{"id":14386,"date":"2020-12-16T00:31:31","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T07:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=14386"},"modified":"2020-12-16T00:31:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T07:31:31","slug":"basque-ing-in-the-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/16\/basque-ing-in-the-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque-ing In The Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sun Valley city staffer has a literary side gig<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
The cover of Sun Valley Serenade, a mystery novel set in the Wood River Valley. Image credit: Bryce Ternet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next time you\u2019re hiking or snowshoeing the Valley\u2019s trails, pay close attention to the trees. That\u2019s what Sun Valley community development director Bryce Ternet had done for years. His newly released book\u2014Sun Valley Serenade\u2014is the result.<\/p>\n

Sun Valley Serenade is a work of fiction\u2014a mystery novel\u2014based on some very real Idaho history. Specifically, it\u2019s about the arborglyphs drawn into the Valley\u2019s trees, predominantly by the early Basque people who settled here. Arborglyphs are carvings into the bark of trees, depicting everything from Basque-region town names to flocks of sheep to nude women.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s graffiti in a way, but it\u2019s historical,\u201d Ternet said.<\/p>\n

The arborglyphs inspired Ternet to develop a story about an old, unsolved mystery whose secret was carved into the trees. The story combines three time periods all tied somehow to one Basque-American family, starting with a sheepherding immigrant in the 1880s and carrying over to a Basque boarding house in Hailey circa 1930. Since moving to the Valley a little over three years ago, Ternet collaborated with Professor John Bieter, who specializes in Basque-American history and affairs at Boise State University, on searching for and recording Basque arborglyphs in the region.<\/p>\n

The novel by Ternet and the work by Bieter are important because the arborglyphs won\u2019t last forever. Already, Ternet said, many arborglyphs have been destroyed by age and by fire. It\u2019s a matter of time before none will exist. In part, that\u2019s where the book derives its title.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just works for this story as it is, in a way, my own love song to Sun Valley and the general Valley area,\u201d Ternet, a member of the Hailey Arts and Historic Preservation Committee, said.<\/p>\n

Ternet\u2019s History<\/b><\/p>\n

So how does a West Coast transplant and history buff end up writing a book of fiction about central Idaho? In part, it\u2019s thanks to the decade Ternet spent in California, specifically in Monterey\u2014the setting of John Steinbeck\u2019s Cannery Row, where Ternet had worked for a time.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Bryce Ternet has long enjoyed the Valley landscape. Now he\u2019s written a mystery novel about it. Photo credit: Bryce Ternet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI lived in an area where its history was connected to famous literature,\u201d Ternet observed. \u201cMy interest in Basque culture goes back to when I was in high school and was an exchange student in the French Basque Country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

After going to university in Montana, Ternet became even more fascinated with mountainous landscapes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife, Renata, and I used to come to Sun Valley for Thanksgiving when we lived in the Seattle area,\u201d Ternet said. \u201cWe always thought this would be a nice place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, like a plot twist in a novel, his current position with the City of Sun Valley opened up.<\/p>\n

In that position, Ternet has used his appreciation for history when evaluating development projects. When the city approved the demolition of the Moritz building, which served as one of two hospitals in the Wood River Valley from the time it was built in 1961 until 2000, Ternet proposed that the resort erect a plaque on the premises detailing the historical significance of the site, which was named after Dr. John Moritz, Sun Valley Resort\u2019s first year-round physician. The city declined to make that a condition of the permit.<\/p>\n

Ternet\u2019s Future<\/b><\/p>\n

Ternet\u2019s book is self-published and available on Amazon and at the Basque Museum gift shop in Boise for purchase. He doesn\u2019t currently have any specific promotional plans, but said he\u2019d be looking into local radio interviews and library talks.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sun Valley city staffer has a literary side gig By Eric Valentine Next time you\u2019re hiking or snowshoeing the Valley\u2019s trails, pay close attention to the trees. That\u2019s what Sun Valley community development director Bryce Ternet had done for years. His newly released book\u2014Sun Valley Serenade\u2014is the result. Sun Valley Serenade is a work of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-news","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}