James, 71, spent the summers of 1979 and 1980 as a seasonal park ranger at Lava Beds National Monument, leading Stronghold tours three days a week.
"Every time I came here, I wondered where my relatives lived," she said during a recent Stronghold tour, this time as a tourist. "I have no idea where. Every time I go into a cave, I wonder if it's theirs."
Over the years, life's happenings have taken James away from the Lava Beds and the Klamath Basin. She lives in Sacramento, although she made frequent Basin visits while writing her book, "Modoc, The Tribe That Wouldn't Die."
During a visit two weeks ago built around a public talk at the Shaw Historical Library's annual banquet at Oregon Institute of Technology, James also visited the Stronghold. She was part of a tour led by Jacqueline Cheung and Eric Gleason, National Park Service archeologists from Vancouver, Wash.
An August 2008 fire burned 6,000 acres in the park, including the Stronghold. Since then, Gleason and Cheung have periodically spent several weeks or longer investigating the Stronghold for war-related archeological sites.


