BLM NEWS RELEASE — The California Trail Center presents a free talk on Peter Skene Ogden, one of the first documented European explorers to travel through northern Nevada, on Wednesday, April 11 at 7 p.m. by Bob Pearce, local historian and member of the Humboldt High Roaders.
During the winter of 1828-29 Ogden, working for the Hudson Bay Company, traveled from Fort Nez Perce in the Pacific Northwest south through central Oregon entering what would become Nevada near present day McDermitt. The purpose of the trip was to explore and defeat American competitors with a “scorched earth” policy of trapping all the beaver along the route.
Ogden described the Humboldt on his return trip: “The water in this river is very muddy, warm, and in my opinion very unwholesome, for in all my travels in the Snake Country the camp have never been so sickly as in this stream. Add to this from its source to its discharge in Unknown Lake on both sides is one continued swamp cover with frogs, toads, and garter snakes and this also I presume does not tend to render the water good and to render the assortment of reptiles complete. Rattlesnakes alone are wanting, if any, are very scarce, not one have I seen.”
The California Trail Interpretive Center, operated by the Bureau of Land Management, is eight miles west of Elko at Hunter exit 292. The center is closed for exhibit installation but will open for special events, school groups and prearranged tours and meetings. Visit www.californiatrailcenter.org or on.doi.gov/CTCElko or call (775) 738-1849 for more information.
