Author: Mary Heers

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Giant Hole in the Ground

Giant Hole in the Ground: Rio Tinto Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Rio Tinto Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Bingham Canyon Mine from the International Space Station 2007 Courtesy NASA
Bingham Canyon Mine from the International Space Station 2007. This astronaut photograph ISS015-E-29867 was acquired September 20, 2007, by the Expedition 15 crew with a Kodak 760C digital camera using an 800 mm lens. The image is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast.
Courtesy NASA

Kennecott Mine from Outside Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer Kennecott Mine from Outside
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer

Years ago, I was flying in an airplane headed into Salt Lake when the captain came on the intercom and suggested we look out the windows. Below us was a truly huge hole in the ground. This was my first look at the Kennecott open pit copper mine.

In 1847, when Brigham Young and the first Mormon pioneers arrived in the Utah territory, this bit of land we were flying over was an 8,000ft mountain, part of the range the Native Americans called the Oquirrhs. Back then two brothers were grazing their cattle in these mountains when they noticed some gold that had washed down the mountain and settled in a sandy stream bed. They took the gold and showed it to Brigham Young. Brigham Young told them to “forget it.” Growing food for the survival of the settlers was his top priority.

The Bingham boys went back to grazing cattle, but by 1873 the news had gotten out that there was gold in these hills. People started to move in, many of them recent immigrants. The Finns and Swedes settled up Carr Canyon, while the Austrians and Slavs settled near the Highland Boy mine. The town of Bingham grew up around 30 saloons, its many brothels , as well as many boarding houses where single men rented a room and took their meals. I really enjoyed reading a memoir written by Violet Boyce, whose Aunt Becky ran one of these boarding houses. She tells us the softer side of life in the early mining town, like one miner, Pete Kalvos, who had a beloved pet magpie. Now this bird was the chief suspect when Aunt Becky’s thimble, teaspoons, and jeweled pin disappeared. Aunt Becky got so mad she took the bird outside and told it to “git.” Joe moped around the house until the bird returned. Luckily by then Aunt Becky had cooled off, because some repair work on the chimney had revealed the magpie nest and all the missing items.

Everything changed in Bingham Canyon in 1906 when new entrepreneurs and engineers decided the real future of the canyon was in copper, and the best way to get it out was with an open pit mine. Dynamite started blasting away the hillsides. Violet writes how vases were knocked off shelves and pictures turned sideways on the walls in her house. As the mine kept expanding, the walls of her house crumbled. Eventually the whole town was devoured.

Nowadays, if you go to the Visitor Center at the Kennecott mine, you can stand on the viewing platform on the upper lip of the huge bowl-shaped pit. It’s a breath taking 2 ½ miles wide, ¾ of a mile deep – and still getting bigger. Trucks the size of two-story houses lumber up the inside of the bowl carrying away the newly blasted debris. It now takes 2 tons of this mix of rock, dirt and ore to eventually produce 9 pounds of pure copper.

The story of this giant hole in the ground is woven into Utah’s history, but it’s also left its mark on our planet Earth. The Kennecott open pit copper mine is one of a handful of man-made structures that can be seen from the International Space Station as it passes over us, 250 miles away.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy NASA and Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe and Wakeman
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

Crump, Scott, The Oquirrh Mountains, Utah History Encyclopedia, https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/o/OQUIRRH_MOUNTAINS.shtml

Strack, Don, Years of Discovery, to 1863, Railroads and Mining in Utah’s Bingham Canyon, Discovery to 1863, UtahRails.net, https://utahrails.net/bingham/bingham-discovery.php

The Bingham Mine – Our National Historic Landmark, Rio Tinto, https://www.kennecott-groundbreakers.com/stories/the-bingham-mine—our-national-historic-landmark

Milligan, Mark, GeoSights: A View of the World’s Deepest Pit – Bingham Canyon Mine Overlook, Utah Geological Survey (UGS), Utah Department of Natural Resources, Survey Notes, v. 49 no. 2, May 2017, https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/geosights/geosights-bingham-canyon-mine/

Bingham Canyon Mine, USA, Captured 20 April 2021, by the MSI instrument, aboard the Sentinel-2 satellite, NASA, https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/news/worldview-image-archive/bingham-canyon-mine-usa

1904 to 2022, Bingham Mine through the Years, https://youtu.be/yvoQuH9C2d0?si=wQhMZWXYs-M-zclW

Massive landslide at Utah copper mine generates wealth of geophysical data, GSA Today, The Geological Society of America, https://rock.geosociety.org/net/gsatoday/archive/24/1/pdf/gt1401.pdf

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Stop. Look. Listen to the voices of our young people

Which Side of Air Quality do You want to Live on? Courtesy: 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest Copyright Maria Yellowman, Artist, of Whitehorse High School (part of the Navajo Nation)
Which Side of Air Quality do You Want to Live on?
Courtesy: 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest
Copyright Maria Yellowman, Artist, of Whitehorse High School (part of the Navajo Nation)

Smoke Thru Drive-Thru When You Eat Out Courtesy: 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest Copyright Sander Ounesonepraseuth, Artist, Granger High School
Smoke Thru Drive-Thru When You Eat Out
Courtesy: 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest
Copyright Sander Ounesonepraseuth, Artist, Granger High School

“Please, Please, Please” parody of Sabrina Carpenter, Courtesy 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest, Copyright Lila Mortensen, Artist, Ridgeline High School Please, Please, Please Don’t Idle by Me, “Please, Please, Please” parody of Sabrina Carpenter
Courtesy 2025 Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest
Copyright Lila Mortensen, Artist, Ridgeline High School

Each fall, for the last 10 years, a challenge has gone out to Utah and Southern Idaho’s high school students to create a poster that sends a strong message to the rest of us that the air we breathe is dangerously dirty and we need to do something about it. Judges were called in, and by February the more than 1,000 entries were whittled down to 61 finalists. These posters were then taped to the glass walls in the foyer of USU’s art museum for all of us to come see.

The first poster that stopped me in my tracks was a drawing of our round planet teetering on a steep incline. The planet was split into 2 halves – one with blue water, green lands, a leafy tree, a bicycle. On the other half, all black and white, a car, a cigarette, a dead tree. A rope tied to the planet was wound around the chest of a young boy, who was straining to hold the globe at this dangerous tipping point. I felt the tension in the rope and the uncertainty of the outcome. There was no one in the poster coming to help the boy.

I moved on to the poster of a kid sitting at a bus stop, waiting, while a car passing in front of him was spewing clouds of exhaust. I felt a sharp pang – this kid seemed so vulnerable. We now know that over 50% of the dangerous particles trapped in our winter cold air inversions is caused by emissions from gasoline powered cars. And although it is unreasonable to ask people to stop driving, we can ask people to turn off their engines whenever possible.

“Stop Idling” was in fact the main message presented by these posters – in many incredibly creative ways.

In one poster a troubled young child stared out at us from a car creeping along in a fast-food line-up. Up ahead we saw another car, license plate IDLE, spitting three messages out the tailpipe: “permanently altered,” “whole world,” “seems to change.” Overhead the sign read “Smoke-Thru- Drive-Thru. And at the pick up window, next to the picture of fries, was the shocking message: “These fries are to die for.”

Another poster showed a kid playing a video game in his home. Outside the window you could just make in the hazy atmosphere a car warming up in the driveway, tailpipe puffing away. The message running along the bottom of the poster read, “Turn the Key B4 It’s Game Over.”

Another poster showed a close up of the mirror on the side of car. A kid in a gas mask was emerging from a thick cloud of black smoke, along with the reminder: “Objects in the rear-view mirror are closer than you think.”

Certainly the football player in another poster looked a lot less glamorous in a gas mask.

And finally, a picture of a girl with long blonde hair showed her turning to say something to us, but her face was hidden behind a thick plume of smoke. Her words, however, came through loud and clear:” PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, Don’t Idle by me.”

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Shalayne Smith-Needham,
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

USU Extension Celebrates 10 Years of Clean Air Contest With Exhibits, Community Art Day, Utah State TODAY, Utah State University, January 29, 2025, https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-extension-celebrates-10-years-of-clean-air-contest-with-exhibits-community-art-day

Utah High School Clean Air Marketing Contest, USU Extension Sustainability, Utah State University, https://cleanaircontest.usu.edu/

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Changing the Landscape of a
Northern Corner of Utah

NGC-ATK Landscape, West of Corinne, UT Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
NGC-ATK Landscape, West of Corinne, UT
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
As I was driving through Logan Canyon, I caught the news that the Brigham City Museum of Art was opening a new exhibit called “Rural to Rockets.”

“Irresistible,” I muttered as I swung my car off the highway at the Brigham City exit. This promised to be the story of a major change in the landscape of one corner of Northern Utah.

Brigham City’s story began in 1854 when 50 pioneer families in Salt Lake committed to build a new city based on the co-operative movement. They promised to pool their resources and work together for the good of Zion. They agreed “not to be greedy for higher wages,” and “ask only for reasonable return on investment.”

The 50 families brought cattle and sheep with them. From the cattle hides they made boots and shoes for sale in their co-op store. The wool from their sheep was milled into blankets and clothes.

They purchased a small cotton farm in Southern Utah and took turns going down to tend it. The women who wanted silk raised mulberry bushes to feed their silkworms. During the cold weather these women sewed the silkworm cocoons into the lining of their dresses and wore them next to their bodies to keep the cocoons warm. Eliza Forsgren took her hand woven big beautiful black silk dress to the Chicago World Fair in 1893 and came home with a gold medal.

Brigham City settled into being one of Utah’s successful small rural towns.

Everything was upended in 1957 when Thiokol Corporation bought 10,000 acres nearby to build their new rocket manufacturing plant and test facility. Engineers and rocket scientists and their families moved in. 187 homes were built in one year. The school was overwhelmed and went on half days as new schools were hurriedly built. At its peak, Thiokol employed 6,000 workers.

I got back in my car to go take a look at what this rocket facility looks like today. As it came into sight, I was immediately struck by the substantial fence – 10 feet high chain link with 3 strands of barbed wire on top. The fence ran across the hillsides for hundreds of acres before disappearing out of sight. Inside the fence I saw windowless box shaped buildings dotting the hillsides, and a few whips of smoke.

NGC-ATK Rocket Garden, West of Corinne, UT Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
NGC-ATK Rocket Garden
West of Corinne, UT
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Outside the headquarters of the new owners of the facility, Northrop-Grumman, I found a small outdoor museum called a “Rocket Garden.” It included a full-size model of a former NASA launch rocket and an older Intercontinental Missile.

But the really stunning surprise was a whole new look of the landscape that pointed to a bright future. A giant solar farm had moved in next door.

This is Mary Heers and I’m Wild About Utah

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe and Wakeman
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

Boam, Rod, Rocket Garden is a bonus for Golden Spike National Park visitors, Cache Valley Daily, Cache Valley Media Group, Mar 26, 2019, https://www.cachevalleydaily.com/news/local/rocket-garden-is-a-bonus-for-golden-spike-national-park-visitors/article_fe49306a-8ab6-5c32-a2b8-7acf6f40640e.html

Northrop-Grumman in Utah, https://www.northropgrumman.com/careers/northrop-grumman-in-utah

Udy, Boyd, Fifty Years at the Rocket Ranch, Life at Northrop Grumman, https://www.northropgrumman.com/life-at-northrop-grumman/fifty-years-at-the-rocket-ranch

Rural to Rockets, Box Elder County Takes Off, Brigham City Museum, https://brighamcitymuseum.org/event/rural-to-rockets-box-elder-county-takes-off

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Goats in the Mountains

Walking to Exercise the Pack Goats Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Walking to Exercise the Pack Goats
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
When a family friend recently returned from a big hunting trip, he mentioned he’d taken along his new pack goats.

“Pack goats?” I perked up at the thought of seeing goats on a hiking trail in the mountains.

“They’re very friendly,” he added.

Deviance from Walking to Exercise the Pack Goats Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
Deviance from Walking to Exercise the Pack Goats
Courtesy & Copyright Mary Heers, Photographer
A domestic goat is very different from a wild mountain goat. It’s very unlikely a hiker will ever see a wild goat because there are less than 2,000 scattered about in a few small herds in Utah. These herds can be traced back to the forty wild goats brought here from Olympic National Park in Washington beginning in 1967. These mountain goats have 2 distinctive layers of thick white hair and 2 black backward-slanting horns.

Mountain goats keep to the high mountains. If a hiker sees them at all, it’s most likely on a rocky ledge. A mountain goat is a great climber that has been clocked going up 75 vertical feet in 60 seconds. A rocky ledge is a good place to escape predators like bears and wolves. Unfortunately, it’s no defense against eagles, that has been known to swoop down and carry off a small kid.

About 10,000 years ago, villagers in Asia first domesticated the goat. To this day, in some parts of the world, owning a goat can make a big difference for a family. Bernice’s Goat is a beautiful children’s book that tells the true story of a nine-year-old girl in Uganda whose mother receives a gift of a goat from the Heifer International nonprofit. The goat soon gives birth to twins and the milk just flows. There is enough for the baby goats and Bernice’s five younger brothers and sisters…and still enough to sell a little to the neighbors. Her mother can now pay school fees, and Bernice gets her deepest wish. She is able to go to school.

Back in Cache Valley, I wasted no time inviting myself over to meet my friend’s new goats. The goats rushed up to the fence and seemed as curious about me as I was about them.

“Can we go for a walk?” I asked.

Soon we were headed up a nearby trailhead. Pack goats need a lot of exercise to keep in shape. This was just an easy workout. On a hunting trip, the goats wear a pack saddle, and each one will carry about 40 lbs.

By now I was really intrigued and bought a copy of John Mionczynski’s book, The Pack Goat. According to the author, a goat that has been bonded with humans when young will grow into a strong, sure-footed, trustworthy companion in the wilderness. John now runs a pack goat business that accompanies groups on overnight camping trips. His favorite goat is Julio.

Julio will watch everyone bedding down for the night. Then he will saunter over to someone and politely stand next to their sleeping bag. Slowly and gently, he’ll kneel down. Then he’ll lean over until he is comfortably snuggled against the sleeper.

“If you’ve never slept with a goat on a cold night [on a camping trip],” John writes. “You don’t know what you’ve been missing.”

I closed the book and sighed. I had one more thing to add to my bucket list.

This is Mary Heers, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy Mary Heers,
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © Friend Weller, Utah Public Radio upr.org, and audio Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe and Wakeman
Text: Mary Heers, https://cca.usu.edu/files/awards/art-and-mary-heers-citation.pdf
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Mary Heers’ Wild About Utah Postings

Mionczynski, John, The Pack Goat, Reavis, January 1, 2004, https://www.amazon.com/Pack-Goat-John-Mionczynski/dp/0976255405

[We oppose introduction of non-native] Mountain Goats in the Bear River Range, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/our-projects/advocacy/mountain-goats-in-the-bear-river-range/

McBrier, Page(Author), Lohstoeter, Lori(Illustrator), Beatrice’s Goat, Aladdin, Reprint July 1, 2004, https://www.amazon.com/Beatrices-Goat-Page-McBrier/dp/0689869908