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Middle Fork of the Salmon River,
June 2005 |
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First, to set the
stage... The Middle Fork, also known as the River of No Return, flows through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho - some of the most remote and wild country to be found in the lower 48. |
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Solitude River Trips What sold me in particular is that Al is quite knowledgeable about art and a few years ago took Bob Kuhn and Howard Terpning down the river together. Al told me plenty of entertaining "Bob and Howard" stories while we were with him; actually, Al just had a lot of entertaining stories, period. The Solitude crew
basically waited on us hand and foot the entire time - our tents were
set up and taken down for us, there was a hot shower tent every night,
plenty of wine, and the food was INCREDIBLE. These guys are Dutch oven
masters! You haven't lived until you've tasted their pineapple-upside
down cake from a Dutch oven in the middle of the wilderness - with
whipped cream, no less! Wow. |
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Of fly-fishing... I'm sure all you fishing fans already knew about this, but being as I'm new to the sport, I noticed there is a lot of grace and art to fly-fishing. Suffice to say that I am definitely going to be using fly-fishing as painting subject matter. |
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...and drift boats There were a LOT of class III and IV rapids on the Middle Fork, at least in late June. Tappan Falls came the third day of the trip and was great fun to photograph. The river changes character quite a bit as the summer goes on and the water gets lower. |
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History There are plenty of wild stories that go with this wild river. Evidence of previous habitation could be seen in occasional pictographs and the ruins of settler's cabins. Just one of the colorful characters associated with the river was a woman who homesteaded along the river in the early 1900s. She raised a mess of boys single-handedly - her husband was off working in the mines to earn the $300 they needed each year to live. Somehow in this remote alpine area she grew cherries, apples, hay, corn and other vegetable crops, and looked after horses, cows, chickens...she wrote of having to fend off the bears that would swim across the river to get to her fruit trees. She also wrote about making pretty much everything they needed, and buying only leather, horseshoes, and nails. We saw her cabin while camped one evening; she moved away in 1945 or thereabouts and it's still standing. I could not imagine fitting her and her 5 or 7 or whatever boys into this tiny, dark, cramped log box that was about 20 feet long and 12 feet wide. It held some rustic bunk beds and a table and just enough room to turn around - that was all. Makes me feel pretty wimpy when I think about her life - she had to be tough as shoe leather - and compare the luxuries I take for granted today (like hot showers and grocery stores, not to mention mail-order art supplies). |
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 Tiny raft (lower right) to give scale to this country |
 Evening on the river |
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Art This trip brought a number of firsts for me - first time fly-fishing, first time CATCHING a fish, first time in the River of No Return Wilderness, first time in a drift boat... Although I've done some whitewater rafting in California, I've never before lived with and on a river for days at a time - ridden its broad wild back and slept next to its loud music - and the experience was infectious, magical. I can understand now how people get to be so passionate about rivers, particular ones - the Middle Fork has a definite character, and I fell in love with it. I took my usual millions of slides and have plenty of material - and ideas - from which to paint. So this trip will also change my art somewhat, enlarging the repertoire of subject matter I depict - and I will be a better artist for stretching my boundaries. I will be back - I've "got the fever", as Al says, and I will ride the Middle Fork again. |
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