Field Notes

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desiderata

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

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The Colorado Belle

The biggest wreck on the Colorado isn’t a riverboat at all, but a six-deck, 40,000 square foot casino. Once the pride of Laughin, the $80 million Colorado Belle was launched July 1, 1987, and shut down by order of the State of Nevada on St. Patrick’s Day, 2020, “to prevent the spread of the virus.” I’ve heard secondhand that the foundations are sinking into the riverbed by several inches a year, and the old Belle is now down by the stern.

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Recessional

God of our fathers, known of old,

 Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

   Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

   In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

   And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word—

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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A Ghost Boat on the Colorado

There were no Colorado River Queens to match the Mississippi riverboats in elegance and size. The Colorado was a very different river back before we converted it into one of the planet’s greatest civil engineering projects. A shallow draft was needed to navigate the constantly shifting sandbars, with an engine and boiler strong enough to breast the current in the canyons. (This photo is the “Cochan” on the Colorado River near Yuma, Arizona. This picture was taken in 1900.)

Considering how few Colorado steamboats there were compared to Eastern rivers, it’s a pleasurable surprise to discover at least one ghost boat buried down in the delta. The Explorer, one of the first boats on the river, broke free of its moorings at Pilot Knob and was swept 60 miles down stream in the spring flood. A survey party found the remains in 1929, , according to this excellent history.

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Steamboats on the Colorado

There were steamboats on the Colorado as well. Thanks to early gold discoveries north of Fort Mohave, by the 1860s steamboats were running from Port Isabel at the mouth of the river as far north as what is today Las Vegas cove.

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Mississippi Blues

A friend in Mississippi advises the Drought is affecting Old Man River, too, and folks are out combing the newly exposed sandbars, finding an “old paddlewheeler or 2, civil war stuff, aincient bones… ” I don’t know how well the river bottom would preserve them, but there were a lot of steam packets on the rivers in the 19th Century, and a great many accidents. Twain’s Life on the Mississippi is all I know about it.

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The mysterious wreck

Over the last century, the story of the Spanish treasure ship stranded somewhere in the desert far from the sea grew barnacles of variations, as campfire tales will. Old parchments in some Spanish library documented a voyage north into the Colorado in 1540. That seaborn ressupply for the overland Coronado expedition returned, but had there been others that dissappeared over the horizon? Two prospectors found the timbers of what must have been a vessel of some kind; hikers saw the prow of a Viking long ship sticking out of the side of a wash someplace in the Mojave, the local tribe allegedly had legends of a strange hulk that appeared and disappeared in the dunes. And so the Lost Ship joined the rich folk lore of the Southwest.

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Ghost Boats

My fascination with the sunken boats emerging from our drought-stricken reservoirs has roots 68 years deep, to the September 1954 issue of Walt Disney’s Uncle $crooge. I was only 8 years old, but already an avid reader not of school books but comic books. And the adventures of Uncle Scrooge, the three nephews and Donald were my favorites.

Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck. He worked anonymously until late in his career; fans dubbed him The Duck Man and The Good Duck Artist.

In the September issue, Scrooge and the gang follow an arrowhead clue deep into the desert, where to the well-preserved wreck of a 400-year old Spanish galleon.

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Fenrir

“It’s forty kilometers through hell, sir,” said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. “After all,” he said softly, “what isn’t?” ― The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Fenrir monstrous wolf of Norse mythology. He was the son of the demoniac god Loki and a giantess, Angerboda. Fearing Fenrir’s strength , the gods bound him with a magical chain made of the sound of a cat’s footsteps, the beard of a woman, the breath of fish, and other occult elements. When the chain was placed upon him, Fenrir bit off the hand of the god Tyr. He was gagged with a sword and was destined to lie bound to a rock until the Ragnarök, when he will break his bonds and fall upon the gods. According to one version of the myth, Fenrir will devour the sun, and in the Ragnarök he will fight against the chief god Odin and swallow him. Odin’s son Vidar will avenge his father, stabbing the wolf to the heart according to one account and tearing his jaws asunder according to another. Fenrir figures prominently in Norwegian and Icelandic poetry of the 10th and 11th centuries, and the poets speak apprehensively of the day when he will break loose.