Telling Yellowstone’s Stories

Pahre, Robert

Yellowstone National Park (YNP) has a rich collection of thermal features, native species, and geologic resources. It also has a rich collection of stories about these resources, and about people’s relationships with them. Official interpretation presents the park as a pristine wilderness with globally-significant natural resources. As a result, the park does not interpret those people who live, work, and visit this landscape. Instead of moderns, the most visible people in YNP’s stories are those associated with the national park a century or more ago — those who advocated the park, the military who protected it in 1886-1916, and the National Park Service in its earliest years. This narrative leaves out many other historic people, including Native Americans, mountain men, and early Euro-American settlers. Events since park establishment are also barely visible, such as the early zoo and bison ranch, tourism development, and the businesses of the park. YNP also ignores most controversies, such as predator eradication through the 1930s, failed developments at Canyon and Grant Village in the Mission 66 period, and controversies over fisheries, elk, bison, and bear management. Interestingly, YNP does take credit for wolf reintroduction in 1995, which fixed a problem for which the NPS was historically responsible. Visitors may find many of these alternative stories told at museums outside the park, at bookstores inside the park, and even in Grand Teton National Park next door. Some evidence suggests that visitors would like to see more of these stories inside of the park as well. YNP’s choices construct a particular narrative, the story of a pristine wilderness saved by heroes associated with the park. In this story, the tourists attracted to these lands, and the businesses that serve them, have no impact on these resources because they are not there. This construction of wilderness serves certain purposes well. Ignoring NPS mistakes and the existence of profit-making businesses supports the notion of disinterested persons saving the land. That narrative is supported by an uncritical pedagogy that provides unidirectional communication to an audience of passive learners. Broadening the narrative to include alternative stories would modernize the pedagogy, better engaging visitors and encouraging them to consider their role in the world’s first national park.

Telling Yellowstone’s Stories

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