I have made many trips throughout the western United States, and a few places standout amongst all those wanderings. One of those places is Utah.
I have traveled extensively throughout Utah and found that not only are there enjoyable things to do, but there are many, many adventures that others outside of Utah simply don’t know about.
One of the things I've found in talking to tourists who have visited Utah and even people who live there full time is that most of them are fairly ignorant of the extensive Native American ruins and pictographs throughout central and southern Utah.
One such place is down near Price, Utah in a place known as Nine Mile Canyon. After a short drive through the desert you reach a beautiful canyon that hosts many different pictographs on the canyon walls. Most are not marked with signs of any kind, you just have to keep your eyes open and look for them. If you are diligent you will find them, and they sometimes are in very unusual locations.
Imagine, if you will, the native Fremont Indians climbing the cliff walls to put there mark upon them, never knowing that these many years later, their culture would have disappeared and an entirely new one would exist on top of the locations they lived, worked and played in.
The Fremont culture did farm, in some places, though there did seem to be wandering bands of hunter/gatherer’s as well. It seems where there were resources to exploit the Fremont Indians would establish communities that would last as long as there was water and arable land. Other than this, their pictographs are almost all that we know of them; less than a handful of perishable items have survived and a more sizable amount of unique types of pottery.
Though we don’t know much about the Fremont culture, we do know they were probably pushed out of their environs by migrating tribe’s of what is called the “Numic Speaking” Native American’s who later became the Ute, Paiute and Shoshone people’s. This was a natural migration, brought on by a combination of factors including population pressures and water availability.
Regardless of what we know, or rather, don’t know, about the Fremont culture, I highly recommend a trip to south and central Utah for yourself to experience the mystery of the Fremont Indians for yourself.
