Yellowstone in Words

I just finished reading Gary Ferguson's The Carry Home. Gary and his late wife, Jane, lived in Red Lodge, Montana, the same postage stamp-size town where my mother and stepfather lived for many years. Jane and Gary were friends with my mother. The Fergusons called Red Lodge their base, but traveled extensively because of their work as an award-winning writer, speaker and conservation advocate  (Gary) and as an outdoors teacher/ranger/conservationist/cafe owner (Jane). Their work was their life, and they had the ability and good humor to share that.

That is what is so wonderful about Gary's books. Whatever the subject, he always shares that broad sweep of the West: most often the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone National Park. Not the Yellowstone most of us know, but the backcountry, the hidden lakes, views, wild life and adventures many of us miss.

 Jane was killed in 2005 in a hideous canoeing accident right before her 50th birthday. It was just the two of them, as was so often the case. The Carry Home tells the story of Jane's death and the subsequent spreading of her ashes to five of her favorite places by her husband of 25 years. That final act is woven through their years together---the places where they spent their lives exploring, writing, researching and teaching about. Gary's books are always personal, but this journey takes us deep into the the wilderness of the West and Gary's soul while he spreads his wife's ashes. It is painful, but also healing. A history seen by two "kids" who became adults who became partners who became advocates for such a big swath of land. And more than that it offers a big dose of recent history of the West.

I remember when Jane died, Gary took the time to write my mother a personal letter. Mother was very ill with a debilitating disease, so I read the letter to her. The pain was palpable, but he said the last thing Jane shouted before the tangle of trees and white water took her life was, "Thank you, Universe." It is something we all need to say....every single day.

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I am looking at Yellowstone books in anticipation of our trip to Red Lodge, Cooke City and Yellowstone National Park with our grandkids this summer.

So, here are some Yellowstone books worth looking at if you are going to this country's first national park. Or even if you're not.

1) My favorite is Gary's Walking Through the Wild, A Journey Through the Yellowstone Rockies about his 500-mile "walk" through Yellowstone. This is an armchair journey the likes of which I will never take, but the history and deep spirituality of the place is for anyone who needs a sense of the place. I think our 13 and 12-year-olds grandkids will enjoy it, and I'll love rereading it to them.
2) The Yellowstone Wolves, the first year, also by Gary Ferguson, offers insight into the reintroduction of of gray wolves into the park. The beauty of this book is not only the extraordinary story of the wolves, but Gary's writing. It is magical.
3) OK, I like Gary's work: Hawks Nest: A Season in the Remote of Yellowstone is his 100-mile hike and three months of living alone in the wilderness of Yellowstone monitoring grizzly bears and wolf packs. This is a first hand account of the challenges of preserving the Yellowstone wilderness.
4) While Gary knows Yellowstone, Steve Chapelle was a Montana transplant, relative city-boy who headed down the length of the Yellowstone River by kayak. Kayaking the Full Moon, Journey Down the Yellowstone to the Soul of Montana is that story. OK, so the river is mainly outside of the park, but it's one crazy and stirring adventure....and he took his family.
5) One of my favorite books I read during researching both Yellowstone and Grand Tetons national parks was Worthwhile Places, Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Horace M. Albright.
John D. Rockefeller. Jr. was American power personified. Among his interest was a passion for national parks and the wilderness. Horace Albright was a UC Berkeley educated man, who set his sights on the outdoors rather than the law office he was destined to run. As superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and later Director of the National Park Service, Albright could hold his own with a man like Rockefeller. The correspondence between the two vividly illustrates what it took (and how) a public servant and private citizen forged their ideas into reality for the betterment of the national park system.
6) For the brass tacks history of the park, there is the two-part Aubrey L. Haines, The Yellowstone Story, A History of Our First National Park, Volume One and Two. This is the book history buffs go to....I certainly did.
7) Finally, park historian Lee Whittlesley took on the dark side with Death in Yellowstone chronicling, yes, all of the deaths within the national park. Someone had to do it, right?

Oh, and if you want to know about the history of Old Faithful Inn and Lake Yellowstone Hotel, there are always my books, Great Lodges of the National Parks that include Old Faithful Inn and Yellowstone history or Volume Two that includes Lake Hotel!
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