Before the contemporary surge in scientifically designed synthetics for “outdoor wear,” wool was revered for its durability, warmth and ability to perform even while wet. A wool garment or blanket could be heavy and bulky, but it was dependable. I’ve had my share of wool sweaters and Woolrich Shirts that have become as close as pets and as reliable as friends.
California’s indigenous population did not weave textiles but instead developed basket weaving, creating some of the most aesthetic and functional baskets on earth. The tradition continues into the present (see California Basket Weavers Association, https://ciba.org). When the Spanish arrived in California they brought sheep and taught natives living at the missions how to spin and weave wool. In 1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain and "Alta California" became a Mexican province rather than a Spanish colony. The Californios traded with the native population who valued the highly desirable wool serapes obtained from highland Mexico and they allowed the fur trade to flourish inland. Notable among the traders was the Hudson’s Bay Company, who traded high quality woven wool blankets for beaver pelts provided by the native population.
The sheep industry in California developed in two distinct periods before 1906. The first, 1848–1860, involved driving animals from New Mexico and southern California to mining camps and towns in the western foothills for consumption. After 1860, The sheep industry consisted of seasonal grazing of mountain pastures by itinerant or “gypsy” sheep bands. Before the creation of National Forests (The Tahoe Reserve 1906) there was no limit to the size or the number of bands that entered the Sierra nor was there a limit on the length of time they could stay in a specific area. Undoubtedly, the number of sheep using all available meadow systems in the Sierra Nevada during this time would be in the millions. Some scholars attribute the reduction of some native perennials and their replacement by more aggressive annual species in upper-elevation grassy hillsides and higher-elevation meadow systems to this unregulated sheep grazing.
Michigan Bluff, no date, photographer unknown
Sheep grazing in the Sierra Nevada in the late nineteenth-century was condemned by contemporary critics and considered more far more destructive than cattle grazing. They had two major complaints about the sheep industry: first, too many animals were grazing for too long on Sierra Nevada pastures, and second, sheepherders were starting fires to improve future range or to remove barriers to sheep movement. The First Biennial Report of the California State Board of Forestry for the Years 1885–1886, reflecting this anti-sheep view, recommended that all sheep be excluded from the Sierra Nevada because of the damage they caused to soils and vegetation. Among the critics was John Muir who famously called sheep “hoofed locusts,” and said that they were more effective than fires or glaciers in destroying vegetation.
The views of those opposed to sheep industry practices eventually shaped future federal forest management policies. At the time no one involved in grazing had any understanding of previous native burning traditions. From the lumberman’s point of view sheepmen added to naturally caused fires in a significant way. The California State Board of Forestry wanted to exclude all fires so as to improve timber production and watershed potential of Sierra Nevada forests for agricultural uses. Most of the Sierra Nevada was affected by grazing especially in the foothill, middle-elevation forests, and subalpine areas
The first Basques to migrate to the western hemisphere went to Argentina and Chile but later traveled to California to join the gold rush. Most were not successful miners, so they turned their attention to agriculture, especially cattle, then later sheep grazing. The Basque who came from the Pyrenees, the mountain range that straddles the boundary between France and Spain, may have tended a few sheep before, but certainly none had worked as open-range sheepherders before they immigrated to the United States. Basque immigrants took on this work because, although it was hard (and boring), it paid relatively well, and it didn’t involve specialized skills or require a command of English.
Freeman Meadows – North Yuba
Typically, a recently arrived Basque sheepherder worked for another already established Basque business and was paid annually. Many chose to have their pay in head of sheep rather than money, in order to begin their own herds.
The largest immigration of Basques with intentions to work in the sheep industry occurred between 1900-1930 when the demand for lamb and wool was high, and so was the profit margin. Initially ranchers could graze their sheep free of charge on massive tracts of public lands and sheepherding in the United States became synonymous with itinerant grazing by moving herds constantly to new pastures in new regions. In the late 1890s and during the first decade of the 20th century vast forested districts of the American West were either declared National Parks, in which livestock grazing was prohibited, or National Forests, in which livestock grazing permits were issued to American citizens according to how much ranch land they held in private ownership. The Basque were typically not owners of large tracts of land, putting them at a disadvantage in discussions of land use.
Prior to 1910 herders usually set-up camps in the center of their range and herded sheep back to the camp every night. This resulted in denuded bedding grounds, trampled into dust. The Forest Service attempted to lessen the damage by restricting the number of days sheep could be bedded in one spot; at first six and later three. They also introduced “open herding”, which minimized driving and instead, allowed sheep to spread-out and graze. This resulted in smaller flocks, which was the outcome the Forest Service preferred.
World War I (1914-1918) increased the number of livestock permitted to graze on public land because meat and wool was in demand. The war, and the increased livestock production associated with it, was disastrous to public lands in the west. In the North-Central Sierra Nevada there was tremendous damage to the sub-alpine meadows on the east side of the summit. In 1928 the Tahoe National Forest released their Management Plan and in it, Forest Supervisor Richard Bigelow, revealed a planned policy to eliminate as many sheep as possible and replace them with “locally owned cattle.”
Pole Creek – Truckee River (1978)
Resentment against these “transients” led to the occasional roughing up of sheepherders or the killing of their dogs. Most local U.S. Forest Service officials defended the idea of keeping many Basque herders out of the national forests in favor of cattlemen who had stronger ties to the local business communities. Forest rangers, in reports to their supervisors continually recommended the exclusion of sheep in the national forests and typically portrayed Basques as “furtive” and selfish destroyers of the environment.
These public policy changes further concentrated the transient bands onto the public range outside the reserves, some of which was still suitable as marginal summer range. In the unprotected districts, the problems that the reserve system was designed to address were exacerbated. It took nearly three decades, or until 1934 with passage of the Taylor Grazing Act, that the remaining unforested parts of the public lands were brought under effective federal control. The era of the nomadic Basque sheep band was coming to an end.
Gold Lake Highway – North Yuba
Basque historian, Gloria Totoricagüena Egurrola found that as the economy in Basque Country improved, fewer Basques wanted or needed to emigrate for economic reasons and the Western Range Association began to recruit sheepherders in Peru (1971) and in Mexico (1973). During the 1960s, sheepherders were paid an average of $200 per month for inexperienced males, and $300 per month for experienced workers. During the 1970s the closing of Basque immigration related to sheepherding resulted from three major factors: competitive salaries in the Basque Country itself, cheaper labor from South America, and an overall decrease in the demand for sheepherders in the United States. In 1966, there were approximately 1,200 Basque sheepherders working in the United States, and by 1976 there were only 106 Basques with sheepherding contracts. Basques dominated the sheep industry in the United States for almost exactly one hundred years beginning with the establishment of the Altube brothers' Spanish Ranch in Nevada in 1873.
WHAT’S AN ARBOGLYPH? AND WHO MADE THEM?
Basque sheepherders created a unique western cultural phenomenon. They carved on aspen trees, tens of thousands of them in ten western states. These carvings give us information we could not find elsewhere. If you want to know when and where sheep grazed or who the sheepherders were, chances are only arborglyphs can provide answers.
Gold Lake Highway – North Yuba River
In their solitude the Basque shepherds, who were predominantly young men, developed a means of expression by carving in aspen bark. Nothing like this existed in their homeland. Most carvings are names and dates; often the messages are hard to understand as most are in the Basque language, Euskara or in Spanish and they’re sometimes misspelled. Other topics include political commentary, humor, poetry, symbols from Basque mythology, animals, love and loneliness. Not surprisingly there are also erotic fantasies depicted. Some of the drawings are crude, some are abstract, and still others are very sophisticated. These carvings provide documentation of Basque presence and some insight into the people who created them.
While working for the Tahoe National Forest in the early 1990s I was fortunate enough to meet Joxie Mallea-Olaetxe, then part of the Basque studies program at the University of Nevada, Reno. He was beginning his systematic study of arboglyphs that spanned ten western States. I showed him the arboglyphs that we had recorded on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, northwest of Lake Tahoe. These sites were mostly in the aspen stands in mountain valleys near Gold Lake and Haskell Peak and a few others near the headwaters of the Middle Yuba. It was a great learning experience, and to this day, I have yet to meet a PhD with a more rollicking sense of humor, while suffering no loss of academic rigor.
Howard Creek – North Yuba River
In the last few decades, in a scramble to record the arbooglyphs, a series of events where the public can participate in recording these sites on federal lands under archaeological supervision, became quite popular. There have also been a few books published and articles have appeared in a wide assortment of periodicals. Their very remoteness is what preserves their integrity. Mallea-Olaetxe, in a Basque newsletter, observed that “The fact that sheepherder history is becoming almost mainstream is an amazing development. Just think of the decades through which the Basques lived in America like ghosts”. As for technique most sheepherders used a pocket-knife or nail, “most herders soon learned that the best arborglyphs are produced with a single thin incision,” Mallea-Olaetxe wrote. “Over time, the tree bandages the wound with a dark scar, creating a high-contrast image that, if executed properly, remains legible for decades”.
Perhaps the arboglyphs were inspired by nearby prehistoric petroglyphs which have endured for thousands of years? Because aspen typically live between eighty and one hundred years the oldest Basque arborglyphs have already been lost. Finding and documenting those that remain, before they disappear, has always been a race against the clock. Now climate change is adversely affecting aspens and running the clock out even faster. With them goes a distinctive part of the landscape that clearly reflects aspects of an American subculture. It’s strikingly ephemeral – just a ripple in the lake of history. Their genesis and demise occurred in a discrete window of about 150 years. It makes me wonder how many times cultural expression has appeared then disappeared in the past. Our present culture’s mania for documentation is itself a cultural expression.
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| Gold Lake Highway – North Yuba River |
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Additional Reading
Mallea-Olaetxe, Joxe. “A Basque Historian's Dilemma” (Buber’s Basque Page, www.beber.net)
Totoricagüena Egurrola,Gloria. “Ethnic Industries for Migrants: Basque Sheepherding in the American West”. Center for Basque Studies. University of Nevada, Reno
https://foresthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/mallea_carving-out-history-basque-aspens.pdf
