Apaches' Language of the Land

With mist set aglow by the first rays of the rising sun, Christmas Tree Lake lies cradled by the fog-shrouded coniferous forests below Mount Baldy. The lake lies at the confluence of Sun and Moon creeks on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.

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The Language of the Land White Mountain Apaches Open Sacred Mountain to Ecotours The sun is down, the moon not yet up.

The map says this place is Christmas Tree Lake because, when Lyndon Johnson sat in the White House, a big blue spruce was harvested here for his 1965 holiday cheer. But I am into other events-an osprey passes with a trout in its talons, a beaver swims past as mist rises against the spruce and fir-lined shore, and Sun and Moon creeks merge and feed the sheet of water before my eyes. The lake sits on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, 1.6 million acres with 400 miles of cold streams, over 15 lakes, endless forests and canyons, and all this dwarfed by a sacred 11,000-foot mountain that nontribal members call Baldy. That's the rub, the landscape here is splattered with English place-names, but beneath these names rest Apache names and they are not readily given up because . . the land is the language. In the language, ni' can mean "mind." Or "land."

canyons, and all this dwarfed by a sacred 11,000-foot mountain that nontribal members call Baldy. That's the rub, the landscape here is splattered with English place-names, but beneath these names rest Apache names and they are not readily given up because . . the land is the language. In the language, ni' can mean "mind." Or "land."

A bald eagle flaps by, ducks ride on the water and over there, against the far shore of the 41-acre lake, a great blue heron stands stock-still on the shore. And now, the White Mountain Apaches are considering opening up some of their backcountry to what outsiders call ecotourists. This lake, a legend in trout circles because the world's largest Apache trout is probably feeding right before my eyes at dusk, is one such place.

It remains closed to all except a few trout fisherman who pay a high fee for a visit. In early May, this fee can be $250 a day. But then the monster elk of the reservation can command a hunting fee of $40,000. But that's not why I've come. I'm here because the reservation may hold some of the healthiest ground in Arizona and this may be because of the Apache language. Long ago, the gods created life on Earth and grasses and trees became the hair, rocks and mountains the bones, rivers and streams the blood, and the wind became the breath. The wolf has returned here. There are thousands of black bears and elk, countless mountain lions, 15,000 to 18,000 wild turkeys. And a culture has fought the federal and state government and taken back the land-management of their ground. Grazing and timbering are in decline and I'm staring at the result-an emerging Eden.

There is electric green, pale green, lime green, blue green, Kelly green and a green that is almost black when I stare into the stands of blue spruce. A gobbler moves past, five hens trailing him. The forest floor teems with ferns, and ravens croak in the trees. The tap, tap, tap of a woodpecker drums through the stand of spruce. Patches of lupines seep blue under the mountain light.

Summer brings monsoon storms to Arizona's high country. Gentle streams may become rain-swollen torrents, charging down mountainsides with dramatic intensity. Here, Pacheta Creek bursts into trailing ribbons of water as it courses over its namesake falls.

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Scarlet Surprise

An extravagantly colored fly agaric mushroom provides a bright accent for a forest floor covered with ponderosa pinecones.(Continued from page 22) Christmas Tree Lake is the prettiest body of water I've ever seen in Arizona, it floats before my eyes like a dream. Years ago, the ethnographer Keith Basso made a study of this land and this people. He created a map of the native place-names, one now kept under lock and key at tribal headquarters. One woman he talked with was Annie Peaches, 77 years old back in 1978 when she shared her knowledge. She told Basso, “The land is always stalking people. The land makes people live right. The land looks after us. The land looks after people.” Bats feed overhead, and the slap of trout leaping comes off the lake. A cormorant drifts through, and at my feet wild strawberries rise up from the duff of pine needles. The sky goes pink and the dying sun plays out on the water. The stars come out. I stare at a rising moon now. The sky is a gray bar, the lake a silver bar feeding off the moon, the forest a black bar. And before my eyes the columns of pine and fir and spruce rise like towers. Coyotes sing before their hunt. And then the silence of land stalking people.

Here what you call something becomes what you are and what the ground makes you.

I move around and poke into areas normally closed to my kind. Turkeys cross the road, cow elk and calves feed on the edges of the forest. Lakes flit by, and meadows blaze with green. I keep taking forks in the road and wander. I suppose I'm lost but it does not feel like that. I run into no other people. Most of what I see lacks signs and names—at least names available to me.

Tribal members take me to a special place, Pacheta Falls. The surrounding landscape speaks of my kind and of the time when the land was seen simply as lumber and beef. The Apaches with me point out this fact by fingering the place-names on my map: Poker Mountain, Ten of Diamonds Ranch, Pair O' Dice Ranch. The name Pacheta Falls, I'm told, is a corruption of “Pair of Cheaters.” No matter. The falls is a roar of water, 131 feet high and maybe 50 feet wide hidden in a slot canyon just above the Black River. Yellow monkeyflowers trail down from the lip. The location is not on my official map of the White Mountains.The plunge of water comes without warning. The land here is fairly flat, a creek idles through a meadow, and then suddenly there is faint sound, which grows louder until the creek hits the rim and tumbles down into deep pools where trout linger safe from hooks. About a century ago a tribesman told an anthropologist, “Water itself has life; witness the way it ripples and flows in a river, the noise it makes in a flood.” At Pacheta Falls, I believe (Text continued on page 31)

Rent a Lake From the White Mountain Apaches

The White Mountain Apache Tribe's Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Division offers two secluded lakes for multiday rentals. The Rent-a-Lake program offers up Hurricane Lake and Cyclone Lake for renters to relax, fish and barbecue in complete isolation.

The 37-acre Cyclone Lake sits in the northeast portion of the reservation, an hour away from Pinetop-Lakeside. At an elevation of 8,300 feet, Cyclone Lake boasts a good chance to hook into top-notch rainbow and Apache trout.

Even though the 19-acre Hurricane Lake is half the size of its rent-a-lake cousin, it earns its own bragging rights. Located in the southeastern part of the reservation, Hurricane Lake is managed as a “trophy Apache trout fishery,” so fishermen have an opportunity to pull a lunker out of this high-elevation lake.

Both lakes require a minimum three-day rental, and have a split rental season from May 24 through September 9 and October 13 through November 1. Cabanas, firewood, potable water and barbecue facilities are standard amenities at both sites.

INFORMATION: White Mountain Apache Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Division, (928) 338-4385 or www.wmat.nsn.us (choose “Recreation,” then “Wildlife & Recreation,” then click on Rent-a-Lake) or e-mail: [email protected]. -Clint Van Winkle

Song of Sunlight and Shadow

Tangled Up in Blue

Intertwined like thatchwork, windblown grasses decorate the surface of a seasonal pool in a high mountain meadow.(continued from page 26)everything the tribesman said so long ago. I'm looking at a kind of miracle. The tribe sued the federal government for mismanagement of its land, won, and put the money into a permanent Land Restoration Fund, one that aims to bring the land back to the condition it was in before the federal government got its hands on it. A board of tribal elders advises the project. And what they speak for is the very creation of their ground. In the beginning was water: " "How will it breathe, this earth?" Then came Black Thunder to that place, and he gave the earth veins. He whipped the earth with lightning and made water start to come out." What nontribal culture calls restoring riparian habitat, the tribal elders call "bring life back to the streams," and helping the springs "to breathe again."

I stare at the canyon wall framing Pacheta Falls, a slot of dark brown rock streaked here and there with black stain ending in a riot of ferns below at the edge of the punch bowls formed by the tumbling water. Now I can hear nothing, the roar of water vanishes and I simply melt into the landscape. My side of the canyon is ponderosa pine. Across the chasm is pure spruce and fir. Between the slabs of stone, Pacheta Creek rolls and tumbles and deep pools harbor trout. In the past, Apache cowboys would sometimes descend to the canyon bottom by a rope strung next to the falls and catch a few for dinner. The rope is gone and some other kind of world is being born here.

I sit down amid rotting logs silvered with age. Needles carpet the ground and limbs are scattered like lines in some abstract painting. Young ferns, lupines and columbines poke up like green tongues savoring the sun. I can look at the falls, or at the ground. Part of normal tourism is pulling over at designated vista points where the earth is believed to be camera-ready. I'm past normal. Before me is the most beautiful waterfall I've seen in Arizona. At my feet is a mess of debris. I give them equal time. I'm starting to get the hang of the word ni'.

when you go

Location: White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation, approximately 225 miles northeast of Phoenix.

Getting There: From Phoenix, take State Route 87 north to Payson. Turn right (east) onto State Route 260 and drive 105 miles to Hon Dah.

Fees: Outdoor recreation activities like hunting, fishing, camping, and other activities such as off-road travel on the White Mountain reservation land require permits. Outdoor recreation permits, daily, $6 per vehicle; individual, $3; general fishing permits, adult, annual, $65; daily, $6; juvenile, annual, $32; daily, $3; camping, daily, vehicle, $8; individual, $3.

Lodging: Sunrise Park Lodge, toll-free (800) 772-7669; Hon-Dah Resort Casino and Conference Center, toll-free (800) 929-8744.

Additional Information: Toll-free (877) 338-9628; www.wmat.nsn.us.

The reservation timber was devoured for decades and there is hardly a virgin stand left. The forest can look deceptive with its tall trees and green grass. We simply have lost all memory of how it greeted the eye at the end of the 19th century. But there are haunting reminders and one of them is a grove of 1.7 acres just off Reservation Lake, a lens of water and trout at 9,039 feet on the flank of Mount Baldy.

This pocket of trees survived the great cutting. In Apache culture, the word gozhoo can mean "healthy ground" or a "healthy person." This grove is gozhoo (according to the tribe) and that is telling within the culture. Ancient place-names scattered about the reservation designate wet spots that are now dry. This is taken by the tribal members as a punishment for being greedy and uncaring about their land.

I wander up a slope by a cienega, then take a few steps down. A giant fir looms over me. The trunk is maybe 8 feet in diameter. It is a message from the stands now long gone that once carpeted the reservation. For the Apaches, a stable mind rests on three elements: resistance, resilience and smoothness. They apply the same words in assessing the vitality of what others call an ecosystem. I am staring at smoothness, a grove mixed in species and ages, a place that can handle the roll and tumble of life without a murmur. The tree must be older than the United States and, for all I know, it was a seedling when Columbus sailed. The bark is deep and corrugated with flashes of reddish color against the brown.

Greg Dazan of the tribe's Recreation Division stands by the tree. He explains it takes eight men with arms extended to encircle the fir.

"Imagine," he says softly, "what the forest was like when it was full of big trees."

Such a vision will require centuries. Gozhoo takes time and patience. But at the moment, the tribe is opening up some areas to limited visitation. The trick is to get a living from the land without maiming it in the process. As one elder told her grandson, "Go slowly; listen to the land and it will tell you what to do." Here is our chance to eavesdrop on a conversation we need to hear. At After collaborating with author Charles Bowden on six Southwestern books and countless Arizona Highways stories, nothing prepared Jack Dykinga of Tucson for the visual feast of the Apache land, which he calls "simply stunning."

Ancient Witness

Towering over surrounding aspen trees, this giant old-growth ponderosa pine may survive for 300 years or more.