Yellowstone ScienceA quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

Volume 8 Number 1

Tales of Yellowstone’s First TouristsThe Value of Nature NotesA Wolf-Coyote Face-off

Nature on Display

Have you ever wondered about the first visitors to Yellowstone—how difficult a journey they might have had, andwhat their impressions would have been of the strange things they experienced? The first party was not unlike that of GeorgeMallory and company when, in their attempt to surmount the world’s tallest peak, they “hiked off the map” into unknownterritory—with little of the preparatory whirlwind that can accompany a park visitor today. No pre-drawn “trip-tik”; noreserved lodging or campsite awaiting; no web sites, guidebooks, or CD–roms to suggest “can’t miss” highlights ofYellowstone. In the wake of reports from the Washburn and Hayden expeditions of 1870–1871, Clawson, Raymond, andfriends set out to explore what was to become the world’s first national park. Lee Silliman shares excerpts of the travelers’accounts, which perhaps leave us with as many questions as they answer.

Thomas Patin paints a picture of how later visitors to the more well-traveled park might stand at an overlook toenjoy the view, and experience what exhibit designers tried to conjure up in a cyclorama display. Was this by design oraccident? Will a “magisterial gaze” at the live Yellowstone ever be supplanted by the vicarious visit to the TV travelogueor the multidimensional web site? Or will there always be plenty (perhaps even an excess) of people who must experiencethe real thing, a place that will never be as static as a museum display?

For nearly 50 years, people living and working in the park shared their experiences and natural history observationsin Nature Notes. This simple but popular old newsletter spawned many other communiques, and still offers researchersvaluable snapshots of Yellowstone’s past. In tribute to its continuing popularity and worth, we reinstitute nature notes asa recurring feature and encourage readers to submit relevant cultural and natural history accounts for inclusion in the ever-growing record of Yellowstone Science. Some future reader will sift through the bucket of accumulated stories to form theirimpressions of this time and place. SCM

A Drop in the Historical Bucket

A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

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Table of ContentsVolume 8 Number 1 Winter 2000

Yellowstone Science

Editor

Sue Consolo-MurphyDesign Editor

Renée EvanoffAssistant Editor

Tami BlackfordKevin Schneider

Printing

Artcraft Inc.Bozeman, Montana

On the cover: Thomas Moran’s TowerFalls and Sulphur Mountain, 1876(publication date), chromolithograph.Jefferson National Expansion Memorial,National Park Service.Inside cover: Thomas Moran’s GrandCanyon of the Yellowstone, 1872.Department of the Interior Museum,Washington, D.C. Provided for this issueby Thomas Patin.Above: Cover from 1942 Nature Notesdrawn by Albert E. Long.

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Yellowstone Nature Notes: A NeglectedDocumentary ResourceHistorians point out the timeless value documented in the indexed collec-tion of old Yellowstone Nature Notes, as we reinitiate these periodic naturaland cultural history observations.by Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey

Yellowstone Nature Notes: A Wolf-CoyoteInteractionby Betsy Robinson and Steve Gehman

A Ride to the Infernal Regions: An Account of theFirst Tourist Party to YellowstoneYellowstone’s first party of tourists described a park both markedlydifferent and recognizably similar to the landscape we know today, leavinghistorians wishing for more.by Lee Silliman

The National Park as Museological SpaceAn art historian suggests that Yellowstone and other national parks mimicthe techniques museums use to display their treasures.by Thomas Patin

News and Notes• Wolves to Stay • Visitors Found Guilty • EIS on Commercial Use of ResearchKnowledge • Former Researchers Honored • Region’s New Research Coordinator• Geologist Joins Staff • New Discoveries from Yellowstone Lake • FederalAgencies Move on Bison EIS • Rare Plant Found at More Sites • Missing a Beat

Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investiga-tors conducting formal research in the Yellowstone area. Correspondence should be sent to

the Editor, Yellowstone Science, Yellowstone Center for Resources, P.O. Box 168,Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.

The opinions expressed in Yellowstone Science are the authors' and may not reflect eitherNational Park Service policy or the views of the Yellowstone Center for Resources.

Copyright © 1999, the Yellowstone Association for Natural Science, History & Education.Support for Yellowstone Science is provided by the Yellowstone Association for Natural

Science, History & Education, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to serving thepark and its visitors. For more information about the Yellowstone Association, including

membership, write to P.O. Box 117, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.Yellowstone Science is printed on recycled paper with a linseed oil-based ink.

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Yellowstone Science2

The documentary legacy of Yellow-stone is huge: thousands of books; morethousands of scientific reports and pa-pers; newspaper and magazine articlesbeyond counting; and a still poorly iden-tified wealth of other materials, includingunpublished journals; commercial pam-phlets and circulars; administrativerecords of managers, concessioners, andinterest groups; and visitors’ letters, post-cards, and related memorabilia in almostunimaginable abundance. Between us,we have devoted more than half a centuryto the study of this overwhelming mass ofstuff, and though we both have personalfavorites, we agree that there is nothingelse like Yellowstone Nature Notes. Forits bottomless reservoir of intriguing natu-ral history tidbits, its hundreds of shortessays and reports on all kinds of engag-ing subjects, and its unmatched windowonto the day-to-day doings of earlier gen-erations of Yellowstone nature lovers,Yellowstone Nature Notes is unique, price-less, and a lot of fun. It is also a neglectedchapter in Yellowstone’s rich documen-tary history.

On June 14, 1920, Yellowstone’s ParkNaturalist, Milton P. Skinner, issued abrief typescript report containing noteson flowers, geology, animals, and birds.Similar brief reports appeared in July,August, and September of that year, andin June, July, and August of 1921. In July,August, and September 1922, these wereissued more formally, typeset, and printed.Apparently they were distributed throughpark offices, but may also have beenposted at a few locations in the park.

These modest reports were the begin-ning of Yellowstone Nature Notes. Itwould become one of Yellowstone’s long-est, most informative, and certainly mostentertaining literary traditions, a tradi-tion that took a more mature form on June20, 1924 (none are known to have ap-peared in 1923), with the appearance ofVolume 1, Number 1, of a typescript(apparently mimeographed) newsletterwith the actual title Yellowstone NatureNotes. Later writers and researchers seemto have routinely regarded the 1920–1922reports as early issues of YellowstoneNature Notes, but the name was not actu-ally used until 1924, when the series alsoacquired issue numbers.

Though it seems likely that NatureNotes was intended especially for parkstaff and other locals, it was available toa wider audience. The first issue explainedthat “This is the initial number of a seriesof bulletins to be issued from time to timefor the information of those interested inthe natural history and scientific featuresof Yellowstone National Park and theunmatched educational opportunities of-fered by this region. Copies of these bul-letins will be mailed free to those who canuse of them. Write or telephone yourrequest to the Information Office at Mam-moth Hot Springs, or call there in person,and your name will be placed on theregular mailing list.”

Nature Notes was not unique to Yel-lowstone. Many other parks launchedsimilarly named newsletters. NationalPark Service director Stephen T. Matherand Yellowstone Superintendent Albright

placed a high value on educational activi-ties, and the Nature Notes program flour-ished for many years. In 1936, HazelHunt Voth produced a “General Index tothe ‘Nature Notes’ Published in VariousNational Parks 1920–1936,” a large vol-ume funded by the Works Progress Ad-ministration and published by the Na-tional Park Service from the ParkService’s Berkeley, California, office. Bythat time, Acadia (beginning in 1932),Crater Lake (1928), Glacier (1927), GrandCanyon (1926), Grand Teton (1935), Ha-waii (1931), Hot Springs (1934), Lassen(1932, combined with Hawaii), MesaVerde (1930), Mount Rainier (1923),Rocky Mountain (1928), Shenandoah(1936), Yosemite (1922), and Zion/Bryce(1929) had joined Yellowstone in pro-ducing their own Nature Notes.

National park history enthusiasts mayenjoy knowing that the Voth bibliogra-phy reveals that Nature Notes added anobscure additional element to the long-time rivalry between the two “Y-parks,”each of which has been championed forbeing first at various things. Voth’s Na-ture Notes bibliography dated the begin-ning of Yellowstone Nature Notes to thatfirst June 1920 report, though Yosemiteseems to have launched its Nature Notesby that name in July 1922, earlier thanYellowstone produced its own similarlynamed version. Advocates and partisansare free to interpret this chain of eventshowever best favors their predispositions.

Discussing the production of NatureNotes by the various parks, Voth notedthat “publication in some cases has been

Yellowstone Nature Notes:A Neglected Documentary Resource

by Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey

Winter 2000 3

erratic; in some cases it has been sus-pended . . . .” The sustained production ofany sort of report or newsletter, year afteryear, administration after administration,is very difficult in any bureaucracy, and itmust have been especially so in some ofthese perpetually understaffed nationalparks. That makes the steady appearanceof Yellowstone Nature Notes until the endof 1958 an almost heroic achievement.Through the administrations of six super-intendents, and seven park naturalists andchief park naturalists (they became“chiefs” once there was more than one ofthem; today they are called chiefs ofinterpretation), Nature Notes was pro-duced faithfully, evidence of consider-able commitment to this form of educa-tion. We would enjoy hearing from anyreaders with more information about theNature Notes program throughout theparks. It does appear that some central-ized authority must have been taking part,because of similarities in design and ap-proach. We have not yet canvassed manyother parks to learn how long they pro-duced their own Nature Notes.

Interpretation is a term that still mustconfuse many visitors; park staff whoeducate the public have long been calledinterpreters. Milton Skinner, more or lessthe father of Yellowstone Nature Notes,had come to Yellowstone in 1895 as awalking-tour guide for the YellowstonePark Association (a hotel concessioner).In the 1920s, he would eventually write aseries of influential books and articlesabout the park’s wildlife and other natu-ral attractions. (Skinner is one of manyYellowstone figures deserving of furtherstudy.) Prior to the creation of the Na-tional Park Service in 1916, and evenbefore the creation of the education divi-sion of the park service in 1920, virtuallyall interpretive activities were performedby park concessioner employees, prima-rily stagecoach drivers (who gave mile-by-mile commentary) and hotel porters(who gave walking tours of the thermalareas), but also by the occasional inde-pendent educator or outfitter. Skinnerwas not the first Yellowstone interpreter,but he was a longtime public educatoreven before the park’s administratorsdefined their own responsibilities in thefield.

Skinner, while working for the park

engineers in 1913, suggested that a “bu-reau of information” be established toeducate visitors. Though we do not knowwhat influence his specific suggestionmay have had, the spirit of that sugges-tion was finally acted upon by Superin-tendent Horace Albright in 1920, whenhe hired Skinner as the park’s first “parknaturalist.” Here again some confusionexists; the label “naturalist” customarilymeans someone who studies nature, butin park jargon, it more specifically meanssomeone who gives talks, walks, andotherwise conducts interpretive activi-ties. Skinner very quickly created thelittle monthly nature reports mentionedabove, the precursors to YellowstoneNature Notes. But Skinner, who is re-membered now as having a difficult per-sonality, ceased being park naturalist inSeptember of 1922. In June 1923, FrankThone was named acting park naturalist,a position he held until late August. Itseems likely that these administrativechanges may explain the hiatus in theproduction of the nature reports that year.

Edmund J. Sawyer became park natu-ralist in 1924 and soon started the actualYellowstone Nature Notes. With the fourthissue, the publication was given a coversheet and more or less assumed the lookthat it would have for the next thirty-fouryears. Sawyer, some of whose artwork isin the park’s collection, is probably re-sponsible for many of the early illustra-tions in Yellowstone Nature Notes—simple little line drawings and marginalsketches that became a hallmark of thepublication until its final issue.

Subsequent park naturalists, includingDorr Yeager, who took over in 1928,continued Skinner’s approach with fewmaterial changes. Bird and wildlife ob-servations, provided by various park staffor consolidated by the editor, were rou-tinely provided, as was the occasionalstaff- or park resident-written poem anddrawing. Reports on geysers and hotsprings appeared regularly. As timepassed, articles got longer and more andmore voices were heard, often with by-lines. Articles on park history were addedas early as 1925. Book reviews, hikingtales, and quotable quotes became regu-lar features.

Yellowstone Nature Notes seems fromthe beginning to have served as an “offi-

cial” voice for the park administration.Whether exhorting readers to enjoy wild-flowers or not feed the bears, staff mem-bers who wrote the articles were treatingthe pages of Nature Notes as an extensionof their public contacts in evening camp-fire programs, along park roads, and any-where else that they worked. At timessome important management issue, suchas elk population controversies, would becovered in considerable depth. All ofthese materials, representing as they didthe park service leadership’s views, makeNature Notes an important source foradministrative history, complementing avariety of other materials such as monthlyand annual reports, and official corre-spondence.

At the same time, the shorter notes onwildlife sightings, the “leaves from ourdiaries” and other brief notes, each ofwhich might seem so slight by itself,gradually piled up into a formidable mis-cellany, providing a surprising volume ofinformation on many species of park wild-life. The most popular species, such asbears and elk, were ultimately mentionedin hundreds of short notes, some quiteinformative and all intelligently reported.Any researcher newly engaged in study-ing some species of park wildlife wouldbe well served to start by cruising throughthe excellent indexes that were periodi-cally issued for Nature Notes.

But perhaps the least appreciated as-pect of Nature Notes is its relevance tosocial history. The moods and ideals por-trayed in these gentle reports, notes, andobservations—about nature, about life inwild country, about the place of nationalparks in society—make Nature Notes afine source of impressions about socialvalues, as well as about the day-to-daytextures of park residence. We can imag-ine some enterprising graduate student inrecreational sociology or environmentalhistory using either Yellowstone NatureNotes or the entire set of series from allthe parks to examine changing values andideas in national parks over four decades.In a lighter mood, the senior author of thispaper used many of the short anecdotesand stories from Yellowstone Nature Notesas chapters in Yellowstone Bear Tales(1991), a book of readings that repre-sented dozens of individuals’ experienceswith park bears before World War II.

Yellowstone Science4

Similar compilations about wildlife orother park lore would probably also bewell received.

Among the subjects that we have notadequately researched is the apparentlygeneral demise of Nature Notes aroundthe park system. In Yellowstone, it oc-curred at the end of 1958. The final issueincluded a report on Firehole thermalbasin hot spring activity in 1958, andanother on Mammoth Hot Springs byChief Park Naturalist David de L. Condon.Former Yellowstone Park HistorianAubrey Haines recently responded to ourquery about the abrupt cessation of pub-lication of Nature Notes after so manyyears:

“Yellowstone Nature Notes died qui-etly with V. XXXII, No. 6 (November–December 1958), and without a hint thatwas to be the last issue. I was in engineer-ing at the time, so do not know what wasbehind the decision to stop. There is noclue in the header, which solicits articlesand carried the usual statement of pur-pose.”

Aubrey suggested that someone mayjust have decided that Nature Notes hadbecome “superfluous.” Changing atti-tudes about interpretive style or the per-haps old-fashioned tone of the publica-tion may have been factors. In the late1950s, traditional observational “naturalhistory” was falling out of favor perhapseven more than it had been in previousdecades, replaced by more rigorous sci-entific techniques. For many years, parkservice naturalists had been jokingly re-ferred to as “Sunday supplement scien-tists” for their simple nature lessons, andperhaps the criticisms were part of thereason for the end of Nature Notes. Onthe other hand, perhaps it was just practi-cal needs, or bureaucratic whim, that oneday led to a decision (either in the Na-tional Park Service or in each park indi-vidually) to invest limited staff resourcesin other things. So far our inquiries amongpark service people who recall the periodhave not yielded many clues about whyNature Notes disappeared. Perhaps oneof our readers may know more. JohnGood, who would later serve asYellowstone’s chief of interpretation, re-calls that in 1959 he was working in theservice’s Washington office, where hewould have heard if there had been any

general order to cease producing NatureNotes, and no such order was given. LindaEade, librarian at Yosemite, tells us thatwhen Yosemite Nature Notes ceased pub-lication in 1962, it was said to be theresult of “rising costs, diminishing man-power, and the changing times.”

A variant form of the newsletter ap-peared very quickly. Again, AubreyHaines:

“After I became park historian, I didattempt a resurrection in the form of TheYellowstone Interpreter, which had dur-ing its two-year life the purpose that al-ways appeared on the title page: ‘Thepurpose of this publication is to providescientific and historical data for the use ofPark personnel engaged in interpretiveactivities.’”

The Yellowstone Interpreter was pub-lished occasionally through 1963 and1964. It was to “appear at random, de-pending upon availability of suitablematerial, and employees are urged tocontribute articles.” Most of it was writ-ten by Aubrey himself, who was thenresearching The Yellowstone Story (1977),his history of the park, and who provideda series of authoritative sketches of his-torical characters and events. Its intendedaudience, park interpreters, was more lim-ited than that of the original Nature Notes,and it is not nearly as well known, thoughthe writing was of higher quality. It endedwhen Aubrey was transferred to anotherposition.

Since then, several attempts have beenmade to revive some form of newsletterfor Yellowstone’s interpreters. BetweenDecember 1969 and November 1980, theinterpretive division under chiefs Will-iam Dunmire and Alan Mebane occa-sionally issued an off-season newsletter,usually with a mixture of natural historyand administrative news. These seem tohave been produced almost exclusivelyfor communicating with seasonals whowere elsewhere at the time. The park’sresearch library has files of these, but ofcourse because of their intermittent pub-lication schedule (never more than two ayear) it is difficult to know if the set iscomplete. During the administration ofGeorge Robinson, the interpretive divi-sion produced an occasional newsletterknown as “Out of Touch,” especially forthe faraway seasonals, to keep them posted

on new developments in the park. Thelibrary holds one or two of these per yearfrom 1983 to 1992. One of the chiefdistinctions between these later permuta-tions on the Nature Notes then and theoriginal is that the latter are progressivelymore candid about matters of budget andagency politics.

The desire for something more like theold Nature Notes never went away. In1974, Mammoth Subdistrict Ranger Sec-retary Chris Judson started a new “NatureNotes” by including it in the biweeklyemployee newsletter, Yellowstone News.The first issue, January 25, 1974, encour-aged employee contributions and sum-marized a number of wildlife observa-tions by park staff (including the winterwaterfowl count) who already were intouch with her. Chris maintained a largenetwork of contacts throughout the park,and eventually persuaded a number ofpeople, including veteran seasonal rangerWayne Replogle and Gardiner, Montana,tackle shop owner Richard Parks, to con-tribute substantial series of items. OnMay 16, 1974, she changed the name toField Notes, with the hope that this would“better express what we’d like this sec-tion to be. Hopefully it will serve as onemore avenue of communication, provid-ing information on what’s happening inYellowstone. This is of interest to every-body, but will be especially useful tothose who meet the public and need tokeep as up-to-date as possible on manyaspects of the park . . . .” It includedannouncements about new employees,observations of wildlife, and reports onsnow conditions, among many other mat-ters. Though Chris moved to BandelierNational Monument (from where she re-cently provided us with information) inApril 1976, Field Notes continued to ap-pear in the employee newsletter fairlyregularly until November 24, 1976, un-der unknown editorship.

In August of 1995, the Grant Villageinterpretive staff under the leadership ofMatt Graves, issued a continuation of theoriginal Yellowstone Nature Notes (Vol-ume 33, Number 1), quoting the originalNature Notes’ masthead for its purpose.This single issue contained articles aboutthe history of Nature Notes, the newlyarrived wolves, elk observation, and swannesting. A “Leaves from our Diaries”

Winter 2000 5

section contained reports in the style ofthe original Nature Notes, brief observa-tions on wildlife sightings of note. As faras we can determine, no subsequent is-sues were produced, and the effort wasredirected to an annually updated infor-mation book; Yellowstone AssistantChief of Interpretation Linda Young re-calls that “what began as a sort of NatureNotes revival turned into what we nowa-days call the ‘Interpreter’s Handbook.’”A variety of even smaller circulationnewsletters, such as the South DistrictInterpreter’s Newsletter (known duringpart of its 1985–1986 run as“Chautauqua”) have come and gone withthe staff who created them.

By far the most important and durabledescendant of Nature Notes appeared inMay 1985, with the appearance of a news-letter entitled Resource Management,edited and in good part written by SueConsolo (now Sue Consolo Murphy),resource management biologist with aninterpretive background. Sue, now editorof both this newsletter and YellowstoneScience, remembers the plan this way:

“The original hope was monthly insummer and bimonthly in winter, and Icame close to meeting that goal for someyears. It was [Supervisory Resource Man-agement Specialist] Stu Coleman who,witty weird-humor guy that he was,named it The Buffalo Chip, beginningwith the January–February 1988 issue.”

The Buffalo Chip, which has had asteadily growing mailing and in-housereading list, reports in more depth thandid previous newsletters on a great vari-ety of natural and cultural resource man-agement projects and concerns. Almostentirely staff-written, it has now trackedfourteen years of park management is-sues, making it an important source of themonth-to-month concerns of manage-ment, and a treasure chest of informa-tion.

The latest and most publicly visiblechapter in the Nature Notes saga is Yel-lowstone Science. The idea seems to haveresulted from conversations in 1990 and1991 among then-superintendent BobBarbee, then-chief of research JohnVarley, and then-resource naturalist PaulSchullery. As the park’s many resource-related controversies grew more and moreheated and complex, and as the public’s

appetite for information about the parkgrew not only larger but also more sophis-ticated, all agreed that there was need fora publication that could do justice to thegrowing amount of research conducted inthe park. The first issue appeared withPaul as editor in Fall 1992, and it hasremained a (fairly faithful) quarterly pub-lication since then. Sue Consolo Murphyassumed the editorship with Volume 4,Number 3 (summer 1996), and publica-tion costs are largely covered by a grantfrom the Yellowstone Association withadditional donations by readers.

In contrast with previous publications,Yellowstone Science has been almost en-tirely written by the researchers them-selves. Except for the news and notes atthe back of each issue, most of the featurearticles were submitted by the research-ers themselves, who came from a widevariety of universities and other institu-tions. To vary the presentation, most is-sues have included one interview withsome noteworthy researcher, visiting sci-entist, or, in one case, a retiring adminis-trator (Bob Barbee).

A thorough listing of informationalnewsletters about Yellowstone wouldhave to include quite a few others. Oneespecially long-lived and valuable con-tribution has been a concessioner’s Com-mentary Newsletter, originated by Gerardand Helen Pesman under the transporta-tion division of the Yellowstone ParkCompany in 1973. Produced for thecompany’s bus drivers, commentators,and snowcoach drivers, this publicationhas long been a primary source of infor-mation on natural and cultural history,with many extended articles based onextensive study by the editors. LeeWhittlesey assumed the editorship in 1978and continued it until 1980, when publi-cation ceased. It has since been revivedby Leslie Quinn, and is still regularlyproduced. And now that there are literallydozen of Yellowstone-related web sites,any bibliography of Nature Notes de-scendants (whether conscious or inad-vertent) will become a very complicatedthing.

Nature Notes and its children have leftus an impressive volume of informationand have revealed a remarkable devotionto education of staff and the public. Theseobscure publications have also tracked

park issues and social scenes across al-most eighty years of Yellowstone’s his-tory. Very few modern researchers,though perhaps well aware of Yellow-stone Science, have ever heard of its“original” ancestor, and are missing awonderful opportunity. Perhaps it willcontain nothing of use to your project, butyou’ll never know until you look. We canalmost guarantee that you’ll spend moretime with it than you expected to. All ofthe publications mentioned here are inthe Yellowstone National Park ResearchLibrary, in the basement of the HoraceAlbright Visitor Center at Mammoth HotSprings.

We believe that there are a number ofgraduate research or writing projects wait-ing to be extracted from Nature Notes.One would be a history of the NatureNotes program throughout the NationalPark Service: who originated it and why?How specific were the marching ordersgiven to individual parks about the pro-duction of their Nature Notes? Did man-agers perceive it as a public educationaltool, and, if so, how did they use it? Didit just die a “natural death” in each parkfor local reasons, or was its departurecentrally decreed? This sizeable and fas-cinating documentary resource has muchto teach us, not only about natural historybut also about the culture of the NationalPark Service and the people who came tothe parks to enjoy nature.

We would like to thank Sue ConsoloMurphy and Linda Young, YellowstoneNational Park; Linda Eade, YosemiteNational Park; Aubrey Haines, Tucson,Arizona; Chris Judson, Bandelier Na-tional Monument; and Richard Sellars,National Park Service Southwest Re-gional Office; for helpful suggestions andinformation.

Paul Schullery works part-time for theNational Park Service as a writer-editor.His Yellowstone books include MountainTime, The Bears of Yellowstone, andSearching for Yellowstone. LeeWhittlesey is Yellowstone’s archivist–his-torian. His Yellowstone books includeYellowstone Place Names, Death in Yel-lowstone, and A Yellowstone Album.Paul and Lee are currently collaboratingon a history of wildlife in greater Yellow-stone. ❂

Yellowstone Science6

by Betsy Robinson and Steve Gehman

Wednesday, May 5, 1999, dawned partly cloudy and cold on Yellowstone’s northern range.At 6:30 a.m. we watched two grizzly bears foraging, one at the base of Specimen Ridge and the othernorth of the Lamar River. We then made our way to Slough Creek to look for the Rose Creek wolfpack. At about 7:00 a.m., we joined a small group of friends at an overlook above Slough Creek wherethey were watching six members of the Rose Creek pack. The wolves had made a kill the previousnight along the banks of Slough Creek and were resting after feeding. The kill was at the bottom ofan embankment, out of sight from where we were standing. Two of the wolves made their waynorthwest over a ridge and out of sight, leaving three wolves lying on a sage-covered hillside aboutone-quarter mile from the kill.

At approximately 7:30 a.m., the alpha male, #8, appeared carrying a chunk of meat and madehis way west to where the other wolves were lying. Two of those wolves joined him and they slowlymade their way up the ridge and into the trees, disappearing from view. The remaining black wolf,one of last year’s pups, walked over to the kill and fed for approximately 10 minutes. The wolf thenwalked a short distance to a shallow pond and drank some water.

At that point, a coyote appeared along the shore of the pond and approached the wolf. Weall tensed and waited expectantly for the wolf’s reaction. Wolves and coyotes are competitors, andwe have witnessed wolves chasing and harassing coyotes. Also, wolves have killed a number ofcoyotes in the park since the wolves were released in March of 1995. The wolf looked at the coyote,which continued to approach. When it got within 20 meters of the wolf, the coyote assumed the“alligator gape” posture, with tail tucked, back arched, and mouth gaping open. The wolf stood itsground and continued to watch the coyote. The coyote then did a surprising thing—it adopted a playfulattitude which we have seen many times before among dogs. The coyote dropped down on its frontlegs, tail out and wagging, seemingly inviting the wolf to play. The wolf continued to watch, and thecoyote repeated the display. After the second time, the young wolf responded and trotted off after thecoyote.

A Wolf-Coyote Interaction

Winter 2000 7

For the next five minutes, the coyote led the wolf through the sagebrush, back and forth,up and down. A pattern emerged, with the coyote running ahead at a faster pace than the wolf, thenwaiting for the wolf to catch up and get within 10 or 20 meters before running ahead again. Therenever appeared to be menace in the situation, and the wolf never appeared to actually pursue thecoyote with any seriousness. Several times the coyote and the wolf stood face to face at a distanceof less than 10 meters.

All the while it seemed to those of us observing that the coyote was leading the wolfsomewhere, and had a motive. After about five minutes, the coyote had led the wolf to the top ofa small rise where another coyote appeared, and the situation changed very quickly. The two coyotesabruptly turned on the surprised wolf, chasing it and trying to bite its hindquarters. The wolf ranaway at full speed, with its ears back and tail between its legs. The two coyotes pursued for severalminutes as the wolf dodged through the sagebrush and finally escaped up the ridge and out of sightinto the trees, at which point the coyotes broke off the chase.

It appeared to those of us watching that the entire thing had been a setup, and that the firstcoyote deliberately waited until only one wolf remained in the area. It then lured the wolf to thevicinity of the second coyote. Perhaps there was a coyote den in the area and the coyotes wantedto drive off the lone wolf, or perhaps the coyotes were merely bullies. We’ll never know the realstory, but this time the coyotes turned the tables on the wolves.

Betsy Robinson and Steve Gehman are self-employed wildlife biologists based in Bozeman,Montana. Steve has worked on various research projects in greater Yellowstone since 1984.Betsy has worked on several bird and mammalian research projects since 1992. They leadnatural history tours in the western United States and Alaska and have instructed college-levelfield ecology courses for the Wildland Studies program of San Francisco State University.Currently their non-profit research and education organization, Wild Things Unlimited, isfocusing on an ecosystemwide survey of wolverine, fisher, and lynx.

An original drawing byHarold J. Broderickthat appeared on the coverof a 1946 issue of NatureNotes.

Yellowstone Science8

Accounts of the wonders to be found atthe headwaters of the Yellowstone River,long regarded as trapper and prospectorhyperbole, became more seriously enter-tained when attested to by the esteemedmembers of the Washburn-Langford ex-pedition of 1870. Montana Territorynewspapers and word-of-mouth, as wellas some nationally circulated periodi-cals, spread the party’s intelligence thatdescriptions of the Yellowstone region—far from being exaggerated—had, in fact,been understated. To dispel all doubt, inthe summer of 1871 Congress dispatcheda scientific exploration party under theleadership of Ferdinand V. Hayden, chiefof the U.S. Geological and GeographicalSurvey of the Territories. The exploitsand renown of the Hayden Survey havelong been acknowledged.

Before Hayden’s party had left thefuture park, however, another group—hithertofore mostly unknown and the sub-ject of this discussion—conducted asightseeing excursion to “Geyserland” inAugust of 1871. Because their avowedgoal was to retrace the steps of the previ-ous year’s Washburn expedition—thistime to enjoy the sights, rather than ex-plore new territory—these six men areconsidered Yellowstone’s first knowntourists. Meeting up in Montana Terri-

tory from across the country, they soughtthe curious and the sublime that subse-quent legions of visitors have been drawnto ever since.

The Party

Rossiter W. Raymond: While accountsof the trip do not reveal who organizedthe party, a reasonable conjecture is thatRaymond, being the most educated andwell-traveled member, was its de factoleader when decisions were demanded.Fellow party member C. C. Clawson re-ferred to him as “Professor.”1 Raymond’sduties as U.S. Commissioner of Minesand Mineral Statistics from 1868 to 1876brought him west on frequent inspectiontours. His 1871 trip to Helena and Vir-ginia City, Montana Territory, was a pre-tense to enable him to see the real objectof his desire: the mythical environs of theYellowstone headwaters. Raymond wrotea lengthy account of this sojourn, whichwas published in contemporary periodi-cals and in his 1880 book, Camp andCabin, Sketches of Life and Travel in theWest. A widely traveled man with a dis-tinguished career, Raymond sentimen-tally referred to his 1871 trip to “Wonder-land” as the high point of his life.

Calvin C. Clawson: C. C. Clawson was

a writer on the editorial staff of The New-Northwest, a weekly newspaper publishedin Deer Lodge, Montana Territory. Grow-ing up in Wisconsin, he attendedWaynesburg College in Pennsylvania andsought his fortune in the newspaper busi-ness in Kansas, Colorado, and Montana.In addition to owning newspaper inter-ests, Clawson became involved in Idahomining ventures.2 He eventually settledwith his wife and son in central Idaho inthe late 1870s.

Raymond described Clawson as ashrewd reporter, “interviewing peopleagainst their will, following with an in-tent nose the trails of scandal, picking upscraps of information around the doors ofpublic offices . . . .” Raymond went on tocompliment him for taking notes “in se-cret as a gentleman should,” for being a“jolly companion,” and for his culinaryskills in the preparation of “dough-gods”and “bull-whacker’s butter.”3

Clawson’s 17 installments describingthe Yellowstone trip appeared in the NewNorthwest from September 9, 1871, toJune 1, 1872, under the titles “Notes onthe Way to Wonderland; or A Ride to theInfernal Regions” and “In the Region ofthe Wonderful Lake.” Each section musthave been penned not long before itspublication, for in the last installment,

A Ride to the Infernal Regions:An Account of the First Tourist Party to Yellowstone

by Lee Silliman

Photo by William H. Jackson taken in 1872 of Mary’s Bay, Yellowstone Lake, on theeast shore of the lake showing a beautiful “L” curve. YELL 36086. NPS archives.

Winter 2000 9

published three months after PresidentGrant signed the park into law on March1, 1872, Clawson facetiously whined thathe could not preempt and thereafter sella mountain of brimstone in Yellowstonebecause “the Park Bill put an end to thenegotiations.”

August F. Thrasher: A. F. Thrasherwas an English-born daguerrean photog-rapher and owner of the “Sun Pro” Gal-lery in Deer Lodge, Montana. Driftinginto the state from the California andIdaho gold camps in 1868, Thrasher wasan itinerant photographer whose peregri-nations took him to the many fledglingpost-Civil War mining camps that hadsprouted up in southwestern Montana.Raymond praised Thrasher, “He investsthe profession of photography with allthe romance of adventure . . . . If there isa picturesque region where nobody hasbeen, thither he hastens . . . .”4

Gilman Sawtelle: Gilman Sawtelle, thefirst settler of the Henry’s Lake region,15 miles west of present-day West Yel-lowstone, was the party’s local guide.Sawtelle’s ranch, 60 miles from the settle-ments at Virginia City, was an outlier ofcivilization on the periphery of the Yel-lowstone Plateau, where he was visitedby many travelers. Raymond describedhim as “a stalwart, blond, blue-eyed,jovial woodsman,” and his accompany-ing dog, Bob, “an excellent spirit and acompanionable soul.”

Josiah S. Daugherty: A prominent busi-nessman and citizen of Wabash, Indiana,Daughertyt o u r e dU t a h ,I d a h o ,Montana,and Wyo-ming Ter-ritories in1871, pur-portedly toi m p r o v ehis health.His inclu-sion in thisfirst touristparty to Yellowstone enabled him to re-turn with “many rare specimens of min-erals and fossils.” An 1884 biographicalsketch praised him for his business acu-men, and for not neglecting “to store his

mind with a general knowledge of what isgoing on in the world about him.”6

Anton Eilers: Not much is known aboutRaymond’s assistant and fellow miningengineer. He must have filled a niche, forRaymond wrote that regarding characterand accomplishment, “what one of uslacked another was sure to have.”7

The Group’s Itinerary

The group (six men, eight horses, onemule, and one dog) departed on August10, 1871, from Virginia City, one ofMontana Territory’s more populated andvigorous cities. Up the Madison Valleythey traversed, crossing the ContinentalDivide via Raynold’s Pass to reachSawtelle’s ranch on Henry’s Lake for athree-day respite. Via another low passthey returned to the Madison River andprogressed to the East Fork (Gibbon River)confluence, where they saw their firstgeyser. Continuing up the other branch,the Firehole River, the wanderers came tothe Lower Geyser Basin, which they erro-neously supposed was the Upper GeyserBasin as described by Nathaniel Langfordin his Scribner’s articles. The thermalfeatures amazed them, but did not fit withLangford’s descriptions. For reasons un-fathomable, they bypassed the UpperGeyser Basin in a brash, two-day thrust toreach Yellowstone Lake on a miserableroute blazed by one of Hayden’s scoutingparties. Their toil was rewarded with thebeauty of the lake and the thermal fea-tures of the West Thumb Geyser Basin.They moved north to the lake’s outlet andfollowed the Yellowstone River down-stream to the Grand Canyon, where theyencountered Lt. Gustavus Doane of theHayden Expedition. He informed themthat they had inadvertently detouredaround the Upper Geyser Basin with its

magnificent spouters and pools. Exceptfor Thrasher and Sawtelle, who stayed tophotograph the canyon, the rest of theparty struck southwest over Mary Moun-tain back to the Firehole River and up-stream to the Upper Geyser Basin. Afterenjoying the latter, they descended theFirehole and Madison rivers to VirginiaCity and dispersed homeward.

Encounters With Wildlife

Mid-nineteenth century Western trav-elers were accustomed to shooting wild-life as their larder or whim dictated, andClawson’s party was no exception—es-pecially considering the fact that no legalstrictures against it were in place in 1871.The park’s 1872 founding act contained avague directive for the Secretary of theInterior to “provide against the wantondestruction of the fish and game foundwithin said park,” but it would be 20years before effective checks against kill-ing park wildlife were in place. Whiletraveling up the Madison River outsidethe park, Clawson lamented that “as yetwe had taken no game—not even achicken killed or a fish caught—and therewas a stife among us to see who would getthe first blood.” An eagle was their firstvictim:

A photo (1800s) ofSawtelle’s ranch nearHenry’s Lake, Idaho.YELL 33378. NPS ar-chives.

“In a short time the eagle huntersmade their appearance, with theirhats bedecked with trophies in theshape of eagle feathers, and an eaglehanging to the horn of each saddle,while the wings dragged the ground.The old one showed fight when shesaw the hunters approaching, andsettled down by the nest to protecther young. After several shots froma rifle, she was disabled, and Mr.Raymond climbed the tree as far as

Yellowstone Science10

Before we condemn them for a crimeagainst nature, let us ask ourselves whatwe are perpetrating today with no com-punction that our great-great-grandchil-dren will find odious. As Henry LouisGates, Jr., phrased it, “History is, in nosmall part, a chronicle of formerly ac-ceptable outrages.”9 On the whole, how-ever, the party apparently restricted itselfthereafter to shooting elk and fowl toaugment their food supplies.

Clawson noted that Yellowstone was avirginal hunting and fishing ground,“where elk and moose and deer and bearhave maintained their rights to this theirEden since the day they were given pos-session.”10 Raymond concurred, “Theforest and the wave alike teem with leggedand winged game.”11 Clawson corrobo-rated other early travelers’ observationsthat wolves were native to the Yellow-stone Plateau. On their first night at thelake, when Clawson drew night guardduty, the horses were uneasy.

their survey of 168 historical accounts ofvisits to the Yellowstone Plateau prior to1882.13 They found that 90 percent of theremarks relating to wildlife were claimsof abundance. As C. C. Clawson wrote,“Elk in bands flew away at sight of us orstood in groups until the crack of the rifleadmonished them that they stood in dan-gerous places.”14

Notes Upon the Scenic Wonders

C. C. Clawson’s responses to the sce-nic wonders of Yellowstone were atypi-cal. Whereas many visitors to the parkwould place Old Faithful Geyser and itscompanion thermal features in the UpperGeyser Basin as the defining, requisiteYellowstone experience, Clawson de-voted a scant seven tepid lines to theirdescription—even though they had spe-

cifically looped back to see them. Like-wise, the majestic Lower Falls of theYellowstone and its incomparably col-ored and sculpted Grand Canyon havetransfixed millions of visitors with theirsublimity. Of the two, Clawson penned amere eight terse lines! What did grip Mr.Clawson?

The first feature to endear itself was theMadison Canyon. Waxed Clawson, “Forwild canyons and grand scenery, theMadison River is not equaled by anystream of its size in the mountains.” Hewent on to describe the volcanic pali-sades which hem this river at its secondcanyon just outside the park: “The moun-tains of rock run thousands of feet in theair, and form picturesque sights com-pared with the smooth, tame valley infront.” Probably not one in a hundredmodern tourists stops for a minute’s con-

This excursion party offers testimonythat Yellowstone abounded with wildgame prior to the onslaught of subse-quent visitors. Some people have con-tended that Yellowstone was essentiallydevoid of mammals (especially elk andwolves) until the late nineteenth century,when white hunting pressure “pushed”the remnant animals up into the moun-tains. This claim was effectively refutedby Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey in

Photo taken by William H. Jackson in 1871 of the Grand Canyon, looking downfrom over the lower Falls, west side. YELL 36070. NPS Archives.

A band of hungry wolves satupon a point some distance awayand howled and yelped a mostheartrending war song that seemedto terrify even our dog, who was awolf hunter by profession. But withmy back to a geyser and the dogand Ballard [a single-shot rifle] infront of me, I gazed into the darkdismal woods and dared either devilor wild beast to ‘tackle me.’12

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possible, threw a rope over the limb,and shook the two young ones out,then brought them to camp. Theywere monsters of their age, andafter admiring them a while, weturned them loose to shift for them-selves.8

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Winter 2000 11

templation of the pleasures of this can-yon, in their determined pursuit of thegeyser basins upstream. Perhaps a lei-surely day-long horseback ride throughthe Madison Canyon, as opposed to a 45-miles-per-hour passage entombed in asteel and glass conveyance, enabledClawson to deduce that “here is anothergreat field for artists; and photographersand landscape painters will here findfood for the camera and easel.”

Clawson wrote of the varied and some-times dangerous thermal features of theLower and Midway geyser basins, butthe curiosities which in some would ig-nite wonderment elicited from Clawsononly guidebook descriptions. For exhila-ration of spirit the author would have towait until the party topped the dividebetween the geyser basins and Yellow-stone Lake:

the norm among whites in Montana Ter-ritory then. His references to them indi-cate that white people still assumed theYellowstone headwaters was a prime lo-cale to encounter their darker-skinnedenemies. This presumption contradictsthe myth propagated by some Yellow-stone travelers that Native Americansdreaded and shunned this spirit-hauntedhighland of geysers, hot springs, and cold.Earliest among such sources was fur trap-per Warren Angus Ferris, who visitedYellowstone in 1834 and reported thathis Pend d’Oreille Indian companions“were quite appalled, and could not byany means be induced to approach them[the geysers] . . . they believed them to besupernatural and supposed them to be theproduction of the Evil Spirit.”20 A carefulevaluation of the historical record revealsthat the supposed Native American fearof Yellowstone’s geysers was complexand, at best, only half true.21

But fear of encountering Indians onthis 1871 trip was pervasive and wellfounded. According to Rossiter Raymond,their party numbered only six men be-cause a recent raid by Sioux Indians intothe Gallatin Valley had unnerved manywould-be participants. “When the criti-cal day arrived, there was an amazingpressure of business in the usually some-what dull town [Virginia City], whichhindered every one of our distinguishedfriends from starting,” Raymond notedsarcastically.22

Raymond was perhaps unfairly ridi-culing the settlers’ fear of Indian attackwhen traveling far from the mining camps,for Montana in 1871 was still a battle-ground between the races. Blackfeet dep-redations had been checked only a yearprior by the Baker Massacre, while theBattle of the Little Bighorn and the NezPerce War were still five and six yearsinto the future, respectively. As Clawson’snarrative demonstrates, precautionsagainst Indian encounters were standardoperating procedures then, and for goodreason.

Guards were posted every night duringthe trip to secure the camp against asurprise attack by Indians or a maraudingbear. Clawson professed, “In the moun-tain countries man has three great en-emies he is liable at times to meet with, allof which I acknowledge I fear exceed-

Clawson went on to note that since fourgreat rivers—the Yellowstone, Missouri,Snake, and Green—debouched from thehighlands of this massive volcanic pla-teau, his ken literally encompassed theapex of North America. “This will be oneof the most interesting features of Won-derland when Congress shall have setaside one hundred square miles here as AWORLD’S PARK, which it no doubtwill.”17

When Clawson looked upon the vastultramarine expanse of Yellowstone Lakelying below him to the east, he effusedwith poetic timbre:

calm and still as death in theevening sun. The like of Yellow-stone Lake has not yet come underthe eye of or within the knowledgeof civilized man. The curious andmarvelous sights that encircle it,the wondrous beauty of the mightypeaks that overshadow it as theystand arrayed in gorgeously paintedgarments of red and purple andyellow like gigantic sentinelsguarding the precious treasure en-trusted to their care and keeping;its romantic shores, fringed withforests of richest green, which thefrosts of winter or the heats ofsummer cannot fade; the unequaledbeauty of its outline—all unite toenveil it in an unnatural, indescrib-able appearance; unlike any otherspot or place seen or heard of—asif not of this world—somethingspiritual, beyond the reach of penor tongue. The eye must behold theglory thereof to believe;

And even then,Doubting, looks again.18

Clawson concluded his impassionedportrayal of the lake—which he envi-sioned as the center of a forthcomingnational park—by contrasting its presentserenity with its past geologic turmoil:

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While Yellowstone’s magnetic renownhas always included its rare geothermalspectacles and plentitude of wildlife, manytourists, like Clawson, leave the reserva-tion thoroughly enthralled with the sub-limity of Yellowstone Lake.

The Party’s Attitude Toward NativeAmericans

C. C. Clawson displayed an antagonis-tic attitude toward Native Americans—

Sitting on our horses we gazedand gazed in silent wonderment atthe outstretched world below. Wewere beyond the flight of the Muses. . . . We could not help feeling thatwe were lifted up BETWEENHEAVEN AND HELL, for whilethe seething, sulphurous lakes wereon each side and far beneath us, theplacid sky hung in grandest beautyabove us.16

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that it was once a VOLCANO OFWONDERFUL MAGNITUDE,so great, in fact, that it hurled forthfrom its terrible maw rivers of lavaand mountains of fiery substance,which, intermingling as they fell,formed these richly colored peaksthat stand to the south and south-east.19

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We were at last rewarded for allthe trouble and dangers of the jour-ney, when, from a high hill, onwhich was an open space in thetimber, we looked down and outover the grand and beautiful water,clear as glass of finest finish, lying

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Yellowstone Science12

ingly, especially at night. They are therattlesnake, bear, and noble Red Man.”He mused that at least an Indian’s silenttomahawk to the brain would be a pain-less and swift deliverance, “for you loseyour life without being aware of it.” Still,he slept with his head against a tree as asafeguard against having his hair“‘snaked’ off in the midst of pleasantdreams.”23

Indian sign was noted on the MadisonRiver near present-day West Yellowstone,where a large grove of quaking aspenswas marked with a well-executed deercut into the bark, presumably to advertisegood hunting thereabouts. That same day,“we stopped on the Madison, near wherethe eight Indians made a camp while ontheir flight with the twenty-seven head ofmules stolen down on the Snake [River]the year before.”24 The most direct con-tact with Indians occurred outside thepark, on the party’s homeward ride downthe Madison River. Discovering a dozenIndian warriors laying in ambush for themon the opposite bank, the party (reducedto four men by then, since Thrasher andSawtelle stayed to photograph the GrandCanyon) cinched their animals tightlyand galloped toward Virginia City. “Onthey came like demons, but the water wasbetween us.” In a 10-mile race the Yel-lowstone tourists outdistanced their pur-suers. “I shall never forget how nicely wefooled those Indians,” bragged Clawson.25

The Indian threat was real. In fact,Clawson, whose scalp might well havebeen lifted by pursuing Indians, was, bythe standards of his contemporaries, fairlymild in his damnation of Native Ameri-cans. More vitriolic in comparison wasthe editor of the New North-West, whoopined two years earlier that the Indianwas a “base, bloodthirsty, cruel, treacher-ous being,” whose extermination was themost expedient solution to the racial en-mity then gripping the territory.26

Another incident revealed both the viv-idness of Clawson’s imagination and thepresumed omnipresence of Indiansthroughout the Yellowstone Plateau. Notfar from the shore of Yellowstone Lake,the tourists chanced upon a small, dilapi-dated log hut with a collapsed roof. WhileClawson could entertain the possibilitythat it was used by white trappers or roadagents,

have to be laid aside during winter onaccount of frost.” Upon observing thatgeyserite waters precipitate and adherefirmly to submerged objects, Clawsonsuggested the making of grindstones bythrowing round disks of wood into hotsprings, but bemoaned that, “freight israther high at the present to make thisbranch of business profitable.” He alsosuggested—perhaps facetiously?—thepossibility of employing geyser water forembalming. “It is much pleasanter to‘shuffle off this mortal coil’ with thethought that you are going to be em-balmed, petrified—turned into stone—than to crumble back to mother earth.”He jested that we would soon see “theancient Egyptian mode of preserving thedead not only equaled but eclipsed.”30

Clawson’s most fanciful, humorousburst was reserved for the Fountain PaintPots of the Lower Geyser Basin, whichhe dubbed “the Cosmetic Fountains.” Hepostulated that the economic value of theoil springs of Wyoming would “sink intoinsignificance when compared with theeverlasting fountains of Cosmetic,” thelatter of which would enrich the treasur-ies of Montana. (Did he think the territo-rial boundaries had been moved? Therewas agitation among Montanans to re-adjust their territorial boundary to in-clude Yellowstone. Then, and for manyyears thereafter, access to Yellowstonewas possible only through Montana, butthe effort was in vain.) On he babbledabout this cosmetic mineral deposit:

But in a year or two the naturalproduction manufactured under theimmediate supervision of DameNature herself (who is supposed toknow what is best for her daugh-ters), will be all the rage. The samequantity that now costs $2.00 can bedelivered at your doors for five cents,(half white and half pink) perfumedwith Extract of Bumblebee, with apicture of a geyser in full blast onone side of the bottle and on theother the inscription

This is the stuff we long havesought

And wept because we found itnot.31

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I am inclined to think that in thefirst place that homely habitationwas none other than a lover’s re-treat, constructed by some bashfulred son of the forest . . . in antici-pation of taking unto himself adusky partner for life . . . . Thereused to be a custom, among thenative Americans, for a newly-married couple to take a jaunt of amonth to some beautiful lake orriver, where the bride would beallowed to accompany her hunterto the fishing and hunting grounds,and take part in the excitement ofthe chase.27

Clawson also conjured up the notionthat “the region of the Wonderful Lake ismoreover the ‘Happy Hunting Groundsof the Red Man.’ It answers his descrip-tion of it exactly. Here he expects hisspirit to wing its way when it leaves thebody. A land he pictures in his imagina-tion is abounding in choicest grass for hisfavorite ponies and fish and game ofendless quantity and delicious quality. Itis his heaven.” By contrast, Clawsonimagined that the thermal basins of theFirehole River were the antithetical In-dian hell. “On the other side of the greathill, in the Geyser Basin, where the bunchgrass is ever short, no fish, game lean, andponies lank is the ‘Unhappy HuntingGrounds,’ made ready for his enemies . . .there their spectral forms, on skeletoncayuses, continually chase, through thealkali swamps, by boiling lakes and sul-phurous pits, the fleeing phantom deer.”28

Perhaps Clawson’s conjecture of happyand unhappy Indian hunting grounds inthe park was based upon unmentioneddialogue with Indians or “common knowl-edge” among area frontiersmen.

Commercial Uses of Yellowstone

C. C. Clawson viewed the unusual ge-ology of Yellowstone through the lens ofa former prospector. At first sight of athermal area near present-day MadisonJunction, with its rivulet of hot waterdischarge, he lamented, “It is enough tomake the heart of a miner ache to see somuch clear hot water running to wastewhen so many banks of good ‘pay grit’

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Real or imagined commercial uses ofYellowstone were subsumed under thecompelling need to declare the newfoundwonderland a national park. Throughouthis rambling narrative Clawson assumedthat Yellowstone would become a plea-suring ground for America and the world.For example, he expected that the shoresof Yellowstone Lake would become aresort locale favored by newlyweds, who“wish to get away from the bustle andfuss of home to spend the first sweetmonth of their new life alone among‘Nature’s wild, enchanting bowers,’ outof reach of the clatter and bang of thecharivari.”32 The December 23, 1871,issue of the New North-West (three monthsbefore the park bill was signed into law)contained an unsigned editorial—stronglybearing the literary fingerprints of C. C.Clawson—describing the wonders of thisnewly realized “Arcana Inferne.” It con-cluded:

No soul has permanentlyshrouded itself from the worldwithin its weird confines: But to itwill come in the coming years thou-sands from every quarter of theglobe, to look with awe upon itsamazing phenomena, and with pen,pencil, tongue and camera publishits marvels to the enlightenedrealms. Let this, too, be set apart byCongress as a domain retained untoall mankind, (Indians not taxed,exempted), and let it be estoperpetua.

If this essay was not composed byClawson, it surely expressed his earnestsentiments. Perhaps this editorial waswritten by Clawson’s superior, James H.Mills, the newspaper’s editor and pub-lisher, who also ventured into Yellow-stone one year later. Like Clawson, Millspublished his narrative serially in theNew North-West.33 Its stylistic and ebul-lient manner equals, if not excels, that ofC. C. Clawson.

The Missing Photographs of A. F.Thrasher

Perhaps C. C. Clawson and his “Ride tothe Infernal Regions” would have beenmore than a footnote to the history of

Yellowstone had the journey’s photo-graphs taken by A. F. Thrasher survivedand been widely disseminated. Thrasher’simages could have rivaled those of Will-iam Henry Jackson, whose national famewas established when his extensive pho-tographic views of Wonderland were dis-played to Congress and the public duringthe debate over the park bill. Clawson’snarrative detailed Thrasher’s conscien-tious efforts to photograph Henry’s Lake,Yellowstone Lake, and the Grand Can-yon of the Yellowstone. (Did he photo-graph the geyser basins?)

No dilettante, Thrasher had his muleheavily laden with the accoutrements ofwet plate photography: fragile glass plates,processing chemicals, portable darkroom,heavy camera, and tripod. Each imagerequired an on-the-spot darkroom ses-sion to coat the plate with the light-sensi-tive emulsion. Little wonder then, that heoften entered camp late at night “weary,hungry, irate, but victorious.” CohortRaymond devoted two pages of his mem-oirs to the indefatigable efforts byThrasher to “wrastle” with the views. Infact, so “entirely unmanageable” didThrasher become with his time-consum-ing photography that the party split up atthe Grand Canyon, with Sawtelle remain-ing to assist Thrasher, while the otherfour crossed the Central Plateau to take inthe Upper Geyser Basin. Raymond ex-tolled Thrasher’s perseverance in “pur-suing with tireless steps the spirit of beautyto her remotest hiding-place!” 34

In the September 23, 1871, issue of theNew North-West, the following brief itemappeared under “Local Brevities:”

Mr. A. F. Thrasher’s outfit col-lided with a fire near the Geysers:Result, outfit destroyed, save nega-tives and camera: Sequence, he hasreturned to complete the series ofviews.

This cryptic report was corroboratedby Raymond: “He got ‘burned out’ by aforest fire, losing everything but his nega-tives [Raymond’s italics] and that afterreturning to Virginia City, and procuringa new outfit, he posted back again, thistime alone, to ‘do the rest of that country,or bust.’”35 Thrasher died within fouryears of the trip.

Where are Thrasher’s prints and nega-tives of Yellowstone in 1871? As a pro-fessional photographer Thrasher musthave realized the commercial value ofthese earliest photographs of Wonder-land—pictures which he so painstakinglywrought from the wilds and rigors of theupper Yellowstone—yet none are extanttoday (except for one purported imagedescribed below). The crescendo of in-terest in Yellowstone’s wonders wouldhave created a demand for Thrasher’simages in Montana Territory and beyond.Had he printed and distributed a goodlynumber, some likely would have sur-vived to the present.

One Thrasher picture of Yellowstonepotentially exists. According to MaryHorstman, Forest Historian for the Bit-terroot National Forest, a county histo-rian in Wabash, Indiana, examined aThrasher Yellowstone picture in the pos-session of the elderly widow of Josiah S.Daugherty’s grandson. Unfortunately, theprint could not be produced whenHorstman visited the woman in the late1980s.

At least one person held expectationsthat A. F. Thrasher’s Yellowstone questwould achieve memorable results—hismother, who, as an 80-year-old residentof Grass Valley, California, wrote thefollowing poem for the Virginia CityMontanian of March 28, 1872:

News of my wandering son, whosefirst essayThrough Wonderland its treasureto surveyBy fire arrested, were resumedagain.Mid dangers drear from savagebeasts and men.To seek for boiling springs andgeysers grandAmid the perils of that far-off land.And reproduce them in their brightarrayWith pencil sharpened by the godof day.

Yellowstone was first photographed in1871 by four individuals, yet only theimages by William Henry Jackson (whoaccompanied the government’s HaydenSurvey) were widely disseminated to thepublic which so hungered for them. AChicago photographer named Thomas J.

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Yellowstone Science14

Hine accompanied U.S. Army CaptainJohn W. Barlow’s reconnaissance of Yel-lowstone, but his negatives were de-stroyed in the Chicago Fire of 1871. Re-cently, seven Hine prints were identifiedin the Print Room of the New York His-torical Society, including the first knownphotograph of Old Faithful in eruption. ABozeman photographer, J. Crissman, alsoaccompanied Barlow, but his pictureswere not widely distributed and wereoften misattributed to others. Three men—Thrasher, Hine, and Crissman—werepoised to exploit their presence in Yel-lowstone on the eve of the park’s birth,but fate turned its hand against them.36

The First of Many

These first six Yellowstone touristshad much in common with the succeed-ing multitudes: an appreciation of theunique and awe-inspiring geological phe-nomena that undergirds the region’s ap-peal; an awareness of the varied wildlifeheritage native to the plateau; and a cog-

nizance that Yellowstone’s commercialpotential would be best managed throughthe mechanics of public ownership. Mosttelling, however, was their poignant,emotional response to this place where“the gates of the Infernal Regions werenot only ajar but clear off their hinges,” asClawson emphatically phrased it. Howfitting it is that Wonderland’s first touristcould verbalize the elixir that still perme-ates the air and imbues itself upon thevisitor:

Those who may hereafter visitthis strange land will bear me outin the assertion that a peculiarsensation takes possession of thevisitor which cannot be dispelled,that he feels he is in a land akin tospirit-land. Why this feeling, I amunable to explain; but it being theold pleasure grounds of the ab-origines for many ages, and theplace designated by them as theeternal abiding place of the spiritsof their departed good, as well as

the peculiar effect the exceedinglylight air (barring the hurricanes)has upon the respiratory organs,the wild and fascinating scenery—all may have something to do withthis strange feeling taking posses-sion of the stranger.37

Lee Silliman is a teacher, curator,writer, and photographer who special-izes in large format imagery. He is thephoto archivist for the Powell CountyMuseum and Arts Foundation in DeerLodge, Montana. His one-man photo ex-hibitions include “The Other Yellow-stone,” “Yellowstone: Then and Now,”“Jewels in the Crown: Yellowstone’sThermal Features,” and “Dancing Wa-ters: The Lakes, Streams, and Waterfallsof Yellowstone.” This article is anabridged version of a lecture he pre-sented at the park’s 4th Biennial ScienceConference, on “The Human Experiencein Greater Yellowstone,” in 1997.Silliman is preparing C. C. Clawson’snarrative for publication.

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1See Mary C. Horstman, Taking Up the Tools: The Early Career of Rossiter Worthington Raymond, 1867–1876 (University of Montana, Master’s Thesis, 1989).2The Calvin C. Clawson Collection (Manuscript 165) is housed in the Idaho State Historical Society, Boise, Idaho.3Rossiter W. Raymond, Camp and Cabin: Sketches of Life and Travel in the West (New York: Fords, Howard and Hulbert, 1880), p. 157–159.4Raymond, p. 157.5Raymond, p. 155, 159.6History of Wabash County, Indiana (Chicago: John Morris, Printer, 1884).7Raymond, p. 159.8C. C. Clawson, “A Ride to the Infernal Regions,” New North-West (Deer Lodge, Montana Territory), September 30, 1871.9Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Men Behaving Badly,” New Yorker, August 8, 1997, p. 4.10 Clawson, January 27, 1872.11Raymond, p. 169.12Clawson, January 27, 1872.13Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, The Documentary Record of Wolves and Related Wildlife Species in the Yellowstone National Park Area Prior to 1882, (Yellowstone National

Park, Division of Research, 1992).14Clawson, May 18, 1872. For an overview of nineteenth century human influences on Yellowstone wildlife, see Paul Schullery, Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder

in the Last Wilderness (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), p. 68–88.15Clawson, October 14, 1871 and November 18, 1871.16Clawson, January 13, 1872.17Clawson, January 13, 1872.18Clawson, January 27, 1872.19Clawson, January 27, 1872.20Warren A. Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains 1830–35 (Salt Lake City: Rocky Mountain Bookshop, 1940) p. 205.21See Ake Hultkrantz, “The Fear of Geysers Among Indians of the Yellowstone Park Area” Lifeways of Intermountain and Plains Montana Indians, edited by Leslie B. Davis

(Bozeman, MT: Montana State University, 1979); Joel C. Janetski, Indians of Yellowstone National Park, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987); and Joseph Weixelman,The Power to Evoke Wonder: Native Americans & The Geysers of Yellowstone National Park (privately printed, July 19, 1992).

22Raymond, p. 154.23Clawson, September 16, 1871 and October 14, 1871.24Clawson, November 11, 1871.25Clawson, June 1, 1872.26New North-West, August 27, 1869, p. 2, col. 1 & 2.27Clawson, February 10, 1872.28Clawson, February 10, 1872.29Clawson, November 18, 1871.30Clawson, November 25, 1871.31Clawson, December 2, 1871.32Clawson, February 24, 1872.33James H. Mills, “The Grand Rounds. A Fortnight in the National Park” New North-West (Deer Lodge, Montana Territory), September 28–November 30, 1872.34Raymond, p. 156–157.35Raymond, p. 157.36Consult Montana, the Magazine of Western History, Summer, 1999, p. 2–37, for an extensive discussion of Yellowstone’s earliest photographers.37Clawson, May 18, 1872.

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Winter 2000 15

In the early nineteenth century, Ameri-can cultural elites were in the habit ofcomparing American culture to Euro-pean culture. They felt an “embarrass-ment” of a comparative lack of a nationalcultural identity based on a long andestablished artistic, architectural, and lit-erary heritage.1 Nevertheless, it was ob-vious that what America lacked in cul-tural treasures it more than made up for innatural wonders. A perceived missingnational tradition found a substitute in theAmerican landscape. By the middle ofthe nineteenth century, cultural national-ists took pride in the fact that the westernenvironment, especially places likeYosemite, Yellowstone, and the GrandCanyon in Arizona, were unparalleled.Scenery began to be understood as a formof cultural redemption (see photo right).2

But this redemption could only be ac-complished if parts of the natural worldcould be converted into cultural heritage.How was such a conversion possible?Only figuratively, of course. This con-version has been carried out through theuse of a number of extraordinarily effec-tive rhetorical devices. These devices havebeen so effective that they have becomeinvisible. I am thinking here especially ofconventions of landscape painting andtechniques of museum display that al-lowed for the natural world to be pre-sented as a natural culture. My primaryconcern is with the various techniquesborrowed from museums and used againin the presentation of nature in the na-tional parks. Using Yellowstone as anexample, I want to suggest that nationalparks are essentially museological insti-tutions, not because they preserve andconserve, but because they employ manyof the techniques of display, exhibition,and presentation that have been used bymuseums to regulate the bodies and orga-nize the vision of visitors. Such a strategyproduces a so-called “vignette of

America,” insinuates the museum intothe wilderness, produces specific under-standings of the natural world, and fur-thers the idea that natural wonders arepart of America’s cultural heritage.3

When F. V. Hayden returned from hisexpedition to the Yellowstone region in1871, he arranged for an exhibition of anumber of specimens at the SmithsonianInstitution in Washington, D.C. These“specimens” included photographs byWilliam Henry Jackson and sketches by

Thomas Moran. These images are morethan decoration or pretty scenery. Theyare more like samples of a nation’s heri-tage. In the same way, the geologicalspecimens on exhibit were more thanrocks. In the Smithsonian, the nation’scuriosity cabinet, the watercolor sketches,photographs, and geological specimensworked in a supportive interrelationship.Natural fact was claimed as cultural heri-tage through the aesthetic conventionsbound up in landscape painting and in

The National Park as MuseologicalSpaceby Thomas Patin

Yellowstone Science

the exhibition of geological samples. Atthe same time, culturally specific aes-thetic preferences were presented as natu-ral fact, since the exhibition and depic-tions of the natural world seemed to echoart and culture.

Of course, nature cannot be enclosedwithin a museum, no matter how manyrocks, photographs, and paintings are usedto represent it. It is possible, though, toenclose nature—so to speak—within thelogic of the museum by presenting naturethrough conventional exhibition tech-niques. In other words, if you can’t bringnature into the museum, bring the mu-seum into nature. There are many gen-eral similarities between the ways thatmuseums and galleries present their ob-jects of display and the ways the parkspresent nature to visitors. Most museumsand national parks have grand or other-wise extraordinary entrances. Both insti-tutions use roads, trails, directional signs,architectural elements, or other means oftraffic control. Views and vistas are com-monly framed by landscaping or archi-tectural elements. In both parks and mu-seums we find an abundance of signs andtext panels explaining the importance ofparticular items on exhibit. Finally, res-taurants and shops are abundant in bothplaces, complete with a selection of re-productions of the contents. Rather thangloss over these similarities, however, Iwould like to be more historically spe-cific and examine two typical nineteenth-century methods of display, the cyclo-rama and the moving panorama.

In the cyclorama, viewers stand on araised circular viewing platform in thecenter of a circular exhibition space andlook at a dimly lit 360º landscape paint-ing . These huge paintings are often housedin their own circular buildings. Cyclo-ramas are very similar in principle to theIMAX theatre we are all familiar withtoday, except they completely surround

the viewer. Cycloramas were once popu-lar forms of entertainment, numberingaround 400 in Europe and America in thelate 1800s, with visitation numbers be-tween 1872 and 1885 reaching 200,000per year.5 Cyclorama exhibits were con-sidered to be extraordinarily realistic, aswell as morally instructive.6 Many visi-tors to cycloramas have described thesensation of being transported to thoseplaces depicted in them, such as NiagaraFalls, the Alps, volcanic eruptions, or theHoly Land.

The moving panorama combines thecyclorama with the control of vision usedin dioramas, another popular mode ofviewing scenes in the mid-nineteenthcentury. The moving panorama requiresviewers to sit as an audience facing onedirection as the painted scenery passesbefore them in the form of a theatricalbackdrop stretched between two rolls ofcanvas.7 Henry Lewis’ Mammoth Pan-orama of the Mississippi River, 1849 waspainted on 45,000 square feet of canvasand toured several cities in the east andmidwest. The unrolling of this paintingtook several hours, and quasi-scientificcommentaries, anecdotal material, andpiano music accompanied the images.8

Despite the obvious artificiality, pan-oramic presentations have been gener-ally held to be completely convincing.9 Infact, some nineteenth-century visitorsreported experiencing dizziness and sea-sickness.10

What I would like to suggest is that thecyclorama as an exhibition technique hasbeen insinuated into nature in the form ofthe overlook, the viewcut, and some visi-tor centers in the national parks, while themoving panorama has been incorporatedinto the parks as roadways. One earlytourist to the Grand Canyon in Arizonaexplicitly likened his experience on thesouth rim to standing in the middle of acyclorama looking at a well-executedpainting of mountains and gorges.11 In asimilar fashion, the windows and“reflectoscopes” at the Indian Watch-tower at Desert View, designed by SantaFe Railroad’s architect Mary Colter in1932, condense, simplify, and separatesections of the canyon for viewing as ifthey were framed pictures.12 Accordingto historians Marta Weigle and KathleenHoward, a controlled access to the rim

and the regulation of vision were crucialcomponents of the “viewing apparatus”set into place at Grand Canyon by theSanta Fe Railroad and the Fred HarveyCompany.13

In Yellowstone, the cycloramic exhi-bition technique is also found at over-looks, viewing platforms, and viewcutsat roadside turnouts. As early as 1897,platforms and sidings were built for tour-ists to use to get out of coaches or othervehicles at different points on regularlytraveled routes.14 Starting about 1910,“vista cuts” began to be made along roads,such as one on the West Thumb to OldFaithful road that allows for a view ofDuck Lake, and another east of Mam-moth Hot Springs used to view WraithFalls.15 The CCC continued such workinto the 1930s, clearing stumps and deadtrees, building more guardrails, and cre-ating more turnouts, viewcuts, and ex-hibit shelters like the one at ObsidianCliff.16 The construction of turnouts andviewcuts along the roadways continuedsince the late 1950s. There are numerousturnouts and viewcuts in the park, ofcourse, but ones that have historicallyexemplified the cycloramic function in-clude those at the Grand Canyon of theYellowstone, such as Artist Point andInspiration Point.

A two-layer panorama, London 1798.

Some of the overlooks allow for anearly 360º view of the canyon and itssurroundings. The view is an elevatedone, allowing for a view of the depths ofthe canyon, as well as some of the land-scape above the rim. There are, of coursemany other examples in the park.

As a digression, it is interesting to notehow the view beheld by visitors to thecanyon is similar to that depicted in Tho-mas Moran’s painting of the canyon.Moran even provides two “staffage fig-ures” or “surrogate viewers,” which actas stand-ins for the viewers of the picture,allowing viewers an imaginary imme-diacy and presenting an idea of the scale

16

Winter 2000

of the scenery. The overlooks at the can-yon explicitly repeat the view depictedby Moran and beheld by his figures. Thishappens elsewhere in the park, most ob-viously at Tower Falls. At Tower Falls,the viewing platform is an excellent ex-ample of cycloramic presentation, andthere is a reproduction of a Moran paint-ing with two surrogate viewers in it look-ing at the falls (photos above).

There are also numerous roadside turn-outs that are examples of both cyclo-ramas and large-format panoramic paint-ings, such as the one at Shoshone Point,between Old Faithful and West Thumb,near DeLacy picnic area (photo below).

picture painted from an elevated point.The point of view made available fromsuch a design produces what art historianAlbert Boime has described as the “mag-isterial gaze.” To Boime, this viewpointembodies the exaltation of the nineteenth-century American cultural elite before anunlimited horizon that they identified withthe “manifest destiny” of the Americannation.17 In the parks, the magisterial gazeis reenacted millions of times each year.The elevated position of the park visitorallows for a commanding view of theland, a land that—once seen, claimed,and surveyed—can become part of anation’s heritage.

The convention of the cyclorama con-tinues to be implemented in national parkconstruction, especially in visitor centersand viewing platforms. In addition to anactual cyclorama painting installed in itsown building at Gettysburg, there is aviewing tower at Clingman’s Dome inGreat Smoky Mountains National Parkthat presents a completely cycloramicviewing opportunity. My own favoriteexample of an explicitly cycloramic pre-sentation is atop the Mission 66-era HenryM. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center atMount Rainier National Park. In a large,circular viewing room, a 360º view ofdramatic mountainous scenery is pro-vided. The room includes benches, hand-rails, viewing scopes, and information

panels. Some items in the scenery arenearby, such as some small trees, rocks,and shrubs, and in some instances framethe view and help to break up the seem-ingly unlimited view into smaller seg-ments. These smaller and more immedi-ate objects also serve to set the remainderof the scenery into a spatial relationshipwith the viewers and the visitor center.

The moving panorama has been re-peated in Yellowstone and in most of thenational parks in the form of the roadsystem. In the early years of Yellowstonetourism, the Northern Pacific Railroad(NPRR) suggested in their promotionliterature a sequence for park visitors:Mammoth, Obsidian Cliff, Norris Gey-ser Basin, Gibbon Canyon, Gibbon Falls,Lower and Upper geyser basins, Yellow-stone Lake, and the Grand Canyon of theYellowstone.18 Businessman NathanielLangford also proposed roads in the fig-ure-eight system similar to the NPRRscheme and similar to what we now havein the park. Early park superintendentPhiletus Norris was concerned with pro-viding visitors with scenic and interest-ing views along the roads of the park andbuilt the road around the base of BunsenPeak to provide views of Gardner Can-yon.19 I don’t want to suggest that build-ing a kind of moving panorama was theexplicit intention of early park promotersand administrators, only that the moving

It presents the Tetons to the south andthe view is framed by trees to either side(the stumps of trees cleared for the vieware visible if you look for them.) It isobvious from the design of the parking lotand the arched rock wall where the viewis best appreciated, and, if viewers standin the prescribed spot, they are offered aframed view of natural beauty as if in a

The viewingplatform atTower Falls(top) and theThomas Moranpainting with“ s u r r o g a t eviewers” look-ing at the falls(right). Photos inthis article takenby author unlessotherwise noted.

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Yellowstone Science

visitors to museums and galleries exhib-iting art and other objects. These tech-niques, along with many other importantconventions, have been, in my opinion,crucial to the successful conversion ofnatural wonders into cultural heritage.This is constantly suggested in the re-peated references to national parks andwilderness areas as “treasures” and as our“national heritage,” terms more com-monly used for works of art in museums.

Thomas Patin teaches art history in theSchool of Art, Ohio University. He be-came interested in this project on a visitto Yellowstone while working on his Ph.D.dissertation on art museums (Universityof Washington, 1995.) This essay is arevision of a paper first presented in 1997at the 4th Biennial Science Conferenceon the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.22

panorama and the road system performedsimilar functions: to make available tovisitors, or viewers, a sequential presen-tation of designated wonders and naturalbeauty.

Since the 1950s, however, the projectof exhibiting natural wonders has beenmore explicit. In 1958, NPS DirectorConrad Wirth issued his Handbook ofStandards for National Park and Park-way Roads, in which he stated that thepurpose of roads in the national parksystem was “to give the public . . . lei-

surely access to scenic and other features.Thus [the roads] become principal facili-ties for presenting and interpreting theinspiration values of a park . . . .”21 Wirthalso instructed that roads be fitted to theterrain, and that shoulder widths allowfor turnouts and overlooks at frequentintervals. The current systemwide roadrebuilding program provides an opportu-nity to explore a more self-consciousimplementation of exhibition techniquesin the park.

The cyclorama has been reconstitutedin the form of turnouts, viewcuts, obser-vation platforms, and visitor centers, whilethe moving panorama has been repeatedin the parks as roads. To a greater or lesserextent, these techniques have had theeffect of regulating the vision of parkvisitors and managing their physical rela-tionship to natural wonders. Park visitorshave been put into positions not unlike

10Weigle, Marta, and Kathleen L. Howard, “’To experience the real Grand Canyon’: Santa Fe/Harvey Panopticism, 1901–1935,” Marta Weigleand Barbara Babcock, eds., The Great Southwest of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railway, Phoenix: The Heard Museum,1996, p. 16.

11Weigle and Howard, p. 16.12Weigle and Howard, p. 19.13Weigle and Howard, p. 16.14Culpin, Marcy Shivers, The History of the Construction of the Road System in Yellowstone National Park, 1872–1966, Denver, Dept. Interior,

National Park Service, Rocky Mountain Region, 1994, p. 45.15Culpin, p. 110.16Culpin, p. 195–196.17Boime, Albert, The Magisterial Gaze: Manifest Destiny and the American Landscape Painting, c. 1830–1865, Washington, D. C.:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, p. 38.18 Meyer, Judith L., The Spirit of Yellowstone: The Cultural Evolution of a National Park, Lanham, Boulder, New York: Rowman and Little

Field Publishers, Inc., 1996, p. 85.19Haines, p. 192.20Culpin, p. 11.21Culpin, p. 178.

1Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience, revised edition, Lincoln: Univ. Nebraska Press, 1987, p.11. 2Runte, p.7–8, 18, 41. 3The phrase “vignette of America” is paraphrased from the so-called “Leopold Report,” as quoted in Alston Chase, Playing God in

Yellowstone: The Destruction of America’s First National Park. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1987, 33. The 1963“Leopold Report,” a report to the National Park Service from the Advisory Board on Wildlife Management, that was adopted as partof NPS management policy, states that a national park should represent “a vignette of primitive America.”

4Hales, Peter, William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape, Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1988,p. 108; Haines, Aubrey L., The Yellowstone Story: A History of Our First National Park, vol I., Niwot, Colorado: Colorado AssociatedUniv. Press, 1977, pp. 166–169.

5Miller, Angela, “The Panorama, the Cinema, and the Emergence of the Spectacular,” Wide Angle, v. 18, no. 2, (April, 1996), 36. 6Parry, Lee. “Landscape Theatre in America,” Art in America, November–December, 1971, p. 52. 7Parry, p. 57–58. 8Novak, Barbara, Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825–1875, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995, p. 23;

Miller, Angela, The Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and American Cultural Politics, 1825–1875, Ithaca: Cornell Univ.Press, 1993, p. 86.

9Novak, p. 27.

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&notesNEWS

10th Circuit Court Overturns Orderto Remove Wolves

On January 13, 2000, the Tenth Circuitof the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver,Colorado, issued its ruling on multipleappeals filed by parties concerned withthe reintroduction and management ofgray wolves. The original plaintiffs—including the Idaho, Montana, Wyoming,and American Farm Bureau Federationsand Cat and James Urbigkit—challengedhow the U.S. Department of the Interior,U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and otheragencies used section 10(j) of the Endan-gered Species Act (ESA), regarding a“nonessential, experimental” populationof wolves in Yellowstone National Parkand central Idaho. In December 1997, theDistrict Court for Wyoming held thatwolf reintroduction rules lessened pro-tection for naturally occurring wolves(such as those migrating south fromCanada, or born in the Glacier NationalPark area) in the experimental populationareas. The lower court judge ordered thatwolves be removed from the reintroduc-tion areas; but he immediately stayed hisorder pending appeal.

The three court of appeals judges foundno conflict between the challenged ex-perimental population rules and the ESA,and unanimously reversed the districtcourt’s order and judgment. The courtacknowledged that occasional disperserwolves from another geographic areamight enter areas in which wolves desig-nated as experimental populations exist,but determined that “the paramount ob-jective of the Endangered Species Act[is] to conserve and recover species, notjust individual animals.” The opinion alsosaid that “the rules did not present com-plicated law enforcement obstacles . . .

NPS to Produce EIS on CommercialUse of Research Knowledge

As a result of a lawsuit filed by theEdmonds Institute, et al., a federal judgein Washington, D.C., last March sus-pended the 1997 agreement betweenDiversa and Yellowstone National Park(YNP) that allowed the company to sur-vey the park’s hot springs for commer-cially valuable microbes. The plaintiffsclaimed that the National Park Service(NPS) violated the National Environmen-tal Policy Act (NEPA) when they devel-oped a Cooperative Research and Devel-opment Agreement (CRADA) withDiversa without first soliciting publicopinion or evaluating the environmentalimpacts of the program. In entering intothe agreement, the company had agreedto provide the park with $175,000 in cashand equipment over five years, plus 0.5 to10 percent of the profits from any Yel-lowstone discovery.

Last summer, the NPS agreed to pro-duce an Environmental Impact Statement(EIS) that addresses the CRADA process(agreements developed solely to capturerevenues that result from commercial useof the knowledge derived from researchconducted at YNP). Using NPS guide-lines, research on varied topics has beenpermitted at no charge for decades inYellowstone with what managers per-ceive as no harm to the park and greatbenefit to science.

Former YNP Researchers Honoredfor Book

Two former Yellowstone scientists, Dr.Mary Meagher and Dr. Douglas B. Hous-ton, have won the prestigious Joan Pater-son Kerr Award for their 1998 book,Yellowstone and the Biology of Time(Univ. Oklahoma Press.) The award,given for the year’s best illustrated bookon the history of the American West, wasannounced at the Western HistoryAssociation’s annual meeting in October1999.

The book features 100 sets of compara-tive photographs that represent how theYellowstone landscape has and has not

the legal protection afforded any particu-lar wolf is clearly known, depending en-tirely on where the wolf is, not where itmight once have been.”

The court found that the Urbigkits’claims that wolf reintroduction influencedan existing population of a distinct sub-species “boil down to a disagreementover scientific opinions and conclusions. . . [but] simply does not constitute aNational Environmental Policy Act vio-lation . . . . Agencies are entitled to rely ontheir own experts so long as their deci-sions are not arbitrary and capricious.”

Visitors Found Guilty of RemovingNatural Features

On October 13, 1999, Toby P. Brown(aged 21) and Katrina M. Usher (aged 19)of Upton, Massachusetts, and Andrew S.Trick (aged 19) of Beaver Creek, Ohio,pled guilty before U.S. Magistrate StephenE. Cole in Mammoth Hot Springs to thecharge of removing natural features fromYellowstone. The party had dug up andcollected over 150 pieces of petrifiedwood around the Petrified Tree, aboutthree miles west of Tower Junction.

On October 8, Tower rangers receivedtwo visitor reports of two men and awoman digging in the ground with ascrewdriver on the slope above the petri-fied tree. A park ranger responded to thescene and, after observing two peopledigging in the area, contacted the thirdmember of the group at one of the twovehicles the group was travelling in. Aninvestigation uncovered one bag of about100 small pieces of petrified wood in oneof the vehicles, and a large number ofpieces of petrified wood in a small back-pack. Several other mineral specimensand fossils were also found in the car.One of the men said he had taken piecesof travertine and geyserite from one ofthe thermal areas earlier in the day butdenied finding the fossils and other min-erals in the park. All of the specimenswere seized and will be returned to theirnatural setting if possible.

Each individual was fined $750, placedon three years probation, and prohibitedfrom entering the park for three years.

Yellowstone Science20

changed over the past 130 years. Theoriginal images date to the 1870s and1880s, many of which were taken bynoted photographers William Henry Jack-son and F. J. Haynes. Starting in the1970s, Meagher and Houston relocatedthe points from which the pictures weretaken and rephotographed the same loca-tions then and, in some cases, again afterthe 1988 wildfires. They analyzed thephotographs to note long-term changesin vegetation patterns and in other fea-tures. The authors also describe the park’ssoils, vegetation, and geology, and dis-cuss the “agents of change” that shapeYellowstone: climate, fire, humans, andother forces still active in the ecosystem.

Dr. Meagher began her long associa-tion with Yellowstone in 1959 and held avariety of research-related positions, in-cluding chief biologist. She specializedin studying bison ecology, and retired in1997 from the former National Biologi-cal Service (NBS), now the U.S.G.S.Biological Resources Division. Dr. Hous-ton studied ungulates in Yellowstone from1970 to 1980, and wrote the award-win-ning The Northern Yellowstone Elk: Ecol-ogy and Management (Macmillan, 1982.)He subsequently transferred to OlympicNational Park where he studied mountaingoats, salmon, and other topics. He, too,retired from the NBS in 1997.

Region Gets New ResearchCoordinator

Dr. Kathy Tonnessen, formerly anecologist and Director of Biological Ef-fects for the NPS Air Resources Division,has been named Research Coordinatorfor the Rocky Mountain CooperativeEcosystem Studies Unit at the Universityof Montana, Missoula. Tonneson’s pre-vious experience includes studying watergeochemistry in Sequoia-Kings Canyonand Yosemite national parks and admin-istering air pollution research for the stateof California. She has also held affiliatedfaculty positions with Colorado State Uni-versity and the University of Colorado.

The NPS has established a network ofcooperative ecosystem studies units atuniversities across the country to providesupport to parks in the biological, physi-cal, social, and cultural sciences. The

intent is for the units to provide resourcemanagers with high-quality, independentand objective research and technical as-sistance, and to facilitate interdiscipli-nary problem-solving at multiple scalesand in an ecosystem context. Participat-ing agencies include the Bureau of LandManagement, the Bureau of Reclama-tion, the U.S.G.S. Biological ResourcesDivision, the U.S. Forest Service, theDepartment of Energy, and the NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administra-tion.

Another Geologist JoinsYellowstone’s Staff

Yellowstone is pleased to announcethe hiring of another geologist, Dr. NancyHinman, currently of the University ofMontana, Missoula. Hinman, who willarrive in Yellowstone full-time after thecompletion of the university’s school yearin June, will serve as the park’s geother-mal specialist.

New Discoveries from the Floorof Yellowstone Lake1

Recently completed high-resolutionsurveys of the northern part of Yellow-stone Lake show a lake bottom coveredwith dozens of circular depressions andhundreds of spires and pinnacles protrud-ing from the floor. The circular depres-sions are 25–800 meters in diameter, havesteep inner walls, and may be the rem-nants of explosive events similar to ex-plosion craters exposed on land nearby.The spires are composed primarily ofsilica, up to 35 meters high and up to 50meters in diameter. They occur singu-larly, in clusters, and in north-south-trend-ing lines up to 400 meters long. Theselinear features may sit astride fissures onthe lake floor. In many areas, spires occuraround the margins of circular depres-sions. In at least one case, spire develop-ment appears to have both preceded andfollowed formation of a circular depres-sion.

Formation of both spires and circu-lar depressions is related to deep-seatedfluid circulation, and occurred over thepast 12,000 years. Explosions such asthose responsible for these craters result

from the transformation of water to steam,often due to changes in confining pres-sure that result from (and accelerate) fail-ure and fragmentation of overlying caprock (hydrofracturing). Venting processessimilar to those that form black smokerchimneys on the ocean floor form thespires in Yellowstone Lake.

Other features recognized in the July1999 survey include vents through whichdeep circulating fluids exhaust onto thelake bottom, recent faults, and submergedformer shorelines. Further analysis of thedata and additional investigations using asubmersible, remotely operated vehiclemay define the relationships betweenfluid-circulating features, and fish andother lake-dwelling fauna.

These surveys were conducted jointlyby the U.S. Geological Survey, EasternOceanics, the National Park Service (Yel-lowstone National Park), and the Univer-sity of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Theycover about 20 percent of the lake floor,focusing entirely on the northern part ofthe lake, which is within the 630,000-year-old Yellowstone caldera. Objectivesof this work include understanding thegeologic processes that shape the lakeand how they affect present-day aquaticpopulations, as well as examining thismodern analog for the deep-fluid circula-tion systems responsible for many im-portant types of mineral deposits. Futuresurveys, covering the remainder of the

Winter 2000 21

lake floor, should demonstrate similari-ties and differences within and outsidethe caldera boundary.

1Contributors: L.A. Morgan, W.C. Shanks III,K.M. Johnson, S.Y. Johnson, W. Stephenson, S.S.Harlan, K.L. Pierce, and E. White; U.S. GeologicalSurvey, Denver; D. Lovalvo; Eastern Oceanics;and J. Waples and J.V. Klump; University of Wis-

consin-Milwaukee, Great Lakes Water Institute.

Federal Agencies Move Forwardon Bison EIS

In a statement released December 14,1999, the NPS, the U.S. Forest Service,and the USDA Animal and Plant HealthInspection Service (APHIS) advised thestate of Montana that they were movingahead to complete an environmental im-pact statement (EIS) on the managementof the Yellowstone National Park bisonherd. Because negotiations with Mon-tana reached an impasse, agency officialsdecided to move forward on their own tocomplete the EIS and take other steps toprotect cattle and minimize the lethalcontrol of bison.

“We all agree that protecting Montanacattle is critical,” said Michael Dunn,Undersecretary of Agriculture for mar-keting and regulatory programs, “but webelieve significant adjustments can bemade to the current bison test and slaugh-ter policy.”

“We have spent countless hours com-bining the best science, experience, andpracticality to protect both cattle and bi-son,” said Don Barry, Assistant Secre-tary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife andParks. “Unfortunately, we have reachedan impasse with the state and we feel wemust move forward on our own.”

The federal agencies’ proposal is de-signed to address both short-term andlong-term goals, including the eventualeradication of brucellosis from the Yel-lowstone ecosystem. In the short term, itwould provide spatial and temporal sepa-ration of bison and cattle through a zonedapproach. The proposal would allow bi-son outside of YNP only in three verylimited and well-defined areas west andnorth of the park. Only 100 bison wouldbe allowed in the Horse Butte/west bound-ary area; only 100 in the Reese Creekarea, northwest of Gardiner, Montana;

and only 200 in the Eagle Creek/BearCreek area near Jardine, Montana. Ad-justments would be made as more islearned through daily operations. Thesezones would be buffered by additionalzones into which no bison would be per-mitted. Cattle would be permitted back inthe zones 45 days after bison have re-turned to the park. Given that the brucellaorganism survives for only approximately17 days in spring conditions, this 45-dayseparation would allow more than ampletime for the organism to expire.

In the long-term, the agencies are com-mitted to developing and using a safe andeffective vaccine in the park until brucel-losis is eradicated from the herd. Safetystudies for calf vaccination should becompleted by the winter of 2000–2001.Studies on vaccine effectiveness, and ona safe and effective delivery mechanismfor the vaccine should be developed bylate 2002. The NPS has agreed to vacci-nate bison inside the park. The ForestService has adjusted grazing allotmentsto help maintain critical separation be-tween bison and cattle. APHIS has clearlystated that the federal plan will not jeop-ardize Montana’s brucellosis-free statusfor livestock. Furthermore, the recent $13million purchase of lands north of thepark has provided significant additionalpotential for bison winter grazing.

As the agencies move forward, theyindicated they would continue workingwith Montana on daily bison manage-ment issues.

Rare Plant Found in New Sites

While conducting a special plant sur-vey along lakeshores during the summersof 1998 and 1999, YNP staff discoveredthree new sites containing the very rareplant known as Yellowstone sand ver-bena (Abronia ammophila). Though thisplant is probably noticed by very fewvisitors, its discovery was exciting newsin Yellowstone’s unusual landscape.

Yellowstone sand verbena is a multi-stemmed perennial herb that grows inlow mats along sandy lakeshores. Priorto the discoveries the past two summers,only one population was known to exist.Because the known population was com-prised of only a few thousand of these

small plants in a very limited area, therehas long been concern about the viabilityof the species. Management attention fo-cused on surveying all likely areas withinthe park for the presence of this uniquespecies. Funding to conduct the surveywas made available by the Canon U.S.A.“Expedition into the Parks” grant throughthe National Park Foundation, and anadditional Native Plant Conservation Ini-tiative matching grant from the NationalFish and Wildlife Foundation.

The presence of the sand verbena in atotal of four known locations in the parklessens the possibility that a single cata-strophic event or adverse weather couldcause the possible extinction of this spe-cies. Determination of whether large sandverbena mats were composed of one ormore individuals was difficult, but amongall four sites, a minimum of 8,325 plantswere found, most of which are in theoriginally known population. Counts fromthe early 1990s showed approximately1,000 individuals. The more recent countsuggests that the species is successfullymaintaining its presence as a unique partof the Yellowstone ecosystem.

Missing a Beat…

Alert readers may have noted thatYellowstone Science, usually a quarterlymagazine, skipped an issue in 1999.Unexpected delays put us well behindour normal production schedule, and,much though it pained us, we decided toomit Vol. 7 (4).