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Thomas S. Bremer

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A Civilized Savagery: Rev. Stanley’s ruminations on his way to Yellowstone

August 18, 2019 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: History, Places, Sacred Wonderland Tagged With: civilization, conquest, Manifest Destiny, Native Americans, race, tourism, Yellowstone

Are national parks really America’s best idea?

July 21, 2019 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Ancient Puebloan ruins, Canyon de Chelly

The “best idea” of creating national parks involved eradicating the previous meanings and uses of these places that had sustained indigenous cultures for centuries.

Filed Under: History, Sacred Wonderland Tagged With: colonialism, National Parks, Native Americans, sacred space

Columbusing Yellowstone

May 16, 2019 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Roosevelt Arch

Nathaniel P. Langford and other members of the 1870 Washburn-Doane expedition “Columbused” Yellowstone by “discovering” it as a “park.”

Filed Under: History, Sacred Wonderland Tagged With: Columbus, National Parks, Native Americans, Yellowstone

Warren Angus Ferris, Yellowstone’s first tourist

January 13, 2019 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Little Cub geyser, Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park

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.

Filed Under: History, Places, Sacred Wonderland Tagged With: geysers, Native Americans, nature, tourism, trappers, Yellowstone

Motion and movement

November 21, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Geese in motion

Leaving brings movement toward something new, toward a fresh sense of being and becoming, as we break free from the stagnant orbits of settled lives.

Filed Under: Places Tagged With: Los Angeles, motion, movement, Native Americans, Travel

A sacred desecration: the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore

October 9, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Mount Rushmore Monument

John (Fire) Lame Deer’s essay about the 1970 occupation of Mount Rushmore highlights a monumental clash between two visions of sacred land.

Filed Under: History, Places, Teaching Tagged With: civil religion, National Park Service, National Parks, Native Americans, patriotism

Mesa Wisdom of the Hopi People

August 30, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Mesa sunset, Arizona

Though a product of colonial violence, Frank Waters’ Book of the Hopi offers an alternate vision and a critique of our ultimately self-destructive assumptions, values, and modes of living.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: change, colonialism, Hopi, Native Americans, wisdom

Chasing Dreams Beyond the Rainbow

August 28, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Pictograph, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona

An ancient pictograph in a place called Tsegi, what is now Canyon de Chelly National Monument, shows people chasing animals over a hill or maybe a rainbow.

Filed Under: Places Tagged With: afterlife, Canyon de Chelly, National Parks, Native Americans, pictographs

The complex interweavings of American racial histories

August 3, 2018 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

The Bear River Massacre occurred in the same month as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation; killing Indians had a strategic purpose in the war to end slavery.

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, massacres, Native Americans, slavery, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Joe Meek in Yellowstone

August 17, 2017 by Thomas S. Bremer Leave a Comment

Teton mountains

Mountain man Joe Meek’s first summer of fur trapping in 1829, which put him among the earliest of non-indigenous people to enter Yellowstone.

Filed Under: History, Places, Sacred Wonderland Tagged With: American west, fur trapping, John Colter, mountain men, Native Americans, Wyoming, Yellowstone

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I write about religion and tourism, especially in regard to national parks. I am currently working on a history of religion in Yellowstone National Park. Read More…

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