Pioneer Christmas program at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort

Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Park

 

LAS VEGAS — Celebrate the season and Nevada’s historical heritage at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park. The park will be hosting two Christmas-themed celebrations in December.

On Saturday, December 6, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. the park’s hands-on history program for children continues with a Christmas at Los Vegas Rancho, the name of the fort in 1860s. Families will enjoy this authentic historical Christmas, and children will make old-fashioned tree ornaments to take home. A living history program will take place when O.D. Gass, an historic character from 1865, visits the Rancho like he did at Christmas many years ago.
 
The park is also hosting its second annual Pioneer Christmas celebration on Friday, December 12, 2008 from 5:30 p.m. through 7:30 p.m. Visitors will experience a 1860’s-style Christmas with Civil War soldiers, pioneer families, mountain men, spinners and weavers. This family friendly “Pioneer Christmas” celebration will include refreshments, live music, pictures with Santa, Dutch-oven cobblers and campfire marshmallows.                                                                                                                                        
The “Festival of Trees” and a Christmas train scene by the Las Vegas Railroad Club will be on display from Saturday, December 6 to Saturday December 13. The park will be collecting canned food for those less fortunate during this time.
 
Entrance fees to the park include all the featured program activities and are only $1 for visitors over the age of 12. Children 12 and under are free.
 
Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park is located on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue at 500 East Washington Avenue. For more information, call 702-486-3511.

Boies Ranches receive landscape stewardship commendation

[Submitted news release.] 

Steve and Robin Boies, of Elko County, Nevada, were presented with the Public Lands Foundation’s (PLF) Commendation and Certificate of Appreciation for their efforts in community based landscape stewardship on public land administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management  at a special ceremony at ranch headquarters on November 18, 2008. Tom Allen of the PLF, a national conservation organization, made the presentation at the meeting at the ranch.

“Boies Ranches has shown extraordinary initiative aimed at trying to spark a new way of dealing with natural resource management that advocates productive working relationships between agencies, land users, special interest groups, and other interested parties to peacefully resolve land use conflicts and lead to improved resource conditions that benefit all parties.

“The Boies family’s efforts do not stop at the boundaries of their ranch. Members of the family have traveled extensively to take part in various workshops, to spread their experiences to other parties, and to learn new techniques and concepts that can be applied in theft operations and on other landscapes in Nevada. We are pleased to be able to honor Boies Ranches for their efforts,” said Tom Allen, PLF representative in making the award.

In nominating Boies Ranches for the award, Ken Miller, the BLM’s Elko District Manager explained that Boies Ranches has consistently demonstrated a substantial commitment of time and effort in improving the land and the resources on it. Boies Ranches became an active participant in the Shoesole group, which is named after a historic brand of one of the larger historic ranch operations in the region.

Mountain pine beetles up the threat to region’s forests and urban trees

   

Gail Durham, Nevada Division of Forestry, shows bark beetle damage on a pine tree.

 
Forestry officials recommend steps for storing firewood in order to avoid infestations

View a slideshow here.

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Sierra Nevada forests are approaching what could become an epidemic of pine beetle infestations. Swaths of forests in the Western U.S. and Canada have been decimated by the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), and Nevada officials are seeing more trees this year killed by the beetles in Sierra forests.

“After two years of drought, mountain pine beetles and pine engraver (Ips pini) beetles have been found in the dense stands of lodgepole pines in the Mount Rose area west of Reno,” said Pete Anderson, state forester with the Nevada Division of Forestry. “Both of these species can attack pine trees in urban areas.”

Truckee River Operating Agreement signing ceremony

U.S. Senator Harry Reid, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Chair Mervin Wright gather for the signing of the Truckee River Operating Agreement. This video also features a welcome from Reno Mayor Bob Cashell.