Taft-Nicholson Center for Environmental Humanities (MT)
Lower Red Rock Lakes, MT (June 2018): postcard for Dear Body of Water (photo by G.E.H.)
What are the ripple effects? It’s like touching the Missouri River headwaters at Hell Roaring Creek in the Centennial Valley and realizing that same water may end up in the Mississippi Delta and the Atlantic Ocean. You have to be patient enough to follow the meandering course.
—Gretchen Ernster Henderson, from artist reflection, June 2018.
Dear Body of Water flows from many wellsprings around the country and planet. One includes the uppermost headwaters of the Missouri River in the Centennial Valley of North America.
Nicknamed “the Serengeti of North America,” the Centennial Valley is part of the Greater Yellow Ecosystem. Situated over one of the largest volcanic hotspots on the planet, the Valley is dynamic as its underground crucible, as vulnerable as the Red Rock Lakes Wildlife Refuge that famously protected a small group of trumpeter swans to prevent the species’ extinction. Over 240 bird species migrate through the area. Around lakes, along fish-spawning streams and up ridgelines, grizzly bears, wolves, moose, elk, red fox, antelope, and other creatures roam as reminders that humans are a small part of a larger whole.
In a place as remote as the Centennials, a person is aware of interdependence. Year-round and seasonal residents have different livelihoods but share stakes in the Valley. Over decades, creative and critical partnerships have developed, formally and informally, to care for each other and for the ecosystem. The complex relationships make even a short-term visitor aware of their interdependence with places farther afield.
Ash from a creekbed once topped the peak where Crater Lake now lies in Oregon. Birds cross continents and follow migration patterns set in motion eons ago. Looking at birds, as near descendants of dinosaurs, may be the closest thing we have to looking into the eye of time. Elsewhere in the valley lie the headwaters of the Missouri River, which travels west and north and east and south to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
To imagine the reach of this place—and the ripple effects of what starts or is interrelated here—requires care to follow a meandering course. Remote from human centers, places like the Centennials may seem isolated, impervious to injuries like extractions. But their biodiversity may keep all of our hearts pulsing, air oxygenating, water streaming, replenishing resources farther afield. As the world is torn apart, what ripple effects might happen when communities near and far pull together to protect the volatile and vulnerable wonders of our planet?
—Abridged from "Headwaters": reflection by Gretchen E. Henderson (June 2018). To listen to this read on Wild Idaho! podcast, visit here (timestamp 29:40). To learn about the Taft-Nicolson Artist Residency, visit here.
The Taft-Nicholson Center for Environmental Humanities in Montana is part of the University of Utah.
Land Acknowledgement (from the University of Utah): The University of Utah has both historical and contemporary relationships with Indigenous Peoples. Given that the Centennial Valley has always been a gathering place for Indigenous Peoples, we acknowledge that this land is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Shoshone, Bannock, Salish, Blackfoot, Crow, and Nez Perce Tribes and is a crossroad for Indigenous Peoples. The University of Utah's Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center recognizes the enduring relationships between many Indigenous Peoples and their traditional homelands. We are grateful for the territory upon which we gather today; we respect Indigenous Peoples, the original stewards of this land; and we value the sovereign relationships that exist between tribal governments, state governments, and the federal government. As a state institution, the University of Utah is committed to serving Native communities in partnership with Native Nations and our Indian communities through research, education, and community outreach activities. (The Montana University System provides additional Land Acknowledgement Statement Resources.)
Photos from Hell Roaring Creek. Sign reads: "Hell Roaring Creek. Utmost source of the Missouri River. 3768 miles to the Atlantic. The fourth longest river in the world."
Maps above from USGS and Wikimedia Commons.
WATERSHED
Hell Roaring Creek—Red Rock River—Beaverhead River—Jefferson River—Missouri River—Mississippi River—Gulf of Mexico—Atlantic Ocean
