Slow Baja - On A Mission With David Kier

Episode Date: January 17, 2021

David Kier is a historian, cartographer, and expert on the Missions of Baja. As a young boy in the early ’60s, he began traveling to Baja with his parents. Wedged between his parents in their Jeep Wagoneer, a copy of Gerhard and Gulick’s Lower California Guide Book in hand, Kier provided turn-by-turn navigation. The experience burned the dirt roads and landmarks into his young mind and created a love of maps and Baja that has lasted a lifetime. Kier published his first Baja guidebook as a high schooler in 1973, followed by an updated edition in 1974. The Old Missions of Baja & Alta California, 1697-1834, co-authored with Max Kurillo, was published in 2012. Kier wrote his detailed tome Baja California Land of Missions in 2016, now in its tenth printing. In 2020, Kier and Max Kurillo co-authored Old Missions of the Californias with updated information. In this conversation, Kier takes us on a fun and energetic dive into the Missions’ rise and fall in Baja. Visit David Kier’s website here. Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Slow Baja is brought to you by the Baja XL rally. The Baja XL is the largest and longest amateur off-road rally on the Baja Peninsula. It's 10 Epic Days, L.A. to Cabo to L.A. check it out at BajaXL.org.

David Kier, I'm delighted to be back with you in your home, talking to you for Slow Baja, and I'm on a mission to learn about the missions. Oh, wow. I'm sitting at the knee of the master, so take us through it. How did your fascination with the missions start, and where do we go from there? Well, as with my other Baja fascinations, it started with those trips to Baja with my folks in our Jeep Wagoner in the 60s. And my dad was a fisherman, but my mom, also a fisherperson, but she loved the seeing the cemeteries and old ruins and old mines and all the stuff that we drove by or maybe stopped briefly at on those trips. And so I was fascinated with that because my mom's interest, I suppose.

But also, while we were driving, it was my job to read out of the Lower California Guidebook with my folks that at mile 4.2 ahead is a fork in a road. We want to take the left fork. And I would do that while we're driving. I guess that's sort of the ways or Google Streets deal that you have in your son sitting between you in the front of the Jeep and narrate what's up ahead. And I would read about. jump in there for a second because we talked about this before. How old were you on that first trip? This is like 1966.

Was this the... Yeah, well, 65 was the very first trip. We went to Gonzaga Bay, and the peninsula along trip was in 66. So I was just shy of nine years old. So you're sitting between your mom and dad, on the bench seat, front seat of the Wagoner. Totally safe, like the old days. Mom would just throw her arm across you if she needed to keep you from going through the windshield. and your parents kept you engaged.

Unlike, I hate to say, I'm not like parents today, which just put the screen in front of the kids so he doesn't bother you, you were engaged. You were checking the odometer. You're checking the mileage. You've got the guidebook, the Bible on your lap. Gullick and Gurehart and Gullick, the Laura Kaufman guidebook, the Baja Bible.

Yeah, I was stuck on Graham Green. It was Gullick and Gerhard, different book. Graham McIntosh is another. person that will really give you a good interview. Yeah, no, but you're, you've got Gulloch and Green on your, um, Gerhard and Gullick. G and G&G, how about that? Let me get tongue tied today on Slow Baja. Yes, you've got it on your, uh, I'm not even going to try and say that again.

You've got that Bible on your lap and you are your parents guide. Exactly. I mean, they, you did it. I was a street pilot. turn by turn. Right. And so I got into doing that, narrating the trip, and that, of course, pushed me into writing guidebooks and road logs and documenting trips like I still do.

It seems to have burned it into your mind, though. It burned it in real deep. No, seriously. It seemed to. So you've got your dad who loved a fish, dentists, as I recall, correct? Yes. And your mom who loved the history. Yes.

And here you are. And then I'm reading about these missions and, you know, the Spanish missions. Well, I, you know, grew up in San Diego County. So we knew about missions to degree. Now, fourth grade for me didn't have the same program that the fourth graders later on had studying the missions. But we learned about the El Camino Real in the missions as a kid and just as general interest. And matter of fact, Harry Crosby did a – his first Baja job, I guess, was being a photographer. for the book called Call to California, published in 68, I guess.

He did the trip in 67 as a photographer, and that's where he was introduced to the missions in the El Camino Real, and eventually the cave paintings. Well, I'm down there, too, and learning about and seeing Harry Crosby's work as this 10-year-old or 9-year-old kid, so it's all ingrained with me being into it and experiencing it and then wanting to research it. And I've had all these resources to me.

And not a ton, but we had the Gerhard and Gulloch, Lower California Guidebook, which had a lot of history in it. And we had, you know, then I came home and saw the books by, you know, that Harry Crosby did the photography for and later his own books, but back then. And then Earl Stanley Gardner, you know, he created Perry Mason and Rudolph's mystery books. And he would love Baja California in the desert.

And he did several books about exploring. Baja, they were adventure books and lots of photography and lots of, you know, hoho, he's my good friend, so-and-so. And that's just the way Gardner wrote his books. Yeah, I'm reading off the beaten path, Baja off the beaten path right now, 1967. And to think about the effort that he put into those things, I mean, with like getting helicopter fuel staged and flying small helicopters, creating vehicles. He was a whirlwind down there, I tell you. Yeah, building off-road trikes. you know, people didn't have ATVs, so he was having his mechanic engineer friends engineer these things.

Yeah, JW Black out of Paradise, California, created those dune buggies and three-wheelers before Honda created the three-wheeler. So, you know where Honda got the idea from, they saw Earl Stanley Gardner's troops with these three-wheeled, you know, VW. In fact, they're Briggs and Stratton-powered machines then. And he had the VW-powered dune buggies called butterflies. Right, and the very first Broncos as well. He had those on that. I think Ford got on one of the first Broncos that came out in 66 on that trip. That was February 66.

Yeah. So it seems to me there was a little bit of Baja exploration in the zeitgeist in your life in those formative years. Yeah. And so let's flip back to the original question on a mission to learn about missions. So your mom was into it. You're on these trips. You're seeing them firsthand. It's in the air.

because I know you're a stickler for details. I just was researching Crosby. That book called to California was 1969 when it came out because of the 200th anniversary of 1769. So take us back to 1769, David. Well, that was, you know, that was the end of the Jesuit period. And because the Jesuits were removed from all, not just California, which was Boston. Yeah, they lost the franchise. All of the Western Hemisphere and taken back as prisoners back to Europe.

And so the Franciscans were chosen to replace them in the California Mission Program. And California then was just the peninsula that we call Baja California today. But soon after the Franciscans were here, the king had given them a new quest, and that was get up to those harbors at San Diego and Monterey. They hadn't discovered San Francisco Bay yet because the Golden Gate was always hidden by the fog. So they knew about Monterey. And so we want those harbors claim for Spain because the Russians are heading down that way. And we want to beat the Russians to all that land.

And so they gave Huniparocera the task of expanding from the California missions, which went up as far as Santa Maria near Catavina and continuing on up to San Diego. And that's what happened in 1769. So imagine if you got to San Diego after Baja or even further, north. I mean, up to Monterey. What the heck are we doing down there? The land of milk and honey compared to that desert infested, thorny, and with the diseases

are already taking its number on the native people already. So they were definitely thrilled to see that there's some virgin land that they could do the missions their way and hopefully, you know, not have the same problems that the Jesuits had. So, yeah, so that is where they went to. And then the Baja California missions, and that's, of course, when Baja and Alta, California became two places instead of one place is when San Diego was established. So to not have any confusion as to which California you're talking about in a letter, you needed to identify the peninsula as lower or Baja, California, also called Old California, Antigua, California, or the upper New Nueva, California. and in your letters and stuff.

So that's where the two terms came from. And of course, jump ahead to 1848, when the United States acquired Upper California, we just dropped the Alta Upper from the name, but Mexico didn't do the same with the peninsula, so it remained lower California, and we just became just California. Do you ever wonder what would happen

if the Pilgrimson landed in, like, La Jolla? I mean, think about that. If they had not landed in miserable, sweaty, mosquito-infested Massachusetts, Plymouth Rock, if they had actually landed in, like, in La Jolla, you know, our whole country would be, like, settled for about 30 miles. It'd be, you know, a few miles south, few miles north, few miles east, and then they'd say, you know, maybe we should go back. The climate's ideal here. Maybe we should just turn around and go back to La Jolla. Yeah, now the people from Massachusetts come to California to live in that weather.

Yeah, well, we digress. David, missions. Yes. So the first mission, of course, that was successful was at Loretto in 1697. And the Jesuits established 17 missions in all during the 70 years that they were in charge of the missions here. And California was basically their own sort of independent region. They had the special deal where they established missions at their own dime. And so the Spanish government allowed them to go ahead and,

and have autonomy over the area. So they went to finance it and be bothered with that part of the deal, other than providing troops, soldiers, which the Jesuits were paying for originally, but it became very tough for them to finance. Because the missions were very costly. We couldn't, or I say we, the missionaries couldn't grow enough crops and food to really adequately feed the population,

so much had to be chipped over the Gulf of California from the mainland missions to support the Baja missions. And it wasn't a very great venture. But somehow, stories of the Jesuits acquiring pearls and gold and silver made its way back to Spain. And the king says, well, they're not paying their royal fifth or whatever the amount was supposed to be. And, you know, that could have been one of the reasons for the kicking them out. But it was other reasons, too. The Jesuits just were becoming out of favorable all sorts of parts of Europe.

and they were losing control everywhere. And it just happened that California was the last area that the jesus were removed from. And they were finally left in 17, I'm sorry, yeah, 1768. The ship set sail from Loretto with the 16 Jesuits on board and for the trip back to Europe. The mission that is in Loretto is beautiful. How long did that take from when?

they laid the first cornerstone to completion. Is that 100 years? Well, there's different stages to a mission's development. And the mission starts out as a shack of sticks, basically. Hakal, Spanish for shack. And all I need is an altar to perform their services with. So they create an altar and maybe a little lean to. And when a mission is founded, that's the mission.

All the mission started that way. And then it would develop to maybe a better, stick shack and then they would make an adobe room and expand on that and if the mission was still successful then they would go one step beyond that and make one out of stone and that's the missions that we still see today there's eight of them that are made of stone that are surviving now some some had some degree of repairs Loretto quite a bit the roof was gone and the bell tower was gone from an earthquake and in the 1950s that was replaced so the roof and bell tower the one that has clocks in it is definitely modern and new but the stone walls are from the middle 1700s

and matter of fact all these stone missions came from the middle 1700s that's loretto san haviar commandu uh sent her tutas san borja san luis gonzaga san ignacio and mulehe i think that's all of them And those are all stone missions built in the mid-1700s. And so you just took us through them. And those are the missions that when I think of missions in Baja, those are the ones that I picture. Those are the ones that I visited, beautiful stone, you know, 200-plus-year-old structures. Exactly.

Where did they go? Where did they start? They came into Loretto. They started there. And then once they moved on, take us through the development. Yeah, they got a foothold in Loretto, and that took some time to do. They had to pacify the locals, and the locals attacked them, and they attacked back, and they came to a peace term, and, you know, happily ever after the mission was established. They had a Presidio, which was the Spanish fort that the first was surrounded the mission.

Then the mission was built outside of the Presidio on its own, that they could trust the locals not to attack them anymore. And then they, you know, they learned about these other places, and they went exploring. And San Javier was the next mission up in the city. the mountains above Loretto. And so his partner, Piccolo, went up and established the mission there. Now, it's not where the San Javier Church is now. It was about five miles north. It's called Rancho Viejo, meaning the old ranch, really old mission site.

There's no ruins that I know of at that site, but it was there until about 1710. And the water was better further south than the valley at a rent, at a, a farm they called San Pablo. And that's where they moved the mission to around 1710, but we're not sure of the exact date. They moved the mission down to the San Pablo Ranch, and that became the new San Javier. And that's where they eventually built the stone mission.

That is probably the best example of Jesuit construction. The jewel of the missions is San Javier. That's definitely a must-see. It's only like 21, 22 miles paved now from Loretto, and you've got to see that mission if you go down the beach. Baja. But in the day that was probably a two-day walk, I would imagine, right? Oh, yeah, or more. Or more, because you're going uphill. Yeah, it was a struggle. And they had to build that road by chiseling and chipping, and that was the first section of El Camino Real with San Javier.

And that was, that was a tough one to get through, definitely. So take us to the, take us down the El Camino Real, David, to the next, into the next, into the next. Well, time wise now in in my book, you know, Baja California Land of Missions, I put the missions in sequential order. Which I should have in front of me. You gave it to me in the last time we met. I should have it right here, cribbing notes as we go here, so I don't sound completely ignorant. That's all right. I wrote it so I can remember most of what's in it. One more time on the title, David. Yeah. Baja California Land of Missions. And it's probably in its last printing. It's been a wonderful run. I've started, I wrote it in 2016, and it's been through eight printings. It just keeps selling, you know, small amounts. Baja, California books have a

limited audience and history books and limited audience, but I've been so pleased with how it's done, but I think this will be the last printing. I've got like 50 copies left and he wants to order any. They can go to my website. Well, let's say it right now and then we're going to say it again at the end of the show. My website's Vibabaaha.com, and my book and other books I have are at old missions.com. All right. That's V. V as in Victor. I-V-A-B-A-G-A-G-A-com. Viva-Baha-H-A-com. Right.

All right, and we'll get that back at the end of the show and in the show notes. So, David, take it away. Okay, so, yeah, San Javier is about two days probably right or up there. And all missionaries travel on horseback or mule back. They didn't walk unless there's a section of gray that was impossible

for the mule to walk them up or the horse to walk them up. The next mission's number three and four, happened at the same time in November of 1705. One Padre was sent south to Ligui, about 20 miles south of Loretto, and the other Padre was sent north to Mulehe, what is that, about 70 miles or so north of Loretto. And I'd imagine we'd know the date that they left Loretto,

but we don't know the date they arrived because that's been lost, but obviously the Ligui was the next one, so that's number three. and Muley number four. Now Mulehaye turned out to be a very successful location because that wonderful river that comes out of the mountains there. So lots of fresh water.

They had flooding problems that Muleh still has to this day. So the mission almost got moved because the flash floods devastated the crops more than once. And the mission almost got moved, but it didn't. They just built the mission out of stone up on a nice high ledge,

a high above the river, which is a beautiful place to go view it at. Now, Legui to the south, that turned out to be the first failed mission. It only lasted until 1721, and even during those years, the Padre wasn't always there. Matter of fact, they had two or three different Padres there. It just wasn't a bad location, no constant water source. It was attacked by the fierce Indians from the islands offshore, and it just didn't work out that well. So when the Padre of that mission, Clement Glein went south.

to help the La Paz mission get established in 1720, he discovered a site about midway between Ligui and La Paz, and that site he called Dolores, and that's where the mission Dolores got founded, just a couple miles from the ocean where nice big springs provide lots of water. So there's some of the first missions out from Loretto, and then Comandu and La Pericima, and it goes on and on.

And Comandu must have been something with the water there. and the fertile soil that comes with the water. Yeah, such a beautiful canyon. Now, that mission was not originally there. It was about 20 miles north at a site that we call Comandu Viejo. Like Rancho Viejo was the first San Javier site. Comandu Villejo was the first Comandu mission site, San Jose de Comandu. And it was established in 1708, and then it was moved in 1736 to one of its farms or visitas called San Ignacio,

the name that was used for a mission somewhere else, but it was San Ignacio, and it's right next to another visita called San Miguel, which is a visita belonging, let me get that out, which was a visita belonging to San Javier. So we had two visits, about two miles from each other,

San Ignacio and San Miguel. Well, in 1736, the Commandoomission moved to its visita, and when it moved to its visit to San Ignacio, they dropped the San Ignacio name totally, and they just moved the name with, the mission, San Jose, Comandu, to the new spot. And two miles away was San Miguel, which was part of the San Javier mission system, but with that move of the mission of Komandu, they transferred it to Komandu's jurisdiction, so it became

San Miguel de Komandu. And that name still sticks to the state. Franchising and licensing back in the 1700s. It was like corporations. Exactly. These missions were, yeah. They moved about as business was better somewhere else, or in this case, growing crops or water was better somewhere else,

the mission would move. And usually the name went with the move, but sometimes they kept the local name. Now, when Dolores' mission moved from near the ocean that I mentioned, up about 15 miles, it moved to its visita called La Pacion. Well, the Padres generally just called that mission La Pasion after that.

And that was one of the confusions that I helped straighten out with my book, at least I think I did, and that was people thought there were two missions, one called Dolores, and one called La Pacion. but La Pacion was just the same mission at a new site. It was still officially mission delors, and, you know, that's one of the confusions I'd like to help clear up.

It was a mystery to a lot of people and a lot of mistakes get written over and over again. And I wanted my book to be kind of the final, okay, until we find more, until we discover new facts, which we probably will, as new archives are dug up in Spain or Mexico City, and I bow to those new findings because I just want to have the latest best information. And if someone has newer information than what's in my book, then I gladly relinquish that correctness to them and happily like to see the new changes if they come about. Well, that's why I like to talk to you, David, because you really, to put this as thoughtfully and kindly as possible, you're a stickler for details, and I love that. You're not just repeating stuff that has been said on the Internet or that, you know, has been in books in the past.

you're actually doing the research and trying to get to the last right and best, most current, correct information. And the same thing with my road logs and maps, you know. As I'm seeing here on your kitchen table spread out, we can't talk about that project. That'll be... I'm working on a new map for Baja, California, so it'll be coming in the near future. I can't say anything yet, but people who love Baja maps, don't worry. Your wishes will be answered.

Right. Well, back to the missions because we can't talk about the maps, and David wouldn't let me photograph him with the maps. He's getting my spy cameras out. So back to the missions. We're working our way up the peninsula now from Loretto and the friars have gone down, or the Padres have gone down the peninsula and have failed and continued down. So we're down to La Paz, or almost La Paz now.

And we're up north, how far north now? We've gone to, well, we went to San Ignacio. They discovered that river pretty early on. 1716, Piccolo, working out from, actually he was now not longer at San Javier. He was now running the Mulejay mission, and he, you know, went and he'd heard about San Ignacio, what we call San Ignacio today. Back then, he named it San Vicente, San Vicente Ferre. And that was the, what he called the river, where we call San Ignacio.

today. So he discovered that and eventually it became a mission that was founded in 1728 and that magnificent church, probably the second best mission church in Baja after San Javier would probably be San Ignacio. That one's a little bit different story. It's not all Jesuit. It was started about the Jesuits. The base rock, if you will, was put in place and four foot thick blocks was no easy task was put in place during the Jesuit period. Then they were kicked out. Of course, we'd known 1768 and the Franciscans were in Baja for five years and they didn't do anything as far as I can tell to San Ignacio. It just kind of sat there in mid-state of construction. But the Dominicans came and replaced the Franciscans in 1773 and they

began working back on a San Javier church and completed in 1786. I don't know when they, I think they started, gee, I have that date just recently found it too. Like 1780. but I'm not sure. That's just off the top of my head. But anyway, it finished in 1786. And they also built the stone missions at Santa Hurtudas because they're just an Adobe church there from the Jesuits. And at San Borja. And the San Borja Adobe ruins are pretty extensive,

and you can see them. They're partially protected by steel awning, and they're behind the stone church, which is built by the Dominicans. But the Adobe ruins were started by the Jesuits, and the Franciscans built the latest edition. they're at San Borja. So the caretaker, Jose, a wonderful fellow, will tell you it's the Jesuit church,

but actually the Franciscans built the biggest section of that Adobe complex. That was one of the few things that the Franciscans did is work on that. And then, of course, they established their first and only mission in California, and that was at San Fernando on the way to San Diego in 1769. So let's talk a little bit about the terrain. You mentioned two rivers already, Mulehaye and the River. that runs into San Ignacio. As far as I know, there are not navigable rivers in Baja.

These are rivers that are local and you can swim in them, but you're not running a barge up these rivers full of construction supplies. Right, the Colorado River is the only thing I think that fit that. Yeah, and so that would have been the preferred method of moving materials in the United States. I mean, we weren't the United States in those days, but in early America, in Europe, of course, navigable rivers, were how things moved from place to place. Exactly.

So Baja didn't have that. No. Baja's got rocky, crummy, sandy, dirty, difficult terrain. So how did the materials get to where they were? It was pretty amazing, especially when we see those missions, but... And they're stunning. The base rock, of course, was carved out of the mountains right there by the mission. Even at San Borja, you can look to the south, or to the west, I'm sorry,

and you can see where the blocks were quarried from the side of the side of the... the mesa there. So all Iraq came from the local area, but other things like the stained glass windows and the wood door frames and, you know, things like that were had to be brought over from the mainland of Mexico. I'm not sure if anything came from Spain, but the mainland of Mexico was well developed for, you know, about 200 years at that point. So they had quite a infrastructure there to create the artisans and, you know, so forth that went into these churches. Another place without navigable rivers. Yeah, Mexico.

Mexico. No navigable rivers. Just a different terrain altogether. So once they had the trains, that's how they got to move things around. Although the little river in San Blas is kind of fun, you go out to see the iguanas. Have you ever done that? If you ever get to Nairi, go do the San Blas Jungle River trip. I did it a long time ago.

It was really neat. I did the Jungle River at Disneyland, but that was different. Well, this is very close. So we've worked up to San Borha and you started to talk about the caretaker family and of course I was there two years ago on the Baja XL and it was just a terrific night I'd never

been out there second to last night of the trip and just you know you could I could see the immense pride and care that Jose takes to you know to look after that site right I mean

how did that come about I mean is he a privateer what's the what's the relationship he settled there I think he claims he has Cochee Me, blood, and so forth. And, you know, who might have said yes or no. But as far as I can tell, he migrated there from the little town of Rosarito or from one of the ranches of the south, Compostela

or one of the other ranches that are in the mountains. And he and his wife, and maybe some of the kids were born at that point, came there in the 1990s. Let me double check my thinking on that. Yeah, because I remember Graham McIntosh stayed there after his, his trip in 1998, because of all our rain. It was in El Nino year, and Jose put Graham up in one of the other rooms there on the site, one of the empty. There used to be a little town there, San Borja. Several people live there, several families.

And then it's just down to basically Jose and his family. Anelicia was his wife. And his son now is, I chat with him on Facebook. He works with the government as an archaeological aid or something like that, I think. Well, you can camp there. We put up dozens of vehicles there for one night, and some people stuck around in the morning and actually showered. He has those nice showers down behind the cliff.

They're right behind the palapas. And people raved about them. And they're flushed toilets there. You don't know whether they're there unless you walk behind and down that cliff that faces the mission fields. They're kind of built into the side of the mountain. there and it's like wow I didn't know there the last time I was there I think was when I discovered that he had you know showers and flush toilets

and he said you want them hot I can put a fire under the water heater they put a fire under an actual guts of an old water heater they just build a fire in it exactly you know it's the Baja way it worked and people raved about them yeah so San Barha is a great great place to go terrific all right and let's let's talk about San Ignacio a little bit how big of a population is San Ignacio

I don't think it's got more than 500 to a thousand people, at least in the San Anaccio itself, there's a little bit of outline areas. San Lino is one of the little outlying villages like where Ricardo's Rice and Beans places. It's such a picturesque setting to drive down off of the highway and come down around into the palms and the river. And cross the river is like, wow. It really is amazing. I take a picture every time I cross that river because it looks a little bit different each time. The water's smooth, water's rough, and the sunlight will be on the water's rough, and the sunlight will be on the

that volcano in the distance or, you know, it's just a great place for photos. And talk a little bit about that because seemingly, you know, since I've been doing it since the middle 80s, I've never spent more than an afternoon hanging around there. I have a beautiful photograph on my wall of two twin girls that I photographed there in 87 or 88 with an old twin lens, you know, medium format camera. And I look at these girls every day and I think about Ignacio every single day. I've never spent more than, you know, a couple hours. Well, shame on you.

I know. So tell me about, you know, you're Ignacio and your feelings. Well, you know, I probably haven't been there much longer either, probably just a day at a time. It's not like a destination location typically, but it could be. And, you know, there's places to stay there. You can camp there on the lagoon. There's a couple campsites. One before you cross the river and one after you cross right next to the river when you cross it.

There's two different campgrounds. And then there's the place that has the yurts, Ignacio's. Springs. That's kind of exotic. And the new motel is just past the mission of La Werta. Well, it's probably not that new anymore, but it's really nice, modern. And it's like what I'd like to call the Baja Cactus of Baja Soor, because the rooms are inexpensive. They're modern or clean. And, you know, it's a nice place to crash. And once we went there and there was a wedding going on and the place was sold out. And we had an end of standing at another place I won't mention where but wasn't nearly the same caliber.

But I got up in the morning after that, after one of those stays. And that's when I took the photos that, the photo cover on my book is San Ignacio in the morning on the trip in 2015, the year before I published the book. And we'd stayed at the La Wertha. And I got up before my wife wanted to get out of bed. And I walked up to the Mission Plaza. It's a short walk from the hotel or Motel and took those great pictures in the morning with the morning sun on it and walked around the plaza walked on one of the side streets of some dilapidated buildings with a balcony on it took

pictures of that and um on the trip in 2017 when I was researching for the Baja bound road guide I went up to the plaza for a meal and the taco stand at the corner of the plaza had the best carneasada tacos I think I've ever had. And I think the guy's name is Antonio off the top of my head. And he's there chopping away and that's all he'd done with carnia soda tacos. It were like

a burrito to us, but it was just wonderful. And there's a little ice cream stand there too. The ice cream, yeah. I had the ice cream of Cameron in his group last year. I'd never eaten there before because I never went there for ice cream at the right time or whatever. And of course Cameron loves it ice cream shop and

we enjoyed it too. And all sorts of flavors. All right. So back to the missions. We're on a mission for a mission. Let's take a break here for a second, David. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruisers south of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. Your website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at Bajabound.com. That's Bajabound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994.

Hey, Baja tourism is picking up, and our friends at the Animal PAD and TAP Act want to remind you when you're crossing the border, just say no to puppy peddlers. I know they're cute, but the sooner we can end the demand, we can end the supply. For more information, check out theanimalpad.org and tap act on Instagram and Facebook. Back with David Kear, where it is home here in Fallbrook, so kind on short notice to open up and make another podcast here with me and talk about the missions. Hey, we're back here with David Kier and it's just delightful to be in his home in Fallbrook, California.

And David, we were talking about ice cream in San Ignacio and Cameron Steele and the missions. And so keep us going up the trail here. Where was the next successful mission? Let's see, where we're at? We're in the 1720s. And I think the next mission would be down in the Cape area. We actually had Santiago mission.

they tried to establish it in 1721 by working out of the La Paz mission, which started in 1720. And they explored the area. They met with the natives. And they ended up in 1722 establishing the mission at the site that they called, the natives called Marino and the Spanish called Santa Ana. And it turned out that is where that one of the soldiers, noticed silver. And so that was noted at Santa Ana and later on it became a big silver silver mining center actually before the mission during the mission period was the first non-mission activity in Baja by an outsider was for the silver ore that they

discovered while they're establishing a Santiago mission. That mission failed there at Santa Ana. It was called Santiago de Los Corus and map still to this day identify the mission by that name, but it's incorrect. The mission failed, and they went back to La Pazz and regrouped, and in 1724, established mission further south, not in the land of the Cora Indians, but the land of the Piracu Indians. And that was near where Santiago is today, the town of Santiago. And it was called Santiago El Apostol at the new location.

But that information didn't get out until the 1900s. And most books still keep repeating the Santiago de los Coros name when it was Santiago de la Postole name is the correct name for that mission. These little details. Yeah, and I appreciate that so much that you're correcting those, and it's important to have those corrections and get them out there. Where was the silver? Where was the silver found? It was found at that location by what's called the Real de Santana later. That's okay.

Yeah, the Real de Santana is just south of the town of San Antonio. Antonio. In San Antonio, when Santa Ana's silver played out, then San Antonio was the next place they mined silver in the later in the 1700s. And then in the 1800s, it was El Triunfo that the silver mining continued at. So they kind of followed the vein or found new sources as they moved forward north and west in the mountains there, from Santa Ana to San Antonio to the El Triunfo. And I'm assuming the miners who are mining that were coming from the mainland. Right, exactly. They were brought over whether they were slave labor.

And it was not a good deal at all. The food was bad and poor, and they were in bad shape. And when the missions were still active, they ended up having to help feed the miners and the families because the mine company, if you want to call it that, didn't do a good job. And that was, you can read about Manuel de Osio. He was the Spanish soldier that became the,

mining sort of pioneer. He was a purler and then the silver miner. A lot of story about Manuel de Oseo. Can you break down what the business, and I know the missions were out saving souls, but there's a business side to establishing a mission as well. So can you explain a little bit about how a mission worked and how it succeeded or when they failed? Well, like, so the deal the Jesuits got with a special. Spanish government was that they could, they wanted to save souls. I mean, that was really their

end goal, is just the religious part of it. And the Spanish government said, well, okay, you can go ahead and go save the souls there in that island of California, but you're going to have to find your own financing, and then you get free reign and do what you want there. That way it's still be Spanish land, but we want it to be bothered with pain for the occupation. So the Jesuits created what was called the Pious Fund. and they would obtain donations from mostly wealthy Spanish and Mexican Spanish families and to finance the missions. And that might get the Spanish families a better road to heaven maybe.

And the missions would take the name of someone in that family as part of the mission name. Like San Luis Gonzaga, the benefactor, his name was Louise something. I can't think of the top of my head. but, you know, that was the case in a lot of the missions. Santa Hurtudas is an interesting story. That mission north of San Ignacio was scheduled to be called Dolores del Norte. Because the other Dolores that we talked about earlier is Dolores del Sour to separate it from the two.

And Dolores means the sorrows. And Dolores del Norte was on the maps and charts and lists, and there was even baptism records under Dolores del Norte, but when it came time to finally establish the mission with the final, and a priest available, the financier or the benefactor had desired the name to be after his wife, Hurtudus. So instead of Dolores Del Norte became Santa Hurtutus. But that, in fact, was originally Dolores Del Norte. And that was in the 60s, a lot of books were written thinking there was a lost mission,

Dolores del Norte because they saw it on maps and they saw it in charts, but there's no mission Dolores Del Norte, just said Nassio and then Santa Hurtutus. So some of the maps like the Outtaudmobile Club map of the time stuck a Dolores del Norte out in the desert between those two missions. Well, it's got to be out there somewhere. The Jesuit Senate was there. And it was just an early name. It existed on paper only is what I say in my book and my writings. So that's where the money for the missions originally came from during the Jesuit period was from wealthy benefactors or sometimes a Catholic colleges group together.

They're like San Ignacio was funded from one of the Catholic colleges, I guess you would call it, organizations. And the founder gave it the name San Ignacio to attach it to, I think, his college or something like that. All right. Well, we've worked our way up and down the peninsula. It went both ways from Loretto. They thought it was an island. So they just went in all directions, wherever they found water and people and a place to grow,

that's where a mission was established. And if that failed, they just moved it to another spot. And eventually, they realized that, you know, California is not an island because we sent a boat up to the Colorado River more than once and discovered there is no passageway to the North Sea, you know, to get to Japan's shortcut. We know it's a peninsula. So let's start working north. And the Jesuits actually wanted to connect with their missions on the mainland of Sonora, in this case, the upper part of Sonora. and they worked, that's why Santa Hurtudis, and then San Borja,

and then after that was Kalamoay, which is the first site for mission Santa Maria, all an attempt to get up to the Colorado River and work away around to the mainland. They'd build a mission just far enough away, wouldn't be too much hostile, unconverted territory between the two, because Indians were all over the Native Californians, and they were worried about attack until the Indians got to know them and befriended them. So that's where they were when the Jesuits were removed. They actually discovered the site of San Fernando.

It's called Velikata by the Native Indians, and they had been there. But before they could establish a mission there, they were kicked out. The Franciscans came in, and the Franciscans established their first mission there at Velikata and named it San Fernando for their college, if you will, the Franciscans of San Fernando. And again, getting back to the business at hand since they had to self-financed, That's animals, animal skins, crops, and then whatever pearls, whatever riches could be mined. Yeah, there isn't any really reckoned by the Jesuits that they already do with pearls. They discourage it.

Pearl, purlers were there. There were a lot of, you don't want to call them pirates, but free boaters. They'd come over and work the coastline, and it was like not something that Jesuits wanted going on. Plus, they're worried about them, you know, raping the local women. Obviously, the diseases were introduced from these pirates and purlers and others. I mean, a lot of people have been to California before the judges were. The 1500s and 1600s saw a lot of contact with Europeans. So I know it's very popular to blame the missionaries and the Spanish for all the disease introductions,

but it wasn't under their auspices or control or desire. to have these things happen to the Indians. Blame it on the Vikings. Blame it on the Vikings. Oh, there's this petroglyph near Mrs. San Fernando. Let's talk about that a little bit. Scott Walter with America on Earth saw the picture I took of that petroglyph. And through a mutual friend actually who had a website about lost ships in the desert and so forth, John Grayson.

and he told Scott about me, and John was on a show about Vikings in the desert, and Scott Walters said, well, we need to have, you know, David Keir show us this spot, so I got to be on a national TV show for, I don't know, three or four minutes anyway, pointing out this Viking, it looks like a ship, Petroglyph, the Spanish called the galleon, but it does have Viking-esque figurines if you have an imagination. It could be just an odd shapes that the Indians carved in the rock. Or it could be Vikings. It could be a Vikings.

500 years before, 300, 500 years before? Right, the early, early warm period between ice ages or whatever, they came around through the Northwest Passage and came down and up to Sea of Cortez. And there's stories of red-haired people with fair skin and, you know, from the Tiburone Island area. and Scott talks about that. He narrates that on the show that episode. Think about that being a Viking and the getting to those warm, beautiful waters with abundant fish and whatnot.

Yeah. It must have been something. All right, well, back to our original missions of you educating me and our Slow Waha listeners about the missions and the mission system. So let's put it in four high and wrap it up. Four high we go. Yeah, so Santa Fernando was the one and only mission founded by the Franciscans. Then they handed over the Baja missions to the Dominican Order, who thought, this is great.

We get all of the missions of Baja California without knowing all of the badness, the diseases and lack of water and thorny bushes. But they came over here. They inherited the debt as well, right? Yeah, they came over here and they took over, and they were given the free land from, or the Virgin land, I should say, from San Fernando Mission, which is, you know, 40 miles. beyond El Rosario up to the San Diego mission. And in that area, they were requested to establish five missions at least to fill in the void, a mission every about 50 miles apart. And they did that eventually, and they added a couple more beyond that.

So, you know, after they got in charge in 1774, they established the El Rosario mission. And there's actually two missions in El Rosario. One, the first one is just north of the highway, as you make that sharp bend after Mama Spinoza's restaurant. On your left, up about a block from the highways where the first mission was. And the second, then they moved it because the water ran out at that spot. There was a spring. And they moved it down the valley couple miles to the town of El Rosario de Abajo, which is named after the mission location, lower El Rosario de Abajo, lower El Rosario mission. And that's on the other side of the river, two miles.

south of town or to the west of town. Then next year they did Michigan Santo Domingo, which is up past San Quintin Bay by Vicente Guerrero town, about five miles in from the highway, good, easy road. And these missions,

these Dominican mission ruins, they've been turned into their Adobe, and the Adobe was allowed to melt away to just, you know, softened walls or what little's left, but they've preserved them by putting a plaster like coating over them so they'd stop melting away and put walkways in and interpretive signs and so both sites at El Rosario, San Domingo, San Vicente, large complex of the San Vicente

mission. And that is just before you get into town, before you cross the bridge and into the town of San Vicente, it's on your right-hand side. There's a little restaurant called Mi Rancita, good food, by the way, and the mission is just a kilometer off the highway before you get in the town of El Rosario on your right. right. And then Seno Tamas has three mission sites. They moved it twice.

And those sites that sadly didn't get preserved. They're vanished. The third one, third and final site is right by the El Palomar Campground. There's little mounds of Adobe you can still see. And that's about it. And maybe the most lasting impact of that,

well, you know, they have vines. You know, that was the grapes. The grapes came with the gift. Yeah. Different missions grew grapes. That was part of the sacrament to have the wine and the San Tomas vineyards named after the mission there from supposedly mission grapes. Who knows? Yeah. And, of course, obviously they have the cheese and the cheese caves from that whole area as well.

And it strikes me as, I don't know if there's a region in Baja south of there that could really that dairy cattle could survive in. What do you think? Yeah, I don't think they're dairy cattle down there at all. I think it's all, you know, for a carniazza. Yeah, it would have been Carni Asada and hides. And so the missions, thinking about the galleons that came from the Philippines that would have pulled into someplace in the south there. Would that have been where Cabo is now?

Is that? Yeah, one of the purpose of the missions, besides to convert the natives to become loyal subjects of the came. Yes, back to business. We're getting back to the business. business right was to have a safe port of call for the manila galleon which after circling the pacific currents to find its way back to alcapulco the sailors were like dying of scurvy and really in bad shape and needed fresh water and fresh food and fresh vegetables and fruit and the mission system the judges were tasked to find a site for that and sadly they really never did san l'aqabo mission took you know had galleons calling them and that was probably the best but it wasn't really good to harbor there was just how they kind of had to anchor offshore and and row their boats to the coast at san Jose del Cabo Magnolena bay was hopefully to be a port but they couldn't find adequate water and they were going to they found a spring i guess an

indian showed them where it was but it turned out not to be productive and so it all failed badly to find a port for the menela galleon but that was one of the primary reasons that the spanish wanted missions in California was to resupply that Spanish Manila galleon bringing all the treasures from from Asia back to Spain via Alcapulco. Right. They needed that stop before they crossed. Another leg, right. Yeah, another leg.

It's still a long ways from Calais Island. I was just, yes, I'm visualizing the globe in my mind here. That's still quite a leg when you're sailing. Most of the stuff came from the Philippines. Philippines and China. I'm not sure if they actually stopped in Japan, but they go by Japan and up to almost Aleutian Islands, I think. They came across, probably northern California is where the current comes across from Asia, maybe, and that they could use, or the way the trade winds blow, and then

down along the California coast, and right off Baja, and then on to Acapulco. And they're really hoping to have a port of call in lower California. But, you know, San Diego Bay and Ince Notta Bay were like the best bays, but the Jesuits never got that far north before they were kicked out. All right. Well, David, take us home. How are we? So the last mission, last missions were north of Ensenada, was the mission San Miguel,

which is in the town of La Mision. It's in a school yard right on the old highway, the old free road. And on your left, and a school yard is actually right on the mission grounds there, but you can see some of the adobe preserved remains, a couple bits of wall. And between this and out on San Felipe, about five miles to the east of the town of Independencia, is a concrete road now. It used to be dirt. It's all concrete now, paved, as you will, to the town of Santa Canarina.

And Santa Canarina is an Indian settlement. A few native Indian people live there. There's a modern church there. And about a half mile or a kilometer through the town, and on the other side is a cemetery. and on the hill atop of that cemetery is where mission Santa Catalina was. So Santa Catalina was the name of the mission, and the name of the town just changed the L to an R and Santa Catarina. So that's a funny thing.

Nothing left there, very light-looking mounds of rooms where the rooms were. That mission was destroyed by an Indian uprising in 1839 or 1840, and the Padres never returned after that happened. They burned the mission down. And then the final two missions were actually Mexican missions. The Spanish were gone. Between 1810 and 1821 was the Mexican War for Independence. And in 1822, Baja California agreed to the terms, if you will,

agreed to being part of the Mexican nation and no longer part of Spain. And the Descanso mission was established by a Padre, he built a church there in 1830, and that's called the Mission of El Descanso. It's next to a modern church right off the highway, just south of the Cantermore sand dunes. And the very last California mission, not only in Baja, but all the California is, was that Guadalupe, where the Wine Valley is now. And there's a museum there in the outlines of where they say was the mission. They built some foundations and make it look like the mission foundations, but that's modern

construction. But the mission was on that little level area right behind. where the museum is of Guadalupe. That was from 1834 to 1840, and that was it. That was the last mission, and that was also, of course, during the Mexican period. Well, you've given us quite a lesson on that. I would love to have you give us a few minutes on the El Camino Real and the significance of how that road track. Yes, right.

The El Camino Real, the Royal Road of the King's Highway, different words for it, was not only in California, but in other people. parts of the Spanish Empire through the mainland of Mexico and the United States and the Texas, etc. And the El Camino Real was a tax revenue road to bring the riches back to the King of Spain. So the El Camino Real are all fingers back to Madrid in the long sense of the term. In California, it didn't serve that purpose because there were no riches to flow back on it. It was more of a one-way street to supply the missions, but it was the route of communication. Mail traveled on it and supplies and people traveled.

traveled on it, and that was the road between Loretto and all the missions, both north and south of Loretto. We're best known for, or we know best the El Camino Rail from Loretto to San Diego, particularly that Hunipro Serra traveled on when he came to establish San Diego in Alta, California. And that route has been mapped. Harry Crosby had maps made of it. And there's a couple in Canada recently spent 20 years backpacking all over. kind of they call it groundproofing the el commune real route in baha california between loretto and el rosario and there's not only one el commune real but there's more than one there's parallel routes

to go to different places or for different times a year they use different areas now the website these people have and everyone should enjoy looking at it opens up google earth so you can see their waypoints on google earth the website is caminorialbaha dot com all one word and um it's it's It's a marvelous resource and great work by Kevin and his companion from Canada. I've been going down there and researching us for so long, and their work is tremendous. And it's lovely to see since Harry Crosby's time that there's recent modern research on the communal route, the actual mission area, one, not more modern routes taken by others since then. Well, I think it'll be exciting to see what happens when the film finally gets released of Harry Crosby.

The current one that's, I believe, isn't quite out yet. Yeah, I saw some plugs for that. Right, and they were doing some last minute fundraising was the last thing that I saw. Yeah, Harry's been a wonderful resource and a great motivator for all of us in history, and so many people know him. I'm happy to have met him and chat with him on more than one occasion. and I last met with them just this last year at his home in La Jolla. And he's just such a kind, gentleman, man, 93 years old, I believe, when I was there and still wanting to talk Baja. You could see it, the twinkle in his eye.

The twinkle in his eye, exactly. Well, we're going to leave it right there, David. Thank you for sharing the twinkle in your eye and my mission to learn about the mission. So one more time, let's recap. Best way for people to get in touch with you, social media, your website, vivabaha.com. vivabaha.com and there's links on there to my Facebook page on the missions and, you know, maps and more than you could possibly digest in one evening, anyway, we'll say. All right.

Well, David Keir, thanks again for opening your home and your heart and talking about missions with Slow Baja. Great. Thanks. Hey, you guys know what to do. Please help us by subscribing, sharing, rating, all that stuff. And if you missed anything, you can find the links in the show notes at Slowbaha.com. back before you know it. And if you want to receive notices on new episodes, please follow Slow Baja on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for you old folks.