Stanislaus National Forest

Trees Can Talk - Barn Meadow Arborglyph Recording 2003

From August 19-21, 2003 the Stanislaus National Forest hosted the Barn Meadow Arborglyph Passport in Time Project. Nestled along the edge of Barn Meadow, on an 80+year old grove of Aspen Trees, is a record of Basque sheepherders who traveled through the area during yearly grazing trips.  Volunteers worked with Forest Service Archaeologists to photograph, sketch, and document the aspen carvings left by Basque sheepherders. Aspen groves have a life span of up to 100 years. This is, therefore, a dying site type, in need of documentation to capture a significant part of Forest history.

Participants spent 3 days recording aspen carvings and surveying further groves for unknown carvings. A talk on aspen trees by the Summit Wildlife Biologist gave us all a better understanding of the nature of aspen trees and the need to protect them. We were also delighted by a visit from Dr. Jose Mallea, professor of Basque studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. With a dedicated group of volunteers (working in adverse weather conditions), over 200 tree carvings were recorded.  Our appreciation and thanks goes out to all our volunteers who made this a very productive and enjoyable experience!

Historic Overview

The Basque, immigrants from the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain, have literally left their mark throughout the Sierra Nevada. Thousands of aspen trees carved with names, dates, poetry, and pictures mark their passing. Beginning in the 1850’s, Basque men were recruited by large sheep companies to perform shepherding duties on large herds used to supply the early mining camps. As the mining era faded at the turn of the century and the formation of National Forests in California occurred, the practice of grazing sheep on public lands continued to grow. Early accounts of conflicts between forest rangers and the sheepherders document the tenuous and sometimes prickly relationship they shared.

Tree carvings (arborglyphs) are not a new phenomenon. Early pioneers on the trails west often carved initials, names and dates along the way.  However, because shepherding involved many long, lonely, monotonous hours watching over the herd, the Basque would often carve on numerous trees to help pass the time. These tree carvings also consisted of their names and dates, but also poetry, pictures, and political statements such as  “Viva La France”. The aspen grove at Barn Meadow contains at least 200 trees with Basque carvings dating from the 1920’s. Today, many of the older trees are showing signs of decay and ,as they fall and rot, the information carved on their trunks is lost forever.

In an effort to help preserve this information, volunteers working along side Forest Service archaeologists, located, documented, illustrated and photographed the many unique Basque arborglyphs contained within the Barn Meadow area.