https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/6bcd427af7a91f9a1eeba5b1a57e293e.pdf dd324a341478e18aebed015276de9498 PDF Text Text Chad Hansofi Chad Hanson The Choreography of Taint Tock Creek I am heading west with a pack, a fly rod, and a pair of boots. My Subaru isn’t fast enough. Pickup trucks close in on my bumper. In the rearview mirror a man in a ball cap tosses his hands in the air. He complains to the passenger at his right. Then he rolls his eyes and risks his life by passing me on a section of highway that could hide an oncoming tractor-trailer. The road cuts a line across the swells and troughs of the lonely praine. The basin lies between the Big Homs and the Absaroka Range. With no trees to block the view, drivers fix their eyes on the horizon. This is not a scene that people dream about in east­ ern states. When visitors flip through racks of postcards in the rotisseries of truck-stops, they sort through pictures of moose, elk, spruce trees, and snow covered mountain peaks. But ridges and forests are the exceptions in Wyoming. Two thirds of the state is flat or rolling, and it is covered by a blanket of sagebrush. In the minds of most, it’s drive through country. Lifeless. Good-fornothing plains. We are elevation chauvinists. When we think of an ideal land­ scape we picture an alpine meadow circled by an aspen grove— rock and ice above tree line hung as a tapestry in the distance. 120 The plains west of Casper; Wyoming weren’t always so unfor­ giving. Prior to the middle 1800’s, the area stood in the heart of what we called the short-grass prairie. Buffalo, grama, and little blue stem grass covered the land along with a large and diverse cast of characters, including owls, antelope, bison, bears, lions, wolves, and six species of raptor. Modern visitors would have been awed by what would have seemed like an American Serengeti, but all of that disappeared when cattle barons drove their herds into the West. By the time ranchers started to settle Wyoming, the bison had already faded. The gri2zly bear had been driven into the foothills, and bounties had been placed on the heads of wolves, lions, and coyotes. The plentiful fauna of the plains were on the run. All that remained were the grasses, and they were the next to go. The cow­ moguls saw the praine as a source of revenue. Wherever they saw open spaces, they ran cattle. Praine plants evolved alongside native animals. Their fates were bound together by the weather of the seasons. For example, in the past, elk and deer ate wheat grass in the winter, but they ate it sparingly, because they roamed across the range to avoid preda­ tors. After the first hard frost the grass stopped growing, but the leaves above ground stiU provided food. The plant is not harmed when It is nibbled in the wintertime, and the elk and deer lived to survive another cold February. The grass and grazers danced to­ gether in the name of sustenance. By comparison, cows evolved in Europe under frequent, heavy rains. In their homelands, domestic cattle ate lush, green temper­ ate grasses. They stood in one place and consumed. They didn’t move because the carnivores on the Continent were mostly killed 121 �The Choreograpf^ of Paint Pock Creek in the era of King Henry the Eighth. They ate the grass down to the dirt. Given such habits, when they were moved westward, cattle ate wheat grass in the spring when the plants were full of chloro­ phyll. When grass is eaten to the ground in May, however, it is forced to re-grow itself at a point when it should be sending roots deep into the soil. Long roots are a plant’s only hedge against cold winds and hot, dry August afternoons. In the spots where cattle displaced native animals, grasses were overgrazed and some did not return. Waves of sage swept in to fill the void. In a sense, we are for­ tunate. If sagebrush hadn’t spread over the region to hold the topsoil in place, active dunes would surround the cities of the West. Sage flats are preferable to shifting sand, but they’re not an American Serengeti. I understand why people drive faster than they should in their pickup trucks. I am headed for a creek in the Absaroka Range. Brooks and rivers cut deep grooves into the mountains as they carry melt­ water from the high country to the cottonwood basins. Paint Rock Creek carved one such canyon. The place is not well known to tourists or even local fly fishers. On the west side of Wyoming it is the mountaintops that act like magnets, tugging on our desires. I have been smitten by the rock and ice above the tree line, but while others are moved to climb up on the planet I am just as often drawn into its depths. There are different ways to account for our preference for i one landscape over others. Some of us appreciate the land we knew when we were children. I grew up on the edge of the north woods in Minnesota. I have been away from home for twenty seven 122 Chad Hanson years, but when I return to visit and find myself wading knee deep on the shore of a lake, I feel anchored. It’s as if I’ve been pro­ grammed to value farm ponds, cattails, and blackbirds. We re also drawn to the novel. We appreciate settings that dif­ fer from the ones we knew. After my freshman year of college I moved to Arizona. From the standpoint of the plants and ani­ mals, I had discovered a new universe. Although, it is easy to find beauty in surroundings you have yet to take for granted. Daily life in a locale has the effect of blinding us to the splendor. When I moved to the West the landscape startled my senses: deserts, canyons, mountain ranges, and forests of old growth trees. When I camped and backpacked with others, the trips started with a question, 'Which trail to hike?” I had friends that could not fathom anything but gunning for a peak. My lady-friend and wouldbe wife brought me into the desert to walk among the saguaro. When I had it my way, however, I hiked into rocky canyons. We don t have canyons in Minnesota, so the novelty provided part of the allure, but I had other interests. As a student I spent too much time reading books by Martin Heidegger. In Being and Time he wrote about the thread of hours that we inhabit. He ob­ served a pattern, with respect to the way we orient ourselves to­ ward time. Most of us look over our shoulders. We call what we see there, “the past,” and we imagine that we emerged from a long ribbon of months and years. When we think that way, Heidegger called the outcome “being-of-the-world.” We think of ourselves as having grown out of a time and place. That is not the only option, however. Heidegger suggests it is possible to live in a way that makes you more than merely from the world, but rather, part of its fabric. He called that, “being-inthe-world. I always wanted to be in the world, not simply of it. 123 �The Choreography of Taint Took Creek. and canyons make that wish seem possible. Apart from the fact that you’re literally in the world when you look up from the bot­ tom of a thousand foot crack in the planet, canyons also have a way of pulling on the hands of time, slowing the moments so you can use each one to soak up the setting. Chad Hanson truck rushes around me, the dirt falls out of the air and I see well enough to make out a bumper sticker on his tailgate. It’s a picture of a smoking gun beside the silhouette of a gray wolf. Below the image it says—SMOKE A PACK A DAY. The pickup lurches down the road, but then it makes a right. He takes a thin road toward a ranch. I watch the truck. When it reaches the crest of a hill, two dogs take off from the house and The highway lingers in the background as I turn off the pave­ ment onto the gravel road that leads to Paint Rock Creek. It’s been a dry summer. Dust billows up from the wheels of the car. A tan film coats the rear window, but I am not looking backward. I take my foot off the gas and begin focusing on the scenery. The road I’m on runs parallel to a canal that waters a field of alfalfa. I pull over to take a look. Irrigation ditches inadvertently host schools of fish. They get sucked in through diversion dams. If they survive the turbulence, they’re left to spend the rest of their days in the canal, but that amounts to three short months, or the time it takes to irrigate a crop. I step onto the mound that routes the water down a long, straight line stretching across the basin. Then something dawns on me. This is Paint Rock Creek. Someone pressed it into service. The current bobbles over the bottom of the ditch. It reminds me of a marching band rolling lockstep down the channel. I put the car back into gear and continue toward the spot where the praine breaks against the rock walls of the Absarokas. I’m patient. There is no reason to hurry, and besides, my attention is arrested by die sight of a bu22ard. I find myself swerving as I strain to look at a turkey vulture. I am not thinking about my trajectory over the road, but then I notice someone behind me in an elderly Ford pickup truck. He is trying to pass on my left side. I can barely see the driver through the rising dust, but after the run up to greet the arrival: a German shepherd and a golden re­ triever. They re barking and wagging their tails. The driver is ei­ ther a member of the family or a familiar acquaintance. We are fond of dogs. But anthropologists suggest that we love pets because we can dominate them. The words “domination” and domestication” share the same linguistic root. They imply a master and subordinates. The training of pets involves a display of authority. Once an animal is broken by a trainer, whether it is the owner or a hired gun, pets turn into our personal possessions. Then we grow attached. They become extensions of our own iden­ tities. We love our dogs! But wolves are not popular dogs in Wyoming. The state has been working for years to designate the wolf as a predator. Thus far, the Feds have kept the proposal from becoming law, but if Wyoming is successful in its efforts, wolves could be disposed of any time and under any circumstance. Their cousins, coyotes, are considered predators and their case provides an example of what happens when an animal receives such a status. They are shot, poisoned, caught in steel jaw traps, and when dens full of puppies are found, they are blown up with explosives. Our hatred is greed. Most ranchers cannot bear the thought that wolves eat calves without paying the current market price. Economic interest lies at the heart of our anti-wolf campaigns. 124 12S �The Choreography of Taint Tock Creek but the other reason we don’t like wolves is that we cannot con­ trol them. We can’t break them like pets and we are accustomed to having the world conform to our wishes. Wolves embody the last remnant of the wild in North America. We are not their mas­ ters. We know that. They know it too, and their self-determina­ tion bothers some of us. Two cottonwoods provide shade at the edge of the water. I park the car under a tree beside the creek. Then I turn the key toward me and set the brake. There is something profound about the moment when the vehicle stops and you step out onto the dirt of your destination. Unknown sights spread out in front of you. I walk to the brook, sink to one knee on the shore, reach through the surface with cupped hands, and splash the dust off of my face. Paint Rock Creek pours out of a deep and narrow gap in the east side of the Absaroka Range. I stand and stare at the crack, my boots planted in the sand, fifty pounds of supplies on my shoulders. I hike to the edge of the canyon. Then I step into the Earth. A trout rises to take a bug off the surface, but my fly rod stays in its protective tube. I am hiking to the confluence of Paint Rock Creek and Sharpen Brook. A sandy bench rests in the crook of the two canyons. I plan to camp there for a night and fish both streams before I’m through. . After one. mile, I notice an etching on the rock wall to my left. It’s a four foot tall human-like form. It has a square body, long , claws, and a pair of antlers jutting from its skull. Near the man­ like figure I find images of animals: elk, bear, turtles, sheep, and 126 Chad Hanson rabbits. Archeologists determined that paleo-Indians pecked and painted these pictures eleven thousand years ago. The people of the region believed that canyons were steeped in supernatural power. In their minds, spirits lived in places where two or more elements collided, in this case water and stone. Sha­ mans used such locations to pass from one realm to another. Af­ ter journeys into other worlds, they recorded their sightings in the form of pictographs. Rock art sites correspond to places of de­ parture: caves that serve as portals to the underworld, canyons and springs where water pours onto the dry surface, and peaks where a shaman could climb up into the heavens. Native people called each place a “house of power.” Scientists have successfully wiped the mystery from the sto­ ries of shaman travelling into other dimensions. When shaman traveled,” they most likely experienced a form of hallucination, induced by combining long, repetitive dances with a meal made from the root of the detura plant. Today we can produce the vi­ sions in a laboratory. They include sightings of geometric forms such as spirals and zig-zags. The shapes are said to shimmer, move, and morph in ways that bewilder. I round a corner and my eyes settle on the meeting of the streams. I walk four yards past the confluence to a point where the water is shallow. I grab a stick from shore to brace myself and slog through the current. The site feels familiar. It is a smooth plateau that overlooks the melding of the creeks. There is only one difference. This time, I have to kick four piles of cow dung off the site that played host to my camp the year before. I’ve hiked and biked through the most remote and obscure places in the West, and I’ve seen cow manure everywhere. 127 �Chad Hanson The Choreo^rapf^ of Paint Rack Creek A friend once loaned me a copy of a book titled, “How to Crap in the Woods.” Each chapter contained a set of instructions on how to bury excrement. The idea is that campers should leave no trace of their presence in the outdoors. I read the book over the course of a weekend. Then at some point, I reali2ed, even on my best and most regular day, there is nothing I could do in the woods that could even beg^ to compare to what cattle have al­ ready done. It only takes a minute to set up the tent and fluff my sleeping bag. I press the pieces of my fly rod together. Then I step back toward the shore to study the water. Caddis flies hatch and then flutter in the air above the brook. I tie an imitation to the line. It mimics the size and color of the bugs on the surface. The current runs swift by my site, but a calm pool waits upstream on Paint Rock Creek. Out of habit, I fling the fly onto the water while I walk. There are boulders set midstream that look like homes for trout I drift my fly through the rocks enough times to satisfy my hope and curiosity. Then I continue toward a section of the creek that winds around a bend. I crouch and peer into the water. On the outside of the curve, the stream has undercut the bank. The current stripped the soil and rock and sent it downriver. A firm edge hangs over the creek. Trout love this arrangement. Below a bank they enjoy the cool­ ness of the shade, safe from the talons of ospreys. I work thirty feet of line into the air with a series of casts. The elk-hair caddis whisks above my head, and the fly rod bends with grace and dignity. When the line above me matches the distance to my target, I set the fly on the water. The caddis falls onto the i2S creek and a brook trout launches from the bank like a torpedo issued from a submarine. As he hits the bug I raise the tip of the fly rod—the fish is on the line. The trout is big for Paint Rock Creek. His first run takes him downstream toward a stretch of whitewater, but I keep him from slipping away by placing my palm onto the reel to slow its rota­ tion. The trout is single-minded, however. I can’t encourage him to swim my direction, so I walk toward him taking up line. When I reach a spot that is parallel to him on shore, I coax him into shallow water. He’s a foot long, and his blue spots shine in con­ trast to the orange of the canyon wall. The fish are hungry in the pool that I chose as a destination. I catch two more brookies and a rainbow as I crawl along the bank. Slowly, the afternoon vanishes in a trance of silver scales, red haze, and black eyes circled in an outline of Wyoming gold. With the sun sinking below the rim of the canyon, I start the hike back to the tent. My fi[re brightens a circle wide enough to cast a glimmer on the creek. The current throbs to a beat that keeps time with the flickering embers. It is easy to imagine how a shaman might have been moved to dance around a campfire. They danced until they saw visions. Their arms whirled and their feet pounded without any inhibition. We gave up that kind of freedom. When we dance our movements are patterned by our culture. We do the two-step and the waltz. Our kicks and shuffles are governed by the norms of our society. When the fire fades I crawl back up the bank and into my shelter. I spend ten minutes reading poems by Jim Harrison. Then 129 �The Choreo^rapf^ of Chad Hanson Roe^ Creek. I succumb to the last of the natural forces that we still abide. I fall asleep. In the morning, I sip coffee and ponder the upper reaches of Paint Rock. Wrens chirp and vultures soar in circles overhead. I . decide to hike out of the canyon to see what lies above. I have been to this spot six different times, but I’ve never left the water s edge. Upstream on Paint Rock Creek a tributary cuts a side canyon. It forms a tail fonnel that looks like a route to the rim. Most of the time, I manage on my feet. Other times I have to climb. Two sto­ ries from the top I come across a cliff that pushes the limit of my ability to lift myself by my fingers. At the crest I take my time strolling a wash. Then the gully becomes a plateau with a view to the east. On the right side of the valley, sagebrush flats are pocked by natural gas pumping stations. Gravel roads connect the dots, form­ ing a pattern that looks like the web of a spider. In the years since the extractive industries discovered methane gas under the high prairie, the basin has been transformed into a mechanical jungle of pumps, trailers, and holding tanks. Groups of conservation­ ists put up a fight to slow or halt the drilling, but they were no match for the corporations set on taking what they wanted from Wyoming. Most of us accepted the transformation of, our wide-open spaces. We see the natural world as a resource to be exploited. The cold momentum of commerce shapes our beliefs. When we * are young—sunshine, animals, and wild flowers bring us unadul­ terated happiness, but when we grow up and get adulterated, we 15Q are taught to move on to other pursuits—golf and tennis, real estate and sports sedans. To the north, a group of Herefords graze in the grass on the bottom of Black Creek, a tributary of Paint Rock. Two dozen cows stand knee deep in the current. One of them pees into the brook. They’re taking shelter in the only thing that looks familiar: running water. The plains tend to frighten cattle. To their Euro­ pean ancestors, a drought meant hardship, even death, but bison thrived in this basin. As I scan the topography in the distance, I picture a herd thundering over the hills and unfolding into valleys. For native people, bison were members of the human family. They possessed power and wisdom. Herefords do not possess power. They play no role in the great mystery. Each part of their body is a reflection of human engineering. We created them to mope around until we send them to a slaughter house. All they inspire is pity. When we drove bison off the plains we made it hard to be­ come spellbound by the animals with whom we share our homes. Ironically, the Wyoming flag hosts a white silhouette of a bison on a blue background. The Europeans that setded the area thought buffalo were symbolic. They identified with the traits of the bi­ son: strength, honor, and independence. The Sioux medicine man, Lame Deer, once made a remark to the effect that people are in a bad way when they kill off their own symbols. It was easy. We let the spell of fascination leak out of our daily lives. We are the people that created the work-to-spend treadmill, the endless cycle of nine-to-five shifts, late night televi­ sion, and am/fm alarm clocks. In the process of repeating the Zi/ �The Choreography of Paint Pack Creek work/sleep/work/sleep/work cycle we forgot how to be en­ chanted by the richness of the world. I point my shoes toward the creek. It takes longer to hike down to my campsite than it took to climb up to the canyon’s rim. My left knee gives out on a steep section. I scrape the palm of my hand as I reach back to support myself. For most of the trip I wonder if I should have stayed closer to camp and fished for trout Chad Hanson Back at the car I sUp into the driver’s seat When I turn the key the stereo bursts on at a high volume. I twist a knob on the dash­ board, and the wall of sound shrinks to a whisper. It’s a song by a band from Minnesota by the name of Husker Du. It’s about as close as I am going to come to tribal drums, but I cannot bring myself to even tap my foot. Upstream from my tent, fish are sipping bugs off the surface of Sharpen Brook. I wear out a caddis fly in a fight with a rain­ bow. Fish attack my bugs as they take light on the water. They swipe at them near the end of long, tumbling drifts. My thoughts are fused between the shifting surface and the pale green fly line arching in the air between the trees. Then it’s over. Something changes, and since I am an urbanite, insensitive to the cycles of nature, I do not understand. The trout just seem to disappear. All I can do is take that as a sign that it is time to fold the tent, roll up my sleeping bag, and hike back to the Subaru. As I wander downstream I take a second look at the picto­ graphs. It occurs to me that a civilization prospered here, in a place that we’ wrote off as too harsh to inhabit. The people of this basin lived in accord with the wind, rock, and animals for eleven thousand years. To the birds and creatures of ^e area, men and women were probably difficult to distinguish from the churning whitewater. Most of us are not free-stone rivers or spring creeks, * however. We are long, straight irrigation ditches serving some small portion of the national economy. 132 133 � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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Chad Hanson Journal Publications, CCA 04.ii.e.2025.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA 04.ii.e.2025.01_ChadHansonPapers_28 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Searchable PDF Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <em>Lake Effect</em> is published by Penn State Erie, The Behrend College