Lost in My Own Backyard: A Walk in Yellowstone National Park Read Online Free Page A

at for many years, and the region was known as “Colter’s Hell.” This was the form sarcasm took at the time.
    In the 1830s the tales of fur trappers and mountain men—Jim Bridger and Osborne Russell—were discounted as hyperbole: the exaggerations of men engaged in the continuing western tradition of deceiving the dude. In 1869 the Folsom, Cook, and Peterson party explored the park. David Folsom and Charles Cook wrote an article from their diaries and submitted it to the
New York Tribune
and
Harper’s Magazine.
Both publications, according to Aubrey Haines, refused the article because “they had a reputation they could not risk with such unreliable material.” I have always heard that
Harper’s
responded, “We do not publish fiction.” I have not been able to confirm the quote, but it is still a good story and reflects the general population’s lack of faith in the proposition that there are places on earth where hot water erupts out of the ground.
    The Washburn party followed the Folsom party’s tracks in 1870, and its reports were taken seriously. Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, director of the U. S. Geological Survey, heard Nathaniel Langford lecture on his travels in Colter’s Hell, and was convinced of the man’s veracity. In 1871 he successfully petitioned Congress to fund the first scientific expedition into the region. Along on that expedition, which Hayden led, were photographer William Jackson and the celebrated artist Thomas Moran. Hayden’s report, Jackson’s photographs, and Moran’s painting shredded the fabric of doubt. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the landmark Yellowstone Act on March 1, 1872.
    I thought I was pretty smart moving to Montana in 1978 and buying a house not far outside the park. I also have a cabin on the edge of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, which abuts the park. I think it’s fair to say, as I have, that Yellowstone is my backyard. I don’t claim an exclusive on the backyard situation: I’ve also pointed out that, if you are an American, Yellowstone is your backyard as well.
    I thought of that not long ago while reading
The Wolves of Yellowstone,
a book by Michael Phillips and Douglas Smith. Readers who have not been in a coma for the past twenty years may be familiar with the controversy leading up to the reintroduction of the wolf to the park in 1995.
    Michael Phillips had the tough task of talking to local ranchers, the folks who live and grow stock near the park. Most of them did not support wolf reintroduction, though an enormous majority of Americans did. “Local folks,” Phillips writes, “who have to live with the wolves” believe they should have the final say. Not so, Phillips responded. In America everyone has a vote, “and this right allows ranchers to participate in decisions on resources throughout the United States. This,” Phillips says dryly, “was of little comfort to them.” The ranchers quite sensibly pointed out that they were not so arrogant as to assume they knew what was best for resources and people far away. That’s the crux of the argument the ranchers lost.
    The discussion with the dissenting ranchers, as Phillips describes it, went a little like this. The ranchers were told that “the national voice had spoken loudly in support of wolf reintroduction.” Fine, the ranchers replied, “if city folks want wolves, then you should release the critters in their backyards.” They were not pleased, Phillips notes, “when I pointed out that the nation’s backyard was Yellowstone National Park.”
    It may be useful to define the extent of America’s backyard.
    Yellowstone is surrounded by seven national forests in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. There are also three national wildlife preserves near the park, as well as several wilderness areas that exclude roads and mechanized travel. Some conservationists contend that this is the largest natural intact ecosystem on earth. Some say it’s the largest in the northern hemisphere. In any case,