John Bieter, a professor of history, and Cheryl Oestreicher, a professor and head of Special Collections and Archives at Albertsons Library, and Iñaki Arrieta Baro, a librarian and head of the Jon Bilbao Basque Library at the University of Nevada Reno, co-authored “Arborglyphs – Basque immigrant sheepherders left their marks on aspen trees in the American West,” an article published in The Conversation in 2024. The Conversation also published the article in Spanish.
Géo optimiste pour la nature, a special section of the French magazine Géo, has also published the article in French.
Arborglyphs are carvings made by Basque immigrant sheepherders on aspen trees throughout the mountains of the American West. The carvings date back as far as the mid-19th century and reflect the herders’ thoughts and personal histories as they tended sheep in isolated places. Over 25,000 arborglyphs have been documented, with at least as many more believed to exist. Aspen are endangered due to age, grazing, wildfires, and climate change. In response, academics from institutions like Boise State and the University of Nevada Reno formed the Arborglyph Collaborative to catalog carvings using photography, video, photogrammetry, virtual reality and GPS mapping, before this cultural and historical record disappears.