Back in the 50s (the 1950s, that is) we used to down a lime and soda drink called a “Green River” in the summertime. Until last year, I did not know much about the Green River. Now I do, although I would not drink the real thing.
Turns out, John Wesley Powell started his 1869 exploration of the Colorado River by traversing the canyons of the Green River, starting in Wyoming and continuing through the Uinta Mountains of Utah. Powell was a Methodist preacher’s son, turned civil war hero and geologist, turned explorer and surveyor. But for my money, his most significant achievement was directing the American Bureau of Ethnology in the Smithsonian and finding the funding to begin serious anthropological, archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of pre-historic and historic American Indians of the Colorado Plateau.
Inspired by Powell, Janet and I took off in a Jeep on an 18-mile four-wheel drive backcountry road in Dinosaur National Park.
Like true wilderness explorers, we sipped lemonade while bouncing along in our camping equipment-loaded vehicle. We only saw two vehicles the whole trip; both were vans coming back to Vernal after dropping off recreational rafters, planning to ride the Green River through the Split Mountain rapids. We preferred the Jeep.
At the end of our journey, we reached Indian Island, where the peaceful Green lazily emerges from one mountain that it cut through thousands of years ago and before it begins entering Split Mountain, which it is still cutting through.
An idyllic spot. Thinking about Green Rivers and John Wesely Powell (the mind makes strange connections), I asked Janet to wade into the river. That’s she, slowly sinking to her knees in quicksand.
On the way, by the way, we found important rock art sites. The most important was the McKee Springs site.
About 150 feet above the valley were sharply etched Fremont figures in full regalia and holding their shields and “medicine.”
Notice the earbobs, the trophy “head,” and sun shield.
Scholarly rock art books refers to this style of Fremont iconography as the Classic Vernal tradition. They are very similar to the McConkie Ranch glyphs 30 miles to the east.
Interestingly enough, there will be more Fremont rock art as we go south. But there will be no more anthropomorphic figures in the Classic Vernal style until we get to the Capital Reef National Monument in southern Utah, about 250 miles away!
Other figures on the long panel were more generically “Fremont.”
This shows that we are dealing with iconographical conventions and not just the whims of some individual ancient rock chipper.
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