Welcome to Antelope Island.

An auspicious beginning.

A week ago Sunday, we went for what my parents termed a “Sunday drive,” a familiar activity when I was little. The youngest of six, I knew my mom and dad didn’t have a lot of money for entertaining us kids, & they both had an adventurous spirit. My dad loved topological maps, & finding the highest point of elevation by road would be a fun challenge for him. If it’d been raining, he’d love to visit the local or nearby dams to see what the water level has risen to, what the surge would measure. My mom enjoyed those car rides with my dad, as she’d sip her Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, absorbing everything she’d see. Most of the time, my brother Dan and I would be the ones out back, shoving each other or playing games with letters on license plates. We’d run hot and cold like that, fighting or playing games.

So, with fondness, I looked forward to starting to explore the Salt Lake Basin. Having never really seen the lake proper, I suggested driving out to see what we’d find.

Some of the lower land edging the Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island. 

The valley displays its own sad beauty, an expanse of lonely landscape & whispering wind.

This would be the first true foray out to explore the wilderness of the West. Of course, I long had imaginings of what that landscape would look like. And Antelope Island looked the part. I mean, I wouldn’t have been surprised if western films had been shot there, because the surrounding peaks looked perfect for those iconic skirmishes between settlers & natives. Rugged, hardy, tenacious tufts of brush & grassy vegetative growth color the hills a lovely ocher hue. From a distance you might think it’s sand, but it’s really not. You’d be surprised how the topsoil become matted by the scrappy bits of wild hays & grasses that cling to its surface. It’s all living, despite appearing desolate.

But one of the most exciting things to see were the wild American bison!

To give you a sense of scale, those dark flecks on the horizon are bison. 

Zoomed in some. 

Zoomed in even more. 

How people treated the bison surprised me. I mean, I knew from NH that gawking at wildlife is nothing new, that moose & bears drew audiences. Yet, for me, American bison are something in an entirely different category. Buffalo have this impressive power from their history of persistence. Old pictures of slaughtered bison shamefully massacred across large swaths of prairie and grasslands still haunt me from childhood, when learning the history of westward expansion & the laying tracks for the railroads. Horrifying to even think of or imagine. 

And so when I watched the tourists getting out of their cars to photograph two bison they were only feet from, I felt sickened. One car even drove between the two and literally sat there to take pictures. I kept a respectful distance & used zoom. 

Majestic animal.

My heart kind of breaks when seeing remnants of the west. There’s something about the hardships of frontier life & pioneering that hits home to me. Likely in the same way I react to seeing old mills of the northeast. One of my colleagues was telling me about her family’s ties to the Donner Party, which traveled through the Salt Lake Valley on their ill-fated trek. She talked about how her family took pride from that resilience & fierce survival instinct, & that kind of history amazes me. Another colleague of mine is full Sioux & I feel just humbled. In New England, we have so many places named after Native American tribes or historic figures, & yet there’s a noticeable absence of the peoples themselves or their descendants. 

Here, there’s a lot to learn about the local history, a lot to absorb. Everyday, like every single day, the Wasatch Mountains take my breath away. They are so stunningly beautiful, & I look forward to exploring more of the beauty this land has to offer.

Remnants of old vehicles. 

Charming old gate at the oldest ranch in Utah.