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Correction: The public can access eastern Utah's Range Creek Canyon - on foot or by horseback - by gaining special permits from the Division of Wildlife Resources. A story Monday said otherwise.
The Fremont Indian ruins in eastern Utah's Range Creek Canyon may be the largest undisturbed and most-valuable archaeological find in the state's history - and you can't go there without a permit.
You don't need a permit, however, to sharpen your understanding of the mysterious, prehistoric Fremont people and how they lived on that rugged landscape for 1,000 years by visiting the soon-to-open Range Creek exhibit at the Utah Museum of Natural History on the University of Utah campus.
The Fremont made rope from yucca plants, crafted fishing tackle from bone, hunted big game with bow and arrow, and called forth spirits with intricate talismans.
"This is an insider's view of Range Creek - without actually going there," said Becky Menlove, the museum's director of exhibits. "We want people to see and feel what it's like to be there."
The new exhibit - to open Aug. 12 - includes such things as a mock-up dwelling, called a pit house; a granary, where Fremont stored corn hundreds of feet above the valley floor; and pictograph paintings and petroglyph etchings from cliff walls that tell stories we can only wonder about.
"It's an opportunity to see how people lived in A.D. 300, and what the similarities and differences are to our lives," Menlove noted. "What's cool about Range Creek is that because it's been undisturbed, it gives us the opportunity to study the Fremont like never before."
Remote Range Creek Canyon escaped vandalism and other disturbances - for the most part - because it was operated as a private ranch.
The area was originally homesteaded by Augustus Ferron in 1884.
Ray Wilcox took over the place in the early 1950s. His family protected it for more than 50 years and kept secret its historic treasures. In 2001, Waldo Wilcox sold the ranch to the Trust for Public Land for $2.5 million. The title of the 4,200-acre ranch was deeded to Utah in 2004.
Archeologists now have a rare opportunity to unearth and study the intricacies of the little-known Fremont people, who lived in various portions of Utah between A.D. 300 and 1300, said Duncan Metcalf, lead investigator at Range Creek Canyon.
"What you realize is that you are dealing with very intelligent people who made amazing adaptations," he said. "They were intimately familiar with their environment."
The Fremont mysteriously disappeared in the 14th century. Among the riddles of Range Creek Canyon is why the Fremont chose to live there, Metcalf noted.
The locale is as far north as Fremont relics are found and where late-spring frost could cripple an entire year's corn crop. And although Range Creek - a tributary of the Green River - provided steady water, it was too wild to be dammed for irrigation.
"It's a tough place to live," Metcalf said. "They were right on the edge of being productive farmers."
Evidence of arrowheads and animal bones indicates the Fremont augmented farming by hunting, including rabbits and big game.
And they fished the river, as revealed through intricate fishing tackle of bone and hand-woven line.
Exhibit visitors get a glimpse of this Fremont stronghold - from giant photo blowups of the rugged canyon covering the installation's walls.
The scale of the spectacularly deep canyon of golden sandstone is driven home by video footage of its sheer and varied walls shot from a helicopter.
Breathtaking vistas of Fremont sites tower 3,000 feet above the juniper-dappled valley floor.
The canyon is a sacred place for Utah's present-day Indian tribes, said Forrest Cuch, the executive director of the state Division of Indian Affairs.
Although archeologists may differ, the Shoshone, Ute, Goshute and Paiute tribes consider the Fremont to be ancestors, Cuch said.
"These kinds of exhibits are a reminder that indigenous people thrived here long before the arrival of Europeans," he explained. "There is educational value. Learning more about human beings living here before white settlers is key to tolerance."
Archeologists are still mapping the huge area before excavation can begin.
The museum's installation will be updated as discoveries are made.
The exhibit - which includes interactive aspects for visitors in pottery, mapping and tree-ring dating - is designed to be interesting to all ages, said Menlove. It also features discussions in pottery and basket-making, as well as storytelling in the pit house for youngsters.
"We always want to ignite interest in kids who might have scientific intents. If they get excited about this, they may want to pursue a scientific path."
And it's a chance to consider at a whole different world, right here in Utah.
Range Creek Fremont exhibit
* Opens: Saturday
* Opening-day activities:
Storytelling for children - 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Interactive exhibits on pottery, mapping and tree-ring dating
Gallery talks - 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.
* Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.