Tree Talk
High above Park City in a remote alpine landscape, the aspens are speaking. They are telling the stories of Basque shepherds who roamed the mountains decades ago. On the trunk of a young tree, a lonely sheepherder carved his message. The smooth, white bark of the aspen made an ideal canvas for the herder’s musings. Over time, the delicate incisions expanded and darkened with age. His thoughts were not in words, but in pictures. Today, the primitive black cuts of herders’ blades contrast beautifully against white-barked trees growing in small groves across the Wasatch. Called “arborglyphs,” these carvings reveal the secrets of Basque sheepherders’ days and lives.
Emigrating from Euskal Herria—“the land of the speakers of Basque”—these men left rural towns in the Pyrenees Mountains of France and Spain for better economic opportunities in America. The first wave of Basque immigrants arrived in the United States during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Hungry miners depended on lamb meat more than beef and the Basque excelled in the sheep industry. By 1860, sheep production in the West surpassed that of cattle. Completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 added to the increased profitability of wool as it was readily shipped to the East Coast. Basque sheepherders crossed the Sierras into the high desert of Nevada and beyond in the 1870s. By the turn of the century, most Basque immigrants took jobs in the growing sheep industry.
The Basques used the last tracts of open range in the West to fatten their lambs and their wallets until the U.S. government regulated public land use in 1935. At that time, a sheepherder earned $30 per month plus board. After several years tending sheep, a Basque peasant could return to his homeland as a relatively wealthy man. Often, however, their small fortunes came at the high price of personal suffering and deprivation.
Most Basque shepherds knew nothing about Amer-ica. Everything was different: the language, the grasses, the mountains. They endured long absences from their homes, isolated for months at a time in the western wilderness. The demands of herding in the high country often cost the best years of a young man’s life. Sheepherders faithfully tended their flocks, but loneliness was impossible to escape. Without a soul to talk to, they spoke through the trees.
A bright sun pierces the neon-green canopy of a large stand of aspens near Guardsman Pass. Small drawings carved 60 years ago are dancing in the sunbeams. About eye-level on one tree is a house with smoke escaping the chimney. Turn around and another picture peeks from behind a deeply shadowed trunk. The drawing illustrates a woman, half dressed, kicking up her leg. There are graphic depictions of female genitalia, a deer head, a man wearing a cap. What do they mean?
The Basque culture is among the oldest in Western Europe. Euskara, the native language, is unlike any other, and is thought to be 5,000 years old. The traditions of Basque rural society were handed down from generation to generation through stories; written records were not kept. An individual’s highest sense of worth came from his memory and his ability to tell the stories of his people. Perhaps this is the root of sheepherder tree carvings. In fact, in academic circles, arborglyphs are compared with petroglyph drawings of the Anasazi and the cave drawings of Neolithic man. Although the arborglyphs illustrate only a partial record of sheepherders’ experiences, the messages are personal and they provide a unique picture of sheepherders’ lives.
Parkite Steve Osguthorpe’s family hired Basque sheepherders beginning in the 1950s. Osguthorpe says the Basques were “real good herders and very good cooks, too.” In fact, his wife Vicki’s mother is full Basque. “They are hard working and tough, outdoor-type people,” he said. According to Osguthorpe, after shearing in April, the sheepherders would trail a band of 1,000 or more ewes with lambs into the high country west of Park City. During the warm months of summer, a herder would make his sheep camp in White Pine Canyon, Willow Draw or Red Pine Canyon. He walked or rode a horse and had a dog.
“He kept moving his sheep and kept them in fresh feed each day. He would move his camp every week or ten days,” Osguthorpe said. At night, the sheep fed and slept on top of the mountain. Before dawn, the sheepherder watched his flock feed for a couple of hours on the cool, moist grass of morning. Then he moved them to a favorite place downhill near a small creek and a shady grove of aspens. The sheep would sleep all day. During the long, idle hours of mid-day, the Basque sheepherder carved his dreams in the bark of a shimmering quakie.
A quaint cottage etched on the side of a distant tree might reveal a young man’s awful homesickness. The graceful beauty of a doe leaping through his camp was drawn with a few skillful cuts of his knife. Herders revealed their innermost secrets and feelings through their aspen art. Because of their isolation, sexual fantasies are common themes seen in tree carvings. These Basque sheepherders experienced a desperate desire for human, and especially female, companionship. During the 20th century, sexual activity was strictly curtailed in Basque society, especially outside of marriage. But in America, a visit to Park City’s red light district or dance halls might have inspired a herder’s art.
Before the modern network of roads, bike paths and singletrack trails connected us to the backcountry, few men experienced the high mountain wilderness like the Basque sheepherder. One tree carving in the Sierra Mountains reads: “Remote you say? God has yet to arrive here.” Originally, the intended viewers of a sheepherder’s art were other herders. Their secrets and proclamations were often welcome signs for the new immigrant Basque sheepherders. Now, we read the message, interpret the meaning, imagine the voices. We have become the benefactors of a disappearing cultural art form.
The carving tradition of the Basque sheepherder is ending. The life span of an aspen tree is about 60 years. Sheepherders are aging and dying. Arborglyphs link us with our past, but more importantly, they link us to our collective humanity.
Your comments may be edited for brevity and foul language.