Show Thursday May 24 1990 The Eagle page 7 Students learn about themselves through nature Kristie Ellason May 7 1990 Carl J Llmone My Blue Pottery Sherd at Chaco Canyon May 7 1990 I bent down in the pouring rain and my straight hair dripped in my eyes A Great Lost We were at Chaco and the canyon's reddish curves clasped newly formed Why people should leave Indian puddles to the ground The walls had spirits of their own as they were artifacts in the same place and why slowly breaking themselves apart brick by brick crumbling away to be people should not pick up artifacts buried in the dust The old walls were protected and watched by dying scrub There are people that go to Indian brush even when the visitors were gone sites and just pick up artifacts When I saw a speck of bright indigo in the moistened dust and when I picked it they pick up these artifacts the infor- felt I a ancient shiver the of lives in It was a up maiion and the location in which it myself pottery sherd a piece of a large bowl I thought It was once used to store food or water and was found in the site is lost forever by the beautiful design it could have been the star of some religious cereA certain piece of pottery may be the mony I ran my finger down the long curve of the painted edges It was only one of its kind in the site This coated with a glossy white punt resembling my own grandma's fine china might tell an archaeologist that the except that the sherd was recently polished only by the rain The blue stripe Indians who lived in the site traded looked ruler straight even after eight hundred years of hiding from me It with a people bom 200 miles away was decorated with geometric shapes like triangles and spirals and the colThe pottery could also tell the archaeors have stayed true for so long ologist the age in which the Indians Our lives were so different the pottery maker and I But! have drawn tridwelled in the site by comparing it to angles before and if I made this pot I would have used indigo colored ink pottery from another site loo Of course I no longer have reason to build a pot such as this piece But Other artifacts like arrowheads are we still have much in common just as important Once an arrowhead I could picture the girl my age holding her d bowl filled with was taken from a site where a com to be shared with her family She followed the trail at the cliff bottom Columbian Mammoth was found The worn in the dirt by her grandparent's generation just like she expected her person who took the arrowhead cargrandchildren to be able to do someday She sat down against the stable ried it home and cleaned it thoroughly comforting wall that encircled her village and protected it for hundreds of with water The dirt that was cleaned years She knew that she would always live in this place that she loved off may have allowed an archaeoloAnd this is when a piece of her favorite bowl broke ofT into the sand its gist how long the arrowhead was in blue edges aiming into the d hills for me to later find the ground and may have had some bloodiniL The people later felt guilty about taking the arrowhead so the turned it into to the state Now th£state is trying to piece the puzzle together by using other methods to retrieve the lost information It would have been a lot easier had an archaeologist been given the opportu nity to find the arrowhead and follow the right steps to obtain all the information Another reason for leaving artifacts in their place is the stiff penalty that can result If you are caught taking an artifact you could lose all the equipment you use even your car blue-lippe- cliff-boun- Tracy Shook May 1990 The Painted Desert One of my favorite smells is the air I sweetness of the fill my lungs with it and look out rain-cleans- ed over the desert from the massive sandstone rock I have just scrambled up onto The rock is still cool and damp from a spring thunder shower that delayed our group's plan to hike into Salt Greek Canyon The sky is beginning to clear now that the sun is old and weak as if to lease us with a warmth we wont feel until another day The rain has splashed our world with strong colors The Navajo rocks that surround us have deepened to new just and the greens of the small plants on the desert floor call out for attention as if they had just sprouted to life Far in the distance to my right a complex city out of a science fiction movie rises up out of the canyon walls Its stalagmite-lookin- g stone for buildings fight each other space and I can only imagine the labyrinth of alleys that lay in between them Turning away from my imaginative city I take one last deep breath not wanting to leave my view of the painted desert But the wind pushes at me reminding me of the cool night coming I reach my chilled hands down to the sandy rock and lower myself back to camp (top right) Students peer down Into to a klva at Pueblo Bonlto In search of ancient Indian pottery and tools (middle) Janet Whit Carl Umone and Jim Hansen "attack" their grub altera long day of exploring (bottom right) Jessica Taylor and Nancy Takacs try to understand why the Ana-sachose Chaco Canyon All wilderness feature photos by Kristie Ellason Liz Dlckes zl this place have looked like 100 years ago" I can only imagine quiet clear skies and water running down every streambed Reaching the canyon floor and hiking along the road I am forced to stop what seems like every minute to let down there I Trucks jeeps and motorcycles racing up and a truck or jeep pass or dodge the molocross riders who are down the canyon Salt Creek Canyon is this what the screaming up and down the canyon The sounds of their when passing echoing off the canyon walls amplifying it they designated government had in mind irvl964 even louder than before As I'm taking a water break I this area as a national park? look up at a huge sandstone column of what appears to be offer to solitude A canyon so beautiful with so much the perfect road block and wonder what U would lake to and ravaged by the constant sounds of the 20th century it down across the road depriving the 20th knock mechanical world Where is the wilderness? It doesn't of his precious road and giving the canyon man tury to be here in this canyon America has become so and quiet once again all the while knowing that overdeveloped that roads extend into every part of our so peace woud “ty °Pen & UP San- - I Oiere th oret called wilderness left? any wilderness I look off into the La Salles south to the Arabahos Edward Abbey writes Questions every statement earth the but only through the shroud of smog covering raises more and more newer questions" Is there any if wonder I you getting thicker each year From this spot left m our national parks? Hie constant roar wilderness from will even be able to see the next canyon ten years the of "what jet engines overhead seem to answer me might now The teacher wants us to ask ourselves cen-see- k68 m |