While researching my myth, the biggest discovery I made was that the myth might have been completely made up in the 1920s. The main source I could find was Dan Totheroh’s play Tamalpa, created for the Moundation on Mount Tamalpais in 1921. Totheroh has said on record that he invited the story when looking for an indigenous myth to write about; when his research came up short, he decided to make a story of indigenous people on his own. There are few but notable mentions that Dan first heard the myth from local children of Marin County and used it for his play.

My story’s primary location is the site we explored and documented in class. Most of my research came from the in-person Physical Traces activity we did for class. My online research was focused on looking into the history of the area. My biggest discovery was that a nearby dam and lake was actually man-made and flooded a town called Monticello to be created. To honor the town that no longer exists, I named the town in my story Monticello.

For the video of my site, I wanted to play with two versions of the location; the day and the night. I chose to document road 96 on the outskirts of my hometown Davis CA. A place I would frequent with my friends when we had nowhere else to be or when we were seeking solitude. Mostly at night blasting music, we would spend hours on this road, occasionally only leaving when the farmers who tend the fields next to the road started their morning rounds. The idea of the farmers knowing the fields as a place of work that is sunny, hot, and tiring, and me and my friends knowing the fields as a haven, dark and free to come and go as you please. In my story, this site is a grave for the main character, it’s scary and unpleasant, but by the end, the site is transformed into a lush mountain, full of beauty one wouldn’t be able to imagine it was once a site of a tragic accident.

To show these two versions, I filmed several nature shots in the afternoon light and at sunset. I then filmed my car in the night, music playing loudly and without much nature in the shots. I edited these clips to go back and forth to show the two versions while making it known that they are, in fact, the same place, as seen by the daylit road flashing to the car at night, the camera hasn’t moved, but the scene has changed.