Get out there and have fun

(Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the Festivals 07 issue of Mammoth Monthly magazine. Subscribe here.)

There's a reason why this week's Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua is not called a "birding festival," or "birdfest" or some such other tag.

"We've always wanted this to be really a true Chautauqua," said Bartshe Miller, a staff member of the Mono Lake Committee. He is one of a handful of planners who have made this Lee Vining festival one of the premier events of the early summer in the Eastern Sierra.

"The Chautauqua isn't a typical bird festival by any stretch," he said, "and we've done pretty good at not making a typical bird festival since it started seven years ago. That was our intent from the beginning."

Chautauqua (pronounced sha-TA-kwa) was an adult education movement that was popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in rural sections of the United States. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s.

A Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers, and specialists of the day.

Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying that Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America."

In that spirit, the Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua, this year June 15-17, will present a historical theme to go with the myriad birding hikes, lectures and presentation.

First up is Lee Stetson, the famous John Muir impersonator from Midpines, Mariposa County. Stetson has been doing his performance for years in Yosemite Valley.

"People were enthralled by this madman in the woods," Stetson said in a 2004 interview with Mammoth Monthly author Suzanne Hurt, "and that he was so eloquent and passionate about his love of wilderness."

The performance is a little unsettling for students of Muir, who might swear he has returned in the person of Stetson.

"A long white beard hangs from his face like moss on an old growth redwood," wrote Hurt in the magazine.

"A faint Scottish accent creeps into Stetson's conversation now and then, but it's nothing like the full-on brogue he uses to play Muir, a Scottish immigrant. Like Muir, Stetson is articulate, educated and shy.

"He seems more quiet and reserved than his impersonation of the wilderness wordmeister would lead one to believe."

Less known is Georg Wilhelm Steller (March 10, 1709 - November 14, 1746), a German botanist, zoologist, physician and explorer who worked in Russia and present-day Alaska. The ubiquitous Steller's Jay is named for him, and Yosemite Institute's Pete Devine impersonates him.

His story is compelling, to say the least.

Steller was appointed as naturalist on Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition, to chart the Siberian coast of the Arctic Ocean and search an eastern passage to North America.

During this time Steller became the first European naturalist to describe a number of North American plants and animals, including a jay later named Steller's Jay.

On the return journey the expedition was shipwrecked on what later became known as Bering Island. Here Bering died, and almost half of the crew perished from scurvy. The remaining men settled in to survive the winter, the camp plagued by Arctic Foxes.

During this time Steller wrote De Bestiis Marinis, describing the fauna of the island, including the Northern Fur Seal, the Sea Otter, Steller's (or Northern) Sea Lion, Steller's Sea Cow, Steller's Eider and Spectacled Cormorant. Both the Sea Cow and the Cormorant were later hunted to extinction.

"Imagine John Muir combined with Sir Ernest Shackleton and you've got G.W. Steller – and now you can meet 'him' here in Lee Vining," the Chautauqua says on its Web site.

Combined with the extensive array of hikes, many of which are led by well-known and experienced birders, the Chautauqua this year has loads of promise.

Said Miller:

"It is a Chautauqua, and we try to stay in the tradition of that event, throwing in an eclectic mix. We have a little music, we have a little art and this year we're throwing in some history as well."

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When: June 15-17
Where: Lee Vining
Tickets: Basic, $50; Unlimited, $70; Kids 12 and under free
Web Registration: www.birdchautauqua.com.
Questions? Call Lisa Cutting or Bartshe Miller at 760-647-6595.