Jaci Dawn

Everyone by now has read the amazing survival story of Rita Chretien, the Canadian woman who survived 47 days in the Nevada wilderness. She was located south of a ghost town called Rowland on a spur road off of a maze of dirt roads in the rugged Jarbidge country.

Those of us who know that country are probably more surprised than the casual observer: it is not just rugged terrain, it is brutal in the winter and it is winter there until the 4th of July. Some of those roads aren’t open until late June.

I grew up in Jarbidge, more or less. It was the first Nevada Ranger Station my dad was assigned to in 1957, shortly after my birth. He worked at three locations in the Jarbidge area: Pole Creek Ranger Station, Mahoney RS, and the Elko RS during the winter. Even after we left that country for more “urban” postings, the country and the friendships drew us back every summer. My folks owned property in Jarbidge (my brother owns it now).

I understand in part how the Chretiens may have ended up on a road impassable in March: their GPS unit most likely listed it as a scenic route with lots of history. The big silver mines, the old ghost towns (Jarbidge is still inhabited), and the site of the last stage coach robbery in the Continental US. GPS doesn’t give you a footnote: These roads are impassable in the winter.

Set all of that aside. I am ecstatic that Rita Chretien’s God came through for her.  I don’t want to be an arm-chair critic of why they went off-roads in that country in March. I am sad that Mr. Chretien is still missing, probably will never be found and if he is located, I seriously doubt he will be living.

What I really want to post about is the word Jarbidge. When I was a girl, we had a coffee-table history book of Nevada. If my memory serves me right, it was published in 1964, to coincide with the Nevada Centennial. It was light brown and full of interesting stories about the places and sights, including the background to the doomed Donner Party, the mystery of the Humboldt Sink, photos of the boom town of Hamilton and more.

My favorite story was almost a ghost story. It was about the giant, Tsaw-haw-bits.

Tsaw-haw-bits lived in a rugged, remote canyon. He was large and very hairy and he ate the native Shoshone and Paiutes who wandered into that country. He had plenty of hiding places in the basalt cliffs, deep ravines, and lava tubes.

The Indians exacted revenge on him, burying him in a cave by piling rocks over the entrance. They never wanted him to escape.

But they also never wanted to wander into that canyon again, and so – legend has it – they never went into the Jarbidge country again.

Every time I have been down in those narrow, steep canyons I have been in love. And I have wondered if Tsaw-haw-bits still wandered there. Or if he was what we now call Sasquatch.

It is beautiful country. If Mr. Chretien died there, then he died in a little corner of God’s country, giant hairy creatures or not. It is a little bit of the glory of God down in that country… but only in the summer, when the roads are passable.

PS – there is only on “r” in Jarbidge. Thank you.

Read Full Post »

Some memories stick with us. The sounds, smells, the colors. A moment in time, a photograph in our brain.

I have many of those memories from our years in Jarbidge, Nevada. Most of them center around Mahoney Ranger Station, which – oddly enough – we have few photographs of. Most of the old photos I own were taken at Pole Creek. But the memories are at Mahoney.

I remember watching a spider crawl around underneath my mother’s ironing board while she ironed. It was doing no harm, just crawling. I might have mentioned it to my mother. I think I remember mentioning it to her. I think I remember she was less than concerned about it, as long as it was under the ironing board and not interfering with anything. She may have looked to be certain it was not a black widow, but I do not remember that. I only remember the spider did not frighten her and she did not kill it. My mother liked spiders (exception: black widows).

I remember the palomino. He was probably a gelding. He was half-wild, as were most of horses that made up the U.S. Forest Service remuda in those days. They kept him in a separate pasture at Mahoney. He reminded me of Roy Roger’s horse, Trigger, but in living color. I have a vivid snapshot in my mind: I am bent over in the driveway, making mudpies. I mix in the gravel and petals from the yarrow. My mother is not far away, watching me. The palomino is in the pasture closest to the ridge above Mahoney. Suddenly, he rears up onto his hind legs and paws at the air.

He is etched into my mind forever.

I have another photograph in my head: I am peering upward through milling horses’ hooves and tails. I am looking into the frightened eyes of a man who is standing in the loft, tossing down hay to the horses in the corral. I can smell horses. I can hear the man’s fear.

Someone snatched me out of the corral and I most likely suffered a spanking for scaring everyone. But what I remember is that I was standing in the corral and the horses milled around me.

There was another palomino. Maybe the same one. It was up at Pole Creek. The flies had gotten to it. It developed a sore under the throatlatch that festered and oozed. My mother had to apply salve to it twice a day, a chore she hated. I did not know at that time why she hated the chore – or even that she hated it. That knowledge came later when she told me she hated horses. All I remember is the horse standing by the corral fence, waiting for the salve that eased the flies and the pain.

Then there were the bears.

They were not real bears. Oh, real bears lived in the woods but one never got to see them. These were the bears that lived under the floor of the log cabin Ranger Station office that stood next to the white clapboard government house where we lived in Mahoney. My father’s office was in the log cabin with the white chinks between the logs. We were not allowed to go into the log cabin.

I didn’t want to go into the log cabin.

Bears lived under the floor.

I was not afraid of Smokey the Bear. He was warm, friendly, and smiling. Sometimes I got coloring pages of Smokey and I colored him brown with blue pants on. I did not stay in the lines.

I was afraid of the bears that lived under the floor of the log cabin and that came out at night, growling and prowling. I had nightmares about the bears chasing me.

My father did not believe children under the age of five could have dreams, let alone nightmares. Guess I was a wake-up to him.

My father and brother still laugh about the bears. But they were very, very real to me when I was three.

Read Full Post »