Humboldt, Beoware to Pallisades (Meander)

Who meanders, the world, or me?

I remember the first time that I saw the Humboldt River, deep in the wasteland of Nevada, a weird long languid thing that seemed eternally confused over whether or not it was a river at all.

Alongside the Columbia River, 400 miles to the North, it formed a critical lifeline through the intermountain West and a trail to Oregon and (eventually) California. The two rivers have a common bond, with numerous connecting paths between them. They are, however, almost diametric opposites. The Columbia is vast, purposeful, one of the most powerful rivers on the Earth, pushing out into the Pacific Ocean more than 265,000 cubic feet of water per second. The Humboldt? It starts nowhere, and it ends nowhere, its waters never reaching any sea. It is a river without direction or purpose, a water that meanders across the barren lands of the Great Basin.

It was named for Alexander Von Humboldt, a polymath best know for his contributions to physical geography and botany, a man whose path also wandered about the globe but, unlike the river, did so with distinct purpose. Ironically, Humboldt never saw his namesake river.

For me, standing on the hilltops above Pallisades, looking back towards the small ranch settlement of Beoware, it was simultaneously alien and familiar. Here was the anti-Columbia, here a river that gave little life and yet was all the more precious in its setting. It was a twisting, turning path that though it lead to nowhere, still lead thousands to new lives in the West.

Humboldt, Beoware to Pallisades. Ink on Watercolor Paper, 12 x 16 inches, 2016.