Vision & History

Burning Man Rural Center for Interactive Art & Community Partication

Preface

This page has two goals. First, to share information with interested people, collaborators, and similar projects. Second, to thank and acknowledge those who make it happen. The linked documents, images, and videos provide an overview of the project. Fly Ranch is open-source. Anyone can propose projects. This is a working rough draft that will be continually updated.

Introduction

In 2016 Burning Man Project became the steward of Fly Ranch. Some have asked, โ€œWhatโ€™s going on at Fly?โ€, โ€œWhatโ€™s the vision?โ€, "How much does it cost?", and โ€œWhy does Burning Man have a ranch?โ€ At 5.6 square miles, with thousands already involved, the answer isnโ€™t simple. As we enter a new phase, itโ€™s a good moment to reflect on the journey, share whatโ€™s ahead, and answer those questions. The idea of a year-round space for Burning Man grew from shared passion, belief in the community, and curiosity. 550 people made the 20-year acquisition possible, and thousands have since contributed since 2016. Chip Conley, an early leader in the project, summed it up: โ€œWhat happens when Burners co-create a space beyond the playa?โ€ The answer is unfolding nowโ€”through a growing array of projects and visions you can be part of and add to:

Regeneration

Restore land & ecosystem

๐Ÿ Eight beehives

๐Ÿ„ 150 cows grazing
๐Ÿ’ง Water protection
๐ŸŒฑ Rewilding
๐Ÿ–ค Compost use and sharing

๐ŸŒฑ Soil regeneration
๐ŸŒž Solar only since 2018

๐Ÿš Renewable systems
๐Ÿฆ‹ Biofiltration
๐ŸŒพ Farm & garden
๏ธโ€๐Ÿ”ฅ Biochar burns to store C02

Community

Innovation & connection

๐Ÿ”Ž Fly Guardians

โ›บ BWB campouts
๐ŸŒ€ Labyrinth walks
๐ŸŽจ Design competitions
๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ 26 art team
๐ŸŒฟ School field trips

๐Ÿ“š Gerlach K-12
๐ŸŽ‰ Gerlach & staff soaks

๐Ÿ Black Rock City staff Soaks
๐Ÿ’ง Pyramid Lake partners
๐ŸŽŸ๏ธ New BRC citizens

Stewardship

Land, history, & future

๐ŸŒ Endangered Fly Ranch snail

๐Ÿ’ฆ 150 hot & cold springs

๐ŸŒณ 143 plant species & 136 birds

๐Ÿพ Mountain ๐Ÿฆ, bobcat, coyote
๐ŸŒ‹ Fly Geyser care & access

๐ŸŽ‹ Tule reed center

๐Ÿธ 600 acres of wetlands

๐Ÿ“š LAGI at Fly Ranch book
๐Ÿบ Burning Man museum
๐Ÿค Government relationships
โ€๐Ÿ”ฌ Scientific conferences

I. Origins

In 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James went to Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned a wooden man. They decided to make it an annual event. John Law, the Cacophony Society, and hundreds of people organized and scaled the event. In 1990 Burning Man merged with a zone trip some Cacophonists had planned to an alkaline salt flat in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. From 1990 - 1996 the event was held over hundreds of square miles in a dry lake bed ("playa") in Pershing County on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Various philosophies, groups, and projects had an indirect or direct influence on the culture of Burning Man, and by extensition Fly Ranch.

Interactive Artists

Immersive, participatory art

engages on multiple levels.

Collective Chaos

Participatory chaos, shared

experience, expression

Mechanized Mayhem

Art, robotics, performance

with anarchic, experimental spirit

Culture Jammers

Culture disruption, satire,

pranks, & interventions.

Tech Revolutionaries

Internet, free data, personal

& collective freedom.

Fly Ranch Burn

In 1997 Burning Man sought a new location in response to permit issues. Four miles down the road was a ranch with hot springs, a multi-colored geyser, and a neighboring playa: The Hualapai Flat. Burning Man happened at Fly Ranch that year. The iconic shape of Black Rock City was born on the shoreline of the Hualapai Flat, illustrated in the Fly Ranch event site map.

Will Roger, Coyote, and others built six roads that are still visible, put up street signs, and installed porta potties to meet Washoe County permit requirements. 10,000 people came to the event. People talked about if Fly Ranch could be a year-round space. Then, as now, there was art, fire, and soaking in the hot springs. ABC Nightline did a piece about the event.

Fire Dancing

Fly Hot Springs

The Man

Bone Arch

II. The Road Home

An iterative vision. After the event that year, William Binzen wrote a preliminary proposal for how to develop Fly Ranch. He explored different visions about what Fly Ranch could be. In 2005 Ken Vanosky wrote a proposal about the land, worked to determine an offer price, and looked at deal structures for a geothermal facility. In 2009, Marian Goodell conceived of an idea for 100 people to go to Fly on a bus for a dinner and conversation about a โ€œyear-round Burning Man facility.โ€ 

The Nonprofit. Black Rock City LLC was founded in 2000 by Larry Harvey, Marian Goodell, Harley K. Dubois, Michael Mikel, Crimson Rose, and Will Roger. It became the permit holder and entity responsible for BRC administration. In 2008, the Founders concluded that a non-profit was the best option to ensure and protect the future of Burning Man. The entity took 18 months to develop. It was submitted in 2011 with by-laws and board members. Employees, IP, and associated projects migrated into the Nonprofit. The Founders donated their shares. Around the same time, Rod Garrett, Larry, and Will proposed a financially sustainable and environmentally regenerative facility at Fly Ranch. In 2011, Will chaired a committee to draft proposals. They expanded on maps Rod and Don Clark made with zones for energy, research, art, camping, and conservation. They imagined the project would support economic growth in Northern Nevada (which it has) and create public benefit (which it does). Don, Will, and others made a map that has been influential in the Site Map and LAGI Design Guidelines.

Food & Soil. Tom Stille's soil tests showed how much food Fly can produce. Fly's neighbors grow more than a thousand acres of alfalfa. A few hundred acres at Fly were once an alfalfa farm but are covered with cheatgrass, a fast-spreading non-native species. That area is adjacent to eight beehives, and would be ideal for farming. Four of the top ten LAGI projects focus on food (The Source, The Loop, Veil, and Ripple). In partnership with Burning Man's Regeneration Team, Fly spreads compost from the Black Rock City Commissary, improves soil, and donates it to projects in Gerlach and Pyramid Lake. For the past two years we've grown tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers. Tom's work was a guiding influence for the LAGI Design Guidelines.

Funds. As Burning Man Project did not receive 501(c)3 status until 2012, the plan was to raise funds through the Black Rock Arts Foundation. Staff members Doron Amiran and James Hanusa started to fundraise. Jennifer Raiser later supported those efforts. Ben Thompson was the project manager. Matthew Kwatinetz, later a Burning Man Project board member, proposed deal structures. Fourteen people made small donations and larger pledges were promised. Itโ€™s difficult to manage an intense event, a nonprofit, and a real estate strategy. The acquisition project required a team.

III. Closing the Deal

The team. Chip Conley went to the 2009 Fly Ranch Dinner. He was enamored with Will's vision and love of the property. He saw Fly as the yin to BRC's yang. He became a Burning Man board member and re-ignited the effort with a first large gift.  This enabled the organization to spark the process again in 2012:

๐Ÿป Bear Kittay was invited to join the project. He was Burning Manโ€™s Global Ambassador and started to build a coalition

๐Ÿค  Daniel Claussen had experience in conservation, eco-hospitality, and impact investment. He led the close. 

โค๏ธ Katiyana Kittay had experience in event production and philanthropy. She was the lead for tours and events.

๐Ÿ“ James Milner was a management consultant who supported strategy and documentation.

A vision for participation. The team proposed a vision, calendar, and plans. They wrote:

The Fly Ranch Project is a one-of-a-kind legacy opportunity for the culture and community of Burning Man to significantly and meaningfully evolve. Fly Ranch, in combination with the adjacent Hualapai Flat, is the only significant piece of land near Black Rock City that has the resources to support and expand Burning Manโ€™s cultural activities into a year-round force.

We are at a pivotal moment in time, one where Burning Manโ€™s creative impact is escalating as a cultural phenomena. With Black Rock City at capacity for multiple years in a row, and with maturing communities and models of Burning Man replicating around the globe we are at a historic juncture in the evolving DNA of โ€œwhat is Burning Manโ€?

Fly Ranch will be the centennial home for Burning Manโ€™s legacy, an engine of possibility for our culture and our cultureโ€™s ability to make a powerful contribution to humankind in the 21st century and beyond.

Black Rock Cityโ€™s iconic layout did not come into being until the size of the city reached 12,000 participants. Similarly, we intend for the form of Fly to be shaped and guided by the creative input and expertise of the community over the course of early events and gatherings on site.

Burning Man 365. As was proposed, the current approach is of a constant array of volunteers, groups, builds, and assemblies. People visit Fly all year for nature walks, Guardians shifts, community soaks, Labyrinth walks, and projects. Participants put in at least 11,440 hours last year to support Fly programs. Based on climate change, wildfires, smoke, and heatwaves, the best months for principal events seem to be April, May, October, and November. We host flexible, adaptable, monthly campouts that could massively scale and minimize the likelihood of cancellation with no backup.

The Raft & The Shore. A vision held by some involved with Fly is that much of our normal culture is like a big cruise shipโ€”convenient, commodified, and unsustainable. Communities, countercultures, individuals, and movements seeking something more have left the ship. They are sailing the open ocean on rafts. Each year, these groups tie their rafts together for a week of shared struggle and collective creativity at Burning Man. A city, culture, and society emerge. Fly is the shore where rafts have landed from all over culture and the world, a mosaic of contributions from the rafts, the people who sailed them, and those who have found a home at Fly.

Larry Harvey wrote the Ten Principles in 2004 to articulate the ethos that naturally emerged at Burning Man. The principles reflect what makes the culture thrive. Larry envisioned Black Rock City as a living model of connection and creativity, and Fly as its enduring extensionโ€”a shore where the experiments and lessons of the desert, citizens of Black Rock City, the global Burning Man community, and the spirit of the Ten Principles have a permanent home (designs by James Wickham). Art, community, human evolution, social innovation, technological prototyping, and regenerative infrastructure converge into a center for sustainability, collective innovation, and regeneration.

Radical Inclusion

Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

Radical Self-Reliance

Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

Civic Responsibility

We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

Leaving No Trace

Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Gifting

Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

Radical
Self-Expression

Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

Immediacy

Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

Decommodification

In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorship, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Communal Effort

Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

Participation

Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

Project management. Larry, Chip, Kay Morrison, David Walker, Terry Gross, and Matt Goldberg became the Fly Ranch Committee of the Board of Directors. The group was facilitated by Marian. The team signed an agreement to manage visits to the property. Rebecca Gasca, Ting Kelly, and Zach Bell supported visits and solicited feedback. Carson Bowley crafted proposals and made some of the maps and images on this page. From within Burning Man Nonprofit Megan Miller, Playground, Zac Cirivello, and Theresa Duncan coordinated on communications, operations, and philanthropy. In 2015, a joint venture to purchase Fly and nearby land nearly came together but fell through. Late that year, the team wrote a proposal and gathered a group of potential donors to raise the final $2.2M needed. Ping Fu, who become a Burning Man Board member, became a Fly Ranch donor. Other donors joined: Joe Gebbia, Bill Linton, Rob and Kristin Goldman, Guy Lalibertรฉ, Farhad Mohit, Nushin Sabet, Alex Moradi, Graham Schneider, Jonathan Teo, and a few anonymous donors.  A vision created at an offsite was that of a โ€œtriple crownโ€ with three areas associated with different visions. 

Black Rock City

The cultural home

Black Rock City remains the radical and ephemeral city of the imagination.

Fly Ranch

Experiments & innovation

Fly Ranch hosts experiments around nature, creativity, and relationships.

A Makerspace

Infrastructure & Builds

Makerspaces at Black Rock Station and The 360 support BRC, Gerlach, and Fly Ranch.

Success. With the funds needed Burning Man Nonprofit purchased the property on June 10, 2016. Ben Henretig, Justin Majeczky, Sashwa Burrous, and Justin Lewis teamed up to make a video to introduce the land.

IV. Welcome home

At the time of the acquisition in 2016, much of Fly Ranch was a dump. Dozens of acres in different parts of the land were completely covered with the leftovers of 140 years of extraction, grazing, and monocropping. Three massive oil tanks had leaked deep into the ground. Multiple deep landfills had been buried. Waterways, pipes, and dams had collapsed. Walking trails and roads didnโ€™t exist or were unusable. The historic buildings were in total disarray and disrepair. Horses and cows wandered through broken fences and gates before severely damaging the ecology. Dozens of unruly visitors showed up most weekends and badly defaced the geyser, polluted the pools and wetlands, and scattered MOOP.

Programs

Based on a suggestion from Larry, we started nature walks in 2017 in partnership with Friends of the Black Rock. Walk Docents gave everyone MOOP bags. Participants have cleared the land. We started to host camping trips in 2018 initially focused exclusively on restoring the land. Other campouts have been included a writing retreat for women of color (video below), workshops, a leadership training organized by Harley, bioblitzes, BWB Summits coordinated by Annie, stewardship campouts, work weekends, and multi-week LAGI campouts supported by Kay, Jennifer, Mercedes, and the Flying Monkeys. Fly Ranch has hosted Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Gerlach K-12 students, and other educational trips. Stewardds have led campouts and projects to restore the land, deploy solar, install art, fix fences, support projects at Pyramid Lake, restore buildings, build roads and trails, and prototype LAGI projects. Informed by our experiences and Scirpusโ€™s incredible research of the land, a participatory stewardship ethos has emerged at Fly that has intermingled with Burning Man roots planted deep in 1997.

LAGI AT Fly Ranch

After three years of restoration, Stewards started to focus on food, water, power, shelter, and waste. We havenโ€™t used generators since 2018. Thanks to introductions from Dusty and M2, we started LAGI at Fly Ranch in 2019. We invited infrastructure designs that would inspire โ€œwonder and aweโ€, and โ€œinspire people about the beauty of a world within which humanity achieves harmony with the natural world and environmental systemsโ€. The results were incredible:

๐Ÿ“ฅ 500 people on 185 teams submitted proposals based on the design guidelines.

๐Ÿ’ฌ The proposals were reviewed by 200 technical advisors who left 2,000 comments.

๐ŸŽฏ 50 members of the shortlist committee picked 52 shortlisted projects.

๐Ÿ† 33 jurors selected the top ten projects.

๐Ÿฅ‡ Lodgers received the most votes.

โณ We estimate the 800 people involved put in 10,000 hours of time into the process.

๐Ÿš€ The top ten teams and three others have built prototypes of their projects at Fly.

๐Ÿ›– Lodgers has built at MIT and in Lisbon, Ripple at Pyramid Lake, and the Loop at Borderland.

The visions, designs, and philosophies for regenerative structures can be scaled and copied. The communitarian, sustainable, and inclusive projects demonstrate a new way to live in harmony with life. Below find an overview of LAGI, SEED, Coyote Mountain, and Lodgers.

Site Map

The interactive site map shows water, art, photos, links, LAGI designs, parcels, roads, trails, zoning, uses, and the site layout. It includes BLM, Washoe County, and private lands. You can open the panel on the left to filter the view. Click anywhere for pictures and details.

Water Is Sacred

Water is the most valuable and ecologically important aspect of Fly. Fly has four vested underground water rights claims from artesian wells designated for stock watering and three surface claims designated for irrigation from Cottonwood Creek, Little Cottwonwood, and the hot springs. There is substantial water on the property, at least tens of millions of gallons. There is also groundwater water and aquifer water. To make use of the water, owners need to go through a permit process. Seasonal precipitation is down, temperatures are higher and increase evaporation, and aridification is underway. Surface and groundwater reductions are visible, along with other impacts from climate change. A Reno developer recently sought to build a pipeline with water from under Fly Ranch in in the Hualapai Flat Basin (Basin 024). Various Friends of Fly opposed a similar project in 2007 and could be part of a coalition. The endangered Fly Ranch pyrg snail could be protected from a pipeline through the Endangered Species Act. Fly Ranch has well-documented public benefits that would be impacted by water mining. It is unclear if the State Water Engineer would approve an interbasin transfer.

Fly Ranch Hot Springs

Fly Ranch Upper Reservoir

Allowed Uses

Fly Ranch is zoned as General Rural (GR) in a High Desert Area, a flexible framework for diverse and innovate land use, including residential, civic, commercial, and agricultural activities, without the need for rezoning. Activities fall into three categories: Allowed (no permit required or simple inspection), Allowed with Permit (ranging from administrative to special use permits), and Not Allowed. Many projectsโ€”including recreation, lodging, agriculture, community centers, and renewable energyโ€”are permitted outright. Fly Ranch has a tax exemption under NRS 361A for agricultural use, currently fulfilled through cattle grazing, for which we have a grazing permit. Fly Ranch could host events with an Outdoor Community Events permit (up to 999 people up to 10 consecutive days) or an Outdoor Festivals permit (1,000 people+ up to 10 consecutive days).

Nonprofit Role

As Fly Ranch has evolved, so too has Burning Man Nonprofit. Today, it supports a thriving global network of community, artistic, and ecological projects, including:

๐Ÿ”ฅ Black Rock City: Annual gathering for community, personal connection, and transformation for 70,000 people.

๐Ÿ’ช Burners Without Borders: Community-building, disaster relief, and ecological restorations across 46 global BWB Chapters.

๐ŸŒŽ Regional Events: Expression and transformation for 100,000 people annually at 100+ Regional events in 35+ countries.

๐Ÿ˜๏ธ Economic and Public Benefit: Massive local and regional economic impacts and broad public benefits.

Fly Ranch plays a vital role in supporting Burning Man's nonprofit programs and initiatives, contributing to community-building, artistic, philanthropic, and ecological endeavors. Fly Ranch supports Burning Man Nonprofit fundraising; Black Rock City teams, staff, and geopolitical relationships; local partnerships, students, and projects; public benefit in Northern Nevada; and a global network. Since 2016 Fly has cost $2.7M, made $2.3M, saved over $1M in water for Black Rock City, and originated projects that have led to eight figure gifts for Burning Man Nonprofit. Fly is a net positive financially and culturally for Burning Man Project and contributes in the following ways:

Sustainable Solutions

Regeneration in Practice

Fly Ranch develops regenerative and sustainable solutions for food, water, power, shelter, waste, and C02 drawdown.

Incubation

Home to Bold Ideas

Fly has helped catalyze the Renewable Art Team, the Green Theme Camp Community, and Burning Man's 2030 Sustainability Roadmap.

BRC Compost

Circular Systems

120 cubic yards of compost from the Black Rock City Commissary used and distributed to gardens, in Gerlach, and at Pyramid Lake.

Wonder & Awe

Nature inspires wonder

Fly evokes wonder and awe, inspiring people to imagine a world where humanity lives in harmony with natural systems.

Fundraising

Tens of Millions Catalyzed

Fly projects have led to eight-figures in gifts for OFF, "Save the Man, Green the Man, Bring the Man Home", and millions in Burning Man Nonprofit gifts.

Pilot Site

Tested & Proven Infra

Fly piloted Ecozoics, solar, EVs, and more with the Regeneration Department and Black Rock Labs.

Art & Infrastructure

26 Affiliated Art Teams

Fly is home to interactive art that sparks awe and transformation. Art, nature, and projects foster connection and creativity.

A Secure Home

Burning Man backup

The Man burned at Fly in 2020, 2021, and 1997 with 10,000 people. Fly is 5.6 square miles.

Connection to Earth

Transformation & nature

Stewardship, storytelling, and hands-on participation create transformation and deeper connections to the earth.

Public benfit

For Gerlach & the region

Participants support businesses and the economy in Gerlach and Northern Nevada year-round. Programs provide education, ecological restoration, recreation, and cultural exchanges that strengthen community resilience.

BWB Campouts

18 BWB Campouts

Burners Without Borders gathers to collaborate, restore, and innovate.

Entryway to BRC

Welcoming new Citizens

Thousands of new Burning Man participants bring ideas and passions developed at Fly Ranch.

Staff Healing

Burning Man Staff Soaks

Fly staff soaks offer rejuvenation during the event season.

Geopolitical Affairs

Relationships and engagement

Fly builds relationships with governments, key players, and and leaders through coalitions, gatherings, and shared interests.

Fly Stewards

Projects at Fly Ranch are proposed and managed by 2,000 global members who contribute expertise, labor, and vision. Stewards hail from different projects, events, fields, organizations, and disciplines. For a project as complex on a site so vast, it takes many types.

Project Teams

Site based projects

โ›ฉ๏ธ Guardians Tend the land

๐Ÿšถ๐Ÿฝโ€โ™€๏ธ Walk Guides led 1K+ walks

๐Ÿ˜ฎ 185 LAGI Teams & 33 Jurors

๐Ÿ”ง 200 LAGI Technical Advisors

๐ŸŽจ 26 Fly Art Teams

๐Ÿ’ช BWB is the โค๏ธ & ๐Ÿ™Œs of Fly

๐Ÿ Fly Ranch bee team

๐Ÿง– Art of Steam banya masters

๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฎ Finnish Sauna Society

โ˜€๏ธ Milk + Honey: Flyโ€™s first solar

๐Ÿ“ฆ Container camp

Events

103 Campouts

๐Ÿช Dozens of art campouts

โ›บ 17 BWB campouts
๐Ÿšœ 15 Work Weekends

โ™ป๏ธ 12 Stewardship Days

๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿคโ€๐Ÿง‘ 4 Friends & Family Campouts

๐Ÿ—๏ธ 3 LAGI Campouts

โœจ 2 Volunteerism Summits

โ™ป๏ธ 2 Leave No Trace trainings

๐Ÿ“ก STEAM Gathering

๐Ÿฆ‹ Bioblitz ๐Ÿ”Ž five new species

๐Ÿ“– BIPOC Women Writers

Partners

Geopolitical stakeholders

๐ŸŒ„ Friends of the Black Rock

๐Ÿ“š Gerlach K12, GGID, & CAB

๐ŸšŒ Pyramid Lake HS & Museum

โ›ฐ๏ธ Eight American Indian Tribes

๐ŸŽ“ University of Nevada Reno

๐ŸฆŽ Center for Biological Diversity

๐Ÿšฐ Great Basin Water Network
๐Ÿœ๏ธ Desert Research Institute

๐ŸŒพ NV Div of Natural Heritage

๐ŸŒต Bureau of Land Management

๐Ÿ’ผ US Department of the Interior

Heartspace

During your time at Fly, we hope youโ€™re able to connect with the land, life, and ecology. We hope you get to have a direct experience, sense the space and magic, and hear and feel the land. We hope you sense your vision for what we can do and what you can do. We hope you get to experience the interconnected nature of the land Burning Man manages, how the staff and projects out here support Black Rock City, and how much we could do out here. We hope you discover ways you want to contribute and participate. When we leave Fly and go elsewhere, a quiet and peaceful place in our hearts holds the land and space. We find happiness and peace in knowing that it is here and will always be here for you, for us, for our community, and for humanity. We hope you are able to bring Fly home in your heart.

We are Visitors

Fly Ranch and the surrounding region has a 15,000+ year history of stewardship. In the U.S. there are 574 federally recognized Indian Nations. As many as 18 million people once lived freely throughout the country. Northern Nevada Tribes include the Numu (Northern Paiute), Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Newe (Western Shoshone). The Numu recognize a transcendental power in nature called puha that can be in plants, stones, water, and elsewhere. Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council Member Maurice Eban explained: โ€œSince time immemorial, we Indian People have had a respect for the land that we walk upon. At no time has that caretaking responsibility changed. Indian People are still the rightful caretaker of this land.โ€ This surfaces questions for us that feel important to continually consider. We work to embody civic responsibility, be good future ancestors, and revere and serve the land. Enrolled members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, Te-Maok Tribe of Western Shoshone, Yerington Paiute Tribe, Big Pine Paiute Tribe, Haliwa Saponi, Tule River Yokuts and Nรผรผmรผ (Paiute) Nations, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and the Navajo Nation have been involved with Fly Ranch, especially in LAGI. To learn more visit the Pyramid Lake Tribe Paiute Museum or read a book. The video below is about the Pyramid Paiute Tribe Museum Medicine Garden and Haba. Billie Jean Guerrero, the Museum Executive Director, explains how these projects were supported by volunteers and funding from Ripple from LAGI at Fly Ranch and Burners Without Borders. The garden and shade are well worth the stop on your way to Fly Ranch. It is visible from the road in Nixon and accessible anytime. See a Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe post for more detail.

Be a Founder

We do not intend to use these sites as a refuge or retreat from the world. Instead, it is our aim to treat these places as a platform from which to project our culture outward. We believe this platform can be made to function as a chambered heart, continually pumping new vitality into the body of a worldwide community. This vision is not based on the findings of consumer focus groups or the result demographic projections โ€“ it is an act of faith deriving from our deeply felt experience of Burning Man. People often approach me in the desert, asking if I ever thought that our event would grow to be so large. Lately I have learned to look about, taking in everything around me, and say I think this is a good start. Anyone at any time can be a founder, and we invite you to join us.

Larry Harvey, โ€œGiving to Fly Ranch: An Open Letter to Our Community", 2017.