Throughout her childhood, Dena Egenhoff was surrounded by strong female role models from engineers to professors. She found them “capable of anything they set their minds to.”
“My own mother instilled in me the belief that my gender should never limit my aspirations,” said Egenhoff.
Alyssa Alpe has been a student of history her whole life. It started in her early years where she grew up driving by Windy Gap reservoir, listening to her mother, a former Colorado State University Extension Agent on the North Platte Basin Round table in Jackson County, say that water was THE issue in Colorado.
When she started college, everyone questioned Alpe’s decision to pursue a history degree, unsure of the careers available for historians. But Alpe knew she, “loved researching in the archives to piece together a narrative that interpreted the story of the past,” and that passion would lend itself to her career somehow.
After graduate school, Alpe landed a job at a law firm where she discovered the world of records management, a profession focused on understanding records and making them accessible to others to tell a story or research an issue.
“It’s about being a ‘knowledge keeper’ and finding a way to communicate that knowledge to others,” Alpe said.
In 2015, Alpe was hired as a Records Data Analyst for Northern Water. Alpe has been with Northern Water for eight and a half years now and she has advanced in her career to the Records & Administrative Services Manager.
In the day-to-day, Alpe balances the managerial and Board of Director support roles along with the records and information management program. She can be found figuring out the best way to collect and store records, researching any number of topics like the origins of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, or making plans for archival projects like digitizing collections to make them accessible. In the future, she hopes to add another job to her plate to work with the communications team to develop the public history components of their website.
“You have to have a bit of background on many issues,” Alpe said. “You don’t have to know everything, but you have to know a little bit about a lot.”
Q: What do you enjoy most about working with/studying water?
“The fact that it’s a constant state of learning. I don’t feel that you ever get to a point where you know everything about water because there is so much to learn. You’re constantly learning and that’s my favorite part.”
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
“It’s a challenge to keep up with the complexities of managing water in the United States and in our region. There’s been a real transition in terms of the institutional knowledge of folks that have retired during COVID-19 and moved onto different spaces of life. Transmitting that knowledge down the line to the next generation is a constant evolution. My hope is that through records and information management, that knowledge is accessible to our future selves 25 years down the line.”
Q: What has your experience so far been like being a woman in this line of work?
“Northern Water has modernized a lot since I started in terms of more diversity and women into this space. That’s been really encouraging to see. And I think further down the road we will have more and more of that. We have women in leadership roles across the organization which has been a shift from when I started 8 years ago. So, there is a legacy being built by women in these spaces that have historically been male dominated, and their voices will be preserved in our records for the future.”
Q: What’s a project you have worked on in this field that you are most proud of?
“When I first started with Northern Water, our former public information officer was working with a historian over at UNC, Michael Welsh, and he was writing a book along with the recently passed, former Colorado Supreme Court Justice, Greg Hobbs, who wrote prolifically about water in the west. They were working on the book Confluence: The Story of Greeley Water. We were able to dig into our records and give Michael these old newspaper clippings. He really appreciated that because we were able to give him pieces of information that contributed to this big project about the story of water in Greeley. I really loved that project because I got to work with Justice Hobbs before he passed and Michael Welsh as a historian.”
Q: What or who has been an inspiration to you throughout your work experience?
“My number one mentor in all my life has been a former professor of mine, Heather Thiessen-Reily. She is a professor of history at Western Colorado University in Gunnison. She has done a lot of work with the National Park Service, working on public history projects. She has always been my inspiration because she is so driven. I am still connected with her, and she’s been a valuable person that I still go to if I have questions about something.”
Q: What is something you have learned about the water industry that you didn’t know before you started your role?
“It’s been hard for me to fully comprehend the prior appropriation system and how water is allocated because it is very complex. But it is also fundamental because it’s how we get water to our taps. I did not come into my role with Northern Water with a background in water. It’s been an evolution of learning and that’s the system that has been the most complex for me to learn, especially in terms of keeping the records and indexing with the appropriate terminology to be able to track back the history.”
Q: What advice would you give to other women that may want to get into this type of work?
“Be open to anything. You don’t know how that job will evolve. I didn’t think I would get into water when I left grad school and landed at a law firm working in records. I was just trying to navigate life after college. Be open to opportunities because it may not happen overnight, but eventually you do end up navigating your career towards what you want to do. It can get a little discouraging when you are trying to wedge your career into one path, and it’s not working out. But I believe all those experiences come together to make a package that will land you where you need to be, especially if you’re knowledgeable and passionate about things. Ask questions. And always be open to learning.”
“The other part of it is to be engaged with the public agencies, community organizations, your town, and other communities in the region that you may not know anything about. Learn about the region and its many histories, particularly if you are looking to work in the water industry in Northern Colorado.”
The Poudre River’s recorded history, prior to gold seekers and settlers arriving in the late 1850s and early 1860s, is scarce. There were fur trappers’ and explorers’ writings of the area, but these were very limited regarding the Poudre River. It was during this period that the river obtained its name, but the exact reasons and timing are uncertain. It is generally agreed that fur traders/trappers needed to stash some of their supplies (including gun powder – in French it becomes ‘Cache la Poudre’), for a short time, during the 1820s or 1830s, for some reason, and the river was named for this action.
As gold seekers and settlers encountered the Poudre River Valley in the mid-1800s, I often wonder what they saw. We know that the river today is not like the natural stream before it was adapted to support permanent settlement of large numbers of people.
Before permanent settlement in the Poudre River valley, the river meandered in a shallow, braided fashion through the bottomlands. Each spring, runoff flooded (i.e. ‘irrigated’) the valley bottomlands in such a manner that there was an excellent stand of native grasses growing across the valley floor from the mouth of the canyon to the mouth of the river, east of Greeley. One place, open to the public, to visualize this low, flat, bottomlands is the Arapaho Bends Natural Area. As you stand near the remains of the Strauss Cabin, you can gaze across the valley floor (removing Rigden Reservoir from visualization) toward the west and see the bluff with Ziegler Road on top. Look east to the bluff where I-25 is now located with the town of Timnath on the east side of the interstate. Looking upstream the valley widens as the Box Elder Creek enters the Poudre River. Imagine the entire bottomland area covered with native grasses and trees growing along the river meandering through the valley.
The lushness of grasses drew buffalo into the valley. It becomes rather obvious why the Native Americans used the area to camp – food, water, fuel – all in abundance. Just north of the Strauss Cabin, across the railroad tracks, is where the Council Tree was located. Large numbers of Native Americans could camp in the vicinity to ‘Council’, as the early setters called Native American gatherings, – i.e. transact business, socialize, and conduct ceremonies – while living comfortably on the resources provided by the river.
This lushness did not escape the attention of earlier settlers to the area. George Strauss (1858) and Benjamin Eaton (1859), traveling through the area on other missions, noted the lushness and both returned to settle in the valley when their missions were completed. The Coy family decided to over-winter in the valley on their way to California in 1862, but did not continue their trip when spring arrived. The Valley is a beautiful place where many people, over the years, have chosen to settle.
The Northern Arapaho, under the leadership of ‘Chief’ Friday, were the last band of Native Americans to live/visit the Poudre River Valley, being forced out in the late 1860s. Before leaving, they requested a reservation on the north bank of the Poudre River, on which to live, but were denied. Friday’s band eventually was assigned to live on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming.
References:
Silkensen, G. 1993. South Platte River Observations: Historical Clues to the Evolution of a River’s Ecology. Published in the Proceedings of the 1992 South Platte Conference, Information Series Number 72, Colorado Water Institute, Colorado State University, pages 41-56. http://www.cwi.colostate.edu/publications/IS/72.pdf
Simmons, Marc. 2004. Friday: the Arapaho Boy – a Story from History. Children of the West Series, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Burris, Lucy. 2006. People of the Poudre: An Ethnohistory of the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area, AD 1500-1880. (Published through a cooperative agreement between the National Park Service, Friends of the Poudre, and the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area)
The main answer to this question is WATER! The Poudre River’s water history is not unique in the western U.S. – many western rivers have similar stories about human attempts to survive in arid and semi-arid western river valleys.
What makes the Cache la Poudre River worthy of designation as a National Heritage Area is the manner in which its water history is interwoven into the broader fabric of western water law and technology. The Poudre River’s history, in many ways, is an illustrative microcosm of western settlement that captures the essence of the struggles people faced in living in the dryness that defines the West and, in particular, how they adapted to survive, and thrive, in the dry landscape. And further, the Poudre’s history shows how people continue, to this day, to adapt to new challenges, such as improving the ecological health of the river and providing for recreation on, and in, the river.
As historian David McCullough notes:
History is the story of people.
Water history in the Poudre River valley is no exception. The series of stories that follow explains the role of the people of the Poudre in establishing western water law, water development strategies, new water management technology, and initial recognition of the need to create a sustainable relationship with the limited water environment that exists in much of the West. Again, this need continues today as the population of the Poudre Valley continues to grow rapidly.
The people did not set out to establish new water law, create new technology to manage water, or determine how to divide the limited waters of western rivers. They set out to survive in a dry and harsh climate. As the people of the Poudre adapted to the dry climate, their efforts were innovative enough to be of assistance and use to other western States and many foreign countries.
Organizing and presenting a large sweep of western water history, if even in only one valley, can be daunting if the presentation focuses on each discipline’s (i.e. law, engineering, agriculture, etc.) evolutionary path. The approach used here will chronologically follow the people of the Poudre, explain the water challenges they faced in their day, and describe the manner in which they solved each challenge. The solutions they created for each challenge, when combined over time, will help to explain how we arrived, collectively, at the system of western water management in use today and why there is a National Heritage Area associated with the Poudre River.
Water history in the West is, in very general terms, about subsistence in the 1800s (the frontier was deemed ‘closed’ in 1890), development in the 1900s (the Bureau of Reclamation was created in 1902 and is now managing 180 projects), and sustainability as the 21st Century dawns (as ecosystem health, instream flows and recreational uses are debated, acknowledged, and incorporated into water law). This overarching framework provides a background against which the people of the Poudre lived their lives and confronted water challenges facing each generation.
Read the first story.
References:
National Park Service. 1990. Resource Assessment: Proposed Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Corridor. Prepared by the NPS Rocky Mountain Regional Office at the request of the City of Fort Collins, December [Appendix B of this report is entitled: Historical Context – The History of Water Law and Water Development in the Cache la Poudre River Basin and the Rocky Mountain West] Report can be accessed at: https://archive.org/details/resourceassessme00nati
Information Source: These stories were prepared by Robert C. Ward, a professor and administrator at Colorado State University for 35 years, to assist in training volunteers on the history behind designation of the Poudre River as a National Heritage Area. [In particular, the information permits water history-related sites along the Poudre River to be explained through the lives of people who adapted their use of water to match the semi-arid nature of the landscape.]
The Cache la Poudre River NHA awarded almost $30,000 to local and regional partners for community benefiting projects in 2024.
You’re invited to virtually experience and celebrate the Cache la Poudre River during the Poudre RiverFest starting Monday, August 24th thru Saturday, August 29th. This six-day event will feature a variety of programming including Family Fun activities, Lunch and Learn sessions, Explore the Poudre River content and streamed Live Entertainment every day.
Poudre RiverFest is a free, family-friendly festival that celebrates the Poudre River, promotes restoration, and educates people about our river corridor, an important natural resource in our community. The festival features hands-on activities for children and adults to explore the role of the river as an important habitat for wildlife, a lively recreation area, and a source for clean drinking water.
Visit our virtual programming to create your own customized Poudre RiverFest calendar.
Proceeds from the Poudre RiverFest go to support restoration projects on the Cache la Poudre River. Join us in our restoration mission by donating today!
Festival organizers include:
Photo credit: City of Fort Collins
The Poudre Heritage Alliance (PHA), nonprofit managing entity of the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area (CALA), has received two large grants to support their programs that promote historical and cultural opportunities, engage people in the Poudre River corridor, and inspire learning, preservation, and stewardship.
Through the Colorado the Beautiful Grant Program, administered by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), PHA has been awarded $96,877 to complete a new Strategic Interpretive Plan for the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area. Grant funds will be used to: 1) Update the original Feasibility Study and Resource Inventory completed in 1990; 2) Develop a Strategic Interpretive Plan to help CALA become more accessible to the public as a whole; 3) Provide visitors with a seamlessly integrated experience; and 4) Build partner capacity.
The PHA will collaborate with a variety of stakeholders throughout the strategic planning process, including partner sites, staff, user groups, neighbors, government agencies, towns and municipalities, community decision makers, and local businesses.
The PHA has also been awarded a $25,000 “Women in Parks Innovation and Impact” grant from the National Park Service (NPS) and the National Park Foundation (NPF). The goal of this grant “is to support projects and programs that help the NPS share a more comprehensive American narrative that includes the voices of women.” In particular, the initiative is meant to “increase awareness about the 19th Amendment’s centennial and highlight stories of women who continue to shape the world.”
Through their project, “Lifting Voices from the Shadows,” the PHA, Colorado State University’s Native American Cultural Center, the National Heritage Areas Program, and the Northern Arapaho Tribe will work together to compile stories from Northern Arapaho women that run in parallel with, or counter to, the Suffragette movement and modern society. Grant support from the Women in Parks grant will enable PHA to 1) record women’s oral histories; 2) create educational videos and interpretive videos; and 3) share relevant content that aligns with 19th Amendment milestones.
The Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area is treasured by a community that values it for a variety of recreational activities and the tranquility of a natural corridor, while also depending on it as a water source for municipal, industrial and agricultural uses. A wide range of cultural perspectives form our rich Poudre River heritage. These grant funds will help the PHA present creative and balanced interpretation, representing the variety of cultures that make up our river corridor and helping citizens find a sense of place and continuity in a rapidly changing world.
For more information or questions please contact Megan Maiolo-Heath, Communications Coordinator, at communications@poudreheritage.org.
Many questions arise as to what happens when a generation grows up disconnected from its historical, natural and cultural heritage – such as, who will be the future stewards of our national parks and heritage areas? Who will be the keepers of “America’s story?”
Learning in Our Watershed™ has been designed with these questions in mind. The Poudre Heritage Alliance provides grant funds and curriculum support to K-12 teachers in Larimer and Weld Counties for student field trips to the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area. Our mission is simple – to help youth understand and value the Poudre River and their water heritage, ensuring a next generation of river stewards. Learning in Our Watershed™ covers a range of topics from water quality and management, to invasive species, agriculture, wildlife, Native American history, early European settlers, healthy ecosystems, and much more.
Thank you to Rotary Club of Fort Collins, the National Park Service, and the National Park Foundation for supporting the Learning in Our Watershed program. During the 2018-2019 school year, these program partners help fund 36 field trips to the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage and its partner sites, which had a total impact on over 3,000 students!
We encourage field trips that foster the study of water law history and water development and develop an understanding of place, the natural and human resources that we use and conserve.
Stay tuned for information regarding grants for the 2019/2020 school year! We will make an announcement when funding becomes available. To learn more about the Learning in Our Watershed program click here.
As the Colorado snowpack starts to melt and rivers and streams across the state begin to rise, its important to remember to Play It Safe on the Poudre!
The Cache la Poudre River offers many miles of incredible recreational opportunities – the scenic river runs from mild (class I-II) to wild (class V), attracting people from around the country to its beautiful waters. However, most people do not understand the dangers that exist while recreating on the river.
The Poudre River presents numerous hazards. Broken or low-hanging tree branches, hidden beneath the water, can snag a person out for a lazy afternoon tubing trip. Freezing waters made cold by spring runoff can cause a person to react slowly, when quicker action is needed, or possibly suffer hypothermia. And deceptively fast-moving waters pose a drowning risk to even the most experienced swimmers.
“The Poudre River is a source of local pride that draws thousands to its waters each year. We wouldn’t dissuade peoples’ love for it and what it represents. But the river is equal parts beautiful and destructive. Its power is easy to underestimate, and river-related tragedy can befall anyone at any time,” said former Poudre Fire Authority spokeswoman Madeline Noblett.
The Play It Safe on the Poudre program raises awareness about approaches to recreating on the river in safe and sustainable ways, and helps to build the capacity of the Poudre Fire Authority and Larimer County rescue teams. The program also calls attention to the history of in-river structures that represent hazards to recreation.
Play It Safe on the Poudre principles:
Download a River Access and Safety Map
Other representatives who have taken part in the group’s efforts represent: Poudre Fire Authority; multiple departments within the City of Fort Collins, including the city’s Natural Areas Department; Larimer County; the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office and Larimer County Emergency Services; Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and more.
For more info please visit www.poudreheritage.org/playitsafe
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