against the harsh rock peak, the delicate glass and wood of the lookout’s cabin stands defiant in the wind, a beacon in a sea of mountains
to lie down is to touch two of the four log walls
a dry bear grass bed on the wood slat floor
two chairs, one for the lookout and another for the ranger when he visits
instruments to measure fire direction and a man and the telephone line to bear witness
mules haul soda + yeast for the morning pancakes and letters to remember the world by
lard + milk and some ivory soap
a dozen candles to keep a flame to watch for fire by
streams seldom flow uphill; the smokechaser wakes at dawn break to fill his water bag miles below
upon the ascent, towards the top of the world, the world gets smaller
the alpine climate, above the tree line, the church spire tops of sub-alpine firs bow down to a forest in miniature
dwarf willows and mushrooms the size of fingernails and fairy spoons keep close to the ground in that windswept place
in the evening, the dispatchers open the telephone lines between the lookouts
they talk with the phones hung around their necks and call out checker moves, the hands free to play for two
* * *
and at night, the lightning
there is a smell to lightning, and a transmutative quality in its anticipation
coyote yips sound like human cries and then all is the crash of clouds
the wind washes you clean, sleeping in the slipstream
and that smell of static in the air, like mother drying clothes, of oxygen split to ozone
blind and searching, the blue energy seeks contact
lightning came in on the telephone line
the pathway of least resistance through the wire and then the water body
storm paths recorded faithfully by the earthbound
but with every added observation, reality looms larger and faith in prediction faulters
the recorder turned conductor and split asunder by his very own nature
the spirit may be displaced for some period, the forest of neurons lit momentarily by an alien fire
freeing of space again and maybe we return, and maybe the rolling clouds wash us clean
“lightning may do no damage to the wire, or it may burn the telephone wire completely”
mountain goats clamor back to the peaks
man sits at the telephone, about to speak
a dial tone, contact missed a beat
— Grace D.
* * *
A lightning strike my uncle caught on camera
This poem is inspired by recent events and old stories. While researching the Hungry Horse Dam for my last blog post, I came across two histories of the Flathead National Forest: The Flathead Story by Charlie Shaw and Trails of the Past by Kathryn McKay. Both histories are extensive and cover many aspects of early forest service happenings and 19th and 20th century life in the area. I was particularly drawn to the sections on fire lookout life and lightning. The quoted section in the poem, “lightning may do no damage to the wire, or it may burn the telephone wire completely” is quoted directly from Shaw’s chapter on lightning (The Flathead Story (Chapter 26)). The details in the poem concerning food rations and daily lookout life are also inspired by descriptions from both histories. I was moved by a tragedy that occurred near Pagoda Lookout involving two men maintaining a telephone line during a lightning storm. If you wish to read about this event, the story is in the last paragraph of Shaw’s chapter on lightning (The Flathead Story (Chapter 26)).
“Robert’s Lookout” still standing today in Eureka, MT. The original lookout was a “crows nest” style, built in 1920. The structure seen here was built in 1920 and originally stood at Roberts Mtn west of Fortine, MT. Ross “Shorty” Young was stationed here from 1924 to 1943.
Last week I attended a local short film festival in Missoula, MT. One film that stuck with me was “The Lookout.” The film is not (yet?) available online, but if you are interested in details regarding the actors and the director, there is a profile on IMDb (The Lookout (Short 2024) – IMDb). Stay tuned for eventual public release of this film. The film opens on a lone lookout and his simple life. Strange, foreboding signs start to haunt him, bringing into question both his true nature and the environment’s true nature. People are not what they seem, and nature reclaims what was once believed separate. A still from the film of pancake batter dripping off a fire pit and clear secretions running from the lookout’s nose reveal an unknown, lurking presence. In the midst of all this creeping horror, there is great beauty in the landscapes and the natural world. I thought of this film, too, while writing this poem about the wonder and the terror of being outside, exposed to the elements.
A break in the storm on a hike near Trapper Peak in the Bitterroot National Forest; I only spent about fifteen minutes at the lake because of the foreboding clouds. On the way up to the lake rain came down in buckets.
The smell of lightening is very real, and it appears to be the smell of ozone (Cappucci 2018). For myself, lightning strikes a primal fear in me, and I have rushed down several trails to get away from a high alpine lake as dark clouds gathered around the peaks. On our drive back from delivering seed to the Coeur D’Alene Seed Nursery, my co-intern and I listened to a talk with Cathy Cripps, an alpine mycologist (Ep. 113: Mushrooms of the Rocky Mountains and Arctic Alpine Biome (fea – Mushroom Hour). She talked about her work in alpine climates and the world in miniature up there. She studied short willow forests and their mycorrhizal associations with alpine fungi and her pioneering work with mycorrhizal fungi in white bark pine restoration.
The rock I hunkered under while the storm dumped rain and lightning crackled.
I discovered many things about the world and about myself this season. Thank you to the Flathead National Forest botany department, my co-intern Erynn, and many others who made this season so wonderful.
A slow portion of the Flathead River, only a few minutes down the road from where I stayed in Kalispell this summer.
References
Cappucci, Matthey. “Lighting Has a Smell, and the Science Behind it is Beautiful.” The Washington Post. (2018). https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-why-you-can-actually-smell-lightning
McKay, Kathryn L. “Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800–1960.” Flathead National Forest. (1994). http://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/history/#:~:text=TRAILS%20OF%20THE%20PAST:%20Historical%20Overview
Shaw, Charlie. “The Flathead Story.” USDA Forest Service, Flathead National Forest. (1967) http://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/story/index.htm#:~:text=THE%20FLATHEAD%20STORY.%20By.%20Charlie%20Shaw.
On a cool September day, my co-intern and I drove the fifty miles on a dirt road to the Spotted Bear Ranger Station. The road follows the winding, rugged shoreline of the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Pulling into the station’s office, we noticed a fringe of orange flames burning lazily up the mountain. We wondered if we would still be able to stay at the bunkhouse that night. We soon learned that a prescribed burn was taking place, carefully planned around the several inches of rain predicted that night and the next day. The morning proved the weather forecast correct. A mist hung about the road as we drove past the ranger station the next morning on our way to Meadow Creek Gorge. The gorge is reminiscent of what the Hungry Horse landscape may have looked like before the reservoir, before the inundation of the long, steep valley carved by the South Fork of the Flathead River.
The swimming hole at Spotted Bear Ranger Station
Smoke and mist settling in the Meadow Creek Gorge
At Meadow Creek Trailhead, we spoke with a few visitors who had turned southeast, away from the gates of Glacier National Park, and towards the remote Bob Marshall Wilderness. One of the visitors, a fisherman, mentioned the beneficial impact of the Hungry Horse Dam in preventing nonnative fish from swimming upstream and degrading habitat for native cutthroat and bull trout. This comment, said in passing, catalyzed a world of exploration for me as I delved into the dam’s history and ecological impact.
View of the reservoir at the top of the Hungry Horse Dam
Hungry Horse sign
On our next trip down to Spotted Bear, we stopped at the dam’s visitor center, perched halfway up the steep mountainside, along the road that runs overtop the dam. A sign in the art deco style of “The Big Dam Era” — in its heyday from the 1930s to 1960s (Lee 2023) — announces the dam. Finished in November 1953, the Hungry Horse Dam was a crowning achievement of the era. Standing at 564 feet, it was the second tallest dam in the world at the time of its completion (McKay 1994). Black and white photographs in the visitor center document the larger-than-life engineering feat of the dam’s construction. Tiny figures of men stand in miniature within the 12-foot diameter spillway tunnel. Yet these men moved mountains, blasting a tunnel through the adjoining rock wall to divert the river during dam construction.
Man inside the giant spillway tunnel; photo from the Hungry Horse Visitor Center
The diversion tunnel the river flowed through while the dam was being built; photo from the Hungry Horse Visitor Center
The little town of Hungry Horse, still standing today, sprung up to support the laborers. The town and dam are named after an incident in the winter of 1900. Two men hauling equipment over the South Fork of the Flathead River noticed, after the river crossing, that two of their horses, Jerry and Tex, were missing. A month later the horses were found “belly deep in snow and nothing but skin and bones” (Stene 1995). The horses were nursed back to strength and lived out their days in nearby Kalispell, but the area bears witness to their hungriest hour. A large steel ball, painted a garish silver, stands as a mysterious testament to the town’s origin. The dam building started not with pouring the dam’s concrete but with clearing trees from the flow area to limit debris in the reservoir. (Grant 2018). Several logging companies took up the herculean task of clearing the 37 square miles of land in the reservoir’s path (McKay 1994). The large steel ball standing in Hungry Horse today was used in the “highball” clearing method that could clear 200 acres in 4 hours (McKay 1994; Grant 2018). The ball, 8 feet in diameter and 8,000 pounds in heft, was not a wrecking ball but rather a weight (Shaw 1967). A long cable, secured between two bulldozers and held fast at the center by the heavy ball, was used to drag down and uproot trees. Using this unusual method along with more conventional methods, loggers harvested 90 million board feet of timber from the area in just a few years (Grant 2018).
8,000-pound steel ball used in the “highball” clearing method
“Highball” clearing method in-action
Once completed in 1953, the dam backed up the South Fork of the Flathead River for 34 miles and flooded about 22,500 acres of land (McKay 1994). Today, the dam still fulfills its original purpose, generating electricity, regulating water flow for flood mitigation, and acting as water storage for downstream dams in the greater Columbia River Basin system. The Hungry Horse reservoir is one of two other headwater reservoirs for the Columbia River Basin, the other being the Koocanusa Reservoir in the adjacent Kootenai National Forest. Together, these two reservoirs provide approximately 40% of the usable water storage in the U.S. portion of the Columbia Basin (Muhlfeld, 2012). The Hungry Horse dam impacts both local and regional ecosystems, since water from the reservoir travels more than 1,100 miles from Montana’s mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Some of those impacts are obvious, like the creation of a lake from a river. Other impacts are less so.
Aerial view of the dam
This sign outside the visitor center shows just a few of the almost 60 dams in the Columbia River watershed
The dam’s four penstocks (gates that direct water to the turbines) are located 241 feet below the reservoir level. Water at that depth maintains a year-round temperature of about 38F, which is quite a bit colder than summer surface temperatures of up to 68F (Christenson et al., 1996). Biologists speculated that the dam’s cold-water discharge would modify the downstream river ecology (Christenson et al., 1996). By the 1980s, biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks were recording falling native trout populations, stunted trout growth rates, and changes in the trout’s prey, macroinvertebrates. They also found unusually large numbers of cold-water lake trout in the Flathead river’s main stem. The cold water offered an ideal habitat for the voracious lake trout which fed with abandon on juvenile cutthroat and bull trout (Cristenson et al.,1996). The food web was changing. To combat these effects, the discharged water needed temperature control (Standford et al., 1992). A “Selective Withdrawal System” was installed in August 1996. The system placed 100-foot-long selective depth outlet structures over the penstocks. Warm surface water could be skimmed off the top of the reservoir and mixed with cooler water anywhere from 30 to 200 feet below the water’s surface. Electronic temperature sensors ran the length of the structures and informed which outlets to open and close to produce the required water temperatures. The system is still in use and begins operations each year in June after spring runoff flows reduce and continues until October. The release of warmer water during the biologically productive summer months has eliminated the artificial cooling of the river and returned it to its pre-dam annual temperature cycle (State of Montana, 2014).
Selective Withdrawal System information board at the Hungry Horse Dam Visitor Center
In the almost 30 years since its installment, the selective withdrawal system has measurably affected the surrounding ecosystem. Eliminating cold discharges during summer appears to have restricted the movement of non-native lake trout upstream from Flathead Lake (Muhlfeld et al., 2012). Studies on macroinvertebrate populations are mostly inconclusive though there are some signs of slightly improved benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the South Fork River, downstream of the dam (Richards, 2010). The selective withdrawal system allows some aspects of the downstream river to return to pre-dam conditions, but other aspects cannot be so easily turned back. Flow regulation for flood control and power generation has resulted in an inversion of the natural hydrograph; water storage during spring keeps run-off low and release of water during summer, fall, and winter keeps flows unnaturally high (Muhlfeld, 2012). The current flow management strategy simulates natural flow conditions to maximize bull trout habitat in the South Fork of the Flathead River by keeping flows lower, but flows must still remain artificially high to augment flow for anadromous fish recovery hundreds of miles downstream, in the lower Columbia River Basin (Muhlfeld, 2012). Caught in a web of ecological consequences, changing one thing then affects another, achieving all pre-dam conditions is elusive. Can a controlled river really be made to mimic a natural river?
The visitor’s passing comment about one of the beneficial effects of the dam is true; the dam has proven an effective barrier against nonnative fish. The South Fork River upstream of the Hungry Horse Dam contains one of the largest self-sustaining populations of westslope cutthroat trout in existence (Marotz et al., 1996). The reservoir also supports a stable bull trout population, which can be attributed to the relatively undisturbed spawning tributaries in the Bob Marhsall Wilderness upstream of the dam (Marotz et al., 1996). Moreover, the dam provides clean, renewable energy, critical as we try to slow down human-caused climate change. Yet, by removing the historical disturbances of flood and drought cycles through flow regulation, the biological characteristics of the downstream Flathead River have been altered (Schmutz and Moog, 2018; Muhlfeld, 2012). And, of course, the reservoir itself has buried an entire landscape and its local ecosystem under hundreds of feet of water. The Hungry Horse dam created a new ecosystem while also preserving some aspects of the past ecosystem. Some impacts of the dam can be mitigated, while other impacts require adaptation in human, animal, and plant lifestyle.
The land southeast of the reservoir, past the Spotted Bear Ranger Station; the mist over the old burn area looked like a fantasy novel setting
References
Christenson, D. J., Robert L. Sund, and Brian L. Marotz. “Hungry Horse Dams successful selective withdrawal system.” Hydro Review 15.3 (1996).
Grant, James A. “Historic Logging Uses and Timber Management at Hungry Horse Reservoir.” U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. (2018). https://www.bpa.gov/-/media/Aep/environmental-initiatives/cultural-resources/historic-logging-uses.pdf
“Hungry Horse Reservoir, Montana: Biological Impact Evaluation and Operational Constraints for a proposed 90,000-acre-foot withdrawal.” State of Montana. September 14, 2011. https://dnrc.mt.gov/_docs/water/Appendix_8_StateBiologicalConstraintsMemo.pdf
Lee, Gabriel. “Overview: The Big Dam Era.” Energy History Online. Yale University. (2023). https://energyhistory.yale.edu/the-big-dam-era/.
Marotz, B. L., et al. “Model development to establish integrated operational rule curves for Hungry Horse and Libby Reservoirs—Montana.” Report to the Bonneville Power Administration. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Kalispell (1996).
McKay, Kathryn L. “Trails of the Past: Historical Overview of the Flathead National Forest, Montana, 1800–1960.” Flathead National Forest. (1994). http://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/history/#:~:text=TRAILS%20OF%20THE%20PAST:%20Historical%20Overview
Muhlfeld, Clint C., et al. “Assessing the impacts of river regulation on native bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) and westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi) habitats in the upper Flathead River, Montana, USA.” River Research and Applications 28.7 (2012): 940-959.
Richards, David C., and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. “Possible effects of selective withdrawal-temperature control at Hungry Horse Dam, nuisance growth of Didymosphenia geminata, and other factors, on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Flathead River.” Report to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Kalispell MT (2010).
Schmutz, Stefan, and Otto Moog. “Dams: ecological impacts and management.” Riverine ecosystem management: Science for governing towards a sustainable future (2018): 111-127.
Shaw, Charlie. “The Flathead Story.” USDA Forest Service, Flathead National Forest. (1967) http://www.npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/1/flathead/story/index.htm#:~:text=THE%20FLATHEAD%20STORY.%20By.%20Charlie%20Shaw.
Stanford, Jack A., and F. Richard Hauer. “Mitigating the impacts of stream and lake regulation in the Flathead River catchment, Montana, USA: an ecosystem perspective.” Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 2.1 (1992): 35-63.
Stene, Eric A. “Hungry Horse Project.” U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. (1995) https://www.usbr.gov/projects/pdf.php?id=125
A howling, cold wind forced the small crew of scientists to huddle closer. The group’s navigator glanced from her rudimentary compass to the horizon, concentrating her tired eyes on a small dark shape that stood opposed to the pale, starlit snowfields. The group was traveling in the Artic Circle, a land no more desolate now than most of the post-apocalyptic planet. At last, a man-made building resolved itself against the pale dawn. The tall concrete walls cut the wind and a quiet fell upon them. The navigator faced the stainless-steel entrance of the imposing tomb. She knew, though, that life lie frozen, preserved in that breathless place in the form of seeds. Millions of seeds, preserved by people of the past for the unknown future, contained the hope for replenished agriculture and revegetation. She had reached the ‘Doomsday Vault’ — the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Not the Svalbard Global Seed Vault but looks like a sci-fi building! Saw this radio equipment (?) on Blacktail Mountain, Flathead National Forest, Montana.
In the popular imagination, seed vaults conjure up post-apocalyptic visions of bunker-like warehouses filled with crop seeds for kickstarting a new human civilization. Helen Anne Curry, in her paper “The history of seed banking and the hazards of backup,” discusses the origin of this doomsday fear: a survival strategy for mid-20th century Cold War anxieties. The Cold War inspired a frenzy of record backups, computer and communication system redundancies, and other safeguards against global environmental catastrophes. Saving seeds represented an insurance policy for our food, forests, and the green of our planet. The Fort Collins Seed Bank in Fort Collins, Colorado fulfilled this need for redundancy, with the first “Fort Knox of the seed world’ opening in 1958 (Curry, 2022). The Svalbard Global Seed Bank, built almost 50 years later, continues to assuage similar fears but it also represents a more active, dynamic approach to modern day seed-saving needs. The Svalbard Seed Vault, located in the remote Artic Svalbard archipelago, functions quite literally as a seed “bank” in which a nation or organization deposits seeds in a safe box that is then available for withdrawal at the depositor’s request. Svalbard is a backup for the thousands of other seed banks throughout the world, a safeguard against the worst, but it is not a sealed off seed tomb. The seed vault regularly accepts deposits and honors withdrawals. To date, the only withdrawals have been from Syria in 2015 and 2017 due to the civil war disrupting a gene bank located in Tel Hadya, Syria (Dan, 2015).
Many organizations concerned with plant conservation and genetic diversity like botanical gardens, university laboratories, and nurseries, partake in some form of seed saving. The ability to preserve living plants, in the form of a seed, offers a highly adaptable opportunity for humanity to realize the needs and goals for both our local and global plant communities.
Conifer seeds stored in drums in the cold storage freezers at the Coeur d’Alene Seed Nursery; not as cold as Svalbard!
How It’s Made: Trees (and Plants) for Future Forests
My co-intern and I visited the USDA Coeur d’Alene Seed Nursery in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho this month. The 220-acre nursery includes 25 greenhouses, 130 acres of bareroot seedbeds, multiple buildings for seed extraction, and numerous freezers for seed banking. The nursery provides native conifer, forb, and grass seedlings and seed mixes mainly for Region 1 National Forests in Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota (USDA Forest Service). The nursery participates in many projects including the Northern Region’s Tree Improvement program for growing and testing Whitebark pine seedlings for blister rust resistance. The forest I am working with, the Flathead NF, is sending seed to the nursery for extraction and use in grow outs to increase seed number of our target species. Eventually, the bulk-grown seed will form pollinator seed mixes for use back on the Flathead NF in disturbed areas.
Greenhouse and fields at the Coeur d’Alene Seed Nursery.
We first toured the huge, industrially-sized “Seed Extractory”. Large boxes, each holding hundreds of pinecones, are stacked from floor to ceiling (see picture for scale). Hot air is pumped through the stacked boxes, turning the whole pinecone-filled column into a kiln. The heat opens the cones and releases the seeds. Inside the main building, ductwork lines then walls and ceiling, moving air from one machine to another, providing a means to separate the dense seed material from the chaff. Screens of different sizes could be fitted into the various sifting and sorting machines to accommodate a wide range of seed sizes. A sample from each batch of purified seed is then tested vias X-ray for seed viability. X-rays reveal dried-up embryos or hollow seeds that would otherwise escape notice. The nursery manager described the importance of creativity in purifying seeds and the lack of standardization in the seed cleaning processes since each species requires unique troubleshooting. Some seed extraction, despite all the helpful machinery, must be done by hand. This is the case for Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). Whitebark pine is considered a “stone pine” due to the cone scales never opening, even when the seeds are ripe. Heating the cones up in the kilns only makes the scales close more tightly. The cones must be cracked open by hand, imitating the natural forces they encounter in the wild—being crunched by grizzly bear jaws or cracked by awl-like beaks of the Clark’s nutcracker (National Park Service).
Giant kilns for drying pineconesMachinery in the seed extractor buildingA “dewinger” machine for removing the wings off pinecone seedsThe X-ray room for seed viability tests
We next moved to the storage room, which contained huge walk-in freezers that housed enough conifer seeds to meet revegetation goals for Region 1 Forests for the next 10 to 20 years! Conifer seed, like other “orthodox seed,” can withstand freezing and drying for long periods of time. Some samples of Lodgepole pine seeds stored at the nursery since the 1960s still have a 70% germination rate (Robertson, 2024). The freezers at the nursery are not as cold as the -18C of the permafrost-entombed Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Hopkin, 2008). Seeds stored at higher temperatures, a warmer -2C, are not destined for potentially century-long storage. Rather, these seeds are used for ongoing projects and near-future seed planting. Pollen and seed from white pine blister rust resistant conifers is stored in the freezers for the Northern Rocky Tree Improvement Project. Four defense mechanisms against the blister rust have been genetically isolated and some conifer species, represented in the freezer, contain all four mechanisms of resistance (Robertson, 2024). Seed banks, nurseries, vaults, and libraries provide the necessary storage space for reassurance that genetic diversity can be maintained for both short-term and long-term conservation goals.
White pine blister rust infection (Cronartium ribicola); evident as the orange scab-like protrusions on the bark
My co-intern Erynn (on the left) and I with some pollen from a white pine blister rust resistant conifer
Reimagined Visions: Keep Cool and Save Seeds
While the fear of global environmental catastrophe still informs certain aspects of seed banking, seed saving today serves many other interests and needs. The Millenium Seed Bank Partnership stores seeds from 13% of the world’s wild flowering plants, representing a concern for the ex-situ conservation of wild plants as opposed to seed banking of only economically or agriculturally useful plants (Lewis-Jones, 2019). USDA Seed Extractories and Nurseries like the one we visited in Coeur d’Alene increase the availability of native seeds adapted to local, native growing conditions (Kantor et al., 2023). Smaller seed banks, housed in non-profits or botanical gardens, provide localized seed collections of endemic or culturally and historically significant plants. Seed libraries provide an even more dynamic and accessible service in which people from the community can lend and share seed among themselves. Seed saving of any kind represents a “partnership” of the “the mobile species helping the immobile species” and, of course, vice versa (Lewis-Jones, 2019).
Boxes of trees, ready for shipment, with an apt slogan: “Trees for Future Forests.”
“Whitebark pine.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/crla/learn/nature/whitebark-pine.htm. Accessed 1 September 2024.
Curry, H. A. (2022). The history of seed banking and the hazards of backup. Social Studies of Science, 52(5), 664-688. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127221106728
Dan, Charles. “Reclaiming Syria’s Seeds From An Icy Arctic Vault”. NPR, 24 September 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/24/443053665/scientists-tap-seed-vault-to-rebuild-a-vital-collection-stranded-by-war. Accessed 30 August 2024.
Hopkin, M. Biodiversity: Frozen futures. Nature452, 404–405 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/452404a
Kantor, S., Runyon, J., Glenny, W., Burkle, L., Salix, J., & DeLong, D. (2023). Of bees and blooms: A new scorecard for selecting pollinator-friendly plants in restoration. Science You Can Use Bulletin, Issue 58. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 11 p.
Lewis-Jones, K.E. (2019), “The First Step Is to Bring It Into Our Hands:” Wild Seed Conservation, the Stewardship of Species Survival, and Gardening the Anthropocene at the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership. Cult Agric Food Environ, 41: 107-116. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12238
Robertson, Nathan. “Tour of the Coeur d’Alene Nursery”. Coeur d’Alene Nursery, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. 20 August 2024.
