June 17, 2007

Devil's Creek


click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney



It's sort of a mystery why such a Heavenly place ended up with the name of the Devil...   But here in California there is no shortage of Devilish places...   Devil's Slide is south of San Francisco on Highway 1, Devil's Postpile is an unusual formation of basalt rock in the Sierra Nevadas, and Devils Punchbowl and Devils Golfcourse are both located in Death Valley...   I can think of several more...

I did a little Googling and found this possible explanation:
"Place names evoking the Devil reflect a dominant attitude on the part of Euro-American settlers towards the New World during the migration into the wild West. The history of place names is based in mistranslation, deliberate insult and slur and the frustration of ranchers, as well as a Christian notion of the wilderness as the domain of the Devil."


CLICK to visit my photographic Daily-Duo...
CLICK to visit KittyBLOG -- the daily doings of my cat...


Your comments are invited and welcome...

3 comments:

merlinprincesse said...

Wonderful place, interresting explanation! :) One place in Quebec Province is called Ruisseau-à-rebours, meaning "brook flowing in reverse". But the water of that brook doesn't flow in reverse! :) The name probably comes from the first name of the place, Ruisseau-Harbour.... :)

photowannabe said...

I love how you have captured the rushing swirling water. You do so well with water shots Don.

JAM said...

Really like that bottom one with the leaves in the water.

Years ago, the first time I visited my brother in Utah, we passed a rock formation there that was also called Devil's Slide. It really did look like a gigantic playground slide. I'd often wondered why things were called Devil' this or that. Like Devil's Tower in Wyoming (Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

 
under construction