In memory of Johnny and Ham
October in Yellowstone
It is difficult to put into perspective the last seven months. It is too early to digest the work, discovering new waters to fish, making new friends, listening to their stories and having hundreds of photos yet to edit.
The work was challenging, and yes even in this beautiful place some days were stressful. But I need only walk to the North Rim of Yellowstone Canyon or go fishing, to reflect and be thankful to be in this place.
I hope the photos I share describe what I experienced, but I wonder if by showing all the beauty I may be deceiving the viewer about the "behind the beauty" of Yellowstone National Park. My concerns are many: the impact of millions of visitors and all the cars and buses that enter the park. How to maintain the condition of the infrastructure for the crowds, the role of private companies that manage lodges and restaurants, the cutbacks to the NPS, the wildlife and fish policies, issues that seem to multiply by the day.
Much has been written about what to do about our National Parks lately. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/us/national-parks-overcrowding.) And I am reminded of what Oscar Wilde said," “Yet each man kills the thing he loves." I am hopeful we will not "kill the thing we love," but reach a consensus to solve the problems we face in Yellowstone and other National Parks.
Above all my concerns, I selected the beauty of Yellowstone because this is what I see and a reminder to me of what we could lose and never recover.
I will reflect and think about this experience of a lifetime, another check off my bucket list and take my time to tell my Yellowstone stories. I will stay involved, to demand of our public servants (in the Park Service, the Interior Department, the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Departments, the Environmental Protection Agency, Congress and the White House) caution and care of our National Parks and Monuments in the face of man's urge to control nature.
"The air is electric and full of ozone, healing, reviving, exhilarating, kept pure by frost and fire, while the scenery is wild enough to awaken the dead."
-John Muir, 1901
“....art that offers a hint of something bigger and deeper out there. I believe there’s sentience, a way of being that exists between not just humans and other higher animals but it’s there in forests and plants in moving water, at the microbial level, in the soil, and mountains and breeze. We’re here for only a moment in time; what a waste to let it pass unnoticed."
--George Carlson
"Behold! the whole country beyond was smoking with vapor from boiling springs,and burning gases,issuing from small craters,each of which was emitting a sharp whisling sound."
Fur trapper Joe Meek,1829
Do nothing, but look. In that glimpse, Carlson says, you will find everything of meaning that you will ever need to know about the preciousness of existence. Each of us can do it before our stardust flesh returns back to the ground. -George Carlson
Black and White
The Greater Yellowstone Region
― Jeanette Winterson
