Black Canyon

The Black Canyon roadless area occupies the eastern slope of the White Mountains and the upper drainage of Black Canyon Creek, within territory that the Nüümü (Owens Valley Paiute) and Newe (Western Shoshone) peoples have identified as their ancestral homeland for more than three thousand years [5]. The Nüümü are known for their distinctive land management—constructing irrigation systems to enhance the growth of native plant foods in the Owens Valley below, and relying on a seasonal round that included hunting game, gathering pinon nuts in the White Mountains, fishing Sierra streams, and trading with neighboring groups [1]. The White Mountains formed a critical part of the seasonal upland resource zone for communities living along the Owens River, providing pinon groves, game, and summer pasture that were integrated into annual subsistence cycles.

Euro-American contact arrived in the region's eastern margins comparatively late. Explorer and trapper Peter Skene Ogden may have traversed portions of Owens Valley during his 1826–27 expedition, and Joseph Reddeford Walker led parties through the valley in 1833–34, hugging the Sierra foothills northward through the basin before turning east into Nevada [2]. The reports from these early travelers described a valley dominated by the Paiute, whose irrigation-enhanced grasslands and fishing sites impressed at least some observers. By the late 1850s, California Army captain J.W. Davidson reported that the Paiute had made "portions of their Country, which otherwise were Desert, to bloom and blossom as the rose" [1].

Conflict began with the arrival of miners and stockmen in the early 1860s. A severe drought in California's Central Valley drove cattle and sheep operators eastward into Owens Valley in search of grazing land beginning around 1859–1861 [3]. Mining speculation in the White Mountains and surrounding Inyo Mountains followed quickly: gold was discovered near the foothills east of Independence, and by 1862 the San Carlos Mining and Exploration Company had established a camp near the base of the Inyo Mountains. Mining camps—Owensville, San Carlos, and Bend City—grew along the Owens River in 1862–1863 [3]. Military intervention to protect mining operations led to intensifying conflicts with the Paiute; in 1863 approximately 1,000 Paiute were forcibly removed to Fort Tejon, south of Bakersfield [1]. Many eventually returned to the valley, where they integrated wage labor with traditional food gathering, and by the 1880s they constituted much of the agricultural workforce in the region [2].

The White Mountains above Owens Valley drew sheepherders from the Basque community and other stockmen who drove flocks into the high country for summer grazing through the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Inyo County was organized in 1866, and by 1886 promotional literature described more than 82,000 acres available for cultivation in the broader valley [2]. The Inyo National Forest was established by presidential proclamation on May 25, 1907, under President Theodore Roosevelt, consolidating federal management of the forested mountain lands east and west of Owens Valley [4]. The Black Canyon area fell within the White Mountain Ranger District of the new forest. The Bureau of Indian Affairs established Indian schools in the Owens Valley by 1900, and the contemporary Bishop Paiute, Big Pine Paiute, and Fish Lake Valley Paiute tribes maintain cultural and legal connections to these White Mountain landscapes [5].