drlobojo is not a doctor, nor is he a wolf, although he has been called a cur on occasion, nor is he a jo which is Scottish for sweetheart having never been called that to his recollection. He is a pre-Atomic (born before the first bomb blast in New Mexico), a boy off of the Red River of Oklahoma, son of a share cropper, and poor white trash at that.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wyoming Open Range: Closing America
Just a few of the three score plus signs along just two miles of a Wyoming dirt road. The road is north of the Shosone River.
open range not.
Oh yes, and the Gate to the "Public Lands" was locked. Faded xerox sheet said,
"Key available at local BLM Office during business hours Monday through Friday."
Sad. Manifest Destiny. When Lewis & Clark left St. Louis, they visited the last white man a few days up the Missouri: a very old Daniel Boone. He was attempting to stay out on the edge. He would be out of luck now days...
Who owns this land? If it's public - as in managed by the Bureau of Land Management - then the mind boggles. If it is managed by the military, however, which it might well be (some of the land the military manages for various uses is done on the down-low as our young people say), then this is no surprise. Finally, if it is private property, I'm not quite sure what the complaint might be, other than a nostalgic one which sees the vast vista of open space as something available to everyone. If someone owns it, though, it isn't available.
The frontier was declared closed in 1890 - 117 years ago.
GKS ask: Who owns this land? Hard to know actually. Wasn't Military. According to the map I was using it was supposed to be a checkerboard mixture of public State and BLM lands. Some of the signs referred to a specific ranch and other different signs referred to nothing. Best guess was that it was State Land that was leased to a ranch or two. As I said the BLM land was marked as such but had a fence and a locked gate across the "public road" that was supposed to go down to the river saying go all the way back into town and get the key during business hours.
Further into the middle of Wyoming there were no gates to the BLM lands just cattle guards, but then chunks of it were fenced off and had no trespassing signs on the BLM public land put up by oil and mining companies leasing the land.
I know it is hard for a Eastern/Chicago boy to appreciate that some of us were growed up wandering freely all over the place, and now we find that many of these same places are fenced in or otherwise restricted. Irony is that much of the area being treated this way are places that actually are losing population. Go figure.
I grew up in upstate New York, in a small village, with miles and miles of publicly and privately held land over which I roamed quite freely. "No Trespassing" sings were what we smiled at as we passed on our way to wherever we were headed. You could get lost, and wander for miles, without encountering human habitation, where I grew up. I often did - I was more willing to go farther than my friends, who were intimidated by all that empty space. So, I not only can imagine it - I have lived it.
If the land was either state or federal land leased to ranchers, it seems to me they have the right to post the land - they are protecting their business investments. A "No Trespassing" sign put up to simply mark the limit of the legal extent of one's property line, however, which is what I encountered on my ramblings above the Village of Waverly (Google it, check out a map; you can even see the house I grew up in on a Google Earth map - 21 Orange St.) do nothing than alert hunters who they need to ask permission to wander those hills come deer season.
The trespass issue has become inflamed out this way the last few years. Formerly, big timber company property, ranches and other large private tracts were open for outdoorsmen to enjoy. Then the all-terrain vehicle became popular and a different type of sportsman starting flooding the outback. And doing considerable damage. One big timber company has locked up extensive tracts, but will sell passes (just like the Nat'l Park Service)...and numerous ranchers have finally given up putting up with hunter/fisher/atv owner types who cut fences, tear up stream beds and leave all their garbage..'No Tresspass' signs are selling like hotcakes. In 1960, we canoed the Namekagon/St. Croix river system in Wisconsin for a number of days, camping wherever looked good at 5 PM. Two years ago, returned to check out these old watery stomping grounds and found the rivers jammed with people in innertubes, trailing their sixpacks with twine. John Muir would be most unhappy, and it's plainly our fault for not understanding the wild lands, nor our proper use of them.
Point well taken BB. Well GKS, a boy from the wide open spaces. Have they locked those up or are they still open?
For sure it is a situation that is way out of balance. But I would contend that the pendulum has swung too far to the private sector and the gifts of land and land use that they have received.
Don't know what the balance should be, but unless the open spaces are "open" then nobody is going to give a damn whether they stay open or not. Meantime...."Keep off the grass"!
6 comments:
Sad. Manifest Destiny.
When Lewis & Clark left St. Louis,
they visited the last white man a
few days up the Missouri: a very
old Daniel Boone. He was attempting to stay out on the edge.
He would be out of luck now days...
Who owns this land? If it's public - as in managed by the Bureau of Land Management - then the mind boggles. If it is managed by the military, however, which it might well be (some of the land the military manages for various uses is done on the down-low as our young people say), then this is no surprise. Finally, if it is private property, I'm not quite sure what the complaint might be, other than a nostalgic one which sees the vast vista of open space as something available to everyone. If someone owns it, though, it isn't available.
The frontier was declared closed in 1890 - 117 years ago.
GKS ask: Who owns this land? Hard to know actually. Wasn't Military. According to the map I was using it was supposed to be a checkerboard mixture of public State and BLM lands. Some of the signs referred to a specific ranch and other different signs referred to nothing. Best guess was that it was State Land that was leased to a ranch or two. As I said the BLM land was marked as such but had a fence and a locked gate across the "public road" that was supposed to go down to the river saying go all the way back into town and get the key during business hours.
Further into the middle of Wyoming there were no gates to the BLM lands just cattle guards, but then chunks of it were fenced off and had no trespassing signs on the BLM public land put up by oil and mining companies leasing the land.
I know it is hard for a Eastern/Chicago boy to appreciate that some of us were growed up wandering freely all over the place, and now we find that many of these same places are fenced in or otherwise restricted. Irony is that much of the area being treated this way are places that actually are losing population. Go figure.
I grew up in upstate New York, in a small village, with miles and miles of publicly and privately held land over which I roamed quite freely. "No Trespassing" sings were what we smiled at as we passed on our way to wherever we were headed. You could get lost, and wander for miles, without encountering human habitation, where I grew up. I often did - I was more willing to go farther than my friends, who were intimidated by all that empty space. So, I not only can imagine it - I have lived it.
If the land was either state or federal land leased to ranchers, it seems to me they have the right to post the land - they are protecting their business investments. A "No Trespassing" sign put up to simply mark the limit of the legal extent of one's property line, however, which is what I encountered on my ramblings above the Village of Waverly (Google it, check out a map; you can even see the house I grew up in on a Google Earth map - 21 Orange St.) do nothing than alert hunters who they need to ask permission to wander those hills come deer season.
The trespass issue has become inflamed out this way the last few years. Formerly, big timber company property, ranches and other
large private tracts were open for
outdoorsmen to enjoy. Then the all-terrain vehicle became popular and a different type of sportsman starting flooding the outback. And doing considerable damage. One big timber company has locked up extensive tracts, but will sell passes (just like the Nat'l Park Service)...and numerous ranchers have finally given up putting up with hunter/fisher/atv owner types who cut fences, tear up stream beds and leave all their garbage..'No Tresspass' signs are selling like hotcakes. In 1960, we canoed the Namekagon/St. Croix
river system in Wisconsin for a number of days, camping wherever
looked good at 5 PM. Two years ago, returned to check out these
old watery stomping grounds and found the rivers jammed with people in innertubes, trailing their sixpacks with twine. John
Muir would be most unhappy, and
it's plainly our fault for not
understanding the wild lands, nor
our proper use of them.
Point well taken BB. Well GKS, a boy from the wide open spaces. Have they locked those up or are they still open?
For sure it is a situation that is way out of balance. But I would contend that the pendulum has swung too far to the private sector and the gifts of land and land use that they have received.
Don't know what the balance should be, but unless the open spaces are "open" then nobody is going to give a damn whether they stay open or not. Meantime...."Keep off the grass"!
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