Tales of Cow Camps, Shake Makers and Basket Weavers
NORTH FORK – Marcia Penner Freedman will be sharing her stories of Willow Creek on Sunday, May 5, at Slim’s Koffee Shak in North Fork from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Slim’s will feature a special menu of yogurt parfaits, pulled pork on a croissant and fruit skewers.
Before the presentation, there will be live music to set the stage, then you can meet the author. Here is a bit about Freedman and her book “Willow Creek History.”
It’s the same Willow Creek that flows into Bass Lake and moves through five powerhouses generating twenty-seven kilowatts of electricity for California. It’s the same Willow Creek that rises at eight thousand feet in the Sierra Forest, crashes through narrow granite canyons and meanders through serene mountain passes on its journey to its confluence with the San Joaquin River twenty-five miles below.
Logging railroads have carried their loads alongside and over Willow Creek. Native tribes made their homes along its banks. Each year, thousands of people swim and boat and fish in its waters. In this history of Willow Creek, local author Marcia Penner Freedman shares the amazing story of these moving waters and the people whose lives have been touched by Willow Creek.
Marcia Penner Freedman, born and raised in the New York Metropolitan Area and later, a resident of Los Angeles for twenty years, has been a lifelong hiker, backpacker and camper. In 1999, she decided to leave city life and relocate to the small town of Oakhurst, just outside of Yosemite National Park.
One day, while hiking up in the Sierra Forest, Freedman came across a Willow Creek sign at a bridge. Below, in a ravine, the creek meandered down through the forest and out of sight. Following that encounter, Willow Creek became her focus, an obsession her friends might say, and after years of editing newsletters and immersing herself in other people’s interests, she decided it was time to write about something that captivated her: Willow Creek.
Freedman received a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Southern California and currently teaches psychology part time at a local community college.
