Pioneer Country

October 7, 2021

Hurricane, Utah

What’s the difference between a settler and an invader? Who gets to decide who can occupy any particular part of the planet?

I left my Bay Area home on October 1 for a four week road trip to the five national parks in Utah: Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches. It took me two days to drive from Sonoma County to this small town outside of Zion, where I’m staying for a week to hike in the spectacular mountains and canyons of this desert park. But I’m also here to get a feel for the history of the Old West and for the contemporary culture of Mormon-dominated Utah.

Driving in Nevada from Fernley (outside of Reno) to Ely on Highway 50, I could understand why 50 is called The Loneliest Road in America. This highway across the Great Basin goes through a desolate, dry, empty landscape of mountains and deserts. If California is the Golden State, then Nevada should be called the Brown State. Apparently trees are illegal in that part of Nevada. I went for long periods of seeing no other cars, and while I appreciated the stark beauty of the landscape, I also felt vulnerable in case my 2004 Toyota Camry with 228,000 miles on it should break down in the middle of nowhere.

At one point I saw a billboard that said something like “Welcome to the Heart of the Pony Express Route,” and it showed a map tracing the path of the relays of mounted young men carrying mail across Nevada to California from 1860 to 1861. I got the impression that not a whole lot has happened in that part of the state since the glory days of the Pony Express.

I liked the little mountain town of Eureka, with its charming old buildings. I spoke with several people, all polite, but almost no one wore pandemic masks, indoors or out. And I saw a large Trump/Pence sign outside a bar. In Eureka or another mountain town I saw a big sign near a Baptist church that said, “If you don’t like the life you were born with, try being born again.” Somehow I don’t think they were promoting reincarnation.

Like Eureka, Ely has some quaint vintage buildings, along with at least one Trump sign prominently displayed, and a small minority of mask wearers. My motel room was new, clean, and nice, with an extensive list of TV stations but no PBS channel. It did have, among others, Fox News and CNN, along with God TV, the Church Channel, Disney, Free Speech TV (whatever that is), and Jewelry Television. I decided to go to bed early.

The next day I headed south on Highway 93, near the Utah border, where I was soon informed by a sign that I should “Report shootings from the highway” by calling a toll-free number. Not long after that I was greeted by another sign saying “Welcome to Pioneer Country.” Maybe those two signs are related. At first I thought that Pioneer Country referred to the Pony Express and the early miners and ranchers of Nevada and Utah. And maybe it did. But many of those early settlers were Mormons, and now I wonder if the sign was really saying “Welcome to Mormon Country.”

At the little town of Panaca I headed east on Highway 319, which turned into Highway 56 at the Utah border. There I encountered a large billboard that declared “Welcome to Utah: Life Elevated.” I interpreted “life elevated” to be a not-so-subtle Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints) message that their religion enables one to be on a higher moral plane. I was soon to learn just how uplifted the behavior of some Mormons has been.

From Highway 56 I took Highway 18 south to St. George, but I stopped in the mountains along the way to visit the infamous site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. At that location a wagon train of about 140 emigrants traveling from Arkansas to California was ambushed and slaughtered by about 60 well-armed Mormon militiamen and some Paiute men recruited by the Mormons with promises of plunder. The Arkansas families circled their wagons and held out for five days, but when their ammunition and water almost ran out they were approached by some militiamen carrying a white flag of truce. The Mormons, who had been disguised as Indians to conceal their identities and deflect any possible blame, assured the emigrants that they (the Mormons) had negotiated a truce with the Indians, and that the emigrants would be safe if they surrendered. The emigrants handed over their weapons, and once they did so all of the men and women and most of the children were butchered by their fellow Christians and the Paiutes. Their bodies were stripped of clothing and left to be eaten by wild animals or rot in the sun, and the clothing, cattle, and horses of the families were looted by the militiamen.

Why did the Latter Day Saints commit mass murder? Partly from greed, but mostly from paranoia that outsiders might be invading Utah Territory, as well as general Mormon distrust of strangers. It is widely believed by many historians and others that Mormon leader Brigham Young organized or at least gave permission for the massacre.

Walking around the various memorials to the victims at the killing fields, I felt angry at the treachery and cruelty of the Latter Day Saints, and sad and depressed at the horror and suffering of the families and especially the small children, some of whom survived. I offered prayers for the dead at each memorial, and even said a prayer for the deluded and spiritually sick Mormon murderers. My prayers were my version of “life elevated.”

Leaving behind the tragedy of pioneers killing pioneers, I headed up Interstate 15 to Highway 9 and the town of Hurricane, where I’m staying during my Zion sojourn. I first came to Hurricane in 1979 while hitchhiking from Berkeley to Denver with my friend John. On a side trip to Zion we were given a ride by a rancher in a pickup truck, who told us he’d take us where we were going if we didn’t mind riding in the back with his dead cow. We accepted. The cow wasn’t very friendly, but we didn’t take it personally.

The original settlers of this part of Utah were the Ancestral Pueblans, followed by the Southern Paiutes. When Mormon settlers arrived, they called themselves pioneers when they took the land from the Indians. The pioneers named this land Zion, which means the Promised Land of safety, security, and abundance. But apparently God only promised the land to one kind of people, and it wasn’t the Indians.

I’m familiar with the pioneer mentality, because I once considered myself a pioneer as well. The Japanese Buddhist group to which I belonged for 15 years in my youth considered itself to be pioneers of a new Buddhist civilization that would inspire America with a more enlightened philosophy of happiness that would eventually supplant Christianity as the dominant religion of the United States. We even sang a song that celebrated our eventual spiritual conquest of America:

We sing and we laugh and we do shakubuku [proselytizing], viva the pioneers!

We fight together for kosen rufu [Buddhist utopia], viva the pioneers!

Viva the, viva the, pioneers, viva the, viva the, pioneers, pioneers, pioneers, viva the pioneers!

We didn’t kill any emigrants or Indians, but the mindset wasn’t much different from the Latter Day Saints: our religion is better than yours. So I can’t feel too morally superior to the Mormons’ or anyone else’s pioneer spirit, because I’ve seen where my own gung-ho naivete led me.

Zion National Park is magnificent with its sheer red cliffs, green river valley, narrow canyons, blue skies, and white clouds. So far I’ve spent four days hiking in this desert oasis. I’m so grateful to the National Park Service for preserving and protecting this gorgeous country from would-be pioneers who would exploit it for their selfish gain. I may no longer be a pioneer, but I am an explorer, and I have several more days of hiking ahead of me here before I move on to Bryce.