Bill's World

We have had a relaxing few days with our friend Bill Helmer. Bill is the Historic Preservation Officer with the Big Pine Piute Tribe. It’s been a whirlwind of discovery being with Bill. We hiked in the Alabama Hills down by Lone Pine, visited Manzanar (internment camp of over 10,000 Japanese people during WWII,) went up to check on Nahavita (common name, “Blue Dick,”) a traditional plant source for Piute peoples of the Owens Valley, read some of the oral histories of the people (about the rapes by the military, the times hiding in the lava flow near Fort Independence and the forced march to a fort almost to Bakersfield…) ‘Even saw You Tube footage from the gate of China Lake Naval Weapons station when a handful of tribal representatives were blocked from going onto their ancestral lands.
There are so many parallels between what happened to the Piute and other Native peoples and what happened to the Japanese people. It always seems to boil down to not recognizing our commonality and respecting (trusting) our differences and then going through the difficult steps to find resolution to conflict (or potential conflict.)
I’m also including a photo from the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop. The incredible lives of Galen and Barbara Rowell were lost in a plane crash near their home in Bishop in 2002. The gallery gives a glimpse into their remarkable lives and work revealing the wonders of wild places like the Eastern Sierra.
Thanks to Bill for taking his weekend to share so much with us. We really appreciate him and the humble but prodigious work he does in this world.
If you ever go along Hwy 395 don't miss visiting Manzanar. We MUST learn how to be better humans.