By Michael McCarthy
These days all eyes are trained towards the sky after the Mars landing craft Curiosity touched down on the red planet to begin several years of exploration.
Few people aside from top NASA scientists will be aware of it, but the Mars landing has tight connections to the Cariboo because of Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer, a NASA scientist celebrating 50 years as a space program director, with a visit to the Cariboo.
“The Cariboo is the most beautiful place in the world,” said von Puttkamer on a recent stay at Echo Valley Ranch near Clinton, “and I tell all my friends in Europe and America they must come visit here.
“When I first came to North America from Germany in 1962 along with other space pioneers, such as Werner von Braun, I stayed in B.C. at first. My father took me camping in the Cariboo and I have remained fascinated with this region ever since.”
On his most recent Cariboo visit, von Puttkamer checked out Kelly Lake, which NASA scientists explored by mini-submarine last year to study stromatolite formations, a major constituent of the fossil record for the first 3.5 billion years of life on Earth.
The exploration of Mars will search for evidence of past life forms like stromatolites, to prove that Mars once had oceans.
“The diversity of the Cariboo is amazing,” said von Puttkamer.
“Around Echo Valley Ranch where I stayed, you have alpine forests, deserts, lakes, the lunar-like appearance of the Fraser Canyon, which is interspersed with beautiful green grasslands. Then you have stromatolites at Kelly Lake, the oldest life form on planet Earth, and their link to Mars. It’s a unique region.”
Von Puttkamer was in the Cariboo this summer to bring back memories of his first exploration of the wilderness with his father, a journey from which they almost didn’t return. Lost in the bush, the son was forced to leave his father and go search for help, armed only with a box of matches to survive.
“The Cariboo was a different world then. Few roads, and very few people. I ran for help, and I ran into moose and deer that had never seen people.
“I found a desolate ranch that actually had a phone you had to hand crank. There was only one party line for the region, and everybody listened in.
The entire population showed up when our car was towed back to ‘civilization.’ It was like I was the man from Mars. It was the greatest adventure of my life.”
Von Puttkamer’s explorations still continue. On his recent Cariboo trip he went looking for the river where he first caught a fish with his father.
“I will have to come back again next year and go looking for that river. I remember it was called Black River, because the water looked black, maybe from volcanic rock underneath.
“Anyway, it’s a good reason to come back to the Cariboo again. The Mars explorations are fascinating, but I will bring some friends to Echo Valley Ranch and show them the most beautiful place on Earth.”