Tulelake- Intersection of Nature

Homesteading

Tulelake is the southern end of the Klamath Reclamation Project.
photos-Bureau of Reclamation and Anders Tomlinson

The United States in 1900 needed to expand and open new settlements for it’s growing population. It was truly time to go west. The concept was to dam and redirect river water to areas that could grow food and start towns. The harnessed water would also create much needed power. The southwest would become the new population frontier and resulting economic bonanza. Opening the southwest also opened opportunities for European emigrants to start new lives. Reclamation had global implications.

Here, in the Upper Klamath Basin there was water, a key element for settlement. In fact, there was an excess of water that had to be drained.
And so it was that Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lakes became fertile farm land controlled
by diversions. Czech settlers migrated to farm. Lucky World War I and II veterans,
lottery winners, were invited to homestead. The Klamath Reclamation Project was successful.
Engineers were able to move, or remove, water, where and when needed. Upper Klamath Basin could support a larger human population. Settlement of the west had begun.

Tule Lake Basin in early summer, made green by the hand of man.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Headline Makers

Tulelake Homesteaders were on the cover of Life Magazine in 1946. Articles on the
Japanese-American Segregation camp were in Life Magazine during World War II.
In 2001, Klamath Reclamation Project water shutoff made evening news across the nation
and the world. The last Indian War in California, and the first to be reported internationally,
was the Modoc Indian War fought in what is now the Lava Beds National Monument.
The Applegate Trail and Lassen Trail traveled through Tule Lake basin with eastern settlers
headed north and south. Earlier, tribes crisscrossed the basin.
This is an intersection of human nature.

We Learn from our Past

Reclamation brought farming and Tulelake to Tule Lake Basin.
photos-Anders Tomlinson

The Tulelake documentary provides an opportunity to witness migration. A film trilogy is underway. One, the spring waterfowl migration. Two, reclamation of the west. Three, the forced migration of Japanese-Americans. Other historic migrations include Native Americans, Czech settlers and the Hispanic influx. There is also an undertone of federal agency migration.
The rifts and faults of the land and the building and collapsing of mountains,
are also reminders that land forms themselves are migrating.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

editorAnders, February 23rd 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Tulelake California

Tulelake: Farming and Refuge working together.

Millions of visitors come each year to a land of harvests and growing families.

Tulelake, Tule Lake, Tule Lake Basin… you say potato, I say grebe, you say coyote, I say horseradish, you say harriers, i say cattle, you say pelicans, I say grain, you say mint, I say osprey, you say antelope, I say alfalfa and on and on and on… here is the nature of reclaimed lake bed used by farmers, wildlife and nature watchers. This land is alive in many more ways than controversial media sound bites and headlines you may have seen and heard.

Pelicans rest on the bank of a flooded field as farm equipment passes by. photo-Anders Tomlinson

Delivering water to soil that was once a lake bed.

Tule Lake Basin is crisscrossed by Tulelake Irrigation District’s 600 miles of canals- that’s 1,200 miles of shoreline. Water is moved back and forth from farm fields to drains, back to farms, or the lake or U.S. Fish and Wildlife projects. Today, the amount of water used in a year could be less than what naturally evaporated from old Tule Lake. Seasons dance under passing clouds and deep blue skies. A Year in the Life through photos and words.

Around the year, if there is water in irrigation canals there is wildlife.
photo-AndersTomlinson

A modern relationship between man and migrating waterfowl.

I have had people tell me that other people have told them that Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge is too geometric with all the rectangular farm fields. Everywhere there are right angles, so unnatural for wildlife. I laugh. I wonder where those people live. The chances are their homes were built on land that was once wildlife habitat. It is also possible the land was graded and plated into grids. And in Southern California the lush landscaping, fueled by borrowed water, strived to break up the squares. How can these folks look at wildlife thriving in Tule Lake Basin and say their Tule lifestyle is unbecoming?

Wildlife takes advantage of everything it is aware of. It has been said what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Can it be said what is good for man is good for geese? Or what is good for geese is good for man? There are few habitats left that migrating waterfowl can use. Places like Tulelake are all that these migrations have. Wildlife use Tulelake refuge and farmland to survive.

Looking south from hills behind Merrill and Malin, Oregon.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Mother nature does what she does.

The springs of 2007 and 2008 in the Upper Klamath Basin were wet. Relatively undeveloped refuge such as Upper Klamath Lake and Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuges had so much water there was no where for birds to put nests. Nests were being built on canal fed Tule and Lower National Wildlife Refuges. Man’s ability to manage water levels provided wildlife with safe nesting areas. Free flowing nature can be a killer, as well as a provider. Despite man’s researched predictions, whatever the research intentions may be, the world doesn’t always follow projected mathematical models. The story of Tulelake is both ancient and modern. It is a story of accommodation and cooperation. One needs to visit, linger, listen and watch with willing and open eyes. The future of man and wildlife plays out before you.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

editorAnders, February 18th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Tulelake California

Tulelake: Crossroads in History

Tulelake, California, just south of the Oregon border, was greatly impacted by the 2001 water shutoff. For numerous small family farms it was an unexpected end to a honorable way of life. Like all farmers, they had little security other than their faith that tomorrow would be a better day. And then the water was shut off…

Generation after generation raises our food and fiber.

Robert Ganey singing about living in the fields of America. Video shot in the farm land and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge surrounding Tulelake, California.

Under twenty feet of water…

Anders shooting southwest at Medicine Lake, Mt. Shasta and Tule Lake Basin.
Photo-Rob Crawford

A hundred years ago Tule Lake advanced and receded across the Tule Lake Basin. At that time, the current town of Tulelake was under twenty-some feet of water in the spring.
Much of the lake was a shallow evaporation pond. All of the Upper Klamath Basin, of which the Tule Lake Basin is part, is in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains. Throughout history, there have been wet periods and dry periods. Tule Lake would fluctuate accordingly. Today, the watershed above Iron Gate Dam comprises 38% of the Klamath River Watershed and provides 12% of the water, in a wet year.
For more geographical information visit Klamath River Watershed .

Looking at present day Tule Lake from Sheepy Ridge. photo-Anders Tomlinson

This is the northwest corner of the Great Basin. The Lost River began six miles east of Tulelake and traveled some 90 miles in a meandering circle north, west and south before draining into Tule Lake, not the Pacific Ocean. Today, a diversion canal sends much of the Lost River directly to the Klamath River.

The reclaimed lake bed, enriched with thousands of years of waterfowl migrations, has some of the planet’s richest soil. In an era of farmland constantly being taken out of production it is easy to make a case for good soil becoming endangered. This flies in the face of a concept that the next 50 years will require as much food to be raised as was grown in the past 10,000 years. Tulelake Irrigation District receives the vast majority of its water from the Klamath Reclamation Project. The district also has wells that were drilled during the 2001 water shutoff. A few farmers also dug wells.

Klamath Reclamation Project was the second effort, following Imperial Valley in Southern California, that proposed diverting water to promote developing the arid southwest. The Federal Government’s recent success building the Panama Canal provided tools, experience and brain power to rechannel rivers, build power dams, irrigate deserts and drain lakes into productive farmland. If people were to settle these developing lands they would need food and jobs. Farming offered both. For more information visit Klamath Reclamation history.

Farming and Refuge co-existing in Tulelake, California.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Today, farming is looked at by many as a problem to be eradicated as if it were an infestation. These are the very same people who need food and water to exist. For those in the urban Southwest who want farming ended to save species there is another alternative, leave the southwest and reduce the demand on resources that many species need. Go somewhere that can support a human population along with the wildlife. This sounds extreme, but, reality is reality and human nature is human nature. Power and water demands need to subside in population centers. Each purchase or activity has multiple consequences, many unintended. Sitting in living rooms and writing checks for political movements and special interests doesn’t remove pressures created by cities which effect wildlife hundreds of miles away. As example, salmon are more impacted by urbanization than anything happening in rural America. Places like Tulelake do more per capita to help wildlife, and humans, than any Southwest city. Places like Tulelake export and provide. Places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix import and receive. The story of Tulelake, truly a crossroads in history, is worth telling.
FFA, teaching the next generation how to provide.

Projects that have been shot in the Tule Lake Basin include Homesteading in a Promised Land, Fields of Splendor , Farmland , Walking Wetlands, Stepping Stones, Efficient Irrigation,
My Face Was My Crime, A Year in the Life and many others.
This is an American story of success told by the strong people who make their living off the land in a frontier setting.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

editorAnders, February 16th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Tulelake California

Tulelake: A Graphic Rest Stop

In 2008 Anders designed eight square panels, each 48 inches tall, for a community rest stop at the intersection of Highway 139, and Main Street in Tulelake. It clearly showcases places and things one can enjoy if they leave the highway and explore the surrounding landscape.

Here is California's beginning or end depending on the direction one is driving.

All of this within 39 miles from this rest stop

The adventure begins as history comes alive off the beaten path.

Visit the largest concentration of bald eagles in the lower 48 states

These are the first waterfowl refuge and a wildlife - agricultural oasis.

Many naturalists list the Klamath Basin as “Best for West Coast Birding”

At least 489 species of wildlife visit or live in this volcanic wonderland.

A magical place, well worth visiting any time of year

Explore North America's greatest concentration of lava tube caves.

You are here, standing at a Crossroad in History!

For 12,000 years humans have roam this land.

This is the second Reclamation Project as the USA looked to expanding west

In the beginning the challenge was removing water.

Some of the first steps to land on the moon were here.

The Volcanic Legacy All-American Road runs through here.

The largest Volcano in California: 24 miles in diameter, 150 miles in circumference

750 square miles of landscape is covered with lava.

The Little Rest Stop with A Big Story

Here are eight panels, 4' x 4', that share epic tales and wondrous landscapes.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

editorAnders, February 16th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Tulelake California

Farmland videos

Growing up in Tulelake, California

Mary Palmer, daughter of a Klamath Reclamation Project’s World War II homesteader, shares her childhood memories of growing up in Tulelake. Life today, is much the same. The biggest difference is the water issues that now confront farmers and citizens in the Upper Klamath Basin.

Generation after generation raises our food and fiber.

A delightful ditty by Robert Ganey singing about living in the fields of America. Video shot in the farm land and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge surrounding Tulelake, California.

2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

editorAnders, February 5th 2010 | Posted in Tulelake California, Watershed Moments Films