Tag: Native American
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Mesa Verde National Park
Montezuma County, Colorado, USA (May 1992) Mesa Verde National Park, the “green table” of Colorado’s contribution to the Four Corners region contains some of the most spectacular and largest cliff dwellings ever constructed. Precolumbian native Americans, sometimes referred to as the Ancient Pueblo People or the Anasazi after the Navajo word for “ancient ones,” inhabited…
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Sitka National Historical Park
The City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska, USA (August 1995) Sitka National Historical Park became the first park in Alaska to become Federally designated (map). It commemorates the 1804 Battle of Sitka that took place between the native Tlingits and agents of the Russian-America company. The 113 acre park also features totem poles placed at…
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Sitka Points of Interest
The City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska, USA (August 1995) American history recognizes the 60-foot high promontory known as Castle Hill for a significant event (map). It marks the spot where Russia transferred Alaska to the United States after its purchase for $7.2 million in 1867. It also has a notable history from earlier times.…
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Four Corners, Part 4 (Native Americans)
It would be difficult for anyone to travel through northern New Mexico and southern Colorado without encountering signs of its original inhabitants. Archaeological evidence stretched back for millennia. Ruins defined an era of large, complex settlements beginning more than a thousand years ago. Their descendants still live in the area, preserving a rich tradition and…
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Four Corners, Part 2 (Hikes)
The vast empty spaces of the Southwest offered great scenery with long distances between stops. That didn’t bother me. I liked driving and I enjoyed the view. We found plenty to do along the way too, mostly outdoors. Every place worth a detour also included a signature hike of some sort. Even the most crowded…
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Heartland, Part 5 (Not Just Farmland)
A previous article in this series noted the abundance of farmland with little else to be seen during my Heartland excursion. That didn’t provide a completely accurate picture. Variations appeared in unexpected ways although I needed to travel to the margins to find them. We charted our course purposefully. It allowed us to experience a…
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Centers of Michigan
For once I wasn’t looking for the geographic center of something, as problematic as that could be given various definitions. Not in Michigan. And for the record, the town of St. Louis claimed to be the “middle of the mitten.” Even so, this moves to a spot a few miles north-northwest of Cadillac taking the…
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Another Last Stand
John Wilkes Booth‘s last stand was by no means the only infamous last stand. It got me thinking about a wide range of other events from the last couple of hundred years that might fall within the same general guidelines. Last stands happened in many places in many times. I selected a few from the…
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New England, Part 2 (Of Course Geo-oddities)
Of course I had to visit Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. The Twelve Mile Circle audience loved geo-oddities and I needed to deliver. I’d been to New England several times and I’ve plumbed its depths for nuggets repeatedly. What was left? Well, this lake with a really long name for one. That wasn’t the only remarkable feature in…
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Oglala Lakota County
I pointed out that the the Wade Hampton Census Area in Alaska became the Kusilvak Census Area in a recent Reader Mailbag article. Alaska’s census areas exists as a unique construct. They serve as a convenient parceling of the Unorganized Borough while being considered “county equivalents” by the Federal government for a number of statistical…