When Europeans arrived at what is now Pinnacles National Monument, the land was not exactly a “pristine” or “untouched” vision of nature, but rather a managed ecosystem that itself had become dependent on fires set by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. Scientists are studying the traditional fire practices to help the ecosystem build greater resilience to major disturbances like climate change.
Tag: Native Americans
Winter Issue 2011
Bluebelly
Greg Sarris, currently Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, grew up in Santa Rosa, left for many years, and has now resettled on Sonoma Mountain. The bluebellies were there in his childhood and are still there now, woven into the landscape and the history of Sarris’s people.
History
Book Review: California Indians and Their Environment: An Introduction
California Natural History Guide No. 96, by Kent G. Lightfoot and Otis Parrish, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2009. $19.95. Available at ucpress.edu. This book is a synthesis of a huge amount of new information and a re-interpretation of old … Read more
Fall Issue 2008
Book Review: Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider
by Margaret Dubin and Sara-Larus Tolley, Heyday Books, 2008, 144 pages, $21.95 Less a cookbook than a cultural anthropological study, Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider is a fascinating look at food and the relationship between California Indian tribes and the … Read more
Fall Issue 2005
Book Review: Tending the Wild
Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources, by M. Kat Anderson, University of California Press, 2005, 526 pages, $39.95 A common belief among those who are not of California Indian ancestry is that California … Read more
Summer Issue 2007
The Tribe
When Greg Sarris of Santa Rosa, an adopted child, learned that his paternal grandmother was a Coast Miwok, it opened the door to a whole alternative culture. He would soon begin to explore that heritage, absorb it, and work to … Read more
Geology, History, Wildlife
Vasco Regional Preserve Open for Public Tours
At Vasco Regional Preserve, stone balls the size of dinosaur eggs litter the landscape, the winds burrow into stone, and cup-sized pools tucked into sandstone outcrops teem with fairies (of the crustacean variety). The preserve, owned by the East Bay … Read more
Winter Issue 2006
First Encounters
When European explorers and naturalists began coming to California a few centuries ago, most sailed right past the fog-shrouded Golden Gate. But those few who did stop here, including the botanist-poet who first described the California poppy, left tantalizing clues to the world they saw before the Gold Rush transformed the Bay Area from backwater to boomtown.
Winter Issue 2006
Letter from the Publisher
As we were considering articles for our fifth anniversary issue, which you are now holding in your hands, David Rains Wallace’s story proposal about early European naturalists visiting the Bay Area seemed very appropriate, given that those men (and they … Read more
Winter Issue 2006
Stone-Boiled Coffee and Other Old Ways
We all have moments on hikes when we dream of being able to live directly off the land, plants, and animals around us. Norm Kidder, the recently retired supervising naturalist at Sunol Regional Wilderness, has spent more than 30 years … Read more
