The 1964 Wilderness Act set aside nine million acres of National Forest1 land in the original National Wilderness Preservation System. As of 2012, 107.5 million acres of land have been protected as Wilderness—about 2.8% of the lower continental United States.
In the middle of the Mythical State of Jefferson2, near the border of California and Oregon, in the Siskiyou Mountains near the town of Cave Junction, Oregon (pop. 1,883.), lies the Kalmiopsis.
There are almost 200,000 unprotected acres of wilderness contiguous with the 179,000 acre Congressionally-designated Kalmiopsis Wilderness, and thousands more acres of nearby roadless area3. The Wilderness is watershed to the Illinois, Chetco and North Fork Smith rivers, all designated as Wild and Scenic Rivers, plus five streams that are eligible to become Wild and Scenic Rivers (Silver, Indigo, Josephine/Canyon, Rough and Ready, and Baldface Creeks).
All five streams in the KWA (Kalmiopsis Wilderness) are threatened by mining, two in particular—Rough and Ready, and Baldface—are also threatened by Port-Orford-Cedar Root Disease, a destructive & devastating fungus spread through earth movement in construction, road maintenance and use, e.g., mining, logging, and general overuse/misuse of any kind.
In partnership with Zach Collier & NWRC (Northwest Rafting Company) Yonder Journal will explore, interview and document the DFKW4; it's streams, it's rocky cut-banks, it's surrounding hills and steep mountains, it's thick and pungent forests, it's indigenous and carnivorous plants, it's sharp winters and quick summers, it's porous soils, the environmentalists and otherwise ordinary citizens working to expand the Kalmiopsis, the hikers and backpackers and boaters who use and or frequent the area, the locals and local businesses, Forest Service employees, Rangers, trail & restoration work, and the miners; their interests, operations and opinions.
Our aim is to produce a report with which we endeavor to aid in the expansion of the Kalmiopsis.
- Find National Forests listed by state here: http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/map/state_list.shtml [↩]
- "A proposed U.S. state that would span the contiguous, mostly rural area of southern Oregonand northern California, where several attempts to secede from Oregon and California, respectively, have taken place in order to gain own statehood."—Wikipedia [↩]
- Kalmiopsis Wilderness Map [↩]
- We will document these explorations throughout 2013 with regular briefs, and conclude the year with a large study. [↩]
