HOT FLIES AND WOOLY BUGGERS

A cartoon plays in my head while I sleep. I’m on the bank of a flowing river, getting ready to cast my line into the water. I snap the line back, the hook snags the back of my trousers and the trousers, being break-away (in my dream), tear away from my body and wind up hanging over the river on my rod. My first cast and all I catch is…..me.

I’ve been ‘fixing to get ready to learn’ fly fishing (as my friend Peg from Northern Florida would call it) for some time. I have certain trepidations about learning to fly fish. I like the idea of fishing – it’s a calm sport until you get a big one on the line and then it’s all muscle and a measure of finesse. I like being outside and I like eating fish. So just what is my hang-up?

When my friend Craig came up to Yellowstone for the weekend we went fishing on Yellowstone Lake but that was ‘trolling’ – throwing a line out the back of a comfortable boat specifically set up for fishing, letting the brightly colored lure called a ‘slider’ sink 50 feet and then just waiting for a fat Lake or elegant Cutthroat to grab onto it. We both caught two Lake trout, which since they are not only invasive but predatory, you have to kill – period. Park regulations. That meant even though we rather desperately wanted to catch our own dinner it felt righteous instead of bloodthirsty.

Once we reeled the fish in, our guide Lindsey netted the big ones (about 3 pounds she said), pulled them into the boat and into a bucket, then reset the line after which the fish in the bucket met their Maker.  Lindsey grabbed a pair of long-nose pliers and whacked them smartly on the head. Most of the time, only one whack was enough to send the fish into the Great River in the Sky.

There was blood, of course. Especially when Lindsey proceeded to gut the fish, part of her job description of being a fishing guide on Yellowstone Lake.  Aha! That’s the trepidation.  Killing something.  I don’t even kill flies or scorpions most of the time. I leave rattlers to their own business. I’m a certified pacifist. So why the heck would I want to fish only to have to kill the fish? I’m still trying to figure that out.

One way I overcome my trepidations is to wallow in my discomfort. I got over (somewhat) my fear of heights by learning to rappel. Now I needed to get over my discomfort over killing an living thing. I eat meat. I don’t eat a lot of beef for very good reasons (I watched Food, Inc.), but I do eat elk, and bison, and fish. Lots of fish. I think it’s only fair to the fish if I understand how they come to my table. And certainly, fishing for my own dinner is better than eating fish caught by drift-netting. Better for me, better for the kingdom of fish.

My son believes that everyone should have the experience, like we once did, of knowing what it’s like to grow or kill our own food. He says we’d all eat a lot differently. Mind you, he’s a locavore. My family raised chickens once. You can't get more local than that. Now that I think about it, actually it was my older sister who raised chickens- for a 4H project. My Mom and Dad tried to help her kill some when it was time, instructing me to take my little brother up in the front yard where he couldn’t enjoy the blood and gore. I think they managed to kill about four of them before they realized they could pay someone to do that. My little brother and I are the only family members that ate chicken for the next 6 months.

Back to the fish. Besides feeling hypocritical about not wanting to kill what I obviously enjoy eating, I figure fishing is another way to enjoy this beautiful outdoors we have been so generously given. Fly fishing turns out to be pretty easy, really. It’s catching the wily fish that turns out to be way more difficult.

I am taking baby steps to learn to fish.  First, I accepted the gift of an abandoned rod and reel from a co-worker. Then I went up to Bozeman to see my nephew during a fly fishing weekend here in Montana with Warriors and Quiet Waters (see my post on that). Mikey is full of fishing suggestions and checked my abandoned rod pronouncing it useful for learning. Then I talked about learning for several weeks. This is an important step – it makes you look and feel like a weenie if you don’t follow through.

Last week, I talked to our resident fly fishing expert named…..well….let’s call him Wiley….who happens to be a co-worker who fishes EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAR. Yes, I too find that amazing. Anyway, he gave me some tips on what flies to get (he said make sure to ask the angler shop for ‘hot flies and woolly buggers’) and again, approved my rod and reel for learning purposes.  Last Saturday, I took myself down to the fly shop and bought some nymphs (little teeny things), woolly buggers (so pretty you could turn them into earrings) and hoppers. Grasshoppers are a popular dinner with the fish right now and flies are tied to look like ‘hoppers’.

The next obvious step is to learn to tie the hook on to the line. I figured a square knot would do. I’m pretty good at square knots. But, oh no, there are special knots for fly fishing. (I’m pretty sure they do this to separate the wheat from the chaff.)  The one I needed to learn was the Improved Clinch Knot. It couldn’t just be a clinch knot; it had to be an IMPROVED Clinch Knot. Double tricky. I tried it (I think I cheated just a teeny bit on the number of twists) and it looked about as well done as the cakes I bake. Wiley took a yank on it and the hook fell right off the line. Point made, Master.

So I spent lunchtime learning to tie the Improved Clinch Knot. Got pretty good at it. Not so good as to be able to tie it in the dark (which Master Wiley had suggested should be the ultimate goal) but good enough for the hook to stay on the line.

Now it was time for the BIG TIME. I asked a friend to go down with me to a section of the Gardner River where she could hang out and watch me fly fish – or try to fly fish – or at least practice casting my fly in the general direction I wanted it to go. But guess what? Fly fishing isn’t really all about the fish; that’s the first lesson of fly fishing. It’s about a whole host of things.

Like learning the water. Water has a mind of its own. It twists and weaves down the watercourse in ways that have to be observed to be understood. A good fisher can sense the water, where it forms deep pools where fish hide out, where it goes too fast for the fish to be concerned about eating. After learning what flies you might need and practicing knotting them onto the fly line, watching your fly and line move through the water is one of the first assignments for Fly Fishing 101. At least I think it is. Since I’m making this up as I go along I get to figure out the syllabus.

The next lesson is to learn how to cast in a way that productively gets the fly into the water where you want it to go. I finally figured out that if you want to make your line longer, you can’t do it in one fell swoop – or at least with my serviceable for learning fly rod. I had to cast and then pull some line out, then cast again several times until the weight of the tiny nymph fly finally pulled the line out. At some point I got cocky enough to ‘call the pocket’ which in billiard terms means I told my friend where I was going to place my fly. And it worked. Until the wind picked up.

That’s the next lesson –  or at least part of the casting lesson - how to figure the wind into the accuracy of your cast. Pretty soon the wind picked up so much I wasn’t really making productive casts so I decided to give it one last go before reeling in my line and hiking back to my truck. Casting is pulling back every so slightly on your rod to the clock position ‘2’ then moving the rod (and the line) straight forward (mostly) to the clock position ‘10’. So I sent my rod back and promptly caught….a thistle. My backcast sent my tiny nymph right into a thistle pod in the middle of thistly, bristly leaves. I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out how to pull my hook away from the thistle without getting pricked but it was obvious I was going to have to perform surgery to remove it.

At this point, some lovely European men in full fly fishing gear came to my rescue. One of them kindly removed the hook from the thistle and then they left – rather urgently no doubt to discuss these silly American women who come out to cast and catch a thistle. Well, I didn’t see them with all their really expensive stuff catch anything either. So there. Nonetheless, if you have to be rescued, it is very nice to be rescued by a tall, good-looking European man with smiling eyes. Even if you are the reason for the smiles.

So back to the curriculum.  On my first try, I only practiced with the one nymph.  I’m thinking the next lesson is to try casting with different flies, which I now have courtesy of the Parks Angler Shop in Gardiner and my friend Master Fisherman Wiley. This means practicing the dreaded Improved Clinch Knot over and over and over as I exchange one fly for another. 

I promise to tell you all about Wiley in one of my next posts but suffice to say Wiley is an incredibly devoted fisherman. Wiley only fishes with flies he has tied himself in Yellowstone. He tells me that the fish in Yellowstone are so different, so wonderful and so sacred that to fish with anything else is pretty much a sacrilege. OK. I get that but I am so happy he gave me a box of flies he no longer needs because HE DID NOT TIE THEM. I am more sacrilegious than Wiley is about fish. Oh, he also warned me not to swear because the fish might hear. More about that, and Wiley, in a later post.

This weekend I am backpacking into Shoshone Lake here in the Park. I intend to take my rod and flies with me and spend some time casting in the Lake. Wiley says it will be very different than casting in the River. He suggests I use Woolly Buggers and Hoppers for this.  I might even try tying some tiny little weights onto the flies to get them further down into the water. Fishing rumor has it that the fish are running deep these days - keeping out of the warm waters toward the top.

In the meantime, I have been perusing fly fishing sites.  If I find anything interesting, I’ll let you know. I already know I’ll be writing about the lexicon of fly fishing. I’ll also be letting you know anything else I learn about fish, nature, water or anything else I pick up from throwing a line into the water in the hopes of someday catching something besides a thistle. But with my lack of skill, at this moment the best summary I can give you is that fly fishing has been a bit thorny to date but I'm sticking with it.

THE CITY MOUSE AND THE COUNTRY MOUSE: A PARABLE

Once upon a time in a big, dusty southwestern city where the Country Mouse had gone to find work, a City Mouse and a Country Mouse became great friends. It was an unlikely friendship. The City Mouse was raised in the city and was fond of Big City things. He liked playing bridge and going to the theater and eating out and going to football and basketball games at the University.  The Country Mouse was raised just on the edge of a City but spent most of her time outside, hanging upside-down in her favorite tree or reading high up in its branches. She liked hiking in the mountains or the canyons, sleeping under the stars and visiting outdoor outfitters. She liked driving down empty Country roads as fast as she could and still keep her pickup on the road.

The City Mouse also liked to be busy storing up food for the future. He particularly liked to find the food and develop it into more food. For this he needed help, and this is how the Country Mouse came to work with him. The Country Mouse was a single Mouse Mom and she appreciated the flexibility that working in a small family business gave her.

The City Mouse enjoyed working with Country Mouse who was very efficient and smart and he especially enjoyed working. Country Mouse, who enjoyed being busy and taking on new challenges, did not find working or the City enough.  She needed Country things, So whenever she could, she and Little Mouse explored the Country.

For many years, City Mouse and Country Mouse had a happy partnership. But things change, whether they are City things or Country things, and everyone has to change with them. For the Country Mouse, change meant that her only Little Mouse moved away to a Big Country Place. The Country Mouse had always been close to her family, and especially to the Little Mouse.

Country Mouse decided she would try to figure out a way to move to the Big Country Place where Little Mouse now lived – at least part of the year. City Mouse knew this but hoped Country Mouse would change her mind – after all, Country Mouse had a very nice Mouse House and many, many friends in the City. But one day, Country Mouse, who had always wanted to live in a National Park which is the Biggest Country Place Possible applied and was hired for a job in the Endless Country National Park. This was pretty close to heaven in Country Mouse’s view.

And so Country Mouse moved to the Endless Country National Park and invited City Mouse to come visit. But this visit would be a Big Country visit. City Mouse would see wondrous Country things he would never see in the City and he would sleep on the ground like people visiting the Country often do. Country Mouse worried he might be Out of His Element.

Country Mouse picked up City Mouse at the nearest Sort-of-Big City. It was very late and very dark when City Mouse’s plane finally got to Sort-of-Big City. Country Mouse, knowing the nighttime was the best possible time for many large creatures to wander about, knew she would have to watch the roads carefully the long way back to the Very Little Village near Endless Country National Park. City Mouse would be borrowing her pickup truck over the next few days and she talked to him about the difference between driving in the City and the Country.

“You always have to keep your eyes on the sides of the roads so you can see where the animals might jump right in front of you! See, there! Two deer!” Country Mouse explained.  City Mouse said “What deer? I didn’t see any.”  Country Mouse realized that City Mouse had been looking right at the road in front of them, a very important City skill, instead of looking at the sides of the road. In the Country night, watching for movement or the shiny eyes of roadside animals is more important than watching for the very few vehicles on the road at night. She resolved to remember City Mouse had City habits and skills and she needed to keep reminding him he was in the Country now.

That night City Mouse stayed in a small cottage in the Very Little Village and then, the next day while Country Mouse worked, ventured into the Endless Country National Park. When Country Mouse asked him that night what excited him the most about his trip around Endless Country National Park, City Mouse said he saw many things he had never seen but was most intrigued about the mountain road construction techniques he saw along the way. Country Mouse sighed.

That evening, City Mouse and Country Mouse worked together to pitch City Mouse’s tent in the Campground. City Mouse had never pitched a tent but gamely followed Country Mouse’s instructions until he couldn’t figure out exactly how the tent stakes should be pounded into the ground.  Country Mouse showed him how to use a rock for this. She showed him how to keep his flashlight handy in case he needed to visit the Community Restrooms up the hill. Country Mouse even had acquired a blow up mattress for City Mouse, knowing how uncomfortable sleeping on the ground for someone who is not used to it could be.

Country Mouse often slept on the ground, just tossing down a very thin sleeping pad and crawling into her sleeping bag under the stars. She had always felt that a blow-up mattress was really a Luxury when sleeping under the stars but wanted City Mouse to sleep well for their excursion around Endless Country Park the next day.

The next two days, the City Mouse and the Country Mouse drove all over Endless Country Park seeing beautiful Country things you could never see in the City. At a stop at a particularly beautiful waterfall, City Mouse looked across the water to the mountainside above it. “Does the Park Service ever do maintenance?”

“What do you mean?” asked Country Mouse. Obviously, the Park did maintenance-the parking lot was clean, there were toilets and signs. “Well those trees over there on the ground. Do they ever go around and pick up those trees?” asked City Mouse.  Country Mouse explained that those trees were called deadfall and part of the Forest and did not need ‘maintaining’ since even dead they were vital to the ecosystem. City Mouse thought the whole place would look tidier if they were picked up. Country Mouse sighed, remembering that ‘Park’ meant something very different to City Mouse.

Eventually, over the next two days, City Mouse got to not only see Natural Wonders but lots of Very Big Animals like Elk and Bison. Country Mouse noticed that he was very careful to stay far away from the Very Big Animals as so many Park signs warned tourists to do and she was very proud of him. City Mouse also began to understand that a Mouse had to plan a bit further ahead in the Country because getting to a Store or a Gas Station was never ‘convenient’.

Country Mouse recognized that City Mouse was doing his best to learn Country ways. On the last day, City Mouse even got very excited when he spotted a Bull Elk with many points on his antlers. Getting excited about Very Big Animals out in the Wild is a Country thing and Country Mouse was happy she had invited him to the Park.

City Mouse, on the other hand, over the weekend realized that Country Mouse was In Her Element. That made him sad and worried Country Mouse might not come back to the City. He would miss his friend. Finally, he asked her when and whether she thought she might come back to work.  Country Mouse told him things change, all kinds of things, City things and Country things and Mice just have to adapt. Country Mouse told City Mouse that she didn’t know when she would move permanently to the Big Country Place to be near Little Mouse but that they both had to make some decisions about how this would be possible since Country Mouse had become such a vital part of the business they had built together over the years.

The final morning, Country Mouse delivered City Mouse back to the City. Trying to be in two different places at once would be difficult for awhile, she thought, as she left Sort-of-Big City to return to the Endless Country National Park but she thought with a little planning (and she always had been a Planner) City Mouse and Country Mouse could figure it out. After all, with the Internet and fast planes, the City is not so very far away from the Country anymore.

OF FIRE AND SMOKE REDUX

The white puffy pyrocumulus cloud from the Alum fire stretched high above the road. Just over the closest ridge, at the base of the cloud, my visiting friend Craig and I see a tell-tale orange signaling that the hot fire itself is nearby gorging itself on the forest.  With the scent of fire in our noses, we slowly drive by Mud Volcano’s cordoned off parking lot, now empty of tourists’ vehicles. Now only NPS vehicles, some marked Fire, are parked here.

We briefly stop so I can snap a photo of the orange cloud above the gray starkness of the Mud Volcano. A park vehicle heads our way and we move back into traffic.  We speculate on how close the fire really is to this popular and developed thermal area.

The closing of the parking lot could mean nothing more than the Park Wildfire Management Team is choosing to be cautious. Better to have tourists NOT walking all around the boardwalk if evacuation becomes prudent. Additionally, if the fire comes further down the mountain, the parking lot is a perfect staging area should the Park Service decide to save the structures here – the toilets, the boardwalks around the thermal area, and the railings to keep people from stepping down onto the bacterial thermophiles, the ‘thin crust’ around its thermal features.

Yesterday we breakfasted at Gibbon Falls on our way down to Old Faithful where we spent the better part of the day hiking around the geyser basin.  The weather was perfect – the sky was clear and blue. I even wore my sun shirt and we both wore hats in order to keep from getting sunburned. We left Old Faithful and drove around to Lake Yellowstone, stopping at Bridge Bay to book a fishing trip. We passed Mud Volcano on our way north to Canyon Junction before turning our way to Mammoth. Mud Volcano’s parking lot and boardwalks were full. We noted a small plume of smoke to the west of Mud Volcano but its fire had to be very small and could easily wear itself out.

One day can make a lot of difference in Yellowstone. Today is Sunday and we are on our way to Bridge Bay for our guided fishing trip on Yellowstone Lake. Again we pass Mud Volcano, but it is empty of tourists this day.  Bridge Bay is just a few miles south of Mud Volcano but we are not worried about the fire. The smoke and the fire itself will be moving to the east, away from our planned destination. The smell of smoke reminds me to say a tiny prayer for the creatures in the fire’s path.

Mother Nature is taken seriously here in Yellowstone and fire is just one of the Mother’s ways of cleaning the overgrowth and debris from her forests. As long as the fire does not harm persons or facilities, the fire will be left to cleanse the forest and reseed in its aftermath. Fire in Yellowstone is a common occurrence during the dry, hot summer months. Unless fire threatens vital services, visitors or roads, it is honored as just one more natural occurrence and accommodated, just like my Arizona friends accommodate Arizona’s summer monsoons and accompanying flooding. Sometimes the monsoon is a bit annoying but we all recognize its worth. And up here in Yellowstone, fire is given its due.

When we get to Bridge Bay, we ask the Ranger about the emptied parking lot. She affirms that they believe the fire will cross the road quite close to Mud Volcano by 8pm and they want people safe. Right after our passing, they closed Grand Loop Road from Fishing Bridge north to Canyon in order to be ready for the fire’s crossing. She says at the moment, they believe the fire will not interrupt the activity at the Lake area but cautions us we will have to take the long way around, taking the south loop around Old Faithful, in order to return to Mammoth that night.

As our boat leaves the marina and its sheltered bay, we spot two other plumes, one larger than the other, on the south side of Lake Yellowstone.  The largest of these, the Alder Fire, has consumed a couple thousand acres but it is in a remote area and will be left alone for the time being.  The smaller fire, Passage, may have been smoldering for some time, but the high winds and very dry weather has caused it to flare up. We will be fishing for trout in the Yellowstone’s deep waters with fire plumes to the south and north as our backdrop. It will be just like any other day on the Lake – except for the fires.

On the way back to the marina after successfully catching four Lake Trout for dinner, we start our long drive around the southern circle past Old Faithful. Yellowstone is very, very large. Near the Old Faithful complex, the sky is blue and the air is fresh, giving no clues to the fires to the east threatening the Lake complex.  It is a long way around to Mammoth, where a bit of haze from the fires in Idaho and near Ennis Montana still lingers in the valley.

 

This night is Craig’s last in the Park. Tomorrow he flies out of Bozeman, 1.5 hours away. We have to leave the Park early in the morning so I can get back to work by noon.  On the way out of Mammoth the next morning, we see the slight haze hovering over Gardiner Montana. The earlier Emigrant Fire is out; surely this too is from the Idaho and Ennis fires.

 

I am back in Livingston, an hour north of the Park, in time for the day’s winds to pick up.  On my way down Highway 89, I spot an entirely new fire, one that will be named the Tom Minor Paradise Complex fire by the end of the day. Many of my associates in Accounting here at Xanterra in Yellowstone have homes along Hwy 89 north of Yellowstone. Fire is a fact here; they go about their day, leaving their desks only occasionally to step outside to see how big the smoke plumes are getting. By the end of the day, a long low streak of fire cloud, witness to Tom Minor’s hunger, can be seen from my dorm’s common room.

 

It is business as usual the next morning – except that I wake up with a terrible sinus headache, no doubt the result of being outside in areas with fire smoke over the last few days. My asthmas is letting me know I need to be gentle with myself, stay inside as much as possible for the day. I only go outside to check on the progress of Tom Minor, the fire now closest to Mammoth and tiny Gardiner. My coworkers talk about the possibility the fire will overtake Jardine, a small, mostly ghost town high above Gardiner to the east. The afternoon winds again whip Tom Minor’s appetite and the low orange cloud is once again seen from my dorm common room.

 

Yellowstone and its neighboring communities have much experience with fire. They trust that their fire departments, many of them volunteer, will do whatever is necessary to protect the public and the homes and structures in the area. Fire is well-known here, an old and necessary friend.

 

I am in no danger as I write this. I have merely been inconvenienced when fire is eating its way across roads I wish to take. There have been no evacuations – as yet – and the Park is still open. We are 100% occupied tonight – as we have been since the beginning of summer way back in May. The tourists, many of whom have planned to visit for several months or years, will have an even better story to tell and more dramatic photos to show their friends of their trip to Wonderland.

 

In the Summer of 1988, when over 1/3^rd of its forest was on fire, Yellowstone National Park remained open except for one horrible day in which the size of the fires in the Park nearly doubled.  I have written about this Summer of Fire in my previous post OF FIRE AND SMOKE. You might want to read or reread it at http://bit.ly/146wdZe .  Fire is a fact here – just like grizzlies or elk or bison. If it is not directly in your path, you accommodate to fire rather than the reverse. If it’s in your path, you prudently leave the area.

 

At the moment, accommodating the fire, for me, means perhaps wearing a mask when I go out here in Mammoth or Gardiner. I will still get out to hike or visit other places in the Park. I intend to hike Beaver Ponds Trail right out of Mammoth this weekend but, after assessing the smoke, perhaps I may choose to drive further away from the fires and hike in an area clear of smoke. There are so many of them.

 

I may take a drive up to Livingston for dinner next Saturday night, partially to view the progress of Tom Miner. Yes, I’ll be aware of the fires at all times. Yes, I’ll take precautions to keep my asthma from flaring from the smoke. But I suspect my reaction to fire will continue to be very little different than my reaction to hearing about a particularly active bear area. I will keep a respectful distance or will head the other direction – and with 2.2 million acres, there are always lots of other places to visit that I have yet to see.

 

When I bring my grandchildren here years from now, I’ll be able to point to the new trees that emerged from the ashes. I’ll talk to them about the role fire plays in restoring the balance in the forest. Hopefully they too will learn that fire is just another fact of the forested wilderness. They may even choose, as their grandmother did, to learn to live with fire, to respect its awesome power. Life from flame and ashes. Mother Nature’s way.

 

OF PASTIES, PROSTITUTES AND POLITICIANS

I blame it all on my son. I really didn’t want to go. My son Dan extolled the virtues of Butte Montana, told me about the beautiful buildings, that certain je ne sais quoi that makes Butte…..well…Butte. But I’m afraid I had already decided Butte was just not my kind of place from the views of Butte from Interstate 90.

All I could see from I-90 was the open pit mines looming over the town and the dozens of enormous ‘headframes’ over the mine shafts winding in and around both the commercial Uptown and the residential areas of Butte. In the end, we needed to meet somewhere to exchange things we left at each other’s homes, his in Missoula and mine in the Park. I finally agreed that Butte seemed like the ideal spot to meet.

We couldn’t meet until lunch time so we decided we might want to eat lunch at an ‘authentic’ pasty restaurant, Joe’s Pasty Shop. Pasties (past-ees) are an ethnic food item brought over to Butte, Montana by Cornish miners. Pasties are a meal in your palm, a closed pastry stuffed with beef, potato, onion and sometimes other vegetables. We ordered a traditional beef pasty and a Southwest version with chili poured over the pasty, garnished with shredded cheese. The pasty doesn’t have gravy in them because that would make the pastry dough gooey and the pasty won’t hold up in your pocket – the traditional way the miners took their lunches with them into the mines. Can’t say I will ever become as fond of pasties as…oh….maybe fresh wild salmon filet with lemon and butter but I can appreciate their utility.

Mining has been Butte’s major occupation since gold was discovered in Silver Creek in 1864.  But by 1870, the placer mining gave out and Butte’s population dwindled to 25% of what it had been. In 1875, the boom cycle started again as Butte’s first silver ore was discovered. By the end of the 19^th century, copper, in high demand, had been begun to be mined in Butte and its surrounding areas and Butte became known as the richest hill on earth. Butte has had several boom and bust cycles since then but the population stabilized at around 30,000 people in the 1980s and it remains the 5^th largest city in Montana today.

The cultural diversity of Butte is one of its charms. The Irish, beginning their mass immigration to the United States during the Potato Famine of the 1840s, turned their attention 20 years later to Butte and its high-paying although dangerous mining jobs. Miners came from other areas with a mining industry; Cornish, Welch, Canadan, Montenegrin and even Chinese flocked to booming Butte.

From the Interstate you can see beautiful architecture up the hill, memorials of the boom years in Butte, but Butte is not a ‘pretty town’. One of its major attractions is the Berkeley Pit, an exhausted open-pit copper mine about a mile wide and nearly 1/3^rd of a mile deep. Its water is highly toxic. In 1995 a flock of snow geese landed on the ‘lake’ and 342 geese died within minutes from the lethal combination of copper, cadmium and arsenic. I find that weirdly fascinating.

I have to admit, after Dan and my Saturday of sight-seeing around town, I generally find Butte fascinating indeed. The combination of its ethnic richness, labor union history, staunch Irish Nationalist support, its ‘boomtown’ laissez faire businesses like its brothels and gaming houses, and its extravagant architecture from the boom days, leaves one with quite a menu of things to see and do.  After lunch at Joe’s (Adam Richman of the Travel Channel’s Man vrs Food ate there!), Dan and I chose the Pit (because, Dan says, everyone goes there), a delightful but somewhat spooky visit to the Dumas Brothel Museum, and a docent-lead tour of the Copper King Mansion way Uptown. We also took a walk around Uptown where we viewed many of the best preserved and beautiful buildings of Butte’s prosperous past, including a synagogue with an onion-shaped dome, possibly arising from the Russian heritage of its earliest members.

In 1888, during one of Butte’s boom cycles, two French Canadian immigrants built the 3-story Dumas Brothel, even hiring an architect to design it purposefully as a luxury brothel. The Dumas was one of the West’s most elaborate brothels in its heyday. Now it is a decrepit wreck with squishy floors and tattered wall paper. It was built with a 2-story skylighted atrium in the area of the ladies’ rooms, very unusual for the times.  Each room has both a door and a window – where the women would stand much like store mannequins. The men would stroll down the halls ‘window shopping’ for their favorite. (The volunteer at the Dumas says this is the derivation of the phrase ‘window shopping’ - kind of killed what little shopping enjoyment I really have.)

The women who went to West had very few opportunities for wage-earning in the non-industrialized West. Brothels were an option but once taken, society’s disdain of this occupation marginalized women, whose opportunities were very limited and low-paying, even more. In boom towns like Butte, hundreds of women became prostitutes, some living in single-room ‘cribs’ behind the brothels and bawdy houses along Mercury Street.

The women of the Dumas Brothel would have lived in relative luxury compared to their sisters living in their cribs in the alleys and on vacant land. The cash-strapped fans and friends of the Dumas Brothel Museum have been very clever in their use of materials they could find to represent the grandeur of the best brothel in Butte.

Although clearly needing restoration, you can get a real feel for just how luxurious the brothel must have been in its heyday. On the main floor, pocket doors between the rooms could be opened to make room for elaborate parties. The basement has much smaller rooms (cribs) where less important customers, and less prosperous prostitutes, might be entertained and ‘entertain;. The top floor, although not as spacious as the main floor, also was designed with generous rooms for entertaining with its rooms around the outside of the structure and a neweled balcony over which the ladies could entice their customers.

The Dumas has a reputation for active paranormal activity, including the ghost of one of the Madams who allegedly committed suicide over losing her lover and patron. A portrait of someone that might be her sets on an easel in the room that had been hers.  A portrait artist once rented rooms in the Dumas and was trying to paint an entirely different portrait when he said he felt ‘compelled’ to paint the portrait of the Madam. Eventually, not wanting to be forced by a ghost to paint a portrait he did not want to finish, he tossed the portrait away and left the building not to return. Later the portrait was found and became part of the lore of the Dumas. I can’t say I necessarily felt the ghosts of the women who lived in the Dumas, some of whom no doubt had very sad lives and perhaps even tragic endings. However, the docent at Copper King Mansion said she had been asked to be a docent there but the hair-pulling and shoving by the Dumas ghosts creeped her out. Well, there you go.

The Dumas went into business in 1888 and continued until 1982 when it was finally shut down by Butte’s last Madam. It is now operated as a museum honoring the contributions of the Soiled Doves of Dumas. As a woman, I was struck by the difficulty the current owners have in obtaining grants and donations for the Brothel’s restoration. I was also mindful that few museums exist to honor entire groups of working women – whether they were seamstresses, or dancehall girls or prostitutes. As it is often said, history is always written by the victors who almost always are male.

Which brings me to the next historic structure we visited, The Copper King Mansion. You have to understand just how rich William Andrew Clark was. The 34-room mansion he built in Butte, now the private residence and B&B for the Cote family, cost a half-million dollars, a lot of money in 1888, but only a half-day’s income for Clark.

Clark had been born to farmers, but had attended college and then law school. He taught school for awhile but soon left for the West with a small grubstake in Central City, Colorado. He was a visionary and recognized the untapped riches of the West.  After hearing about the gold strike in Bannack, he headed to Montana. After working his claim for awhile, he realized he was better suited for managing miner’s mines than working them himself. He began to buy up claims and eventually became one of the wealthiest men in America. Someone once claimed that whenever Clark let go of a dollar bill, it came back to him with another stuck to it.

Clark was a striking man with a full, bushy beard, dark hair and piercing eyes. He married his childhood sweetheart, had children, was widowed, married again, had more children-all while making boatloads of money in mining and banking. He even financed his own railroad to serve Butte’s mines. He and the other Butte Copper King, Marcus Daly, took turns trying to outdo each other with good works. Clark’s philanthropic works included building the popular 64-acre Columbia Gardens and amusement park for Butte’s citizens. This Columbia Gardens is now somewhere in a slag heap, demolished for another open pit mine.

The house he built reflects Clark’s need to show off his wealth. If something was new, flashy and bound to show off his abundant wealth, he bought it.  Money was spent on plaster cast banners along the chair rails of the first floor rooms, then painted to look like gold, copper, bronze and silver. He also installed elaborate Tiffany chandeliers using both carbide gas and electric power. Hand-painted frescoes decorated the ceilings. Rare wood parquet was used for the floors.  The toilets, showers and tubs were the absolutely most modern available.  He put the ballroom, a room he had little use for, on the third floor of his mansion. And all of this has been lovingly restored by its current owners.

 

Being the richest man in America wasn’t enough for Clark. He aspired to enter politics and become a Montana US Senator. His first run for public office was unsuccessful.  He then succeeded in buying a US Senate seat. At the time, Montana’s legislature chose the US Senator. The second time the seat came vacant, Clark stood outside the Montana legislature, handing wads of cash to any legislator willing to promise him a vote, literally buying his Senate seat. This scandalous way of acquiring votes was just too much for the US Senate which refused to seat Clark. The next election, Clark won fair and square (well probably not exactly), partially due to the backlash of not seating Clark and a certain anti-federal sentiment that still exists in Butte today. After all that work and cash, Clark served rather unremarkably a single, undistinguished term from 1901 until 1907.

 

Eventually, Clark moved away to New York. The mansion was sold a few times before being acquired by the Cote family, which still owns and operates the home today.  Four generations of Cotes have devoted themselves to keeping the mansion, and other parts of Butte’s past, historically accurate. Over the years, the Cotes have accepted donations from other buildings that have been demolished to make way for mining and have accumulated many interesting artifacts of Butte’s boom times.  That beautiful ballroom? It is now a haphazard repository of Butte's rich history, including beautiful Victorian clothing, a full pipe-organ from a church demolished to make way for a open pit mine, a working Victrola, and a host of vestments and bibles from Catholic churches abandoned when ore was discovered under their altars. Guests can stay in the luxurious master suite for only $125 per night which, coming from the Park, seems like a very good price indeed.

 

Bottom line, a surprising amount of vivid history is available to enjoy in Butte.  The Copper King’s Mansion is well worth the $7.50 entry fee. You get to tour the beautifully kept rooms, the servant’s quarters, the kitchen, the ballroom – all the while being entertained by youthful docents who really know their Clark history.  The $5 fee to visit the Dumas was also well worth it, although the visit comes with a warning that you proceed at your own risk.  That’s actually kind of fun, I think. The women who lived in the brothel had their own demons and dangers. I think it brings you just a bit closer to the 'soiled sisters' of the Dumas.

 

We ended our Butte visit at Butte’s only distillery, the Headframe. Butte has an amazing array of drinking establishments, I must say. If Irish bars are more your tune, there are plenty of those as well. If microbrews are your passion, you can find several microbreweries in Butte.

 

If you would like to read more about the Dumas Brothel, here’s the link - http://www.thedumasbrothel.com.  Some very good scholarly work has been done on prostitution and the civilization of the West. Daughters of Joy; Sisters of Misery by Anne Butler and Soiled Doves by Anne Seagraves offers well-researched accounts of this. If you would like more information on the Copper King Mansion and B&B, here’s the link http://www.thecopperkingmansion.com .

 

My opinion now that I have actually visited Butte?  Butte is definitely worth the stop. Now, I've said it. My son was right.

BOOKING THE DREAM

Guest: “I’m on my way to Yellowstone. I’m in (fill in the blank) and I want to book a room in the Park for three days starting tomorrow.”

Reservations Agent for Xanterra Parks and Resorts: “I’m so sorry but Yellowstone’s lodging books up a year in advance. At this moment, nothing is available.”

G: “But I came all the way from (fill in the blank) and I really want to stay in the Park.  Have you tried Lake Hotel? Mammoth? Isn’t there something? Preferably something with a view? Oh, and a swimming pool would be lovely.”

RA: “I’m really very sorry, but at this moment, nothing is available anywhere. You can keep calling back-perhaps there will be a cancellation....oh wait a minute, one of the Roosevelt Roughrider Cabins just became available. Would you like to book it?”

G: “Does it have a TV?"

RA: “Ma’am it doesn’t even have running water.”

Really, I’m not making this up and although this is not a word-for-word conversation I can guarantee that on any given day, every single one of the thirty Xanterra Reservation Agents handling the calls has at least one phone conversation that goes something like this. The saying around here is “all booked up, all the time”. And quite a few coming for the first time expect the Courtyard at Marriott, not realizing they will be getting a rustic cabin that is a bit nicer than Green Acres.

Xanterra, the company for which I and all the RAs work, is Yellowstone Park’s only lodging concessionaire.  Yellowstone offers an incredible array of lodging, making it is confusing and time-consuming to review and reserve online. It’s difficult to even figure out WHAT you want online.

That’s where knowledgeable RAs like my friends Jane, Ginger and David come in. My friend Jane feels a great responsibility to the guests who are calling for reservations for what might be their once-in-a-lifetime vacation, a trip they have been planning for years.  “We are the first contact with the Park usually and that’s important.” I agree.

During the busy summer season, not a single room in the Park is vacant. If you want to snag a nice room, you either have to book at least a year in advance or be really persistent with your calls to Reservations in the hopes you will call at the exact moment someone cancels.  And cancel they do.  Savvy Park visitors book multiple reservations, canceling at the last minute (within the 48-hour time limit to get their money back). And the second a room becomes available, it gets booked. Xanterra is looking closely at this phenomenon, aware that this keeps some people who love the Park from being able to spend their 50^th Anniversary in the same spot where he proposed. There are really no limits to the popularity of this Park.

Why do theses legions of people come to the Park? Ask your typical reservations agent and they will tell you “It’s Yellowstone!” People come because it is perhaps the most famous National Park in the World. Besides scores of North Americans, people come from Europe, from Asia (in droves), from Australia, New Zealand, North America, Russia – anywhere that the population can afford to take a trip into the hinterlands of the US. They gasp in awe at the geysers; they film the elk; they stop in the middle of the road for the bison (on the other hand, we who live here are pretty tired of the traffic jams created by one lone bull bison who is simply lying on the ground taking a nap).

My friend Ginger tells me a lot of people come to celebrate life’s milestones – an anniversary, a last trip as a couple before becoming parents, a last trip with grandma, a proposal. Just about every reason there is to celebrate brings people to our Wonderland. As an RA, she works very hard to find anything at all available for 95-year-old grandma and her multiple family members but she says generally people calling in for reservations have no idea of the popularity of the Earth’s first National Park owned by its citizens. And they are surprised and upset there are no rooms at the Inn…or the Lodge….or even the cabins.

David admits making reservations at Yellowstone is a complex process, with a variety of venues and types of accommodation from the very rustic cabins at Roosevelt (at $69 per night the best bargain and the most popular in the Park) to the 2-bedroom, 2-bath, condo-like Presidential Suite at Lake Hotel (at $600 per night he still thinks this a bargain if it is a large family or group of friends). The average night’s stay is around $200.  Generally, about 50% of their callers are looking for the cabins, the least expensive accommodation in the Park.  However, often desperate guests will take a room that is beyond their budget if a cancellation occurs – the Yellowstone experience is just that valuable.

David tells me first time guests have no idea how enormous the Park is, which is about 100 miles long from the North Entrance at Gardiner Montana to the South Entrance just above Grand Teton National Park. A guest will want four nights in the same lodging, thinking about how difficult it might be to schlep the spouse and kids to another ‘village’. David tries to explain that booking a room for four consecutive nights all in one place means that family will spend hours and miles if they want to see even the ‘main attractions’ of the Park. Ginger encourages people to go for at least two reservations in different parts of the Park to cut down on the driving time so they can spend more time walking around the geysers or enjoying the animals at Lamar Valley or participating in one of the many, many activities that are available for our guests.

Xanterra’s website for Yellowstone is quite extensive but even in this plugged-in world talking to a live person can make a guest’s reservation process – and their visit – so much more enjoyable. Reservations Agents are provided free passes to about all the activities and encouraged to experience each one in order to give the guest the best information available on not just the lodges and cabins but the great variety of activities available in the Park.

If you plan to ride horses or go on a boat ride on Lake Yellowstone or have the famous ‘chuckwagon’ dinner at Roosevelt, you need to buy your tickets ahead. And matching your lodging to your activities in order to simplify your driving time takes the professional expertise of RAs like David. David, a returning employee of Xanterra, uses his extensive knowledge of the Park to help a family figure out just what activities their family might best enjoy. Because the guests won’t be watching TV (not available) or playing online video games (wifi if available sucks), Ginger is quick to suggest alternative activities. What else will they be doing with their time? Her job is to make our guests feel like they have had a full and fun day without all the modern conveniences of ‘the world out there’.

I was curious, if reserving lodging and activities is so complicated, how in the world are reservations for non-English speaking guests (and there are many, many of those) handled?  David speaks French and sometimes discovers a guest might speak a bit of French but most often guests muddle through their booking in English, with maybe some friend or family member helping on the other side. A complex process made more complex because Yellowstone is a destination known and desired across our globe.

Of course, it can be easier when the person calling is a returning guest. Yellowstone has an avid fan following, Yellowstone ‘groupies’ you might say. Most returning guests generally know what they want and know they need to call well in advance to get it.  These are the people that might come to the Park every year or every few years. On the dark side, they sometimes can be some of the demanding guests since they already are fixed on what they want this year’s Yellowstone vacation to look like.

Yellowstone is OZ and the Reservation Agents often hold the keys. Being a Reservations Agent at Yellowstone is part sales, part hospitality. Every one of us working here loves this place or we wouldn’t put up with the insufferable lack of wifi, the dropped phone calls, the long lines of cars driving every so slowly by the sleeping bison. My friends the Reservation Agents are the first ones to invite you, the first ones that say “We are so happy you want to visit.  We are so glad you want to come.” I can just hear Jane’s soft inviting Tennessee drawl, "Ya’ll come and I just know you’ll have the time of your life.”

TEN-STEPPING IN MISSOULA

Down in a dark, industrial section of Missoula, Montana, a bright Budweiser beer sign flickers invitingly (if you like Budweiser) in a dark window.  The neighborhood is a good place to be if you are looking to remodel your house. But we are looking for the Sunrise Saloon, Missoula’s only country western bar that seems to have live music this Saturday night.

My friend Merry from the Park and I are visiting my son Dan who lives in Missoula. For our 'dinner out,' Dan took us to his favorite dive bar, The Oxford Saloon, which also offers a huge 1-pound rib eye for about $14 which you can enjoy in the ambience created by a cast of characters that look like they came right off the set of Duck Dynasty. The Ox, as its familiars call it, has been open 24/7 since 1883. The bar did move once but the actual bar itself stayed intact at the old address until the new address was ready for it. Then the patrons unbolted the bar and walked the bar down the street to its new home, all their drinks still on top of the bar. Cheers it ain't. The bartender's name is Beth and she likes my Dan - says he is a 'nice boy'.  I like her.

We also walked down to the much classier Montgomery's Distillery, all shiny brass and copper with designer swivel seats at long tables and leather seats at the bar.  We savored the Distillery's two white spirits and each bought a fancy mixed drink with names like White lady and Mango Lassi. At Montgomery's, we ran into the daughter of the owners of Willie's Distillery in Ennis, Montana where Merry and I had spent a pleasant hour tasting their bourbon and other Montana-ingredient spirits just a few weeks ago. (Have I mentioned that even though Montana is a geographically enormous state (4th largest) it is a place where everyone seems to know everyone else?) She told us she loved the beautiful shiny distillery in the basement of Montgomery's. A distiller's daughter for sure.

Down at the Downtown River Park, after visiting the River Park's fantastical children's playground, we watched a wonderful authentic carousel carry happy children and their parents around and around. We walked along the sparkling Clark Fork and watched a small group of 'surfers' try to keep upright on Brennan's Wave, an artificial bump in the river that creates waves enticing enough for kayakers and surfers. The Clark Fork is one of Missoula's favorite activity venues and is generally full of kayakers, tubers and swimmers this time of year. It's the River that Ran Through it (but not in the film - just the book).

Later, Merry and I want to do a little boot-scooting. Merry even brought her bright blue cowgirl hat. Dan is willing. He loves country music and doesn’t mind spending time with the woman who has a deeper checkbook than he has. He’s a smart young man. That's how we wound up in the dark, industrial bowels of Missoula.

Parking is no problem – those industrial buildings are all shut down for the night or the weekend and there are plenty of empty parking spaces. We know we are at the right address but can’t find the door.  We walk around, honing in on the following the sound of country music. The requisite bouncer is at the door although there is no cover.  Inside, the band is just getting started and the couples are already out on the floor.

I don’t usually frequent country bars in Tucson. But here where the West is truly full of cowboys and rodeos and range and cattle, it just seems exactly right.  One thing I do like about country music is its danceability. In a country music bar, you can spot the couples who have been dancing together a very long time. They seem to flow as one unit across the generous dance floor with an economy of step that is amazing given the real estate they travel. That’s the second thing I like about country music bars – they almost always have a larger than normal dance floor. You really can’t waltz on a postage stamp.  Of course, those lucky folks who know Western swing need a reasonably sized dance area, too. Showoffs.

Country music fans are pretty multi-generational and country bars also tend to have a wide variety of generations on the dance floor. Various types of swing are popular at college campuses – at least in the West – and young people swirl with their partners, the girls wearing wide flowy skirts that open like flowers as their partners spin them around time and time again. Most everyone is dressed in some variation of country. The gents wear fancy western shirts and bright silver belt buckles. Many of the couples, by design or long habit, have color-coordinated their outfits and remind me of the square dance couples of my childhood.

And then there is the music. I’m not a big fan of all country music; I don’t like the twangy stuff and I will NOT stand by my man if he doesn’t deserve it but I do like the outlaws – Waylon, Willie and the boys. I also like Reba and Loretta and Carrie and Emmie Lou. Harlan Howard, a country music songwriter for such greats as Patsy Cline, Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash and even for pop music greats like Ray Charles and the folk trio Kingston Trio, once called country music ‘three chords and the truth’. Country music speaks to our common experiences – loss, love, lust, losing your kids to a war, having fun with your buddies, getting even with your ex. Country music doesn’t have to be twangy – it can also be full of soul.

I haven’t been dancing since coming to the Park months ago.  Merry, obviously well-stepped in Country music, is ready to put the 2-step on, or the swing step and especially the 10-step.  She volunteered to teach me the 10-step, a dance flow I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people using in a line dance. Me, I’m pretty decent at a box step, the salsa and even a standard shuffle-ball-change but trying to figure out how to 10-step to a 4-beat leaves me feeling like a complete novice, constantly crossing the wrong leg over the other. Good thing I was the Designated Driver; if I’d had any more to drink I might have left blood on the dance floor. But by the end of the evening, I was able to 10-step myself all the way around the dance floor. At least I was impressed.

My time away from Tucson has purposefully been spent indulging in activities I have always loved but had no time for as well as trying all manner of new things. The 10-step is just one of those things.  Will I take my new skill down to Tucson’s country showcase The Maverick when I get home? Maybe. But I will be taking my memory of my evening spent 10-stepping in Missoula’s Sunrise Saloon. Who knows what else I might bring!? I’ve still got another two and a half months to try more things and bank more memories.

OF FIRE AND SMOKE

Mother Nature has her ways of keeping the wilderness evolving, renewing. Sometimes through flood, sometimes through earth movement, often through fire. Yellowstone has seen all of these but perhaps the single most important agent of change for Yellowstone since its birth as a Park has been the fires of 1988.

Even though Yellowstone literally is a caldera, the smoke and heat smoldering below its surface was only a campfire compared to the fires above during the long, hot, dry summer of fire in 1988. The first fire of the season, Storm Creek in the Custer National Forest northeast of the Park, was caused by lightning.  The first fire in the Park, the Shoshone Fire near Shoshone Lake, was also ignited by lightning. This fire was followed just a few days later by the lightning-caused Fan Fire in the northeast corner of the Park. Throughout the next three months, both lightning and man-caused fires just outside the Park ignored Park boundaries, quickly merging with other fires already alight in the Park’s forests.

Fire companies and hot shot teams from all over the country came to Yellowstone to protect the Jewel of the Crown. Even volunteers showed up to help and were put to work.  A volunteer, a retired Chicago firefighter Ron Scharfe living in Missoula, came down to help and in the end was credited with saving our iconic Old Faithful Inn. But as other fires started all over the West, it became apparent that the Summer of Fire was way beyond Yellowstone and the resources were severely inadequate. On August 19, The Boise Interagency Fire Center called on the Department of Defense for help. On August 20, Black Saturday, the fire within the Park doubled in size and strong winds, exploding fireballs and massive walls of flame caused the firefighting efforts to temporarily cease. Sometimes wildfire is just too hungry and dangerous to fight and firefighters are pulled back from the lines.

From the beginning and then all summer long as the various agencies, the public and even Congress engaged in heated discussions of the correct management for the fires. Meanwhile, the Park continued to burn. As dark smoke curled over the geysers at Old Faithful and the hills at Mammoth disagreements over the best way to handle the fire raged. Cooperation among the various agencies controlling the fires in and around Yellowstone was virtually nonexistent. National Forest personnel had to worry about the summer homes all up and down the Gallatin Range and the tiny communities of West Yellowstone and Cooke City. Yellowstone Park Rangers, believing that fire was natural and would be good for the forest and that Yellowstone’s overmature lodgepole pines were at the end of their lifespans, looked at the fire as a way to replenish the stock, reseed the forest. Opposite needs, opposite effects made it difficult to get any agreement.

In 1988, wilderness fire was still a ‘hot topic’ among wilderness management specialists, some advocating allowing natural fires to burn while most urged immediate fire suppression before fire could spread. There were valid concerns for the wildlife, the sacred bison, elk, moose and bear of Yellowstone and before the fire was snuffed out by the first snows of autumn, over 400 large animals had been killed.  Although from the very beginning the Park immediately responded to the need for Visitors’ safety and the safety of the Park’s structures, Park Superintendent Bob Barbee hesitated when it came to natural fires in areas where no structures existed and human life was not threatened. But by mid-July, with fires burning all over the Park and Ecosystem, Barbee ordered every new fire suppressed.

Both sides were right and both sides were wrong. Neither National Forest nor National Park Rangers had any clue that Mother Nature would push the Yellowstone ecosystem to its absolute limit. Fires, both manmade and lightning caused, would join together in great conflagrations that would eventually consume over one-third of the Park. In the end, the only solid agreement the agencies had was that the fires were way beyond their control, perhaps way beyond anyone’s control.

As the firelines moved fluidly through the Park and the political battle lines were drawn, Superintendent Bardee kept the Park open, a decision with which the media, most of Congress and much of the public disagreed. Fire up this close was rarely available to the public and despite public outcry, many visitors thronged the Park to watch the Jewel of the Crown burn. The Superintendent’s motivation was to allow visitors to see Mother Nature doing what Mother Nature has been doing since before we puny humans had learned to walk erect – replenish the ecosystem by fire. And, perhaps, during an administration that was not generous to the National Park system, to provide the public an opportunity to see how stretched the Park System’s resources have become.

I’ve thought a lot about the wisdom of keeping the Park open during the fires. In my view, one of the greatest missions of the National Parks is to teach us how to live with Mother Nature. Mother Nature is not always soft cuddly fawns, stunning sunsets and beautiful waterfalls. Natural disasters are only ‘disasters’ because we humans choose to name them so. Often the ‘disaster’ is of our own making – building houses in river bottom flood plains and in mountain forests. We dam rivers for recreation, power and ‘flood control’ and then watch our once rich soil lose its nutrients. I think the Superintendent made a really good decision in letting us see Mother Nature’s less gentle side. I wish I had been here to see it, too.

Yellowstone has suffered other large fires. Tree rings show the history of fire here in the Park and also the periods of growth and rejuvenation in between.  Now, 25 years after Yellowstone’s summer of fire, Mother Nature’s natural plans are most obvious in the growth of new lodgepole saplings, entire mountainsides of them. Lodgepoles as overmature as the ones that burned in 1988 are tall and without branches below but with a tight canopy above. This tight, shady canopy does not allow new growth near the ground. And lodgepole pine cones are so tough, seeds are only dropped when the cone bursts from the heat of forest fires. Years of fire suppression had made the forest old, and without Mother Nature’s handiwork doing its very ancient job, these forests would die without a new generation of saplings to take their places.

But fire does leave its legacy in more ways than rejuvenation. Twenty years after the fires of 1988, taking a break from walking around Artist Paintpots, I struck up a conversation with a Ranger.  I noticed he was becoming more agitated as clouds in the western sky began to build into dark storm clouds. I finally asked him if something was wrong. The Ranger looked over at the darkening skies and told me he had seen clouds very similar to these in the fire of 1988. He still had moments of panic and Post Traumatic Stress when clouds gathered in a certain way on the horizon.

The fires of 1988 changed everything - the landscape, the people, the plant life and even the wildlife. Certainly, the disjointed handling of the fire in and out of the Park resulted in much better and more coordinated fire management. It seems fact that the fires are largely responsible for the rebirth of Yellowstone’s lodgepole forests. But others claim that the decline in the Park’s moose population was a direct result of the fires.  It is true that the moose have been declining in Yellowstone but it is not scientifically obvious that the fires of 1988 have been the main cause.  Although there was an initial drop in population, other large mammal species have increased partly due to increased forage made available due to the forest opening up for its undergrowth. And the ghostly relics of the burned lodgepole have provided various utility for Yellowstone’s wildlife.

It is fact that fire, no matter how scary it is, replenishes. Anyone who has seen the increase in wildflowers on the forest floor after a fire can attest to that. Some felt the fires of 1988 would be the death of the world’s first National Park. Others now claim the fires have caused Yellowstone’s rebirth. When I drive through the new lodgepole forests, I can’t help mourning the tall majestic trees that are now darkened spikes poking through the new forest but I also am struck by the soft green of the surrounding saplings.

Yellowstone has always been a place of fire and smoke. In the summer of 1988, that fire and smoke began an evolutionary rebirth that still goes on today. It will take a very, very long time for the evidence of the fires to be completely erased. I think that’s a good thing. Mother Nature has her way of caring for the Earth and her ways often conflict with ours. We are the interlopers here. Mother Nature will be around long, long after our species no longer exists on this beautiful Earth. The question continues to be, will the Earth be a better place because humans have passed through its history? Regardless, with or without our help, Mother Earth will continue to repair and rejuvenate this beautiful planet through her endless cycle of flood, earth movement and fire.