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"Without a heritage each generation starts over..."
As we saw on September 11, 2001, there are many different cultural factors that influence our lives, decisions, how we raise our families, what we consider fair or ethical. Our lives are not stagnant, we are forever in motion. Events, perceptions, traditions and beliefs are what often is the foundation of culture and history, that which is our heritage.
The United States as a young country grew because of beliefs and events influenced by other countries, as happens today. With that growth, it often lead to consequences that shaped culture, thinking and deeds throughout the country and in this case the treatment of Native Americans.
This exhibit will show the Native Americans' contributions in this subsistence practices upon the Natural Resources use before European influence and a short period after. It is limited in scope with the realization that their cultural practices are intricate and encompass thousands of years.
We will look at a time line of European influence, Native American environmental manipulation and the subsistence practices of the Sierra inhabitants in and around the general Huntington Lake Basin as a "snapshot in time."
10,000 B.C. Early Americans enter California
1542 Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, Spain, explores the California Coast
1579 Sir Francis Drake, England, explores Bodega Bay
1602 Sebastian Vizcaino, Spain, explores Monterey Bay
1769-1823 Junipero Serra, Spain, founds first California Mission at San Diego.
Sacred Expedition starts over a dozen Missions in California
1804-1806 Merriwether Lewis and William Clark explore the American West
1812 Russians establish Fort Ross in California
1821 Mexico wins independence from Spain, assumes control of California
1841-1842 John Fremont explores California
1846-1848 Mexican-American War
1848 Discovery of gold begins California Gold Rush
1850 California becomes 31st state. Indian Indenture Act becomes law.
1869 Transcontinental Railroad completed
1872-1873 Modoc War
1882 Indian Rights Association formed
1906 Congress passes series of acts granting lands to California Indian tribes
1924 Indians made citizens of the United States
The people who became California Indians made a long journey from southern Asia to the New World. After the glacier period, the land was replaced by thousands of miles of grassland where large herds of animals grazed. The people followed these herds and became hunters.
They hunted bison, the woolly mammoth and other large animals. They invented bows and arrows to improve their chances in hunting food for subsistence. Other animals also hunted the herd animals and would also attack people who got in the way of their prey. Families formed tribes and communities as a protective measure.
With plentiful sources of food, the tribes/communities moved across the land, each population growing quickly. Because of the bountiful food supply the native population became very large. Food favorites included salmon, beaver, deer, moose, and at the ocean areas, sea otters, whales and shellfish.
California also had a special gift, the largest valley in the world, the great San Joaquin Valley, which had many edible plants and orchards of acorn-bearing trees. The California Indians didn't pay a lot of attention to the plant food, as they were foragers, not gatherers. Slowly the hunters wiped out a number of species. The natives had to change. They established permanent settlements throughout the state and lived in more secluded, separate groups. By the time the first European settlers came, there were a number of different California Indian tribes.
Over the years, as would be expected, through trial and error and experimentation, the tribes found different ways of adapting to the environment and thus each group, depending on the area in which they lived, developed a unique culture. They studied the environment of nature and adapted. They lived according to what they saw in their natural world. They became successful and skilled in living in that world, sharing, trading with other tribes, they became the first stewards of the land. With nature as their guiding force they made a home for themselves and when they weren't fishing, hunting or gathering they played games, made utensils they used in their everyday lives, or just spent time having fun.
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The Arrival of the Spanish
The early Spanish explorers visited the coast of California in the mid-1500's and again 50 to 60 years later. Since arrival in the New World, Spain had moved in its conquests through most of South America, seizing land, converting Indians and taking Silver and gold in Mexico. The Spanish Empire which lay some 2000 miles from the colonial center of Mexico City, lead land parties north to Alta California. The European nations claimed they had the right to take land away from the Native Americans because they were "uncivilized": they wore little clothing, did not farm, and did not know God or his Son.
The quest of early Missionaires, that of bringing Christianity to "lost Souls", began in earnest in the latter part of the 18th Century. Junipero Serra founded his first Mission in San Diego. He soon moved north to the Monterey Bay area where he founded San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. "The natives of Monterey ligved in the hills, just a short distance from the beach. They would come down sometimes and go fishing in little rafts of reeds. Fishing did not furnish their chief means of subsistence, they had recourse to it only when hunting yielded little. Game was plentiful. They often came to visit the Spaniards with a present of substantial game, which they offered without demanding anything in return...Their good disposition had given the missionary fathers well-founded hopes of speedily winning them over tot he faith of Christ."
Many early travelers commented on the openness of the forests, especially the oak forests. The trees were large and fully formed, the ground beneath them free of underbrush. They burned the land consciously and on a regular basis, using fire to create an environment that was prolific in game animals and rich in edible and desired plants.
The people of the area were bound together in a highly evolved economic and spiritual relationships, with the knowledge of plants, animals and the rhythms of nature, had sustained them in relative prosperity and security for generations. Part of what drew them to the Missions wee the dazzle of Spanish goods. Guns, metal, cloth, exotic foods, horses that bore them effortlessly for great distances, cows that gave them milk, boats in full sail on the great waters--these were bewildering in the power and beauty of it all. The influx of new goods and technoligies, crude that they were, brought dramatic change to tribal life. Colored beads, to the Europeans of little value, to the Natives were money, and they responded as children, with excitement.
As the Indians began to look toward the strangers as the source of wealth and power, the balances of respect and value eroded in the communities. The missionaries offered something new. As today, the draw of the Missions are similar; the hope to share power and wealth, new technology and offered opportunity. They were drawn in, the cultural dominance began the transformation. The Mission system strived to instruct, correct, punish if necessary, because they were "poor and childlike" in simplicity. They lived in thatched dwellings, scantily dressed, gathered or hunted foods when needed or just played games the whole day long. They needed to be civilized.
The Sacred Expedition began to fail after the establishment of a dozen or more Missions and fifty plus years. The Natives never adjusted to the work in the missions. The problem was the "idea of work", which was not part of their culture. Nature told the California Indians what they should do each day. Another thing that went wrong was that Indians escapted from the missions and they were severely punished. A serious flaw with the Mission system was that of diseases. California Natives had no resistance to European diseases. Tuberculosis, smallpox, syphilis and measles swept through every Mission killing large numbers, and often a disease would hit again a short time later, bringing more death to the Natives.
The severing of the Indians' linkage to the land was consciously done, part of the policy of "civilizing" the Indians. The efforts of the missionaries produced unrelenting misery for the natives. The missions became places of defeat and death--not only physical death, but cultural and spiritual as well. The likes of Junipero Serra was that of a true "love for his children", was sincere, but he proved to be a stern father and his Christianity was never fully understood by the Natives. The Mission system had come to an end because of the desolation and far-distance from Spain, the Mother Country. The Coastal California Native tribes and members were decimated and just a few barely survived living at the missions because they offered food and living quarters. Those that left drifted off to larger towns working as laborers and as household help.
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California Gold
Among the first white men to cross the Sierra Nevada' was Jedediah Smith from the Eastern States. Joseph Walker was the first non-Indian to cross the Sierras' East to West over rough and uninviting mountain peaks shortly after in 1833. California was touted to be the "land of milk and honey". Men on horses and wagons began coming in large numbers for a "new start", realizing it was a difficult journey, but probably worth it for a piece of their own land!
Many white men started settling in upper California. This was a time when Mexican officials in California were becoming nervous about the number of newcomers arriving in their land, especially those from the United States. In 1846 California and Mexico finally came to blows over the ownership of land in California. With the coming of peace in 1848 the days of Mexican rule were over and the United States was in control of Alta California. One man by the name of John Augustus Sutter had settled in before this time, in what is known as the Sacramento Valley.
After the conflict ended the Sacramento Valley enjoyed a period of growth and good will. More people were finding their way to what had become known as Sutter's Fort. Sutter realized that with more people coming to the area he needed more lumber for his projects and for the newcomer's homes. A fellow by the name of James Marshall was hired by Sutter to build a sawmill to provide the needed supply of lumber. Little did the two men know they had set the stage for one of the most significant discoveries of the nations' history. James Marshall found gold at the mill site. With the excitement of the discovery, people from near and far throughout the world rushed to California. Sutter could not control the number of people who came to the Sacramento Valley or Sutter's Fort. As more people arrived the destruction of Sutter's property and possessions were alarming. Sutter gave up and moved away.
The forty-niners moved in lock, stock and barrel unto Indian's lands. Gold had to be everywhere and it didn't matter who the land belonged to. They felt the natives were savages, naked, dirty and wild. They wandered about with no homes or settlements. The war against the California Indians started when the first 49'ers rushed in. Miners began attacking villages, raping and killing Indians who tried to stop the rampage. Peaceful settlements were exterminated at the direction of the governor. The Clar Lake Massacre, the Mairposa War and the Trinity River Massacre took their toll. In 1853 Congress finally established five reservations for the California Indians. There were forced removal of the natives by militias to the reservations, and yet more killings occurred.
As time went on, the 49'ers left the mines and became settlers, farmers, lumbermen and business operators. The Natives were civilized through a "peace policy" of then President Grant. Religious leaders were given control over the Indians, replacing the corrupt Indian agents. Children had to attend schools, reservation Indians had to forsake their culture and their language. Native American Elders did not teach the children the Indian ways. The Native Californians became loggers, herdsmen, cowboys, day laborers, craftsmen and household help.
Neither the Spanish Missionaries nor the 49'ers understood that the culture of the California Indians was just as real to them, and just as meaningful, as the cultures defining the Spanish and the Americans. Since the 1920's the population of the California Indians began to rise. California Indians have become integrated into white society and yet now they are reintroducing their knowledge of nature, medicines, crafts, the environment and their culture to educate others to their "old practices" of stewardship in the natural surroundings.
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History of Hydroelectric Power
Huntington Lake was named for Henry Edwards Huntington, the Southern California entrepreneur who finanched the earliest work at the Big Creek-San Joaquin Hydroelectric Project. The lake was the first reservoir built in the project, which delivered electricity to southern California some 240 miles away.
The earliest surveys of the basin for hydropower use were made by John Eastwood in 1886. Eastwood recognized the great potential for power generation in both a tremendous water source and a 4,500 foot drop in elevation (from the Basin to the San Joaquin valley).
In 1911, the Pacific Light and Power Corporation, controlled by Huntington, began construction of the initial development of the Big Creek System, which consisted of Big Creek Powerhouses No. 1 and 2, Dams 1,2, and 3 creating Huntington Lake, Dam 4 at Powerhouse No,. 1, and tunnels to feed the system. Eventually the Big Creek system came to comprise nine powerhouses, six reservoirs, and a system of water tunnels connecting the powerhouses and the reservoirs. At the time, it was the largest hydroelectric project in the world, supplying nearly 90 percent of electric power to Southern California.
Power House No. 1
The San Joaquin and Eastern Railroad was the primary transportation system for the Big Creek project. It hauled 60,000 tons of supplies, food, and equipment 56 miles from Fresno to Powerhouse No. 1. Built in only 157 days in 1912, with all the work done by Fresno scraper, wheelbarrows and hand drills, it was the most crooked railroad ever built.
San Joaquin & Eastern Railroad
Various portions of the Big Creek System are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and including Huntington Lake Dam Nos. 1,2, and 3; Ward Tunnel, Powerhouse Nos. 1, 2/2A, 3, and 8, and the facilities associated with them--penstocks, incline railroads, and surge chambers.
Four principal worker/operator communities were built in the basin. These were the Big Creek Townsite, located at Powerhouse No. 1, and smaller communities at Powerhouses No. 2/2A, 3, and 8. Each of these communities was equipped with a commissary, hospital, clubhouse/recreation hall, and a cookhouse/dormitory, in addition to small single-family homes for the married employees. By the late 1960's these worker communities had become less important and were on the decline as a result of improved highway access to Big Creek.
The story of the railroad, flume, and dam construction across steep country is one of ingenuity, muscle, and a high degree of bravery. Only photographs can depict how much effort was put into these projects.
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The B-24 Bomber
On December 6, 1943 a B-24 Bomber, on a training mission for World War II, crashed into Huntingon Lake, killing 6 crew members. The plane was not found until 1955. Some of the plane remains in the bottom of the Lake.
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Recreation Development
Camp Edwards, established in 1912 at the present site of the Lakeview cottages, was the first resort built at Huntington Lake, followed by the Huntington Lake Lodge in 1916. The north shore road, completed in 1920, opened the area to extensive recreational development. In 1933, train service to the lake stopped, as bus service became a more efficient means.
Camp Edwards, Store & Hotel
Fresno College opened a summer "nature studies" school at the lake in 1916, which existed for 25 years. College Rock is a landmark. Extended burro trips were run back into the lakes around Kaiser Peak. CCC crews built many roads, trails and lookouts around Kaiser Peak. California Route 168 was completed in 1955, paving the way for a large increase in tourists to the basin.
There are 417 recreation residences at Huntington Lake. In 1913, Gifford Pinchot asked Frank Waugh, a nationally-renowned landscape architect from the east coast, to plan the layout/placement of the cabins around Huntington Lake to reduce the visual impact between cabins and for visitors to the lake area. The cabins were the first recreation residences in California.
Huntington Lake is ranked as one of the top sailing lakes in the world. Sailing regattas began in 1954 with five boats. It grew to many classes of boats with about 250 boats per weekend. That was too big (campground and road congestion), so the Forest Service put a cap at 150 boats per weekend. This fills all the campgrounds. The racers do not compete for money but some racers use the regattas as a qualifier. The races attract the top racers in the western U.S., including people who have competed in the America Cup. The Fresno Yacht Club sets the courses. A lot of people from the valley come up to watch for the day. An announcer explains the race to spectators sitting at the point in Bear Cove campground, where they have a view of the entire lake.
In 1975, Congress designated 22,700 acres of pristine lane north of Huntington Lake as the Kaiser Wilderness. The Wilderness was named after the 10,320 foot Kaiser Ridge, which divides the area into two distinctly different regions. The southern portion of the area is adjacent to the north shore of Huntington Lake. The terrain rises gradually from red fir and jeffrey pine forests to the alpine zone along Kaiser Ridge. The northern part of the Wilderness descends steeply from Kaiser Ridge and is much more open than the southern portion. Eighteen small lakes, including Upper and Lower Twin Lakes, are located in the northern portion.
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