The Journal of 2020 Foresight

Reports from the Knowledge Labs about our recent findings, research topics, and interviews with lifestyle leaders who are creating their own futures.

How to stimulate your own powers of foresight. Consider the following thought provokers. Ask yourself, in these categories what are the brand new trends and forces? Which are the ones growing in importance? Which current forces are loosing their steam? Which have peaked or are reversing themselves? Which are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us in the future? POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL thought for food: Electronics, Materials, Energy, Fossil, Nuclear, Alternative, Other, Manufacturing (techniques), Agriculture, Machinery and Equipment, Distribution, Transportation (Urban, Mass, Personal, Surface, Sea, Subsurface, Space), Communication (Printed, Spoken, Interactive, Media), Computers (Information, Knowledge, Storage & Retrieval, Design, Network Resources), Post-Cold War, Third World, Conflict (Local, Regional, Global), Arms Limitation, Undeclared Wars, Terrorism, Nuclear Proliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Governments (More/Less Power and Larger or Smaller Scale), Taxes, Isms: Nationalism, Regionalism, Protectionism, Populism, Cartels, Multinational Corporations, Balance of Trade, Third Party Payments, Regulations (OSHA, etc.) Environmental Impact, U.S. Prestige Abroad. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC Food for thought: Labor Movements, Unemployment / Employment Cycles, Recession, Employment Patterns, Work Hours / Schedules, Fringe Benefits, Management Approaches, Accounting Policies, Productivity, Energy Costs, Balance of Payments, Inflation, Taxes, Rates of Real Growth, Distribution of Wealth, Capital Availability and Costs, Reliability of Forecasts, Raw Materials, Availability and Costs, Global versus National Economy, Market versus Planned Economies, Generations: Y, X, Boomers, Elderly, Urban vs. Rural Lifestyles, Affluent vs. Poor, Neighborhoods and Communities, Planned or Organic Growth. Got Knowledge?

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Thursday, November 06, 2003

Lewis & Clark, MacKenzie, Hudson's Bay Co., Father Serra & the Mother Load

Chapter Three: The Outpost

By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories

“On May 14, 1804, the Corps of Discovery set off up the Missouri. Keeping journals, collecting specimens, counciling with Native Americans, and laboring upriver consumed the party for the next five months. On August 20, Charles Floyd died; the only fatality the Corps suffered on their 8000-mile journey. By late October they had reached the Mandan villages in present central North Dakota. There they spent a very cold but enjoyable winter.”

James J. Holmberg

Journal of 2020 Foresight: Here we are in the air on Alaska Airlines, flying back from Cabo San Lucas at the land’s end of Baja California in Mexico. Soon we’ll be taking the connector flight from LAX to Sacramento, the California’s state capital. And then, we hit the road to reach our next Outpost Destination. What are we going to do and see next?

Explorer: Well, while it is true that more Californians left the state than migrated into the state for the first time in history, don’t get the impression that if you’ve been to LA or to San Francisco, you’ve seen and done it all.

Eagle: The California Learning Expedition likes to talk about trading places.

J2020F: Trading places? What, different strokes for different folks?

Eagle: No. They’re focusing on where you’d want to live, if you left Texas or Iowa and moved to California. Or chose to leave LA or San Francisco for another California community.Similar lifestyles range from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, up the coast to Portland and Seattle, then into Vancouver, Canada.

Explorer: If you wanted to relocate to an area with a lower cost of living, the expedition recommends innovation or early growth communities.

J2020F: Such as?

Explorer: Such as Pescadero (Northern Coast) and Oakhurst (Sierra Country), North Fork (Sierra Country),

Eagle: Don’t forget Healdsburg or Yreka.

J2020F: What do you mean by Northern Coast and Sierra Country?

Explorer: Most natives know that California isn’t just one region. It is a state of many regions: the Mother Lode Country, Wine Country, Redwood Country, Desert Country, Big Sur Country, and Eastern Sierra Country. Each region offers something unique for different people seeking preferred lifestyles.

J2020F: There’s a romance about California, isn’t there? From the Gold
Rush to the Dot.Com Bust – California has always meant a slightly off-kilter promise of the future – someplace where you could go to start over and chase your dreams.

Eagle: Sure. The glitz of gold gave way to glamour in Hollywood.

Explorer: But, contrast that life in the fast lane to the peace, inspiration and awe of the state’s natural wonders. From its highest point – Mount Whitney at 14,500 feet, to the lowest – Death Valley, almost 300 feet below sea level.

Eagle: And don’t forget that the Sierra Nevada mountain range runs parallel to the coast half the length of the state.

J2020F: So throughout the state’s regions you’ll find small quaint towns, towering redwoods, beaches, ski resorts, theme parks, wineries, missions and film studios?

Eagle: Talking about finding studios, wasn’t that one of the Grey Owl clues?

Explorer: Right. Before we left Cabo, remember? Paul Newman and Film Festival – that’s got to be Hollywood, doesn’t it?

Eagle: What about the other clues ---Ghosts in the River, Snow in Hell, and Million Dollars? Maybe they’re TV shows or Movies?

J2020F: Wasn’t there a “Ghosts in the River” Cowboy and Indian movie?

Explorer: Hmm. Not sure, but speaking of Indians – from the earliest days of California’s history, roughly 100,000 Native Americans were nearly obliterated by European diseases, colonization, settlers and prospectors.

J2020F: Which European countries over what time frame?

Eagle: Well, beginning in the middle 1500s Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claimed California as the first European, followed shortly by Sir Francis Drake.

Explorer: Sebastian Vizcaino re-claimed California for Spain in 1602.

Eagle: In the 1700s we had a kind of land-shark-feeding-frenzy.

J2020F: What do you mean?

Eagle: In 1768 Spain, spurred on by King Charles sense that other countries wanted California for their own, colonized the region. He sent Gaspar de Portola on expedition from Mexico to San Diego.

Explorer: Two members of Portola’s expedition – Franciscan fathers – Junipero Serra and Fermin Lasuen – established the first 21 missions that by 1823 stretched along the 600 mile-long route from San Diego to Sonoma.

J2020F: Father Junipero Serra, why does that name seem familiar?

Explorer: Probably as a clue the last time we tried to locate Grey Owl – the swallows, remember?

J2020F: Of course, returning to the Mission in San Juan Capistrano near theKevin Bacon birds-of-a-feather-migration demonstration beginning with lifestyle clusters found in Dana Point.

Eagle: Presidios – military fortresses—sprang up in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Diego. The first pueblo – or true town – was established in 1777 at the heart of what is Silicon Valley – San Jose. Los Angeles began in 1781.

J2020F: So, even before Lewis and Clark began their journey to map the Northwest Passage in 1804, Europeans had settled and colonized California?

Explorer: That’s right. And remember what spurred Thomas Jefferson into action after completing the Louisiana Purchase from France?

J2020F: Wasn’t it something about reading a Canadian explorer’s journal and exploits into what was Indian Country?

Eagle: Very good. Alexander Mackenzie became the first European north of Mexico to reach the Pacific Ocean on an overland route, beating Meriwether Lewis and William Clark who arrived at the coast in 1805.

J2020F: So, to the Europeans – the Portuguese, English and Spanish we add the two North Americans – Canada and the United States -- or rather the 13 colonies.

Explorer: Almost. Mackenzie was a Scotsman who published his account of his journey across Canada to the Pacific in 1792 to 1793. In 1802 Jefferson read the journal and didn’t like the conclusion.

J2020F: What do you mean?

Eagle: He means in his conclusion to the publication, the Scotsman urged the British government to seize control of the Oregon Country in order to dominate the lucrative fur industry of the region and trade with the Orient.

Explorer: Jefferson was an Anglophobe. Having just purchased a big chunk of land from the French the possibility that a rival and potential enemy would control this country and its trade pushed him to charter Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery.

J2020F: So the lucrative fur industry and trade with the Orient drove the Europeans and North Americans to converge along the West coast?

Eagle: Tell him the rest.

J2020F: What do you mean?

Explorer: He means how Royal Dutch Shell and the Hudson Bay Company come into our story.

Eagle: And with Father Serra already mentioned, we can’t forget about the Mother Load, now can we?

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