Don's Tuesday Column

                THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   8/15/2017

                    Living history in campground

Sometimes history can be found in the stories of people you meet. In our case, the stories of Yellowstone National Park, railroads, Japanese immigration and their internment/displacement in World War II were woven into the ancestry of camp hosts and campers.

It started with moving from an Island Park, Idaho campground, McCrea Bridge with its cozy but rewarding views of the local lake, to Warm River campground at a lower elevation near Ashton, Idaho with its views of the Grand Teton range to the east. Those would be the views you'd have except for the last couple of weeks as the smoke from a 50,000-acre fire near Pocatello, Idaho enveloped the eastern Idaho ("home of the largest seed potato producing area in the world") fields and farms.

We were fortunate to photograph the Tetons, before the smoke moved in, from 40 miles away at a roadside view along the Henrys Fork of the Snake River near Lower Mesa Falls. That was not so from Harriman State Park, 60 miles from the Tetons. There, while visible with binoculars, photos weren't showing the peaks as haze from fires obscured the view.

Mr. Harriman, a railroad magnate you could say, acquired thousands of acres for his ranch, complete with miles of the Henrys Fork frontage and views of the peaks of Yellowstone, in the early 1900s. He entertained other wealthy barons of industry like Mr. Richfield, for whom the "R" stands in ARCO, as in the "Atlantic Richfield" oil company.

He also developed a friendship with another guest, John Muir, yes, that John Muir. He persuaded Mr. Harriman to bequeath the ranch to the people of the state of Idaho. The gift also entailed requiring that Idaho establish a state parks department. Historic buildings and former residences remain for visitors to observe the personal effects and lifestyles of the rich and famous of the time. Trails, ponds, barns, equestrian facilities and day use provide hours of enjoyment. Period photos of winter activities suggest that, while attracting fewer visitors, Harriman's ranch was still a place of natural respite amid glorious surroundings.

That leads back to the railroad connection to our Warm River camp host, George. His "handle bar" mustache was well waxed; his and his wife's self-fabricated electronic bicycles proved his ingenuity. His grandfather's connection to that very campground informed us where his ingenuity came from, as well as the nearly century-long use of the location.

His grandfather worked on the railroad line from Ashton, Idaho to Yellowstone Park and "he worked himself out of a job," when the line was completed. His grandfather, being the industrious sort, then began cutting ice from the frozen lakes to transport in horse-drawn wagons to the growing populace of Ashton. Summer found him using those wagons and train cars to haul timber for local homes and businesses.

The campground served the workers and the steam engines of the railroad, for fish and water; wagons with families would simply stop in the river and drop their fishing hooks. Readers can imagine that the same qualities that came into use in building communities and commerce for towns like Red Bluff were evident in eastern Idaho and elsewhere throughout America's past.

Upon setting up our campsite, we saw a group across the way with multiple generations, numerous tents, canopies, tables and coolers. The first impression was of the little girls with their inflatable tubes at one time, their dogs on leashes at another, running and deriving nearly endless enjoyment from the wading-depth waters of Warm River. It wasn't very warm but got it's name from the fact that it flows all winter, fed by springs above.

We got to talking with their mom and found an interesting story of another history of the campground. Her grandmother, widowed some seven years ago, used to come to this same place when she was in her 20s with her husband; her grandmother is now 96. Her great-grandparents immigrated from Japan, putting their arrival into the early 1900s. Their farming lives in California were rudely interrupted by "the ugliness," the word she used to refer to the displacement of Japanese-Americans to camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Upon regaining their freedom, they sought the fertile lands of Idaho to resume family farming. One of the young men was kind enough to share a big clove of home-grown garlic, some of which will be sautéing soon for breakfast.

Further quotes from "A Better War" by Lewis Sorley illustrate how South Vietnam was, under America's military support, guidance and training, moving towards victory in late 1970: "Not only was the internal war against subversion and the guerrilla threat won, so was that against the external conventional threat--in the terms specified by the United States. Those terms were that South Vietnam should, without help from U.S. ground forces, be capable of resisting aggression so long as America continued to provide logistical and financial support, and--of crucial importance later, once a cease-fire agreement had been negotiated--renewed application of U.S. air and naval power should North Vietnam violate the terms of that agreement.

"The viability of such arrangements would be demonstrated in 1972, when the enemy's Easter Offensive was met and turned back after heavy fighting by just that combination of South Vietnamese and American forces and resources. So severely were the invading forces punished that it was three years before they could mount another major offensive, and that despite the compete withdrawal of all U.S troops in the meantime. At that later fateful juncture, as will be seen, the United States defaulted on all three elements of its promised support and, unsurprisingly, the war was no longer won."