Flickavoyages: Day #69 August 26 Sisk-a-dee-agie

We left Slate Creek after coffee and headed south generally along the course of the Green River and entered the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge, US Fish and Wildlife Service. One of those out of the way beautiful spots. Virtually no traffic. A few locals. We drive a short twenty-mile loop. Lots of antelope, prairie dogs, rabbits. Seedskadee is a misspelt version of the Shoshone word “Sisk-a-dee-agie” meaning “the river of the prairie hen” now known as the greater sage grouse. The Shoshone were here for at least seven hundred years before whites came and changed the name of the river to the Green.

Before the Fontenelle Dam was built the Green River, or the Sisk-a-dee-agie which I believe is a more beautiful and descriptive name, the river meandered its way gracefully across a relatively flat broad plain. But in spring it spilled its prodigious snow melt flood waters onto that plain, forming oxbows and braded channels that laid the groundwork for development of marsh wetlands. The wetlands grew cottonwood and willow groves that supported rich populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. Once the dam was built, the flood waters were stored behind it and used to provide irrigation to higher, drier lands. Flow below the dam was controlled and greatly diminished in the spring. Marshes dried up so the robust and diverse flora and fauna decreased substantially.

Congress established the Seedskadee Refuge in 1965 to offset the loss of wildlife habitat, that is, to engineer on the ground measures to mitigate the losses, not an easy task, especially with the usual lack of resources available for such efforts. But dedicated refuge managers, volunteers, scientists and others work diligently generally with limited resources to progress. The ecological costs of infrastructure projects like dams are rarely figured into the overall accounting and the engineered solutions, which are admirable, rarely actually replace what nature wrought in the first place.

We stopped at Lombard Ferry where enterprising frontiersmen charged immigrants exorbitant prices to ferry their wagons and possessions across the river to facilitate their remarkable westward journey towards a new life in hot and dry regions in Oregon and California, where, they had been convinced by charlatans, that if they would just cultivate the lands the rains would come. In those regions where rain fall generally averages less that ten inched a year, they were told that if they would just buck up, put their noses to the grindstone and turn over the soil, it would miraculously start raining.

After Seedskadee we headed into the town of Green River, WY, where on May 24^th 1869 John Wesley Powell set out in four wooden boats with his brother Walter and eight other colorful characters to explore the Sisk-a-dee-agie and areas beyond that no white man had even seen. This was only eighty years before I was born. Not that long ago.

They went through Flaming Gorge that Powell so named, a real gorge then. On through Red Canyon and then the Canyon of Lodore, picking up speed and volume, becoming a maelstrom at times. On through Desolation Canyon, Gray Canyon, Labyrinth Canyon and Stillwater Canyon. Then Glen Canyon, Marble Canyon, Cataract Canyon and more. The Colorado River. After three months and six days they reached the confluence of the Colorado with the Virgin River with many stories to tell.

With provisions from Safeway in Green River, much easier than John Wesley Powell’s provisioning I bet, we headed into Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, US Forest Service. Flaming Gorge would actually be a gorge or a canyon if not for the Flaming Gorge Dam which backs up the Green River, or as I like to call it, the Sisk-a-dee-agie, so that now the “gorge” is a lake, complete with powerboats, boat ramps, picnic areas, etc. It is a beautiful lake no doubt, however all the original canyon wetlands and attendant native flora and fauna that existed prior to construction of the dam are gone for now, until the dam fills up with sediment, fails and the river is unleashed to do the real healing that only natural processes can affect. For now, the sounds of bugling elks have been replaced by the roar of power boats and the most abundant animals are invasive mussels brought in on boats used in infested areas. With no natural enemies, they dominate the aquatic environment.

Nevertheless, the country is magnificent and empty of the hordes of people one encounters in national parks like Yellowstone. Good for curmudgeons like us. Drives along the gravel, dirt roads yields solitude and grand landscapes. We are camped in a beautiful spot in the Firehole, Ashley National Forest, Flaming Gorge. Took an evening ride and saw lots of antelope.

Good night all.