I
grew up on the Little Salmon River in the heart of Idaho. While it can seem
like a timbered area, it is fairly hot and dry in the summer. If you float down
the river about fourteen, fifteen miles from where I lived you will meet the
little town of Riggins. You won’t see many trees there and it has a high desert
climate, though there is very little, if any, sage brush. The average rainfall
there is around 20 inches or just under, so if it didn’t get so hot in the
summer it would have less of that desert look but it’s nestled deep in canyon
walls that intensify the summer sun. While you won’t just spot cactus growing
on the hillsides, there are little Prickly Pear growing there.
Since
everywhere else around there is forested I became fascinated with the cactus
growing on the hillsides near my home town. I also had an uncle who lived in
Tucson, Arizona. My fascination and love of the Saguaro Cactus stems from those
things. I love those giant cacti that can grow as high as 40 feet. The thought
that you can walk around the Sonoran Desert and tap into one of those monstrous
cacti and get liquid sustenance has always fascinated me. But to walk around
much on a day over 100 degrees does not appeal to me, so I’ve never needed to
tap into a Saguaro.
The
Saguaro is a very unusual species of cactus that is limited to the Sonoran Desert.
Even though you will see pictures of it
somewhere in every little desert town in the west it can only be found in
southern Arizona and a little patch of southeastern California and the Mexican
state of Sonora. Funny that such a specifically placed cactus has become a
symbol of the American west. But, then again as I said, cactus grows all over
in the west so why not use the king of all cacti as the symbol of all of these
western states? All of the western states, even the wilds of Alaska and the
seeming tropics of Hawaii have desert climates. So, yeah, I love the Saguaro
Cactus in all of its actuality and symbolism because I am an American man of
the west.
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