We live on the remains of the dead

Large areas of the huge Phoenix/Mesa Metroplex are built on the ruins of the ancient inhabitants. It is not well known today, but many of the strip centers and houses that make up this huge city are literally built on Hohokam towns and villages. The vast canal system of the Salt River Valley has its origins in canals built by wood and stone tools hundreds of years ago. There are still places in the Valley you can see traces of the original canals and even see some of the ruins.

The picture above is the corner of one of the largest remaining Hohokam structures in Phoenix. It is maintained as part of Pueblo Grande, a Museum and Archaeological Park by the City of Phoenix.

No one really knows what the ancient inhabitants of the Southwest called themselves. The names we use like Hohokam, Sinagua and Anazasi, are merely convenient terms used by archaeologists and borrowed from other American Indian languages or Spanish. The term Hohokam was borrowed from the Akimel O'odham, and is used to define an archaeological culture that existed from the beginning of the current era to about the middle of the 15^th century AD. Wikipedia.

We have been visiting Pueblo Grande from time to time for many years. The present park and museum are really well done. The ruins now lie next to a freeway and just north of the Salt River where airplanes make their landing run into Sky Harbour Airport. It is really difficult to imagine the isolation and quietness that must have existed when these structures were inhabited. The City of Phoenix gets its name from the legend of the Phoenix bird that arose from its own ashes. Early settlers realized that the valley had once been densely populated and that the town they were building was rising literally on the ashes of the vanished civilization.

Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus

The Arizona State bird is an active and very evident denizen of the lower deserts. I think it deserves the designation just because it can actually sit on the cactus plants without getting stabbed to death. If you have ever tried sitting on a cactus plant, and I know a few people who have, you would probably vote for Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus or the cactus wren as your state bird also.

The cactus wren is also the largest of the North American wrens. The bird eats insects, including ants, beetles, grasshoppers and wasps, which makes it my friend any day. By the way, if my name were Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus, I would probably change my name to cactus wren too.

Cholla Cactus

Commonly called Cylindropuntia bigelovii but locally known as the Teddy-bear Cholla or Jumping Cactus, this is one of the most prominent features of the mid-level Arizona/Sonoran Desert. This cactus has the annoying characteristic of leaving its easily detached stems all over the ground. The slightest touch of a shoe or pant leg is enough to have this fuzz ball attach. The spines are vicious, possibly the worst in the plant kingdom. After instantly penetrating the skin, the barbs curl like fishhooks when they hit the moisture under the skin. This curled barb is very difficult to remove and may require a strong pair of pliers. The plant actually reproduces from these dropped stems and makes almost no seeds.

A close relative, also called Jumping Cactus, is the Cylindropuntia fulgida or chain cholla or chain fruit cholla. This plant makes long strings of green fruit, hence the name chain cholla. Like the Teddy-bear cholla, this plant also propagates from the stems that fall to the ground.

It is a learned skill to walk through the desert and avoid stepping on cactus. As you are walking, the cactus, if stepped on, will attach to the heel or bottom of the shoe and with the next step will lodge in the side of the opposite leg. I used to carry a pair of pliers on hikes with the Scouts because it was inevitable that one of the Scouts would step on a cholla. Avoiding cactus is a lesson that one learns rather quickly or the decision is made to never step foot in the wild desert again.

The dead stems of the cholla are very distinctive and used to be used for decorative lamps and other tourist trade type objects. For a long time I had a box of the stems with the intent of making one of those decorative objects, but I think the box finally got dumped when I moved a few years ago.

There are some parts of the desert, especially along the mountain skirts of the upper desert, where cholla grows in huge forests. The plants are incredibly large and fierce looking. It is not a good idea to try to walk through these areas without a great deal of caution.

I think cholla are beautiful and love to use the pictures on my computer desktop.

Mesa Arizona Temple Christmas Lights

Every year from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years Day, the Mesa, Arizona Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a huge Christmas light display. I am well aware of the time and effort that goes into this gorgeous display, because for five years, right after the lights first were displayed, I was in charge of putting up, maintaining and taking down the lights. The entire grounds of the Temple had to be rewired a number of times to accommodate the huge display. The past few years, the crowds of viewers have grown so much that special attention has been paid to restroom facilities and all other aspects of the experience. Every night during the season, there is a live musical presentation in the area between the Visitors Center and the Temple. Back then, we were not so fortunate.

During the years we helped with the Temple lights, we got to be experts at fixing light bulbs in strings of lights. We also had some really interesting experiences putting the lights up. To get the lights into the palm trees, it requires a rather high cherry picker lift. One night, the wind was blowing hard enough to sway the trees, but we were up in the cherry picker, thirty or so feet off the ground, putting up lights and fixing those that had blown loose. We did that for about three or four hours straight without a stop.

Another night, one of the huge Italian Cypress trees, about 60 feet tall, blew over in a huge storm. Miraculously, the tree fell exactly in a spot where there were no lights and no lights were damaged at all.

The main problem, early on, with doing the lights, was the lack of outlets. We ran dozens of extension cords and were constantly blowing fuses and having to re-adjust the lights.

One good experience was that my children got to turn on the lights every year for the official turn on ceremony. At the time, there was no central way to control the lights and they had to be turned on at seven or eight different locations. even though we had a person who officially turned on the lights, it really took all of the children and others to get them operating.

For those five years, from October to January, the Christmas lights took most of our time and effort. It was an interesting experience and far different from today's organized effort.

Not exactly walking and not exactly Arizona again

If you ever had any reason to wonder why Apple is making so much money, here is the answer:

Not exactly walking and not exactly Arizona

This is the most amazing (and dizzying) tour of Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you have a big monitor, you really feel like you are right there. There are a whole bunch of other panoramas on this site, some of which are absolutely incredible. I especially like the one of Double Arch in Arches National Park.

For even more amazing images, try the software PTgui Gallery. You have probably never seen such impressive photos. This is amazing. Then you can see how it is all done on the Zoomify page.

Digging the ditch

The ancient inhabitants of the low deserts in Arizona were well acquainted with canal technology. In the Salt River Valley the canal system is said to use at least 1000 miles of canals and irrigate over 100,000 acres of land. See The AncientHohokam Canal System in the Valley of the Sun. The early Mormon pioneers had no knowledge of this vast canal system when the began the laborious process of digging canals from the water backed up by brush dams to irrigate small fields in and around St. Joseph, (now Joseph City) Arizona. But the ancient inhabitants of the Salt River Valley and the Mormon pioneers had a lot in common; both used rudimentary manual tools to dig their ditches and canals.

Considering the tools and methods used anciently to dig canals, there is no doubt that anyone, modern or ancient, would have the same challenges and have to use similar tools. Although modern tools are electronic and high sophisticated, the dirt still has to be moved. Today our tools move more dirt with less manual effort, but at the time the pioneers came to northern Arizona, they had essentially the same tools possessed by the early inhabitants. The pioneers did have one advantage, animal power, through horses and oxen. But there was no real substitute for a pick and shovel.

Despite these relatively primitive methods of moving dirt, the pioneers managed to dig ditches and build substantial dams within a few months of their arrival along the Little Colorado River. Unfortunately, the River did not cooperate in the effort. Before the first year's crop could be grown to harvest, the summer rains had washed out both dams and ditches, leaving the fields to dry out and burn up in the summer sun.

The first dam built by the residents of Allen's Camp and Obed cost the settlers $5000. It took 960 man days of work and an additional 500 more man days of work on the ditch. That was the dam that washed out with the first flood in 1876. In 1877 another dam was built upstream from the first, only to be washed away in the summer rains. Again in 1879 yet another dam was built.

And so it continued until finally, cement and engineering won out with a dam that let the water run over the top when the floods came.

For some idea of the attitude of the people after so much hardship, here is a contemporary account:



Living on the river was not easy but it was worth it.

The above story is in:
Abruzzi, William S. Dam That River!: Ecology and Mormon Settlement in the Little Colorado River Basin. Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1993.