Yellowstone Science - National Park Serviceral history: of wildland fire, and how humans fought it;...

Yellowstone ScienceA quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

Volume 8 Number 3

The Upper Geyser Basin—a Cultural Landscape

Yellowstone Fishes ReviewedFirefighting Firepower

Arctic Grayling

At the Yellowstone Center for Re-sources, there is a long-standing and(hopefully) amicable rivalry betweennatural and cultural resource specialists.Oops—there I go again, placing naturalahead of cultural. Why, I have been asked,not the other way around? Some voicescounter that Yellowstone is primarily a“natural” park, set aside for the sceneryand the “natural curiosities”—the geo-thermal oddities and the resplendent dis-play of wildlife. When polled as to theirreasons for coming, fewer visitors men-tion interest in the cultural sites, exceptperhaps as a place to lodge or have dinner.This may be a reflection of how we haveinterpreted the place, of how we andothers have “marketed” the Yellowstoneexperience. Here in the world’s first na-tional park, aren’t cultural resources just

as important as natural ones? What animportant event in human history thedesignation of Yellowstone Park hasturned out to be.

I grow weary of such competition overthe many special things Yellowstone hasto offer. No question, it’s not a levelplaying field out there. Geyser gazersdebate whether Grand, Steamboat, orsome other spouter is “the best.” Wolveshave, of late, supplanted grizzly bears asthe rare carnivore of choice to see. Fishand flowers have their fans, but let’s faceit, they’re lower on most visitors’ wishlists; bugs and bats get no respect. TheOld Faithful Inn, Lake Hotel, and Moran’spaintings attract oohs and aahs, but otherhistoric structures and collections are lessknown and beloved. If you can see them,you’re generally not allowed to touch

them, and just try to make archeologicsites or archival records photogenic.

Despite our administrative tradition thatseparates cultural resources from naturalones, do we really want visitors and man-agers to see them as such, or as equallydeserving of appreciation? This issue fea-tures articles on distinctly different top-ics, yet each juxtaposes human and natu-ral history: of wildland fire, and howhumans fought it; of a rare fish, and howthe park’s cultural history has contrib-uted both to its near extinction and ourattempts to save it; of changes in the builtlandscape and related visitor experiencesat the Upper Geyser Basin. I relish theseintegrated stories about Yellowstone’scultural and natural resources, all of whichdeserve more exposure—and protection.

—SCM

Integrated and Equal?

Tourists at Grotto Geyser, ca. 1908. NPS photo.

A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

Table of ContentsSummer 2000

Yellowstone Science

Editor

Sue Consolo-Murphy

Assistant Editor and Design

Tami BlackfordAssistant Editors

Mary Ann FrankeKevin SchneiderAlice Wondrak

Printing

Artcraft, Inc.Bozeman, Montana

Volume 8 Number 3

Fighting Fire with Firepower: Firefighting in 2Yellowstone National Park, 1872–1918Little documentation exists on early park fires and the park’s response to them. Anew thesis contributes to our knowledge of Yellowstone’s early firefightingtechniques.by Doug Weber

From Fire to Fun, and Back Again: The Changing 5Cultural Landscape of Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser BasinA scholar looks away from Old Faithful geyser to examine the evolution of itscultural surroundings, and how the visitor experience has also changed.by Karl Byrand

Arctic Grayling in Yellowstone National Park: 12Status, Management, and Recent Restoration EffortsOne of Yellowstone’s lesser-known fish, the Arctic grayling, struggles to survivein its native streams.by Cal Kaya

Book Review 18Yellowstone Fishes—Ecology, History, and Angling in the Park by John D. Varleyand Paul Schullery.Reviewed by Rick Mossman

News and Notes 20New Fossil Location Found • Branch Chief of Natural Resources Selected • FloodThreatens Park Archives Collections • Interagency Meeting Scheduled in Yellow-stone • Annual Aerial Pronghorn Census • Nez Perce National Historic TrailFoundation Meeting • Canyon Village Eligible for National Register • Errata

On the cover: Bathhouse operated by Henry P.Brothers at Old Faithful, 1915–51. NPS photo.Above: Helicopter dropping Arctic grayling intoCougar Creek. Photo courtesy Cal Kaya.

Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigatorsconducting 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 © 2000, 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 the park and its

visitors. For more information about the Yellowstone Association, including membership, write toP.O. Box 117, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.

Yellowstone Science is printed on recycled paper with a linseed oil-based ink.

Yellowstone Science2

Until rain and snow quelled the infernoin 1988, more than one-third of the acre-age in Yellowstone National Park burnedin a series of fires that persisted for weeks.Following the fires, scientists and parkmanagers sought an explanation for theintensity of the event. Some observersargued that 100 years of effective firesuppression had allowed “unnatural” lev-els of fuels to accumulate, thus makingthe forest unusually vulnerable to a majorconflagration when a drought plagued theYellowstone area in 1988. Other scholarsinsisted that the 1988 fires were part of a“natural” 300- to 400-year fire cycle com-mon to the lodgepole forests of the greaterYellowstone region. According to thisargument, fire suppression—though longpracticed in Yellowstone—had been soineffective that it did not alter the ex-pected “natural” fire cycle.1

Both interpretations of the 1988 firesrely, in part, on an assessment of historicfirefighting practices in the park. Unfor-tunately, no comprehensive history offirefighting in Yellowstone yet exists. Myresearch addresses this void by focusingon the early history of firefighting in Yel-lowstone—essentially, the period fromthe park’s founding in 1872 through theera of United States Army administration(that ended in 1918).

When Congress created YellowstoneNational Park in 1872, it made no provi-sion for management and protection ofthe park’s resources beyond the appoint-ment of an unpaid superintendent. Notsurprisingly, early park superintendents

spent little time in Yellowstone, andpark resources were at the mercy ofconcessionaires, tourists, and poachers.During the next decade, as Yellowstoneattracted greater national and interna-tional attention, the government at-tempted to provide better protectionthrough the appointment of a small corpsof “assistants” in 1883. Since appoint-ments were based on nepotism ratherthan ability, this “corps” did little tostem poaching or to prevent the increas-ing number of tourists from carting offantlers, wildflowers, and chunks of gey-ser cones as souvenirs. Finally, in 1886,the government charged the U.S. Armywith the task of protecting the nation’sfirst national park.2

Before the arrival of military troops,firefighting in Yellowstone was ineffec-tive. Most often, fires were allowed toburn until they extinguished themselvesor until rain and snow checked theprogress of the fire. Without a suitableroad system, a reliable communications

network, or a system of lookout stations,superintendents could do little to hedgethe progress of fires. When they did at-tempt to fight the fires, they relied onvolunteers—that is, concession employ-ees and settlers from the areas outside thepark. This ad hoc volunteerism failedmiserably, since many of these peoplewere motivated to fight fires only whentheir own lands were threatened.3 Conse-quently, many fires grew to immense sizeduring the time that it took to gathervolunteers, outfit them with equipment,and travel through the heavily forestedareas to the fire.

Despite the difficulties and ineffective-ness of early firefighting efforts, a con-sensus existed among those who con-cerned themselves with Yellowstone thatfire was detrimental to the landscape andshould, whenever possible, be suppressed.As Stephen Pyne described in his work onfire in America, many nineteenth-centuryAmericans saw forest fires as destructiveand unnatural.4 They also considered the

Fighting Fire with Firepower:Firefighting in Yellowstone National Park, 1872–1918

NPS

The U.S. cavalry in Mammoth, ca. 1911. Army personnel were the first to effectively fight park fires.

by Doug Weber

Summer 2000 3

deliberate burning of the forest a NativeAmerican practice, thus generating awidespread prejudice against forest firesas unnatural. For instance, in 1900 whena large fire burned out of control south ofDeLacy Lakes, a local newspaper per-petuated a rumor that “the fire was startedby Indians in order to drive the game outof the park into the mountains where theycould kill it.” Other possibilities, such asa lightning strike or a careless tourist,were discounted. Consequently, the news-paper continually referred to the fire as “awork of destruction.”5 This attitude pre-vailed in Yellowstone National Park aswell as in the surrounding YellowstoneForest Reserve (which was created in1896 and was initially administered bythe U.S. Army stationed at Fort Yellow-stone; this area later became nationalforest).

When the U.S. Army arrived at thepark in 1886, the soldiers busied them-selves with building roads, constructingquarters for the troops, and protecting thewildlife from poachers, while the super-intendent continually fought with Con-gress for appropriations. Effectivefirefighting and fire management arrivedwith Captain F.A. Boutelle in 1889.Boutelle and his soldiers established newroads, improved communications throughbuilding telegraph and phone lines, pun-ished transgressors of the law who al-lowed their campfires to burn out of con-trol, established designated campgroundswhere campfires were easily monitored,and purchased new equipment to fightfires.6 Boutelle’s strategy concentratedon fire prevention, where park rules con-cerning the complete extinguishment ofcampfires were clear and vigorously en-forced.

Interestingly, Boutelle’s ardent cam-paign for fire suppression and preventioneventually led to his demise. In an epi-sode that lasted several months, Boutelleand the secretary of the interior exchangedheated correspondence concerning ap-propriations for the purchase of axes andcollapsible fire buckets. Because the sec-retary failed to respond to Boutelle’s pleafor appropriations, the superintendent ac-cepted money from a tourist to purchasethe buckets. Boutelle included this epi-sode in his yearly report to the secretary.In that report, Boutelle also wrote several

highly critical statements concerning thesecretary’s supposed lack of interest inprotecting the park from fire. This criticalreport led to Boutelle’s termination as thesuperintendent of the park.7 Althoughmany of the largest fires at this timeburned for weeks and overcame most ofthe human attempts at suppression, thesoldiers extinguished most of the smallerfires before they became unwieldy, evenin the most inaccessible areas of the park.

Station records, scouts’ reports, andcorrespondence to the various superin-tendents of the park yield insight into thefirefighting practices in Yellowstone.These practices remained at the cutting-edge of suppression techniques in theUnited States and allowed for the mosteffective wildland firefighting in the coun-try. In a typical report to the superinten-dent concerning the suppression of a wild-fire, Second Lieutenant F. J. Arnold wrote:

“On August 8th 1898 about 9 P.M.word reached me from…RiversideStation, YNP that there was a largeforest fire just outside the Park line... travelling rapidly toward the Park.I reported the fact by telegraph atonce to…[the] Act. Supt. of the Parkand asked for instructions. The replywas received at 10:00 P.M. directingme to take twenty men, and six day’srations with all the shovels, axes, andfire buckets at hand, and proceed tothe fire at once. I was also informedthat a detail of twenty men with nec-essary implements…would be sentfrom Ft. Yellowstone to join me. At11:00 P.M. the expedition was en routeto the fire.”8

After marching all night, the soldiersarrived at the fire at 6:00 A.M. and imme-

diately began work. Arnold reported that,“The fire was burning briskly and uponinspection was found to extend over anarea of about one square mile.” With onlyeight shovels, one axe, and no water athand, the force amazingly brought thefire under control before noon. Shortlythereafter, however, the afternoon windsagain stirred up the blaze and the fire wassoon beyond control. Luckily, the forcefrom Fort Yellowstone (which had alsomarched all night), arrived at the fire at1:00 P.M. Nonetheless, due to the unbear-able heat from the fire and exhaustion ofthe troops, the commanders decided tofall back to the Madison River (about oneand a half miles away) to rest the troopsand wait for the wind to die. Early thenext morning, the refreshed soldiers wereordered to “distribute themselves alongthe edge of the fire and [chop] off theburning ends of the logs, [scatter] them,and [throw] earth upon them…[in orderto] keep down the flames.”9 Without thehindrance of the wind, the troops suc-ceeded in extinguishing the fire by 9:00A.M., and mounted soldiers immediatelybegan to patrol the fire to ensure that itwas completely smothered. These pa-trols lasted for two days before the sol-diers returned to their posts.10

Most of the reports concerning sup-pression efforts were similar to that ofArnold’s, thus allowing the determina-tion of a basic fire-containment paradigmpracticed by the U.S. Army. Immediatelyfollowing the discovery of a fire by eithera soldier or tourist, the estimated locationand size of the fire was reported to thecommanding officer of the nearest sol-dier station by either telegraph or tele-phone. The commanding officer of thestation then reported the fire to the actingsuperintendent of the park who, in most

Even the terminology of wildland firefighting paral-leled that of the military; firefighters dug fire lines, heldthose lines, and, in some cases, fell back when the linewas overcome, to dig yet another line in an attempt tosuppress the fire.

Yellowstone Science

fell back when the line was overcome, todig yet another line in an attempt to sup-press the fire. The quasi-military NationalPark Service also used the army’s experi-ences in Yellowstone as a model upon itsown creation in 1916.13 The commandstructure at the park level resembled thatof the military, and many soldiers whohad served at Yellowstone were allowedto remain in the park, thus terminatingtheir commission with the military. Thearmy’s experiences in Yellowstone pro-vided a fire-regime paradigm that forestmanagers throughout the nation followedfor decades.

Doug Weber researched firefightingpractices in Yellowstone National Parkto complete his Master of Arts degree atMontana State University. Shortly afterpresenting this paper at Yellowstone’sFourth Biennial Science Conference inOctober 1997, Douglas received the PhiAlpha Theta Fellowship at the MontanaHistorical Society in Helena, Montana,where he completed his degree workingas an assistant editor. Doug wrote, “I amenamored by Yellowstone’s beauty andrespect its place in American history. Iam not a firefighter, but I respect thearduous work these men performed. Myinterest in this topic arose from a love ofYellowstone and the outdoors, and thechance to perform research in such beau-tiful surroundings. What better place isthere to perform research?” Doug nowresides in Denver, Colorado.

4

cases, ordered the station’s officer togather a troop of men and proceed to thefire. The superintendent, when necessaryand possible, also ordered a second groupof soldiers from the station nearest thefire to assist in suppression efforts. Manytimes the soldiers marched through thenight so they might extinguish the blazesbefore the afternoon winds hindered theirefforts. Through the digging of fire lines,smothering embers with earth, and soak-ing the fires with water (when possible),the soldiers remained at a fire until it wasextinguished, even in the most desperatecircumstances. The soldiers then patrolledthe scene until they were certain the firewas completely extinguished.

Managers in the national forests adaptedthe army’s approach following the cre-ation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905.11

After the devastating fires of 1910 in theNorthwest, Forest Service managers ar-gued for the expansion of componentsproven in Yellowstone: better roads and,consequently, deeper access into thebackcountry, improved communication,and the placement of lookout towersthroughout forested areas.12 The ForestService also adopted the same responseregime that the army practiced in Yel-lowstone. A fire was spotted and immedi-ately reported (when possible) to the near-est supervisor. When necessary, the su-pervisor assembled a crew and sent themto the site to meet the ranger who, in manycases, had already gathered ad hoc volun-teers and traveled to the site. Within thesegroups, a leader, or fire-boss, dictatedstrategies to the firefighters, just as asergeant might order a soldier. From look-out to firefighter, this command structureresembled that of the military in Yellow-stone National Park. Even the terminol-ogy of wildland firefighting paralleledthat of the military; firefighters dug firelines, held those lines, and, in some cases,

NOTES

1 Paul Schullery and Don G. Despain. “Pre-scribed burning in Yellowstone NationalPark: a doubtful proposition.” WesternWildlands 15, no. 2 (summer 1989):30–34.

2 Aubrey Haines, The Yellowstone Story: AHistory of Our First National Park (Yel-lowstone National Park, Wyo.: Yellow-stone Library and Museum Association incooperation with Colorado AssociatedUniversity Press, 1977), 1:292–93.

3 For a discussion of the mind set of many ofthe settlers of the West concerning fire andthe situation of ad hoc volunteerism, seeStephen Pyne, Fire in America: A Cul-tural History of Wildland and Rural Fire(New Jersey: Princeton University Press,1982).

4 Pyne, Fire in America.5 “Big Fire in the Park: Hard Work by the

Soldiers, Aided by Opportune Rains, Suc-ceeded in Controlling the Conflagration,”Park County Republican, August 11, 1900.

6 H. Duane Hampton, How the U.S. CavalrySaved our National Parks (Bloomington,Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1971), 96–100.

7 Ibid.8 Lt. F.J. Arnold, Report to Acting Superin-

tendent, Camp Lower Geyser Basin, Yel-lowstone National Park, September 8,1898. In Army Records, Archive Docu-ment 4794, Yellowstone National ParkArchives, Wyoming.

9 Ibid.10 Ibid.11 For a good history of the Forest Service,

see Harold Steen, The U.S. Forest Service:A History (Seattle: University of Wash-ington Press, 1991).

12 See Western Forestry and ConservationAssociation, “Proceedings of Forest FireConference of the Forest Protective Orga-nizations.” (Portland: The Timberman,1911). These proceedings did not providethe only example of Yellowstone’s influ-ence on firefighting techniques and poli-cies. Foresters such as Coert Du Bois,probably the most farsighted fire expert ofthe day, constantly discussed needed im-provements in firefighting techniques fornational forests that firefighters in Yel-lowstone had been practicing for years.

13 William C. Everhart, The National ParkService (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,1983).

Men like these were the park’s first firefighters.Tower Fall Soldier Station, 1905. NPS photo.

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Summer 2000 5

More than geothermal processes haveforged Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser Ba-sin. A continually changing Americanculture, the national park idea, and evenmarketing ploys have also shaped thisonce wild and remote landscape, locatedin the park’s southwest quadrant and serv-ing as home to Old Faithful Geyser. Formy graduate work in the Department ofEarth Sciences at Montana State Univer-sity, I looked at the evolution of thisparticular landscape in the context ofchanges in American culture. The pur-pose of this work was to investigate howhumans responded to this landscapethrough time, as influenced by how thelandscape was developed and promotedby park managers and concessioners. TheYellowstone archives at Mammoth HotSprings provided a wealth of source ma-terials, such as National Park Servicecorrespondence, travel brochures, narra-tives, maps, and photographs, which aidedin documenting the evolution of thisunique and much admired landscape.

Early Years: Marketing Nature’sOddities, 1872–1903

During the park’s first three decades,the development of the Upper GeyserBasin’s cultural landscape was galva-nized by the superintendency of the am-bitious Philetus Norris, the introductionof the U.S. Army and its Corps of Engi-neers to the park, the appropriation ofregular—although modest—funds fromCongress, and the concessioners who setup shop there.

In the summer of 1878, motivated bythe threat of Indian raids similar to thoseof the previous summer, SuperintendentNorris led a crew of men to hastily con-struct a road leading west and then southout of Mammoth Hot Springs. Norris’sroad met up with a one-year-old militaryroad from the park’s west entrance; fromthere, he put through a spur to the UpperGeyser Basin. Just 30 days after the roadcrew left Mammoth, the first vehicle wasable to reach the basin’s geysers.

From Fire to Fun, and Back Again:

The Changing Cultural Landscapeof Yellowstone’s

Upper Geyser Basin

From the time the first crude wagonroad reached its fuming landscape, theUpper Geyser Basin was on its way tobecoming a pocket of urbanity. Over time,an estimated 1,000 different human struc-tures (including tent platforms, cabins,privies, stores, and hotels) have ap-peared—and mostly disappeared—re-flecting transformations in the externalinfluences on the basin. As it changed, sodid the way its agents promoted it. In turn,the basin’s visitors have discovered ex-periences different from those who camebefore them to see this steaming land-scape that spreads out along the FireholeRiver.

by Karl Byrand


The following year, Norris was confi-dent that Indian raids were no longerlikely and concentrated on improving theappreciation of and access to the park’snatural offerings. At the basin, he estab-lished a log cabin to serve as an outpostfor the exploration of a route to Yellow-stone Lake and to allow observers toremain in the basin for the winter, sketchthe thermal features, and obtain valuableinformation regarding their winter activi-ties. In 1885, a larger cabin was estab-lished as a home for the assistant superin-tendent. A year later, when the armybecame the official overseer of the park,this cabin became part of its facilities inthe basin.

In 1883, concessioners began estab-lishing businesses in the Upper GeyserBasin; like the park administrators, theyrecognized the basin’s scenic value andthe visitation it could draw. For them, thebasin was financially promising becauseof the 153 miles of road that by 1881connected the Upper Geyser Basin notonly to Mammoth Hot Springs and thepark’s west entrance, but also to TowerJunction, Yellowstone Lake, and Yel-lowstone Falls. These entrepreneurs,working under the approval of the De-partment of the Interior (though some-times violating federal restrictions) es-tablished two tent camps, a hotel/lunch

station, a Haynes photo shop, and a gen-eral store near the basin’s thermal conesby 1903.

Recognizing the potential impact onthe landscape, Congress passed the Sun-dry Civil Bill of 1883, which prohibitedconcessioners from locating facilitieswithin one-quarter mile of any geyser inthe park. This limitation was not intendedto protect the park’s physical landscapefrom human impact, but to preventconcessioners from monopolizing the vi-sual landscape of the park’s wondrousfeatures (i.e., blocking the view of OldFaithful as well as other geysers). How-ever, the law was not fully enforced. TheYellowstone Park Improvement Com-pany trespassed beyond the quarter-milelimit in 1885 by establishing a hotel nearOld Faithful Geyser. Because of protestsby the Department of the Interior, whichrealized that the location was the onlysuitable one for a hotel of that size in thebasin, in 1894 the law was superseded bythe Hayes Act, which decreased the limitto one-eighth of a mile.

Known as “the Shack,” the hotel be-came notorious for its poor accommoda-tions, and complaints brought about itsclosing to overnight guests during the1893 season. It remained open for lunchand, after it burned down in 1894, wasreplaced by a similar facility, but the

Upper Geyser Basin had no lodging fa-cilities until tents were established in1900 or 1901 (the records are unclear).

Between 1872 and 1903 the basin’sboiling and steaming features were theonly selling points to entice visitors, withthe concessioners taking care to publi-cize their proximity to these fantasticfeatures. When a 1903 Shaw and PowellCamping Company brochure touted theUpper Geyser Basin as “the most inter-esting geyser formation in the park,” itexplained that visitors could “camp forthe night within sight of Old FaithfulGeyser.” The Wylie Camping Companyfacility, according to its brochure, was ina grove next to “Riverside and GiantGeysers.”

Concessioners promoted the basin as aunique thermal landscape that would pro-vide an experience never before encoun-tered, and they used the advantageouslocation of their facilities to attract visi-tors. Northern Pacific Railroad literatureof 1888 bragged that “after a little timespent in this basin, the visitor is almostcertain to conclude that he has at lengthreached the climax of the wonders of thepark.” A Yellowstone Park Associationbrochure circa 1902 reported that “OldFaithful is the star feature, not only of theUpper Basin, but of the YellowstonePark.”

The purpose of a visit to the UpperGeyser Basin was to experience its erupt-ing geysers, steaming pools, and bub-bling hotpots. The visitors, however, didmore than sightsee; as mentioned in jour-nal and diary entries, they used the ther-mal features of the Upper Geyser Basin towash their clothes and boil eggs and po-tatoes. Many also took to scrawling theirsignatures in the soft silicate formationsof the geyser cones. In 1887, author OwenWister reported that one could see “thenames of asses...written in pencil” on OldFaithful’s cone. With no other diversionsoffered, many visitors entertained them-selves by throwing umbrellas and the likeinto geysers to watch them hurl out withthe next eruption. More than one curiousvisitor was burned by peering into thegeyser cones.

The visitors’ main purpose for ventur-ing into the Upper Geyser Basin was toenter a thermal landscape that they couldinteract with and be amused by. During

The Shack Hotel, a predecessor of the Old Faithful Inn, 1889. NPS photo.

Summer 2000 7

the early twentieth century, however, at-titudes regarding how the geyser basinshould be enjoyed underwent a majorshift that both affected and was affectedby changes to the landscape itself.

Creating a Landscape of Non-Thermal Curiosities, 1904–1940

The Upper Geyser Basin became alandscape of curiosities in addition tothose offered by its natural features. Mostnotable of the human constructs is theOld Faithful Inn, which opened to guestsin 1904 at the site of the former ShackHotel. Like its geyser namesake, it soonbecame an obligatory stop for many avisitor to the park, whether or not theyintended to stay there overnight.

Incorporating rustic construction ma-terials from local sources, it was architectRobert Reamer’s attempt to create a grandovernight facility that harmonized withthe surrounding landscape. In addition tomodern conveniences such as electriclights and baths, it offered interior balco-nies with gnarled, knotted, wooden rail-ings surrounding an 85-foot-high lobby,a 14-square-foot chimney, and a wrought-iron clock with a 20-foot-long pendulum.The inn’s popularity grew so rapidly thatin 1913 the original 140 guest roomswere augmented by an east wing thatadded more than 100 rooms. In 1927, theaddition of a west wing expanded the innby more than 150 rooms.

Most of the other landscape alterationsthat occurred in the basin during thisperiod came after the establishment of theNational Park Service in 1916, and manywere a direct result of the belief (as setforth in the legislation that established thePark Service) that public lands shouldhave a dual purpose of preservation anduse. To gain support for the national parks,early Park Service managers sought toincrease the parks’ usability and cater toas many types of visitors as possiblethrough improvements in interpretive andconcessioner facilities. To foster appre-ciation and preservation of the naturalfeatures, the Park Service employed rang-ers to interpret the parks’ landscapes forvisitors as well as to enforce laws protect-ing them.

However, visitor use was often at oddswith protection, as in the debate that be-

gan in 1911 over whether to restrict visi-tors to traveling in Yellowstone only byhorse. In 1915 the Department of theInterior settled the matter by deciding topermit the use of a new transportationconvenience, the automobile. This soonincreased access to the park, and therebyits use and abuse. Annual visitation to thepark nearly tripled during the next de-cade, from about 52,000 in 1915 to154,000 in 1925.

Since the Upper Geyser Basin was themost highly visited area of Yellowstone,both the Park Service and concessionersbuilt numerous interpretive and comfortfacilities there to cater to the increasedvisitation. By 1932, the landscape nearthe geyser cones sported a museum, anamphitheater, interpretive signs, two gasstations, two Hamilton stores, a Haynesphoto shop, and a large campground.

Two groups of Yellowstone ParkCamps Company cabins, which num-bered approximately 400 by 1940, con-tributed heavily to the cluttered feeling ofthe landscape. One cluster was locatedjust east of Old Faithful Geyser behindthe Old Faithful Lodge (completed in1928 on the former site of the Shaw andPowell Camping Company office anddining room), and the other was south ofthe geyser behind the Yellowstone ParkLodge and Camps Company’s cafeteria(built in 1927), and the Hamilton Store(completed in 1930). These rustic one- tofour-room cabins on narrow lanes cre-ated a small, albeit strange-looking town.

When advertising its offerings, theYellowstone Park Hotel Company (suc-

cessor to the Yellowstone Park Associa-tion in controlling the hotel concession)vaunted not only the creature comforts ofits human facilities, but also those of thebasin’s bear-feeding ground, which wasestablished in 1919. One of many suchattractions in the park during this period,the basin’s bear-feeding ground was lo-cated behind the automobile camp andhousekeeping cabin area, less than one-half mile from the Old Faithful Inn. Ahotel company brochure from circa 1920stated that visitors could “photograph awild bear and eat a course dinner in thesame hour.”

The bear-feeding ground consisted of awire barricade strung between trees andposts, wooden benches for the humanvisitors, a shallow ditch “to keep peoplefrom going beyond the danger line,” andan armed ranger in case things got out ofhand. At a feeding platform on which thebears could dine, the sign read, “LUNCHCOUNTER FOR BEARS ONLY.” Whilevisitors watched the bears eat, interpre-tive rangers lectured about bear behaviorand natural history. Because of the num-ber of bears and the lectures, the park’sbear-feeding areas became “one of themost interesting features of the park tothe majority of tourists,” according toSuperintendent Horace Albright’s 1919annual report.

In 1936, however, the bear-feedinggrounds were closed except for the one atOtter Creek. The Park Service had deter-mined that the grounds—which were, inactuality, dumps—not only produced badodors, but also encouraged bears to roam

The first cars arrive at Old Faithful Wylie Camp, 1915. NPS photo.


around visitors, employees, and facili-ties. (The first recorded basin visitor deathat the paws of a bear did not occur until1942. However, while the basin’s feed-ing area was still in operation, two blackbears chased each other through the wirebarricade and the seating area, posing athreat to a crowd of spectators.)

The Haynes Guides during this periodincreasingly promoted the basin’s humanlandscape. They displayed photographsof the facilities and visitors enjoying theiramenities by engaging in recreationalactivities such as swimming, dancing,and horseback riding. The guides’ map ofthe basin showed human features such asthe Old Faithful Inn and the Old FaithfulLodge alongside the more prominent ther-mal features. The Haynes Guides werealso the first to describe the basin’s hu-man and natural features in terms of dis-tances on an automobile odometer, giv-ing visitors an almost foot-by-foot esti-mate of how far they were from the nextfeature of interest.

The transformation of the basin’s hu-man landscape during this time created amarked change in the typical visitor ex-perience. Instead of being drawn to thisarea of Yellowstone only for the pecu-liarity of its natural wonders, visitors nowsought out a recreational experience com-plete with dance halls, horseback riding,scheduled bear feedings, and geyser baths.The latter amenity was fed by runoff fromnearby thermal springs. Established byHenry Brothers in 1914, this bathing fa-cility began as a 5,000-square-foot plunge

(see photo on cover). In 1933 Charles A.Hamilton (owner of the park’s Hamiltonstores) bought Brothers’ bathhouse andradically remodeled the structure by con-verting it into an enormous log buildingwith a stone base. Within this facility wasa 25-foot-tall lifeguard tower with a ropeswing for rescuing swimmers (therewould be three drownings here) and askylight constructed from two-inch-thickglass. This facility remained part of thebasin’s landscape until 1950, when it wasclosed for public health reasons.

Because of the National Park Service’sphilosophy of use between 1916 and 1940,the basin’s human and natural worldsbecame increasingly separated. While inthe Upper Geyser Basin, visitors may nolonger have felt that they were in the“wilderness,” but in a resort town thathappened to lie within a national park.

Promoting Visual Consumption,1941–1990

The Upper Geyser Basin’s facilities,like those in many parks, fell into disre-pair during World War II because of areduction in funding and staffing. Afterthe war, park roads and structures werestrained by a deluge of travelers whowere eager to shake off the fear, suffer-ing, and restrictions that war had broughtby heading out to enjoy America’s scenicwonders. Although Yellowstone had here-tofore been visited by persons of all classes(albeit those of the poorer and workingclasses tended to come from nearby

states), the park began experiencing, alongwith the rest of the nation, a boom in thesize and influence of the middle class;these visitors were increasingly mobileand ready to spend their newfound dis-posable income.

The National Park Service launchedMission 66 as a 10-year program to bringthe parks up to par by its fiftieth anniver-sary in 1966. The goal was to both ac-commodate the increased visitation andreduce its impact by adding and improv-ing roads and overnight facilities, elimi-nating camping in high-impact areas,encouraging the use of the park’sbackcountry, and offering educationalprograms about bears. The Upper GeyserBasin, however, was not affected by Mis-sion 66 until the late 1960s. This lagreflected the basin’s cultural history andthe Park Service’s belief that much of thedevelopment in the Upper Geyser Basinencroached on a sensitive thermal area.To correct past development and lessenthe impact of increased visitation to thebasin, the Park Service drastically re-duced the number of structures, redi-rected automobile traffic via the develop-ment of a cloverleaf bypass, and con-structed an intricate system of trails andboardwalks that would direct humanmovement.

By providing mostly self-guided in-terpretation explaining these changes, thePark Service hoped to engender a greaterappreciation of the basin as a place tovisually consume the landscape’s won-ders, not to disport as if at a resort, zoo, or

A closeup of the “lunch counter” in 1923.

Left: Ranger Philip Martindale giving aninterpretive bear lecture on horseback in 1931.The lunch counter was closed in 1936 due topublic and bear health and safety concerns.NPS photos.

Summer 2000

Norris’ Cabin

Beehive Geyser

Old Faithful Geyser

Castle Geyser

Firehole River

Upper Geyser Basin

StructureTrailThermal FeaturesRivers

100 0 100 200 Meters

1880

9

A map of the Upper Geyser Basin, 1990. Maps courtesy of Yellowstone’s Spatial Analysis Center.

A map of the Upper Geyser Basin, 1880.

Morning Glory Pool

Grand Geyser

Formation

Firehole River

Cabins

GeyserOld Faithful

Housekeeping

Upper Geyser Basin

StructurePaved PathBoardwalkTrailThermal FeaturesRoadsRivers

200 0 200 400 Meters

Trail

Cabin Area

1990


amusement park. As such, the basin’sphysical and interpretive landscapeschanged to reflect this goal, as did thepromotional literature of the time. Tospread out visitation so as to reduce itsimpact, and perhaps to fill up visitors’time that was once spent soaking in thegeyser baths or watching bears being fed,Park Service literature highlighted notonly Old Faithful Geyser and the UpperGeyser Basin’s trails, but also promotedother nearby trails and thermal features.

Keying in on this trend, concessionersalso began to promote the basin as a wildlandscape. In addition to photographs ofits facilities, a 1972 Yellowstone ParkCompany brochure depicted images ofwildlife with text explaining the impor-tance of not approaching or feeding wildanimals. Another brochure described theUpper Geyser Basin not as a resort, but asa “rustic village [that had] sprouted in thewilderness surrounding Old Faithful Gey-ser.” Even the Haynes Guides reducedthe depiction of visitors engaged in diver-sionary activities in the basin’s facilities.For example, the guides had no photo-graphs of visitors riding horseback orswimming in the geyser baths from 1940to 1972. The removal of the pool in 1951accounts for the lack of photos of swim-mers after that year, but throughout thisperiod visitors could rent saddle horses inthe basin. The lack of such pictorial pro-motion seems to reflect the new emphasison visitors having more of a sightseeingexperience, and less of a resort one.

Although the Park Service’s andconcessioners’ efforts improved the ap-preciation and preservation of the UpperGeyser Basin’s thermal landscape, theyalso to some degree kept the visitor expe-rience a homogenized one. Visitors allleft their vehicles in the same consoli-dated parking lot, walked the same trail tothe visitor center, and saw the same inter-pretive film. They read the same interpre-tive pamphlet, and most flocked in onedirection around the geyser basin, withonly a few choosing to gander in a circuitopposite the crowds.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, thepromotion of the wild aspect of this land-scape increased as a result of changes inPark Service philosophy, management,and funding. Groups that during the 1960samid environmental circles had champi-

oned the belief that park developmentand preservation were incompatible foundan ear with the Ford and Carter Adminis-trations, who directed the parks toward aphilosophy of less development. The es-tablishment of the Office of Managementand Budget in July 1970 reinforced thisphilosophy when it took control of, andsubsequently reduced funding for parkdevelopment.

The impact of these events at the na-tional level became visible on the UpperGeyser Basin’s landscape. Yellowstone’sadministrators attempted to reshape thepark to fit this increasingly environmen-tal philosophy through the park’s 1973Master Plan and the 1984 Old FaithfulDevelopment Concept Plan, which calledfor making facilities adjacent to the basinfor day use only. By leaving specificareas untouched by human development,such as the basin’s thermal features, win-ter wildlife habitat, and the Firehole River,the park sought to continue to reduce thecongestion and physical/visual impact onthe basin’s landscape while consideringthe value of the basin’s cultural resources.Buildings such as the Old Faithful Innand the Lodge, which were on or pro-posed for the National Register of His-toric Places, were valued for their uniquearchitectural and historical significance,but more than half of the camper cabins(some 155 in all) were eliminated in the1980s. Almost all of the new develop-ment between 1973 and 1990, such asemployee housing and maintenance build-ings, took place away from the geysercones in the utility area, hidden from thevisitors’ view.

As intended, these landscape changesaffected visitor experiences. The thermal

features continued to be promoted, butnow there was a stronger emphasis on thebasin’s other natural aspects. For example,a 1973 Yellowstone Park Company bro-chure urged the visitor to “look for wild-life” while walking along the basin’sboardwalk, and a 1983 brochure by thehotel concessioner, Trans World Asso-ciation, advertised that “elk and bisonwander through the geyser area, enchant-ing photographers.”

With the addition of interpretive ecol-ogy walks and visitor center displaysrevealing the damage that humans hadcaused to the basin’s thermal features inthe past, the Park Service attempted toteach visitors the value of the basin as anatural landscape where they could havea fulfilling visit without engaging in di-versionary pastimes that stand apart fromobserving the geyser basin, i.e., dancingor swimming. Instead, recreations suchas geyser gazing, photography, and birdwatching were encouraged. The resultwas a return to activities more akin tothose enjoyed by many of the park’s firstvisitors, but without the previous destruc-tive interactions with the geysers likewashing clothes and inscribing names.

Welcoming Visitors to Yellowstone’s“Warm Winter Heart,” 1973–1990

When the Snow Lodge was built in1972, it contributed to a whole new visi-tor experience by providing a comfort-able base from which to observe thebasin’s thermal features during the win-ter. With its addition, the Park Servicehoped to reduce some of the impact ofvisitation by spreading it out over fourseasons.

Yellowstone’s “Warm Winter Heart” at Old Faithful, 1991. NPS photo.

Summer 2000

ers to become real-life visitors?The Upper Geyser Basin has served in

several roles: geologic wonder, touristattraction, the heart of Yellowstone, asacred hallmark of America, and pitstop.If the past serves as an accurate predictor,we should expect the future to bring morechanges to the cultural landscape of theUpper Geyser Basin. How these alter-ations affect the physical environmentand our perspective of it remains to beseen, but their evolution should provideinteresting material for future geographi-cal study.

This article is based on Karl Byrand’smaster’s thesis, which he completed as astudent of geography at Montana StateUniversity in Bozeman. Karl just earnedhis Ph.D. in geography at the Universityof Maryland, writing his dissertation onthe 1880–1920 urban evolution of Shaw,a District of Columbia neighborhood, asit transformed into the “Harlem of D.C.”He starts this fall as an assistant profes-sor of geography at the University ofWisconsin–Sheboygan. Karl misses Yel-lowstone very much and is looking for-ward to bringing his new son, Kade Wylde,for a visit.

ecosystem protection and enhancementin the greater Yellowstone area, hopingto safeguard the Upper Geyser Basin’sfragile landscape from visitors and im-pacts other than boardwalks, guardrails,and warning signs. For example, federallegislation introduced in 1991 sought tolimit parties from tapping into under-ground thermal reservoirs that lie outsidethe park. Although the only known reser-voirs were well to the west or north of theUpper Geyser Basin, the bill was entitledthe Old Faithful Protection Act—exem-plifying how this icon has become thecenterpiece of a landscape that enduresboth thermal outbursts and the conse-quences of being loved, even revered, byhumans.

Although the act did not pass, the ParkService has continued limiting develop-ment within the boundaries of the UpperGeyser Basin. Two new buildings havebeen constructed in the basin (a newranger station in 1996 and a new SnowLodge in 1998), but they were intended toconsolidate some of the existing ParkService and concessioner facilities. More-over, park administrators sought to pro-vide both buildings with an architecturalstyle more in harmony with the surround-ing natural landscape than those con-structed in the basin during the late 1960sand early 1970s.

The 300 visitors who came to the parkin 1872 had a multi-day trek on foot or byhorse and wagon to get to the UpperGeyser Basin from Mammoth HotSprings, but those who visit today needonly drive a few hours. Accessible toeven the largest of recreational vehicles,the basin has become the most visiteddestination in Yellowstone. Each year,millions of people from around the worldarrive to stride on its boardwalks, gawk atits thermal splendors, scrutinize the vistafor any signs of wildlife, and peruse itsshops for souvenirs. Moreover, technol-ogy is making it possible for more peopleto view the Upper Geyser Basin’s won-ders without ever entering Yellowstone.IMAX theater presentations called “Yel-lowstone” and “Grizzlies, Geysers, andGrandeur” have played as far away asWashington, D.C. Will these six-story-high shows become an established, cus-tomary way for people to experienceYellowstone? Or will they motivate view-

11

MAJOR SOURCES USED IN THIS STUDY:

Correspondence between the Superinten-dent of Yellowstone National Park andthe Secretary of the Interior, Yellow-stone National Park Archives.

Annual Reports of the Superintendent ofYellowstone National Park, 1872–1990.

Concessioner files, Yellowstone NationalPark Archives.

Interpretive files, Yellowstone NationalPark Archives.

Haynes Collection, Montana State Univer-sity Special Collections.

Civilian Conservation Corps and PublicWorks Administration files, YellowstoneNational Park Archives.

Haynes Guides to Yellowstone Park, 1890–1990.

Travel narratives and pamphlets found inthe Montana State University SpecialCollections and Yellowstone NationalPark Archives’ Rare Book Room.

Map files, Yellowstone National Park Ar-chives.

Reports of the Naturalist Division, Vol-umes I–XI, Yellowstone National ParkArchives.

The Park Service and concessionerspromoted this visitor experience some-what differently than that of the summer,calling the basin “the warm winter heart”of Yellowstone. Here visitors could havean enjoyable day viewing the thermalfeatures and wildlife via snowshoes, cross-country skis, or snowmobiles; afterward,they could relax in the warm environs ofthe Snow Lodge. A 1975 YellowstonePark Company brochure lured visitors bysaying “a friendly fireplace invites you,your family, and friends to drop worldlycares.” A 1980 Trans World Associationbrochure reported that “a crackling firebeckons you to relax with family andfriends while you relive a day of fun in thesnow.”

Overall, the Park Service andconcessioners promoted the Upper Gey-ser Basin’s wintertime landscape as aplace where visitors could engage insimple pleasures of the natural world,participating in an experience that re-flected the park values of the period. Thepromotion of the park’s wintertime land-scape was so successful that winter visi-tation increased from more than 69,000during the 1974–75 season to more than118,000 during the 1989–90 season.

Seeking to Protect a SensitiveEcosystem

Once sought only during Yellowstone’sbrief summer for its “fire”—that of anextraordinary thermal landscape—theUpper Geyser Basin became known for avariety of recreational activities providedby the park and its concessioners, andlater because of its connections to a feralterrain. Then during the early 1970s, theUpper Geyser Basin opened to wintervisitors, offering a new season for re-markable experiences. Park managersbegan promoting a visitor experience thatwas again focused on the thermal envi-ronment of this landscape, but which alsoadvocated sensitivity for its ecology.Today’s visitors are apt to learn how thebasin’s hot pools are home to resilientmicroorganisms whose applications inmedicine and technology are under in-vestigation; one such life form has provenessential for unlocking the mysteries ofDNA.

Many people have worked to achieve


Arctic grayling (Thymallusarcticus) were historically com-mon within the Madison andGallatin rivers and tributarystreams within Yellowstone Na-tional Park (YNP), but their pres-ence within the park has becomelimited to several lakes into whichthey were introduced (Varley andSchullery 1998), and to occasional fishthat have apparently strayed downstreamfrom one of these lakes into the Gibbonand Madison rivers. The native range ofArctic grayling extends from the UralMountains in Russia and across Siberiato Saint Lawrence Island in the BeringStrait, and across Alaska and Canada toHudson Bay. Geographically disjunctpopulations were also present in Michi-gan (extinct since the 1930s) and in theupper Missouri River drainage above theGreat Falls.

The fluvial (entirely stream-dwelling)Arctic grayling of the Madison River

within YNP and the adfluvial (living inlakes and spawning in streams) fish ofnearby Upper Red Rock Lake in the head-waters of the Jefferson River drainagerepresented the southernmost indigenouspopulations of the species. The adfluvialpopulation in the Red Rock Lakes Na-tional Wildlife Refuge persists, and Arc-tic grayling are now present in the parkonly as introduced adfluvial populationsin Grebe and Wolf lakes in the MadisonRiver drainage and Cascade Lake in theYellowstone River drainage. However,with the exception of the Big Hole Riverin Montana, fluvial Arctic grayling havebeen extirpated from their entire nativerange in the upper Missouri River drain-age, including within YNP. In 1991 theU. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)was petitioned by two private agencies tolist fluvial Arctic grayling of the upperMissouri River drainage as endangered,and in 1994 the USFWS determined thatlisting was “warranted but precluded”because other species were of higher pri-ority. This candidate status continues tothe present.

Arctic grayling were native to upperMissouri tributaries within YNP: the

Madison River and its tributaries(the Gibbon and Firehole riversup to the first cascades abovetheir confluence at Madison Junc-tion, Grayling Creek, and possi-bly Duck and Maple creeks) andthe upper Gallatin River and pos-sibly one or more of its tributar-

ies. They were described as abundant inthe Madison River below the junction ofthe Firehole and Gibbon rivers and withinthe lower reaches of both these tributar-ies, below Gibbon Falls and FireholeCascades, when the first formal fish sur-veys within YNP and nearby areas ofWyoming and Montana were conductedin 1889 and 1891.

These descriptions of their former abun-dance by David Starr Jordan (1891) andBarton Evermann (1893) are highly reli-able, as both men are considered amongthe most prominent of American ichthy-ologists. Evermann described the Madi-son River within and adjacent to the parkas “evidently an excellent fish stream, atleast as far up as the forks—grayling andwhitefish being really abundant; dace,blobs, and suckers were all common.”The latter three fishes are longnose dace(Rhinichthyes cataractae), mottledsculpin (Cottus bairdi), and mountainsucker (Catostomus platyrhynchus); theforks refers to the confluence of theFirehole and Gibbon rivers at MadisonJunction. Neither man sampled theGallatin River, but Jordan stated that Arc-tic grayling “are said to be found in theGallatin River, in the northwest part ofthe Park.”

Arctic Grayling in Yellowstone:Status, Management, and Recent Restoration Efforts

Arctic grayling. NPS photo.

by Cal Kaya

Montana/Wyoming grayling

Michigan grayling(now extinct)

Native range of Arctic graylingin North America

Alaska/Canadagrayling

Summer 2000 13

Introduction of Non-Native Fish

Concurrent with these first ichthyo-logical surveys of the Yellowstone area,changes were already being initiated thatwould alter the fauna of the MadisonRiver and its tributaries and eventuallycontribute to the elimination of Arcticgrayling from YNP streams. Jordan men-tions the introductions in 1889 of rain-bow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) intothe Gibbon River above Virginia Cas-cades, and brown trout (Salmo trutta)into the Firehole River above KeplerCascades. (According to Varley 1981,these may have been brook trout.)Evermann refers to brown trout plantedin 1890 into Nez Perce Creek, a principaltributary of the Firehole River. Beforethese introductions of non-native fishes,only mottled sculpins lived in the GibbonRiver above Gibbon Falls, and theFirehole River was inhabited by fish onlyin its lowermost reaches, downstreamfrom Firehole Cascades.

These early introductions of non-na-tive fishes in YNP streams were carriedout with the cooperation of the U.S. FishCommission, during the period when the

park was administered by the U.S. Army.Plantings of both native and non-nativesalmonids continued under the adminis-tration of the National Park Service afterits creation in 1916, and as the cooperat-ing federal agency for fisheries in thepark passed from the former U.S. FishCommission, through various adminis-trative reorganizations to the most recent,U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Accord-ing to Varley’s (l981) comprehensivetabulation of fish stocking activities inYNP, plantings of brown, rainbow, andbrook trout into streams continued untilthe mid-1950s.

Another change that affected the Madi-son River within YNP was the comple-tion in 1915 of Hebgen Dam a few milesdownstream from the park. Adfluvialpopulations of brown and rainbow troutbecame established in Hebgen Reservoir,which backs water nearly to the parkboundary. The effects on resident nativefishes of large rainbow and brown troutascending the river into YNP reachesduring spring and fall spawning seasons,or of their progeny produced in the river,are not known. Inundated by the reservoirwere waters in which fluvial Arctic gray-

ling had been abundant—that segment ofthe Madison River and a spring creekcalled Horsethief Springs (Evermann1893). Arctic grayling in Alaskan riversand in the Big Hole River of Montana areknown to migrate through many miles ofstream (Armstrong 1985, Shepard andOswald 1989), and those in the inundatedsegment of the Madison River andHorsethief Springs may have had animportant role in the viability of the spe-cies in the entire upper river, includingwithin YNP.

The fish community of the MadisonRiver and the lower Gibbon and Fireholerivers had changed drastically by the endof active stocking of non-native salmo-nids into these waters (1889 to 1955).Westslope cutthroat trout were gone andArctic grayling were reduced to very smallnumbers, and these native species hadbeen replaced by brown, rainbow andbrook trout. Only small numbers of Arc-tic grayling and no cutthroat trout werereported caught from 1953 to 1957 byanglers fishing the Madison, Gibbon, andFirehole rivers, and an electrofishing sur-vey of sections of the Madison Riverbetween Madison Junction and the park

Former and present distribution of, and attempted restoration sites for Arctic grayling within YNP. Former distribution is based on surveys by BartonEvermann (1893). Maps in this article by Sarah Stevenson.

HebgenLake

Gardiner

Madi son

Riv

er

Gall atinRiver

Ye

llo

wst

on eR

iver

Detail MapArea

WestYellowstoneHenrys

Lake

Red Rock Lakes

Ma dis onRiver

Gib

bo

n River

Nez Perce Creek

Maple Creek

Gra

ylin

g Creek

Gallatin

Ri ver

FireholeR

iver

Coug arCreek

Wolf Lake

Grebe Lake Cascade

Lake

Gibbon Falls

Virginia Cascade

C a ny on C

reek

Cascades of the Firehole

Gardi ner

Riv

er

Yellowsto

neRiver

YellowstoneNational

Park

10 milesN

Duck Creek

Inhabited byintroducedadfluvialgrayling

Inhabited by

adfluvialgrayling

Attempted reintroduction sitesHistoric rangeForest Service and National Wildlife Refuge boundariesYellowstone Park boundaryRivers and creeks


boundary in 1957 yielded 1,320 browntrout, 560 rainbow trout, and only 1 Arc-tic grayling (Benson et al. 1959). Amongthe native salmonids, only whitefish werestill common. Brown, rainbow, and brooktrout had become well established up-stream from Gibbon Falls and FireholeCascades, but Arctic grayling had neitherbeen native nor successfully establishedin these middle and upper sections ofboth streams.

The decline of Arctic grayling in YNPstreams continued after most fish stock-ing ended, and there has been no evi-dence since the 1950s of any reproducingpopulation of Arctic grayling in anystream in the park. A few are reportedcaught each year by anglers on the Gib-bon River and occasionally in the Madi-son River (Jones et al. 1993), but these aremost likely either juveniles that havedrifted down from the thriving popula-tion in Wolf Lake or misidentified white-fish. The disappearance of Arctic gray-ling from streams and their replacementby non-native fishes during the first halfof the present century was not confined toYNP; except for the upper Big Hole Riverin Montana, similar changes were occur-ring in all streams inhabited by Arcticgrayling in the upper Missouri River drain-age (Vincent 1962, Kaya 1992). The onlyconfirmed population of fluvial Arcticgrayling remaining in the upper MissouriRiver drainage is in the upper Big HoleRiver, a tributary of the Jefferson River in

Montana, within about 4 to 5 percent ofhistoric riverine range (Kaya 1992).

Grayling in Park Lakes

Extirpation of Arctic grayling from thepark was prevented by their introductioninto lakes. As they were disappearingfrom their native streams in Montana andWyoming, Arctic grayling were beingintroduced into many lakes in these andother states. Eggs taken from adfluvialpopulations, starting in 1898 from UpperRed Rock Lake (Henshall 1907) and in1908 from Ennis Reservoir (Kelly 1931),were used to stock other waters. In 1921,Arctic grayling fry originating from oneof the introduced populations, inGeorgetown Lake in Montana, wereplaced into Grebe Lake in the upper Gib-bon River drainage. The species was suc-cessful in the lake and joined the rainbowand Yellowstone cutthroat trout popula-tions that had been introduced in 1907and 1912 (Kruse 1959).

Arctic grayling quickly became so nu-merous in Grebe Lake that a station foregg-taking and hatchery operations wasstarted at the lake in 1931 and continuedin operation until 1956. Spawning fishwere trapped in the lake’s tributarystreams and stripped of gametes to pro-duce fertilized eggs that were sent off fordistribution or hatched at the station.Arnold (1967) estimated that about 27million fertilized eggs were produced at

this station from 1933 to 1952 and dis-tributed to at least 14 states. Millions offry and fertilized eggs from this facilitywere also planted into nine other lakesand five streams within the park. TheGrebe Lake facility and the federal (atBozeman and Ennis, Montana) and stateof Montana (at Anaconda) hatcheriesbecame the sources of most adfluvialArctic grayling populations in the U.S.outside of Alaska.

The presence or absence of Arctic gray-ling in the 10 Yellowstone lakes intowhich they were stocked suggests thatthey can coexist with certain introducedtrout but not others, especially not withbrown trout. Populations became estab-lished in only two of nine other lakesstocked, in some cases repeatedly, withfertilized eggs from Grebe Lake: WolfLake of the Madison River drainage andCascade Lake of the Yellowstone Riverdrainage. Introductions were not success-ful in Harlequin and Ice lakes in theMadison River drainage, Lewis andShoshone lakes in the Snake River drain-age, and McBride, Rainbow, and Twinlakes in the Yellowstone River drainage.

In the three lakes that presently sustainpopulations, Yellowstone cutthroat trouthad already been introduced to CascadeLake, and rainbow and Yellowstone cut-throat trout and hybrids to Grebe Lakeand probably to Wolf Lake, before theintroductions of Arctic grayling. Arcticgrayling did not become established inShoshone and Lewis lakes, which al-ready supported introduced populationsof both brown trout and lake trout(Salvelinus namaycush). Other lakes weretoo shallow or did not have streams forspawning habitat (Harlequin, Ice, Rain-bow, and Twin lakes), and are presentlyfishless despite repeated introductions ofArctic grayling and other species. Only in

The Madison River at 7-Mile Bridge is known to have had an abundance of Arctic grayling.Photo courtesy Cal Kaya.

The Madison River—

“...an excellent fishstream...grayling andwhitefish being reallyabundant...”

—B. Evermann, 1893

Summer 2000 15

McBride Lake did introductions fail de-spite an apparent suitability of physicalhabitat combined with the presence ofonly Yellowstone cutthroat trout, whichare native to the lake. Brown trout are theonly introduced fish in common to theMadison River (from which Arctic gray-ling disappeared after brown trout be-came established) and Shoshone andLewis lakes (in which brown trout werealready established prior to unsuccessfulplants of Arctic grayling).

Decline Continues in Park Rivers

Aside from the establishment of non-native fish, especially brown trout, andthe possible influences of Hebgen Damand Reservoir, it is not known what fac-tors may have contributed to the declineand disappearance of fluvial Arctic gray-ling from Yellowstone. The role of an-gling harvest in their decline within thepark is not known. The first publishedestimate of angling catches of Arctic gray-ling in the Madison and lower Gibbonand Firehole rivers was for 1953 through1957 (Benson et al. 1959), when they hadalready declined to very low numbers.Arctic grayling in Wolf and Grebe lakeswere at times protected from harvest, butuntil 1970 the species was not affordedany special protection in streams beyondthe general regulations also applicable totrout. Since 1970, all angling for the spe-cies within the park has been restricted tocatch-and-release. Yellowstone streams

have not experienced the habitat degra-dation, especially dewatering by diver-sions, that may have contributed to de-cline of the species in other Missouridrainage waters (Vincent 1962). The YNPstreams in which grayling were once de-scribed as abundant, the Madison Riverand the lower reaches of the Firehole andGibbon rivers, appear today as they weredescribed by Jordan and Evermann in1889 and 1891. Thermal tolerances ofArctic grayling (Lohr et al. 1996) aresimilar to those of rainbow trout in theFirehole River (Kaya 1979), and changesin Madison River temperature, if suchhave occurred, would not account fordisappearance of one and not the other.

From 1933 to 1948, millions of fry andfertilized eggs from Grebe Lake wereused in unsuccessful efforts to restore orintroduce Arctic grayling in park streams.Estimates of the numbers of plants at-tempted in each stream, total numbersplanted, and the years of the plants (Varley1981) are shown in Table 1.

Despite these efforts, fluvial Arcticgrayling continued their decline into

oblivion in the park, as they were alsodoing in nearly every other stream theyinhabited in the upper Missouri Riverdrainage. The failure of attempts to re-store Arctic grayling to streams may havebeen related to the use of fish from anadfluvial population, that of Grebe Lake.Recent studies have demonstrated thatfluvial Arctic grayling from the Big HoleRiver are better adapted to living in ariverine habitat than are adfluvial popu-lations (Kaya 1991).

Recent Restoration Efforts

More recent efforts to restore fluvialArctic grayling to Yellowstone began in1976, when USFWS fisheries biologistsJack Dean and John Varley introducedfish into a small stream called CanyonCreek (Jones et al. 1981). A tributary ofthe Gibbon River downstream from Gib-bon Falls, Canyon Creek is within thehistoric range of Arctic grayling andwestslope cutthroat trout. A barrier fallswas constructed on Canyon Creek nearits confluence with the Gibbon River andthe stream was chemically treated to re-move non-native brook, brown, and rain-bow trout above the barrier. Arctic gray-ling from differing habitats were plantedin the creek, with the hope that fish fromone of these populations would have theecological adaptations to be successful inthis location. Young grayling originatingas fertilized eggs from the Grebe Lakepopulation were transplanted into thestream during spring 1976. These ap-peared to drift downstream into the Gib-bon River soon after being released. Asecond plant of about 120 grayling cap-tured from the fluvial population of theBig Hole River was made in August.Some of these fish were still present thefollowing spring of 1977.

In 1977, 2,000 to 4,000 fertilized eggsfrom the adfluvial, outlet-spawning popu-

TABLE 1. UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE OR INTRODUCE ARCTIC GRAYLING

FRY FROM GREBE LAKE.

The barrier on Canyon Creek above its confluence with the Gibbon River. Photo courtesy Cal Kaya.

Stream Number of Attempts Total Stocked Years

Gallatin River 3 640,000 1937 to 1948Madison River 7 >5,000,000 1934 to 1943Gibbon River 12 >5,000,000 1933 to 1943Grayling Creek 11 842,000 1934 to 1942Gardner River 2 650,000 1933 to 1934

Yellowstone Science

souri River drainage becomes a moredifficult problem. All streams within YNPonce inhabited by Arctic grayling nowcontain well-established populations ofbrook, rainbow, or brown trout. Thesenon-natives were likely a major contribu-tor to the extirpation of fluvial Arcticgrayling and their continued presencewould hinder and perhaps prevent resto-ration of fluvial grayling. These non-native trout would be difficult to remove.The size of larger streams, like the reachesof the Madison or Gallatin rivers withinYNP, would make it logistically verydifficult to eliminate non-native fishes,and the non-native trout support popularrecreational fisheries whose removalwould be strenuously opposed by manyanglers and guides.

Although upstream from waterfallswhich had prevented colonization by na-tive Arctic grayling, reaches of the Gib-bon River above Virginia Cascades havebeen proposed as potential sites for estab-lishment of fluvial Arctic grayling. Thesewaters have both apparent good habitatand presently support mostly introducedbrook trout, with which grayling do coex-ist in the Big Hole River. Considerationof these and other sites continues by YNPand by the interagency Montana FluvialArctic Grayling Workgroup, which in-cludes YNP biologists. With only onefluvial population remaining in nativewaters of the upper Missouri River drain-age, the future of Arctic grayling asstream-dwelling fish remains very inse-cure in the U.S.A., except in Alaska.Efforts to restore fluvial populations con-tinue to have high priority within YNPand in Montana.

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lation from Deer Lake in the GallatinRiver drainage in Montana were placedin Vibert egg-incubation boxes in thestream. Young grayling of the Deer Lakepopulation typically hatch out and re-main in a small, short section of streamabove a waterfall at least through earlyfall before migrating upstream to the lake.Deer Lake grayling hatched out in Can-yon Creek and were visible in the creekthat summer of 1977. In 1978, about5,000 young fry from the adfluvial UpperRed Rock Lake population in Montanawere planted into the creek. Electrofishinglater in 1978 yielded small numbers ofgrayling in the creek, but many morenon-native brown, rainbow, and brooktrout. It is not known whether these weresurvivors of the 1976 chemical treatmentor migrants that had managed to circum-vent the barrier. In June 1980, about38,000 young fry from the adfluvialMeadow Lake population in Wyoming(descendants of fish transplanted therefrom Grebe Lake) were planted into thecreek. No grayling were encounteredduring electrofishing surveys of the creekin September. Thus, Arctic grayling fromdifferent sources and of different ages alleventually disappeared following theirintroduction into Canyon Creek.

The most recent attempts to restorefluvial Arctic grayling into YNP havebeen in Cougar Creek, another small tribu-tary within the Madison River drainage(Kaeding et al. 1995). This small streameventually disappears entirely, as wateris lost through seepage into the streambed. The stream is thus physically iso-lated from downstream reaches of thedrainage and the only fish present arewestslope cutthroat trout and mottledsculpin. The stream has low biologicalproductivity, and an electrofishing sur-vey in 1991 (Jones et al. 1992) yielded anestimate of 144 to 160 trout per mile (offish at least 6 inches in length). Thisstream provides two advantages difficultto find elsewhere. One is the potential toestablish a community of westslope cut-throat trout, Arctic grayling, and mottledsculpins (which are all native and sympa-tric in the Madison River drainage) and todo so without removal of any non-nativefishes. The other is that the downstreamcessation of flow means that planted fishcannot be lost to downstream emigration,

as has been observed with Arctic gray-ling planted into some other streams.However, because fluvial Arctic gray-ling of the upper Missouri River drainagehave been associated with larger streams,it was not known whether they could livein such small streams. Thus, plants ofArctic grayling into Cougar Creek werealso intended to address this question.

About 800 Arctic grayling from fluvialBig Hole River genetic stock, mostlyage-0 and age-1,were planted into Cou-gar Creek in 1993, 1994, and 1995.Electrofishing surveys in the years fol-lowing each introduction yielded veryfew Arctic grayling. In 1996, about 50,000to 60,000 fertilized eggs were distributedwithin two tributary spring creeks nearthe patrol cabin located beside the centralportion of Cougar Creek. Young free-swimming fry were seen by the authorand others in one of the spring creeks andin Cougar Creek a few weeks later. How-ever, Arctic grayling were not seen in thecreek in surveys conducted in each of thefollowing two years by USFWS biolo-gists (Dan Mahony, pers. comm. 1998).

The Arctic Grayling’s Future

The Arctic grayling presently appearsecure in Yellowstone National Park asadfluvial populations in Wolf, Grebe, andCascade lakes, but the future for reestab-lishment of fluvial populations remainsuncertain. With the well-established andrecreationally popular non-native troutpopulations, especially brown and rain-bow trout, present in the main stem of theMadison River within the park, it is highlyunlikely that the once-thriving native flu-vial community ofwestslope cutthroattrout and Arctic gray-ling will ever be re-stored to this river. Andif small streams do notprovide adequate habi-tat for Arctic grayling,as suggested by the ap-parent failure of effortsin Cougar Creek andnearby Canyon Creek,then reestablishment ofthe species in its nativeYellowstone waterswithin the upper Mis-

Cal Kaya collecting fertilized eggs on Cougar Creek.Photo courtesy Cal Kaya.

Summer 2000 17

LITERATURE CITED

Armstrong, R. H. 1986. A review of Arctic grayling studies in Alaska, 1952-1982. Biological papers of the Univ. of Alaska, 23:3-17.Arnold, B. B. 1967. A ninety-seven year history of fishery activities in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Unpubl. Rep., U.S. D.I., Bureau

of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, Albuquerque, New Mexico.Benson, N. G., O. B. Cope, and R. V. Bulkley. 1959. Fishery management studies on the Madison River system in Yellowstone National

Park. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Serv., Special Sci. Rep., Fisheries No. 307.Evermann, B. W. 1893. A reconnaissance of the streams and lakes of western Montana and northwestern Wyoming. Bulletin of the U.S.

Fish Commission 11:3-60.Henshall, J. A. 1907. Culture of the Montana grayling. Rep. of the Commissioner of Bureau of Fisheries Doc. No. 628:1-7.Jones, R. D., P. E. Bigelow, D. G. Carty, R. E. Gresswell, and S. M. Rubrecht. 1981. Annual Project Tech. Rep. for 1980. Fishery and Aquatic

Management Program, Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.Jones, R. D., R. Andrascik, D. G. Carty, L. R. Kaeding, B. M. Kelley, D. L. Mahony, and T. Olliff. 1992. Annual Project Tech. Rep. for 1991.

Fishery and aquatic management program, Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.Jones, R. D., G. Boltz, D. G. Carty, L. R. Kaeding, D. L. Mahony, and T. Olliff. 1993. Annual Project Tech. Rep. for 1992. Fishery and

aquatic management program, Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.Jordan, D. S. 1891. A reconnaissance of the streams and lakes of the Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming in the interest of the United States

Fish Commission. Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission 9:41-63.Kaeding, L. R., G. Boltz, D. G. Carty, and D. L. Mahony. 1995. Fishery and aquatic management program in Yellowstone National Park.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serv., Tech. Rep. for 1994. Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.Kaya, C. M. 1992. Review of the decline and status of fluvial Arctic grayling, Thymallus arcticus, in Montana. Proc. of the Montana Academy

of Sciences 52:43-70.Kaya, C. M. 1991. Rheotactic differentiation between fluvial and lacustrine populations of Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus), and

implications for the only remaining indigenous population of fluvial “Montana grayling”. Canadian J. of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences48:53-59.

Kaya, C. M. 1979. Thermal resistance of rainbow trout from a permanently heated stream, and of two hatchery strains. Progressive Fish-Culturist 40:138-142.

Kelley, J. L. 1931. Nation watches Montana grayling. Montana Wildlife 3:9-11.Kruse, T. E. 1959. Grayling of Grebe Lake, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Fishery Bulletin 149:307-351.Lohr, S. C., P. A. Byorth, C. M. Kaya, and W. P. Dwyer. 1996. High-temperature tolerances of fluvial Arctic grayling and comparisons with

summer river temperatures of the Big Hole River, Montana. Trans. Am. Fisheries Society 125:933-939.Shepard, B. B. and R. A. Oswald. 1989. Timing, location, and population characteristics of spawning Montana grayling (Thymallus arcticus)

in the upper Big Hole drainage, 1988. Rep. to Montana Dept. Fish, Wildlife and Parks; Montana Natural Heritage Program—NatureConservancy; and U.S. Forest Serv.

Varley, J. D. 1981. A history of fish stocking activities in Yellowstone National Park between 1881 and 1980. Info. Paper No. 35. YellowstoneNational Park, Wyoming.

Varley, J. D. and P. Schullery. 1998. Yellowstone Fishes. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Penn.Vincent, R. E. 1962. Biogeographical and ecological factors contributing to the decline of Arctic grayling, Thymallus arcticus Pallas, in

Michigan and Montana. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Grebe Lake. Present habitat of established adfluvial Arctic grayling populations. NPS photo.

Calvin M. Kaya completed degrees atthe University of Hawaii-Manoa and theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison priorto moving to Bozeman to join the facultyat Montana State University in 1971. Heis currently a professor of biology, andhas studied Arctic grayling since 1986.He is a member of the interagency Flu-vial Arctic Grayling Committee, whichcoordinates grayling conservation andrestoration programs throughout Mon-tana. He studied native trout inYellowstone’s Firehole River in the 1970s,and has advised park biologists on gray-ling restoration efforts at Cougar Creekand elsewhere. While hiking on the trailbetween Cascade Lake and Grebe Lake,hoping to take photographs to illustratethis article, he “turned back when mywife and I had a close encounter with agrizzly bear.”


Stackpole Books, 1998, 154 pages.$19.95 (Trade Paperback)

It has been said that within a 100-mileradius around West Yellowstone, Mon-tana, is the finest concentration of flyfishing in the world. Of course, half ofthat area is within Yellowstone NationalPark. Yellowstone has a long tradition ofsport fishing and a comparatively purenatural fish ecosystem (more on that later).In John Varley and Paul Schullery’s newbook, Yellowstone Fishes—Ecology, His-tory, and Angling in the Park, they de-scribe both the rich fishing history andfish ecology of Yellowstone. This book isan updated edition of their 1983 book,Freshwater Wilderness: YellowstoneFishes and Their World.

This edition contains more informa-tion and updated knowledge on threats tothe fish and fisheries of Yellowstone. Theblack-and-white illustrations and photo-graphs seem more crisp than in the olderedition. The only things missing are thevery artful watercolor paintings of fish intheir natural settings by Michael Simonthat were in the 1983 version. The book isdivided into three parts, with 12 chaptersand the obligatory appendices, bibliogra-phy, and index.

In part one, “The World of Yellow-stone Fishes,” the aquatic environment ofYellowstone is described, including therivers and lakes. Many of the typical factsand figures on park waters are listed.

Want to take a guess on how many sepa-rate streams there are in the park? (Over500.) The authors go into the creation ofthe lakes and streams geologically, andthe evolution into aquatic environments,including the decaying vegetation, theinsects, the things that eat the insects, thefish, and the things that eat the fish. Thisbook is written in layperson’s terms, soreaders do not have to be worried aboutbeing bogged down by a lot of hard-to-understand science.

In this first section is also a new chapteron fire and fish. Ever since the Yellow-stone fires of 1988, many critics haveblamed anything wrong with the park onthe fires. I believe this chapter is to mol-lify many of the critics who blame whatthey perceive as poorer fishing on thefires. Also, the authors go into the rela-tively new crisis of lake trout in Yellow-stone Lake. They take the time to explainwhat is known about the invasion and,more importantly, the future implicationsof the issue. The authors explain that thelake trout could destroy one of the largestand most pure aquatic ecosystems in NorthAmerica. Of all the articles that havebeen written about the lake trout issue,this is probably the most succinct, yet itcontains all the primary facts.

One of the things I enjoyed about thisbook is the way the authors continuallyweave in how important everything is inthe ecosystem. They think “outside thebox,” beyond the obvious. At one point in

this section they mention the still-out-standing rewards being offered for infor-mation leading to the capture and convic-tion of whoever put the lake trout inYellowstone Lake. The authors go an-other step and ask, since the cutthroattrout are at risk and since they are a keyfood source for grizzly bears (a threat-ened species under the terms of the En-dangered Species Act), might the personresponsible for planting the trout also beprosecuted in violation of that act? Foodfor thought.

Part two of the book describes each ofthe 18 species of fish (12 native, 6 non-native) found in the park. It reads like afield guide, but it’s not as dry. It gives thepertinent information such as scientificnames, common names, description, dis-tribution, habitat, spawning seasons, andgrowth rates for each species. Most inter-esting are additional comments by theauthors, including fun things about Yel-lowstone fish and anglers. In describingthe whitefish the authors state, “The white-fish is pretty much the ugly duckling onthe sport-fishing scene in Yellow-stone...but we suspect that if suddenly allthe trout disappeared, or if they neverexisted, there would be many serious anddevoted whitefisherman, wearing ‘White-fish Unlimited’ patches and extolling thevirtues of this fine big fish.”

In part three of the book, the authors gointo the history of fish and humans in thepark. Since Yellowstone was the first

Yellowstone Fishes—Ecology, History, andAngling in the Parkby John D. Varley and Paul Schullery

Book review by Rick Mossman

Summer 2000

fish are too big—I’ve never lived any-where else where that was a complaint!

One appendix of the book is a referencelisting all the streams and lakes in thepark and what type of fish, if any, livethere. Another is a nice key to fish speciesidentification for Yellowstone. The au-thors leave us with one simple notion:“As long as we can take care of theecosystem, the trout will take care ofthemselves.”

There are hundreds of books on themarket about fishing in Yellowstone.There are books on which stretch of whichriver to fish. There are books on whatequipment to use and which rivers,streams, and lakes have fish. There areeven books on how to tie the flies to usejust in the park. However, I cannot thinkof any other book that really goes into thehistory of Yellowstone fish and fisheriesmanagement. You cannot live in this areawithout being exposed to fish and fishingin some form. If you have any interest inthe park’s aquatic life, this an excellentbook to read. It has the most completecoverage of Yellowstone fish, fish ecol-ogy, fish management, and fish fun thatexists. I highly recommend it.

Rick Mossman is the Snake River Sub-district Ranger and oversees Lewis,Shoshone, and Heart lakes and most ofthe Snake River drainage in YellowstoneNational Park. Before he arrived in Yel-lowstone in 1996, he worked at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Glacier BayNational Park, Grand Canyon NationalPark, Bandelier National Monument,Ford’s Theater National Historic Site(where there are no fish), Petrified For-est National Park, and Buffalo NationalRiver. He has a Bachelor of Science de-gree in wildlife biology with minor stud-ies in fisheries biology from Kansas StateUniversity. He has been an avid fisher-man since the age of two, when he caughthis first fish.

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national park, in its infancy fish and gamemanagement was very haphazard. Al-though hunting was finally stopped in1883, sport fishing was becoming a popu-lar activity in the United States. In 1889the U.S. Fish Commission (which laterbecame the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice) set up shop in Yellowstone, andshortly thereafter began hatchery andstocking operations. The authors describethe history of this work through 1957,when fish stocking efforts stopped. Theauthors go into the very interesting earlyphilosophical debates that took place fromthe 1920s through the 1940s on whetherstocking was good or bad, and discuss itseffects on Yellowstone.

They then delve into more of the fishmanagement efforts that occurred in the1960s and 70s. Management policieschanged dramatically during this perioddue to the great numbers of anglers andthe crash in numbers and sizes of fish dueto overharvesting. I remember as a kid in1962 going out fishing on YellowstoneLake with a concession guide. Betweenmy mom, dad, and brother, we took backto the campsite 13 fish! (The limit was 12,but the guide miscounted.) We caughtthese fish in about 45 minutes at themouth of Pelican Creek using night-crawlers! In 1970 on a return trip, wefished all day with a guide at the far endof the lake and caught only three fish intotal.

The authors go into the very basics ofsport fishing in Yellowstone with a shortsection on how to fish, what equipment touse, and where to go. They continuallytry to steer the reader into thinking infavor of the trout—in other words, usingbarbless hooks, fishing by catch-and-re-lease only, and being considerate to otheranglers and the fish. It is also in part threethat the authors express the virtues of fishwatching. You do not have to catch or eatfish to enjoy and appreciate them in theirnatural environment. The authors sharetheir enjoyment of this as well as where towatch fish in Yellowstone.

In the last chapter of this section, newto this edition, the authors talk about thefuture. They discuss the invasion of aliens,not just lake trout, but also whirling dis-ease and New Zealand mud snails. Theyend on a positive note, though, about howDDT is now out of the aquatic ecosystemand comment on the fact that the sportfishing in Yellowstone is now as good asit probably ever has been. As a parkranger, it amazes me how many com-plaints we get about the size of the fish inYellowstone Lake. Since anglers can onlykeep cutthroat under 13 inches long,people are always complaining that the

“As long as we can take care of the ecosystem, the troutwill take care of themselves.”

Fishing along the Lamar River. NPS photo.

Yellowstone Science

&notesNEWS

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New Fossil Location Found

While performing routine road cleanupbetween Mammoth and Tower Junctionin June, park maintenance employeesstopped to take a closer look at debris onthe road. Embedded in a piece of sand-stone were fossils of Metasequoia (alsoknown as dawn redwood). These treesoccurred throughout North America fromthe Upper Cretaceous (80 million yearsago) through the Middle Miocene (15million years ago). Other plant fossilsand petrified wood were also discoveredon this steep hillside. Although petrifiedwood is common in Yellowstone, thiswas a previously unknown location andis now an important addition toYellowstone's fossil database.

In the past few years, other Yellow-stone employees have identified new andimportant fossil locations. While moni-toring mountain lion movement, an em-ployee discovered a fragment of a jaw-bone and tooth of a Titantothere, a giantrhinoceros-like creature that lived 30 to50 million years ago. A large, remoteplant fossil site was discovered, whichyielded many different types of fossilleaves from the Eocene epoch (35 to 55million years ago). This extensive sitewill be further investigated and docu-mented in the future. During constructionof the East Entrance Road, a fossil leafhorizon was uncovered which producedan extinct genus of sycamore that is about45–50 million years old.

All fossils in Yellowstone NationalPark are protected resources, and findingnew sites is important so they may bedocumented and studied.

New Branch Chief of NaturalResources Selected

Tom Olliff, who has been the BranchChief of Resource Operations for theResource Management and Visitor Pro-tection Division in Yellowstone since1992, has been selected to fill the BranchChief of Natural Resources position inthe Yellowstone Center for Resources(YCR). Tom will be responsible for themanagement and supervision of all the

natural resource programs for the YCR,including wildlife management, physicalsciences, vegetation management, andaquatic resources. Tom will begin hisnew position on August 27, 2000.

Flood Threatens Park ArchivesCollections

On May 23, 2000, raw sewage and“gray water” backed up into the parkarchives, and flooding occurred in andnear the library’s rare book room. Be-cause the incident occurred during busi-ness hours, staff were able to rescue thecollections. But storage equipment, in-cluding the cabinet used to house raremaps and other oversized materials, wascontaminated. The archives is in the low-est part of the basement of the AlbrightVisitor Center in Mammoth Hot Springs.Park plumbers suspected that high levelsof use in the public restrooms, also lo-cated on the basement level of the visitorcenter, had clogged a sewer line. Subse-quently, workers cleared a 20-foot-longobstruction in the area’s main sewer line.

Staff from the library, museum, andarchives, following an existing disasterplan, had emergency equipment and sup-plies on hand and used them effectivelyto save an array of priceless material thatwas jeopardized. However, since the col-lections are housed in the basement of a

building known to be both flood andearthquake prone, there is continuingpotential for great damage to or totaldestruction of some of Yellowstone’sgreat treasures—rare books and numer-ous other materials held in the park col-lections. Included are several original(1870) handwritten manuscripts by thefirst superintendent, N. P. Langford, andthousands of original (often handwritten)letters bearing signatures of TheodoreRoosevelt, F. Jay Haynes, P.W. Norris,and other historical figures. The photoarchives include William Henry Jackson’spersonal four-volume set of his 1871 pho-tographs, probably the first ever taken ofYellowstone, and the ones used to pro-mote the establishment of the park.

The park continues to seek funding tobuild a new facility to store a growingarray of museum objects, photographs,research materials, and other collections.

Seventh Yellowstone InteragencyMeeting Scheduled

The seventh Yellowstone IngeragencyScience Conference will be held in Yel-lowstone at the Youth Conservation Corps(YCC) building in Mammoth Hot Springson September 14–15, 2000. This meetingbrings together scientists from numerousgovernment agencies and universities toreport and present papers on new andcontinuing scientific studies in and aroundthe park. Topics include geophysics, ge-ology, geochemistry, geothermal stud-ies, limnology, biochemistry, biology,hydrology, mapping, remote sensing, andGIS applications. The meeting is open topersons conducting or interested in sci-entific studies on such topics in the park,and is cosponsored by the U.S. Geologi-cal Survey and Yellowstone. A smallregistration fee is required; for more in-formation about presentations and regis-tration, contact coordinator Margaret Hizaof the U.S.G.S. at MS 980, P.O. Box25046, Federal Center, Denver, CO80225, 303-236-0075, [email protected],or Mary Hektner, Yellowstone Center forResources, P.O. Box 168, YellowstoneNational Park, WY 82190, 307-344-2151,[email protected].

Metasequoia fossil found during road cleanup.NPS photo.

Summer 2000

&notesNEWS

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Annual Aerial Pronghorn Census

On April 3, 2000, Yellowstone biolo-gists conducted the annual aerial censusof the northern Yellowstone pronghornherd. A total of 205 pronghorn werecounted, an increase of only 1 animalfrom the 204 counted in March 1999. Thenorthern Yellowstone pronghorn herd isboth historically and biologically signifi-cant.

Yellowstone pronghorn are geneticallyunique, expressing much of the geneticvariation formerly widespread in the spe-cies but no longer present elsewhere. TheYellowstone herd is also one of the fewpronghorn populations that was not ex-terminated or decimated by the early twen-tieth century and has largely retained itshistoric migration pattern. This popula-tion was the source for reestablishing orsupplementing pronghorn populations inseveral states during the first half of thetwentieth century. In recent years, theYellowstone pronghorn herd has experi-enced an apparently precipitous decline,from a high of 594 in 1991 to the presentlevel of less than 225 animals. The popu-lation has been identified as being at an18 percent risk of extinction over 100years, a level generally considered unac-ceptable.

Nez Perce National Historic TrailFoundation to Meet in Cody

The Nez Perce National Historic TrailFoundation will hold their annual meet-ing at the Buffalo Bill Historical Centeron September 12–15 in Cody, Wyoming.The theme of this year’s meeting is theNez Perce War of 1877, with a focus ontheir two-week flight through Yellow-stone National Park. On September 12,Lee Whittlesey, park archivist and actinghistorian, plans to deliver a paper on thearchival sources concerning the 1877passage through Yellowstone. Lake dis-trict ranger John Lounsbury, also veryknowledgeable about the Nez Perce pres-ence in the park, will make a presentationon how the Nez Perce dealt with over2,000 horses on their journey to Canada.For more information about the meeting,

contact the Nez Perce National HistoricTrail Foundation at (435) 655-3210.

Canyon Village Eligible for theNational Register

Postwar affluence in the 1950s broughtrecord numbers of visitors to Yellow-stone and other national parks across thenation. Recognizing that the visitor cen-ters and infrastructure in the national parkswere grossly inadequate to handle thesenew visitors, NPS Director Conrad Wirthinitiated a program to rebuild the parks by1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the Na-tional Park Service. This initiative, knownas Mission 66, would become the greatestconstruction period in the parks’ historyand reflected a modernizing America.

The Canyon Village was the first Mis-sion 66 project completed by the NPS.Welton Becket and Associates, a presti-gious architectural firm that designed theLos Angeles Airport as well as othernotable buildings worldwide, designedmuch of the Canyon Village develop-ment. Becket envisioned the project as acontemporary development serving au-tomobile travelers. All the facilities visi-tors might need—a grocery store, giftshops, cafeteria, lodging, and informa-tion—were centrally located around alarge parking plaza. These “National ParkService Modern” buildings were simpleand unadorned, and often had high ceil-

The Canyon Visitor Center, now eligible for the National Register, in 1958. NPS photo.

ings and few interior walls.In January 2000, the National Park

Service determined that a portion of Can-yon Village is eligible for listing on theNational Register of Historic Places be-cause of its significance as a part of theMission 66 program. In July, the Wyo-ming State Historic Preservation Officeconcurred with this determination.

Today, the Canyon Visitor Center, apart of the historic Mission 66 landscape,has major structural deficiencies and istoo small to effectively serve its 400,000annual visitors. Yellowstone is propos-ing to rehabilitate the visitor center byadding a second story, which will nearlydouble the square footage. The NPS isworking with an architectural firm toensure the design of the new building willbe compatible with the other Mission 66buildings. In addition, the park will pre-pare an environmental assessment to fur-ther evaluate the rehabilitation.

Errata

A statement in the interview with GlenCole, published on page 18 of Yellow-stone Science 8(2), was mistakenly at-tributed to Paul Schullery. The paragraphstarting with the statement that “ This wasone of the most intellectually stimulatingplaces…” should have been attributed toDr. Cole. We regret the error.

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