Explorer Harry Crosby came across a most extraordinary, awe-inspiring sight as he traveled by mule in the Baja California wilderness more than 50 years ago.
Like stumbling across the rock monoliths of Easter Island, he encountered ancient pictographs four stories off the ground on the sides and overhang of a cave shaped like a giant conch shell.
The rock art cathedral, while previously discovered, was steeped in mystery. How could people in prehistoric times, without the aid of modern technology, possibly have painted these forms so high overhead?
Could these primitive artists have mounted a type of scaffolding fashioned from nearby trees just as Michelangelo laid on scaffolding as he decorated the Sistine Chapel ceiling?
This is but one of many mysteries that Crosby, with the help of native guides, encountered on his forays into Baja California on a mission to learn more about the indigenous people, colonial settlement and Jesuit and Franciscan missions.
Credited with discovering 180 caves and sites with rock paintings, Crosby has meticulously documented, photographed and published his findings in one of his several books on early Mexico, “The Cave Paintings of Baja California: Discovering the Great Murals of an Unknown People.” The Bradshaw Foundation interviewed Crosby and released a documentary in 2018 based on the giant murals in the Sierra de San Francisco mountains.
Now Crosby himself is the subject of a documentary.
The La Jolla adventurer long has been known and appreciated in Baja California and throughout Mexico, where a national stamp was released in his honor. But he is far less recognized in the United States.
Award-winning film producer Isaac Artenstein is determined to change that. He is wrapping up a one-hour documentary of Crosby’s travels and discoveries, titled “The Journeys of Harry Crosby.” Artenstein’s crew has painstakingly interviewed Crosby, now 94, his wife, Joanne, their daughters, Bronle and Ristin, and his colleagues and fellow travelers in Baja.
Film producer Isaac Artenstein in the Baja California desert filming a documentary on the journeys of Harry Crosby.
(Courtesy of Cinewest Productions)
A video team returned to sites Crosby visited years ago and interviewed families, wilderness guides and rancheros along trails that the San Diegan traveled. They even dispatched a drone overhead to capture footage of remote areas, accessible only by foot or on a mule, that Crosby explored on the Camino Real a half-century ago.
They gained support from the San Diego History Center, which signed on as a co-producer, and from UC San Diego, to which Crosby has given a collection of his photos and materials.
“We’re literally on the home stretch, " says Artenstein, of Cinewest Productions, who estimates about eight weeks of editing remain in the film’s post-production phase.
The San Diego History Center, with the support of donors and the Secretary of Culture of Baja California, has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise $30,000 to complete the project.
“The Baja peninsula that Harry has done such an amazing job documenting is a look back at what San Diego was like 200 to 300 years ago,” explains Bill Lawrence, CEO of the San Diego History Center. “This documentary will reach a new generation of San Diegans who may not be aware of Harry’s work.”
Lawrence calls Crosby “an amazing subject and historian. ... Having somebody of his caliber here in San Diego is worthy of bringing to the international stage. He really is a treasure. “
Crosby, a 1944 La Jolla High graduate, taught science in San Diego public schools for 12 years before he quit to pursue his passion for photography in the mid-1960s. His love affair with Baja began after he completed an extensive 1964 photo documentation of the city of Tijuana. He then was commissioned in 1967 to take pictures for a history book, “The Call to California,” to commemorate the state’s bicentennial.
Crosby was asked to follow and photograph the route taken by the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolá and Father JunĂpero Serra from the east coast Baja town of Loreto crisscrossing the peninsula for 600 miles northward to San Diego Bay.
He was guided by information gleaned from the diaries of those who had taken the trek more than 200 years earlier. It was arduous going, with sections penetrating the remotest areas of Baja, far from the nearest road.
Artenstein credits Crosby with almost single-handedly introducing the culture, history and landscapes of the Baja peninsula to contemporary Americans.
His travels, in many ways, unearthed a living archive because some of the remote ranchos and missions seemed caught in a time warp, occupied by succeeding generations of families living the same lifestyle and seemingly uninfluenced by the outside world. They were far different from residents in the villages below and seemed somewhat evocative of the ancient people who occupied the region between 4,500 and 7,500 years ago.
“Those people in the mountains had not been studied from the outside,” he said.
Crosby, who lives with his wife of 70 years in his La Jolla home, told me he rarely travels these days. He says the highlight of his expeditions was the people of Baja., especially those living isolated lives in the mountains between one-third to three-quarters of the way down the peninsula.
Artenstein became involved about four years ago when he joined David Richardson, his longtime friend and production partner in a special project. Richardson’s goal was to get El Camino Real trail, an ancient conduit of trade, travel and communication across Baja California, designated and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Isaac Artenstein, left, confers with retired explorer Harry Crosby, during the making of a documentary on Crosby’s Baja travels.
(Courtesy of Cinewest Productions)
Crosby was among the many historians and authorities they interviewed for that project. It didn’t take Artenstein long to realize that Crosby was a premiere source because of his extensive work with three of the most important aspects of Baja — the rock art; the lives of people Crosby memorialized in his book, “Last of the Californios;” and, third, his travels along El Camino Real (described in Crosby’s books, “Gateway to Alta California” and “The King’s Highway in Baja California”).
“He was incredibly open and warm,” Artenstein says, referring to the interviews with Crosby. Because the adventurer was then 92, the filmmakers worried about tiring him out. “But he tired my crew out,” chuckles Artenstein.
“Besides the value of the testimonials Harry gave, I immediately realized that a documentary needed to be made on him,” Artenstein says. Focusing on Crosby and possibly convincing PBS to broadcast the film nationally will help make the case for the Camino Real’s World Heritage site status, he reasons.
“We are convinced our home town hero, Harry Crosby, is ready for prime time,” says Artenstein. “He really is an unsung hero.”
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Column: Modern explorer Harry Crosby shed light on Baja treasures - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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