Blog Prompt #1

Boise: the city of trees.

It was given this name by the Frenchmen who accompanied Captain Bonneville on his expedition out west in 1833. After weeks of trudging through high desert, the Boise River and the trees growing from its banks were a welcome site. The only reason Boise remains a city of trees today is thanks to irrigation. Take away the water and Boise succumbs to the Owyhee desert’s dusty sagebrush fingers. Travel too far west of Boise and the landscape turns to twisting volcanic rock and low shrubs populated by ticks, jackrabbits, snakes, grouse, and ground squirrels. I never liked this desert. It’s always seemed too barren, too monochromatic, too harsh.
Until Lincoln declared it a territory in 1863, Idaho was of minimal interest to anyone because of this. It was merely a pit stop for settlers or prospectors on their way to Oregon or California. Even though we struck gold, and later silver, in the north, most people remained uninterested.
Boise wasn’t much of anything until Major Pinkney Lugenbeel built Fort Boise, his military outpost, in the foothills. Shortly thereafter, settlers began building houses. They intended to stay a while. Their houses lasted only a few generations. Most of them are gone now, destroyed by harsh desert conditions and lack of care.
Eventually, sprawling farms and a bustling town emerged from the dust and sagebrush. In early July, 1890, Boise became the 43rd state to enter the union. But we were still a farming state, a thoroughfare for people on their way to somewhere else, and we were glad to let them keep going.

Because of the adversity of farming in desert and thanks to years of being ignored, Boiseans are a tenacious and self reliant breed. But we are also a kindly people. I am no different- stubborn, hard-headed, competitive, and yet compassionate.
We take pride in the small-town feel of our city while still offering as many amenities as we can. We work hard to treat the land well and we resist the influences of the larger capital cities. We plant trees and maintain parks and roadside landscaping in town.

Like the French explorers, I too am glad for trees. I grew up playing in arbavidas, which are conifers used as natural fences because of their penchant for growing taller rather than rounder, and climbing in Japanese maples that had grown unnaturally large for their species. The maples in our backyard proved hardy enough to withstand the onslaught of a determined gymnast practicing her bar routine in its branches. These trees are my home. I used to spend hours each day climbing them and sitting in the crook of their arms reading. I examined their leaves in all seasons, whether from the top branch or by leaping into piles of them on the ground. The gardens too were my habitat. I sat among the rhododendrons growing used to their bitingly woody smell and watched goldfish dart about in the pond we dug that sat in the shade of a towering pine. I examined pond scum under my microscope and sat for hours with a dried corn husk in my hands, trying to lure in squirrels. This was the backyard where many adventures were concocted, cuts and scrapes were earned, and persistence proved to be a good thing- I finally got a squirrel.

http://www.cityofboise.org/CityGovernment/VisitingBoise/