Together, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and the Whiskeytown Environmental School Community (WESC), a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization, developed the concept of Redbud Recovery. The Redbud Recovery project invites community members and visitors to express their thoughts and feelings around the prompt, “What does Whiskeytown mean to me?” Public sentiments will be accepted and on display through August. We created Custom tags for this project and encourage the public to hang them in one of the Redbuds in the Visitor Center landscaping.
We hope this display will help reconnect the public to the Park in the post-fire landscape and cultivate further public interest in the Park and its recovery from this historic event. Redbud Recovery project was modeled after a gratitude tree concept, which has been used elsewhere, and is part of a larger effort at Whiskeytown to provide opportunities for expressions of shared loss and hope for the future.
It is less than a year since the destructive Carr Fire burned 97% of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and affected surrounding lands and the communities of Keswick, Shasta, French Gulch, and Redding, California. As the land and residents continue to recover from the trauma and impacts of the fire, the park and WESC, hope the Redbud Recovery project provides an opportunity to memorialize the Carr Fire and honor the recovery progress over the last twelve months.
Red Bud Recovery will be on display and available for participation throughout July and August from 10:00 AM-4:00 PM, seven days a week. Park Superintendent, Josh Hoines stated, “Our goal was to offer an opportunity for visitors to share how they feel about the park and our community’s recovery from the devastating Carr fire of last summer. I hope many will participate, and look forward to seeing these tags, reading their sentiments, and honoring all the loss and recovery past year has held.”