The Grandmother Rocks

On the one lane bridge.

Today, my son and I took a spring break day trip to Sutter’s Mill, otherwise known as the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, in Coloma. It’s only an hour’s car ride away, but it was his first time there. It is easy to feel a little pang of parental guilt over that. How is it that we had never visited, when it is relatively so close? There should not be any state parks within a one hour driving time that he has not seen, since we have lived here for oh, the last nine years or so, and state parks are one of the great gifts of this place.

I packed a picnic of sandwiches, oranges, and cold lime fizzy waters. Biscuit, the blanket stealing dog, rode along. Mainly, it seemed important to get out of the house, to do something that might set this day apart from all our other spring break days. We have a week for spring break, but we hadn’t done anything yet that felt special at all. Each day, it seemed, brought some kind of business that had to be taken care of. I had to drive to town for a little work (which I am always grateful for), or the dog had an appointment for his yearly checkup and vaccinations (you don’t want to let the rabies vaccine get too overdue), or we had to stay close to home in case my son’s new cell phone might finally arrive in the mail, which it did, late Monday morning, much to his joy.

It was a beautiful day. The American River rolls alongside the park. There is an historic one lane bridge that crosses it, so you can explore both sides.There are picnic tables and barbeque grills, paths down to the water, and rocks to sit on in the sun. There is a replica of Sutter’s Mill, which was only important in the grand scheme of things because back in the 1840s, when John Sutter was trying to start his agricultural empire, it wasn’t working properly and in the repair they dredged up the river bed which revealed the gold.

We took a walking tour with a knowledgeable ranger who talked about invasive plants (including Himalayan blackberries! And Breath of Heaven trees. And Black Locust trees, all of which I have regularly complained about on these pages, so that made me feel a little less alone in my plant angst). We walked past the “Grandmother Rocks,” where women from the Nisenan tribe ground acorns for food. The ranger said that the deep holes in the grinding rocks indicate that the Nisenan had been in the area for at least 1000 years, probably more, living gently on the land, before the white settlers arrived.

We all know how that turned out for the native Americans.

The gold discovery didn’t do much for Sutter and Marshall, either. They both died in poverty. The discovery of the gold ruined their dreams, really. It syphoned off their workers, who weren’t content to make what was a fair wage of $1.00 a day at the time, when they could have a chance of discovering gold.

In the end, though, the people who really got rich off the gold rush were the people who sold the picks and axes and shovels, who ran the bars and hotels.  Not the dreamers who converged on Coloma, more than 300,000 people at the peak, living in tents that filled the valley.

I tried to imagine 300,000  people there, along that lovely river, in the fields and forests where the Nisenan had thrived for more than 1000 years. The miners must have done so much damage to that place. It must have broken the Nisenan’s hearts.

And though it is not surprising, it also makes me a little cranky that the whole place is named after James Marshall, who accidentally found the gold.  Like, hurray for you, James! You get big time recognition and a park named after you, also a ginormous statute bearing your likeness with you pointing toward the exact spot where you found the gold, all because of something that you never set out to do in the first place. Also, this discovery dislocated and basically destroyed an entire tribe of people. And it didn’t turn out that well for you, either, in the end. Or for the thousands and thousands who converged on that place.

Still, I was glad to visit today, to learn about the history, to have a day with my son in the sun at a place that was new to him, and basically new to me, since I hadn’t been there since my third or fourth grade field trip years ago. I am grateful that the ranger giving our walking tour made a special point to tell us about the Nisenan tribe and their customs and ways. I’m glad he showed us those “Grandmother Rocks,” where the women met to grind the acorns. I am glad that these remain, in spite of it all, reminding us of a time when people lived in community, honored the land, and thrived without destroying it, for thousands of years.

What would it mean to rename this lovely park?  Instead of immortalizing James Marshall, we could honor the women who gathered at the grinding rocks. Call it the “Grandmother Rocks State Discovery Park.”  Instead of including the rocks just as an interesting part of a walking tour, the rocks could be cordoned off, protected, and honored for how they help us remember: that there was a time before gold when both the earth and people flourished. That gold cannot fix anything that is wrong with us. That it really is just a mineral that is worthless compared to the wisdom of those who knew how to live without ruining everything.  Maybe the park could become a place where we listened to that wisdom.  Maybe that could help the things that are broken in us to heal.