We have four deserts in continental United States. The Great Basin Desert goes well into northern Oregon, covers part of southern Idaho and almost all of Nevada and Utah. The southern tip of Nevada and part of southern California is the Mojave Desert. A bit of southern California and a large part of Arizona has the Sonoran Desert. The vast majority of our desert time is spent in the Sonoran Desert. New Mexico and Texas have a bit of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Four year ago Pamela and I had never spent any appreciable time in the desert. We both thought we'd like to, but we had no idea if we would like the desert. We were filled with so many of the myths and misinformation about the desert. Being educated conservationists we had read books and seen documentary programs about life in the desert, but none of those prepared us for reality.
We were relatively new Montanans. We started working as volunteers for the National Park Service at Glacier National Park in 2013 and fell in love with the Rocky Mountains and the heavy cedar and hemlock forests of the west side of Glacier. How could we ever love anything else? Well, guess what?
Perhaps one of the greatest surprises for either of us was how we almost instantly fell in love with the desert. Granted, we don't get here before October and we're not only homesick for the mountains of Montana by March but the desert heat is driving us out. We're not the only ones. The little town of Quartzsite, out in the Sonoran Desert, will have a million people there during its big RV show in January but even most of the locals are gone by mid-March. Summer temperatures get close to 120 degrees.
We move around a lot. That's partially because we're nomads and can't handle being in one place too long, and partially because many of the places we stay have a 14 day limit. We abide by the rules even if we never seen anyone checking on us. Our favorite places are well away from towns or large gatherings of people. If our neighbors are in sight, they are generally no closer than a quarter of a mile away. We park Nitsitapiisinni so its big back window is facing the most interesting geological or natural feature. Right now I'm looking at the Whipple Mountains.
If you have been following me for any time you know that I frequently blog about life in the desert. Of course I've always been talking about the wildlife and plant life. But the desert has also been home to people since approximately 5500 BCE. Despite what most modern people think, these people, sometimes called "archaic", had a good life. There was plenty of food and they could move to higher, cooler elevations in the summer and down to the low desert when there was snow up north. Actually, we have a lot of evidence that they didn't generally play the snow-bird. If you've ever been in one of their dwellings on a warm day you can understand.
In what is now Big Bend National Park there is the remains of a home where a man raised several children and lived until he was well past 100 years old. When we stepped inside the temperature dropped significantly.
With furs, blankets, a fire and thick insulating walls, they were comfortable in the coldest of weather.
You and I probably wouldn't appreciate their diet. I know I wouldn't. I'm a vegetarian. They ate fish, clams, squirrels, rabbits, birds, snakes and lizards, and there were bighorn sheep and mule deer in nearby mountains. They didn't need to farm. The plant food in the desert is phenomenal. Here's just a quick summary.
Mesquite was probably the most important plant to desert people and they would try to put their villages near a large stand. One large shrub can provide twenty pounds of pods and seeds used for food. Agave provided food as well as material for bowstrings, clothing, shoes, baskets and many household items. Of course we can't mention agave without mentioning that they did make a drink called pulque. When distilled that is tequila. Yucca provided soap and fruit to eat. Beavertail and Prickly Pear Cactus were excellent food sources. They would eat the paddles, flowers and fruit. Today we call it Nopalitos and I love to cook with it. To flavor your nopalitos you can use Fourwing Saltbush. Gourds were used for food and storage. Creosote was the local pharmacy. It is antibacterial and was used as a salve and for pain. We have creosote salve in our medicine cabinet right now. It does work. Juniper berries - which are actually the plant's cone - were used for salves and foods. Ocotillo is an excellent for pain and swelling and makes good firewood. Pinyon pine is still a treasure. Currently Amazon sells them for around $45/pound. The nut contains 15% protein. That's better than a burger points out the vegetarian writing this.
I could go on and on. There are entire books on this subject. These people ate well and all they had to do was go and get it. I'm sitting here looking out Nitsitapiisinni's big back window and I can see six out of the eleven plants I just mentioned.
I don't want to end on a down note, so I won't talk about the reason we don't find indigenous people living out in the desert since they encountered the whiteman. There is a tribe that holds out in the mountains of north-central Mexico. The literal translation of their word for whiteman is "bearded devil".
The desert is a beautiful and fascinating place with an abundance of life. If I would ever just disappear you can believe that you'd probably find me in the desert, as far from so-called civilization as possible, kicking back in my earthen trench hut with the cottonwood roof, cooking up a mess of nopalitos while sipping on pulque. Want to join me?
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