A Rediscovery of Clifford D. Simak - A Reading Challenge

Extollager said:
Dave Wixon -- have I found the right bit of map for Simak country?
View attachment 34805
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Ralf beat me to it... I was trying to find a way to give you a small southern extension of your map, but I was struggling with it (I'm a technological troglodyte).

Thanks, Ralf!

Let me emphasize that when you're on the ground down there, it's really difficult to keep track of where you are...I was wondering whether you had not understood that the Simak place was on the south side of the river -- an easy mistake to make, since Simak fans are aware that he used Bridgeport (nearby but on the north side of the river) in TIME AND AGAIN, as the place to meet "Old Cliff." (Once I got lost there myself, and ended up struggling along the river bottom rather than sailing easily along the ridge-top...)
 
Ralf and Dave, I never say this, but -- that's awesome!

It looks like it'snot all built up there... so maybe the immediate Simak area looks much as it did in the time Simak was thinking of it. ?
 
What is not really recognizable on the 2D maps: Simak's Bluff is actually on a hill.
With self-made maps (GoogleMyMaps), there is apparently no 3D view.

Whether there is a 3D view in normal GoogleMaps depends on hardware and operating system. You can try it, the area is here:
GoogleMaps 42°59'49.8"N 91°00'42.6"W

If a button "3D" is visible on the right side, click on the button and press the Ctrl and the mouse button to tilt the image.

On my computer, this does not work, but I have created this screenshot on another computer:

simakfarm_3D_googlemap.jpg


With my older GoogleEarth version, I also have the 3D version on my computer. Also a screenshot.

simakfarm_3D_googleearth.jpg


One gets a clue here, why the area of his childhood Clifford Simak so sustainably influenced.
 
2DaveWixon said:
Ralf beat me to it... I was trying to find a way to give you a small southern extension of your map, but I was struggling with it (I'm a technological troglodyte).

Thanks, Ralf!

Let me emphasize that when you're on the ground down there, it's really difficult to keep track of where you are...I was wondering whether you had not understood that the Simak place was on the south side of the river -- an easy mistake to make, since Simak fans are aware that he used Bridgeport (nearby but on the north side of the river) in TIME AND AGAIN, as the place to meet "Old Cliff." (Once I got lost there myself, and ended up struggling along the river bottom rather than sailing easily along the ridge-top...)
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I must, of course, emphasize that I have never been to Wisconsin and that I do not know for sure whether the places marked by me are true.
Everything happened on the basis of the essay by Bill Sharp "From the Bluff: A Philosophy of Clifford D. Simak". There was at the end this map:

Sharp_Map_Simak_farm.jpg


It was the assumptions of Bill. Through the comments of Dave, I now assume that the location of the Simak farm is about right.
 
Extollager said:
Ralf and Dave, I never say this, but -- that's awesome!

It looks like it'snot all built up there... so maybe the immediate Simak area looks much as it did in the time Simak was thinking of it. ?
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Absolutely. In fact, I cannot prove it, but I suspect that the area is more overgrown -- that is, has more by way of forest, than it did fifty years ago -- not only has there been no sizable influx of population, but in fact I'm under the impression that the population has dwindled somewhat -- Millville, for instance, seen about 30 years ago, had a lot of vacant buildings...
(Millville, by the way, is off to the east, I think farther than the maps we have extend.) (This is kind of funny to me, because I happen to be re-reading Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, and just an hour ago I went again through the section where Lackland and Barlennan were trying to piece together a route for their journey, by stringing out a series of satellite views...)

On one of the maps there is a road marked, simply, "C". That is I believe the tiny road that runs below the bluffs, right down next to the river -- also the one I mentioned when I spoke, earlier, about getting lost one time... I see from Ralf's map that in going along that road, I passed right under Simak's Bluff. Thanks, Ralf.

And for what it's worth, these maps don't show it, but the road to Patch Grove (where Cliff went to high school) runs south from the mapped area -- I believe as the continuation of hwy. 35...
 
Ralf 58 said:
I must, of course, emphasize that I have never been to Wisconsin and that I do not know for sure whether the places marked by me are true.
Everything happened on the basis of the essay by Bill Sharp "From the Bluff: A Philosophy of Clifford D. Simak". There was at the end this map:

Sharp_Map_Simak_farm.jpg


It was the assumptions of Bill. Through the comments of Dave, I now assume that the location of the Simak farm is about right.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think you have it, Ralf.

I can't be sure, but I think the site of the Whistling Well is just to the left (north) of the place where the white line that is the road seems almost covered by an extension of the forest -- just above the head (arrowhead) of the arrow labeled "The Farm."
 
This is very interesting. Many thanks indeed Ralph, Dave and Extollager.

One point that interests me, Dave:

in "The Goblin Reservation" chapter 16 page 98-99 my edition, Maxwell climbs the bluffs towards the goblin castle and encounters trolls. At one point I thought that this climb described Simak's experience of climbing the bluff near his farm, but then the stuff I looked at showed the bluff as too flat so I assumed the climb had grown in height with nostalgic memory, but these photos show definitely more rugged terrain.

So my question is: how accurate could this description be of the climb up the bluff?

I see something else: at the beginning of this chapter 16, there's a reference to "Cat Den Point", presumably this is the same place as "The Thing in the Stone".

Have you seen this Dave? If so is it as dramatic as in "The Thing in the Stone" or more mundane?
 
I've been busy with work, and not on the forum as much as I'd like for the last week or so, but can I just say that this excursion into the geography and satellite images of Simak country has been fascinating and illuminating - many thanks all who have contributed.

I don't know if the specific location had a particular point of reference in this country, but my clearest literary vision of this land was I think provided by Way Station.
 
Hugh, the bluff side of the ridge is indeed steep -- in some places...but in other places, water and the weakness of the underlying limestone have cuts channels, even small valleys -- in other words, there's no consistency.
The most likely thing (responding to your questions as best I can) is that all of it came out of Cliff's memories of the area he grew up in. He spent much of his time as a boy -- when not working on the farm -- roaming about the area on foot, and it stuck with him. But at the same time, while doing that roaming, he was using his imagination to make up stories about wherever he found himself -- and stories always get bigger over time.

There are places along the bluff where one could fairly easily climb up...and other places where it would be impossible. The top of the ridge is indeed flat -- but only relatively so: it's rolling country that is further cut by streams, creating hollows. And on the bluff side, the Wisconsin River cut deeped and more sharply.

So there was a little bit of everything.

As for Cat Den Point: it was not a single particular place. The country in which Cliff grew up was one in which there were frequently rumors that panthers (or mountain lions) had been seen -- somewhere. And the bluff was, along its north side, filled with caves and lesser openings -- there were, Cliff said, a lot of rumored "cat dens" scattered about...
There was one particular "cave" that Cliff discovered as a boy, that he used in "The Thing in the Stone" -- but it was not called "Cat Den Point", (the nearby terrain, as described in the story, was not the same, either..) -- he just appropriated the name...
 
2DaveWixon said:
Hugh, the bluff side of the ridge is indeed steep -- in some places...but in other places, water and the weakness of the underlying limestone have cuts channels, even small valleys -- in other words, there's no consistency.
The most likely thing (responding to your questions as best I can) is that all of it came out of Cliff's memories of the area he grew up in. He spent much of his time as a boy -- when not working on the farm -- roaming about the area on foot, and it stuck with him. But at the same time, while doing that roaming, he was using his imagination to make up stories about wherever he found himself -- and stories always get bigger over time.

There are places along the bluff where one could fairly easily climb up...and other places where it would be impossible. The top of the ridge is indeed flat -- but only relatively so: it's rolling country that is further cut by streams, creating hollows. And on the bluff side, the Wisconsin River cut deeped and more sharply.

So there was a little bit of everything.

As for Cat Den Point: it was not a single particular place. The country in which Cliff grew up was one in which there were frequently rumors that panthers (or mountain lions) had been seen -- somewhere. And the bluff was, along its north side, filled with caves and lesser openings -- there were, Cliff said, a lot of rumored "cat dens" scattered about...
There was one particular "cave" that Cliff discovered as a boy, that he used in "The Thing in the Stone" -- but it was not called "Cat Den Point", (the nearby terrain, as described in the story, was not the same, either..) -- he just appropriated the name...
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This is really great, Dave. Thank you greatly for giving these details, it really makes the terrain come alive for me.

I'd often wondered how much his imagination deliberately grew his memories in his writing, but you've confirmed a strong basis of reality. I remember reading somewhere that in his later years he preferred not to visit the home territory. I'd thought that this might be linked to wishing to keep his memories as they were in his head.

I find it very easy to believe the rumours of mountain lions. Even in the UK there are regular stories of big cats that have escaped from somewhere and are living successfully on the fringes. Then there are the wallabies that have formed a colony somewhere (I assume they're still there, they haven't been in my news for a while).

Moving seamlessly from lions to mastodons....

Did Cliff ever mention the Boaz mastodons?

Boaz mastodon - Wikipedia

These bones were discovered by local farm boys in 1897 not far from the Simak farm, and I've assumed that the excitement of this was still about for the young Simak. I've wondered if this influenced his partiality to mastodons.

And moving seamlessly on, since you've been good enough to answer my questions so far...

How about Thunder Butte in "A Heritage of Stars"?

I've assumed that this refers to the Thunder Butte in South Dakota...

Thunder Butte

and that Cliff knew this from his travels working on various newspapers before he settled in Minneapolis. It looks as if it was a massive outcrop on the horizon for many miles.

Once I realised how much of his writing is linked to his landscape, it's always tempting in reading his work to link it to the map.
 
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Hugh said:
This is really great, Dave. Thank you greatly for giving these details, it really makes the terrain come alive for me.

I'd often wondered how much his imagination deliberately grew his memories in his writing, but you've confirmed a strong basis of reality. I remember reading somewhere that in his later years he preferred not to visit the home territory. I'd thought that this might be linked to wishing to keep his memories as they were in his head.

I find it very easy to believe the rumours of mountain lions. Even in the UK there are regular stories of big cats that have escaped from somewhere and are living successfully on the fringes. Then there are the wallabies that have formed a colony somewhere (I assume they're still there, they haven't been in my news for a while).

Moving seamlessly from lions to mastodons....

Did Cliff ever mention the Boaz mastodons?

Boaz mastodon - Wikipedia

These bones were discovered by local farm boys in 1897 not far from the Simak farm, and I've assumed that the excitement of this was still about for the young Simak. I've wondered if this influenced his partiality to mastodons.

And moving seamlessly on, since you've been good enough to answer my questions so far...

How about Thunder Butte in "A Heritage of Stars"?

I've assumed that this refers to the Thunder Butte in South Dakota...

Thunder Butte

and that Cliff knew this from his travels working on various newspapers before he settled in Minneapolis. It looks as if it was a massive outcrop on the horizon for many miles.

Once I realised how much of his writing is linked to his landscape, it's always tempting in reading his work to link it to the map.
Click to expand...
As a matter of fact, Cliff had a certain partiality for South Dakota -- you may recall the TIME IS THE SIMPLEST THING comes to its climax on the Missouri River, in SoDak.
Also, although Cliff did not take many vacations, one that I know is mentioned in one of his journals was a family trip to the Black Hills. It was a driving trip, and I don't think that the freeway that now runs along S.D.'s southern edge was in existence at that point -- meaning that the most likely route was directly west from the Simak home, and that route would have brought the family nearer to the Butte than would the freeway... (And much earlier, in the early days of the U.S. involvement in WWII, Cliff, having accepted a job with U.S. Intelligence that required him to move to Seattle, drove the first part of that trip (along with his wife). I don't know the route, though...)

(Understand, I never asked Cliff about that, so I'm only speculating -- but at the same time, I think it's clear from the novel I mentioned, that he was pretty familiar with the Mizzou and its banks and islands...and, now I think of it, he had a friend out that way in later years, with whom he corresponded a bit...)

As I say: there is some evidence, but take it with a grain or more of salt.
 
2DaveWixon said:
As a matter of fact, Cliff had a certain partiality for South Dakota -- you may recall the TIME IS THE SIMPLEST THING comes to its climax on the Missouri River, in SoDak.
Also, although Cliff did not take many vacations, one that I know is mentioned in one of his journals was a family trip to the Black Hills. It was a driving trip, and I don't think that the freeway that now runs along S.D.'s southern edge was in existence at that point -- meaning that the most likely route was directly west from the Simak home, and that route would have brought the family nearer to the Butte than would the freeway... (And much earlier, in the early days of the U.S. involvement in WWII, Cliff, having accepted a job with U.S. Intelligence that required him to move to Seattle, drove the first part of that trip (along with his wife). I don't know the route, though...)

(Understand, I never asked Cliff about that, so I'm only speculating -- but at the same time, I think it's clear from the novel I mentioned, that he was pretty familiar with the Mizzou and its banks and islands...and, now I think of it, he had a friend out that way in later years, with whom he corresponded a bit...)

As I say: there is some evidence, but take it with a grain or more of salt.
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It seems unlikely that he would have used Thunder Butte unless it had some resonance/meaning for him from having seen it, at the very least from a distance.

I hadn't heard (or have forgotten) that he worked with US Intelligence in Seattle. I'd thought that he worked through the war as chief of the copy desk at the Minneapolis Star, and, by extension it was access to the news coming in there that influenced his writing of City. The Intelligence work seems to have left him time to continue writing stories.

There's a quote in Ewald (page 17) that seems to relate to 1940 to 1942 of Simak recalling "Hell. I'd never been west of the Missouri River at that time." An editor had billed him as "a man who knows the West so well....".
I think Thunder Butte is west of the Missouri, but then so is Seattle....
 
Hugh said:
It seems unlikely that he would have used Thunder Butte unless it had some resonance/meaning for him from having seen it, at the very least from a distance.

I hadn't heard (or have forgotten) that he worked with US Intelligence in Seattle. I'd thought that he worked through the war as chief of the copy desk at the Minneapolis Star, and, by extension it was access to the news coming in there that influenced his writing of City. The Intelligence work seems to have left him time to continue writing stories.

There's a quote in Ewald (page 17) that seems to relate to 1940 to 1942 of Simak recalling "Hell. I'd never been west of the Missouri River at that time." An editor had billed him as "a man who knows the West so well....".
I think Thunder Butte is west of the Missouri, but then so is Seattle....
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The salient words there might be "at that time" -- I have no idea what Cliff was referring to when he said that. My guess would be that the trip to Seattle (early '42) was his first such trip...

I'd have to say, however, that a name like "Thunder Butte" is rather generic for someone writing a work of fiction -- and one that could have been picked from a map...or even just from imagination.

The work for Intelligence was not very well publicized until I dug it up and started using it when writing about Cliff; and most important in terms of your questions: it did not last long, and the Simaks were back in Minneapolis before the end of 1942...I get the impression that Cliff quit because he did not like how they treated him -- for one thing, they weren't paying him what they had promised...
 
2DaveWixon said:
The salient words there might be "at that time" -- I have no idea what Cliff was referring to when he said that. My guess would be that the trip to Seattle (early '42) was his first such trip...

I'd have to say, however, that a name like "Thunder Butte" is rather generic for someone writing a work of fiction -- and one that could have been picked from a map...or even just from imagination.

The work for Intelligence was not very well publicized until I dug it up and started using it when writing about Cliff; and most important in terms of your questions: it did not last long, and the Simaks were back in Minneapolis before the end of 1942...I get the impression that Cliff quit because he did not like how they treated him -- for one thing, they weren't paying him what they had promised...
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Good on Cliff for getting out toute suite if it didn't fit for him. Clearly he was valued highly enough to get straight back on the Minneapolis Star.
 
Hugh said:
Good on Cliff for getting out toute suite if it didn't fit for him. Clearly he was valued highly enough to get straight back on the Minneapolis Star.
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Yes, he was proud of the fact that when he left the paper, they told him they'd welcome him back -- and they did, even to his same job as chief of the copy desk.
 
Tom Hering said:
I just finished Our Children's Children (1974). It's one of Simak's best. Good plot and pacing, with some classic scenes (like the chicken coop!). A satisfying ending - consistent with hints given throughout the story.
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I always enjoy hearing of anyone who has read Simak. I'm also impressed that you thought that it was one of his best, the more so as I think of it as one of his lesser works, though, as they say, "it's still Simak". It's great you liked it so much.
 
Tom Hering said:
I just finished Our Children's Children (1974). It's one of Simak's best. Good plot and pacing, with some classic scenes (like the chicken coop!). A satisfying ending - consistent with hints given throughout the story.
Click to expand...
It's one (of many) Simak books that I keep finding more in every time I read it...
 
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