Registration is now open on the Kiamichi Technology Center website for our two day trip retracing Thomas Nuttall’s path from Fort Smith to the Red River in May 1819.
Go to: https://ktcbis.augusoft.net, select Poteau Campus, and then Personal Enrichment to reach the course description and enroll:
Nuttall South: Southeastern Oklahoma in 1819 and Today
ID : 7961
Explore the landscape of southeastern Oklahoma, of the future Choctaw Nation, in 1819, a decade before the Long Walk, and today, two hundred years later.
In the middle of May in 1819, the English botanist, Thomas Nuttall left Fort Smith traveling south. He traversed the Ouachita Mountains and the coastal plain, all the way to the Red River. The first scientist in the European tradition to explore southeastern Oklahoma, he left a journal describing his travel–wildflowers, fire, bear, bison, prairies, oxbow lakes, and salt springs. He described a rich, though largely unpopulated, land. Why no people? Join us to learn more!
The Poteau River and the Kiamichi River valleys are inverse images of each other, sibling river systems on opposite sides of the Winding Stair Mountains. (The Winding Stair appellation, by the way, dates back to the trail Nuttall traveled to cross them. Come with us on this trip and hear more about that!) We will explore both the Poteau and Kiamichi River valleys, their past, present, and possible futures on this two-day field excursion.
Co-leading this trip with me will be Jona Tucker, US Forest Service, and Amy Buthod, OU & Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory.
8am – 5pm, Friday & Saturday, May 17 & 18, 2019.
Cost: $80 (includes lunch both days and a seat on the bus). Senior discounts available.