An American Provence

Thomas P. Huber

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781607321507
• eBook ISBN:
  9781607321514
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Biological Sciences

"I have talked about luscious wines and succulent fruit and exquisite dinners. But there may be no more evocative experience of the two valleys than the smell of new-mown hay in the fields at dusk. If a person were to close their eyes, they could not tell if they were in Provence or the North Fork Valley. That sweet, earthy odor is part of the beauty of these places."
-From An American Provence

In this poetic personal narrative, Thomas P. Huber reflects on two seemingly unrelated places-the North Fork Valley in western Colorado and the Coulon River Valley in Provence, France-and finds a shared landscape and sense of place. What began as a simple comparison of two like places in distant locations turned into a more complex, interesting, and personal task. Much is similar-the light, the valleys, the climate, the agriculture. And much is less so-the history, the geology, the physical makeup of villages. Using a geographer's eye and passion for the land and people, Huber examines the regions' similarities and differences to explore the common emotional impact of each region. Part intimate travelogue and part case study of geography in the real world, An American Provence illuminates the importance sense of place plays in who we are.

VILLAGES

Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some
of the gossip which is incessantly going on there . . . taken
in homeopathic doses, [it] was really as refreshing in its
way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of the frog.

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN

THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF PLACE is the indisputable foundation upon which I have constructed the common vision of two like landscapes. But the human concentrations in the small towns and villages add a critical aspect to the two regions that is essential to our understanding and appreciation of their similarities and differences. The small towns of the North Fork are understandably dissimilar in many ways, although these differences are like a set of études on a single theme as opposed to individual works. The same can be said of the villages of the Coulon. Each French village is unique in detail, but the differences are only variations in degree. This discussion of the “urban” environments will cover nearly all of the towns loosely included in the North Fork region and a good representation of the villages in the Coulon (see the maps on pages 13–14 for the locations and distribution of these peopled places).

The first time Carole and I traveled to the North Fork Valley, we drove there along the beautiful ribbon of Highway 92, which loosely follows the meanders of the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. This sinuous, seemingly unknown and unpopulated route is one of my favorite drives in all of Colorado. The road is scenic but not in the manner of many Colorado roads that run below massive, snow-blanketed peaks or above treeline in the alpine wind and sky. I love those high mountain journeys, too, but Route 92 has a special texture and feel that are more like an old-fashioned quilt made for a fall festival than a goose down comforter sewn for cold winter nights. Certainly you can see the high mountains of the San Juans to the south as they create the horizon, but Route 92—which runs around the West Elk Mountains’ southwestern flank—is an unparalleled bazaar of vegetation communities, rock landscapes, and very few people. In the autumn the colors along the highway are highlighted not by the golds of aspens but by the more New England-y reds and oranges of Gambel oak, sumac, and mountain mahogany with enough aspen thrown in to remind us that we are still in Colorado.

After nearly an hour of driving generally west-northwest from Blue Mesa Reservoir, we were approaching Crawford and the surprisingly dramatic landscapes of this cattle town punctuated like an exclamation point by Needle Rock, a 35-million-year-old volcanic neck. Highway 92 meanders its way through Crawford and past the sturdy stonework fronting the newly recycled Community Center, then out of town over Crawford Mesa until it starts its descent into the North Fork Valley. As the route crosses the North Fork itself, it enters Hotchkiss and soon intersects with Highway 133 coming from Paonia to the east.

All the towns in the North Fork Valley have a common genetic code—agriculture based on good soils and sunshine, settled during the early statehood days of western Colorado. Any structures over 100 years old in this part of the country are considered ancient, and these towns qualify for senior citizenship on that account—they were all begun in the 1880s or so as service centers for the nascent farming and ranching that are such a big part of the land even today. This is not meant to discount or trivialize the thousands of years Native Americans used this place without much permanent visible impact. The villages in the Coulon Valley, on the other hand, are an order of magnitude older—they are well over 1,000 years old in many cases. For example, Gordes dates back to the fourth and fifth centuries (named Vordes by the Romans), and there is evidence that Ménerbes goes back to prehistoric times.

No one would confuse which towns are in Colorado and which in Provence if shown pictures from the North Fork Valley and the Luberon or Vaucluse. Most of the towns in the French selection are hilltop villages with a preponderance of ancient stone buildings and narrow, winding streets. The North Fork Valley towns are typically composed of clapboard houses with a few brick buildings for wealthier landowners. Most of the Provençal hill villages are overrun with tourists during the summer months; the American towns less so, although they are trying to catch up very quickly. Organizations such as chambers of commerce are making a concerted effort to bring in as many tourist dollars as possible. Although the physical construction and appearance of the towns and villages in the two regions are from different worlds, the residents are surprisingly alike; ignore the English-French language difference, and they would be hard to tell apart. Each place has a large number of farmers and a contingent of typical civil employees, but there is also a large collection of more “modern” professions in all the towns and villages. A quote from the Hotchkiss Chamber of Commerce site could be used for any of the towns in Colorado or Provence: “It’s hard to swing a stick in this valley without hitting an artist, two massage therapists, and a yoga instructor.” One might add that with the swing of the stick or perhaps a lasso one would also hit a cowboy, a sheepdog, two coal miners, a chef (or at least a sous chef) from France, and a barrel race winner. Both regions are experiencing an in-migration of well-to-do residents from near and far—Aspen, Vail, Denver, Texas, and California in the case of the North Fork and Paris, and other European Union countries—especially the United Kingdom—in the case of the Coulon.

Needle Rock is a volcanic neck that rises above the small town of Crawford. The rock is an icon of the area and the subject of many local artistic efforts.

The Colorado Towns

Hotchkiss is unpretentiously becoming the prototype for the evolving culture of the North Fork Valley. From all outside appearances it is a typical western farming community—one long main street, clean sidewalks along the main drag, 100-year-old buildings with sporadic new paint jobs, and the usual collection of small stores, cafés, family-owned groceries, and real estate offices. But on closer inspection it contains all the elements of the emerging cosmopolitan mix of new and old, high and low culture, and the spirit of optimism that permeates the entire valley.

A single issue of the North Fork Merchant Herald, a monthly paper published in Hotchkiss mostly to promote commerce and civic events, emphasizes this point. In the March 21–April 17, 2006, issue, the Herald’s regular section on “Valley Arts News” has announcements on the new Creamery Arts Center opening with galleries, an art reception, an artists’ yard sale, and a full agenda of art classes for kids and adults. Four pages later is an article on the Western Slope Environmental Resource Council, an organization that works toward a sustainable future for the valley. The article includes a sophisticated yet localized definition of sustainability—“Ensuring the social well-being of our communities while securing our natural endowment of ecological integrity, native biodiversity, and wildness of our public lands.” Seven pages later the “Cowboy Pome” section in the Herald includes Lazarus Washburn’s (a pseudonym for the paper’s editor) “Gout Festival”:

Downtown Hotchkiss with Mount Lamborn in the distance.

The festival committee

For the small mountain resort town

Met to plan

The summer schedule including

Three wine festivals

A mushroom picking and cooking festival

And a “slow foods” festival

Followed a few weeks later

By the annual Gout Festival.

Some of Lazarus’s poems are funny, some political, and others just plain irascible. But they all reflect the independent kind of libertarian philosophy that has been a hallmark of the West for more than 100 years. This particular poem gives a tongue-in-cheek (maybe) analysis of the “new” community and its trajectory into the future. A healthy give-and-take tension seems to exist between the “old-timers” and the new arrivals that might bode well for the town’s future. But an underlying fear for the area’s future was expressed in an offhand remark made to me by one of the newer residents: “the valley is becoming home to all the millionaires that are being pushed out of Aspen by the billionaires.”

Hotchkiss exudes a sense of small-town Americana, just as thousands of other towns do. But this first impression is to some extent a facade, and the town’s future is going in a direction many communities around the country would envy. This is a conservative community, welcoming to all who care to come and love the place but wary of outsiders who might view it as the next “happening” spot or who come to show the locals how things should be done. It has a rural lifestyle that accepts and sometimes enhances the cultural amenities of more urbane places. The town likes the past but reluctantly embraces the future like a child with some exotic new toy—not able to entirely fathom what it is all about but curious enough to want to play with it and see what happens. The current locals, however, want to be sure the place does not become just that exotic toy for the next arrivals.

Except for Joucas, discussed later in the chapter, Crawford is the smallest of the towns discussed in the two valleys, with barely over 300 people listed in the 2000 census. Unlike Joucas, Crawford is a bustling small community with little tourism that prides itself on being a typical American “cow town.” Crawford has only a few scattered bed-and-breakfasts, no hotels, and certainly no spas. The little town has been touched only slightly by the new lifestyles seen in the remainder of the North Fork Valley, especially in Paonia, Cedaredge, and Hotchkiss. When one drives in on Route 92 from the northern edge of the Black Canyon, the main street—called Dogwood Avenue—winds its way up from the valley of the Smith Fork River (a small tributary of the North Fork) through old stone and clapboard buildings. The upper level of Dogwood passes by the stone walls of the Crawford Community Center and soon leaves the western edge of town. If you drive slowly you will get through the town in less than two minutes. There is a bit of updating here, with a couple of revived restaurants and a new bridge going in over the Smith Fork, but it is still a ranch town with the feel of the West in every pore.

The old stone community center in the middle of Crawford.

It would be hard to find a better example of small-town America, with its Fourth of July fireworks display over the lake just south of town, the requisite Pioneer Days in June, “Render the Rock” art day in September where local artists spend the day creatively rendering Needle Rock, and the Village of Lights celebration in November. Springing up with some regularity are small glass-blowing studios and blacksmith shops that create decorative ironwork. But Crawford’s basic character is the same now as it was twenty-five to fifty years ago—a cattleman’s working town set in the morning shadows of Landsend Peak and the West Elk Wilderness. This working town is significantly less affluent than the rest of the valley, and there are few farmers at the higher elevation of Crawford Mesa—certainly not the boutique greenhouses with micro-greens for the Aspen market. The 3° F to 5° F cooler temperatures, later frost in the spring, and earlier frost in the fall preclude any delicate crops such as fruit trees or vineyards. The main crop on this 6,500-foot mesa is hay for cattle feed, with hay fields spreading out from the town in all directions.

Crawford is a place new residents can come to and learn to love, even if it takes a while to establish relationships with the locals. Eugenia Bone has written a funny, poignant book about her family’s move to Crawford from New York City. At Mesa’s Edge is the story of inexplicable changes in a diehard New Yorker and her slow evolution to a gun-toting, fly-fishing, fruit-canning ranch wife in an alien place that becomes home, or at least a second home that she loves. Those contemplating moving to Crawford should read this account very carefully before committing to such an adventure—and an adventure it would be. Then they should move as fast as possible because Crawford is that still-unspoiled kind of place that is sure to be discovered sooner rather than later.

Crawford exhibits the individualism and independence many expect of small western towns. One tiny artifact that reflects this independent spirit is seen on the official state sign announcing the entrance to Crawford from the west along Route 92. This sign states that the elevation is “6,800” feet (all Colorado communities have an elevation listed on the official Colorado Department of Transportation road signs that announce town limits). But someone, in neat, bold, black numbers, took it upon him- or herself to change the elevation to “6,549”—obviously at least one local wants accuracy and does not want to deal with the state bureaucracy to get the sign changed by highway authorities.

Hay fields that surround Crawford indicate that it is much higher than the farmland down in the North Fork Valley, where fruits and vegetables are the agricultural mainstay.

Bloom Tours, Cherry Days, the Mountain Harvest Festival—this is the face of Paonia that is rapidly overtaking the view the town had of itself for decades. For many years the town’s persona was one of a community immersed in the dirty, dangerous, extractive industry of coal mining. Many Paonians still make their living in the coal mines northeast of town, most near the small community of Somerset. The coal seams are in the Mesa Verde formation, the same formation seen all over western Colorado. Although coal mining has been Colorado’s unheralded mining enterprise, it is or has been very substantial and critical in places such as Crested Butte, Hayden, Craig, and Paonia. But Paonia is steadily trading its gritty reputation for a new, semisophisticated identity. Its economy has always had an agrarian side; now, however, the environs around Paonia are becoming the fruit/organic produce capital of the North Fork Valley and maybe even of western Colorado. Like the farmers around Hotchkiss, many growers here are moving toward organic and natural production.

In addition to the extensive orchard business is the exponential growth of very small (most under 10 acres) organic farms producing everything from garlic and grapes to beets and bell peppers to popcorn and pumpkins. One wet fall day we visited several small organic operations run mostly by recently arrived locals (recent being a relative term for anyone who has lived here for fewer than twenty years). One such farm was the Zephyros Farm and Garden, owned by a young couple with small children. They have several greenhouses in which they grow herbs, tomatoes, and cut flowers mostly for markets in the Roaring Fork Valley over McClure Pass to the east. They also raise goats for making goat cheese—much like the cheese found ubiquitously in Provence. This couple is well educated, and they are very dedicated organic growers who see this lifestyle as a sort of farming crusade to create a healthy earth and a nurturing place for families. Another of these farms was the Small Potatoes Farm just outside Paonia on Lamborn Mesa. We bought beautiful large braids of organic garlic fresh from the field that lasted us for months. We went back the next year and were devastated that the farmer had sold all her garlic by the beginning of October. This small plot of land also had the most exquisite patch of chili peppers I have ever seen. There seemed to be at least a dozen varieties of every imaginable, and some unimaginable, color growing intertwined like a wild chili thicket. The muddy field exhibited the reds, oranges, yellows, greens, pinks, and purples of these peppers in a collage of organic heat.

New-age agriculture is not the only ch...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• PROLOGUE
• PLACES
• THE LAND
• VILLAGES
• WINE
• FOOD
• SIGNATURES
• HIKING
• LA CHEVILLE (THE ANKLE) INCIDENT
• LANDSCAPE MISCELLANEA
• THE FINISH / C’EST FINI
• BIBLIOGRAPHY