To mark the nation's 250th birthday, host Dave Schlom is joined by California State University Chico geography professor Don Hankins to discuss what California would have been like in 1776.
Hankins is a pyrogeographer, a scientist who studies the role of fire on the landscape, and he's also a Miwok traditional cultural practitioner with deep ancestral roots.
Dave and Don discuss how different California would have been at the dawn of European colonization as a land that was stewarded actively by a diverse population of indigenous peoples.
Summers would have appeared far greener, grizzly bears roamed the coastal and inland valleys and salmon would have been incredibly plentiful. As we pause to reflect on our nation's birthday, it's also worth thinking about what our place in space was like 250 years ago!
