Shaka Stories: Recent Episodes
Shaka
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Are you facing the old Custom House? You should see a wide staircase and a columned entrance. This building dates back to 1819 and once housed offices for the U.S. Custom Service collectors and other officials. Ship captains would come here to pay their duties on the goods they imported.
That money went to support and run the federal government. If the front doors are open, you can climb the steps and walk around inside on both floors. National Park rangers are often around to greet you at the door.
Otherwise, take a seat on the front steps if you don't feel like standing. Just, you know, don't block the entry. Now let's get back to our friend, author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
In 1846, he was not yet a writer who had topped the charts, so to speak. So when he received an appointment as the Port of Salem's surveyor, he took the job. You can see his office on the first floor to the left as you enter.
He had a view of the harbor while he served here from 1846 to 1849. Hawthorne's time in that office inspired the beginning of his book, The Scarlet Letter. The novel begins with an essay detailing how Hawthorne came upon a mysterious manuscript.
The essay goes something like this. One day when there wasn't much business going on and Hawthorne was bored, he wandered upstairs and noticed a box full of discarded items. Rifling through them, he came across a piece of scarlet fabric that looked to be in the shape of a red letter A. He was immediately intrigued and then noticed there were some papers wrapped up inside it.
That's how he learned the basic facts surrounding a woman who had lived in shame in Puritan Boston. Well, Hawthorne's imagination wouldn't let this discovery go. He'd pace the Custom House day after day, compelled to bring this story to life.
By the time Hawthorne lost his job at the Custom House, he had already formulated a story, and thus The Scarlet Letter was born. It's an intriguing tale and a believable one. However, this essay at the beginning of the novel is a literary device known as a frame narrative, where one story introduces another story.
It was a popular technique in 19th century literature, and the frame story in this case was mostly fictional. In real life, Hawthorne never found anything with the big letter A, but he really did work here and he really did dislike the job. And upon writing and publishing The Scarlet Letter, he finally got himself that bestseller.
On another note, if you find yourself with extra time once our tour ends, there's more to explore in the area behind the Custom House. To get there, use the same red brick walkway that I pointed out before, that led to the Derby House backyard. At the far end of the pathway, you'll see the Narbonne House, a home which dates all the way back to 1675.
That means it was around during the Salem Witch Trials. We actually walked by it earlier on Essex Street. But for now, let's wrap up the tour by exploring the waterfront.
I'll tell you about the wharf while you walk down to the lighthouse and save my favorite story for the walk back. So, facing away from the Custom House, you'll be looking at the lawn and waterfront of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. Cross the street in front of the Custom House to get there and look for the large black anchor that holds the iconic National Park sign.
Again, cross Derby Street and you'll notice that black anchor to your left. Then, press play on map marker number 15 titled Walk to Derby Wharf's Lighthouse.
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In 1881, a Chicago-based businessman named Francis Beidler and his friend B.F. Ferguson formed the Santee River Cypress Lumber Company. Their goal was pretty straightforward but bold, harvest the vast old-growth cypress forests of the Congaree floodplain and supply the booming cities of America with its prized rot-resistant wood. Beidler and Ferguson saw a good opportunity here and they invested heavily.
They built temporary camps and moved men, mules, and machinery through the thick muck and tangled waterways. Cross-cut saws sang through the ancient trees and felled giants were chained together to slope downstream. Yet the swamp wasn't so easily tanked.
Logs sank into the dark waters, equipment rusted out in these damp conditions, and the swamp's fierce mosquitoes and diseases wore down even the toughest of crews. And when the rain came, well, unpredictable floods could wash out roads and landings overnight, forcing the crews to rebuild again and again and again. Unlike other logging operations in the South, the Santee River Company never built permanent camps or railroads here.
Their work was seasonal and it was scattered. It was a constant struggle against the swamp's wild heart. And by the 1910s, the company pulled out of Congaree completely.
It was one of those rare moments in history where nature was victorious over industry.
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So, are you standing in front of the witch house? It's the dark house right on the corner of Essex and North. It looks pretty good for being over 400 years old, right? The old black-timbered witch house, which has a foundation dating all the way back to 1620, holds a special connection to the Salem witch trials. Let me tell you about it on the other side of the house, which has a short stone wall you can sit on.
So, go ahead and walk around the corner to the back of the house and have a seat. So, what's the connection here? Why is it called the witch house? Well, the witch house is the only remaining home in Salem with direct ties to the witch trials. At the time, it was the home of Jonathan Corwin.
Corwin was one of the magistrates who presided over the preliminary examinations at the first meeting house. And Corwin later served on the court of Oyer and Terminer. He got that position because another judge resigned after the first conviction and then execution of Bridget Bishop.
To at least that one judge named Nathaniel Saltinstall, the trials had escalated into something sinister. But apparently, everything seemed on the up and up to Corwin. Oh, and the witch house is surprisingly ghost free.
Nah, just kidding. Of course, this place is super haunted. Why wouldn't it be? No one can say for sure why this house is haunted, but some believe it has to do with Corwin finding so many witch trial suspects guilty.
Others say the ghosts that haunt this house are those who suffered from the Corwin curse. You see, all five of Corwin's children died in this house, as did he and his wife, all prematurely, at different ages, and from various illnesses. Hmm, anyone believe in karma? If you have extra time on your hands and want to see inside, you can purchase a ticket for a self-guided tour of this home.
It contains furnishings from the 1600s, along with items related to Jonathan Corwin and the witch trials. But you can also just go in the back door and visit the gift shop to get a feel for the house and its slanted floors. Okay, in a moment, we'll start heading toward the spot where the court of Oyer and Terminer took place.
While we walk over there, I'll talk more about the second round of witch trials, after Corwin became one of the judges. But while we're on the subject of Corwin, there's one other thing I want to clear up, in case some of your prior witch trial knowledge is rolling around in your brain. Jonathan Corwin is not to be confused with his nephew, George Corwin.
Although both men played crucial roles during the witch trials, they were very different people. I'll tell you more about George Corwin later on in the tour. So do me a favor and walk back to the street corner.
You're gonna cross North Street and remain on Essex. Again, cross North Street at the crosswalk. Then you're gonna stay on Essex Street and walk one block to Sewell Street.
Once you're there, turn left and walk on the right-hand sidewalk to the end of the street to the Witch Dungeon Museum. Just follow the blue line in the app. While you walk, I'll talk.
So press play on marker number 15 titled, Walk to the Witch Dungeon Museum.
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All right, do you have a place to sit or perhaps lean against? We're just one block away from the former home of Bridget Bishop. She lived just down Washington Street from here. We'll pass by her place later.
Bridget was accused of witchcraft by some of the young girls in April of 1692. Bridget may have been targeted because, again, she lived outside conventional social circles. At nearly 60 years old, she was on her third husband at the time, and the local gossip mill could be cruel.
They'd already whispered that Bridget had a reputation of stealing eggs, scaring horses, and some say killing her first two husbands. At the end of May, Massachusetts Governor Phipps finally returned from England almost four months after the witchcraft accusations had begun. But the governor had a lot on his plate.
There were Native American wars to the north and fighting between the French and the English. So to handle the witchcraft trials, he set up a special court in Salem called Oyer and Terminer. It translates to hear and determine and was a special court commissioned for serious criminal cases, especially treason or felony in England and colonial America.
Phipps assigned important community members, friends of his, to be the judges of this special court. And finally, in June of 1692, the trials began. They took place just a little further up the road from where we are right now.
I'll point out the exact spot when we walk by it later. These hear and determine trials were hot, noisy, and crowded. Villagers weren't going to miss an opportunity to watch this spectacle.
The accused witches were led from the jails to Salem's townhouse, desperately hoping for mercy. Without lawyers, they were forced to defend themselves. Even worse, the use of spectral evidence was allowed.
That meant the accusers could merely say they had a vision that someone was a witch. This further escalated the trials into the realm of fantasy land because no real, valid proof of anything was needed. Meanwhile, the afflicted girls, including the first two to act out, Betty Parris and her cousin Abigail, were all brought into the courtroom in a group.
They were writhing and babbling and throwing fits, really putting on a show. And if one of the accused witches even so much as motioned at a girl, they would shout something like, she's attacking me. The overzealous crowd ate up the convincing theatrics as the accused stood by, humiliated.
Well, those on trial soon realized they had very few options. If they didn't confess to being witches, they'd be hanged. So in order to be spared by the court, they'd have to confess to being witches and show some remorse.
In that case, the Puritan community believed the so-called witches would receive their punishment directly from God. They'd get to live, yes, but they'd be pariahs in the community. Everyone would continue to believe that they really were witches.
Good Lord, what would you do? Before I continue, let's start walking over to our next stop. As we walk, I'll tell you about two accused women who chose two different options. And I'll cover the first conviction in the witch trials.
If you're facing the bewitched statue, continue straight toward Gulu Gulu and keep walking along Essex Street. Again, continue walking along the left-hand sidewalk of Essex Street and press play on marker number eight titled, Walk to the Ropes Mansion, the first conviction.
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So, anyone up for a little ghost story? And just a disclaimer, this story might not be suitable for young children, so earmuffs, kids. Now, there's a pretty good chance that you're listening to this track while waiting for Old Faithful to put on a show. When you got to the viewing area, you drove past that impressive Old Faithful Inn, right? The Old Faithful Inn that you see today was built in 1903, after the original Upper Geyser Basin Lodging House burned down.
When its doors opened in 1904, guests were mesmerized by the inn's 76-foot-high lobby ceiling, massive stone fireplace, and ornate woodwork. In fact, some guests have been so enamored with the place that they've never left. One such guest is known only as the Headless Bride.
Legend has it that in the 1920s, a young woman from a wealthy family fell in love with a rugged soldier. But the girl's father disapproved and forbade the marriage. So the girl and her beloved eloped.
They spent their honeymoon at the Old Faithful Inn and then moved to the Old Faithful Lodge. But the young bride very quickly learned that her new husband was both a reckless gambler and a mean drunk. During a particularly loud confrontation, the soldier told the bride that he had only married her for her money.
Soon after, the staff at the Old Faithful Inn realized that the couple was missing. They hadn't checked out, and no one had seen them for days. One curious chambermaid let herself into the couple's room and found a horrific scene.
The bride was lying dead in the bathtub, and she was missing her head. The hotel staff called the police who assumed that the bride's husband had killed her and fled the area. They searched, but they were never able to find him, nor was anyone able to find the poor bride's missing head.
That is, until years later. Now, if you haven't been inside the Old Faithful Inn, the lobby actually features a wooden tower. The top of the tower is called the crow's nest, just like the lookout on the upper mast of a ship.
Well, one day, an unsuspecting hotel employee stumbled upon the bride's missing head. It was tucked away in a corner of the crow's nest. So, according to this legend, the bride's ghost still walks the halls of the Old Faithful Inn, searching for her missing head, and maybe even her missing husband, too.
Guests have seen her pacing on the widow's walk and appearing as a sort of mist in the honeymoon suite. Her scoundrel of a husband may have gotten away with the crime in life, but it seems he, too, is doomed to a lonely afterlife. Old Faithful Inn guests have reported seeing a spectral man in a merchant marine uniform pacing the crow's nest and peeking into guest rooms.
If you're staying at the Old Faithful Inn, keep a close eye out for the ghosts of the bride and groom, if you dare.
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Welcome to the Granary Burying Ground. If it's open, let's wander into the cemetery. But please, no leaning or sitting on the gravestones.
And they also ask that you keep off the grass. If the gates aren't open, you can still take a peek through the iron posts. So maybe the first thing you saw was the big gravestone in the middle that says Franklin.
That is the final resting place of the parents of Benjamin Franklin, but not old Ben himself, who's buried in Philadelphia. I'll tell you more about him in a few minutes. This cemetery, along with some of the Park Street Church property and Boston Common, all sit atop what used to be a large grain storage facility, or granary, which is how it got its name.
The granary is a who's who of the most famous patriots of the American Revolution. Folks buried here include Paul Revere and the victims of the Boston Massacre. You'll also find three signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Robert Treat Payne, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams. The burying ground dates back to 1660, but around 1837, in the Victorian era, the headstones were rearranged into the neat rows you see today. Meaning those tombstones may not actually sit atop the remains of the person etched on the grave markers.
So can you guess why the headstones were rearranged? Well, that's due to the invention of the lawnmower, which meant that cows and goats from the Common were no longer needed to graze here to keep the grass trimmed. But in order for mowers to take over the job, they had to be able to get in between the gravestones. With limited space to bury people, you'll see some tabletop graves here.
Those lead down to multiple remains, or mass graves. So although there are only about 2,300 grave markers here, some say the number of bodies buried here is well over 5,000. Look around.
Do you see any headstones with the image of a skull with wings? This symbol was a Puritan representation of the body being here, but the soul going elsewhere upon death. A triumph over death, if you will. You may also see pennies left on some of the headstones, especially on those belonging to Paul Revere.
If you can, let's go find his spot now. You can find him in the back of the cemetery, in the middle, behind the large gravestone that says Franklin. Or just follow the blue line for Revere's headstone.
Then press play on map marker number seven when you get there.
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When you’re in Puna, it’s a must that you visit the Mackenzie State Park Area. This is kind of a remote and peaceful place with tall ironwood trees that line the road. But don’t get fooled by this serene appearance. This park actually has a pretty spooky history! Continue reading, and let me tell you some creepy legends about this place.
The first story starts with the creation of the park in the late 1850s. Back then, prison convicts were brought in and forced to work in this remote area to clear the rainforest. Without sanitary drinking water, many of them died from heat and exhaustion. Many people say their unmarked graves are scattered across the park, along with the ghosts of their haunted past.
Another story says that there used to be an ancient trail that crosses through this park. Locals are convinced that the ghosts of ancient Hawaiian warriors still use this trail. They are called the ‘huaka’i po’ or the ‘night marchers.’ And believe it or not, people have reported hearing ancient battle cries and chanting on stormy nights. Some locals refuse to come to this park after dark, for fear of crossing paths with one of these ancient and powerful spirits.
Besides these creepy tales, more than one unsolved murder has occurred in this remote forest. Many people who walk here report hearing footsteps behind them, but when they turn around to look, nothing was there. Campers report stories of their tents being shaken violently in the middle of the night with no explanation! Some recount being woken up by blood curdling screams. Even local fishermen report seeing eerie lights and undiscoverable campfires throughout the forest at night.
If you are here at sunset, be sure to look out for the ghosts of unshaven men, pickaxes in hand, or the blur of a night marcher walking ancient trails. Or you may just sense an unexplained presence lurking in the forest. Or even find mysterious objects in your photographs! Remember that you are walking amongst the living and the dead... so watch out. It's said that these ghosts like to photo bomb!
20-year-old Jennie Wade was the only civilian killed during the Battle of Gettysburg. The home where she died is preserved as the Jennie Wade House Museum, and it’s possible that Jennie’s spirit never left. Visitors and guides tell of cold spots, doors opening on their own, and even the scent of fresh bread drifting through empty rooms.
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Alrighty, we'll stick around the visitor center a few more minutes before we get moving, and I'll share what triggered the witch trials. It would take much longer than the length of this tour to share every detail about this historic tragedy, but I'll do my best to summarize the facts as we go along. I'll introduce you to some of the people involved and share the most important turning points of the story.
You may find, once the tour ends, that you want to explore even more about this nightmare, because a nightmare it was. Let's start by visualizing Salem back in those days. Salem really had two parts.
There was Salem Town, which was the small but prosperous port located right here in what we consider Central Salem. Think simple wooden homes and basic meeting houses for church services and public events. But there was also the parish known as Salem Village, about five miles north of here, where Danvers is today.
Salem Village was a farming community and much poorer than Salem Town, and it's in Salem Village where our tale begins. Imagine a freezing cold snowy day. It's January of 1692, and we're inside the home of the Parris family.
The head of the Parris family was Salem Village's Reverend, and inside his home that day, while snow and sleet pummeled the neighborhood, was Reverend Parris's nine-year-old daughter, Betty, and her cousin, 11-year-old Abigail Williams, and they began acting mighty strangely. The two girls began to twitch, twist, and contort their bodies into strange shapes, speaking in words that made no sense. Reverend Parris was alarmed and immediately called on a doctor.
The doctor tried using his medicine and prayer to provide relief for the girls, but nothing worked. He could not come up with any other diagnosis other than that the girls seemed to have become bewitched. Now, you might be thinking, how could a doctor come up with such a diagnosis? Well, back in the late 1600s, Salem Village was populated mostly by Puritans.
The Puritan religion, a form of Christianity, required a strict lifestyle, and they were wary of the devil. So, even small differences in behavior aroused suspicion. Now, let's take a step back and wonder what really happened to Betty and Abigail.
The short answer is, we don't really know. Modern theories suggest they might have suffered from epilepsy, child abuse, mental illness, food poisoning, or some sort of disease. But let's explore one other possibility, that the girls' imaginations had gotten out of hand.
At that time, girls their age had begun experimenting with fortune telling. You know how quickly a trend can start these days, and it may not have been so different back then. This particular antic that many young girls were dabbling with was referred to as the egg and glass.
They'd drip raw egg white into a glass of water and try to decipher the shape it made. Then they'd try to decide if it meant anything about their future. This game had begun to stray into sinister territory.
Some young girls claimed to see things like the shape of a coffin. If you've ever tried to spook yourself and your friends with a fun night around a Ouija board, then you know what an overactive imagination can do. It could be all in or it could be taken to another level or become cult-like.
It's plausible that the egg and glass trend could have caused Betty and Abigail to have unusual thoughts or feel as if they'd had a spell cast upon them. Heck, maybe they were just play acting in a game that got out of control. But the bottom line is this, they started claiming that witches had cast spells on them.
And well, all hell broke loose. Now, let's leave the visitor center behind and start walking. And we'll see some of the places where the witch hunt story and the subsequent trials took place.
We'll also be visiting some haunted site
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Okay, folks, allow me to set the scene with an excerpt from one of my favorite childhood books. His stories were what frightened people most of all, dreadful stories they were about hanging and walking the plank and storms at sea and the dry Tortugas and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. Can anyone name the book? If you said Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, you're my people.
Oh, and even if you didn't recognize it, you're all still me mateys and we be sailing these high seas together. Don't worry, I'm not going to do that pirate voice the whole way through. But pirates weren't just the stuff of great works of fiction.
Here in the Gulf waters, piracy was a very real profession. And here's a fun fact for you. At one time, piracy was actually legal.
And not only was it legal, it was considered a respectable profession. So let's rewind the clock a little bit back before pirates were the stuff of legend, before the eye patches, parrots and plunder. In the late Middle Ages, European monarchs began handing out documents called Letters of Mark.
These were essentially hall passes for private ship owners, giving them the royal thumbs up to attack enemy vessels during wartime. These state-sanctioned sea raiders were known as privateers, and they played a crucial role in naval warfare. In fact, they were essential during conflicts like the Anglo-Spanish War of 1812.
And the Anglo-Spanish Wars. See, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, England and Spain were locked in a bitter rivalry. It was one soaked in politics, religion and, of course, gold.
Spain had been hauling back mountains of treasure from the New World, and England wanted in on it. The thing was, the difference between a struggling kingdom and a sprawling empire was maritime power. But the English crown wasn't going to build a giant navy from scratch.
That would be highly expensive and slow. So they handed out Letters of Mark like candy to ship captains willing to raid Spanish vessels. These, quote unquote, legal pirates got to keep a share of whatever they captured, gold, silver, sugar, spices, as long as the rest went back to the crown.
It was a win-win, provided that you didn't die and weren't Spanish or French or Dutch or whoever England was mad at that week. So you can see how the moral compass at sea was already spinning a little wildly. It was a time of, as my editor Matt says, increased exploration and exploitation.
Well, by the late 1600s, things started to get a bit more, shall we say, unruly. The colonial powers were, for the time being, at peace. So many privateers found themselves out of work, but they still had heavily armed ships and a taste for the high seas.
On top of that, trade was picking up again and ships loaded with gold and silver were loaded with treasure were crossing between the Americas and Europe. So what did the privateers do? They turned rogue. This period in the late 17th and early 18th centuries is what historians call the golden age of piracy.
Now, most pirates weren't just mindless marauders. They were strategic and, dare I say it, even democratic. Most pirate crews operated with their own codes of conduct.
They shared plunder equally and they even elected their captains. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, with their plentiful islands and hidden coves, became the perfect playground for these sea bandits. So as you look out on the water today, imagine one of those privateer schooners way out in the distance.
The wooden ship picking up speed along the waves, its billowing white sails calling away. Imagine that stowed away treasure and a crew of men moving about the deck, their eyes on the horizon, looking for their next steal. It was a hard life, but those who could hack it often became local legends, feared pirates whose reputations preceded them.
And that's what
At Great Sand Dunes National Park, life fights for every drop of water and breath of air. In this episode, we explore the shifting sands where prairie sunflowers, morning glories, and resilient grasses cling to survival, while lizards and tiger beetles battle the heat and each other in a race for life. From blazing midday temperatures to sudden summer storms, discover how this ever-changing desert landscape is alive with movement, struggle, and astonishing adaptability.
Deep beneath the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, crews toiled in brutal, suffocating conditions to carve out one of the most ambitious engineering projects of its time—the Gunnison Tunnel. In this tense episode, we follow Foreman Grasser on what begins as a routine morning shift in the dark, sweltering depths. But when the tunnel’s ceiling gives way without warning, the day turns into a fight for survival beneath the unforgiving cliffs of the Black Canyon.
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Are you looking at the prairie? So what do you see out there? In the heart of the windswept plains lies one of the most iconic and important inhabitants of the prairie, the prairie dog. Welcome to lifestyles of the small, black-tailed and furry. Sorry, that was my very bad Robin Leach impression.
That one's going out to all my fellow Gen Xers out there. The prairie dog wakes up as soon as the sun peaks over the horizon. There's no snooze button for this guy.
The first order of business is to climb out of the burrow and take a really good look around. This is his chance to check for any predators that might be lurking about. He lives in a pretty safe neighborhood, but you never can be too careful, especially if you're a prairie dog.
The prairie dog's family is called a coterie. He lives in his burrow with his female partners and about a dozen little prairie dog juniors. As the head of the coterie, he's got the big responsibility of keeping them all safe, but he can't do that on an empty stomach.
So if the post is clear, it's breakfast time. The prairie dog forages for a quick little bite of wildflowers and tasty clover before going for a morning chat with his neighbors. Now to the outside ear, it sounds like just a random series of yaps, barks and whistles, but in prairie dog language, the neighbors are sharing specific information for all of the things that they've spotted so far today.
Oh, that means the bison are pretty cranky today. I'm just kidding. I have no idea what it means.
I don't speak prairie dog. Anyway, the rest of our prairie dog's day is a mix of munching on grass, sunbathing on the warm dirt mounds and just hanging out with his friends. The neighborhood's big.
It spans quite a few acres. So he and his neighbors have constructed underground burrows for their families that are all interconnected by a network of tunnels. The prairie dogs in this town really look out for each other.
As the sun starts to set, it's back to the burrow for our furry friend. Safe underground, the family huddles together for warmth. Nights on the South Dakota prairie can get pretty chilly.
Now, what our prairie dog friend might not know is that he's considered a keystone species of Wind Cave National Park. That means they're one of the most important species to the health and well-being of the whole ecosystem. Their grazing patterns prevent the prairie grasses from becoming overgrown, which allows for a diversity of plant life to flourish.
In turn, that plant life will continue to provide food and shelter for many other species. And those intricate burrow systems the prairie dogs create aren't just cozy homes for themselves. They also provide shelter for a variety of other animals like burrowing owls, rabbits and snakes.
And as they dig, prairie dogs bring up nutrients from deep underground to the surface. This aerates the soil and helps it retain moisture, which benefits the entire prairie ecosystem. So thank you, prairie dog, for giving us this glimpse into your fabulous furry little life.
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For a small fee, the Jenny Wade House offers guided tours inside, and it's actually one of my favorite tours in Gettysburg. Let's jump right in to the summer of 1863. By June, the American Civil War was in its third year.
Up until then, Gettysburg hadn't really experienced the horrors of battle because the fighting had stayed in the southern states. But the townspeople were not immune to the war's effects. See, Gettysburg was a crossroads town, which meant it was crisscrossed by roads connecting Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Harrisburg, and other main hubs out west.
So, locals were accustomed to the occasional general or even brigade coming through town for supplies. And besides that, some men in town had enlisted in Lincoln's army and left town to fight for the Union cause. The house we're visiting now actually belonged to Jenny Wade's sister, Georgia, and Georgia's husband, Lou McClellan.
Lou had enlisted in the army, and that summer, he was stationed in Virginia. Ordinarily, Georgia McClellan was a headstrong lady who did just fine on her own, thank you very much. The only problem was, in mid-June 1863, Georgia was nine months pregnant with her first child, and she was due any day.
And at that time, 20-year-old Jenny, her youngest brother Harry, and their mother Mary lived on the north side of town. So, Mary came to stay with Georgia, while Jenny stayed behind to look after her brother Harry. At the same time, Confederate General Robert E. Lee wanted to push the fighting to the north.
So, Gettysburg began to see Confederate soldiers coming to town in search of supplies. And that made people nervous, that their small town might soon be overrun with the enemy's troops on their way to bigger northern cities. No one thought that the battle would happen right here in town.
But then, on July 1st, shots rang out on the west side of Gettysburg. Mary Wade urged her daughter Jenny to gather up Harry and come to Georgia's house at once. The family would be safe here on the south side of town, and could wait things out until the skirmish was over.
Jenny and Harry arrived here at Georgia's house just in time to see Georgia have her baby. They also saw more and more Union soldiers coming to the south side. According to the Union guards that were stationed outside the McClellan house, this was becoming more than just a skirmish.
It was turning out to be a full-scale battle. And so, Jenny, who did not like to sit still, turned her sister's house into a makeshift bakery. For two days, while shots from enemy gunfire flew outside, Jenny made batch upon batch of fresh bread for the troops.
But tragedy came on July 3rd, 1863. Early that morning, Jenny began preparing bread for the day. At the same time, Confederate soldiers posted up along the other side of Baltimore Street.
They fired off shots, presumably aiming for the Union troops stationed on Cemetery Hill. At about 8 a.m., Jenny bent down to open the oven. At that very moment, a stray bullet came through the kitchen door and struck Jenny Wade in the back left shoulder blade.
The shot pierced her heart and killed her instantly. By the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, there were over 7,000 soldiers killed in action. But surprisingly, there was only one civilian death, and that was Jenny.
Despite their grief, the Wades continued to help the soldiers until all the troops had left Gettysburg. In 1882, the United States Senate voted to grant Jenny's mother Mary a pension from the Army, citing that her daughter had been killed serving the Union cause, feeding the Union soldiers. There's a lot more to the Wade story, and the wonderful historians that work here tell it with a great amount of care and reverence.
So I urge you to take a guided tour of the Wade House and see for yourself the family's ordeal on those three fateful days of the Civil
John was born free in Richmond, Virginia, and he moved to Boston in the 1840s. Here he became a barber, a community activist, and even a state legislator. He lived in this house from 1878 to 1893, but one of the most interesting stories of his life happened much earlier.
You see, decades before, his barbershop was much more than a business. It was a center of abolitionist activity. John J. Smith was heavily involved in the Underground Railroad, guiding escaped slaves to freedom.
Now, I know there's not really anywhere to sit around here, but I'd like to tell you a story. Like John J. Smith, Shadrach Minkins was born in Virginia, but he was born into slavery. He lived in Norfolk, where he spent every day working long, hard hours in his master's tavern.
But one day, Shadrach decided enough was enough. In May 1850, he made a drastic decision and tried for an escape. It's likely he stowed away on a ship heading north, or he might have gotten lucky and contacted a sympathetic captain or crew member.
We just don't know. However he did it, Shadrach made it to Boston, where he had choices, where he could be paid for the work that he did, where he could be free. He found a job at the Corn Hill Coffee House and Tavern, and to hide his identity, he went by the name of Frederick.
But things weren't so simple. Months after he arrived in Boston, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they had escaped to a free state.
Noncompliance with this law was enforced with a hefty penalty. One morning, Shadrach got up to work at the coffee house. It was February 15th, 1851, nine months after he had escaped Virginia.
A group of men walked into the restaurant, and Shadrach served them coffee. And then, minutes later, the men rose and arrested Shadrach. It turned out the men were federal deputies, acting on behalf of Shadrach's owner.
They were there to take him back to Virginia. Under the new law, he was the first fugitive slave to be seized in all of New England. The deputies brought Shadrach to the courthouse, where he would stand trial before a commissioner.
According to the Fugitive Slave Act, the commissioner would be paid $10 if he found enough evidence that the person in question was a fugitive, but only $5 if he didn't, or about $400 and $200 in today's money. That's not really an incentive for justice, is it? In the meantime, word about Shadrach's arrest had spread rapidly, and a crowd of abolitionists had gathered outside the courthouse. I mean, a big, huge crowd.
And within that crowd was John J. Smith. But what could they do? They couldn't just stand there and let this injustice happen. Time was running out.
In a moment of courage, John and several dozen others, most of them African-American, stormed the courthouse. What happened next? Let's continue heading to the Lewis and Harriet Hayden house and find out.
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Up next, we'll pass through Lahaina town. Now, Lahaina means cruel or merciless sun, which reflects the area's sunny climate and low rainfall. Before it became a popular tourist destination, this harbor town had a colorful and complex history.
For hundreds of years, Lahaina was a small fishing village. Prior to the arrival of foreigners, it also served as the traditional residence of Maui's royal family. But during the 1800s, Lahaina became a bustling center of commerce, culture, and conflict.
Beginning in the 1820s, Lahaina became the capital of the newly formed Hawaiian kingdom. It also served as a hub for the whaling industry. Whales were prized for their blubber, skin, teeth, baleen, and bones.
Whalers rendered blubber into oil, which served many purposes, mainly as fuel for lamps. And baleen was used to make things like umbrellas, buggy whips, and even corsets. Whaling brought economic opportunities and prosperity to Lahaina.
But it also brought trouble. Now, shortly after whaling ships arrived in Lahaina, Christian missionaries followed. And by then, Lahaina had become a rip-roaring, anything-goes frontier town.
The missionary's strict teachings clashed with both the traditional Hawaiian culture and the drinking and rabble-rousing of the whalers. Apparently, they were having a whale of a good time. The sailors quickly resented the missionaries for trying to stop all their fun, so they responded with violence, which prompted the royal governor to build Lahaina Fort on the waterfront in order to protect the town.
Fast forward to the 1960s, when Lahaina had transformed from a whaling town into a tourist destination. Ever since, visitors have enjoyed this walking town, alive with history, charm, and beauty. That is, until August 8th, 2023.
The dry grassland outside the town caught fire, and winds from a passing hurricane drove that fire right into Lahaina. Within hours, this historic town was destroyed. Not a single warning siren went off, which left thousands of residents unaware of the fire, until it was too late.
Some of those residents actually took shelter in the ocean, and were forced to watch their homes slowly burn into hollow shells of rubble and ash. The fire burned over 2,100 acres of land, and destroyed or damaged over 2,200 buildings. Some of them were over 200 years old and had irreplaceable historic and cultural value.
The confirmed death toll sits at around 100 people, which is the most deaths from a U.S. wildfire in over a century. During the days and weeks that followed, debates erupted over the government's handling of the emergency. People understandably wanted to know who to blame.
But no matter what, no one can bring back the lives or the buildings that were lost that day. All that's left are the memories of what once was. But all was not lost.
Even though Lahaina was ravaged by the fire, the historic banyan tree in the center of town survived. And seeing the tree bloom again has given local residents the hope that like their beloved tree, Lahaina will also rise from the ashes. Make no mistake, the residents of Maui are resilient and strong, and they are not alone.
There has been an outpouring of love and support from Hawai'i and around the world, showing that the Aloha spirit is alive and well. If you'd like to help, please support local Maui businesses. Now is when they need your help most.
And lastly, as you pass through Lahaina, remember that people are still grieving the loss of their homes, their livelihoods, and their loved ones. Please show respect by not taking any pictures of the devastation. And be understanding when talking to locals.
It's a small island, so most people know someone who has been affected. And let's take a moment of silence for everyone lost in the fire, for the healing of those who survived, and for the
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Alright folks, right now we're winding our way down Highway 49, also known as Looking Glass Road. It was named after the famous Nez Perce leader and battle strategist Looking Glass. Now, while I'm going to take us straight into the park, we are going to pass by a few overlooks on our way down.
Feel free to pause the audio if you decide to stop on your own to take in the Then, just unpause when you're ready to keep going. The Blackfoot Nation has a proud history of brave warriors, epic battles, and heroic figures. Among these heroes, some have achieved near-legendary status with deeds and stories almost too extraordinary to believe.
Let's unravel the legend of Running Eagle and reveal the true story of this flesh-and-blood warrior woman. Now, heads up listeners, this story does have some violence, so if that's not appropriate for the audience, you might want to pause this one. Born to the Bikani tribe of the Blackfoot Nation in the early 1800s, Brown Weasel Woman was a tomboy from the start.
Instead of cooking or gathering, she preferred dressing like a boy, playing with the boys, and hunting and fighting with them too. Although her mother disapproved, her father was a renowned warrior who encouraged her interests. He taught her to fight and ride and brought her on hunting expeditions.
It was during one such hunt that Brown Weasel would have a chance to show her true character. What was supposed to be an ordinary hunt took a disastrous turn. The party found themselves caught in an enemy tribe's ambush.
A storm of Assiniboine horsemen thundered over the horizon. Chaos ensued as the hunting party desperately kicked their horses into a frantic flight for survival. Suddenly, Brown Weasel's father hit the ground, his horse crumpling beneath him.
Brown Weasel's blood ran cold as her horse raced past. The enemy hoops grew closer and she made a split-second choice. Gritting her teeth, she turned around and charged back into the melee.
With arrows and bullets whirring past her ears, she dismounted and in one heaving motion hefted her father onto her horse. Springing up behind him, she grabbed the reins of the horse with one hand and her father with the other. Clinging to each other and to life itself, the two raced away, barely escaping the enemy's grasp.
Upon their safe return to the village, Brown Weasel's bravery was celebrated with traditional songs and dances, marking her courage with a joyful and heartfelt celebration. Some hailed her as a hero, while others felt she should leave the hunting and fighting to the men. After all they reasoned, what if other Blackfoot women decided to follow her example? Tragically, despite her heroics, Brown Weasel's father would soon fall in another battle against their enemy, the Crow Tribe, and this time, there was no saving him.
Suddenly, her greatest supporter and the person she admired most was gone. Soon after, her mother, who had been sick for some time, succumbed to a broken heart at the loss of her husband. As the eldest, the duty to care for her five younger siblings fell on Brown Weasel.
Though she didn't enjoy these domestic duties, she took care of her siblings for a while before moving in a local widow to help. And despite the loss of her father, her warrior's heart was never deterred. When braves from her tribe planned a raid to reclaim horses stolen by their enemies from the Crow Tribe, Brown Weasel snuck along behind them.
When the leader of the raiding party spotted her, she refused to go home, saying she'd carry on alone if she had to. The others relented, and Brown Weasel went on, rescuing eleven horses herself. On their way back home, they stopped for the night, and Brown Weasel kept watch.
In the darkness, she spotted and killed two Crow warriors, and their party returned triumphant. Again, some celebrated her bravery, but many of the elders st
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Sally Ann Jarrett, or just Sally to her friends, was one tough soldier, even though she was only two feet tall. Sally joined the Union's 11th Pennsylvania Infantry in May of 1861, while the men were training in Westchester, about two hours east of Gettysburg. Now, some stories say that this little puppy wandered out onto the training field, while others say she was given as a gift to one of the soldiers.
But however she got there, this scruffy mix of terrier and pit bull puppy was a natural-born soldier. She was named Sally Ann after the prettiest girl in Westchester, and Jarrett after the 11th Pennsylvania's commanding officer, Colonel Fion Jarrett. During training exercises, Sally marched in line beside her men.
She attended the company's roll calls each morning, and twice she paraded with her regiment before President Abraham Lincoln. And legend has it, the president even tipped his hat to her. By the time the 11th Pennsylvania arrived at Gettysburg, Sally was already a seasoned soldier.
Her preferred battle tactic? Charging straight ahead, brazenly breaching the enemy lines, and barking with wild abandon. Now, it's also possible that she befriended the enemy through head pets and belly rubs, but there's no documented evidence of that. But sometime during the chaotic afternoon of July 1st, 1863, Sally got separated from the boys of the 11th Pennsylvania.
Where did she go? Sadly, there wasn't time to dwell on it. The soldiers thought Sally was most likely a casualty of war. But don't worry, the story has a happy ending.
Because after the battle, some of the men from the 11th Pennsylvania found Sally. Turns out, she stayed here near Oak Ridge to protect some of her fallen brothers-in-arms. And today, Sally Ann Jarrett's contributions to her regiment are memorialized here at the Monument for the 11th Pennsylvania.
Feel free to give Sally's head a pat. She would definitely approve.
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At the dawn of the 20th century, more and more folks were discovering the beauty and tranquility of South Florida and Biscayne Bay. By the roaring 20s, places like Miami and the Florida Keys were highly sought-after vacation destinations for the wealthy elite. And that was great news for the local economy.
Tourists brought dollars and tourism dollars brought jobs and a thriving economy. And you know, money brings happiness, right? In the 1930s, locals like Eddie Walker were trying to develop ways to get their own piece of the tourism pie. Eddie, who went by the nickname Crawfish, was a local fisherman.
He had an easy way of talking to folks. And just like many Floridians of the time, he had dreams of making his own fortune. So he built a little barge on stilts about a mile offshore of Key Biscayne.
Officially, Crawfish's barge was a bait and tackle shop that occasionally sold homemade chowder and sandwiches. But unofficially, the barge was headquarters for a very lucrative and very illegal rum running and gambling operation. And it was the perfect location, accessible enough for anyone that wanted to visit, but far enough from the prying eyes of the law.
The word spread, and soon others built more shacks on stilts next door, using them to operate nightclubs, lounges, and even homes. With nearly 30 structures over the water, Stiltsville was born. Suddenly, Stiltsville became a haven for folks seeking to escape the confines of traditional living.
It offered a sense of freedom and adventure for artists and writers and bohemians. And it also developed a reputation for being, well, let's just say a place of debauchery. Some of those nightclubs were popping, as the kids say.
On any given night, there could be hundreds of people there just having the time of their lives. So what happened to Stiltsville? Well, authorities had been looking for ways to regulate or even dismantle it for decades. But years of hurricanes kind of wiped most of it out anyway, essentially doing the work for them.
By the late 70s, there were just a handful of people living out there. And when Biscayne National Park was established in 1980, the park boundaries included Stiltsville. That meant the remaining inhabitants had to leave, which marked the end for this very unusual community.
But you can still visit the remains. Just check with the visitor center to see what tours will take you out that way.
Welcome to Paul Revere Mall
Now that you've made it to the mall, you can look up at that impressive statue of the man, the myth, the legend, Paul Revere. He's facing St. Stephen's Church across the road. But St. Stephen's wasn't around during his lifetime.
However, if you're facing Revere, you'll notice there's another church behind him. That's the Old North Church. Old North is a big part of Revere's story and our next stop on the Freedom Trail.
Getting a picture of Revere's face with Old North in the background is always a great photo. Well, there's plenty of seating around here, so make yourself comfortable as I tell the story of Paul Revere and his midnight ride. Revere was quite the outspoken supporter of the Revolution.
He was often described as ambitious and brash, and he took his role as a messenger seriously. You see, back in colonial days, communication took some time. When an urgent message had to get to someone quickly, a messenger on horseback was the most efficient choice.
If only Revere knew that one day we'd all just hop on our phones to connect via social media. Hashtag the British are coming!
Revere's Midnight Mission
On April 18, 1775, Revolutionary leader Dr. Joseph Warren received word that the British had discovered the Patriots' secret stash of weapons in the nearby village of Concord. Dr. Warren learned that the British were now on their way to destroy those munitions.
So, he urgently sent Revere to alarm the Patriots in Concord. He also told Revere to stop in Lexington. That's where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were staying.
You see, to the British, Adams and Hancock were the biggest rabble-rousers of the bunch. And according to Warren, the British had also set out to arrest them. To deliver the message, Revere first paddled a boat across the Charles River to Charlestown, then galloped at full speed for about 20 miles to reach Lexington.
The Real Midnight Ride
History has immortalized him as shouting, The British are coming! in each village he passed. But more likely, he said something like, The regulars are coming out! Since the British were already all around Boston, and had been for quite a while. And Paul Revere most likely wasn't yelling as he galloped through the towns because that would have alerted British patrols.
Psst, the regulars are coming out! In any case, Revere successfully made it to Lexington in time to warn Hancock and Adams that the British wanted to arrest them. However, he was intercepted by a British patrol on the way to Concord, and after some questioning, was sent back to Lexington. Nevertheless, the people of Concord were successfully alerted.
And that's because Revere wasn't the only express rider sent out that night. Others were also out spreading the word. In fact, outside of the Boston area, Revere was a pretty obscure figure.
The Legend of Revere
Until poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published his poem, Paul Revere's Ride, in 1860. You've probably heard a line or two. Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Longfellow was inspired to write the poem after visiting Old North Church at the other end of the mall behind Paul Revere's statue. Now, maybe you can recall what was going on in the United States in 1860. The country was on the precipice of civil war, and the American experiment was in danger.
Longfellow wanted to speak peace and wisdom to the moment, and hearken to a time of unified patriotism. In Paul Revere, he found a character that represented the ideals of the revolution. A brave, morally upstanding patriot, risking his life to awaken his countrymen, and rising to defend their freedom.
The heart behind the words was so strong that in 1967, over a hundred years later, Martin Luther King Jr. referred to Revere in a speech. In the speech, King said, We still need some Paul Revere of co
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Now, do you remember the situation here in 1775? In April, the British occupied Boston. And after hearing what happened in Lexington and Concord, thousands of Patriot militiamen from all over New England made their way to Massachusetts. They were ready to lend a hand, and a musket, to whatever happened next.
This newly formed militia circled around Boston, hoping a siege would force the British out. And that's what brings us to Bunker Hill. In May, British reinforcements arrived in Boston to break through the siege.
The militia caught wind that the British intended to occupy the high ground of Bunker Hill, and were hoping to force the Patriots back. There wasn't a moment to lose. It was midnight, June 17th.
In a bold move, the Americans' Colonel Prescott decided to fortify Bunker Hill before the British could do so. This was a crucial and strategic move which would prevent the British from gaining a foothold. So, Prescott led a force of 1,200 men to build fortifications at the top of the hill.
The soldiers worked through the night to dig trenches and build earthen walls in the dark. Many of these militiamen were inexperienced. If things came to blows, then their first large-scale engagement would be against the powerful British Army, one of the best-trained and best-equipped forces in the world.
That's why Colonel Prescott's demeanor and leadership was crucial. He kept his men focused, despite their exhaustion and the stress of a looming British attack. Just hours before the battle, Dr. Warren arrived in the fortifications.
Because Warren held a high rank in the militia, Colonel Prescott offered to step aside and let Warren take command. But Warren declined, insisting that Prescott, who had already been organizing the defenses and had more military experience, was better suited to lead. Besides, Warren preferred to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other patriots on the front lines.
As dawn broke on that June morning, the British in Boston awoke to a shocking sight. A well-defended redoubt, or improvised fort, on Bunker Hill. Do you remember British General Thomas Gage, the commander-in-chief and governor? Well, he was stunned.
The colonists had taken the high ground, an act of defiance he could not ignore. And they were actually organized. He had a decision to make, and quickly.
And we're going to find out what exactly that decision was, up on Bunker Hill.
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Okay, now that we're back on the highway, let me share one last story and then I'll bid you farewell with some parting thoughts and a pretty fantastic song.
Now, like I said before, these white gypsum sand dunes cover about 275 square miles, and at that size and with that bright white color, the dunes are easily visible from space and that's a good thing because for astronauts, finding white sands could come in handy, which reminds me of a pretty stellar story.
You see, over on White Sands Missile Range is a designated runway for space shuttles and one time in 1982, the shuttle Columbia was returning from orbit.
Its destination was Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, but poor weather made the runways too soggy for a shuttle landing, so Columbia was rerouted right here to White Sands and the shuttle made a successful landing on the missile range.
Years later, astronauts claimed that they could still find white gypsum sand inside the shuttle. Now, the space shuttle program ended back in 2011, but the missile range continues to be a testing facility for rocket engines and space technology.
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So, where were we? Ah yes, guano, also known as bat poop. During that time, nitrate-rich guano was one of the best fertilizers you could find. Well, word got out about these caverns near the town of Carlsbad and the incredible amount of guano.
And that word reached the ears of a man named Abijah Long. Abijah had moved to Carlsbad from Central Texas with his family and was a budding entrepreneur. Story goes that he was running a saloon when he heard about the guano.
So, he asked Jim to take him inside. And sure enough, Abijah liked what he saw. Now, let's just take a second to consider some math.
According to experts, the average bat relieves itself around 25 times a day. And the main species of bat that lives in the cave, the Brazilian free-tailed bat, lives for about a decade. So, we're looking at over 90,000 little pellets of poop for every bat.
Now, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of bats over however many thousands of years and, well, you get the picture. Or maybe you can smell it. Well, for someone like Abijah, it smelled like money.
So, he filed a claim for a mine. And he hired Jim to work as the foreman of operations. Jim was now a cowboy spelunker guano miner.
For what it's worth, Abijah not only filed a claim for a mine, but he also claimed to discover the cave. But the more common version of this tale says that Jim found the cave first. Either way, guano mining operations began in the 1903, five years after Jim first came to Carlsbad Cavern.
Miners loaded up sacks with guano and then sent them up to the surface using a giant bucket and a winch. And by the by, it was that same bucket that the miners used to get in and out of the cave. Ew.
That's right. That guano would then be hauled to Carlsbad and then sent by rail car to market, including the citrus fields way out in Southern California. So, if you were an orange juice drinker in the 1910s, you could thank the good bats of Carlsbad Cavern for all that liquid vitamin C. Well, as a guano miner, Jim got to spend more time in the cave, which is what he really wanted.
During his breaks and after work, he'd strike off into a new direction in search for more tunnels. Jim continued working as a guano miner and exploring the caves for 20 years. He cleared rudimentary paths through the tunnels and eventually he began showing people around.
Now, in his early 40s, Jim was a cowboy spelunker guano miner tour guide. For a third grade dropout, he was really racking up quite the resume. Pictures of Jim at this time often show him wearing a tall cowboy hat.
So, let's pause on that image and finish Jim's story later when we leave the park. In a moment, I'll point out the turn for Carlsbad Caverns.
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Now, how did a national park end up way out here? Great question. Even up to the 1920s, there was no road connecting the cities of El Paso, Texas and Carlsbad, New Mexico. But with automobiles becoming more popular, locals saw the value of a road skirting south of the Guadalupe Mountains, which might entice tourists to visit the area.
So in 1929, the road between El Paso and Carlsbad was completed and would later be designated Route 62. That's the road we're driving on now. Right away, there was talk of a national park.
Nearby Carlsbad Caverns, which is located within the Guadalupe Mountains, was already a national monument. Locals proposed enlarging the park to encompass all of the Guadalupe Mountains and the cavern as one big park. But in 1930, Carlsbad Caverns was re-designated a national park all by itself, without the majority of the mountain range.
But the mountains would get another shot at national park glory, and it boiled down to the generosity of two big landowners. One was a Texas judge named Jesse Coleman Hunter, or JC for short. In a state known for its big hats, JC sure wore a lot of them.
He first moved to the Trans-Pecos in 1911 when he became the school superintendent in the town of Van Horn. He went on to become the county treasurer, county judge, a banker, and the mayor of Abilene. Oh, and he also made a lot of money with the oil and gas boom of the 1920s.
It was during his search for oil that JC first encountered the Guadalupe Mountains. He didn't find any oil here, but what he did find was a new favorite place. JC loved the mountains so much, he purchased thousands of acres of land.
Rather than establish a traditional ranch with grazing cattle, he established a hunting ranch, which would leave a light footprint on the land. The other big landowner in question was Wallace Pratt. Wallace started with humble beginnings on a Kansas farm.
With $142 pinned to his shirt, he left the farm and attended the University of Kansas, where he became fascinated with geology and hopefully found a wallet because who pins money to their clothing? That fascination led him to become the first petroleum geologist for the Humble Oil Company. Today, you know the company as ExxonMobil. Wallace's interest in the Guadalupe Mountains began in the 1920s when someone told him it was the prettiest spot in Texas.
So he took his Model T and drove it 100 miles to see for himself. Well, apparently he agreed, because he too began buying up land, mostly in and around McKittrick Canyon, in what's today the northeastern part of the park. He built not just one, but two homes on his land.
First, he built a stone cabin inside the canyon, which served as a summer home. Then, after his first wife Pearl died, he and his second wife Iris designed a ranch house at the foot of the mountains. They lived here together for 15 years, with no phone and the nearest post office 60 miles away.
So, by the mid-20th century, the land that was to become Guadalupe Mountains National Park was locked up by two men. Let's take a quick break and learn down the road how this land became not just a national park, but a new kind of national park.
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The Quapaw Bathhouse is named after the native Quapaw tribe. And besides the Buckstaff, it's the only other bathhouse still in operation. But while the Buckstaff has been in constant operation, the Quapaw sat empty for more than 20 years, from 1984 until it was purchased for renovations in 2007.
If you're trying to decide between taking a bath at the Quapaw or the Buckstaff, here's the main difference. The Buckstaff offers a classical experience, as if you were visiting a hundred years ago. The Quapaw, on the other hand, offers a more modern spa experience.
But what has united all the bathhouses on this row, from the inexpensive to the luxurious, from the historical to the modern, are the attendants. And starting in the mid-1800s, people came to these hot springs on the advice and even prescription of their doctors. So the bathhouse attendants needed to know how to carry out these wide-ranging prescriptions.
That could include sits baths, massages, physical therapy, steam cabinets, water pressure treatments like needle showers, Scottish showers, and even enemas. After all, the water was meant to heal both on the outside and on the inside. Bathhouse attendants worked long hours, with few breaks, in hot, humid environments.
Even at the most basic bathhouses, the attendants would draw your bath, walk you through the process, and clean the tub after you were done. If you had mobility impairments, the attendants helped you into and out of the baths, and even scrubbed and massaged you in the tub. They'd vary the water temperature, water pressure, and duration of your treatment depending on your needs.
They were experts at their jobs, and they often did it for very little pay. Maggie Northcott started her career as a bathhouse attendant in 1931 at the Government Free Bathhouse, and they kept her busy. In the year 1938 alone, the Government Bathhouse provided 85,913 baths.
That averages out to more than 230 baths a day. In 1940, Maggie worked 48 hours a week, every week of the year, for an annual whopping salary of just $520. And on that salary, she was somehow able to support her mother, too.
Most bathhouse attendants were Black, including Maggie. One famous attendant was Napoleon Rowell. Napoleon started working here in 1872, and bathed as many as 25 men a day.
He was so popular that his picture even appeared in Hot Springs tourism materials. And there were other attendants, like Myrtle Cheatham, who saved every penny she could, all so her children wouldn't have to clean bathtubs like she did. I suppose you can say that after the water itself, bathhouse attendants were the backbone of Hot Springs.
They were the angels, delivering the miraculous, curative waters to the people. They calmed your fears, soothed your aches and pains, brought you fresh towels and water to drink. And after you'd gone, they cleaned up everything for the next person in line, just to do it all over again.
Things aren't quite what they used to be, but bathhouse attendants are still here, still working in Hot Springs. If you're planning to visit the Buckstaff or Quapaw to take the waters, as the saying goes, please remember to thank your attendants for all that they do.
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Welcome to stop number four of Shaka Guide's Gateway Arch National Park walking tour. We're currently on the west side of the Luther E. Lee Smith Square. This is the starting point of the Gateway Arch Trail, which leads down to the arch and winds through the park's lawn and gardens.
There are some concrete benches nearby if you'd like to sit down or walk the path toward the arch while you listen to this next story. Follow the blue line to map marker number five while I tell you about the honorable, sometimes selfish, and even fraudulent origins of this national park. The namesake of this square, Luther E. Lee Smith, has been described as the father of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
If you don't know what that is, well, you're standing on it. You see, before this place was upgraded in 2018 to Gateway Arch National Park, it was called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Luther E. Lee Smith was a local lawyer and civic booster.
In 1933, he had the idea to create some sort of memorial to Thomas Jefferson. Truth be told, there was already a national memorial to Thomas Jefferson in St. Louis. It was built 20 years earlier on the site of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, about five and a half miles west of here.
So, what connection did Thomas Jefferson have to St. Louis that warranted two monuments in his name? After all, the man never even set foot in the city. Well, it was from this city that the famous Lewis and Clark expedition set off to explore the Louisiana Purchase and find a path to the west coast. We'll talk more about the Louisiana Purchase later, but basically, Jefferson acquired land from France that essentially doubled the size of the United States.
It's often considered Jefferson's greatest achievement as president. Luther also figured that this new memorial would have the added benefit of cleaning up the area along the Mississippi River. The riverfront was pretty run down since trains and automobiles had become more popular than passenger boats.
In response, the city's mayor created the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Association and appointed Luther as chairman, a position he held for 14 years. And in 1935, just one year after the committee was created, they convinced Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt to officially sign the memorial park into existence. Before anything could be built, they, of course, had to raise the money.
And so, the city voted on a seven and a half million dollar tax levy. Surprisingly, the issue passed with 71% of the votes in favor, but a few local reporters suspected something fishy going on. Turns out, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper uncovered plenty of evidence that the voting results were fraudulent, and that most people had actually voted against the tax levy.
Apparently, the mayor wanted the project badly enough to cheat. The newspaper even won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for their expose. But despite obvious fraud, the voting results were upheld and plans for the park went ahead.
The city then had to demolish 40 city blocks of old and sometimes beautiful buildings. And even after all that, there was still the issue of what the memorial would even be. All that work, and they didn't even know what they were going to build.
In 1942, seven years after the site was dedicated, reporters asked Luther what he imagined it might eventually look like. He replied, quote, there should be a central figure, a shaft, a building, an arch, or something which would symbolize American culture and civilization. End quote.
Gee, I wonder which of those ideas they finally went with. We'll finish that story later, after we reach the arch. For now, let's continue down the Gateway Arch Trail.
Follow the blue line down the sidewalk to our next stop at one of the two Zen Gardens in the square. I'll meet you at map mar
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Did you know, despite being the driest state in the U.S., over 60% of Nevada is used for grazing livestock? Ranching is so intertwined with the economy and history of this area, that for the first 12 years of Great Basin's national park status, grazing was actually allowed inside the park. Sheep herding in the Great Basin goes back to the late 1800s, and for many of the sheep herders, life was lonely. Perhaps no one knew that loneliness better than the Basques.
The Basques are an ancient indigenous group from the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain and France, and they have their own unique Uscara language and culture. In the mid-1800s, many young Basque men came to the American West during the gold rushes. But they eventually found more reliable work as sheep herders.
And it was a lonely life. Their camps consisted of just the sheep herder, a couple of dogs, and hundreds or even thousands of sheep. For up to four months at a time, the herders endlessly roamed in search of fresh grazing, completely isolated from human contact.
It was this loneliness and a desire for connection that drove the Basque sheep herders to leave their mark on the trees, known as arborglyphs. The soft white bark of an aspen tree, which can be bright and clean as paper, proved irresistible. Using just a pocket knife, they began carving names, dates, and images into the trees, leaving dark scars you can sometimes still see today.
The arborglyphs offered a creative outlet and connected them to the outside world and other herders who would follow. Imagine being alone for months and then coming across a message in the forest. It wasn't much, but it was also everything to the lonely sheep herders.
Some of the oldest carvings found in the park date to 1908, but many more were added later. Peruvian herders replaced the Basques in the 1960s and continued herding sheep and carving arborglyphs in the area until the 1990s. But despite innocent intentions, each arborglyph was actually a wound to the tree that created opportunity for disease.
Aspens usually only live around 100 years, and disease can drastically reduce that. Today, these carvings are important archaeological resources, documenting the area's cultural heritage. Great Basin National Park has tried to record every arborglyph they find before the aspens and the arborglyphs disappear forever.
As you explore these trails, keep your eyes peeled for messages in the forest. But please, do not add your own. We're here as observers, admiring history and nature as they are, but not seeking to change them.
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This next section of road is dotted with several choice overlooks. Feel free to pause wherever you see an open spot, but I'll recommend my favorite just five minutes ahead. There you'll get a great view of the park's tallest waterfall.
I'll point it out when we get there. In the meantime, let's learn a little bit more about the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Namely, the many hard-working and dedicated crew that poured their blood, sweat, and tears into building it. Every member of the construction crew had a specific job, from cooks to heavy equipment operators to engineers, and each job had its own unique challenges. Regardless of what your title was, you had to be tough to work up here.
All seasons, all conditions, no excuses. They were seasoned pros at ignoring the cold, skirting around danger, and had even developed a superhuman tolerance to filth and BO. But a grumbling stomach was where they drew the line.
If the cook wasn't good, the men had them leave the very next day. And it wasn't just the workers who loved that home cooking. The bears did too.
On a remote mountain 15 miles from town, a hungry bear could be a real problem. So to deter them, workers hung their lunches and tools from nearby trees. The clattering tools would scare the bears away, and if not, at least they could hear the noise and give them a good shout.
The cooks had their own ideas about how to keep the bears at bay. They experimented with everything from exposed nails, stilts, drawbridges, and rumor has it, some more explosive deterrents. But the most dangerous job award had to go to the demo team.
The crew's dynamite experts, nicknamed powder monkeys, manually chiseled rocks to create holes for the explosives. Now this sounds risky enough, but then consider, they were often working hanging off of cliff faces, trekking over icy ledges, or crawling through unstable tunnels. Not to mention, most folks were just out working in their regular day clothes, just jeans or coveralls and boots.
They didn't really have protective gear back then. Hey, this was all way before OSHA. But one day, while prepping the mountainside for a massive blast right around where we're driving now, the powder monkeys took unusual precautions.
With 500 kegs of dynamite ready for the big boom, it was time to don their specialist equipment. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you woolen socks. That's right.
But remember, all it would take was a little flicker to blow them and the roadway to smithereens. And afraid their nail-cobbled boots might throw out an errant spark, they covered them with thick woolen socks. Which, while flame and spark resistant, aren't exactly explosion resistant.
But I guess you gotta do with the tools you're given, right? As we continue cruising down this road, let's remember the everyday heroes who made it possible. We often focus on big names and famous figures, but it's the countless workers who toiled tirelessly that truly brought this road to life. The unsung champions who traded comfort for grit and paved the way for us to enjoy this journey today.
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Why are fruit orchards growing inside a national park, you ask? Well, the human story of Capitol Reef is one of perseverance. Flash floods, droughts, and scarce resources all posed a threat. It wasn't until the late 1800s that anyone tried to make permanent settlements in the region.
Many didn't survive. The village of Fruita, however, proved to have some staying power. Fruita is situated inside the park at the junction of Sulphur Creek and the Fremont River.
The river was essential to life in Fruita and was used to irrigate orchards and farms. Thanks to its upriver location, Fruita was spared the devastating floods that doomed settlements like Aldridge and Caneville. In the early days, residents picked up their mail at a cottonwood tree called the Mail Tree.
Can't get more quaint and old-timey than that. You can picnic under that same tree today. I'll point it out when we drive by.
At its most populated, only 10 families lived in Fruita. That may not sound like a lot until you remember some of those families had as many as 13 children. Now that, my friends, is a lot of diapers.
In 1952, the road to Fruita was finally paved and the tourists came flooding in. The town was changing, and for at least one Fruita resident, that was a bad thing. We'll talk about her later in the tour.
Only a few original buildings still stand today. Most importantly, the orchards, planted more than a hundred years ago, still produce absolutely delicious fruit. Some varieties only grow in Fruita and nowhere else in the world.
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Hey, folks! Welcome to the famous Horseshoe Bend. Earlier, I told you a little about how this geological marvel was formed. But now, let's really dig into its background.
Let's start with a question. If fast-moving rivers tend to flow straight, and slow-moving rivers tend to curve, then how did the famously fast Colorado River create this giant bend in the ground? Horseshoe Bend is one of Arizona's most famous natural landmarks, attracting visitors from around the globe. And its origin story began 300 million years ago.
Back then, this whole area was under a vast, shallow ocean called Western Interior Seaway. Over millions of years, sediment accumulated on the seafloor. Eventually, this sediment compacted into sedimentary rocks like limestone and sandstone.
And on top of that lies the Navajo Sandstone. Fast forward to just 70 million years ago, and the inland sea was gone. In its place were a bunch of volcanoes.
You see, we're currently on what's called the Colorado Plateau. It's an area of land about 130,000 square miles, spread across the Four Corners region of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. And back then, the plateau was going through a bit of an upheaval.
Actually, the correct word is uplift. Tectonic activity caused the Colorado Plateau to rise up 5,000 feet, or nearly a mile in elevation. The same tectonic activity also created the Rocky Mountains, where the Colorado River headwaters are located.
That uplift took millions of years. So for most of the Colorado River's existence, it was a slow, meandering river across a relatively flat plain. Definitely not the fast Whitewater Rapids River we know today.
This allowed the river to establish much of its path. However, the plateau kept rising, and it reached its full uplift height only about 5 million years ago. That placed the river's headwaters in the Rocky Mountains 4,000 feet higher than where we are now.
And what happens to water when it flows down a steep slope? Well, it picks up speed, of course. The faster water moves over rock, the quicker it erodes that rock. Now, because the river's path was already established when it was moving a lot slower, it continued to carve down instead of straight ahead.
And what we're left with is something called an entrenched meander. That's when a river bend is established when water moves slowly, but then deepens when the water increases speed. However, because the Colorado River moves fast, horseshoe bend won't last forever.
Eventually, the river will probably cut right through the rock in the middle and bypass the bend altogether. So enjoy those views today, because in just a few million years, it'll look a lot different.
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There are a few things you need to know about Bryce Point before we arrive. Bryce Point is the best place in the whole park to see the sunrise. I know, I know, there's a whole viewpoint called Sunrise Point, but trust me on this.
Bryce Point is one of the most eastern-facing points in the park. And when the sun rises, the rays hit the top of the hoodoos in such a way that they look like candles on a birthday cake. It's a pretty magical experience.
The park rangers post the estimated sunrise and sunset times at the entrance gate to the park. So if you're planning on spending a few days here, check it out. Bryce Point serves as the trailhead for the popular Hat Shop Trail and Peekaboo Loop.
Don't let the names fool you. They're pretty advanced five-mile hikes that will take you down through the maze of hoodoos. The Peekaboo Loop floods during heavy rains in the summer, so make sure to check the trail closures.
After exploring Bryce Point, leave the lot and continue straight to Pariah View. This is one of the best places in the park to spot peregrine falcons, who make their nests in the cliffs. You'll recognize them by their gray heads, horizontal striped chests, and legs that look like they're wearing pajama pants.
Even though they're dressed for bed, the peregrine falcon is no sleepyhead. It's one of the world's fastest birds, sometimes clocking in at 175 miles or 282 kilometers an hour. If you see a peregrine falcon perched way up high, be sure to keep your eye on that swift bird.
Most likely, it has spotted a rodent down below and will promptly swoop down and snatch it up in a matter of seconds. Listen for these sounds to know if a peregrine falcon is nearby.
Until now, we've mostly been admiring Mesa Verde's geology, but maybe you're asking yourself where's the archaeology? I think it's important that we get some geological context so you can truly appreciate these ancient structures when you finally see them. I'll do my best to tell you what I know, but if only the stone walls of Mesa Verde could talk. But wait, maybe they can, and maybe all we need to do is ask.
Hello? Well, what a surprise, an audience. These days, not many folks have the time or patience to listen to an old stone like me. But you're in for a treat, because as any geologist knows, rocks make the best historians.
I may be old and weathered, but lucky for you, time hasn't weathered my memory. Life for me started around a hundred million years ago. I was created by the Earth's slow, delicate process of sedimentation.
Over many years, layers of sand continued to build up. Then they were compressed together until sand became stone. That means I'm a sandstone.
Cliffhouse sandstone, to be exact. I spent most of the next 70 million years underground, silently waiting, and listening to the rhythms of the Earth. That's a lot of solitaire, right? Then Mother Earth decided it was my time to shine.
So she sent me out, and up. And when I broke through the surface, I saw the sun for the first time. I felt its heat, and bathed in its brilliant light.
And I found myself here, in Mesa Verde. My life on the surface began as part of a large sandstone canyon. And for millions of years, we weathered the changes of the world.
We watched as the oceans came to say hello, and then waved goodbye again. We hardened ourselves as softer stones eroded from wind, rain, and the slow passage of time. We saw fire, and floods, death, and rebirth.
And through it all, we remained unmoved. But none of us, not even the great cliffs of sandstone, are immune to change. And so, by sun and ice, heat and cold, our canyon wall expanded, contracted, and eventually, we began to crack and separate.
We watched as layers of rock peeled and fell away, crashing to the canyon floor. And one day, it was my turn. I broke free, and tumbled down, down, until finally, I came to rest as a solid block of stone.
Little did I know that this moment wasn't the end of my story, but was instead the beginning of another. For a long, long time, nothing happened, and that was fine. Most of my life had been waiting, sitting alone in the baking sun, with only the occasional wild animal to keep me company.
Time flew by, like the very sand that surrounded me. And then, when I least expected it, newcomers arrived in Mesa Verde. The humans.
Wow. I don't know about you, but I had no idea rocks were such good storytellers. We'll return to our story of stone a little later in the tour.
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Now, just imagine you're standing at the lookout, admiring the view, when out of the corner of your eye, you see a car begin to roll backward toward the edge of the cliff. Now, you don't see anyone inside the car isn't empty. In 2010, this very scene played out at a nearby overlook here at the park. A dog named Haley, a dingo-akita mix, had been riding along with her owners when they pulled over and stopped at the overlook.
While Haley stayed in the car, the couple stepped out to enjoy the view, but forgot to set the emergency brake. In a freak accident, their Volkswagen Passat began rolling backward across the parking lot toward an opening next to the wall. And over the rim it went,
with a frantic Haley still inside.
Down in the caldera, the car rolled towards the lake, but about halfway down the cliff, the dog skyrocketed out of the open sunroof. Miraculously, Haley was still alive. back up the caldera wall to her astounded and relieved owners. Lucky dog! Haley escaped with just a few cuts and scratches,
but the car wasn't so lucky. It took a whole team of climbers and a helicopter to remove what was left of it. This wasn't the only time a car plummeted into Crater Lake. Back in 1922, a brand new Lincoln, belonging to a couple from Klamath Falls, Oregon, accidentally rolled over the edge and into the water near present-day Rim Village. Thankfully, just moments earlier, the couple had removed their baby from the car.
So it was empty before it tumbled down the cliff. But what a close call! So what's the moral of this track? Always, So what's the moral of this track? Always, always use your emergency brake when visiting an overlook at Crater Lake.
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For the next seven miles, we'll be driving through the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, an engineering marvel set in some of America's most spectacular scenery. The project consists of three dams, named Gorge, Diablo, and Ross. Along with their powerhouses, the dams were all built along the upper Skagit River.
Gorge Dam, which we'll see on our next stop at Gorge Creek Overlook, is about 300 feet or 90 meters tall. It was the first and smallest dam completed. By 1924, Gorge Dam began transmitting power to Seattle over 100 miles away.
The original Wooden Dam was upgraded to concrete back in 1961. Diablo Dam was built second, and it was completed in 1930. At 389 feet, it was the tallest dam in the world at the time, but it would be surpassed by the last and largest dam in the system.
Ross Dam was completed in 1953. At 540 feet, it's nearly as tall as the Washington Monument in D.C. It's an arch dam, meaning it forms a horizontal arch from one side of the gorge to the other. The curve faces upstream against the reservoir, and this transfers the water pressure from the dam to the sides of the valley.
Pretty smart, huh? Three dams, three reservoirs. This ambitious project took over 40 years to complete and cost $250 million. Put together, these dams supply over 20% of Seattle's electricity.
The project not only generates power, but also provides flood control, downstream fish protection, and recreation. Hey, that's us!
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Wow, isn't that a phenomenal view? Well, we've got about five minutes till our next stop. It's a small pull-off called Amphitheater Point, and from that scenic overlook, you'll see unobstructed views of Morro Rock and the surrounding mountains. In the meantime, let's get back to a little national park history, okay? So, by 1890, we had established parks like Yellowstone, Sequoia, and Yosemite, right? But what we hadn't established yet was the National Park Service to take care of them.
So, for a little over 20 years, from 1891 to 1913, it was the U.S. Army that oversaw the parks. In ranger-like roles, they fought poaching, put out wildfires, built roads, and, yes, asked to see your campground reservation. And there was one particular regiment of the Army that spent a lot of time running these parks.
They were the All-African American Regiments of the U.S. Army, otherwise known as Buffalo Soldiers. Buffalo Soldiers, fighting men, rolled for the Army to clean up the land. Nobody messed with the 9th and the 10th, from the Kansas plains to the Rio Grande.
Now, let's remember something about the African American experience at the turn of the century. I mean, it was pretty awful. African Americans had to deal with segregation, racism, and inequality.
Even when they were in a position of authority, such as a U.S. Army regiment running a national park. And that brings me to one incredible person named Charles Young. Charles was born in Kentucky to enslaved parents in 1864.
His family fled across the river to Ohio, where Charles got an education. He was the first African American to graduate from his high school and only the third African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Eventually, along with his career in the Army, he became a military sciences professor.
But his accomplishments were far from over. In 1903, Captain Charles Young led the 9th Cavalry, his Buffalo Soldiers, here to Sequoia. And they became the first African American acting superintendents of any national park.
Young absolutely loved the trees. Here in Sequoia, he named one of them the Booker T. Washington Tree, after the famous civil rights activist. Young also fought against logging and tourists who carved their names into the tree trunks.
Yeah, folks, please do not do that while you're here, okay? Anyway, Charles led a long and career and retired as a colonel. And the rest of the soldiers? Well, in 1951, the last of the Buffalo Soldier regiments were disbanded. So why don't we take a minute to honor their hard work? We'll reach the amphitheater viewpoint in just a moment.
The only way to be a man was in that uniform. Some had never had their freedom. Others fought for dignity, not soldiers on the frontier, the part of history.
Buffalo Soldiers, fighting men, rode for the Army to clean up the land. Nobody messed with the 9th and the 10th, from the Kansas plains to the Rio Grande.
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Well, all right, we're going to follow the South Fork of the Kings River for the next few miles as we head to Grizzly Falls. This beautiful 80-foot waterfall is only a short walk away from the parking lot. And just in case you're wondering, no, there aren't any grizzly bears here in the park.
Just black bears. Grizzlies used to be found throughout the Sierra Nevada, but they were all driven out by the 1920s. As we cruise along, I just can't help but think about how lucky we are that the General Grant National Park was established, even if it did kind of sneak its way through Congress onto a bill.
But hey, we are not in the General Grant National Park, are we? I mean, after all, this is Kings Canyon National Park, right? So what happened? Well, if you remember, President Benjamin Harrison created the General Grant National Park in 1890, and the General Grant National Park was only about four square miles, just enough to protect the Grant Grove of Sequoias. All this land out here in Kings Canyon was still unprotected. Around the turn of the 20th century, people figured that Kings Canyon wasn't really very valuable for timber or pasture land.
But there was something else here that was extremely valuable. And you're driving right next to it. That's right, I'm talking about water.
You see, up in Yosemite in the early 20th century, the city of San Francisco dammed up the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley to create a massive reservoir. And even today, the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir provides clean drinking water for the Bay Area. And downriver, hydroelectric power plants provide renewable energy.
Seeing their success, the city of Los Angeles looked at Kings Canyon with a similar vision, and they saw dollar signs. With a whole hydroelectric power system up here, they could sell excess energy for a profit. Whoa, not so fast, said local residents.
They wanted water and power all right, but they wanted to build the infrastructure themselves and keep the money local. So they proposed building a similar dam right here in the canyon. Well, hold your horses, said local businessmen.
Cities like Fresno enjoyed the tourism boost that came from a developed park like Yosemite at their doorstep. So they wanted to do that again. Resorts, gift shops, you know, the whole shebang right here in Kings Canyon.
No, wait just a minute, said conservationists. Ever since Sequoia and General Grant National Parks were established, park supporters had been advocating to make them bigger. As a matter of fact, for a moment, Congress even considered the possibility of combining them into a much bigger entity called Roosevelt National Park.
But that idea was eventually squashed. Power, water, tourism, conservation. Suddenly, Kings Canyon was in high demand.
There were a lot of different visions for this canyon, even among park enthusiasts. These were the early days of the national parks, and there were a lot of questions. What exactly is a national park? What can and should we build there? Should Kings Canyon be a tourist destination, a windfall of exploitable resources, or a wilderness? Well, decisions about development were held up for decades.
And while the fate of these giant sequoias was held in limbo, the conservationists had time to execute a plan. And their plan worked. Finally, after decades of debates, arguments, and delays, Congress approved a bill expanding General Grant National Park and renaming it Kings Canyon, after the Kings River.
On March 4th, 1940, President Roosevelt signed the bill into law, and the vision of a wilder park with minimal development has largely stayed true, right to this day. Okay, Grizzly Falls will be coming up in just a minute, and we've got less than half an hour to our final stop of the tour at Muir Rock. Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye.
Bye.
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Well, okay folks, we've been in Sequoia National Park for a little while now, but we still haven't seen any sequoias. Well, that's because they just don't live down here. So, to see them, we're gonna have to climb.
So, wave farewell to the foothills section of the park, because we're heading way, way up to the giant forest itself. Now, the road ahead gets extra twisty, so drivers, keep your eyes on the road. Now, as we check out these rockin' landscapes, why don't we talk a little bit about geology? Sequoia National Park is nestled in a mountain range called the Sierra Nevada.
Now, Sierra in Spanish means mountain range, and Nevada means snowy. The entire Sierra Nevada runs about 400 miles or 644 kilometers from Southern California to the state's northern border, and it's about 100 miles or 160 kilometers wide. Now, around these parts, Sequoia's remote eastern side is home to 11 peaks that are over 14,000 feet high.
They include Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. Towering at over 14,500 feet, or around 4,400 meters above sea level, it's about a dozen times as tall as the Empire State Building. Whoo! Now, unfortunately, there are too many mountains in the way between here and Mount Whitney, so we're not going to be able to see it today.
But, if you happen to drive around the Sierra Nevada to the other side, near the town of Lone Pine, it's a whole lot easier to see Mount Whitney. In fact, it's kind of hard to miss. All right, now that you've got the lay of the land, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
Where did these mountains come from in the first place? I know you want to know. The answer is plate tectonics. All right, now let's see.
It's been a minute since our last geology class, and here's a refresher on the theory of plate tectonics. The top layer of the Earth is the crust, and that crust is broken up into different pieces of all shapes and sizes called plates. Those plates sit on top of the mantle, a mostly solid but malleable layer of rock, kind of like molasses, you know? Now, floating up on the top of this rocky molasses, these tectonic plates are constantly moving around and banging into each other.
Now, about 200 million years ago, in the late Jurassic period, a mountain building process called the Nevadan Orogeny got started. That's when an ancient oceanic plate called the Farallon plate was pushed under the North American plate. And when one plate gets pushed under the other, that's called subduction.
Now, with this subduction, extreme heat and pressure melt the edge of the plate, and that forms liquid hot magma. Now, some of this magma reached the surface through volcanoes, but most of it stayed several miles underground and cooled very slowly. And that, my friends, is how we get granite.
Yeah! You see, the Sierra Nevada is almost entirely made of granite. Think, you know, granite countertops or those shiny floors in an office building, but in the form of mountains. Yeah! The core of the Sierra Nevada is what's called a granite batholith.
Batholith! I'll bet you can't say that word three times, huh? Well, anyway, a batholith forms underground when a bunch of globs of granitic magma combine to create one great big glob. It cools down, solidifies, and becomes one giant hunk of granite. We're talking the size of the whole mountain range.
400 miles long and 100 miles wide, and we don't even know how many miles deep. But when the batholith formed, it was still underground. So, you say, how did it get up here? Well, the first layers of rock above the granite slowly eroded away, one by one, until the granite was finally exposed on top.
As far back as 40 million years ago, another tectonic movement uplifted this area. The granite shot up into the sky. I mean, you know, over millions of years, and that became the Sierra Nevada.
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Welcome back! Did you enjoy the views at the overlook? Sure hope so. Now, as we make our way back down the mountain, have you ever wondered why there are so many sequoia trees in this part of the Sierra Nevada and not in other areas? You see, these giants prefer living about halfway up the mountain, between 5,000 and 8,000 feet above sea level or about 1,500 to 2,500 meters. This is about our elevation right now.
Up here in this zone, the temperatures are mild and there's plenty of snow melt to keep these trees happy and hydrated. With these prime conditions, the biggest sequoias grow between 250 and 300 feet tall or 15 to 20 stories high. Now, there are taller trees in the world, including their cousins, the coastal redwoods, that can reach well over 300 feet.
But it's the sequoias' immense trunk size that makes them the biggest trees in the world. When they reach maturity, sequoias can add the equivalent of a 50-foot tree to their mass every year. And with that kind of growth, you can get sequoia trees with a trunk that's over 30 feet wide and with a circumference of over 100 feet.
I mean, it would take at least 20 full-grown adults to hold hands around one of these giant sequoia trees. Now, with these kind of stats, you'd think that the root system for sequoias would be pretty serious, right? I mean, their roots really do mean business, spreading out as much as 200 feet out from the trunk. But they don't grow very deep at all, only getting about, oh, maybe five feet below the surface.
That's pretty incredible, don't you think? Rather than digging down to keep themselves upright, they reach out and intertwine with the roots of their neighbors. And by doing so, they're able to hold on and support each other. Now, these amazing root systems are one reason sequoias can withstand weather and fire and live for over 3,000 years.
But they don't protect against every threat. Back in the late 19th century, California was growing fast, and the demand for lumber was high. Loggers braved these mountains to cut down the great sequoias.
But these groves were in such a remote location that transporting harvested logs was heavy work. So the logs were sent down those giant flumes. Now, as you saw at the overlook, Hume Lake was created as a reservoir for one of these water slides.
These flumes descended thousands of feet to lower elevations, running from high in the Sierra over 50 miles south to California's Central Valley. And down there in the valley, towns like Visalia and Porterville became busy hubs for the mining and logging operations up here. And for a couple of decades, that's the way things stayed.
Later, I'll tell you more about this land's backstory, how it evolved from a promising economic powerhouse into a national park, and then into a different national park. The evolution of Kings Canyon is the evolution of national parks themselves. But for now, let's just enjoy the drive.
It's just a few minutes before we get back on the main road.
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So far so good? Well, here's a little tidbit for you. Did you know that Sequoia is the second oldest national park in America? That's right. Now, you might know that Yellowstone was the first.
It was established in 1872. But about that same time, settlers were showing up around here and cutting down the sequoias at an alarming rate. So, on September 25, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed a bill establishing Sequoia National Park to protect these spectacular trees.
It was the first, but not the last, national park created to protect a particular species. Well, before we finally enter the park, let's get a little more acquainted with the tree we all came to see, the sequoia. Now, sequoias are the most massive trees on Earth and some of the oldest living things on the planet.
Their Latin name is Sequoia dendron giganteum, which actually means giant sequoia. Northern California's Miwok tribe called the trees Wawona, which is said to mimic the hoot of an owl. Now, personally, I like the nickname given to them by naturalist John Muir, which was simply big tree, straight and to the point.
But these big trees start out very, very small. Now, you'd think a sequoia seed would be like the size of a car or something, right? But in reality, a sequoia seed is only the size of a grain of oatmeal. Yeah.
Now, in a grove with all the shade and competition, a baby sequoia may only grow an inch or two a year. But after the first 10 years or so, it really takes off. It can grow as much as two feet per year.
In fact, it doesn't really level off until it's in its prime, anywhere from 800 to 1500 years. And at that point, that tiny grain of oatmeal is now one of the biggest trees on the planet. And it might reach over 200 feet high.
Now, even in maturity, it continues to grow. But rather than growing taller, its trunk grows wider. Oh, man, I hear that.
You and me both, sequoias. Anyway, over time, its diameter can reach 20 feet or more. Now, that is one serious tree.
But what is it that makes these trees grow so huge? Well, one thing, they grow fast. And of course, they live a really long time. And thanks to what I call their sequoia superpower, some sequoias have been watching over the Sierras for over 3,000 years.
In their bark is a naturally occurring chemical called tannin. And it protects them against three tree supervillains, insects, fungi, and fire. And it also doesn't hurt that their bark can grow as thick as 18 inches.
That's almost half a meter. And you know what else? The climate here in the Sierra Nevada is perfect for growing big sequoias. They like the mild temperatures between 5,000 and 8,000 feet, or about 1,500 to 2,500 meters above sea level.
Sequoias also need a whole lot of water, which they get here from the annual snow melt. And lastly, this area is prone to wildfires. And as I'll explain later, the fate of the sequoia tree is inescapably connected to fire.
I'll check back in a little later with a few more cool facts about sequoia trees. But in the meantime, we're getting close to the entrance gate.
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We're on our way to our next stop, Panoramic Point Overlook, coming up in about 10 minutes. Just continue straight on this road, and when the road gets narrow ahead, be sure you watch out for other cars, and take it slow, okay? So, you might be wondering, what's so amazing about Kings Canyon anyway? Well, other than being a stunning corner of the Sierra Nevada, Kings Canyon's claim to fame is that it's around 2,000 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon. Yeah, you heard that right! While the Grand Canyon bottoms out at about 6,000 feet deep, Kings Canyon reaches 8,200 feet deep, or about 2,500 meters.
Maybe the Grand Canyon ought to move over and share the limelight, yeah? John Muir, the famous naturalist I mentioned earlier, probably thought just that. Now, if you know anything about the father of our national parks, you know that he really loved Yosemite, and he spent a lot of time exploring that area. But, after four years of exploration, Muir decided that it was time for a different adventure.
It was the 1870s, more than 150 years ago and counting. The California Gold Rush was over, but people were still flooding to the Sierra Nevada in search of the next great mining bonanza. But they also came to build homesteads, to graze their livestock, and to log some timber.
It kind of feels like a no-brainer, doesn't it? I mean, just one giant sequoia could contain as much as 500,000 board feet of lumber. That's enough to build 50 small houses. So, even though sequoias were difficult to cut down and to transport to market, logging really took off around here.
It was around this time that John Muir visited Kings Canyon. He thought the canyon rivaled his beloved Yosemite Valley, and once again, Muir fell in love with the landscape. But what he really came here to do was climb Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Sequoia National Park.
But things didn't exactly go according to plan. Out there in the maze of mountains and forests, Muir got himself turned around and climbed the wrong mountain. Well, to correct his mistake, he tried to follow the mountain ridge over to Mount Whitney.
But in doing so, he ended up trapped up in the mountains after nightfall. At 13,000 feet up, in nothing but his normal hiking clothes. So, how did he make it out of that one? Well, to keep warm through the bitterly cold night, he danced.
Yeah. All night long, Muir kept his temperature up by strutting his stuff. And it worked.
Muir stayed alive, and he returned to town the next day. A few days later, he tried again, and this time, he climbed the right mountain. But misadventure aside, while in the mountains, Muir noticed that sequoias were getting chopped down at an alarming rate.
So, just like he did in Yosemite, John Muir became an advocate for a new national park to protect these precious sequoia groves. But this was barely the beginning of the journey for Kings Canyon National Park. We'll come back to this story just a few paces down the road.
[Transcript]
According to Hawaiian legend, the mighty god Maui not only fished up the Hawaiian Islands with his magic hook, but he also captured the sun. Whoa! Captured the sun! How did that happen? Well, just sit back and let me tell you the story. Legend has it that one day as Maui was preparing to go fishing, he noticed his mother Hina was very sad, unlike her normal cheerful self.
Curious and concerned, Maui asked his mother why she was so sad. Hina explained that her clothes wouldn't dry because the days were just too short. Hina also told Maui that people were complaining that their crops weren't growing fast enough.
Maui declared that he would force the sun to travel more slowly across the sky. Hina warned Maui to be careful and not anger the sun, because the ruler of the day is a powerful god. Devising a clever plan, Maui cut down numerous coconut trees and braided strong ropes out of the fiber.
Then, in the dark of night, he traveled to the top of Haleakala, where the sun made his home. There, Maui sat upon the crater rim and waited. When the first light of morning emerged over the crater, Maui stood up and held in his hand the strong rope he had made.
Before the sun could notice him, Maui lassoed and trapped the sun's first leg with his rope. The sun was powerful and angry and pulled hard to snap the rope. But the rope held strong.
Maui then trapped the sun's second leg and then the third, and before long, all sixteen legs of the sun were tied up by Maui's rope. Unable to move and trapped, the sun asked Maui why he had done this and what he wanted. Maui told of his mother's sadness and then threatened to cut off all the sun's legs unless he promised to move more slowly across the sky.
The sun made a heavenly promise to Maui, and then Maui set it free. So, now you know the legend of how Maui captured the sun and forced him to travel more slowly across the sky. Because of Maui's great feats, fishing up the Hawaiian islands and making the days longer, hey, he's often called the Hawaiian Superman.
I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod, when you're staring at a demigod. What can I say except you're welcome, for the tides, the sun, the sky. Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome, I'm just an ordinary demigod.
Hey, what has two thumbs and pulled up the sky, when you were waddling yay high, this guy. When the nights got cold, who stole you fire from down below, look at him, yo, oh. Also, I lassoed the sun, you're welcome, to stretch your days and bring you fun.
Also, I harnessed the breeze, you're welcome, to fill your sails and shake your trees. So, what can I say except you're welcome, for the islands I pulled from the sea. There's no need to pray, it's okay, you're welcome, I guess it's just my way of being me.
You're welcome, you're welcome, well, come to think of it, kid, honestly, I could go on and on, I could explain every natural phenomenon. The tide, the grass, the ground, oh, that was Maui just messing around. I cut an eel, I buried its guts, sprouted a tree, now you got coconuts.
What's the lesson, what is the takeaway, don't mess with Maui when he's on a breakaway. And the tapestry here on my skin, is a map of the victories I win. Look where I've been, I make everything happen, look at that, me, me, me, Maui.
[Transcript]
How's everybody doing? We're nearing the end of the loop road. Next up, Cadillac Mountain. As we head that way, the mountain isn't the only thing you'll want to look up to see.
Peregrine falcons have made Acadia a home base. The falcons are about the same size as crows, with long pointed wings and black or gray lines on their bellies. An adult's head looks kind of like it's got a dark colored hood with sideburns.
You also might see birders, binoculars in hand, hoping to spot these falcons speeding across the sky. You see, peregrine falcons have an incredible superpower. They roam the sky searching for their prey.
And when they spot something for dinner, it's showtime. While diving for prey, these incredible birds have been clocked at speeds of over 200 miles per hour. That makes the peregrine falcon the fastest animal on Earth.
By comparison, on land and at sea, the cheetah and the black marlin tie for second with top speeds of only 70 miles per hour. Pretty extraordinary, right? Despite their incredible speed, these amazing falcons were almost eradicated in the second half of the 20th century due to pesticide poisoning. The toxins from these pesticides led to reproductive failure in peregrine falcons, as well as other birds of prey.
But the falcons have made a recovery. Many of these pesticides have been banned, and park rangers have supported the birds' return to wild spaces. Here in Acadia, peregrine falcons occasionally nest near some of the park's trails.
So when a nest is spotted, the park will close the nearby trail to keep mama, daddy, and the baby birds safe.
[Transcript]
In about five minutes, we'll reach one of the best nature trails in the whole park, the Fossil Exhibit Trail. There, you can walk a quarter-mile boardwalk through 75 million years of geological history, and you'll see some of the unusual fossils found here at Badlands National Park. According to the park rangers, one of the questions they're asked most often is, are there any dinosaur fossils here? The answer is, not really.
Why is that? Well, dinosaurs lived on land, and when dinosaurs were alive during the Mesozoic era, up until around 66 million years ago, this area was mostly underwater. So, any fossils from that time belonged to marine animals, like the Mosasaurus. You can listen to a bonus press-to-play track at our next stop to learn about this mighty Mosasaur.
So, while you won't find any dinosaur fossils in the Badlands, the park does have the highest concentration of mammal fossils in the entire national park system. And we know this thanks to paleontology. Paleontology is the scientific study of the history of life on Earth as revealed by the preserved remains, or traces, of organisms that lived in the distant past.
Fossils including bones, teeth, shells, imprints, and more are all around us. By studying fossils and the area where they're found, paleontologists can reconstruct the Earth's past. This provides us with valuable insights into the evolution of life, the history of ecosystems, and the changes in climate and environments.
Essentially, paleontology helps us piece together the puzzle of prehistory. The study of paleontology can be traced back to around 1725, when two people in South Carolina uncovered the molars of a woolly mammoth. Then, in 1750, land surveyors in Kentucky uncovered the entire jawbone of a mastodon, a distant cousin of the mammoth, which caught the attention of scientists around the world.
Even Thomas Jefferson was fascinated by fossils. In 1797, he helped identify the fossil remains of an ancient sloth. A few years later, Jefferson asked Lewis and Clark to keep an eye out for fossils on their famous 1804 expedition to the West Coast.
Disappointingly, they only stumbled upon a handful of fossils, almost none of which have survived. Like all the great sciences, one of the best things about paleontology is how it sparks the imagination. It allows us to imagine a completely different world from our own, but one that existed in the same space we occupy today.
Think of all the stories, the books, the movies, the fantasy that fills our minds, knowing there were these ancient creatures that walked the Earth. And imagine how much smaller our world would feel if fossils had never been discovered. Over the years, thousands of fossils have been found in the Badlands, including ancient rhinos called brontotheres, saber-toothed cats called nimravids, and ancient horse-like mammals called oreodonts.
And new fossils are still being discovered in the Badlands. It's entirely possible that you might find one. If you do come across a fossil, be sure to leave it where it is and notify a park ranger.
Later in the tour, I'll tell you about some extraordinary fossils found by ordinary folks like you and me.
[Transcript]
All right, before we get any further, let's address the elephant in the room. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the only national park named after a person. And why is that? And why did Teddy, I mean T.R., get his own park? Hmm.
Well, sorry for the cliffhanger, but I'll tell you all about how this park came to be later in the tour. For now, let's talk a little about the man himself, because I really want you to see this place through his eyes. Now, take a look out your window at those Badlands.
Imagine a young T.R. coming here for the first time on a hunting trip in 1883, when he was just 24 years old. T.R. spent 15 days hunting bison and other game, and absolutely fell in love with the area. If you stopped at the visitor's center, you may have seen his first hunting cabin, the Maltese Cross.
But it wasn't until a year later that T.R. actually moved here. That year started out great for the Roosevelts. At just 25 years old, T.R.'s political career was on the rise.
And on February 12th, his wife gave birth to their daughter, Alice. But just two days later, T.R.'s life took a tragic turn. On that cold, bitter Valentine's Day morning in 1884, T.R.'s mother died.
And then, just hours later, his beloved wife also died. In one day, T.R. became a motherless widower, with a newborn child to care for. He wrote in his journal, The light has gone out of my life.
And so, T.R. left his infant daughter with his sister, and retreated to the solace of the Badlands, to be alone with his grief. But what about his daughter, and his burgeoning political career? As the tour continues, we'll learn more about T.R. and his time here. And I'll occasionally share quotes from his books and journals, to try and help you see this place through his eyes.
[Transcript]
We're about to drive a long and lovely stretch of Custer State Park Forest. As we do, I want you to let your mind wander. Try to imagine what it must have been like to travel through these woods back around the year 1900.
You'd probably be traveling on horseback, right? What do you suppose you'd see? Lots of wildlife, sure. Perhaps a few mining camps? And definitely a cattle ranch or two. By the early 1900s, there were several well-established ranches in the area, and things were relatively peaceful.
That is until... A ferocious monster began terrorizing the Black Hills. People living out here in the wilderness were accustomed to dealing with predators. The influx of cattle meant that most prey animals, like bison and elk, were getting pushed out.
So ranchers were always on guard when it came to wolves, coyotes, and mountain lions that were trying to make meals of their livestock. But no one had ever seen the likes of the Custer Wolf. The beast began its reign of terror in 1911, attacking cows in the dead of night.
Within a single week, the wolf mutilated over 30 cattle across the Black Hills. This was way more destruction than a wolf usually caused. And this one didn't just kill to survive.
It seemed to enjoy the kill, as if it had some sort of vendetta against the ranchers. Soon, stories of the Custer Wolf spread throughout the Black Hills. Local newspapers called the wolf the cruelest, most sagacious, and most successful animal outlaw, and the master criminal of the animal world.
It got to the point where ranchers actually put a bounty on the wolf's head. That year alone, hunters killed 55 gray wolves, but none turned out to be the wolf. For nine years, from 1911 to 1920, hunters continued the search.
Meanwhile, the Custer Wolf cost the local ranchers a staggering $25,000 in lost livestock. Folks in the Black Hills were beginning to think that the Custer Wolf was invincible. Could it be some grotesque hybrid of wolf and mountain lion? Was this wolf seeking vengeance for the killing of its brethren? Could it actually be a supernatural monster? Well, finally, in 1920, they got their answer.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sent their best hunter, H.P. Williams, to settle the matter. His orders were to stay there until that wolf is dead. For six months, the Custer Wolf eluded the master hunter.
H.P. saw it many times, and he observed that the wolf had made allies with two coyotes, which walked in front of it sort of like bodyguards. And just to be clear, that is not normal behavior for wolves nor coyotes. Finally, on a chilly morning in October, H.P. spotted the wolf fleeing from one of the traps he'd set.
The trap had injured the wolf, and it couldn't outrun H.P.'s rifle. With one pull of the trigger, H.P. ended the Custer Wolf's reign of terror. Well, naturally, the locals wanted to see the beast that had tormented them for nearly a decade.
But they were stunned to find that their nemesis was just an ordinary North American gray wolf. Not only that, but it was actually kind of small for a male. It weighed just 98 pounds, and its fur was white with age.
H.P. Williams went on to write a book about his adventures tracking the beast. There's even a restaurant in the town of Custer called the Custer Wolf. We'll never know why the Custer Wolf acted the way it did.
But one thing is for certain, while it may be dead, its legend lives on.
[Transcript]
So, who was Octave Chanute? And why is there a museum exhibit dedicated to him here in Marquette Park? Well, even though Kitty Hawk is famous for being the location of the first successful powered flight, the Indiana Dunes also hold a special place in aviation history. While the Wright brothers are often credited as the fathers of flight, Octave Chanute played a crucial role in their success and in the early development of aviation. Born in Paris in 1832, Octave immigrated to the U.S. as a child.
As he grew older, he flourished as a civil engineer. He designed the first bridge over the Missouri River, as well as the country's two largest stockyards. He even invented new techniques for wood preservation.
Octave was known as one of America's most successful and brilliant engineers. But by the 1890s, Octave became captivated by a new engineering challenge, powered flight. He meticulously studied the works of past aviation pioneers, conducted his own experiments, and advocated for scientific research in the field.
He wrote a book, Progress in Flying Machines, that went on to inspire other early aviators. And Octave wasn't just a theorist, he was a builder. He constructed and flew several gliders, demonstrating their viability and gathering data on aerodynamics and stability.
His most famous creation, the biplane glider, inspired the Wright brothers' own early designs. And then, in the summer of 1896, the Indiana Dunes became a stage for aviation magic. This is where Octave Chanute and his assistants arrived with a singular ambition, to conquer the skies.
They showed up with some pretty peculiar luggage, or in other words, experimental gliders, which caused quite a stir among the locals. They even nicknamed Octave the Crazy Old Man of the Sand Dunes. Octave chose a spot here on Miller Beach to run his trials.
With the excitement brewing, he and his team assembled their first experiment, a glider based on the designs of German pioneer Otto Lilienthal. Then they tested Octave's own biplane glider. These weren't just isolated experiments, they were public spectacles.
Crowds gathered to witness the daring flights. They'd grimace at every leap into the air, and then ooh and ah at every flight and safe landing. As always, Octave documented his every step, capturing meticulous notes and photographs.
They conducted over 300 successful glide flights and continued to refine their understanding of aerodynamics and control. Octave, with his silver beard and unwavering determination, became a symbol of human ingenuity and the boundless potential of flight. Octave Chanute and the Wright brothers formed a close friendship.
He shared his knowledge and provided crucial encouragement during their challenging experiments. He even helped them secure funding and publicity for their work. Octave's legacy extends beyond gliders and airplanes.
He championed safety in aviation, advocating for rigorous testing and pilot training. He also believed that flight should benefit everyone, promoting the use of airplanes for transportation and commerce. While Octave Chanute never achieved powered flight himself, his contributions were instrumental in paving the way for the Wright brothers' historic Kitty Hawk flight in 1903.
He is rightly considered a founding father of aviation, a pioneer who laid the groundwork for the revolution that took us to the skies.
Alright, it looks like we're just about five minutes away from our stop at Salmon Cascade's overlook. So, let's talk salmon. This iconic symbol of the Pacific Northwest not only plays a vital role in native cultures, but also in the health of the ecosystem.
As for the salmon themselves, well, they live quite a fascinating life. Let's dive into their story. The life of a salmon begins in fresh water.
During the autumn months, a female lays her eggs in a nest of gravel way upstream. The male then fertilizes the eggs, which will remain tucked away under gravel all winter long while the embryos develop. Then in the spring, newly hatched salmon, called alavins, emerge from the eggs.
They hang out in the gravel and keep growing until they're ready to leave their nest and enter the fry stage. Depending on the type of salmon, fry can spend up to a year swimming around in their home stream, eating plankton and small insects, growing and hiding from predators. Until one day, mother nature tells them it's time to ship out.
That's when they begin the long trip downstream toward the sea. During this journey to the ocean, their bodies begin to change in a process called smolting, which means they adapt to salt water. Then, if they're lucky enough to avoid being eaten, the smolts eventually wind up in the estuary or the river mouth, where their bodies continue to adapt to the saltier water.
And finally, they enter the ocean. As adults, salmon spend anywhere from one to seven years at sea, traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles to get to their feeding grounds. But then, at some point, it's time to spawn.
So, they make the whole journey again, this time in reverse. But just how do they know where to go? We're still figuring that out. Scientists believe the salmon follow a trail of scents, chemical cues, or maybe even the sun to find their home stream.
But one way or the other, the salmon make it happen. Once they hit fresh water and start the homeward journey, the fish stop eating. Now, all their energy goes into swimming upstream and making it back to where they were born, and hopefully, where their children will be born.
It is an exhausting journey, and to succeed, they have to swim against strong currents, leap up waterfalls, and elude predators and fishermen, all on an empty stomach. But getting there's only half the battle. The lucky ones who do make it have to find mates.
Males fight off suitors and court the females before settling down to business. The female builds a nest, and then together, they spawn some eggs. And once the eggs are safely tucked away into their cozy gravel nests, both parents keel over and die.
Their epic journey ends in exhaustion. Incredible, isn't it? But just as their story ends, the eggs hatch, the babies leave their nests, and the cycle begins again. Now, what about all those adult salmon after they die? Won't that pollute the river? Well, strangely, it's the opposite.
Once their bodies begin to decompose, their carcasses supply the river with vital nutrients like phosphorus, nitrogen, and carbon. And these nutrients help keep this water, and the wildlife who depend on it, healthy for future generations. Now, that's quite a legacy.
Now, as we're getting closer to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, we're nearing the home of Pele, the goddess of fire, lightning, and volcanoes. Hawaiians believe that the island's volcanoes are all Pele's handiwork. Since we'll be in Pele's domain today, let me tell you a little bit about this goddess who is both to be feared and admired.
According to ancient legends, Pele descended from the great spirits of Hikapoloa. She came from a family where each sibling had a role to play in shaping the earth. Her many brothers were each named after a destructive force in nature, you know, like thunder, explosions, rain of fire, and lava fountains.
So you can see where Pele gets her fiery temperament. It kind of runs in the family. Pele is often described as a very beautiful woman when she takes human form, but she also has the ability to take on other forms, like fire and lava.
In Hawaiian legends, Pele is both flirtatious and jealous. So with her hot temper, believe me, you do not want to get on her bad side. Now, it's believed that Pele's power to control volcanoes is what created the islands of Hawai'i.
As the story goes, Pele's older sister, Namaka, was angry with her because, well, she had seduced her husband. Because of this, Pele was driven from her home on Kauai and chased by her older sister. And every time Pele plunged her digging stick into the earth to begin building a new home, her sister, Namaka, the goddess of the ocean, would flood the pits.
And this is how the islands of Oahu and Maui were formed, with each attempt being stopped by Namaka. Finally, Pele landed on the island of Hawai'i, or the Big Island. The volcano goddess came to the summit of Kilauea, far from the ocean.
And here, she dug a deep pit in the Halema'uma'u crater and finally made her home. And this is where she is believed to reside to this very day. In fact, this place is still considered to be sacred to many native Hawaiians.
And you may even see someone paying their respects to Pele while you're here. If so, please be respectful and quiet. And in that silence, take a little time to soak in the sights and sounds of this awe-inspiring place.
The audio tour takes us through the history and significance of White Sands National Monument, situated between Holloman Air Force Base and the White Sands Missile Range. Despite its tranquil appearance, the area has witnessed significant military activity due to its strategic location. Established in 1933, the monument predates World War II but found itself in proximity to military installations as global tensions rose.
During the war, the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range was established adjacent to the monument, later becoming Holloman Air Force Base. Military activities, including tank maneuvers and missile tests, took place within and around the park's boundaries. Notably, the area hosted the Trinity Test in July 1945, marking the first detonation of an atomic bomb, nicknamed "Gadget."
Led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project aimed to develop atomic weapons, culminating in the successful Trinity Test. This event signaled a new era in warfare and global politics, leading to the deployment of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hastening the end of World War II but also inflicting immense human suffering.
Reflecting on the profound changes witnessed at White Sands, the narrator prompts contemplation about the intertwining of natural and human history, from ancient footprints to modern weaponry. They underscore Oppenheimer's post-war advocacy for peace and the moral complexities surrounding scientific advancements. Ultimately, the narrative urges reflection on humanity's capacity for both progress and destruction, emphasizing the responsibility to shape a positive future.
Hey there, look at that bridge. Can you see it poking out over the tree line? Maybe you've noticed, but they sure do love the New River Gorge Bridge around here. In fact, there's even an annual festival that celebrates its completion.
And it all started with one man's strong sense of adventure and the unbelievable lengths that he was willing to go for a thrill. It was August 17th, 1979. Burton Irvin was a local mine foreman and Korean War veteran.
And he'd made the decision long before that day that he was gonna base jump off the bridge. Now, base jumping is an extreme sport where you jump from a fixed structure, free fall for a bit, and then at the last second, deploy a parachute. Even today, it's a pretty risky sport.
But in the 1970s, base jumping was still in its infancy. Not to mention, illegal. But Burton was determined.
So, with his wife Mildred's blessing, there he stood. At 10.20 p.m. on the railing of the bridge, looking down at 876 feet below, with nothing to save his life but some homemade gear. Mildred, the rest of their family, and about 200 spectators waited anxiously below.
And then, Burton jumped. The crowd shined their spotlights on him as he deployed his parachute. But the parachute disappeared into the darkness.
Was Burton okay? Did he make it? As the spectators began their search, Burton emerged from the darkness near the river, all in one piece. The first base jump off the New River Gorge was a rousing success. Within weeks, Burton and Mildred asked local officials to provide a legal opportunity for base jumping off the bridge.
Just one year later, in 1980, the county held the first ever Bridge Day. More than 40 years later, Bridge Day is still held on the third Saturday of October. They close the road to traffic, and thousands of people come to walk across this man-made wonder.
And there's so much to do! Teams chosen by a lottery can rappel down the bridge using ropes. Or anybody can try the zip line, sliding 700 feet from the bridge all the way down to Fayette Station Road. But the main attraction on Bridge Day? It's still base jumping! Bridge Day is the only day of the year when you can legally base jump off of the bridge.
In fact, it's the only time and place you can legally base jump anywhere in the National Park system. Over 400 base jumpers from all over the world come to participate in the event each year. So, whether you're a base jumper yourself, or you just want to watch, you gotta come back for Bridge Day!
Embark on a historical journey through the desert, where a man named J.O. Langford sought a cure for malaria in the Rio Grande's hot springs. Discover his tale of resilience, neighborly bonds, and the birth of a community as you traverse the rugged terrain of West Texas.
Explore the enduring legacy of Langford's discovery, preserved within the historic district of the National Park, where the natural hot springs continue to beckon travelers seeking solace and rejuvenation in their warm embrace.
Explore the vast Chihuahuan desert in this immersive narrative, discovering its diverse reptilian inhabitants like the western diamondback rattlesnake and the fascinating Texas horned lizard. Delve into their unique adaptations and conservation challenges, all while marveling at the wonders of this harsh yet captivating environment.
The tour takes us on a geological journey through time, unraveling the origins of the vast white sand dunes in the Tularosa Basin. Set against a backdrop of ancient lakes, mountain runoff, and shifting climates, it paints a vivid picture of how gypsum crystals transformed into the dazzling sands we see today.
Through a blend of scientific explanation and storytelling, it invites us to contemplate the dynamic forces shaping our natural world and sparks curiosity about the future evolution of this timeless landscape.
Learn all about the origin of the name of Jenny Lake - an iconic lake at the base of the Teton mountains.
Learn about how the US Homestead act affected Grand Teton National park and it's residents before it became a park.
Learn about the Bath Lake of yesteryear - before it became the small, muddy puddle it is today.
Learn about John Muir - a conservationist that is widely recognized as the father of our national parks.
Learn about some of the native Americans that lived in Yosemite Valley before it was called Yosemite Valley.
According to mythology, petrified wood are the bones of an ancient and terrible beast named Yeitso.
So many of us probably recognize that the name Hopi refers to the nation of Hopi people, but are you aware just how rich and long the history of these people really is?
on April 5th, 1909, the Arizona Gazette newspaper ran a story about a strange discovery at the grand canyon. According to the article. Two archeologists from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC discovered a series of hidden tunnels under the marble canyon region.
Listen to an epic audio legend about the mythology behind Petrified Forest National Park.
The names Glen and Bessie Hyde have become famous at the Grand Canyon. Their story has been featured in true crime books and podcasts. It was even featured on the show unsolved mysteries in the early nineties, but how did an ordinary couple on the rafting trip of a lifetime become one of the Grand Canyon's greatest mysteries?
We here at Shaka Guide really enjoy a good mystery story. One of our favorite Grand Canyon mysteries is the great Hoax of 1909. Never heard of it?