It’s hard to believe five months have already come and gone. Writing this, I am currently looking down the last week I have of this internship, before I pack up and road-trip back to the Midwest. Last May, I departed from the bustling Chicago-land area to begin work out here in Burns, Oregon, a town that prides itself on having more cattle than people. My concept of Oregon had predominantly been formed by alleged Big-Foot sightings and shows like Portlandia and Twin Peaks. I had been completely unware of the Eastern desert half of the state, a cowboy’s paradise.

The land here is vast and open. The horizons stretch on forever, occasionally broken by juniper and sage-brush covered mountains far off in the distance. Sunsets and sunrises are humbling to witness, creating scarlet bands on the edge of the sky that encompasses your entire field of vision. The land may be dry and at first glace empty, but upon closer examination, it is teeming with life. Elk, mule deer, and antelopes dash alongside the roads. Wild horses gallop in packs up and down steep slopes with tremendous ease. On the ground, lizards and snakes dart from rock to rock, while hawks, osprey, and turkey vultures whiz by, or circle overhead. Streams and rivers lay hidden, tucked in mountain valleys, and hot springs gurgle and emerge from the ground on the edges of the desert. This is a quite place, and a beautiful place.

Being able to work out in this land has been a privilege I won’t soon forget. I have learned much, both on a professional and personal level. This job is through the Bureau of Land Management, and has been an eye-opening experience on how the government functions, as well as how there can be so many wildly varying (and often justifiable) opinions towards the government. The BLM is focused on land management, and as a result must take into account resource extraction, livestock utilization, recreation use, archeological value, and environmental sustainability, all at once, for the same plot of land. Each of these interests are overseen by different departments in the BLM office, and each of these interests have different third-party activist groups either strongly in-favor, or strongly opposed to the actions of the BLM. From my limited perspective, it seems hard to appease both environmental groups and cattle ranchers, when a land plot must be used for both cattle grazing, recreation, and be simultaneously preserved in a sustainable manner. While the BLM does its best to placate all of these array of interests, it is not always infallible. The BLM, like any organization, is composed of people who come with their own biases, and are capable of making mistakes. This is not to say the BLM is ineffective; in fact, I believe the BLM is a million times better than the alternative of having no regulatory force over these large swaths of land. In my short time here, I have discovered the BLM does amazing work and I do genuinely think it is slowly improving the land here, as well as the relationships with the large web of people it must work with.

On a personal level, working here has been pretty eye opening post 2016-election. I hail from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, an area with a heavy liberal demographic tilt, and as a result, I was a bit hesitant coming out to this rural and conservative area after such a divisive and polarizing election. In my time here, during offhand conversations, I was bluntly asked strong political-value based questions (e.g. gun control, affirmative action, immigration policy, etc.) and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to have dialogue with people of starkly opposing opinions. Now this wasn’t always the case, and sometimes conversations had to be dropped as soon as they were started, but for the most part, I found myself having constructive back and forth talks about issues that I had formerly believed to have no middle-ground. And while opinions weren’t always changed, I think for the most part, both parties walked away more sympathetic to where the other side was coming from, even if we agreed to disagree. On a deep level, this has provided me a lot of hope for the future of this country.

In a week I will begin a road-trip home. I will leave here with many good memories much to reflect on. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to work out here, the other interns I worked with, the people I met, and the beautiful nature I saw. I will be leaving, but I think I shall be coming back in the near future…after all, supposedly Big-Foot is still out here, waiting to be discovered.

-Carter Cranberg (Burns/Hines District BLM)

Indian Paintbrush

My Cubicle

Wild Horse Rush Hour

Wild-Horse Lake

“The county fair is pretty laid back here. Feel free to take breaks and explore around, but you absolutely must see the rodeo”. These were the final instructions given to my partner and I before we stationed ourselves at the fair’s Bureau of Land Management booth. We thanked our boss for the advice and looked out from our booth to the fair grounds.

The Harney County Fair is one of the largest events in Burns, OR. With hundreds of people frequenting the fair-grounds daily, in a town of roughly 4,000, the annual fair is a highly anticipated event. On the premises there isa row of food trucks serving meals ranging from smoked-ribs to shaved-ice confections. There is a carnival section, containing classic rides and deceptively difficult games. Another section of the fair features wall-less barns for 4-H animal competitions (e.g. largest pig, cutest rabbit, wooliest sheep, etc.). There is also a main stage, in the center of the fair grounds, which features three main acts, each taking an hour in the lime-light, twice a day. The acts consist of a Japanese taiko drumming performance, a magician, and a hypnotist.

In addition, there are several rows of booths for selling of merchandise or providing public-information. There is a booth representing the Oregon Hunters Association, a custom cow-boy hat maker, a mini-market of gag-gifts and fake weapons (and some real ones too), dozens of other vendors, and our humble BLM booth. Our booth has traditionally been passive in nature; it typically has been a table full of pamphlets and maps regarding different activities or programs available in the local area. This year however, my fellow intern and I were tasked with making the booth more engaging for kids. After a day of brainstorming, planning, and shopping, we devised a scavenger-hunt, with a fire-roasted s’more being the reward for completion (we were only given permission for this because the fire-fighters’ booth was directly next to ours).

Now, this is all good family fun; an excuse for parents to let their kids run around while they catch-up with old friends. However, to many this also just fluff, filler to kill time until 7:00 PM when the rodeo starts. There is a professional rodeo tomorrow, were seasoned cow-boys will travel cross-state to come and compete for glory, and many will go see it, but tomorrow night is not the event that has everyone excited. The true attraction people are talking about, the one that has everyone coming out in their nicest hats, is the local amateur rodeo.

The local rodeo has no limits on age or skill, just a willingness to hang on tight to a bucking bronco or one majorly pissed-off bull for as long as you can. In addition, there is a lassoing competition to see who can catch a run-away horse the quickest, and Barrel-Racing, where cow-boys and cow-girls run their house through a path set by barrels in an effort to complete the course in the quickest time.

The rodeo commences with an announcer, possessing a thick drawl, leading the crowd in prayer and the National Anthem. After this, a tractor carrying a large rake attachment clears the field in neat linear paths, reminiscent of a Zamboni at hockey games. When the tractor’s job is complete, the bucking-broncs begin. Without warning, a gate is flung open and a cow-boy is sent out on a riled-up horse. The horse sprints and flails, in an effort to launch the cow-boy clean off its back (what is done to upset the horse in the first place is beyond my knowledge). After only 5 seconds, the cowboy is flung forward, and the horse runs over him, but he appears to be uninjured and quickly gets up to run back outside the fence. Not entirely sure what to make of the whole thing, I look around and see people looking slightly disappointed and shaking their heads.

“What went wrong”, I ask a local man behind me, wearing an immaculately white and large brimmed hat.

“They have to stay on for at least eight seconds, or the score is no good”.

Immediately after, the score-board flashes “No Points Awarded”.

The next cow-boy manages to hold on for about 9 seconds before being flipped over the side of the horse. The score-board reads “65/100”.

“Not too bad”, the man behind me says, while clapping his hands.

“Why only 65”, I ask.

“Well, there’s two judges and they each give up to 50 points. 25 for how well the guy holds on, and 25 for how well the animal does. Then they combine their scores for a final number out of 100”.

“How well the animal does”?

“Yeah. A calm horse is much easier to ride, so they’re not going to give it many points. But if you get one really worked up…well I’d be sorry to be the guy on one like that, but at least you could make a better score. This is just amateur though, the scores will probably stay in the 60’s all night”.

And on it went. The highest score wound up being 71.

Next they begin the lassoing. I start feeling bad for the horses in this one and decide to leave for a bit to grab a drink. When I get back, the final event has started, barrel racing. The first few racers go through, all making decent times and showing good control of their steeds. Suddenly, the announcer brings special attention to the next racer, a small boy who is doing his first barrel race. I stare at the boy amazed and turn to the white-hatted man behind me.

“How old is that boy”, I ask wide-eyed

He lets out a deep laugh and informs me, “he’s probably four. We like to start them young around here”.

The boy looks like a small doll riding on-top of a full grown horse. While not the fastest, the boy manages to complete the correct path of barrels in a reasonable time. I genuinely doubt the child’s ability to talk in complete sentences, yet there he is, confidently riding an animal easily 4 times taller than him. Everyone enthusiastically cheers him on, as do I (more out of awe than excitement).

The barrel races conclude and awards are given out. Trophies are in the form of large and ornate belt-buckles, decorated on intricate designs of silver and gold colors (belt-buckles, like hats, are worn as a status-symbol and essential accessory here).

Everyone begins to trickle out of the stands. I follow suit and return to my car, where I plug in my phone and start playing Glen Campbell’s cover of Rhinestone Cowboy, as I begin my ride home.

If you were to drive the long and rolling desert highways of Eastern Oregon, you may assume the landscape, while pleasant to look at, is rather repetitive and monotonous. At first glance, it would be easy to make this assumption; however, you would be mistaken. While the views from the main roads offer vistas of rust-colored dirt covered buttes, speckled with sage brush and juniper, it is the back-roads where the true beauty lies.

In my current internship, I am working for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in Burns, OR. The BLM is responsible for large swaths of public-lands, including the lands’ resources, ecology, recreation opportunities, and roads. There is a hierarchy of road types for the BLM out here. You have your classic good-ol’-American paved road (typically of the asphalt of composite-pavement variety), the highly-prevalent gravel road, and the country dirt road (which brings to mind, John Denver). With these being the majority of roads anyone would dare venture their car onto, the hierarchy actually descends further into categories of things that could be only be called “roads” by a stretch of the imagination. Despite this, they served a purpose at one time or another, and as a result, the BLM has them mapped as passible routes, known as “back-roads”. Within the lower Order of back-roads there is the “two-track. A two-track is formed when a car (more likely something in the ball-park of a Ford-150) drives through vegetation and leaves an imprint of two tire tracks. These two parallel lines are re-enforced with each additional car that follows the route. No matter how faint or prominent a two-track may be, they are usually littered with rocks, commonly washed out and eroded, and are full of sharp turns to avoid large obstacles. Two-tracks can widely vary in quality and are a bit unpredictable, causing a certain level of stress in drivers when forced to navigate them. Lastly there is a “vanished-road”. These occur when dirt-roads or two-tracks go unused for long periods of time, causing nature to reclaim them. These can be small sections, or an entire road, depending on the level of reclamation. These are typically unexpected and either force the driver to turn around to find an alternative route, or challenge the driver to push-ahead, and go off-roading in hopes of reconnecting with a discernable road.

During this internship, my partner and I have had to traverse all of the above-mentioned roads. On multiple occasions, we have even mistook cattle-trails as legitimate roads and followed them for a good-while before realizing our mistake. Having become coinsures of the various roads out here, my partner and I feel, while not the most efficient, it is the back-roads where the real fun is. They often take you to areas of extreme beauty and little development. It is on these roads we have passed through gorges, drove along-side packs of wild horses, snuck up on deer, and just relaxed. In a way, navigating a back-road is a practice in deep-relaxation. You may come at it head-strong and stubborn, but driving fast on a back-road will only guarantee two things: damage to your car and damage to your head when you hit a dip and bounce up into your car-roof. Back-roads force you to take it slow and drive deliberately. This is when animals come near your car, this is when you see small ponds and secret-routes you wouldn’t have otherwise noticed, this is when the beauty of the desert reveals itself to you.

-Carter Cranberg (Burns-Hines, OR – Field Office)

                  Burns, a small town of roughly 3,000 Oregonians, lies tucked in between miles of ranch land and sage-brush near the eastern border of the Beaver state. Make no mistake though, this is no ordinary small town. Burns, a city originally built around the practices of logging and cattle grazing, now serves as a spring-board for any and every outdoor activity imaginable. With 3.4 million surrounding acres owned and operated by the Burns-Hine’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the possibilities for outdoor recreation are infinite.

                  A little over a month ago, I began an internship for the Chicago Botanic Garden as a contractible employee, able to serve and work for various government agencies (I like to think of it as a mercenary internship). When hired, I was offered a position as an Outdoor Recreation Intern for the BLM office in Burns-Hines, OR. Looking back now, I could not be more grateful to have accepted the offer.

                  This place is extremely different from where I grew up, in the North-West suburbs of Chicago. I was born and raised to be a city-boy; however, this is the land of hunters, cowboys, and mountaineers. The cultural difference between my home-town and here was almost tangible on my first day. Although, as I am writing this, I find myself leaning more into the way of life out here and am beginning to see the bliss found in an area of such natural beauty and solitude. I am eager to see what else this town can teach me.

                  Speaking of learning, my partner (a Twin-Cities, Minnesota suburbanite) and I have been presented with many new challenges and adventures. The BLM has had us go on hikes in the local Steen’s Mountains in order to monitor campsites, help scout out a new trail, and assess Wilderness areas. We’ve also begun to utilize ATVs in order to traverse some of the more rugged landscape. The work here can be long and physically draining, but we always manage to come home proud of the job we did.

                  Camping season is upon us and we will be spending more nights out “in the field” in order to work on some more long term projects. Updates and more pictures to come in future posts.

-Carter Cranberg out of Burns-Hines Bureau of Land Management

Alvord Desert: Looking forward to doing some R&R in a tent out here

Fog on The Steen’s: One of the my favorite moments so far – standing near the top of the Steen’s as a cloud rolled over us

A Gorgeous Gorge