Let’s go exploring!
Hi, I’m Steve Patterson. I am a restoration ecologist and biogeographer. I’ve been teaching and organizing workshops, field trips, conferences, and ecological design charrettes for over 30 years. Early in that time period, I taught university courses on biogeography, people and earth’s ecosystems, and ethnobiogeography at UCLA (where I did my graduate study) and other colleges.
Workshops, Field Trips & Courses for 2023
Norman floating wetlands workshop, Part 2
Along the Arkansa River, from the Poteau to Three Forks
Past Workshops & Courses
Once and Future Prairies of Fort Smith & the Arkansas River Valley. June 29, 2019. – with Jay Randolph and Theo Wittsell. This trip will concentrate on the history, ecology, and plants of the native tallgrass prairies of the area. Thomas Nuttall visited and described Massard, Long, and Cedar prairies in 1819. Two hundred years later, we will visit prairie patches surviving today, including one protected by Arkansas Natural Heritage, and explore Jay’s work restoring tallgrass prairie at Ben Geren Regional Park. Saturday June 29, 2019, 9am to 4pm. Meet at 9am at the Ben Geren Golf Course Pro Shop, 7200 Zero St, Fort Smith, AR 72903. Bring a sack lunch and plan to carpool.
Register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/once-and-future-prairies-of-fort-smith-and-the-arkansas-river-valley-tickets-62811235095
Nuttall South: Southeastern Oklahoma in 1819 & Today.
May 17 & 18, 2019. While staying at Fort Smith (at the confluence of the Poteau River with the Arkansas) Nuttall traveled south to the Red River, to where the Kiamichi enters the Red. With partners Jona Tucker and Amy Buthod we will follow his trail over and through the Ouachitas and down to the Red. – A two-day trip, May 17 & 18, 2019. Registration now open on the KTC website.
From Old Fort Smith to the Winding Stair Mountains: A Bicentennial Field Trip Celebrating Thomas Nuttall’s Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory. April 27, 2019. Explore the landscape of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma through the eyes of the first scientist to visit the area, on the 200th anniversary of his trip! On April 24, 1819, as the English botanist Thomas Nuttall worked his way up the Arkansas River by boat, he passed the “hills of Lee’s creek,” he got his first glimpse of “the garrison” a few miles upstream. At the same time could see in the distance “…a conic mountain nearly as blue as the sky, [and called] by the French traders, Point de Sucre, or or the sugar loaf.” Nuttall spent six weeks botanizing and exploring using the original Fort Smith as his base. His observations of plants, animals, geology, and other aspects of life were recorded in a journal.
On the closest Saturday to 200 years after he arrived, we will examine the prairies, woodlands, and river landscapes he describes. Nuttall spent over a month living with the soldiers at the early, first Fort Smith, taking day trips out into the surrounding landscape. We will retrace his steps and use his journal entries to fuel our ecological imaginations as we seek to envision what land and life was like in 1819, how it has changed, and perhaps, where we are going in the next 200 years. We’ll visit the site of the old fort and learn what was happening in history that led to its establishment, view efforts to restore River Valley tallgrass prairies that are using Nuttall as a guide, see remnants of old trails that became roads, and explore how generations of mowing native hay meadows have conserved patches of once vast prairies.
A box lunch and bus transportation will be provided. Even if you joined us in previous years, travel with us again as we include new stops and continue to explore the ecology and history of this beautiful region!
This trip is run through Kiamichi Technology Center. Saturday April 27, 2019. Registration opens Thanksgiving 2018 at http://bis.ktc.edu (Once there, search for Nuttall).
