River Ridge Ranch: ‘practical magic’ in the WUI

And time out to remember a friend, Dagny Janss Corcoran

Volume 1, Number 15 - Monday, Nov. 14, 2022

A booth at the Foothills Festival held Nov. 5 at River Ridge Ranch in Springville, California. — Claudia Elliott

Perspective

EARLIER THIS MONTH I had a chance to visit a place that brought back memories of my first efforts to understand the relationship between wild places and nearby communities — including forests, wildfire and water.

Gary Adest was one of the first people I met in Springville, California, when I had the crazy idea to start a newspaper there in 2000. He and his wife, Barbara Brydolf, are both biologists — scientists, the PhD type — aka people who know stuff about plants and animals.

They still spend time — and once lived — in the Coy Flat cabin tract near giant sequoia groves in the mountains east of Springville. But by the time I met them they were raising their daughter, Emma, in the foothill community about 20 miles to the west — and also hard at work on efforts to save a 722-acre property they bought along the North Fork of the Tule River.

I say “save” because the cattle ranch they bought that borders Giant Sequoia National Monument had been slated for subdivision. And that would surely have been a shame. Thanks to the efforts of Gary and Barbara — and a host of friends, supporters and organizations — River Ridge Ranch is now an ecological reserve where cattle ranching is combined with regenerative and sustainable land management. And it’s a beautiful oak woodland that welcomes visitors from time to time. 

I hadn’t been there since about sometime in 2010 and it was wonderful to see it alive with visitors for the annual Foothills Festival.

When I think of Gary, I think of practical magic. Not the 1998 film, but “magic” that gets results in the real world. River Ridge Ranch is an inspiration toward that end and I recommend you check it out.

River Ridge Ranch is also within a zone called the WUI (pronounce it woo-eee) — which means Wildland Urban Interface — and my recent visit reminded me of the importance of continuing to work to resolve the challenge of the WUI.

There are a few different ways to define WUI, but the one that I like best is “a zone of transition between wilderness (unoccupied land) and land developed by human activity — an area where a built environment meets or intermingles with a natural environment.”

That definition comes from Wikipedia, which also notes that “human settlements in the WUI are at a greater risk of catastrophic wildfire.” Certainly this has become abundantly clear in California and also in the Tule River watershed, where homes were destroyed in the same wildfires that wiped out giant sequoia trees in recent years.

Understanding issues related to the WUI is not only important for protecting human life and property, but for nature — including the giant sequoias we love. When wildfires occur, there are limited resources. Every resource that is directed to protect human life and property means less resources for non-human lives and their homes. You can do the math and see how more subdivisions in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada create more risk for giant sequoia groves (in addition to the people who would live in them).

At a news conference last summer at the Hume Lake Ranger District Station east of Fresno, a reporter asked Teresa Benson, forest supervisor for the Sequoia National Forest, about differences between the National Park Service and the Forest Service.

The fact that the NPS may be less impacted by the WUI was one of the possibilities she mentioned.

I thought about that when I visited giant sequoia groves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks recently. There are no homes or private cabins in the national parks. And if you look at a map, you’ll see that the parks are nearly entirely surrounded by national forest land. But on the borders of the national forests are thousands of parcels of private land. 

Across the country, the National Association of State Foresters has identified more than 60,000 WUI communities that are at risk from wildfire. 

Here’s an astounding statement from the U.S. Fire Administration: “Wildfires are now moving with a speed and intensity previously unseen. Additionally, recent population growth and decades of growing housing development in the WUI is leaving our nation vulnerable to further loss.”

My point is — coming to terms with the WUI is a really big deal on many levels.

Which is why I appreciate the work that Gary and Barbara have done in Springville — and that others are doing in watersheds up and down the Sierra Nevada. 

Remembering a friend

My visit to River Ridge Ranch for the Foothills Festival on Nov. 5 also gave me an opportunity to see a few friends from my time publishing a newspaper near there, including artists Christy Brown, Jim and Frances Pyles and Julie McIntosh. Memories of earlier times with them all were fresh on my mind only four days later when I learned from another friend, David Richardson, of the death of Dagny Janss Corcoran earlier that day.

You can read about Dagny’s life as a “celebrated bookseller and major L.A. art player” in the Los Angeles Times. ArtNews described her as an L.A. socialite here.  And The Art Newspaper called her  “a friend of the art world.”

Everything I read in those articles is true, as far as I know. But they all missed a part of Dagny’s life that was known to a number of people gathered at River Ridge Ranch — quite coincidentally a few days before her death.

We did know that she was “Dagny Janss Corcoran” and a VIP in some other world, but more importantly, we knew her as half of the Dagny-and-John-Grant team that (with others) spearheaded formation of an organization called Friends of the Tule River in Springville in the late 1990s.

FOTR was a public issues group and organized community meetings with noteworthy speakers who addressed a range of topics including watershed protection. Art and books were in the mix, too, as the organization (honestly, I should just say Dagny) opened a gallery and bookstore in a historic building in downtown Springville.

I was just re-reading an article published in the Porterville Recorder in 2002 after FOTR was named Organization of the Year and Dagny was named Person of the Year by the Springville Chamber of Commerce. That same year a 76-year-old cattle rancher (and very fine person) named Bruce Borror won the Chamber’s highest award, called the Giant Sequoia Award.

The reporter wrote “Borror, a hard working cattle rancher, is representative of what Springville was once known for. Today, Borror and those like him are slowly being squeezed out, as more housing developments are constructed.

“A majority of the other five chamber honorees represent the changing face of the small community — from that of country and cowboys to that of an upscale stop for tourists on their way to visit the Sequoia National Monument.”

It’s reasonable here for me to mention that my fledgling (and now defunct) newspaper was named Business of the Year at the same awards ceremony — and I think the reporter’s representation of the various award winners was unfair, although it may have reflected some community attitudes at the time. 

There was no part of Dagny that was trying to create an “upscale stop for tourists.” And the article did not convey the fact that she worked tirelessly for more than a decade to raise awareness and also to try to meet people where they were. I do believe she had an appreciation for the “country and cowboys” community, as well as for newcomers of all backgrounds. 

You might have seen her one day helping pick up trash along the road and the next day you knew that she was jetting off to Florence (as in Italy). She was a booster and advocate for small businesses in town (even those owned by people who talked behind her back). And, as the LA Times writer noted, she gave fabulous parties — at her home on Battle Mountain Ranch and at the gallery-bookstore. Legendary parties.

But when I think of Dagny, two words come to mind — thoughtful and ethical. I watched her suffer to stay the course with her projects. She was a taskmaster who held herself to a high standard even in the face of unfair detractors. And I am broken-hearted that she is no longer on the planet with us. I do believe it is a better place for her efforts.

Did you know you can comment here?

It’s easy to comment on items in this newsletter. Just scroll down and you’ll find a comment box. You’re invited to join the conversation!

Giant sequoias in the news

Do you know why this is the slow season for giant sequoias in the news? Because they’re not on fire! Instead, many of them are surrounded by snow — and let’s hope they stay that way for quite a few months.

• Here’s a story I didn’t want to see, from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, “Signs of a new tree mortality event showing up in the Sierra Nevada.” Lots of important stuff in this piece and it’s worth a read, but if you want just the short version: In 2022, preliminary results from the U.S. Forest Service’s Aerial Detection Survey, and field observations, suggest the emergence of a new tree mortality event disproportionately impacting higher-elevation fir forests in the northern and central parts of the state.

• Want to help protect giant sequoias from risks associated with climate change? The answer might be to stay away (I’m over-simplifying). Here’s an article about a study that shows that In rapidly warming northern forests, restricting human activities can slow the rate of warming by as much as 20 percent.

•And just in case you’ve heard from some politician that we can plant some more trees to offset carbon emissions — apparently there’s not even enough land on earth to do that. Read more here.

• Sequoia National Forest headquarters has a new location at 220 E. Morton Ave., in Porterville, California. A ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of the new forest headquarters is planned for early 2023. Construction of the 11,000-square-foot facility, serving as a “home base” for 66 employees, began in February 2021.

• I missed reporting this earlier, but in mid-October the National Park Service reported that it has also initiated emergency efforts to protect giant sequoias. Read the release here.

Giant sequoias around the world

In Norwegian, the word for a giant sequoia is Mammuttre — literally mammoth tree. And in 1975, Richard J. Hartesveldt and other authors of a book called “The Giant Sequoia of the Sierra Nevada,” reported that a giant sequoia in Norway was among the most northerly in the world. Here’s what they wrote in a book published by the National Park Service:

The most northerly are in coastal Norway, where the Gulf Stream lowers winter temperatures and cold climate is not a limiting factor. On the north shore of the spectacular Sogne Fjörd, in the yard of an ancient church in the town of Leikanger, at 61° 11' N latitude is the northernmost specimen. Planted in the 1880s, it is now nearly 4.5 ft in diameter.

Is the tree still there? So far my Google-searching hasn’t located it. But I did find this article about a giant sequoia at the Lunde Arboretum in Western Norway (and there are photos!).

Want more?

GIANTSEQUOIANEWS.COM is also a website where you can find more information about giant sequoia trees, wildfire, the public land management conundrum and more.

Thanks for reading!