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Friends of Volume 4 No. 1 * Winter 1999 |
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President's Report by Greg Reddell Any Friends are interested in being a member of the board, get in contact with a board member or me. I need to replace the vacancy of Debra Price, who resigned from her position as Secretary and member of the board on January 20, 1999. I am sorry that Debra has left the board because the Friends could have continued to use her talents. The January board meeting was delayed because of a winter storm. Not only was it a big storm across the state but Klamath Falls got a foot of snow. The members of the board that could reschedule met January 30. I want to thank George and Judy Buckingham for making their home available for the board meeting. Dates for upcoming events were worked on, the logo was approved, and various topics from the annual meeting were worked on. Alice Hatch, our treasurer is researching interest bearing accounts for a portion of the Friends assets. As one of our goals for 1999, I expect Friends will continue to find members or spread the word about a great organization to join. I took my own advice and assisted with the Winter Rim Information Desk this winter. I attended the training on November 21 and volunteered for the following weekend. Friday night while I was watching the 'Red Green Show' on PBS I sewed the volunteer patch on my shirt. Saturday, November 28 started out as a beautiful day. The drive from Klamath Falls, along Upper Klamath Lake, up the Wood River Valley and to the park was tremendous. Because of recent storms, Saturday was the first day in a week the road to the rim had been open and I was busy because there were lots of park visitors. At the Rim the weather was clear and the trees and lake were beautiful. I saw a few Friends who were at the park that day. During the afternoon the clouds rolled in and I left the rim in a snow storm. The weather had returned to it's natural state; lots of snow. I stayed over night at the volunteer housing. A main reason I wanted to volunteer at the Winter Rim Desk was to stay over night during a snow storm up at Crater Lake. I got my wish, there was a lot of snow Saturday night. Sunday morning the weather was still snowing hard but the road to the rim was able to be opened. The Winter Rim Information Desk had around eighty visitors on Saturday. Sunday was very quiet, about 5 brave winter visitors stopped at the desk. To keep from staying another night at the park, I left the raging snow storm and the Rim around 3:00. My next weekend at the Rim is later in March. I have my volunteer shirt ready to go!! I expect 1999 to be a great year for the Friends. The usual activities are available for participation and expect some others for the upcoming Crater Lake National Park Centennial. Take a look at the events and mark those times on your schedules. |
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Crater Lake Valentine by Bev Hartell Valentine weekend Greg and I traveled to the park to do volunteer duty at the rim information desk located in the rim cafeteria. We checked in with Volunteer Interpretive Ranger Lauren Becker at the Steel Center, picked up a park radio and drove the last 3 miles to the rim. It was snowing lightly but the lake was visible from the viewing station window. Cross country skiers were preparing to head out. We handed out ski route maps, answered question on the snow depth and signed up one visitor for the one o'clock snowshoe walk. We devoured our lunch goodies and at 12:30 I drove to the Steel Center so Lauren could join the winter ecology walk led by Interpretive Ranger James McGrew. Lauren will be leading snowshoe walks soon and wanted to hear James's winter ecology presentation. Before Lauren left, I received a crash course in answering the phone, using the cash register and running the park video for visitors. Also watched as Lauren filled out a back country permit with a young couple planning an overnight camp in the park. I waved Lauren off and dipped into her jar of valentine chocolates for candy kisses to share later with Greg! Visitors arrived, books and postcards were purchased and the video was shown several times. Lauren returned earlier than I expected as James still had only the one snowshoer to take out. Instead, Lauren would join a walk scheduled for the next morning for participants from the Klamath Falls Bald Eagle Conference. I finished the afternoon at the rim with Greg. Over the dozen visitors had already signed up for the one o'clock Sunday walk. Ultimately, there would be 31 showshoers on that walk. At 4:30 we drove down and turned in our radio. Our son-in-law, Steve Mark and daughter, Amy, traded homes with us for the weekend. They stayed at our place in Algoma near Klamath Falls. Our evening was spent at House 24, one of several rock houses up the hill from headquarters. It is across from one where Greg's parents lived when his Dad worked as an equipment operator for the park service at Crater Lake. House 24 is a smaller version of that residence. A feeling of dejavu brought memories of park stays with Guy and Eva. After shoveling out the garage door and unpacking provisions, we decided to walk down the hill and around the Sleepy Hollow Housing. A light snow was falling as we walked hand in hand. Actually, I was hanging to Greg quite tightly so I wouldn't take a fall. I had worked for the park service at Crater Lake (1963-1965) and remember a fall after a dinner visit with the park's residence school teacher, Galdys Bryan. As I lay flat on my back getting by breath back, I could hear in the distance a rotary snowplow. That sound lent impetus to my decision to get up and trek on to my house in Sleepy Hollow. No mishaps on this walk. Just marten tracks in the snow and a beautiful hushed quiet. The evening finished with sweet celtic music on the CD player, special Belgian beer (a gift from Amy & Steve) and a delicious steak with fresh asparagus. Ah love, ah Crater Lake! |
CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK'S CENTENNIAL
Ten Townships and the Golden Arrow
by Steve Mark
(first in a series)
The long campaign to establish Crater Lake National Park began at Fort Klamath in 1885. There two vacationers from Portland, William Gladstone Steel and J.M. Breck, met an army officer named Clarence E. Dutton who had been detailed to accompany University of California geologist Joseph LeConte on a summer trek aimed at examination of volcanic phenomena. The four men traversed a wagon road leading from Fort Klamath to Jacksonville by way of Annie Spring. On the other side of the Cascade Divide they walked up a blazed trail that ran along a creek later named for Dutton. It allowed the men to stand enraptured by the beauty of Crater Lake once they reached the rim.
Making Crater Lake a national park seems to have been first discussed at their campsite in what is now Rim Village, but the idea became a burning passion for Steel. He stopped in Roseburg on his way home to speak with Binger Hermann, congressman from Oregon, and began organizing a petition drive. The public support Steel wanted came with no difficulty and by the beginning of 1886 the petition had arrived in Washington, D.C. It sought to have the President withdraw the area around Crater bake from settlement (and claims arising from mining or timber values) while Congress considered the merits of establishing a national park.
President Grover Cleveland ordered that ten townships of unsurveyed public domain be withdrawn from all forms of entry on February 1, 1886. This reservation was larger and slightly different from park boundaries set in 1902.
Only two townships wide, the withdrawal stretched from Union Peak in the south to well beyond Mount Thielson. It simply represented a guess at what might be suitable for a national park, but the administration wanted to avoid infringing on the Fort Klamath Military Reservation to the south and the Klamath Indian Reservation to the east.
Crater Lake and its surroundings needed to be examined in greater depth, so Dutton headed an government-sponsored expedition during the summer of 1886. He needed civilian assistance for the procurement of boats and supplies, so Steel landed that job (he and Breck had hauled a canvas vessel to Crater Lake in 1885) and oversaw construction of three boats in Portland. The largest Steel called "Cleetwood" because of a dream he had while traveling. In the dream, Steel was joined by his deceased father and both of them saw the heavens. At one point his father waved his hands above his head and told his son to look. Instantly the sky was filled with golden arrows, which the younger Steel learned were "Cleetwood."
Steel placed the boats on a rail car in July 1886 and took the train to Ashland. From there he, along with an expedition numbering 35 men, loaded the boats on wagons and went to Crater Lake by way of Fort Klamath. Most of the party were soldiers, but it also contained U.S. Geological Survey personnel.
While some of the expedition's members began mapping the topography around Crater Lake, many participated in obtaining depth measurements. They had to triangulate the boat's position on the water, so one point was their camp (later called Rim Village) and the other being the Watchman (so named for the party of engineers stationed on the summit to receive signals). The great depths recorded by the party astounded them, and they soon knew Crater Lake to be the deepest fresh water in the United States. Several measurements (the party took 168 over a three week span) exceeded 1,500 feet, with the deepest at an incredible 1,996 feet below the surface. This reading stood as official until the soundings taken 1958 placed maximum depth at 1,932 feet.
The Cleetwood Expedition generated considerable publicity in Oregon and elsewhere, but seemed to have little effect on Congress. Bills introduced by the Oregon delegation in 1886 and 1887 died in committee because of considerable opposition. The issue was not Crater Lake's worthiness, nor even the exploitation of natural resources, but many in Congress saw national parks as a drain on the Treasury. It did not help that the administration of Yellowstone during this time had become so problematic that it required Army intervention. Alternatively, bills introduced in 1888, 1889, 1891, and 1893 would have conveyed Crater Lake to the state of Oregon in much the same way that Yosemite Valley had been given to California in 1864. These bills died, too, amid suspicions among House members that legislation providing for a state park would simply bring about the momentum needed to make Crater Lake a future national park.
Steel opposed the state park bills and worried that Cleveland's withdrawal could be reversed by a future President on the advice of his secretary of the interior. To buy time, Steel wanted a more permanent form of withdrawal. This would allow Crater Lake National Park, when finally established by congressional act, not to be compromised by speculators having title to lands that should belong to the people. He became a convert to the cause of forestry by 1889 and, with the help of a friend in Salem, started to think in terms encompassing the entire Cascade Range in Oregon.
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Crater Lake Centennial Contacts Grow by Glen Kaye Thanks goodness for computers. I would suffer without them. Mine has allowed me to add names and organizations to a table, then at the stroke of a key resort the list alphabetically. Recently I've added new contacts of interest. The Horseless Carriage Club of America, Rogue Valley branch, is, as the names implies a club for antique car owners. The club, and its partner organization, the Rogue Valley Old Timers Car club, likes the idea of a special tour to Crater Lake during the centennial year. They will place it on their calendar when we can select a data. The Mazamas, as many of you know, is an outdoor organization centered in Portland, Oregon area. Their early history is closely linked with the early history of the park, and grants are available to support special activ the Oregon Historical Society, located in Portland, Oregon, is also interested in the Parks Centennial. Exhibits in their facility could serve a very large population. Its worthy of note that the Washington State Historical Museum created a exhibition of more than 5,000 squre feet for this years Mount Rainier centennial. The office of the Oregon Economic Development Department has also been informed of the centennial. As a part of the state government in Salem, they have a very extensive list of contacts across the nation, and have facilities to reach the media with photos and articles. The Southern Oregon Historical Society, located in Medford, and the Shaw Library of the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, have both expressed interest in the centennial. Both are interested in producing centennial exhibits. So the list of excited participants grows. And so does our excitement. |
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Fire Planning at Crater Lake National Park by George Buckingham Crater Lake is, hopefully, nearing the end of a very long wildland fire planning process. For several years, the staff has been writing, reviewing and rewriting a plan which was first approved in 1987. After the 1988 Yellowstone fires, new rules and procedures were mandated. The plan was revised in 1993 to meet those requirements. However, in recent years a number of new concerns have become apparent. These involve threatened and endangered species such as spotted owls and eagles. The current planning effort seeks to establish policies and procedures to meet these concerns. A draft of the plan was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who issued a Biological Opinion. We are incorporating their concerns and the concerns of cultural resource specialists into the plan at this time. Ironically, as soon as this plan is signed, we will be revising it again! As a result of the severe fire year of 1994, new policies and procedures have been mandated which we will be incorporating into the plan. The plan will call for a comprehensive resource based fire management program including suppression of unwanted fires, prescribed natural fires and prescribed fires (management ignited). Along with these management strategies will be a set of procedures to carefully address concerns regarding threatened and endangered species, cultural resources and many other management objectives. The plan will be available for public review for a 30 day period. We will be using the same mailing list we used for the Visitor Services plan to notify members of the public and interested agencies of the public comment period. We are going to try something new for Crater Lake. To help alleviate the cost of printing multiple copies of the plan and associated documents, they will be placed on the Crater Lake web page (http://www.nps.gov/crla/crlaci.htm). If you have any questions please call Chief Park Ranger George Buckingham at 541-594-2211 x.300 |
Can You Accept This Challenge?
We could double our membership if each of us, as members, could add one more name to our membership list for 1999. It sounds too simple! How can we make it work? First of all, think of friends and acquaintances who love the outdoors, who are proud of having Crater Lake National Park in our State and are eager to learn more about the history and geology of this area. Who do you know who has these interests? Then, promote membership to them on the basis of benefits. And what are the benefits? They're listed in our attractive, professional brochure. Emphasize the satisfaction and friendships formed from helping with the volunteer projects in the park such as the summer Trails Project, having an adventure as a Fire Lookout, enjoying the beauty of winter as a volunteer staff at the Winter Rim Information Desk. And to top it off, who could resist the opportunity of helping with the Park's 100th anniversary in 2002. It's a once in a lifetime experience! Of course you need to mention the newsletters, an annual meeting at the Park with an educational focus, and a 15% discount on publications sold by the Crater Lake Natural History Association. Other details and cost of membership are listed in the attached brochure. Use the brochure as a marketing tool and bring in one new member, at least.
Beverly Paulson
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FCLNP Board Members
Gregory Reddell - Klamath Falls Events
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Crater Lake Natural History Association is offering 15% discount on bookstore purchases with FOCLNP membership card. Members, please present card before purchase is rung up. A big thanks to CLNHA for their help.
World Wide Web http://www.halcyon.com/rdpayne/foclnp.html and http://www.nps.gov/crla/foclnp.htm
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