from July through October.[1] This flowering stalk may have up to 600 heads of up to 40 outlying ray flowers and 600 disk flowers and is pollinated by flying insects like Hylaeus (Nesoprosopis) volcanicus. The flower stalk can reach up to two meters in height and has numerous tiny sticky hairs to prevent crawling insects from damaging the plant. Seeding of the plant is very sensitive because damage to the flowers or stalk by insects before reseeding further hinders the threatened species’ propagation. The leaves become limp and dry as the monocarpic plant then goes to seed and dies.
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History and conservation
Before the National Park Service was granted control of Haleakalā volcano, visitors to the volcano's summit often participated in the common practice of uprooting a silversword plant and then rolling it on the jagged lava rock terrain, drying the flowers for arrangements, or using the plant as kindling. Because the delicate, shallow root structure can be crushed by walking in the rocks around the plant, they are very sensitive to foreign elements. Feeding by goats also severely damaged many plants and prevented reproduction. Ungulates are now fenced out of the crater area and the species is legally protected from damage by humans
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HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
On Feb 27, 2005, foodiesleuth from Honomu, HI (Zone 11) wrote:
`Ahinahina (Hawai`i’s native silversword plant) is noted for its silvery radiance and sharp spiky ball shape. The silver hairs on its rigid sword-like leaves help prevent it from burning as it reflects ultra-violet light and also help the plant to capture moisture from the morning dew.
There are three species of silversword, found on the slopes of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa (on the Big Island of Hawaii) and Haleakala on Maui. It is believed that the silversword is a distant relative of a California Tarweed which made it to Hawai`i on its own and over many centuries has evolved into the unique plant we see today.
Upon maturity after twelve to fifty years, the silversword will produce a five-foot-tall stalk from its center covered with hundreds of one-inch flowers, produce seeds for the next generation, and die.
Since the 1700’s, upon European colonization, the silversword population has declined due to several factors. Human vandalism decreased the abundant population, when people picked the plant and also thought it was amusing to kick the silversword down the mountain like a soccer ball. Browsing and trampling by feral sheep, goats and mouflon sheep introduced to Hawai`i for sport hunting has also affected the population. Loss of native pollinators (moths and bees) due to introductions of alien insects (wasps and ants) is currently limiting the silversword reproduction rate.
There are efforts being made by scientists to protect the remaining population and increase their numbers. Fear that natural pollination will not keep the species alive has left biologists pollinating the plants by hand. Also, when the silversword produces seeds, they are collected and propagated in a nursery. When a large number of seedlings are available, then they are outplanted back into the wild.
“Between 2000-2002 there were almost 7,000 seedlings planted on Mauna Loa,” said Tim Tunison, Chief of Resources Management, Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. “And these plants have had a 90% success rate!” There have also been outplantings on Mauna Kea and Haleakala. Hopefully, there will be continued success in silversword outplantings, which will increase our chances of catching a glimpse of this unique endangered species!
From an article:
90% Success Rate for Mauna Loa Silversword Planting!
Article by Kuhea Paracuelles and Lauren Danner
First steps towards a significant and thoughtful rehabilitation of the Jay landscape have been discussed for almost twenty years and are now visibly taking shape!
Following numerous presentations to stakeholders, Larry Weaner and his design team are now executing the proposal they prepared specifically for the Jay site - with a goal of increasing biodiversity and providing greater access to open space and cultural heritage for the community, they will reverse an unhealthy monoculture behind the mansion and create an inviting meadow habitat for birds, insects and smaller mammals.
Identifying what he has called a "Confluence of Centuries," Larry Weaner's design will also preserve the imprints of many natural and human inhabitants from the Indigenous era through an estate period that included slave ownership up to contemporary usage. Etched memorial stones telling these stories will be laid in a mown path through the meadow
Donations for the meadow continue to come in slowly but surely; as of November, these funds have allowed us to cut, rake and dispose of two acres of invasive mugwort. Reseeding the area with native grasses and wildflowers is the next step! Specimens that have been selected for us including Nodding Pink Onion and Purple Lovegrass.
Lastly, two dead beech trees have been removed and will be replaced with healthy new saplings in the spring together with a new elm tree pledged by the Rye Garden Club through the Garden Club of America!
Want to help us move this project forward? Make a donation today and earmark it for the Jay meadow. The funds will be put towards the next round of live plug plantings in Spring and Fall. THANK YOU!
Please help us with your donation made payable to:
Jay Heritage Center
210 Boston Post Road
Rye, NY 10580
(914) 698-9275
Email: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
Follow and like us on:
Twitter @jayheritage
Facebook www.facebook.com/jayheritagecenter
Instagram @jayheritagecenter
Did you hear we’re having a drought in the US west? That we’re cutting farm production because of a lack of water? It’s all so evident in this scene!!!
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Okay, I can be charged with being a little misleading here. This particular course is watered with recycled, non-potable, water. And, the watering of the course is one way to return/refilter the water to the aquifer. But that, to me, is a very incomplete answer. Here’s the details.
For most of the year the watering of the courses is typically in the early evening, partly because there are players on the course during the day, but hopefully also because evaporation is not as much an issue after sundown. The reason it’s being watered in the day right now is because when they’re reseeding the course the new grass needs to be watered multiple times during the day. I’ve addressed environmental concerns about reseeding in an earlier
picture, so I’m just going to stick with watering here, addressing both use and imagery.
Regarding water use, there was a good LA Times article about water and the courses out here in the desert. One thing the article doesn’t address, but does get addressed by local activists, is simply reducing the number of courses – do we really need 120 courses in the Coachella Valley???? But, addressing per course, the article mentions severely reducing the amount that is grass by leaving more natural landscape (which some courses in the valley have done) or using artificial turf, and using technology to water efficiently. Neither of which seems to be happening at this course. Of course (bad pun), there’s the argument that it’s recycled water – somehow the question of using the recycled water elsewhere doesn’t seem to come up.
Almost equally as important, to me, is simply the image of watering, seemingly extravagantly, during the day. Residential water users in California have made tremendous changes in their water use, but there are still very many holdouts who insist on over-watering. In California urban areas, in previous droughts, the water has been turned off on fountains and other public displays of water usage. That actually wasn’t a big save since water use by fountains was low, but cities turned those off so as to reinforce the norm to not waste water. I guess we can’t do that out here because the mighty tourist buck is, after all, metaphorically green.
The Elks was closed when I went by earlier this week. However, fraternal organizations that are long extinct in most large American cities are still important social centers in some small towns.
Who are the Elks? This is how they tell their origin story:
The moving spirit for the Elks was an Englishman named Charles Algernon Sidney Vivian. Born October 22, 1842, this son of a clergyman was a successful comic singer and dancer in the music halls of London. In November 1867, Vivian arrived in New York City to try his fortune.
Other actors and entertainers soon gravitated toward his magnetic personality. With everything closed on Sunday because of New York City Blue Laws, a group of theatrical people began meeting for their own amusement under Vivian's leadership. A loose organization was formed to make sure the larder was well-stocked for these gatherings. They called themselves the Jolly Corks, a name derived from a trick introduced by Vivian in which the uninitiated purchased a round of refreshments.
When one of their members died shortly before Christmas in 1867, leaving his wife and children destitute, the Jolly Corks decided that in addition to good fellowship, they needed a more enduring organization to serve those in need.
On February 16, 1868, they established the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and elected Vivian to head it. Its social activities and benefit performances increased the popularity of the new Order. Membership grew rapidly. Elks traveling to other cities spread the word of the Brotherhood of Elks. Soon there were requests for Elks Lodges in cities other than New York. In response to these appeals, the Elks asked the New York State legislature for a charter authorizing the establishment of a Grand Lodge with the power to establish local Lodges anywhere in the United States. When the Grand Lodge Charter was issued, the founders then received the first local charter as New York Lodge No. 1 on March 10, 1871.
www.elks.org/who/ourHistory.cfm
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Here's the very long story of Raymond, Washington:
The blanket of old growth forest that covered the Willapa Hills surrounding Raymond, on the Willapa River in Pacific County, fueled the town's growth from a handful of farms to a mill town bustling with trains filled with freshly cut logs, mills running 24 hours a day, and ships laden with lumber bound for the East Coast, South American, San Francisco, and Hawaii in less than a decade after its founding in 1903.
When a combination of overharvesting, environmental laws, and changes in the global market severely reduced logging and milling in the 1980s and 1990s, Raymond residents looked to new, more sustainable ways to utilize the surrounding hills, rivers, and bay to create jobs and sustain their community.
First Peoples
The Willapa River, with headwaters in the Willapa Hills, winds through the Willapa Valley until it is reaches the sea at Willapa Bay. A few miles upstream from the river's mouth, the South Fork of the Willapa joins the main river. Sloughs thread through the lowland forming what is called the Island, though it is not technically completely encircled by water.
Prior to contact with Europeans, three tribes lived around the Willapa's mouth, the Shoalwater (or Willapa) Chinook, the Lower Chehalis, and, seasonally, the Kwalhiloqua. Epidemic diseases brought by European and white American traders wreaked havoc in the Indian communities because they lacked immunities to the diseases. A malaria epidemic in the 1830s, probably brought to the area by sailors who had been in the tropics, decimated tribes in the lower Columbia River region.
After the epidemic, the Kwalhioqua all but disappeared, and the few remaining individuals joined the Willapa Chinook and Lower Chehalis. The northern part of Willapa Bay and the Willapa River formed a boundary between the Chinooks to the south and the Lower Chehalis to the north. The two groups intermarried and traded often.
These are the people who oystermen met when they came to Willapa Bay in the 1850s to harvest shellfish for the San Francisco market. The Indians worked with the oystermen in harvesting the shellfish.
Loggers, Farmers, and Indians
It was not long before the area's forests attracted loggers and sawmill operators. Brothers John (b. ca. 1830) and Valentine Riddell (b. ca. 1817) established a mill at what would become South Bend in 1869. Others followed, included John Adams' mill on the north side of the junction of the Willapa River with the South Fork.
Several farmers staked claims in the vicinity of the junction. The community, known as Riverside, had a school in 1875 and a post office.
The Indians in the area continued to work with oystermen, and in the more recently established salmon canneries and saw mills. They also continued to visit their traditional gathering places for berries and other plant materials.
The tribes had not yet formally agreed to allow the white Americans to live on their land, so, in February 1855, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862) met with the Quinault, Queets, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Shoalwater Bay, Chinook, and Cowlitz tribes at the Chehalis River Treaty Council (at the location of Cosmopolis today). The tribes did not object to ceding their lands, but once they heard the terms of the treaty they rejected the provision that required them to move to a shared reservation away from their traditional lands with the location of the reservation to be determined later. The tribes refused to accept those conditions and Stevens left without an agreement.
The absence of a treaty did not prevent white settlers from claiming lands along the Willapa River, thereby leaving less and less room for the Indians to live. On September 22, 1866 President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) established the Shoalwater Bay Tribes Reservation by reserving 335 acres near Tokeland for the Lower Chehalis and Willapa Chinook who lived along Willapa Bay. The reservation is and has been used by a number of the tribes' members, but many also live in the surrounding communities (and elsewhere).
Raymond is Formed
In 1889 the promise of a Northern Pacific Railway terminus in South Bend, just downstream from the river junction, led to a land boom. Lots in South Bend and along the river in both directions sold for incredible profits until 1893 when a national financial panic led to a bust in South Bend. South Bend had the county seat and retained the railroad and some operating mills, but a grant of land to the Northern Pacific on the waterfront tied up many of its choicest industrial sites.
Upriver, at the river junction, a group of residents, some with Homestead Act claims and others who had bought land at low prices following the bust in South Bend, formed the Raymond Land and Development Company in 1903.
Incorporators of the land company included Leslie (1874-1961) (often referred to as L. V.) and Stella (1875-1960) Raymond, who had a farm on the Island. Stella had inherited the land from her father, Captain George Johnson (1823-1882), who had established a Homestead Act Claim for almost 179 acres. Presumably Johnson or the Raymonds purchased part of their holdings, because they brought 310 acres to the partnership.
L. V. and Stella, who married in 1897, moved to the farm in 1899 and Raymond became the name of the town that grew up on and around their land. L. V. served as the town's first postmaster, first Northern Pacific Railway agent, and developed a water system for the town. The Raymonds donated land and their time to community projects, such as a playfield and the fire department. A bequest from the Raymonds established the Raymond Foundation in 1962 as a non-profit organization to fund scholarships and community development projects.
Building a River Town
Alexander C. Little (1860-1932) was also a partner in the land company. After a career in local and state politics that included serving as Aberdeen's mayor, helping elect Governor John R. Rogers, and serving on the State Fisheries Commission, in 1903 Little decided to shift to the private sector. According to Pacific County historian Douglas Allen, "Raymond was named for L. V. but from the beginning A.C. Little formed the character of the town" (Allen, 65).
According to Allen, Little contributed two key elements to the town's success. First, he recommended that the land company offer free riverfront lots to mills, thereby ensuring an economic foundation for the town. Second, Little brought Harry C. Heermans (1852-1943) into the partnership. Heermans's engineering background helped solve issues associated with building a town on a river. The sloughs that laced the land rose and fell with the tides, but uphill development would have taken mills too far from the riverfront. Besides, the hills surrounding the river junction rose abruptly and would have posed their own engineering challenges.
Other incorporators of the land company included J. B. Duryea, Winfield S. Cram (b.1866), and John T. Welsh (1866-1954). A second land company, the Great West Land Company, also formed in 1903, had some of the same investors and also worked to develop the town.
In 1903, the first mill, operated by Jacob Siler and Winfield Cram, began operations. Several more mills, including the West Coast Veneer & Manufacturing Company mill run by Little, followed and businesses grew up nearby.
On April 16, 1904, the Raymond Land Company filed a plat for the town of Raymond. The business district consisted of a store, a saloon, and a mess house that served mill workers. A drug store and hotel were coming soon.
Lots Sold by the Gallon
To allow people to cross the water-sodden landscape, the town constructed 2,900 feet of elevated wooden sidewalks. These sidewalks ran down either side of what would become 1st Street, which was really an open space onto which the buildings fronted. Additional wooden sidewalks crossed the void at regular intervals.
Lillian Smith (1875-1960), a teacher from Michigan who came to teach in Raymond for a year not long after the town's founding, remembered her first impressions of the town,
"At first I seemed to be crossing the river no matter what street I took. It was like losing oneself with Alice on the other side of the Looking Glass where you had to keep going in order to stand still, and vice versa. Imagine streets like long bridges built on piles driven into the slough (pronounced slu). Wooden railings on either side, and beyond these narrower wooden bridges of sidewalk width, these too with railings — a perfect maze of railings, necessary to keep careless pedestrians from falling into the slough" (Smith, 3).
Still, the town's location provided enough benefits to outweigh the difficulties of being what Smith called, "an amphibious town" (Smith, 6). It was located at the head of navigable waters, close to the bay and to the forests that fed its mills. It also had access to the Northern Pacific Railway, without having had to give up its waterfront lots the way South Bend had.
Navigation on the river depended on assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers. Early in its history Willapa Bay was known as Shoalwater Bay because of its many shallow areas. These made ideal oyster grounds, but limited ships' access to ports. The Corps, under the provisions of several different Rivers and Harbors Acts, had dredged the river up to Willapa City, just upstream from the Raymond townsite, and kept it clear of snags. The Corps also maintained a channel through the bar at the mouth of the bay.
Businesses besides lumber mills diversified the economy. In 1907 Stewart L. Dennis (1873-1952) and Perry W. Shepard (b. ca. 1871) formed a transfer company that would become an important retail business in Pacific County, now known as the Dennis Company, and John W. Dickie and his son, David, came to Raymond to establish a boatyard.
The Dickies had worked in the San Francisco Bay area and, according to local historian Ina E. Dickie, came to Raymond because the more-isolated Willapa Bay offered better access to lumber and to employees who accepted lower wages and had not yet formed unions. Dickie & Son built steamships -- the first was the Willapa -- at Raymond over the next several years. All were built for the coastwise lumber trade, which was booming following the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco.
On August 6, 1907, voters approved a measure to incorporate the town of Raymond. A handful of residents resisted the town's boundaries because they included some outlying farms in anticipation of the town's growth.
Little served as the first mayor, an office he would hold for 10 of the next 11 years. When asked in 1910 to serve as president of the Southwest Washington Development Association, Little replied that he was "disqualified because of his partiality for the place where lots are sold by the gallon at high tide" ("Southwest Part of the State Unites").
A Lumber Town
The first council consisted of seven men: C. Frank Cathcart, president of Raymond Transfer and Storage and Northern Pacific agent, Winfield S. Cram, Timothy H. Donovan, superintendent of the Pacific & Eastern Railway and Sunset Timber Company, Floyd Lewis, real estate agent, Charles Myers, sawyer at the Siler Mill, L. V. Raymond, and Willard G. Shumway a clerk. P. T. Johnson served as the first treasurer and Neal Stupp as the clerk and secretary.
By 1910 the population had increased to 2,540, but that was just the start of the flood of new residents. In 1911, there were about 5,000 people in Raymond. They were needed for the kind of production boasted of by a promotional brochure from 1912. It lists the output of the towns mills for the previous year as 27,834,779 board feet of lumber, 226,712,250 shingles, 105 million berry baskets (made from veneer), and 33 million pieces of lath for plaster walls. The newcomers included business people, mill owners, mill workers, and loggers from all parts of the world.
Labor v. Capital
The 1910s, although economically prosperous, saw a series of disputes between labor unions and mill owners up and down the West Coast. Working conditions in the lumber industry were dismal and lumber workers struck for better wages and better logging camp conditions.
On March 25, 1912, mill workers in Raymond walked off the job to prevent the lumber companies from using their Raymond mills to replace lost production at Grays Harbor mills, where workers had begun a strike two weeks earlier. The town's business community's response was swift and severe. They held a meeting the second day of the strike. A. C. Little led the discussion, railing against the strike's organizers, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. The meeting participants decided that they should protect "any man who might want to work" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills"). To that stated end, several committees formed to support the effort. Over the next several days the sheriff swore in 460 deputies to "protect property and the working men" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").
To prevent the mill workers from gathering, the city closed all the saloons and brothels for the duration of the strikes. Likewise, three "Socialists speakers," were arrested upon disembarking the Raymond depot ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").
A few days later, on March 30, 1912, the mill owners blew their whistles for the start of work. Anyone who did not heed to the call found themselves and their families rounded up by about 200 men with rifles and shotguns and loaded onto a railroad car bound for Centralia. The South Bend Journal identified those who refused to work as Finns and Greeks.
The Greek workers were taken to Centralia, where the Greek consul from Tacoma, Hans Heldner, met them and protested their treatment. The Finns had been removed by boat to Nahcotta. From there they traveled on to Astoria where there was a large Finnish American community. After the strike ended, the South Bend Journal said that the Greek mill workers asked to return, but, "American flags have been hoisted on the mills and only Americans or civilized foreigners need apply" ("Agitators Banished from Raymond"). Other strikes would come to Raymond and labor unions led fights for improved safety, better conditions, and higher pay.
Despite labor problems, the mills kept prospering in Raymond. In 1912 there were 14 mills in operation. They used an average of 50 railroad cars full of logs from logging camps in the surrounding fills. The mills produced an average of 20 railroad cars a day of lumber and other forest products. These included shingles, cascara bark, used for medications, doors, and window frames.
Growth and Development
In 1912 the town also started to fill the sloughs that ran through town so residents could have actual streets and so that houses would not flood at high tide. In 1915 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began passenger and freight service between Raymond and Puget Sound. The mayors of Raymond and South Bend presented the railroad's representatives with a wooden key "symbolical [sic] of the freedom of Willapa Harbor" (Krantz). The train service was a vital link between the Willapa River towns and the interior of Washington. Not until 1917 would a road through the Willapa Hills open. The precursor of State Route 6, it was not reliably useable. It featured steep switchbacks and its gravel surface routinely suffered from water damage.
The late 1910s saw Raymond operating at full bore. Six saw mills, two veneer plants, a box factory, five shingle mills, and a woodworking plant were joined by the Sanderson & Porter shipyard, which employed 1,000 workers in building ships for the United States Navy during World War I. In the postwar era, the population dropped to about 4,500.
Port of Willapa Harbor
In 1928 residents of Raymond joined with South Bend to form the Port of Willapa Harbor, a public port district. The Port built a public dock on land between Raymond and South Bend that allowed smaller sawmills access to the river. This facilitated the transport of logs, which could be floated down the river from logging camps in the Willapa Hills, and the shipping of finished lumber. Before the public dock was completed in 1930, sawmills and other forest-products factories that did not have riverfront property had to send their goods to Grays Harbor or Puget Sound via the railroad, adding significantly to transport costs and time.
The Port dedicated the dock on October 8, 1930, and the city of South Bend dedicated a reconstructed city dock and improved slip. The same day, state highway officials led a celebration of the opening of Highway 101 between Aberdeen and Raymond-South Bend. For the first time travelers could follow a road through the Willapa Hills to the north of South Bend. It also connected Aberdeen with Ilwaco and the Long Beach Peninsula. This provided drivers with a direct route to the ferries that crossed the Columbia River to Astoria.
The Port's dock housed a sawmill, owned first by Ralph Tozier (1920-2005) and then Ben Cheney (1905-1971), who owned Cheney Lumber Company. According to Med Nicholson, writing in the Sou'wester, in 1945, Cheney was faced with a problem of wasted wood that resulted from cutting logs for ties. In order to square up the logs, large slabs were cut off each of four sides. Cheney had the insight that the slabs were eight feet long (the length of railroad ties) and house ceilings were eight and one-half feet tall. At the time home builders were buying studs in 10- and 12-foot lengths and cutting them down, also resulting in a lot of wasted wood. Cheney cut the slabs into a "Cheney Stud," what are now known as eight-foot two-by-four and sold them to home builders. Eight-foot ceilings became standard in houses, "putting to use an enormous amount of formerly wasted timber and incidentally saving American homeowners uncounted millions of dollars in heating expense" ("The Ben Cheney Story," 10).
Raymond's Great Depression
Unfortunately, the advantages presented by the new port and highway were hampered by the Great Depression. The economic downturn resulted in drastically decreased demand for lumber and Raymond residents struggled to find jobs. The decline of the Great Depression would reduce the town's population to 4,000. A steady decline after the Depression brought the population to just under 3,000 by 1990, where it has stayed since.
Though circumstances improved slightly when Weyerhaeuser purchased two mills in Raymond and one in South Bend and reorganized them in 1931, larger economic forces made it nearly impossible for commerce to continue in Raymond. In 1932 the Raymond Chamber of Commerce, faced with a near stoppage of business following the failure of the First Willapa Harbor National Bank, printed its own currency called "oyster money" to carry people over until real money became available again.
The Port of Willapa Harbor continued its efforts to improve the port's facilities. The Army Corps of Engineers carried out at federally funded dredging and channel straightening project on the river in 1936. The dredge spoils created Jensen Island and the new channel allowed deeper-draft boats to reach Raymond.
Logging and Lumber
A 1954 report by Nathaniel H. Engle and Delbert C. Hastings of the University of Washington's Bureau of Business Research, draws an interesting portrait of Pacific County's average male citizen as delineated by the 1950 Federal Census:
"Mr. Average Citizen of Pacific County, at the last census, 1950, was white and 33 years of age. He had had two years of high school education. He was employed as a laborer or an operative in the lumber industry. His income for the year was about $3,042. He was married and had two children. He lived in a 4 or 5 room house in good condition, with hot and cold running water, toilet, and bath. He had mechanical refrigeration, and a radio, but no central heating. His home was worth close to $4,000 and was owned clear of debt. Thus Pacific County's average citizen rates as a substantial American wage earner, somewhat better off, on the whole, than the average American, although not quite up to the average in Washington state" (Engle and Hastings, 5).
The lumber industry supported a significant number of these "average" residents. Where Grays Harbor had nearly cleared much its surrounding forest lands in the 1920s, Pacific County still had considerable standing timber in the 1950s. In 1951 more than 66 million board feet of logs and more than 90 million board feet of lumber left Raymond on ships and railroad cars. This may have been the result of a high concentration of ownership by large companies such as Weyerhaeuser, which owned 380 square miles (nearly half of the county), Crown-Zellerbach, owner of 60 square miles, and Rayonier, owner of 50 square miles.
Engle and Hastings described the logging companies' success as resulting from the companies' willingness to use sustained yield practices, rather than cutting the forests as quickly as the mills could cut the logs. Sustained yield did lead to more selective and more reseeding, but it did not maintain forests that could support diverse ecosystems because most of the reseeding was of single, productive species such as Douglas fir. Wildlife populations were further damaged by hunting programs designed to eliminate animals such as deer or bear that browsed on seedlings and new growth on older trees.
In 1954 and 1955, Weyerhaeuser carried out a two-part renovation of the old Willapa Lumber Company mill that it had acquired in 1931. First they replaced all the mill's facilities and then they rebuilt the mill itself. This mill, known as Mill W, remains in operation in 2010, the last softwood lumber mill in operation in Raymond,
In the 1970s the region saw another lumber boom. According to Richard Buck, of The Seattle Times, a new generation of baby boomers began buying houses, which increased the demand for lumber, leading to increased competition and prices. Prices reached $337 per 1,000 board feet.
The next decade, the declines in the national economy devastated the local economy rather than driving it. Prices dropped by two-thirds to $102 per 1,000 board feet in 1985. According to Buck this was due to a decline in housing starts and the increase in the value of the dollar and interest rates, which made Canadian lumber cheaper. Also, deregulation of the transportation industry increased the disadvantage West Coast lumber mills had compared to Southern and Midwestern lumber mills' proximity to East Coast markets.
In addition to the economic forces battering the lumber industry, in the late 1980s the local environment could no longer support the intense logging of the previous century. Historical overharvest and increased environmental regulations reduced the acreage of public forestland open to logging. In 1990, the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. With the owl's listing, communities in Pacific County had to adjust to reduced logging and fewer jobs at the area's sawmills. The effects of the environmental regulations were compounded by plant modernization, which also led to fewer jobs in the mills. Many smaller mills could not compete with the larger companies' more efficient mills and a number went out of business.
The closure of the federal forests combined with changes in how Weyerhaeuser managed its lands and utilized mills in Pacific County led to the closure of numerous mills. This, in turn, led to fewer jobs in the forest products industry, as well as other sectors of the county's economy.
According to a Seattle Times article, "Some residents liken the area to a Third World nation, an underdeveloped colony whose resources are removed by 'foreign' corporations. Weyerhaeuser, they note, owns more than 50 percent of the land in Pacific County" (Hatch). Additionally, they accused Weyerhaeuser of using profits gained in Pacific County to build the very mills in the American South, where wages were lower, that undermined the viability of Raymond's mills. Although there is certainly a component of anger at outside companies taking a tremendous amount of natural resources out of the surrounding hills without investing a significant portion of the resulting profits in the local community, this sentiment also reflects the frustration that resulted from one company owning so much of the county's land and making decisions driven by the global market.
Strategies for Change
Raymond residents have created multiple strategies to address the changes to the regional economy. When one mill, the Mayr Brothers sawmill, closed in 1986, the Port of Willapa Harbor bought the land and buildings and leased them to Pacific Hardwoods. When that mill closed in 2001, a group of Raymond investors banded together and reopened it as Willapa Bay Hardwoods, employing 35 people. It planned to cut 17.5 million board feet a year, a far more sustainable volume than during the boom years.
The Port of Willapa Harbor has been involved in other economic development projects. The Port developed two industrial parks and received grants to construct light manufacturing buildings at one of the industrial parks and at the Port dock. A variety of industries have leased Port buildings, including a chitosan (a natural polymer produced from shellfish shells) producer, seafood processors, and an airplane prototype design company. Additionally, some of the buildings are used by retail stores, including a saw shop and a health club.
The Raymond community, in conjunction with the city government and the Port of Willapa Harbor, has developed attractions that will draw tourists to the region as a way to build the economy. The former railroad bed across the Willapa Hills has been turned into a hiking and biking trail. The city has begun redeveloping its riverfront and a regional consortium developed the Willapa Water Trail, which small boats can follow to explore Willapa Bay.
Over the past century the environment in and around Raymond has attracted people, many of whom have sought to remove as much of it as possible for sale in markets far from Pacific County. The town's future lies in a more sustainable use of those resources, including the intangible ones that have to be experienced in person.
A view of the Cajon Pass a year after the Blue Cut Fire shows little evidence of the destruction at a distance as the ash has blow away and the plants have started to regrow and the grasses and bushes have reseeded.
A year ago this whole area was covered with head high Chaparral that had been growing since the last burn through in 2004.
(BNSF 7050 GE ES44DC)
BNSF Cajon Subdivision at C.P. Summit - M.P. 56.
Cajon Pass - San Bernardino County, California.
(September 17, 2017)
These gorgeous deep purple morning glories thankfully reseeded themselves this year! A happy surprise as i didn't get around to planting morning glories until late. I love the depth of the purple, the maroon highlights, and especially the pink and white in the center.
The Llŷn Peninsula extends 30 miles (50 km) into the Irish Sea from North West Wales, south west of the Isle of Anglesey. It is part of the historic county of Caernarfonshire, and historic region and local authority area of Gwynedd. Much of the eastern part of the peninsula, around Criccieth, may be regarded as part of Eifionydd rather than Llŷn, although the boundary is somewhat vague. The area of Llŷn is about 400 km2 (150 sq mi), and its population is at least 20,000.
Historically, the peninsula was travelled by pilgrims en route to Bardsey Island (Welsh: Ynys Enlli), and its relative isolation has helped to conserve the Welsh language and culture, for which the locality is now famous. This perceived remoteness from urban life has lent the area an unspoilt image which has made Llŷn a popular destination for both tourists and holiday home owners. Holiday homes remain contentious among locals, many of whom are priced out of the housing market by incomers. From the 1970s to the 1990s, a group known as Meibion Glyndŵr claimed responsibility for several hundred arson attacks on holiday homes using incendiary devices, some of which took place in Llŷn.
The Llyn Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers approximately 62 sq mi (160 km2).
Following the death of Owain Whitetooth (Ddantgwyn), king of Gwynedd, Owain's son Saint Einion seems to have ruled Llŷn as a kingdom separate from his brother Cuneglas' kingdom in Rhos. He is credited with having sponsored Saint Cadfan's monastery on Bardsey Island, which became a major centre of pilgrimage during medieval times. There are numerous wells throughout the peninsula, many dating back to the pre-Christian era. Many have holy connotations and they were important stops for pilgrims heading to the island.
The Welsh Triads record regional resistance to Edwin's incursions into Gwynedd by a regional ruler Belyn ap Cynfelyn and his Gosgordd who were allied with Cadwallon ap Cadfan. In subsequent years Llŷn was raided by vikings, most notably by Olaf in the late 10th century.
The most rural parts are characterised by small houses, cottages and individual farms, resembling parts of south west Ireland. There are small compact villages, built of traditional materials. The only large-scale industrial activities were quarrying and mining, which have now largely ceased. The granite quarries of northern Llŷn have left a legacy of inclines and export docks, and were the reason for the growth of villages such as Llithfaen and Trefor. Copper, zinc and lead were mined around Llanengan, while 196,770 long tons (199,930 t) of manganese were produced at Y Rhiw between 1894 and 1945. The Penrhyn Dû mines have also been extensively mined since the seventeenth century around Abersoch. Shipbuilding was important at Nefyn, Aberdaron, Abersoch and Llanaelhaearn, although the industry collapsed after the introduction of steel ships from 1880. Nefyn was also an important herring port, and most coastal communities fished for crab and lobster.
Farming was originally simple and organic, but underwent major changes after the Second World War as machines came into widespread use. Land was drained and fields expanded and reseeded. From the 1950s onwards, extensive use was made of artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, leading to drastic changes in the appearance of the landscape.
Tourism developed after the railway to Pwllheli was built in 1867. The town expanded rapidly, with several large houses and hotels constructed, and a tramway was built linking the town to Llanbedrog. After the Second World War, Butlins established a holiday camp at Penychain, which attracted visitors from the industrial cities of North West England and the West Midlands. As car ownership increased, the tourist industry spread to the countryside and to coastal villages such as Aberdaron, Abersoch, Llanbedrog and Nefyn, where many families supplemented their income by letting out rooms and houses.
Gwynedd is a county in the north-west of Wales. It borders Anglesey across the Menai Strait to the north, Conwy, Denbighshire, and Powys to the east, Ceredigion over the Dyfi estuary to the south, and the Irish Sea to the west. The city of Bangor is the largest settlement, and the administrative centre is Caernarfon. The preserved county of Gwynedd, which is used for ceremonial purposes, includes the Isle of Anglesey.
Gwynedd is the second largest county in Wales but sparsely populated, with an area of 979 square miles (2,540 km2) and a population of 117,400. After Bangor (18,322), the largest settlements are Caernarfon (9,852), Bethesda (4,735), and Pwllheli (4,076). The county has the highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 64.4%, and is considered a heartland of the language.
The geography of Gwynedd is mountainous, with a long coastline to the west. Much of the county is covered by Snowdonia National Park (Eryri), which contains Wales's highest mountain, Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa; 3,560 feet, 1,090 m). To the west, the Llŷn Peninsula is flatter and renowned for its scenic coastline, part of which is protected by the Llŷn AONB. Gwynedd also contains several of Wales's largest lakes and reservoirs, including the largest, Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid).
The area which is now the county has played a prominent part in the history of Wales. It formed part of the core of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the native Principality of Wales, which under the House of Aberffraw remained independent from the Kingdom of England until Edward I's conquest between 1277 and 1283. Edward built the castles at Caernarfon and Harlech, which form part of the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd World Heritage Site. During the Industrial Revolution the slate industry rapidly developed; in the late nineteenth century the neighbouring Penrhyn and Dinorwic quarries were the largest in the world, and the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales is now a World Heritage Site. Gwynedd covers the majority of the historic counties of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.
In the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant 'collection of tribes' – the same root as the Irish fine, meaning 'tribe'. Further, a connection is recognised between the name and the Irish Féni, an early ethnonym for the Irish themselves, related to fían, 'company of hunting and fighting men, company of warriors under a leader'. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə ('strive, hope, wish') is the Indo-European stem. The Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a memorial stone from c. AD 500 which reads: Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis ('Here lies Cantiorix, citizen of Gwynedd'). The name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974.
Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It covered the entirety of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire, and all of Merionethshire apart from Edeirnion Rural District (which went to Clwyd); and also a few parishes of Denbighshire: Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan.
The county was divided into five districts: Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey.
The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the 1974 county (and the five districts) on 1 April 1996, and its area was divided: the Isle of Anglesey became an independent unitary authority, and Aberconwy (which included the former Denbighshire parishes) passed to the new Conwy County Borough. The remainder of the county was constituted as a principal area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire, as it covers most of the areas of those two historic counties. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996. The present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, but Arfon, Dwyfor and Meirionnydd remain as area committees.
The pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. In 2003, the boundary with Clwyd was adjusted to match the modern local government boundary, so that the preserved county now covers the two local government areas of Gwynedd and Anglesey. Conwy county borough is now entirely within Clwyd.
A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire forces. A further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. In one proposal for local government reform in Wales, Gwynedd had been proposed as a name for a local authority covering all of north Wales, but the scheme as enacted divided this area between Gwynedd and Clwyd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police.
The Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park fell entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd, and was run as a department of Gwynedd County Council. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, and the park's administration separated from the Gwynedd council. Gwynedd Council still appoints nine of the eighteen members of the Snowdonia National Park Authority; Conwy County Borough Council appoints three; and the Welsh Government appoints the remaining six.
There has been considerable inwards migration to Gwynedd, particularly from England. According to the 2021 census, 66.6% of residents had been born in Wales whilst 27.1% were born in England.
The county has a mixed economy. An important part of the economy is based on tourism: many visitors are attracted by the many beaches and the mountains. A significant part of the county lies within the Snowdonia National Park, which extends from the north coast down to the district of Meirionnydd in the south. But tourism provides seasonal employment and thus there is a shortage of jobs in the winter.
Agriculture is less important than in the past, especially in terms of the number of people who earn their living on the land, but it remains an important element of the economy.
The most important of the traditional industries is the slate industry, but these days only a small percentage of workers earn their living in the slate quarries.
Industries which have developed more recently include TV and sound studios: the record company Sain has its HQ in the county.
The education sector is also very important for the local economy, including Bangor University and Further Education colleges, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Coleg Menai, both now part of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai.
The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census who said they could speak Welsh.
Gwynedd has the highest proportion of people in Wales who can speak Welsh. According to the 2021 census, 64.4% of the population aged three and over stated that they could speak Welsh,[7] while 64.4% noted that they could speak Welsh in the 2011 census.
It is estimated that 83% of the county's Welsh-speakers are fluent, the highest percentage of all counties in Wales.[9] The age group with the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd were those between ages 5–15, of whom 92.3% stated that they could speak Welsh in 2011.
The proportion of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd declined between 1991 and 2001,[10] from 72.1% to 68.7%, even though the proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales as a whole increased during that decade to 20.5%.
The Annual Population Survey estimated that as of March 2023, 77.0% of those in Gwynedd aged three years and above could speak Welsh.
Notable people
Leslie Bonnet (1902–1985), RAF officer, writer; originated the Welsh Harlequin duck in Criccieth
Sir Dave Brailsford (born 1964), cycling coach; grew up in Deiniolen, near Caernarfon
Duffy (born 1984), singer, songwriter and actress; born in Bangor, Gwynedd
Edward II of England (1284–1327), born in Caernarfon Castle
Elin Fflur (born 1984), singer-songwriter, TV and radio presenter; went to Bangor University
Bryn Fôn (born 1954), actor and singer-songwriter; born in Llanllyfni, Caernarfonshire.
Wayne Hennessey (born 1987), football goalkeeper with 108 caps for Wales; born in Bangor, Gwynedd
John Jones (c. 1530 – 1598), a Franciscan friar, Roman Catholic priest and martyr; born at Clynnog
Sir Love Jones-Parry, 1st Baronet (1832–1891), landowner and politician, co-founder of the Y Wladfa settlement in Patagonia
T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935), archaeologist, army officer and inspiration for Lawrence of Arabia, born in Tremadog
David Lloyd George (1863–1945), statesman and Prime Minister; lived in Llanystumdwy from infancy
Sasha (born 1969), disc jockey, born in Bangor, Gwynedd
Sir Bryn Terfel (born 1965), bass-baritone opera and concert singer from Pant Glas
Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), architect of Portmeirion
Owain Fôn Williams, (born 1987), footballer with 443 club caps; born and raised in Penygroes, Gwynedd.
Hedd Wyn (1887–1917), poet from the village of Trawsfynydd; killed in WWI
Three sentinels? Over a man-made golf pond? I was on my bike -- it looked more interesting then than it does here.
But it was very quiet on the course (early evening, it's being reseeded), and the muted colors were pleasant. The skies are fairly gray, partly due to this being my phone camera, and partly due to us having gray overcast from the fires in northern California.
More about golfing environment in tomorrow's photo.
nature's gift...I had some of these last year, and they reseeded themselves...I had hundreds of them growing, I've replanted many into pots...
The morning after I am still processing what I witnessed last night. As I sat at home watching the live feeds from citizen journalists, I saw that the protest was not more than a mile from me. I knew I had to go. This was history in the making. To not see that is, is to not see the social and power dynamics at play. People have finally said "Enough."
So I set out on foot about 7PM. I didn't know where they had gone since my cell phone had died that morning and couldn't check the Twitter feed. So I looked for the helicopters. And sure enough I had found them.
There is an arrest technique called "kettling." It's when law enforcement cordons off a group of people with no way to escape even if they simply want to go home. And that was in full effect when I arrived at 6th and Hope.
The protest was peaceful. They were angry and rightfully so, but they were peaceful. And they sent in an army....
It was like watching some scene from a movie where society has broken down. The police force was in the hundreds....HUNDREDS. Streets and sidewalks were closed for blocks around. There was no way to get to those who were trapped even if you wanted to. I along with other protestors who got separated, watched as the busses moved in for the mass arrest as more and more police cars blazed by and the noose closed. All I could think was, "This is happening in my city. This is real. This is real."
And we can't go back from this. What was not normal is now normal. When something like this occurs, it cannot unoccur. A line moves that can never be moved back. And as I photographed what was before me, and talking with many people who watched helplessly, my heart quietly broke. Things will be different after this. You won't see it at first, but it will be different.
And I spoke with officers as well. They didn't want to be there either. Most are good men and women who are doing a job that is necessary. But they are part of a power structure that demands they stand with billy clubs against peaceful people on the night before Thanksgiving. They don't make the call to close down public sidewalks. These decisions are made from on high hoping that people will eventually just give in and be quiet.
But from what I witnessed people will not be quiet. The question is, like with Occupy, how many will remain silent? Nobody wants to go to jail. But to jail you will go even if you raise your voice peacefully. Where do we go from here?
I don't have an answer for this. I watched as Occupy died, the grass reseeded at City Hall and it's as if nothing ever happened. But if there is to be change, I witnessed it begin to germinate as I walked through Pershing Square on my way back home. Look at the last picture and that is it. Two men, one black, one white singing and old Gospel hymn of overcoming.
By the time I got home this secondary protest had gotten underway. They made their way to the police station and what I witnessed gave me hope. Peacefully they spoke their message and entered into dialog with officers. I was so proud of them. Revolutions are violent or peaceful. But the way of peace is the one, if it has any chance, is the one that transforms hearts.
But my fear is that it will not be that way when the right circumstances arise. Black Friday is going to be an ugly ugly day.
Today is Thanksgiving and I am grateful for very much. We gather here at Theory Labs with good friends while many are spending this day in jail. And one of the things I am most grateful for is a people who have the courage to give voice to their convictions and beliefs no matter what it costs them...
pansies that have reseeded themselves in my front yard...
For Jules' photo challenge group, March challenge, signs of spring
Planting Herbs in Containers: Oregano, Chives, Thyme, Mints, Basil, Sage, Rosemary, Lavender VIDEO
Gary Pilarchik
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAL2sCXNXpU
It’s my first experience growing an herb garden. Look forward to making Pesto with the basil. I like to make my own salad dressings, so I plan to use my harvested herbs. So excited.
PERENNIAL HERBS – COME BACK YEAR AFTER YEAR. THESE ARE HARDY.
CHIVES
OREGANO
THYME
ANNUALS – DIE AT FIRST FROST. MUST BE RESEEDED.
BASIL
CILANTRO
PARSLEY
Alma Helitack Copter 106 is a UH-1H Super Huey based in the CDF Santa Clara Unit above the Santa Clara Valley in Los Gatos, California. The crew consists of one pilot, two fire captains, and six firefighters. Their primary responsibility is to respond to callouts for initial attack on wildfires and other emergencies.
Copter 106 can deliver a 7-person helitack crew with firefighting hand tools and drop 369 gallons of water from a fixed tank. The helicopter and crew may also be used in a number of other missions including hoist air rescue, aerial ignition, cargo sling load, troop transport, reseeding operations, and mapping.
Alma Helitack responds to approximately 250 fire and emergency calls a year in an area area of over three million acres of state lands and more than 200,000 acres of federal lands within its direct protection area. This area encompasses timber, brush, and grass fuel types and ranges geographically
from San Francisco in the north, to the Monterey Bay in the south, and east to the Central Valley.
Six forty five
And the sun has cut the sky
And the clouds are still bleeding
As mean while I
I drink alone outside the bar
at the end of the world
So this is how it feels
Ten twenty five
And there's a girl with cold eyes
But her stockings are running
And anyway
She's just the end of a melody
that sings to me of you
So this is how it feels
To stand here from the undergrowth
and rediscover emptiness
Dancing on the beach
About two o' five
The bands on fire, it's a pyre
and the bodies are burning
I'm still alive
but as the papers have assured me
I won't be for long
So this is how it feels
So this is how it feels
To walk upon the waves alone
With nothing to conceal
So this is how it feels
To crawl up from the accident
and die beneath your wheels
Nearly four a.m.
I'm just a ripple in the tide
And the tide is reseeding
I really can't pretend
That the end feels like anything
more than a joke
So this is how it feels
So this is how it feels
To throw your past onto the floor
and smash it beneath your heels
So this is how it feels
To catch your face in a broken glass
And know that that's what's real
Six forty five
and the sun has cut the sky
And the clouds are still bleeding
A lovely sunny Sunday evening spent exploring the lovely offerings of the Fife coastline with Rennos (RfEdin). Unfortunately the tide was going out which complicated out plans but plenty scouting was carried out for future reference. This is just a simple Black and white I captured before rapidly reseeded.
Spiraling upward into the sky, semi-silhouetted, this plant and its seeds are not necessarily unique in this aspect in nature. The double helix shape or spiraling design seems to be a mechanism widely used by many plants for opening up ripened seed pods and distributing the seeds upon the landscape.
Best when viewed in LIGHTBOX.
If you like my photo(s), please add me as a Flickr contact!
I promise not to disappoint!
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We planted these from seeds started in the house last year but this year they reseeded themselves everywhere. We had to transplant them to move them where we wanted.
Planting Herbs in Containers: Oregano, Chives, Thyme, Mints, Basil, Sage, Rosemary, Lavender VIDEO
Gary Pilarchik
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAL2sCXNXpU
It’s my first experience growing an herb garden. Look forward to making Pesto with the basil. I like to make my own salad dressings, so I plan to use my harvested herbs. So excited.
PERENNIAL HERBS – COME BACK YEAR AFTER YEAR. THESE ARE HARDY.
CHIVES
OREGANO
THYME
ANNUALS – DIE AT FIRST FROST. MUST BE RESEEDED.
BASIL
CILANTRO
PARSLEY
What the heck is the American Legion? I've been going by American Legion posts for years without ever delving into that question. It's time to shed some light on the subject.
Here's who they are in their own words:
The American Legion was chartered and incorporated by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization devoted to mutual helpfulness. It is the nation’s largest wartime veterans service organization, committed to mentoring youth and sponsorship of wholesome programs in our communities, advocating patriotism and honor, promoting strong national security, and continued devotion to our fellow servicemembers and veterans.
Hundreds of local American Legion programs and activities strengthen the nation one community at a time. American Legion Baseball is one of the nation’s most successful amateur athletic programs, educating young people about the importance of sportsmanship, citizenship and fitness. The Operation Comfort Warriors program supports recovering wounded warriors and their families, providing them with "comfort items" and the kind of support that makes a hospital feel a little bit more like home. The Legion also raises millions of dollars in donations at the local, state and national levels to help veterans and their families during times of need and to provide college scholarship opportunities.
The American Legion is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization with great political influence perpetuated by its grass-roots involvement in the legislation process from local districts to Capitol Hill. Legionnaires’ sense of obligation to community, state and nation drives an honest advocacy for veterans in Washington. The Legion stands behind the issues most important to the nation's veterans community, backed by resolutions passed by volunteer leadership.
The American Legion’s success depends entirely on active membership, participation and volunteerism. The organization belongs to the people it serves and the communities in which it thrives.
=====================
Here's the very long story of Raymond, Washington:
The blanket of old growth forest that covered the Willapa Hills surrounding Raymond, on the Willapa River in Pacific County, fueled the town's growth from a handful of farms to a mill town bustling with trains filled with freshly cut logs, mills running 24 hours a day, and ships laden with lumber bound for the East Coast, South American, San Francisco, and Hawaii in less than a decade after its founding in 1903.
When a combination of overharvesting, environmental laws, and changes in the global market severely reduced logging and milling in the 1980s and 1990s, Raymond residents looked to new, more sustainable ways to utilize the surrounding hills, rivers, and bay to create jobs and sustain their community.
First Peoples
The Willapa River, with headwaters in the Willapa Hills, winds through the Willapa Valley until it is reaches the sea at Willapa Bay. A few miles upstream from the river's mouth, the South Fork of the Willapa joins the main river. Sloughs thread through the lowland forming what is called the Island, though it is not technically completely encircled by water.
Prior to contact with Europeans, three tribes lived around the Willapa's mouth, the Shoalwater (or Willapa) Chinook, the Lower Chehalis, and, seasonally, the Kwalhiloqua. Epidemic diseases brought by European and white American traders wreaked havoc in the Indian communities because they lacked immunities to the diseases. A malaria epidemic in the 1830s, probably brought to the area by sailors who had been in the tropics, decimated tribes in the lower Columbia River region.
After the epidemic, the Kwalhioqua all but disappeared, and the few remaining individuals joined the Willapa Chinook and Lower Chehalis. The northern part of Willapa Bay and the Willapa River formed a boundary between the Chinooks to the south and the Lower Chehalis to the north. The two groups intermarried and traded often.
These are the people who oystermen met when they came to Willapa Bay in the 1850s to harvest shellfish for the San Francisco market. The Indians worked with the oystermen in harvesting the shellfish.
Loggers, Farmers, and Indians
It was not long before the area's forests attracted loggers and sawmill operators. Brothers John (b. ca. 1830) and Valentine Riddell (b. ca. 1817) established a mill at what would become South Bend in 1869. Others followed, included John Adams' mill on the north side of the junction of the Willapa River with the South Fork.
Several farmers staked claims in the vicinity of the junction. The community, known as Riverside, had a school in 1875 and a post office.
The Indians in the area continued to work with oystermen, and in the more recently established salmon canneries and saw mills. They also continued to visit their traditional gathering places for berries and other plant materials.
The tribes had not yet formally agreed to allow the white Americans to live on their land, so, in February 1855, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862) met with the Quinault, Queets, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Shoalwater Bay, Chinook, and Cowlitz tribes at the Chehalis River Treaty Council (at the location of Cosmopolis today). The tribes did not object to ceding their lands, but once they heard the terms of the treaty they rejected the provision that required them to move to a shared reservation away from their traditional lands with the location of the reservation to be determined later. The tribes refused to accept those conditions and Stevens left without an agreement.
The absence of a treaty did not prevent white settlers from claiming lands along the Willapa River, thereby leaving less and less room for the Indians to live. On September 22, 1866 President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) established the Shoalwater Bay Tribes Reservation by reserving 335 acres near Tokeland for the Lower Chehalis and Willapa Chinook who lived along Willapa Bay. The reservation is and has been used by a number of the tribes' members, but many also live in the surrounding communities (and elsewhere).
Raymond is Formed
In 1889 the promise of a Northern Pacific Railway terminus in South Bend, just downstream from the river junction, led to a land boom. Lots in South Bend and along the river in both directions sold for incredible profits until 1893 when a national financial panic led to a bust in South Bend. South Bend had the county seat and retained the railroad and some operating mills, but a grant of land to the Northern Pacific on the waterfront tied up many of its choicest industrial sites.
Upriver, at the river junction, a group of residents, some with Homestead Act claims and others who had bought land at low prices following the bust in South Bend, formed the Raymond Land and Development Company in 1903.
Incorporators of the land company included Leslie (1874-1961) (often referred to as L. V.) and Stella (1875-1960) Raymond, who had a farm on the Island. Stella had inherited the land from her father, Captain George Johnson (1823-1882), who had established a Homestead Act Claim for almost 179 acres. Presumably Johnson or the Raymonds purchased part of their holdings, because they brought 310 acres to the partnership.
L. V. and Stella, who married in 1897, moved to the farm in 1899 and Raymond became the name of the town that grew up on and around their land. L. V. served as the town's first postmaster, first Northern Pacific Railway agent, and developed a water system for the town. The Raymonds donated land and their time to community projects, such as a playfield and the fire department. A bequest from the Raymonds established the Raymond Foundation in 1962 as a non-profit organization to fund scholarships and community development projects.
Building a River Town
Alexander C. Little (1860-1932) was also a partner in the land company. After a career in local and state politics that included serving as Aberdeen's mayor, helping elect Governor John R. Rogers, and serving on the State Fisheries Commission, in 1903 Little decided to shift to the private sector. According to Pacific County historian Douglas Allen, "Raymond was named for L. V. but from the beginning A.C. Little formed the character of the town" (Allen, 65).
According to Allen, Little contributed two key elements to the town's success. First, he recommended that the land company offer free riverfront lots to mills, thereby ensuring an economic foundation for the town. Second, Little brought Harry C. Heermans (1852-1943) into the partnership. Heermans's engineering background helped solve issues associated with building a town on a river. The sloughs that laced the land rose and fell with the tides, but uphill development would have taken mills too far from the riverfront. Besides, the hills surrounding the river junction rose abruptly and would have posed their own engineering challenges.
Other incorporators of the land company included J. B. Duryea, Winfield S. Cram (b.1866), and John T. Welsh (1866-1954). A second land company, the Great West Land Company, also formed in 1903, had some of the same investors and also worked to develop the town.
In 1903, the first mill, operated by Jacob Siler and Winfield Cram, began operations. Several more mills, including the West Coast Veneer & Manufacturing Company mill run by Little, followed and businesses grew up nearby.
On April 16, 1904, the Raymond Land Company filed a plat for the town of Raymond. The business district consisted of a store, a saloon, and a mess house that served mill workers. A drug store and hotel were coming soon.
Lots Sold by the Gallon
To allow people to cross the water-sodden landscape, the town constructed 2,900 feet of elevated wooden sidewalks. These sidewalks ran down either side of what would become 1st Street, which was really an open space onto which the buildings fronted. Additional wooden sidewalks crossed the void at regular intervals.
Lillian Smith (1875-1960), a teacher from Michigan who came to teach in Raymond for a year not long after the town's founding, remembered her first impressions of the town,
"At first I seemed to be crossing the river no matter what street I took. It was like losing oneself with Alice on the other side of the Looking Glass where you had to keep going in order to stand still, and vice versa. Imagine streets like long bridges built on piles driven into the slough (pronounced slu). Wooden railings on either side, and beyond these narrower wooden bridges of sidewalk width, these too with railings — a perfect maze of railings, necessary to keep careless pedestrians from falling into the slough" (Smith, 3).
Still, the town's location provided enough benefits to outweigh the difficulties of being what Smith called, "an amphibious town" (Smith, 6). It was located at the head of navigable waters, close to the bay and to the forests that fed its mills. It also had access to the Northern Pacific Railway, without having had to give up its waterfront lots the way South Bend had.
Navigation on the river depended on assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers. Early in its history Willapa Bay was known as Shoalwater Bay because of its many shallow areas. These made ideal oyster grounds, but limited ships' access to ports. The Corps, under the provisions of several different Rivers and Harbors Acts, had dredged the river up to Willapa City, just upstream from the Raymond townsite, and kept it clear of snags. The Corps also maintained a channel through the bar at the mouth of the bay.
Businesses besides lumber mills diversified the economy. In 1907 Stewart L. Dennis (1873-1952) and Perry W. Shepard (b. ca. 1871) formed a transfer company that would become an important retail business in Pacific County, now known as the Dennis Company, and John W. Dickie and his son, David, came to Raymond to establish a boatyard.
The Dickies had worked in the San Francisco Bay area and, according to local historian Ina E. Dickie, came to Raymond because the more-isolated Willapa Bay offered better access to lumber and to employees who accepted lower wages and had not yet formed unions. Dickie & Son built steamships -- the first was the Willapa -- at Raymond over the next several years. All were built for the coastwise lumber trade, which was booming following the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco.
On August 6, 1907, voters approved a measure to incorporate the town of Raymond. A handful of residents resisted the town's boundaries because they included some outlying farms in anticipation of the town's growth.
Little served as the first mayor, an office he would hold for 10 of the next 11 years. When asked in 1910 to serve as president of the Southwest Washington Development Association, Little replied that he was "disqualified because of his partiality for the place where lots are sold by the gallon at high tide" ("Southwest Part of the State Unites").
A Lumber Town
The first council consisted of seven men: C. Frank Cathcart, president of Raymond Transfer and Storage and Northern Pacific agent, Winfield S. Cram, Timothy H. Donovan, superintendent of the Pacific & Eastern Railway and Sunset Timber Company, Floyd Lewis, real estate agent, Charles Myers, sawyer at the Siler Mill, L. V. Raymond, and Willard G. Shumway a clerk. P. T. Johnson served as the first treasurer and Neal Stupp as the clerk and secretary.
By 1910 the population had increased to 2,540, but that was just the start of the flood of new residents. In 1911, there were about 5,000 people in Raymond. They were needed for the kind of production boasted of by a promotional brochure from 1912. It lists the output of the towns mills for the previous year as 27,834,779 board feet of lumber, 226,712,250 shingles, 105 million berry baskets (made from veneer), and 33 million pieces of lath for plaster walls. The newcomers included business people, mill owners, mill workers, and loggers from all parts of the world.
Labor v. Capital
The 1910s, although economically prosperous, saw a series of disputes between labor unions and mill owners up and down the West Coast. Working conditions in the lumber industry were dismal and lumber workers struck for better wages and better logging camp conditions.
On March 25, 1912, mill workers in Raymond walked off the job to prevent the lumber companies from using their Raymond mills to replace lost production at Grays Harbor mills, where workers had begun a strike two weeks earlier. The town's business community's response was swift and severe. They held a meeting the second day of the strike. A. C. Little led the discussion, railing against the strike's organizers, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. The meeting participants decided that they should protect "any man who might want to work" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills"). To that stated end, several committees formed to support the effort. Over the next several days the sheriff swore in 460 deputies to "protect property and the working men" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").
To prevent the mill workers from gathering, the city closed all the saloons and brothels for the duration of the strikes. Likewise, three "Socialists speakers," were arrested upon disembarking the Raymond depot ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").
A few days later, on March 30, 1912, the mill owners blew their whistles for the start of work. Anyone who did not heed to the call found themselves and their families rounded up by about 200 men with rifles and shotguns and loaded onto a railroad car bound for Centralia. The South Bend Journal identified those who refused to work as Finns and Greeks.
The Greek workers were taken to Centralia, where the Greek consul from Tacoma, Hans Heldner, met them and protested their treatment. The Finns had been removed by boat to Nahcotta. From there they traveled on to Astoria where there was a large Finnish American community. After the strike ended, the South Bend Journal said that the Greek mill workers asked to return, but, "American flags have been hoisted on the mills and only Americans or civilized foreigners need apply" ("Agitators Banished from Raymond"). Other strikes would come to Raymond and labor unions led fights for improved safety, better conditions, and higher pay.
Despite labor problems, the mills kept prospering in Raymond. In 1912 there were 14 mills in operation. They used an average of 50 railroad cars full of logs from logging camps in the surrounding fills. The mills produced an average of 20 railroad cars a day of lumber and other forest products. These included shingles, cascara bark, used for medications, doors, and window frames.
Growth and Development
In 1912 the town also started to fill the sloughs that ran through town so residents could have actual streets and so that houses would not flood at high tide. In 1915 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began passenger and freight service between Raymond and Puget Sound. The mayors of Raymond and South Bend presented the railroad's representatives with a wooden key "symbolical [sic] of the freedom of Willapa Harbor" (Krantz). The train service was a vital link between the Willapa River towns and the interior of Washington. Not until 1917 would a road through the Willapa Hills open. The precursor of State Route 6, it was not reliably useable. It featured steep switchbacks and its gravel surface routinely suffered from water damage.
The late 1910s saw Raymond operating at full bore. Six saw mills, two veneer plants, a box factory, five shingle mills, and a woodworking plant were joined by the Sanderson & Porter shipyard, which employed 1,000 workers in building ships for the United States Navy during World War I. In the postwar era, the population dropped to about 4,500.
Port of Willapa Harbor
In 1928 residents of Raymond joined with South Bend to form the Port of Willapa Harbor, a public port district. The Port built a public dock on land between Raymond and South Bend that allowed smaller sawmills access to the river. This facilitated the transport of logs, which could be floated down the river from logging camps in the Willapa Hills, and the shipping of finished lumber. Before the public dock was completed in 1930, sawmills and other forest-products factories that did not have riverfront property had to send their goods to Grays Harbor or Puget Sound via the railroad, adding significantly to transport costs and time.
The Port dedicated the dock on October 8, 1930, and the city of South Bend dedicated a reconstructed city dock and improved slip. The same day, state highway officials led a celebration of the opening of Highway 101 between Aberdeen and Raymond-South Bend. For the first time travelers could follow a road through the Willapa Hills to the north of South Bend. It also connected Aberdeen with Ilwaco and the Long Beach Peninsula. This provided drivers with a direct route to the ferries that crossed the Columbia River to Astoria.
The Port's dock housed a sawmill, owned first by Ralph Tozier (1920-2005) and then Ben Cheney (1905-1971), who owned Cheney Lumber Company. According to Med Nicholson, writing in the Sou'wester, in 1945, Cheney was faced with a problem of wasted wood that resulted from cutting logs for ties. In order to square up the logs, large slabs were cut off each of four sides. Cheney had the insight that the slabs were eight feet long (the length of railroad ties) and house ceilings were eight and one-half feet tall. At the time home builders were buying studs in 10- and 12-foot lengths and cutting them down, also resulting in a lot of wasted wood. Cheney cut the slabs into a "Cheney Stud," what are now known as eight-foot two-by-four and sold them to home builders. Eight-foot ceilings became standard in houses, "putting to use an enormous amount of formerly wasted timber and incidentally saving American homeowners uncounted millions of dollars in heating expense" ("The Ben Cheney Story," 10).
Raymond's Great Depression
Unfortunately, the advantages presented by the new port and highway were hampered by the Great Depression. The economic downturn resulted in drastically decreased demand for lumber and Raymond residents struggled to find jobs. The decline of the Great Depression would reduce the town's population to 4,000. A steady decline after the Depression brought the population to just under 3,000 by 1990, where it has stayed since.
Though circumstances improved slightly when Weyerhaeuser purchased two mills in Raymond and one in South Bend and reorganized them in 1931, larger economic forces made it nearly impossible for commerce to continue in Raymond. In 1932 the Raymond Chamber of Commerce, faced with a near stoppage of business following the failure of the First Willapa Harbor National Bank, printed its own currency called "oyster money" to carry people over until real money became available again.
The Port of Willapa Harbor continued its efforts to improve the port's facilities. The Army Corps of Engineers carried out at federally funded dredging and channel straightening project on the river in 1936. The dredge spoils created Jensen Island and the new channel allowed deeper-draft boats to reach Raymond.
Logging and Lumber
A 1954 report by Nathaniel H. Engle and Delbert C. Hastings of the University of Washington's Bureau of Business Research, draws an interesting portrait of Pacific County's average male citizen as delineated by the 1950 Federal Census:
"Mr. Average Citizen of Pacific County, at the last census, 1950, was white and 33 years of age. He had had two years of high school education. He was employed as a laborer or an operative in the lumber industry. His income for the year was about $3,042. He was married and had two children. He lived in a 4 or 5 room house in good condition, with hot and cold running water, toilet, and bath. He had mechanical refrigeration, and a radio, but no central heating. His home was worth close to $4,000 and was owned clear of debt. Thus Pacific County's average citizen rates as a substantial American wage earner, somewhat better off, on the whole, than the average American, although not quite up to the average in Washington state" (Engle and Hastings, 5).
The lumber industry supported a significant number of these "average" residents. Where Grays Harbor had nearly cleared much its surrounding forest lands in the 1920s, Pacific County still had considerable standing timber in the 1950s. In 1951 more than 66 million board feet of logs and more than 90 million board feet of lumber left Raymond on ships and railroad cars. This may have been the result of a high concentration of ownership by large companies such as Weyerhaeuser, which owned 380 square miles (nearly half of the county), Crown-Zellerbach, owner of 60 square miles, and Rayonier, owner of 50 square miles.
Engle and Hastings described the logging companies' success as resulting from the companies' willingness to use sustained yield practices, rather than cutting the forests as quickly as the mills could cut the logs. Sustained yield did lead to more selective and more reseeding, but it did not maintain forests that could support diverse ecosystems because most of the reseeding was of single, productive species such as Douglas fir. Wildlife populations were further damaged by hunting programs designed to eliminate animals such as deer or bear that browsed on seedlings and new growth on older trees.
In 1954 and 1955, Weyerhaeuser carried out a two-part renovation of the old Willapa Lumber Company mill that it had acquired in 1931. First they replaced all the mill's facilities and then they rebuilt the mill itself. This mill, known as Mill W, remains in operation in 2010, the last softwood lumber mill in operation in Raymond,
In the 1970s the region saw another lumber boom. According to Richard Buck, of The Seattle Times, a new generation of baby boomers began buying houses, which increased the demand for lumber, leading to increased competition and prices. Prices reached $337 per 1,000 board feet.
The next decade, the declines in the national economy devastated the local economy rather than driving it. Prices dropped by two-thirds to $102 per 1,000 board feet in 1985. According to Buck this was due to a decline in housing starts and the increase in the value of the dollar and interest rates, which made Canadian lumber cheaper. Also, deregulation of the transportation industry increased the disadvantage West Coast lumber mills had compared to Southern and Midwestern lumber mills' proximity to East Coast markets.
In addition to the economic forces battering the lumber industry, in the late 1980s the local environment could no longer support the intense logging of the previous century. Historical overharvest and increased environmental regulations reduced the acreage of public forestland open to logging. In 1990, the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. With the owl's listing, communities in Pacific County had to adjust to reduced logging and fewer jobs at the area's sawmills. The effects of the environmental regulations were compounded by plant modernization, which also led to fewer jobs in the mills. Many smaller mills could not compete with the larger companies' more efficient mills and a number went out of business.
The closure of the federal forests combined with changes in how Weyerhaeuser managed its lands and utilized mills in Pacific County led to the closure of numerous mills. This, in turn, led to fewer jobs in the forest products industry, as well as other sectors of the county's economy.
According to a Seattle Times article, "Some residents liken the area to a Third World nation, an underdeveloped colony whose resources are removed by 'foreign' corporations. Weyerhaeuser, they note, owns more than 50 percent of the land in Pacific County" (Hatch). Additionally, they accused Weyerhaeuser of using profits gained in Pacific County to build the very mills in the American South, where wages were lower, that undermined the viability of Raymond's mills. Although there is certainly a component of anger at outside companies taking a tremendous amount of natural resources out of the surrounding hills without investing a significant portion of the resulting profits in the local community, this sentiment also reflects the frustration that resulted from one company owning so much of the county's land and making decisions driven by the global market.
Strategies for Change
Raymond residents have created multiple strategies to address the changes to the regional economy. When one mill, the Mayr Brothers sawmill, closed in 1986, the Port of Willapa Harbor bought the land and buildings and leased them to Pacific Hardwoods. When that mill closed in 2001, a group of Raymond investors banded together and reopened it as Willapa Bay Hardwoods, employing 35 people. It planned to cut 17.5 million board feet a year, a far more sustainable volume than during the boom years.
The Port of Willapa Harbor has been involved in other economic development projects. The Port developed two industrial parks and received grants to construct light manufacturing buildings at one of the industrial parks and at the Port dock. A variety of industries have leased Port buildings, including a chitosan (a natural polymer produced from shellfish shells) producer, seafood processors, and an airplane prototype design company. Additionally, some of the buildings are used by retail stores, including a saw shop and a health club.
The Raymond community, in conjunction with the city government and the Port of Willapa Harbor, has developed attractions that will draw tourists to the region as a way to build the economy. The former railroad bed across the Willapa Hills has been turned into a hiking and biking trail. The city has begun redeveloping its riverfront and a regional consortium developed the Willapa Water Trail, which small boats can follow to explore Willapa Bay.
Over the past century the environment in and around Raymond has attracted people, many of whom have sought to remove as much of it as possible for sale in markets far from Pacific County. The town's future lies in a more sustainable use of those resources, including the intangible ones that have to be experienced in person.
These are now established in the forest, flowering wonderfully and reseeding themselves . . . . . . photo KR
Original Caption: Sweet Clover and Orchard Grass Seed Are Poured Into A Bulldozer-Pulled Seeder Which Will Spread It 450 Pounds to the Acre the Land Is Being Reseeded after Strip Mining by Coal Companies in Southeastern Ohio. Off Route #800 near Morristown. 07/1974
U.S. National Archives’ Local Identifier: 412-DA-13168
Photographer: Calonius, Erik
Subjects:
Morristown (Athens county, Ohio, United States) inhabited place
Environmental Protection Agency
Project DOCUMERICA
Persistent URL: research.archives.gov/description/555620
Repository: Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S), National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001.
For information about ordering reproductions of photographs held by the Still Picture Unit, visit: www.archives.gov/research/order/still-pictures.html
Reproductions may be ordered via an independent vendor. NARA maintains a list of vendors at www.archives.gov/research/order/vendors-photos-maps-dc.html
Buy copies of selected National Archives photographs and documents at the National Archives Print Shop online: gallery.pictopia.com/natf/photo/
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
Public Domain. Suggested image credit: NASA/JSC. . For more information Visit NASA's Multimedia Gallery You may wish to consult NASA's
image use guidelines. If you plan to use an image and especially if you are considering any commercial usage, you should be aware that some restrictions may apply.
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Additional information from source:
Guanaja Island is located in the western Caribbean, approximately 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) north of mainland Honduras. The island is near the western edge of the Cayman Ridge, a topographic feature made of rock types that indicate ancient volcanic islands, sedimentary layers, and ocean crust. The ridge resulted from tectonic interactions between the North American, South American, and Caribbean Plates. Guanaja and the nearby islands of Roatan and Utila (not shown) are the only portions of the western Cayman Ridge currently exposed above water.
The island is notable for being largely undeveloped—the exception being highly concentrated development on Bonacca Cay, a small island (roughly 0.5 by 0.3 kilometers) located along the southeastern coastline of the main island. The main island has little in the way of roads or other infrastructure—a canal is the major means of traversing the island—making it an attractive destination for hikers and eco-tourists. The clear waters and reefs that almost completely encircle Guanaja also attract divers.
In 1998, Hurricane Mitch destroyed almost all of the island’s mangrove forests, devastating coastal habitats and causing soil erosion. Regeneration of mangroves is slow, and scientists have suggested active reseeding efforts as the only way to restore the forests.
Astronaut photograph ISS014-E-15767 was acquired March 1, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera using a 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
The Ponil Complex Fire started on June 2, 2002. Valiant efforts by 1,342 fire fighter personnel, 13 water dropping helicopters, 31 engines, 24 bulldozers, and 12 water tenders contained the fire by June 17th.
The burn zone covered 92,000 acres (370 km2) total; 28,000 acres (110 km2) of Philmont Scout Ranch, 4,000 acres (16 km2) of the Baker Wildlife Area, 25,000 acres (100 km2) of the Valle Vidal, 20,000 acres (81 km2) of the WS Ranch and 15,000 acres (61 km2) of the UU Bar Ranch. One third of the burn zone was totally burned while another third was only lightly to moderately burned. About one third of the burn zone escaped relatively unharmed, due to being sections of valleys that the fire jumped over or being not as dried out and likely to burn because of nearby water.
The burn zone is currently revegetating, some areas of which were reseeded while others began recovering naturally.
Circle Dance: According to source Annawon Weedon, this is Ginew Benton, of the Shinnecock and Ojibwe Nations.
Shinnecock Reservation, L.I., NY: Labour Day Powwow, September 2006.
********************************************************************************************
Shinnecock Tribe
Rte 27-A, Montauk Hwy
Southhampton, NY 111968
631-283-6143
State recognized; (no BIA office liason - seriously ridiculous!)
********************************************************************************************
Shinnecock Indian Nation: An Ancient History and Culture.
Since the beginning, Shinnecock time has been measured in moons and seasons, and the daily lives of our people revolved around the land and the waters surrounding it. Our earliest history was oral, passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, and as far back as our collective memory can reach, we are an Algonquin people who have forever lived along the shores of Eastern Long Island.
Scientists say we came here on caribou hunts when the land was covered with ice. But our creation story says we were born here; that we are the human children of the goddess who descended from the sky. It was she, the story goes, who caused the land to form beneath her feet from the back of Great Turtle, deer to spring forth from her fingertips; bear to roar into awakening, wolf to prowl on the first hunt. It was she who filled the sky with birds, made the land to blossom and the ponds and bays to fill with fish and mollusks. And when all was done, the Shinnecock, the People of the Shore, appeared in this lush terrain. We are still here.
As coastal dwellers, we continue to prize the bounty of the sea, the shellfish, the scaly fish, which for thousands of years provided the bulk of our diet. We were whalers, challenging the mighty Atlantic from our dugout canoes long before the arrival of the big ships, long before the whaling industry flourished in the 19th century.
In the 1700's, we became noted among the northeastern coastal tribes for our fine beads made from the Northern quahog clam and whelk shells. The Dutch, who arrived on our shores before the English, turned our beads (wampum) into the money system for the colonies.
The Shinnecock Nation is among the oldest self-governing tribes of Indians in the United States and has been a state-recognized tribe for over 200 years. In 1978, we applied for Federal Recognition, and in 2003, we were placed on the Bureau of Indian Affairs' "Ready for Active" list.
Traditionally, decisions concerning the welfare of the tribe were made by consensus of adult male members. Seeking to shortcut the consensus process in order to more easily facilitate the acquisition of Indian lands, the Town of Southampton devised a three member trustee system for the Shinnecock people. This system of tribal government was approved by the New York State legislature in February of 1792. Since April 3, 1792, Shinnecock Indians have gone to the Southampton Town Hall the first Tuesday after the first Monday in April to elect three tribal members to serve a one- year term as Trustees. In April of 2007, the Shinnecock Indian Nation exercised its sovereign right as an ancient Indian Nation and returned to one of its basic Traditions: it bypassed the Southampton Town Hall and for the first time since 1792 held its leadership elections at home, where they will remain.
The Trustee system, however, did not then and does not now circumvent the consensus process, which still remains the governing process of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Major decisions concerning the tribe are voted yea or nay by all eligible adult members, including women, who gained the right to vote in the mid-1990s. Also in that period, the Shinnecock Nation installed a Tribal Council, a 13 member body elected for two years terms. The Council is an advisory body to the Board of Trustees.
Today, we number over 1300 people, more than 600 of whom reside on the reservation adjacent to the Town of Southampton on the East End of Long Island. While our ancestral lands have dwindled over the centuries from a territory stretching at least from what is known today as the Town of Easthampton and westward to the eastern border of the Town of Brookhaven, we still hold on to approximately 1200 acres.
With modest resources, we have managed to build a community to help us better meet the demands of an ever expanding and intrusive world. In addition to the Shinnecock Presbyterian church building and its Manse, our infrastructure includes a tribal community center, a shellfish hatchery, a health and dental center, a family preservation and Indian education center, a museum, and playgrounds for our children. Also on our list of recent achievements is the design and development of an official Shinnecock Indian Nation flag and an official seal.
Our skilled craftspeople and fine artists find employment within the Tribe as well as the surrounding area. The number of tribal members holding advanced degrees in law, business, medicine, social sciences and liberal arts continues to grow, and tribal members hold positions of responsibility in all areas, including teaching, banking and counseling, both within and outside the Shinnecock community.
One of the earliest forms of economic development that the Shinnecock Nation undertook was to lease Reservation acreage to local area farmers for their crops, mainly potatoes and corn. While the project did bring in a small income for the Tribe, the resulting damages from pesticides leaking into the ground water and polluting our drinking water supply were enormous. We had great expectations for our shellfish hatchery (Oyster Project) but brown tide and general pollution forced it to close before it had the chance to develop into the business enterprise it was planned to be. In the summer of 2005, the Tribe began reseeding parts of its waterways with oysters, and celebrated a renewal harvest of Shinnecock chunkoo oysters at the Tribal Thanksgiving Dinner, November 2006.
At the present moment, the Shinnecock annual Powwow is the economic development project of record for the Shinnecock Nation. Revived in 1946 as a benefit for our church, the Powwow has evolved into an event that hosts thousands of visitors. But we are at the mercy of the weather. For the past two years, rainstorms have forced us to drastically revise our budgeting plans. We are now exploring Indian Gaming as a means of attaining the much needed self-sufficiency that will enable us to perform the sacred duties laid out for us by the Ancestors — to protect, manage and maintain the Shinnecock Indian Nation.
By Bevy Deer Jensen
Shinnecock Nation Communications Officer
*********************************************************************************************
For more information on the Shinnecock Nation, please visit: www.shinnecocknation.com/
*********************************************************************************************
photography: a. golden, eyewash design, c. 2006.
First steps towards a significant and thoughtful rehabilitation of the Jay landscape have been discussed for almost twenty years and are now visibly taking shape!
Following numerous presentations to stakeholders, Larry Weaner and his design team are now executing the proposal they prepared specifically for the Jay site - with a goal of increasing biodiversity and providing greater access to open space and cultural heritage for the community, they will reverse an unhealthy monoculture behind the mansion and create an inviting meadow habitat for birds, insects and smaller mammals.
Identifying what he has called a "Confluence of Centuries," Larry Weaner's design will also preserve the imprints of many natural and human inhabitants from the Indigenous era through an estate period that included slave ownership up to contemporary usage. Etched memorial stones telling these stories will be laid in a mown path through the meadow
Donations for the meadow continue to come in slowly but surely; as of November, these funds have allowed us to cut, rake and dispose of two acres of invasive mugwort. Reseeding the area with native grasses and wildflowers is the next step! Specimens that have been selected for us including Nodding Pink Onion and Purple Lovegrass.
Lastly, two dead beech trees have been removed and will be replaced with healthy new saplings in the spring together with a new elm tree pledged by the Rye Garden Club through the Garden Club of America!
Want to help us move this project forward? Make a donation today and earmark it for the Jay meadow. The funds will be put towards the next round of live plug plantings in Spring and Fall 2017. THANK YOU!
Please help us with your donation made payable to:
Jay Heritage Center
210 Boston Post Road
Rye, NY 10580
(914) 698-9275
Email: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
Follow and like us on:
Twitter @jayheritage
Facebook www.facebook.com/jayheritagecenter
Instagram @jayheritagecenter
I have been delving into the history of this area of Clune Woods, above Loch Ness. Until about 1870 this area was pine forest. It seems that between that date and just after 1900, the pines were gradually cut down and a degree of natural birch regeneration took place. Between 1902 and 1907, nearly all the trees were removed, turning this area into heather moorland. The areas around where this photo was taken, were afforested, with plantations of Larch, Sitka Spruce and immediately adjacent, Scots Pine, but this particular part was left to it's own devices with the odd mature tree left standing; these are the Grannie Pines of ancient origin, and a few are still there dotted throughout the wood, both living and as standing deadwood. There are the remains of a farmstead and well here which is probably why this was not part of the surrounding plantations. These plantations have come and gone, the legacy being the natural reseeding of mainly Scots Pine but also the odd Sitka, Larch and Birch. There are a mixture of Caledonian type Pines - with multiple trunks and spreading branches - and more modern plantation pines with single trunks and a taller, narrower aspect. There are other natural trees amongst the planted, like Holly (there is a huge one nearby, with the biggest girth of trunk that I can recall seeing), Rowan and some impressive Juniper. There are also some massive Beech trees close to another ruinous farmstead further down the hill towards Loch Ness. It looks like the plantations of the alien species are being systematically harvested, along with random areas of the plantation pines, perhaps as a rewilding project. I note that these woods were part of the Aldourie Estate in 1866, with Aldourie Castle now in the hands of the Danish rewilder, Anders Povlsen.
Circle Dance: According to source Annawon Weedon, this is Ginew Benton, of the Shinnecock and Ojibwe Nations.
Shinnecock Reservation, L.I., NY: Labour Day Powwow, September 2006.
********************************************************************************************
Shinnecock Tribe
Rte 27-A, Montauk Hwy
Southhampton, NY 111968
631-283-6143
State recognized; (no BIA office liason - seriously ridiculous!)
********************************************************************************************
Shinnecock Indian Nation: An Ancient History and Culture.
Since the beginning, Shinnecock time has been measured in moons and seasons, and the daily lives of our people revolved around the land and the waters surrounding it. Our earliest history was oral, passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, and as far back as our collective memory can reach, we are an Algonquin people who have forever lived along the shores of Eastern Long Island.
Scientists say we came here on caribou hunts when the land was covered with ice. But our creation story says we were born here; that we are the human children of the goddess who descended from the sky. It was she, the story goes, who caused the land to form beneath her feet from the back of Great Turtle, deer to spring forth from her fingertips; bear to roar into awakening, wolf to prowl on the first hunt. It was she who filled the sky with birds, made the land to blossom and the ponds and bays to fill with fish and mollusks. And when all was done, the Shinnecock, the People of the Shore, appeared in this lush terrain. We are still here.
As coastal dwellers, we continue to prize the bounty of the sea, the shellfish, the scaly fish, which for thousands of years provided the bulk of our diet. We were whalers, challenging the mighty Atlantic from our dugout canoes long before the arrival of the big ships, long before the whaling industry flourished in the 19th century.
In the 1700's, we became noted among the northeastern coastal tribes for our fine beads made from the Northern quahog clam and whelk shells. The Dutch, who arrived on our shores before the English, turned our beads (wampum) into the money system for the colonies.
The Shinnecock Nation is among the oldest self-governing tribes of Indians in the United States and has been a state-recognized tribe for over 200 years. In 1978, we applied for Federal Recognition, and in 2003, we were placed on the Bureau of Indian Affairs' "Ready for Active" list.
Traditionally, decisions concerning the welfare of the tribe were made by consensus of adult male members. Seeking to shortcut the consensus process in order to more easily facilitate the acquisition of Indian lands, the Town of Southampton devised a three member trustee system for the Shinnecock people. This system of tribal government was approved by the New York State legislature in February of 1792. Since April 3, 1792, Shinnecock Indians have gone to the Southampton Town Hall the first Tuesday after the first Monday in April to elect three tribal members to serve a one- year term as Trustees. In April of 2007, the Shinnecock Indian Nation exercised its sovereign right as an ancient Indian Nation and returned to one of its basic Traditions: it bypassed the Southampton Town Hall and for the first time since 1792 held its leadership elections at home, where they will remain.
The Trustee system, however, did not then and does not now circumvent the consensus process, which still remains the governing process of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Major decisions concerning the tribe are voted yea or nay by all eligible adult members, including women, who gained the right to vote in the mid-1990s. Also in that period, the Shinnecock Nation installed a Tribal Council, a 13 member body elected for two years terms. The Council is an advisory body to the Board of Trustees.
Today, we number over 1300 people, more than 600 of whom reside on the reservation adjacent to the Town of Southampton on the East End of Long Island. While our ancestral lands have dwindled over the centuries from a territory stretching at least from what is known today as the Town of Easthampton and westward to the eastern border of the Town of Brookhaven, we still hold on to approximately 1200 acres.
With modest resources, we have managed to build a community to help us better meet the demands of an ever expanding and intrusive world. In addition to the Shinnecock Presbyterian church building and its Manse, our infrastructure includes a tribal community center, a shellfish hatchery, a health and dental center, a family preservation and Indian education center, a museum, and playgrounds for our children. Also on our list of recent achievements is the design and development of an official Shinnecock Indian Nation flag and an official seal.
Our skilled craftspeople and fine artists find employment within the Tribe as well as the surrounding area. The number of tribal members holding advanced degrees in law, business, medicine, social sciences and liberal arts continues to grow, and tribal members hold positions of responsibility in all areas, including teaching, banking and counseling, both within and outside the Shinnecock community.
One of the earliest forms of economic development that the Shinnecock Nation undertook was to lease Reservation acreage to local area farmers for their crops, mainly potatoes and corn. While the project did bring in a small income for the Tribe, the resulting damages from pesticides leaking into the ground water and polluting our drinking water supply were enormous. We had great expectations for our shellfish hatchery (Oyster Project) but brown tide and general pollution forced it to close before it had the chance to develop into the business enterprise it was planned to be. In the summer of 2005, the Tribe began reseeding parts of its waterways with oysters, and celebrated a renewal harvest of Shinnecock chunkoo oysters at the Tribal Thanksgiving Dinner, November 2006.
At the present moment, the Shinnecock annual Powwow is the economic development project of record for the Shinnecock Nation. Revived in 1946 as a benefit for our church, the Powwow has evolved into an event that hosts thousands of visitors. But we are at the mercy of the weather. For the past two years, rainstorms have forced us to drastically revise our budgeting plans. We are now exploring Indian Gaming as a means of attaining the much needed self-sufficiency that will enable us to perform the sacred duties laid out for us by the Ancestors — to protect, manage and maintain the Shinnecock Indian Nation.
By Bevy Deer Jensen
Shinnecock Nation Communications Officer
*********************************************************************************************
For more information on the Shinnecock Nation, please visit: www.shinnecocknation.com/
*********************************************************************************************
photography: a. golden, eyewash design, c. 2006.
It was a busy month – my dear friend Bob was having some weird delusions. It turned out to be a tumour on his brain. They operated, removed it, and he bounced back the next day. Any operation at the age of 95 is serious, but brain surgery? Still, he was bright as a penny the next day, and eating mountains of food. Bob is my hero!!
In any case, I didn’t do any photo walks or interesting new techniques. I did grab a used bounce flash for $50, which is quite exciting. Four explores, but only one of them was a “We're Here!” shot. lol
Onion Burger With Kale, 2. Inflation!, 3. Odd N Out, 4. What's Your Angle?, 5. Thoughts on Reseeding the Lawn, 6. Is that an onion in your bra or…, 7. Our Garden Shed, 8. Risk of Shredding, 9. Don’t Take Your Onion For Granite, 10. Dr. Helga’s Early Lab Work, 11. Fata Morgana Effect, 12. Breakfast Conflict, 13. Furniture Store Anniversary, 14. Off The Grid, 15. Strange Things Afoot on the Seabus, 16. Bartender at the “Clown ’N Cleaver”, 17. Somewhat Symmetrical, 18. H is for Hostess Gift, 19. I Have Sunshine on a Cloudy Day, 20. Garden Surveillance, 21. Ding Dong! Avon Calling!, 22. Down The Garden Path, 23. Five-Dollar Lamp, 24. Five O’Clock, 25. Jarlsberg, 26. Ever Hopeful, 27. Men At Work, 28. Souvenir of Canada, 29. A Farewell to Arms, 30. The Beet Nebula, 31. Dr. Helga’s Early Work Merging Music with String Theory
The morning after I am still processing what I witnessed last night. As I sat at home watching the live feeds from citizen journalists, I saw that the protest was not more than a mile from me. I knew I had to go. This was history in the making. To not see that is, is to not see the social and power dynamics at play. People have finally said "Enough."
So I set out on foot about 7PM. I didn't know where they had gone since my cell phone had died that morning and couldn't check the Twitter feed. So I looked for the helicopters. And sure enough I had found them.
There is an arrest technique called "kettling." It's when law enforcement cordons off a group of people with no way to escape even if they simply want to go home. And that was in full effect when I arrived at 6th and Hope.
The protest was peaceful. They were angry and rightfully so, but they were peaceful. And they sent in an army....
It was like watching some scene from a movie where society has broken down. The police force was in the hundreds....HUNDREDS. Streets and sidewalks were closed for blocks around. There was no way to get to those who were trapped even if you wanted to. I along with other protestors who got separated, watched as the busses moved in for the mass arrest as more and more police cars blazed by and the noose closed. All I could think was, "This is happening in my city. This is real. This is real."
And we can't go back from this. What was not normal is now normal. When something like this occurs, it cannot unoccur. A line moves that can never be moved back. And as I photographed what was before me, and talking with many people who watched helplessly, my heart quietly broke. Things will be different after this. You won't see it at first, but it will be different.
And I spoke with officers as well. They didn't want to be there either. Most are good men and women who are doing a job that is necessary. But they are part of a power structure that demands they stand with billy clubs against peaceful people on the night before Thanksgiving. They don't make the call to close down public sidewalks. These decisions are made from on high hoping that people will eventually just give in and be quiet.
But from what I witnessed people will not be quiet. The question is, like with Occupy, how many will remain silent? Nobody wants to go to jail. But to jail you will go even if you raise your voice peacefully. Where do we go from here?
I don't have an answer for this. I watched as Occupy died, the grass reseeded at City Hall and it's as if nothing ever happened. But if there is to be change, I witnessed it begin to germinate as I walked through Pershing Square on my way back home. Look at the last picture and that is it. Two men, one black, one white singing and old Gospel hymn of overcoming.
By the time I got home this secondary protest had gotten underway. They made their way to the police station and what I witnessed gave me hope. Peacefully they spoke their message and entered into dialog with officers. I was so proud of them. Revolutions are violent or peaceful. But the way of peace is the one, if it has any chance, is the one that transforms hearts.
But my fear is that it will not be that way when the right circumstances arise. Black Friday is going to be an ugly ugly day.
Today is Thanksgiving and I am grateful for very much. We gather here at Theory Labs with good friends while many are spending this day in jail. And one of the things I am most grateful for is a people who have the courage to give voice to their convictions and beliefs no matter what it costs them...