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KUED's We Shall Remain: The Goshute

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The expanse of the Great Basin we now know as Western Utah and Northeastern Nevada is an area where most people cannot survive without outside assistance. Home to the Shoshonne-Goship people – The Goshutes – it is a dramatic and illusive land. Water is life. It forces diversity in this unusually arid land. The Goshute had an intimate knowledge of how to sustain life here. Their extraordinary knowledge of desert life cycles and their medicinal uses of plants are legendary, yet their innovation, uses of plants are legendary, yet their innovation, balance and strength have been historically overlooked. In light of modern crises of sustainability and renewable resources, they set an example for 21st Century society. At the turn of the 19th century, threats to their balanced way of life erupted on two fronts. The Mormons established Salt Lake City in 1847 and sent their people west to settle in fertile wintering valleys. Soldiers overwhelmed precious springs in the heart of the territory as the roads of the Pony Express and the Overland Stage were built to California. Livestock destroyed the renewable cycle of seeds and plants essential to the Goshute way of life. As tensions increased, Goshute families became the targets of violence. Against staggering odds, the Goshute survived, tenaciously resisting relocation and retaining roots in their ancestral homeland.

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