English Pronunciation Audio

The traditional Washo story - How Lake Tahoe was Made – is told here in Washo with English translation. This short but powerful piece sets the context for the writing that follows.

The legendary Norman Dietz reads three of the six pieces on the collection.

Hear Thomas Starr King's telling sermon titled Living Water from Lake Tahoe (1863), followed by chapters 22 and 23 from Mark Twain's first book, Roughing It, in which, a young Samuel Clemens describes three days spent on Lake Tahoe (1861). Dietz also reads an essay by noted naturalist and poet John Vance Cheney. In a powerful example of descriptive writing, Cheney takes the listener on a steamboat ride around the Lake in 1883.

Yorkshire native Christine Rendel reads an excerpt from Isabella Bird's A Ladies Life in the Rocky Mountains (1876). The noted world traveler and horsewoman tells of a night in a rustic Truckee hotel and a solo horse-back trip to Lake Tahoe the following day.

And finally, we hear an essay from a 1914 Sierra Club Bulletin titled Ski Running: An Impression. The author is one of a party of skiers who traveled from San Francisco on the train for a day of pole skiing in the Tahoe Sierra. The enthusiasm of these early day trippers is a harbinger for things to come.

Taken as a whole, the collection has a distinct ecological message.

Storytellers/Readers:

Melba Rakow is a traditional Washo speaker and singer.

Keith Wyatt is a traditional Washo singer and storyteller.

Norman Dietz is perhaps best known these days as a voice-over artist and narrator of unabridged audiobooks, a craft he has worked at with singular success since 1986. In its Millennium issue, AudioFile magazine named him one of the fifty "Best Voices of the Century, " a listing of what the editors called "the gold mine of talented narrators who have defined the craft in the last 25 years of the 20th century. " He has recorded well over 100 audiobooks during his years in the studio-ten of them the writings of Mark Twain. Theatre in The Works on the web at; http: //homepage. mac. com/normandietz/

Christine Rendel hails from the north of England. New York credits include Lettice in Lettice and Lovage, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit, Anna in Mind the Gap's US premiere of the acclaimed Under The Blue Sky. She appeared as Mum and Mrs. B in Dirty Works at the Greenwich St. Theater and again in Edinburgh during the festival in 2005. Film and TV work includes All My Children, Will and Grace, Sri Rao's Quarterlife and Tuesday, and Dan Remmes' award-winning George, as well as several independent films. She works extensively in voiceovers, industrials and audio narration. She is a founding member of Mind The Gap Theatre (mindthegaptheatre. com) which promotes and produces new British work for American audiences - AEA-SAG-AFTRA.

Saralinda Kiser has been acting and singing on stage for 20 years and currently teaches Speech Communication and Theatre at the University of Nevada. Prior voice work includes planetarium star shows, radio dramas, and various commercials and public service announcements. She lives in Reno, NV with her husband, Paul and four-month-old son, Alexander.

Cover Art: Awakening Bay by Melinda Plumbridge.

Melinda Plumbridge has lived in the mountains of the Sierras and Colorado for most of her life and has been painting for 30 years. Rivers, streams, small Alpine lakes and of course, Lake Tahoe are the subjects of her vivid landscape paintings. The cover art of this booklet is available as a limited edition print through the artist's website www. Tahoeart. com

Special Thanks to Lynda Shoshone and the Washo Language Program.