Expedition to Determine the Fate of the Peace Tree

In 1822, General William Ashley published an ad in the Missouri Gazette recruiting adventurers into the American Fur Company for the purpose of exploring the headwaters of the Missouri River for beaver:

Enterprising Young Men

The subscriber wishes to engage ONE HUNDRED MEN, to ascend
the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one,
two, or three years. For particulars enquire of Major Andrew
Henry, near the Lead Mines, in the County of Washington, (who
will ascend with, and command party) or to the subscriber at
St. Louis.

Wm. H. Ashley

In 2013, I employed his advertising style (while updating cultural assumptions about qualifying ages and genders) in an email to recruit adventurers into the Red Rock Armada (a fellowship of area kayakers) for the purpose of exploring the upper part of Lake Red Rock to determine the fate of the "Peace Tree", a local landmark associated with the frontier history of Iowa:

Enterprising Not-Quite-So-Young Men and Women

The subscriber wishes to engage TEN MEN AND WOMEN, to ascend
the reservoir Red Rock to its source, there to be entertained for one,
two, or three hours. For particulars enquire of Doctor Brian
Lange, near the Canoe & Kayak Launch, in the County of Marion, (who
will ascend with, and command party) or to the subscriber at
Indianola.

J.A. Pearson

Our foray was prompted by rumors among the natives that the Peace Tree had finally fallen, fatally injured by ice and old age. During a reconnaisance to the Painted Rocks last week, our scouts had scanned the last known vicinity of the Peace Tree with binoculars, spotting a mysterious, ice-draped object far across the strait.  Unable to identify it from long distance, they had recommended an on-site survey by boat.  Answering the call, eleven enterprising kayakers mustered at the Elk Rock trailhead on Saturday morning. Our "Expedition to Determine the Fate of the Peace Tree" was now assembled and ready for action.

Mist veiled the landscape, rendering familiar landmarks into indiscernible blobs and enhancing our sense of exploring a strange new country. Strapped to the deck, my GPS recorded our route as we paddled across Teter Bay, rounded the headland, passed under the Mile Long Bridge, and curved away from the coast to approach the mysterious object we had scoped from shore the week before.  

As we neared, a dark, tombstone-shaped stump loomed out of the mist. Familiar but strange at the same time, it was the remains of the Peace Tree: still present but much diminished from its former grandeur. Its woody girth resembled the diameter of the tree trunk we had come to know over our years of visiting, but its top was scarcely above the eye level of a kayaker, completely unlike the look-up-at-me aspect of the tree we had known.  I paddled up to the stump and grasped its edge. Recognizing the now tilted surface of a formerly flat platform just above the waterline, I acted on the impulse to climb onto the stump, retaining my paddle as a staff.  Brian shepherded my boat away as I stood up and surveyed the scene (top photo).

If I was the hero of a Hollywood movie, this would have been the point at which I suddenly clutch my forehead as a swarm of alien images - accompanied by weird, unsettling music - swirls through my confused brain: ancient visions of an undammed river, a tall sycamore emerging above unbroken forest, Indian villages, a string of blue-coated soldiers, treaties and trading posts, upheaval, sorrow, a new world, big floods, more upheaval and sorrow, deepening water... and a giant, dead tree slowly dismembering with ice and old age.  It would have been the memories of the Peace Tree pouring into my mind.  Rendered into slow motion, tickmarked by year and age, the tree's life would unfold like this:

1500 - (tree age 0) - Peace Tree seed germinates, then grows uneventfully for over three centuries.  Native Americans hunt in the surrounding forest, traveling up and down the Des Moines River waterway.

1835 (tree age 335) - "One summer day, the Indians beheld a long line of white men on horseback.  They were U.S. Dragoons, a cavalry unit sent out to explore the Sac and Fox lands preparatory to buying them..." (quote from Harriet Heusinkveld, "Ghost Towns of the Des Moines River Valley", Take This Exit, 1989).

Historical Indian Land Cessions in Iowa
(Charles Royce map, Wikimedia Commons)

1842 (age 342) - Treaty of 1842, Sac and Fox tribes cede land to United States Government (pink zone in above map); Red Rock Line established as temporary interior boundary for phased withdrawal (north-south red line within pink zone).  

1843 (age 343) - Indians vacate lands east of the Red Rock Line; town of Red Rock established quarter-mile east of Line. Although not an official point of reference for the Red Rock Line, the Peace Tree (standing immediately west of the boundary) becomes a local landmark approximating its location. (See map in this weblink.)

1845 (age 345)- May 1st: Indians vacate land west of Red Rock Line, relocating to Kansas; October 10th: "At midnight, white settlers in wagons and on horseback line up at the Red Rock Line awaiting the shooting of guns to be fired by the Dragoons to announce that they could go in and claim the land." (quote from Huesinkveld)

1851 (age 351) - Big flood submerges town of Red Rock.

Pre-reservoir photos, circa 1970s-1980s

(photos from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lake Red Rock Office archives,
reproduced in Rogers 1992)

1947 (age 447)- Big flood submerges town of Red Rock; Army Corps of Engineers begins planning flood control reservoir to be named Lake Red Rock in keeping with its tradition of bestowing the reservoir with the name of the nearest downstream town.

1968, just before the final flood
(photo by Otto Knauth, Des Moines Register, reproduced in Rogers 1992)

1969 (age 469) - Big flood submerges town of Red Rock, but this pool is permanent. Between 1947 and 1969, the Army Corps decided to move the location of the proposed dam 8 miles downstream to Howell Station (thus capturing the large inflow of Whitebreast Creek). The town of Red Rock ends up on the wrong side of the dam although the Army Corps retains the previously chosen name of "Lake Red Rock" (evidently eschewing "Lake Howell"). The Peace Tree is killed by lake water rising 2 feet above its roots.

In the 1960s, 87-year-old Maude Thomason Scarbrough (lifelong resident of Red Rock)  wrote (quoted in Rogers 1992): 

"This giant tree at shoulder height measures 22 ft.-ll in. in circumference, has lived for hundreds of years on the Des Moines river bottom in Marion County near, where the town of Red Rock, Iowa, used to be... The age of the giant tree is unknown.... but it is certain, however, that it watched the parade of historic Indians, the Sioux, Iowa's Pottawattamie, Winnebagos, as well as the Sacs and Foxes, as they passed in war and peace from the Red Rocks on the Des Moines River, from which the old tree springs, are well known in the tales and legends of these people who lived in the town of Red Rock, Iowa... Prior to 1842, John Jordan's trading post, in the shade of this big tree, exchanged gun powder, trinkets, and whiskey, for the Indian's fur catch.... It watched the settlers cross the Red Rock line at Midnight October 11th, 1845, when the territory was opened to white settlers...It watched the settlement of Red Rock become a bustling river town where, saloons, murder, robbery, were quite commonplace." 

1992, dead bole standing ~25 feet above newly raised normal pool
(photo by Leah Rogers)

1992 (age 469 + 23) - Lake level is raised 8 feet to offset loss of volume from siltation.  Kayakers can now paddle up to the Peace Tree by water.  The lower bole of dead Peace Tree is submerged in 10 feet of water, initially leaving ~25 feet standing above the new pool level, but decay and breakage incrementally reduce its stature over the subsequent decades. Anticipating the disappearance of the Peace Tree, boaters in 2006 and 2007 decorate the tree with commemorative tapestry.

2006, standing ~15 feet above normal pool

2011, standing ~6 feet above normal pool
(photo by Deb McKnight)

2009, temporary 8-foot drawdown exposed lower bole
(photo by Diane Michaud Lowry; also three following plus topmost)

2013 (age 469 + 44) - Another segment of the Peace Tree snaps off during winter; remaining short stump severely tilted.

Summer 2012,
~6 feet above normal pool

Spring 2013,
~3 feet above normal pool

The visions cease as suddenly as they began as I snap out of my Hollywood alter-ego.  There are no ancient forests, Indian villages, or historians, just me standing on the stump of the Peace Tree, enjoying a day of kayaking with my friends.  Remembering our collective persona as explorers, I pose for a "summit photo" with our Red Rock Armada flag and record in my journal that "the Expedition to Determine the Fate of the Peace Tree was a success!  Tilted and diminished, but still present."

"Tilted and diminished, but still present."

As we paddle away from the tree, however, something in the back of my mind tells me to check out the history of the Peace Tree when I get home.  There might be an interesting story there.

*******

Literature cited:

Heusinkveld, Harriet. 1989. Ghost towns in the central Des Moines River valley, pp. 229-247 in Sayre, Robert F. (ed.), Take This Exit: Rediscovering the Iowa Landscape. Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA. 331 pp.

Rogers, Leah. 1992. Assessment of the Old Red Rock Indian Line Tree, Lake Red Rock, Marion County, Iowa.  With Fred A. Finney and Stephen C, Lensink.  Contract Completion Report 328, Office of the State Archaeologist, Iowa City, IA.  Available as webpage: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ada255372

Red Rock Roughwater, Part 2: Certification Success!

Back in November, I wrote about my attempt to acquire certification from the American Canoe Association (ACA) as a Level 3 coastal kayaking instructor.  I described how I attempted to perform the required skills of maneuvering in rough water (and how my friends captured the effort on video), but at the end of that day, I still needed to perform one last skill: rolling!  I have rolled my kayak many times, but the challenge for this test was to roll in rough water (Level 3 conditions: 1-2' seas plus wind of 11-16 MPH).  An extra complication in November was the very cold water: only 46 degrees.  On my first attempt, the shock of rolling into cold water was made more severe by frigid water unexpectedly flooding into my drysuit, disrupting my focus on the series of coordinated, underwater moves needed to roll up successfully.  Borrowing an undamaged drysuit from a friend, I tried again.  As I paddled into the waves and prepared to roll over, I hesitated, worried that I might fail, disappointing my instructor, my friends, and myself.  Suppressing my doubts, I gripped the paddle, inhaled a final breath, and tipped into the cold, dark water... 

...and rolled up effortlessly!

My friends cheered wildly, knowing that this final effort would cinch my certification, whose progress they had been watching for weeks - involving weekends of training in Chicago, practice at Lake Ahquabi, testing during a return trip to Chicago, and this follow-up videotaping effort.  A few days later, I sent the videos we had made to my ACA instructor.  I was elated to hear back from him that they demonstrated the needed skills, enabling the L3 certification.  Stalled paperwork delayed delivery of official notification until this week, but here it is at last:

I regard this certification as a milestone in my paddling "career", starting as a novice twelve years ago.  Beyond personal satisfaction, I hope the achievement serves as confidence for the paddlers that I accompany and lead onto the water that I can be counted upon to be a competent and careful companion.  

***

Photo by Diane Michaud Lowry; video by Brian Lange.  Thanks to Kevin Beatty for loaning me his intact drysuit and to all my other friends who helped me with the videotaping effort, including Andy Stapleton and Rich McKnight.  Special thanks to my ACA instructor Ryan Rushton of the Geneva Kayak Center and for his excellent teaching and to Jeff Holmes of CanoeSport Outfitters for sponsoring my certification.

Memories of Mosses

A rolling stone may gather no moss, but that is about the only habitat in which these interesting plants will not be found.  Indeed, they are common on trees, soil, cliffs, and non-rolling stones nearly everywhere. In most places, their presence is subtle: a thin green layer on tree bark, small clumps scattered along pathways and packed into sidewalk cracks, or high on blufftops out of the sight of trail-bound hikers. They can be conspicuous in places where trees, shrubs, grasses, wildflowers, and ferns are unable to thrive - typically on soil that is too thin, too dry, too wet, or too exposed to the erosive power of wind, water and weather. Their small physical stature (requiring a hand magnifier to perceive their leaves, stems, and matchstick-sized sporophytes and difficulty of identification (lacking birdbook-like field guides) contribute to their obscurity.  I don't let that stop me from enjoying their beauty.

Bryum in sidewalk crack

Anomodon on tree trunk

Leucobryum on sandy soil

On bedrock outcropping

Always curious about mosses but burdened by the beginner's dilemma of lacking knowledge of how to develop a deeper understanding, I finally delved  into the mystery by taking a "Bryophytes and Lichens" course offered by Dr. Jim Colbert at Iowa State University.  Inspired, I started collecting mosses in 2007 as contributions to the Ada Hayden Herbarium to help build an understanding of their biodiversity in Iowa. My travels as a professional ecologist and as an avid kayaker on my personal time enabled me to visit a wide diversity of habitats across the breadth of the state.  Although never having the time on these other-purposed trips to devote solely to moss-collecting, between 2007 and 2012, I nonetheless accumulated 112 specimens representing 46 species. 

...of Bryum argenteum

Trailside field inspection...

Getting started in 2007, my first collection was plucked from the bark of a big bur oak in my own backyard: Lindbergia brachyptera, a moss commonly found on the trunks of deciduous trees.  I later discovered that my very first collection actually preceded this one by eighteen years: out of curiosity back in 1989, I had collected a handful of moss forming a large, spongy mat on the edge of Ventura Marsh near Clear Lake, but forgot about it after donating it to the herbarium, where it resided undisturbed and unidentified in its original collecting bag for twenty-four years, finally rediscovered when I processed the rest of my collections in 2013.  It turned out to be Amblystegium riparium, a common wetland moss.

One of my favorite collecting spots is the sandstone bluffs bordering Lake Red Rock, a 15,000-acre reservoir on the Des Moines River where I often go kayaking, usually with friends but sometimes solo. My solo trips are the ones best suited for moss collecting because they do not impose on the patience of my companions as I hunker over specimens for interminably long inspections!

Visiting the bluffs by kayak eliminates the need for a long off-trail hike from the nearest trailhead, but presents it own challenge of landing along sheer cliff faces.  On several occasions, I have paddled to the base of the bluffs, climbed onto cliffs, and hauled my boat onto narrow ledges just above the waterline.  The view of the lake from the cliffs is always inspiring and I have seen several mosses there, including Bryum caespiticium and Clasmatodon parvulus. 

Reboul's Liverwort (Reboulia hemisphaerica) on sandstone bluff

Additionally, the liverwort Reboulia hemisphaerica is abundant here on shaded, north-facing outcrops.  Intrigued by its purplish, leathery, rosette-forming thallus and its green-capped sporophytes, I took a sample and recorded it in my fieldbook as specimen #183.

Collection bag

Close-up of fieldbook entry for collection #183

The distinctive appearance of this striking liverwort made for a relatively easy tentative identification by me, but I nonetheless sought confirmation by a professional bryologist, Dr. William Zales (retired from Joliet College, Illinois and now residing in western Iowa).  Armed with his positive identification, I created a final label for the envelope holding the specimen.  Dr. Zales not only confirmed the identity of this specimen, he identified ALL of my moss and liverwort specimens!  I deeply appreciate his contribution and have acknowledged him as the determiner ("Det:") on all of the labels.  Thank you, Bill! 

Finished label for specimen #183

Stimulated by his thoughtful identification of my whole collection, I spent several hours at my desk viewing the specimens with a stereoscope, creating a digital database, and generating final labels.  

As I worked at my desk reviewing my fieldbook on a dark winter evening, its notes triggered vivid memories of the places I had visited: bluffs, wetlands, prairies, forests, and trails.  Some were prosaic (my backyard) while others were sublime.  One of my moss observations on a high rocky ridge in Turkey River Mounds State Preserve made its way into an essay I wrote for the book Deep Nature: Photographs From Iowa: 

"Crouching next to a dolomite ledge, I peer through my hand lens at minute life-forms coloring the pitted rock surface: yellow-and-orange warts of sulfur firedot lichen, finely chiseled crusts of brown cobblestone lichen, black-dotted flakes of gray leather lichen, and coarse black clumps of Orthotrichum moss.  Trapped in a perpetually drought-stricken habitat, this moss spends most of its time wrapped in bryological fetal position, its dark-bottomed leaves pulled protectively together as it endures intense heat and thirst.  When wetted by passing rain, it explodes into photosynthetic action, instantly unfolding its artichoked leaves to reveal their green solar panels.  I cannot resist the temptation: unscrewing the cap of my water bottle, I pour a dollop onto the clump.  Watched through my lens, it immediately swells and twists to life like an awakened tarantula, quickly transforming from a dense black ball into a bright green bouquet of glistening leaves.  But soon disappointed with the brevity of my rain, it slowly recurls and returns to dormant black limbo."

Though originally intended to serve as elements of the institutional memory of an herbarium, my mossy specimens evoke personal memories of the beauty of special places as well.  For me, science and spirit are intertwined with memories of mosses.

Cold Day at Cordova Cliffs

January is one of my favorite months because its episodes of Arctic weather bring cold, brilliant days that highlight blue skies, white snow, and colorful earth tones - a welcome break from the monotony of overcast clouds that we endure the rest of winter.  Yesterday was a dull, gray day whose forecast of the passage of an Alberta clipper today prompted me to plan a trip to the Cliffs of Cordova, the red sandstone bluffs lining the north shore of Red Rock Lake. I looked forward to cloudless skies, sunlit landscapes, and frigid temperatures.  

My hiking route along the Cliffs of Cordova (orange line).
Maps generated by Spot Adventures.

It is 34 degrees below freezing (what others call "two below zero") with the windchill subtracting another 23 degrees - a wonderful winter day for a well-dressed wanderer (with long underwear, fleece pullover, hooded overcoat, cap, gloves, windpants, gaiters, and knapsack with more clothes, water, hot tea, energy bars, cell phone, and SPOT tracker). Parking at the observation tower of Cordova Park, I hike downhill through a band of woods and emerge onto the top of a 2-mile long sandstone bluff overlooking the 15,000-acre expanse of Lake Red Rock. I turn and walk along the rim of the cliff, reveling in the wild scene of bare rock, vast ice sheets, and wind-roiled passages of open water and ice floes.

Descending on a rocky slope, I scan the lake more closely.  A strong, cold wind from the northwest whisks away mist rising thickly from unfrozen water, pushes ice floes into grinding masses, and ripples the surface of the lake.  Together, the swirling vapor, jumbled waves, and clinking ice create the bizarre illusion that the frigid lake is boiling.

As I hike along the shoreline, I alternately climb to windblown clifftops, walk through windless woods, and descend to icy beaches.  Bone-chilling cold creeps through my clothes on sites exposed to the northwest wind, replaced by sunlit warmth in sheltered, south-facing sites.  The stark beauty of winter is everywhere...

... in watery openings surrounded by ice and rock...

...in ice-choked jams of gridlocked floes...

... on snow-streaked faces of ancient bedrock...

... and in the vastness of vistas.

Completing my circuit of the bluffs, I climb a final slope and return to my car beneath the tower.  During my walk, the temperature has risen to 22 degrees below freezing ("10 degrees above zero").  Pleased to have seen nature in one of its extreme moods, I drive home with warm memories of a cold day.

 

Streetless in Seattle

Seattle is a big city filled to capacity with streets, sidewalks and skyscrapers.  Bracketed between the Cascade Mountains and Puget Sound, it provides abundant hiking opportunities for anyone venturing out of the city into these big wildlands, but what about hiking within its street-jacketed urban environment?  A Christmas vacation in Seattle with my family provided me with the opportunity to find out. Guided by my son Will's advice and a local guidebook, I sought out remnants of wild country in streetless pockets of urban environment including fields, forests and beach bluffs in the vacated Army base of Discovery Park and old-growth forest in Seward Park.  My longest hike turned out to be a 7-mile loop that took me through Interlaken Park and Foster Island.

Counterclockwise loop route (orange line) from Eastlake (NW) to
Interlaken Park, UW Arboretum, Foster Island, and Montlake Cut

(maps generated by SPOT Adventures; click to enlarge)

Leaving home, I stride across the bridge over Interstate-5, howling with traffic.  Only a few minutes later, I enter the moss-edged lane to Interlaken Park where the soft susurration of drizzle on forest foliage is the dominant sound.

I am delighted to find a quiet, earthen track leaving the paved park road and winding through an authentic remnant of native forest.  It leads through a ravine festooned with sword fern...

beneath towering trees of Douglas-fir, cedar, and hemlock...

Western Red Cedar
(Thuja occidentalis)

Western Hemlock
(Tsuga heterophylla)

Douglas-fir
(Pseudotsuga douglasii)

Mountain-lover
(Paxistima myrsinites)

whose boles and branches are covered with mosses, lichens, and epiphytic ferns.

Sword Fern
(Polystichum munitum)

Licorice fern
(Polypodium glycyrrhiza)

Fruticose lichen
(Ramalina sp.)

Pendant moss

The remnant is small - a fragment of forest that formerly covered the isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington now occupied by the urban infrastructure of Seattle - so I saunter along a drizzle-soaked trail to extend my time in the wild woods.  Reaching its edge of the bottom of the ravine, I strike north through manicured plantings in the UW Arboretum and under the Evergreen Point Expressway, roaring with high-speed traffic.  

Now on Foster Island (broadly connected to the mainland due to long-ago lowering of Lake Washington), I reach the shoreline of Union Bay and gaze across smooth water at the nearby UW campus and distant Cascade Mountains. The trail turns west and leads across a series of boardwalks stepping across the marshy fringe of the bay.

While crossing an elevated arch on the boardwalk, I spot a pair of kayakers paddling across Union Bay in front of Husky Stadium.  We exchange greetings as they pass beneath me and I watch them disappear into the plethora of pillars supporting the nearby expressway above the watery mosaic of the marsh.

At the head of Union Bay, the trail follows the steep banks of the Montlake Cut, a man-made channel connecting Lake Washington to Portage Bay of Lake Union, itself connected to Puget Sound via the Chittenden Locks to form the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

At Montlake Bridge, I finally reach the end of the trail connecting scattered natural areas and now need to complete my loop by walking once again through a maze of streets and highways.  I recross the I-5 overpass, pass through residential streets, and step up the final stairwell to home, satisfied with having navigated the streets of Seattle to explore its streetless natural places.