This I Believe: Disaster Movies Make Me Cry (And I'm A Dude)

I listen to This I Believe.  The radio show was started by journalist Edward R. Murrow in the 1950's to get people talking about what they believe in and to fight the funk of the McCarthyism era.  World leaders, businessmen, and anyone really could submit essays about what they believe.  A single succinct belief to tell the world.  This I Believe was brought back in the early 2000's.  Some of the essays are hilarious, some are touching, some are incredibly inspiring, and some I totally disagree with.  I'm working on graduate school applications and need some writing samples.  This I Believe was something I wanted to participate in, so why not write an essay and use that as a writing sample?  Here is my This I Believe Essay, "Disaster Movies Make Me Cry (And I'm A Dude)."

I always cry in disaster movies.  Whether it’s the Empire State Building exploding under an alien death ray, a massive tsunami overtaking the couple clutching each other on the beach, or the shut down of the Ocean Conveyor Belt plunging the world into a new Ice Age, I will cry at some point.  Tears cascading down my cheeks.  It took me a while to figure out why I seemed to always be deeply affected by disaster movies because I don’t see myself as an overly emotional or weepy person, but there was, and is, something about these movies that affects me like no other film genre.  I came to realize that it’s the wholesale loss of humanity’s creative output.  The depictions of the loss of life are not as gruesome as the loss of creativity.  The destruction of the New York Public Library isn’t just the loss of one building, but the loss of all libraries and the information and work that went into every book and resource ever contrived.  If we are, as Isaac Newton said, “standing on the shoulders of giants,” then the destruction of the great cities of the world isn’t just removing us, modern man, from the scene, but also the giants on which we stand.  So much of human creativity wiped out in a moment of computer-generated, popcorn-fueled destructive power. 

Human creativity is the greatest force this planet has ever seen.  Creativity takes no sides, it makes no value judgments as it has unleashed some of the most wonderful and the most dangerous things this planet has ever known.  With our creations, humanity has poisoned the air and water, and killed unknown numbers of living things, including scores of our fellow human beings.  Humanity also imagined and created works of unintelligible beauty like Van Gogh’s “Cypress Trees” and how the Internet allows people to connect over distances and in ways never previously thought possible.  Humanity finds inspiration everywhere.  It’s in the natural world around us, it’s in the things we have already created like music and literature, and we even find inspiration in each other.

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani stated, “The Stone Age didn’t end for lack of stones…” or maybe it did, but either way, Stone Age peoples innovated their way into a better life.  Modern man thinks of him/herself as vastly superior to our ancestors; the Stone Age peoples innovated themselves into the Bronze Age.  We can surely innovate ourselves into the Post-Petroleum Age.  I believe human creativity changes the world every day.

And at the end of every disaster film, I’m always left disappointed.  I always want to see where the people left standing will go next.  How will they rebuild towns and cities?  How will they fix things?  What will they do with the rare opportunity to rebuild human culture?  What will they do with a chance to start over, not only personally, but as a human race?  When the giants’ shoulders are no longer there, what do we build to replace them? 

Video Snapshot: Bison on the road

Bison are a regular occurrence along the wintry roads of Yellowstone.  If you had a choice of pushing through chest deep snow or walking along a packed path that conveniently leads from one meadow to the next, what would you do?  The bison aren't stupid, they'll take the road.

Maybe.

Do the bison follow our roads or do our roads follow the natural migration corridors of the bison?  Roads are easier to build in areas that are already flat (river flood plains).  Early park engineers were also concerned with build scenic roads.  This put the roads through valleys, connecting one meadow to the next by following the rivers.  These same routes were and are probably used by bison today.

Groomed roads and bison are what kicked off the big debate on winter use in Yellowstone National Park.  By grooming the roads, are we making surviving the winter easier for bison?  Winter is the number one killer of bison and they are on a tight energy budget.  They can conserve energy by walking on the road and not trudging through the deep pow-pow (oh man, is pow-pow an obnoxious word!).  The National Parks operate under "natural regulation."  The idea is that nature can take care of itself a lot better than we can, as long as all of the main players are in place (predators, prey, flora, climate).  Would the advantages afforded to bison by grooming the roads be a violation of natural regulation?

General Philip Sheridan: Yellowstone Villain or Hero?

This is a quick hit kinda posting.  A smattering of facts that by no means paints a complete picture of this man; just a few things and how they pertain to Yellowstone National Park.

Our story begins during the Civil War, in which Philip Sheridan was a general for the Union army.  He was one of the first people to use “scorched earth” tactics, where he destroyed the economic infrastructure along with military targets in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.  He is not looked upon favorably in that part of the country.

In 1867, Sheridan is appointed head of the Department of the Missouri.  This puts him in control of all land between the Mississippi River and the Rockies, an area over one million square miles.  Not long after this appointment, he brings his scorched earth tactics to bear on the West.  During the Winter Campaign of 1868-1869, he attacks the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche peoples, burning their supplies and forcing them back onto the reservations. 

As part of his campaign against the Indians, Sheridan promoted in Congress the wholesale hunting and slaughter of bison to deprive the Indians of their primary food source.  He is quoted as saying, “Let them kill, skin, and sell until the bison is exterminated.”  Professional hunters begin to trespass on tribal lands, and, by 1874, four million bison have been poached.   The Texas legislature tries to outlaw bison poaching on tribal lands.  Sheridan reacts by personally testifying the heroism of these poachers saying that each man deserves a medal “engraved with a dead buffalo on one side and a discouraged-looking Indian on the other.”  These actions deliberately led to the massive destruction of bison across the country and making Yellowstone an island refuge for wild bison, where around 1900 less than 25 bison were found throughout the entire park.  Yellowstone Villain.

Philip Sheridan did feel very strongly about Yellowstone National Park.  He authorized Lt. Gustavus Cheney Doane to escort the Washburn/Langford/Doane expedition in 1870.  He authorized Capt. John Barlow to escort the Hayden Survey in 1871.  Barlow names Mount Sheridan in the southern part of Yellowstone for the General on this trip.  As early as 1875, Sheridan was promoting military protection of the park.

The Department of the Interior granted the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company four thousand acres of Yellowstone land in 1882.  The plan was to build a railroad into the park and sell the land to developers.  General Philip Sheridan teamed up with Forest and Stream editor George Bird Grinnell to put a stop to the plan.  They lobbied Congress for park expansion, military control of the park, only ten acres of development, and no leases near attractions.  Congress granted them most of their demands.  Sheridan then arranged and led the first Presidential Visit to Yellowstone.  Chester Arthur “led” an expedition to the park in 1883.  The purpose of the trip was to raise awareness of the park Back East; a press junket perhaps.  Sheridan was given his wish of military protection of the park in 1886 when he ordered the First Cavalry into Yellowstone at the request of Secretary of the Interior Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (the namesake for Lamar Valley).  Yellowstone Hero.

hmm so Sheridan was both a hero and a villain to the park.  Was he conscious of his conflicting role?  Probably not.  Even though he advocated the destruction of the bison, his ally in protecting the park from development George Bird Grinnell would go on to play a pivotal role in the passage of the Lacey Act protecting the bison from the wanton destruction created by Sheridan’s views. 

Video Snapshots: February 1, 2011

This is my first foray into digital video editing.  I just got a Flip digital camcorder and have been taking it to work with me.  Some explanations and tidbits about what's featured.

The Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
These falls are 308ft tall.  The Yellowstone River flows from a layer of volcanic tuff into hydrothermally altered rhyolite.  A geyser basin about the size of the Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful) once sat on this location.  The Yellowstone River changed course around the end of the last Ice Age and came through the basin very quickly eroding it out.  The ice dome in front of the falls is created solely by the freezing of mist coming off the falls.  If the temperature stays low enough for long enough, the ice dome can reach heights up to half the height of the falls (approximately 150ft.).  On this day, the temperature was so low I could see the mist from the Grand Loop Road near Canyon Corrals.

Washburn Hot Springs Overlook.
The thermal area on the left side of the frame are the Washburn Hot Springs.  Mount Washburn is an old volcano and during the last caldera explosion, two-thirds of the mountain were blown away.    The cliff behind the hot springs is the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  The mountains in the background are the Absarokas and make up the eastern boundary of the park.  I was standing on the flanks of Mount Washburn, which is at the northern end of the caldera.  The Red Mountains shown at the end of that shot are on the far south end of the caldera, so we're looking across the caldera here.

The Upper Falls.
These are found about a half mile upstream from the Lower Falls.  While these are only about a third of the height of the Lower Falls, they are still impressive, especially in the winter.  Earlier in the season, people were consistently seeing otters at the base.

Fountain Paint Pots.
These are probably the most famous paint pots on the planet.  The bubbling sounds like spaghetti sauce left on the stove too long.  Mud features are consistently the most acidic in the park, usually between 2 and 3 on the pH scale.  Mud features would be hot springs, except the water has a high hydrogen sulfide content.  Microorganisms in the water love to eat that hydrogen sulfide; their waste product is sulfuric acid.  That acid eats away at the nice lava rock turning it into soft clay minerals like kaolinite.  This clay mixes with the water to create the mud.  The bubbles are gases escaping.

I hope you like the video and hopefully I'll be getting some more of these video snapshots up!

"If you don't think it's a hard trail from Cooke City to Pelican Valley, you just try pulling a toboggan over Specimen Ridge." The Poaching of Edgar Howell

The year is 1893 and Edgar Howell is headed into Yellowstone National Park for the winter.  Howell has constructed a toboggan ten feet long with ski-like runners to help it slide through the snow.  His load is 180 lbs.  His skis are twelve feet long(!), which he made himself out of spruce or pine.  Edgar’s goal is to kill as many bison as he can to sell to taxidermists in Livingston, Montana. 

Wild bison were by this point almost extinct.  The popularity of bison tongues, heads, and hides Back East had changed the economics of fashion into an economics of extinction.  A political force pushed for the destruction of the bison as General Philip Sheridan felt that with the bison gone, the Native Americans would have no choice but to quit fighting, that the Indians would disappear along with the buffalo.  Less bison and less Indians would open the Great Plains up for farming and colonization.  Yellowstone National Park became the only refuge for wild bison, and by the turn of the century, park managers’ estimates range from fifty to 200 bison in the entirety of the Park (and in North America).  

This was the climate in which Howell was looking to make some money and the US Army (which was in control of Yellowstone at this point) wanted to protect these last wild bison.  During this time, there were no real laws against poaching wildlife.  The military could expel people from the park, confiscate goods, and that was about it.  The lack of any real authority forced the soldiers to become creative in their punishments.  They would expel a poacher from one end of the park, and dump his gear at the other end.  The soldiers would commonly just expel the poacher and hold on to his gear.  Poachers would get around this by claiming that an expelled poacher had lent them the gear and the Army would be forced to relinquish the gear.

Map courtesy of the National Park Service.

Edgar Howell began his wintry journey from Cooke City, MT to Astringent Creek in Yellowstone’s Pelican Valley where he would basecamp with little worries of being found or prosecuted.  A one-way trip of thirty-two miles with 2,000 feet of vertical elevation gain, his route roughly follows the red line on the map.  His movements didn’t completely unnoticed as soldiers found his toboggan trail and a broken snowshoe.  After an overnight, fierce winter storm, his trail was found passing the Soda Butte Soldier Station.  These observations of Howell’s movements to and from Cooke City were reported to Acting Superintendent George Anderson, who was hot to capture Howell.

Superintendent Anderson hatched a plan to capture Poacher Howell.  He waited until he knew Howell would be in the Park before sending out a search party.  Members of the search party Scout Felix Burgess and Sergeant Troike headed out to Pelican Valley to camp and look for Howell. 

Burgess’s words on what happened next:

           

I expect probably I was pretty lucky.  Everything seemed to work in my favor.  I got out early and hit the trail not long after daybreak.  After I found the cache of heads and the tepee, over on Astringent Creek, in the Pelican Valley, I heard the shooting, six shots.  The six shots killed five buffalo.  Howell made his killing out in a little valley, and when I saw him he was about 400yds. away from the cover of the timber.  I knew sure I had to cross that open space before I could get him sure.  I had no rifle, but only an army revolver, .38cal., the new model.  You know a revolver isn’t lawfully able to hold the drop on a man as far as a rifle.  I wouldn’t have needed to get so close with a rifle before ordering him to throw up his hands.  Howell’s rifle was leaning against a dead buffalo, about 15ft. away from him.  His hat was sort of flapped down over his eyes, and his head was toward me.  He was leaning over, skinning on the head of one of the buffalo.  His dog, though I didn’t know it at first, was curled up under the hind leg of the dead buffalo.  The wind was so the dog didn’t smell me, or that would have settled it.  That was lucky wasn’t it?  Howell was going to kill the dog, after I took him, because the dog didn’t bark at me and warn him.  I wouldn’t let him kill it.  That’s the dog outside – a bob-tailed, curly, sort of half-shepherd.  It can get along on a snowshoe trail the best of any dog I ever saw, and it had followed Howell all through the journey, and was his only companion.

I thought I could maybe get across without Howell seeing or hearing me, for the wind was blowing very hard.  So I started over from cover, going as fast as I could travel.  Right square across the way I found a ditch about 10ft. wide, and you know how hard it is to make a jump with snowshoes [skis, 10-12ft. long] on level ground.  I had to try it anyhow, and some way I got over.  I ran up to within 15ft. of Howell, between him and his gun, before I called to him to throw up his hands, and that was the first he knew of any one but him being anywhere in that country.  He kind of stopped and stood stupid like, and I told him to drop his knife.  He did that and then I called Troike, and we got ready to come on over to the hotel [Lake Yellowstone Hotel].  It was so late by the time I found Howell – you see he was a long way from his cache or his camp – that we didn’t stop to open up any of the dead buffalo.  We tried to bring in some heads, but we found we couldn’t, so we left them

Howell had been in camp over there for a long time.  I only found 6 heads cached.  He wrapped them up in gunny sacks and then hoisted them up in the trees so the wolves couldn’t get at them.  He had a block and tackle, so that he could run a heavy head up a tree without much trouble.  He was fixed for business.

Howell said to me that if he had seen me first, I ‘would never have taken him.’  I asked him why, and he said, ‘Oh, I’d have gotten on my shoes and run away, of course.’  I don’t know what he meant by that, but he’d have been in bad shape if he had, unless he had taken his rifle along, for I had already found his camp.

Felix Burgess felt that protecting bison was so important, he crossed 400 yards of open terrain with only a pistol to attempt capturing the poacher, while Howell could have easily picked him off at any moment with his buffalo rifle.  Burgess’s actions are one of the most selfless acts ever taken in the protection of wildlife, but the story doesn’t end there.  Burgess and Troike then had to escort Howell to Fort Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs, a fifty-mile ski. 

Burgess and Troike at center.  Howell on right.  Howell's dog at center.  Photo courtesy of Montana Historical Society.

Howell took well to incarceration.  For breakfast at the Canyon Hotel, he ate twenty-four pancakes.  At the Norris Soldier Station, he attempted to chat up the officers and ate as much food as he could put away.  Why would he be worried?  There were no real laws to punish poaching in the national park.  As he saw it, “he stood to make $2,000, and could only lose $26.75,” in gear.  He knew he would be taken to the Fort, and expelled from the Park as a slap on the wrist. 

Mounted bison heads killed by Howell.  Photo courtesy NPS.

Howell’s encounter at the Norris Station would change the easy life of wildlife poachers.  As the soldiers and Howell were leaving the station, they encounter Emerson Hough, a writer for Forest and Stream magazine.  He writes up the story of the actions, capture, and lack of punishment of Poacher Howell.  Indignation is particularly strong to the fact that Howell showed little regard to what bison he was killing.  Nine of the eleven dead bison were hauled to Mammoth as evidence.  Two of the nine were bulls, an old one and a yearling (not prized game animals).  The other seven were pregnant cows.  Less than two weeks after the article is published, HR 6442, the Lacey Act, is introduced in Congress “to protect the birds and animals in Yellowstone National Park and punish crimes in said park.”  The bill was introduced by John Lacey of Iowa, who’s personal Yellowstone story included being the victim of a stagecoach robbery in 1887.   The Lacey Act became law on May 7, 1894.  This law forms the basis for all legislation protecting wildlife throughout the United States.

Those moments during the credits where you find out what some of the characters went on to do.

The bravery and sheer toughness of Felix Burgess cannot be fully comprehended.  At the Norris Station, Hough noticed how badly Burgess was limping.  On removing his shoes, Hough took in the fact that the two toes next to his big toe were missing and his big toe had a jagged scar.  Crow Indians had captured him and taken those toes and attempted a third.  The circulation in his foot had never been the same after that.  The foot was badly frostbitten and the big toe was removed when he returned to Mammoth Hot Springs.

Edgar Howell is not convicted under the Lacey Act because his actions took place before it was passed.  He was found in a barber chair at a park hotel where he was arrested, convicted, and jailed for violating his expulsion from the park.  A final note on Edgar Howell, he was briefly hired in 1897 by the same government that jailed him to track down a stagecoach robber.

Most information found in Paul Schullery's "Yellowstone's Ski Pioneers: Peril and Heroism on the Winter Trail"

John Muir and Yellowstone National Park

John Muir had an amazing handle on Yellowstone National Park. I recently read his article for Atlantic Monthly written in 1898, and was shocked. It read like it just happened yesterday. His writing feels so topical in today’s landscape. He saw places considered off the beaten path today. He understood the importance of wilderness. He had some great things to say about coach drivers. Stagecoach drivers, but they apply to snowcoach drivers too. Some excerpts…

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. It is a glorious place to grow in and rest in…

He enjoyed the American dipper’s (water ouzel) playful antics. Such beautiful words about an animal I enjoy. The dipper is a songbird adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. A nictitating membrane covers the bird’s eyes while swimming so it can see; kinda like goggles. The nostrils have flaps to cover their nostrils to prevent water from entering. Water ouzel’s produce more oil than most birds to keep the water off of their feathers. The birds will dive in and out of the water looking for insects. One of the most amazing things about these birds is how they swim. The wing motion used to move through the water is the same as their movement for flying through the air. Dippers fly through two media, air and water. (A later posting may have to be exclusively about the Water Ouzel) Rejoice in these incredible birds, and…

Hear the blessed ouzel singing confidingly in the shallows of the river, -- most faithful evangel, calming every fear, reducing everything to love.
 

As a snowcoach driver, I get a kick out of what John Muir had to say about the lives of stagecoach drivers. There are many parallels between stagecoaches and snowcoaches. Luggage is loaded onto the top of the vehicle. Coaches travel together for safety, but space out for visibility. Stagecoaches kicked up dust, while snowcoaches kick up snow. Both vehicles could break down on the road and would. There are times when guests could travel faster by walking than riding a coach. I think we still get some of the same questions today that visitors asked in 1898 when Muir visited Yellowstone National Park.

Among the gains of a coach trip are the acquaintances made and the fresh views into human nature; for the wilderness is a shrewd touchstone, even thus lightly approached, and brings many a curious trait to view. Setting out, the driver cracks the whip, and the four horses go off at half gallop, half trot, in trained, showy style, until out of sight of the hotel. The coach is crowded, old and young side by side, blooming and fading, full of hope and fun and care. Some look at the scenery or the horses, and all ask questions, an odd mixed lot of them: “Where is the umbrella? What is the name of the blue flower over there? Are you sure the little bag is aboard? Is that hollow yonder a crater? How is your throat this morning? How high did you say the geysers spout? How does the elevation affect you head? Is that a geyser reeking over there in the rocks, or only a hot spring?” A long ascent is made, the solemn mountains come into view, small cares are quenched, and all become natural and silent, save perhaps some unfortunate expounder who has been reading guidebook geology, and rumbles forth foggy subsidences and upheavals until he is in danger of being heaved overboard. The driver will give you the names of the peaks and meadows and streams as you come to them…

As a snowcoach driver, I see those questions Muir’s drivers dealt with and I have to laugh. Some things haven’t changed since the stagecoach era, like the amount of time needed to fully see the park.

The regular trips – from three to five days – are too short. Nothing can be done well at a speed of forty miles a day. The multitude of mixed, novel impressions rapidly piled on one another make only a dreamy, bewildering, swirling blur, most of which is unrememberable. Far more time should be taken. Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

And in conclusion…

Stay on this good fire-mountain and spend the night among the stars. Watch their glorious bloom until the dawn, and get one more baptism of light. Then, with fresh heart, go down to your work, and whatever your fate, under whatever ignorance or knowledge you may afterward chance to suffer, you will remember these fine, wild views, and look back with joy to your wanderings in the blessed old Yellowstone Wonderland.

Dipper photo is from the National Digital Library of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (http://www.fws.gov/digitalmedia/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/natdiglib&CISOPTR=5349&CISOBOX=1&REC=4)