By Greg Sater
For a fascinating and new local educational experience, we recommend that you pay a visit the newly-opened Chrisman California Islands Center in Carpinteria.
The center is dedicated to the appreciation of the Channel Islands and their history, particularly its ranching history.
For anyone in this area who loves being in the great outdoors, you know that one of the greatest things about living in the Ventura and Santa Barbara area is how easy it is to get on a boat, for example on Island Packers, and get to the Channel Islands. Whether you have been out there a hundred times or never, it is well worth it to pay a visit to the Chrisman center.
Even before you go inside, you will see beautiful metallic representations of each island in the courtyard outside, with each correctly represented in size, shape, and distance from the others, and you will see plants there that come from the islands. This is interesting since, as you may know, the islands were never connected to the mainland, so the islands’ plants, birds, and animals evolved independently which resulted in hundreds which are only found on the islands.
Once inside, you will see historical information about the ranching history of each island, including the ranching that occurred on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel islands, along with detailed maps, chronologies, photographs, and tangible exhibits and artifacts from that era.
The era of ranching on the islands of course commenced after the much longer era of the Chumash on the islands, which had lasted for at least six hundred and fifty generations. Ranching came to an end when the islands became a national park, after which efforts commenced to grow back as much native vegetation as possible.
In short, the center provides an important historical account of an important part of the islands’ past.
