Indian and Japanese influences

Dr. Einar C. Erickson was born in 1928 in Ruth, Nevada, seven miles west of Ely, Nevada. While living there he won a Boy Scout scholarship in Archaeology and Geology with headquarters in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. He spent time with Navajo and Hopi that made an impact on his life and stimulated lifetime interest and service activities involving Indian Groups. Later as an experienced pilot he did volunteer work for the Navajo Tribal Museum, locating Pueblo III sites and cliff dwellings from the air and then verifying them by ground trips. He also became involved with Shoshone and Paiutes, and became familiar with their languages and customs and ceremonies on a personal basis with all four of these cultures, which continues to the present. He enlisted in the Armed Services near the end of WWII and later while in occupied Japan, he was set apart to help open the Japanese Mission incurring many spiritual experiences and additional interest in Oriental cultures. He was to return to Japan and spend time in China in research for some of his tapes.

Family

In 1952, Einar married Georgia Gudmundson, his younger sister's best friend. They have five children, 28 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. Many of his grandchildren have been taught by him and have attended his current lectures when possible. All of his children have college educations.

Education

Through the G.I. Bill Dr Erickson acquired his Bachelors and Masters degrees from BYU in Chemistry and Geology, briefly interrupted during the Korean War with a recall back to active duty. He attended the University of Arizona for several years, on two different occasions, and became a Teaching Assistant in Geochemistry to Dr. Paul Damon, and studied mining engineering under several famous Mining Engineers and Authors. He worked for years as an Exploration Geologist. He is a Registered Professional Engineer, and was formerly registered in Canada where he worked for many companies. He has a Drilling Contractors license and is a qualified engineer for many contractors' licenses in Nevada. He continues today as a Consultant Geologist.

Bush Pilot

Einar was an accomplished bush pilot. Flying was a necessity for him wherever he worked. He was a Registered Professional Engineer in Canada as well as in Nevada, and made frequent use of airplanes to get to distant and remote sites where he was doing consulting work, landing on remote lakes, beaches and sea harbors, in Canada and the western United States as well as Central American areas. He wore out nine airplanes, and logged more than 13,500 hours of flying time, often taking off and landing several times a day on remote dirt strips, some one way, some at nearly 9,000 feet. He utilized old roads, sandy areas, fields, and any place he could safely land. His airplanes were equipped with special Stoll Kits permitting him short field take offs and landings. He had many narrow escapes; he survived three crash landings mostly due to mechanical failures, without any harm.

Archaeology

At the age of sixteen, he won a scholarship in archaeology and geology, headquartered in Mancos, Colorado, with excursions into the ruins of the Mesa Verde, Navajo Country, Canyon de Chelly, the canyons around Navajo Monument, and Keyanta where he stayed at the trading post with the wife of John Wetherill, one of the Wetherill brothers who had found the major ruins of Mesa Verde. He met Ben Wetherill who had surveyed much of the Muddy River sites about 1930. From them he learned of John's last interests around Navajo Mt.  When he attended BYU, he accumulated many hours of archaeology credits, but took his degrees in chemistry and geology. As an Associate to the Department of Archaeology at BYU during the time of Drs. Jakman and Christensen, he participated in some 21 excursions into the southwest, including Beef Basin, Grand Gulch, East Fork of the Virgin River, reporting on these at various conferences. During the 1970's he did aerial surveys on behalf of the Navajo Tribal Museum, and reported on this at the 1972 Pecos Conference.  He became quite interested in the possibilities of extensive Anasazi sites north of the Grand Canyon, and he and his brother Lynn, nephew Lyf, and grandson Renaun, volunteered to search for sites in the Kaibab Forest north of the Grand Canyon. The team finalized this volunteer activity in 2004 after having located more than 1700 sites, for which they provided many reports, including some in the Saddle Mt. Wilderness and the Kanab Wilderness. They received the National Volunteer of the Year ward and the ‘Kaibab Forest Award' in 2000.

In 1977, they volunteered their efforts in the Dixie National Forest, and the Bureau of Land Mangement areas of the Arizona Strip and Beaver Utah District of Southwestern Utah, in an effort to establish sources of obsidian found in the Southwest, and the trade lanes through which the obsidian was transmitted. They are also processing field data on some 65 villages and sites found along the Beaver Dam and Virgin River from Utah Hill, to Lake Mead. But the main emphasis has been on volcanic and igneous sources of obsidian, and this effort is still in progress. Some 115 volcanoes and sources have been found, in south west Utah and southeastern Nevada, with a new one in the summer of 2005, most of these occurrences are not known and do not appear in the literature of the region.  This effort will be assembled in at least ten reports hoping to benefit archaeologists seeking to find the sources of obsidian found on numerous sites

Because of the association of his wife with the Heritage Choir for many years, he also assisted in tours to Israel, Yucatan, and elsewhere, a highlight being able to collect obsidian from 15 volcanic sources in Armenia in conjunction with his Near Eastern Studies when the Choir took a humanitarian trip and presentation at Yerevan in Armenia.

Teaching

Such activities has provided the substance of his teaching activities. He has taught geology at BYU and off campus courses in Geology and Anthropology for the University of Nevada, Reno, where his students found many ancient sites in Nevada areas. He is now following up on these discoveries to provide records and artifact analyses. He taught off campus and Elderhostel programs of Geology and Archaeology for the University of Southern Utah at Cedar City for several years, and for more than 10 years he taught Astronomy, Archaeology and Geology for the off campus and Elderhostel Programs of Dixie College in St. George, Utah. He has been the tour guide for groups from Dixie College Programs to archaeological Sites in Peru, and several to the Yucatan. He was a Teaching Assistant in Geochemistry at the University of Arizona in 1961-1962, and in 1995 lectured for George Wythe College, then teaching Astronomy, Geology and Archaeology. Later, he obtained a Ph.D. from George Wythe in 1999, and has since been a Professor of Science, teaching the same subjects to the present.