Ode to Carlton

This column appeared in the Methow Valley News April 26, 2017

Carlton, the Mediterranean of the Methow

The clearest, bluest swimming hole

Sandy beaches lined with umbrellas to block the sun

Where locals splash and visit, enjoying summertime fun

Across the road, the Carlton Store - cold drinks and snacks

Ice cream, dinner, dry goods, fishing gear, t-shirts and hats

Right next door to the weed store

Down the street from the Carlton Feed & Supply Store

To make the post office, better be quick

Limited hours demand a well-planned trip

That fine-looking garden belongs to Max Judd

By hand, he pollinates squash by paint brush

Once upon a single apple tree,

Max Judd grafted twenty-two varieties

Then there was the time, Farmer of the Year he won,

“Don’t remember what year it was, but I got a nice Stetson.”

He remembers the deep freeze,

When frozen sap busted open all the trees

Even today, local farmers carry on the tradition

Willowbrook Farm and Ruby Slippers provide organic nutrition

There’s the big red schoolhouse, where little Willy Bigger

Fell in love with Dorothy Miller

The schoolhouse became home to Mrs. Thelma Roos

A vast ‘rock-hound’ collection arranged in many rows

Students traveled through on geological field trips

Mrs. Roos sent them home with labeled specimen starter kits

A collector and artist, a lover of stone

Crushed rocks into powder to paint pictures of home

Deke Smith stirred moonshine made from apple mash

While sharing stories of a distant past

Deke recalled all night parties on long winter nights

The whole town would gather to dance and feast, fiddle and drink

One wintry night, some “hooligans” played a terrible trick

They snuck into the nursery and swapped the blankets

Mothers gathered their babies without waking

Identifying the bundles by the knitting

When the babies awoke later that day

A massive baby swap was underway

Abbie’s mum would sing a pretty tune, “Where did you learn that song, dear mother?”

“At church,” she replied, “we used to go all the time until it washed down the river.”

Floods, and freezing, and wild fires can create a complex

But Carlton remains, prepared for whatever comes next

Smoker Marchand - Colville Tribal Artist

This column appeared in the Methow Valley News, April 12, 2017

The Methow Monument is rapidly coming together. Site layout and landscaping in the Pateros Memorial Park is taking shape by Wilson and Wilson Landscaping. Native plants provided by Methow Natives will soon be planted. The interpretive signs are in production, as is the salmon bake oven and the teepee. The sidewalk tiles by Bobbi Hall are complete and can be previewed at the Pateros museum. The sculptures are nearing completion beneath a fire breathing torch in the studio of Virgil “Smoker” Marchand, a well-known local sculptor with works on display throughout the country.

Smoker is a descendant of the Arrow Lakes tribe, one of the twelve bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. Smoker’s Indian name is Spa’Poule, which translates as, “Smokey”. His grandmother often called him “Smoker” and the name stuck.

Smoker became interested in art as a young adult. He doesn’t recall ever being creative in his youth, but his brother Charlie was an artist and helped Smoker gain admittance to the prestigious Institute of American Indian Arts in Sante Fe, New Mexico. At the school, Smoker felt inspired by all the creative mentors and instructors. He found he had a natural eye for design. After his studies, he returned to the Colville Reservation to share his new found gift as a community planner.

“The Tribes kept me going,” with the development of his art, Smoker explained. Starting with brochures, letterheads, a design of the tribal seal, and the flag, Smoker moved on to bigger projects. He worked with community elders to design the museum mural, and illustrated children’s books. At some point, the drawings stepped off the page and emerged as sculptures. Smoker’s sculptures can be seen all over the country in city parks, educational institutions, and at historical sites.

For the Methow Monument, Smoker is creating a fishing camp - complete with drying racks and a fisherman spearing salmon in the dry riverbed. Smoker designed the nine-foot sculpture from a 1930s photograph of a Methow man spear fishing while seated on a horse.

Smoker began work on the sculpture on a Thursday, quickly cutting out all the pieces from steel using a plasma cutter before grinding the edges to a smooth finish. His uncle, Gary McClung, spent the next few days welding the pieces together. Gary, a retired machinist, does most of the welding on all of Smoker’s pieces.

The fisherman came to life from the inside out, as Smoker cut and chiseled the face profile before adding the braids and a wide brimmed hat. As the character emerges from a detailed sketch on a page to a three-dimensional piece, Smoker adds finishing touches: a bridal for the horse, an arm band for the man. The completed sculpture will be a cultural icon at the mouth of the Methow Valley.

Another one of Smoker’s pieces, a life size Labrador, is up for auction at the Whiskers & Wishes Auction and Dinner in Winthrop, Saturday, April 15th. The dinner and auction benefits OK-SNIP, OKANDOGS Adoption Coordinators, and the Animal Foster Care Cat Shelter. Tickets are available at www.ok-snip.ejoinme.org.

Lower Valley News, May 10, 2017

This column appeared in the Methow Valley News on May 10, 2017

My favorite view of the Methow Valley is in all directions.

Out the kitchen window two gently sloping hillsides greet each other in a gentle embrace, their mantles changing color with each season: winter white, early spring green, blooming balsam yellow, and late summer’s sepia brown.

From the south facing windows the trees bud out a bright green, followed by delicate white blossoms, and finishing with the fiery colors of autumn.

My childhood was spent in a neighborhood of identical tiny boxes, where each house was built to the same plan. The view from the living room was the house across the street, a mirror image of our own. The view out the kitchen window was the backyard neighbor, their windows aligned perfectly with ours.

It was a predictable neighborhood. The newspaper landed with a thump on the front stoop every morning at 6:05. The mailman strode across the lawn at 1:20. Lawn mowers and sprinklers all ran on schedule.

What I love the most about the Methow is that it is unpredictable. Homes are all different and the scenery changes from mile to mile. Sometimes the scenery changes even minute by minute. Creeks swell with rain and snow melt, new channels form, and roadways become disrupted by mudslides.

With the Loup closed, now is a fine time to enjoy the changing views of the lower valley. The orchards are in full bloom. The view won’t last long, just a few weeks, so savor the blooms while they last. Even the Carlton General Store is sporting a clean new look.

With all this ruminating about change, there is something to be said about continuity. I recently spent some time in Peru, walking 40 miles along the Salkantay trail from the village of Mollepata to Machu Picchu. The trail has been in use for thousands of years by people walking in between villages beneath the slopes of Mount Salkantay. Many people passed us by on the trail, their donkeys and horses in obedient lines, necks and saddles festooned in color. The handsome profiles of the riders matched the ancient drawings of the Incas I had seen in text books.

I'm humbled when I meet people who are surrounded by constant reminders of their own great history and knowledge. Being a nation of immigrants, we don’t know the soil we live on as intimately as those who have lost count of the generations born from that earth.

Along the trail, medicinal plant gardens were everywhere, and the locals were well-schooled on the use of botanical treatments for every possible ache and discomfort. Inca walls formed the foundations of relatively newer buildings. At Machu Picchu there were multiple sites where a compass laid upon a stone revealed perfectly aligned corners pointing North, South, East, and West. Shallow bowls filled with water acted as mirrors to view the stars in the night sky, and the path of the sun in the day. 

Celebrating continuity in our own valley, the Methow Monument – celebrating the original Methow people and their descendants who continue to live in the Methow Valley today – is nearing completion. The dedication is scheduled at noon on Saturday, May 27 at the site in the Pateros Memorial Park. Methow descendant Randy Lewis will direct the ceremonies, and artists Smoker Marchand and Bobbi Hall will speak about their artwork at the site.