Wilderness of Hope
Wilderness is a fantasy of human desires born of a false binary of wild nature without people. But imagining wilderness might deliver us to a new geography of hope.
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is unlike any other canyon in color, charm, in picturesque calendar-ready beauty, wild and frightening.
Trekking through the Yellowstone “Museum of Wonders”
Wonder-Land Illustrated by Harry J. Norton, published in 1873, was one of the first tourbooks recounting the Yellowstone experience for a general audience.
A Civilized Savagery: Rev. Stanley’s ruminations on his way to Yellowstone
Rev. Edwin J. Stanley’s 1873 tour of Yellowstone made him a witness to “the scepter of the irrepressible white man” in the divine right of Manifest Destiny.
Are national parks really America’s best idea?
The “best idea” of creating national parks involved eradicating the previous meanings and uses of these places that had sustained indigenous cultures for centuries.
Evolution of the National Park Idea
Tracing the historical origins of the national park idea can be frustrating. In truth, no single individual can take credit for the idea of national parks.
Montana Masons in the civilizing of Yellowstone
Montana’s leading citizens sought to civilize Yellowstone by claiming it as a park, not a wild and dangerous land but a place of democratic enjoyment and wonder for generations to come.
Columbusing Yellowstone
Nathaniel P. Langford and other members of the 1870 Washburn-Doane expedition “Columbused” Yellowstone by “discovering” it as a “park.”
Devil’s Slide or Angel’s Ascent?
Devil’s Slide north of Yellowstone National Park has unsettled the religious imaginations of visitors since the nineteenth century.
Warren Angus Ferris, Yellowstone’s first tourist
Warren Angus Ferris visited Yellowstone in 1834 as the first tourist to experience the thermal features, and the first person known to use the Icelandic word “geyser” to describe them.
Canary in the coal mine: national parks and the future of the earth
As the parks go, so goes the future of the earth. The sad state of national parks predicts an ominous outlook for the earth and the communities that rely on it.
The ambivalent legacy of Horace Albright
Horace Albright’s legacy enjoys high esteem, but many of the precedents he set for the National Park Service have contributed to problems that parks now face.