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Land (1975-2002)

In some ways, singer-songwriter Patti Smith seems an unlikely choice for a full-bore anthology. After all, she's had only one charting single with "Because the Night." Even at that time, most people probably were more familiar with Gilda Radner's spot-on parody of her on Saturday Night Live than with Smith herself. Yet her influence both on the fledgling NYC punk scene and as a protofeminist poet renders her something of an American counterculture icon. As such, Land (1975-2002) serves to frame an uncompromising career spanning four decades. Split over two discs and featuring 31 tracks and almost two-and-a-half hours of music, Land begins with a survey of Smith's studio albums, relying most heavily on 1978's Easter. All the greats are here--"Dancing Barefoot," "People Have the Power," "Gloria," "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger," "Frederick," and of course, "Because the Night," plus a newly recorded version of Prince's "When Doves Cry," one of two songs cut specifically for this collection. The second disc is where fans--who were solicited for track selection input via gigs and the Web--get the goods. Early demos, among them 1974's coveted "Piss Factory," plus two other pre-Horses recordings, "Redondo Beach" and "Distance Fingers," kick things off. What follows is a batch of previously unreleased live recordings--"Dead City," "Spell," "Boy Cried Wolf"--most captured during a 2001 tour through the U.S. and Europe, and studio outtakes. Smith herself helped remaster the recordings while stacking the accompanying booklet with fans' photos and the like. Land probably won't spark a Smith renaissance, but loyalists can marvel at an artist who's never turned a fast buck by easing up on the sweat, tears, hunger, and integrity that inform every one of these tracks. --Kim Hughes

On our jet boat trip and through Hells Canyon from Pittsburg Landing, we stopped at Kirkland Ranch on the way up the river for a leg stretch. We did the same at Sheep Creek Ranch on the way down the river. They had lots of old farm equipment around the ranch.

I love the "character" of old barns, such as this one. These were labor intense projects to build in this remote and isolated location.

Notice the rock "fence". In Hells Canyon you have plenty of stone material, likely cleared off the pasture and garden areas. According to the well researched and well written book: "Snake River of Hells Canyon" by Johnny Carrey, Cort Conley, & Ace Barton:

William McLeod first homesteaded this bench of the Snake River. William was a Scotsman and civil war veteran. William made this lonely place in Hells Canyon home in 1884. He cleared four acres of land and built a small stone home to live in. He had fruit trees and in addition to the more familiar "wild game" often ate Snake River sturgeon. He built a pole barn, then roofed with shakes. He lived at his canyon homestead until in old age he suffered burns from a fire in his cabin and had to move out of his canyon ranch to Riggins to live out his life.

The Sheep Creek ranch was then bought by the McGaffees, who brought sheet tin up river by boat for the roof of their pole barn. Lenora Barton was the next owner of the ranch (1935). Her son, Ace Barton (one of the three authors of the book), rebuilt the McGafee barn and it is likely that the barn in this photo was the one built by Ace. In 1952 Lenora Barton sold the ranch to Bud Wilson, who eventually transferred ownership to the U.S. Forest Service.

As I look at this barn I can see the work and pride involved as each hammer struck against a nail, echoed through the canyon. Like all of us, each owner of this place, had their dreams, their happy moments, and of course - - sad ones too. It would be difficult to leave a place that you had built yourself or where you had raised your kids.

[Buildings don't last long but memories do. OMT]

This shot (looking south by south west) is from a high point in the Hamilton hills. Within this shot are the homestead lands of Jim Bridge, Joe Eustler, Barney & Jake Stallman as well as Louis Lawrence, Charlie Bridge and Jim Edwards. (All passed on now) This country was claimed from about 1900 on to around 1913. Prior to that it was range land used by Peck & Converse Cattle Co.
In The twenties the banks went around and loaned all the homesteader a thousand dollars to make improvements using the land as collateral. Many lost their homesteads. Other homesteads were sold by the wives when the husband died. Some died young. For those that lasted it was a source of pride to them to have held onto their places through rough times and often great hardships.
In the mid west 320 acres was an ample amount of farm land to make a living on. However in this western part of the United States it took around 5000 acres during the 50's and 60's to get by.
In my opinion getting people out on the land to homestead was a bit of a propaganda scheme similar to what Steinbeck talked about in the Grapes of Wrath. It all sounded wonderful and they were determined. By the time the homesteaders had gone through 2 or 3 winters they were woke up to some hard realities. Those that hung on made it doing what ever they could. Many would have starved out except for wild game, the neighbor's cattle and Moonshine stills. In fact a couple of illegal stills were likely contained within this photo. One I was told was situated in a draw just to left of the ant hill near the center of this photo
The two lessons that were passed down to me is that men went broke when their wives went to town to much and never to mortgage the land once it was paid for. The livestock or equipment maybe, but never the land!
Today this land is owned by what was once a large family corporation on who's original homestead they struck the first oil well in the Lance Creek field.

Kip—a New York jazz pianist whose career was cut short by a neurological disease—returns from a failed suicide attempt with a vivid, detailed memory of his journey through the afterlife. Resembling the world as he knows it, but unlimited in space and time, it’s unlike any eternity he has contemplated. Its residents are those who choose not to reincarnate, which would erase all memory of who they once were. Kip has a quest: to find his beloved Lucy, a yoga teacher who shared his apartment for years but died of leukemia before he took his own life. Is she still here? Has she waited for him, or “gone back” to become someone else? In his odyssey across centuries and locales (Istanbul to the Marquesas Islands, India to Oklahoma and New Guinea) to find her, Kip is guided by Walt Whitman—who urges him to write this memoir on his return.