1997 | Bumpass Hell, Mt. Lassen National Park, California
Place names are fraught. In our history, whoever names a place lays claim to it.
All over this continent, and surely across the world, appropriate names for places were coined by their inhabitants. The displacement of Native names has been very recent and bloody in the American West, though the present labels might be a prospector’s poetry. But where I can find notes, I do care for the clarity in the vision and language of the original culture which lives on in the antecedent name for a place.
This name caught my eye on a map, so my son and I walked in for a look after we climbed Amblu Kai (Lassen’s Peak). This place may have a heavenly look, but its present name sounds a warning to those who visit the boiling pools, mudpots, and fumaroles.
My camera is a tool I use to admire the present; the sites of old conflicts and misadventures can be wonderlands to enjoy on a walk in the park.