The Importance of Yellowstone

With my first trip fresh in my mind, I began to look for sources of information. At this time the public Internet was barely in its infancy, and I was largely ignorant of it. Nor was it replete with the vast volumes of information on it that there is now. So I turned to conventional means, such as good old-fashioned books. I found there were a plethora of books that gave basic as well as detailed information about Yellowstone out there, depending upon your level of time and interest in the subject. I chose some books that gave some good, basic overviews of the park and the surrounding area, also known as the GYE, or Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. I read them thoroughly, and realized I was just scraping the surface of the subject. So, I delved deeper into the information pool, and came up with some more in depth books. After reading them, I felt a little more informed. Little did I know I had barely begun my exploration of Yellowstone, and didn’t really know or realize the true nature of the area, or its importance to the United States and indeed the entire world. For Yellowstone, first of the world’s National Parks, not only sparked a movement towards preservation of our world’s natural treasures, it continues to point the way in conservation efforts, on the bleeding edge of what it is to conserve our biosphere relatively intact.

The GYE has been the target of many schemes and plans throughout the years to dominate its resources and control its bounty, starting with the Northern Pacific Railroad before the park was even officially designated a National Park. The Northern Pacific dreamed of controlling access to the park’s thermal wonders for their own benefit, and used knowledge of the area as a goad to investors to give them money to complete the railroad. Fortunately their plan failed. But it was just the first of many, many schemes to control and develop the land in and around Yellowstone.

There have been many plans throughout the years to develop the park; building dams, bigger roads, exploiting resources including the thermal features and animals. In the early years of the park it had many enemies come against it, including a plan to destroy it completely and open it to settlers and private development. Luckily for future generations and us that particular plan was defeated. But that doesn’t mean the park is out of danger.

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone helps me understand the most basic part of myself. The natural side that yearns for the tranquility of the wilderness, the good feel of unspoiled forest and wildlife. It helps me understand my place in the world and what my true priorities are. It gives me a respite from the world I live in day today, the world we all have chosen to make for ourselves, which sometimes seems so sterile in comparison.

Most people believe the struggle to preserve Yellowstone occurred a long time ago and was won. Unfortunately that isn't true. The fight to preserve our sacred wilderness continues and will continue as long as there are people. The demands of society and of population have put pressure on Yellowstone that it has never had to contend with before. Yellowstone is still and always will be at risk. Even now there are people asking the federal government to open surrounding national forest land to development. Yellowstone is not just the boundaries of the national park, it is much greater than that, and it needs the entire surrounding national forest land to survive as an ecosystem. If it is to be preserved then we must all care about it, love it and want to protect it.

If I am right about Yellowstone’s ability to take us out of ourselves, to move us and to inspire passion in us, if Yellowstone can inspire that spiritual side of us that sometimes gets lost in our daily lives so filled with technology and progress, then the fight to preserve Yellowstone takes on a much more important role than just protecting some animals and forestland. It becomes a conflict for the best part of ourselves, a war for our spiritual selves, a battle for our very souls.

We can win it, if we choose to. I fear the consequences should we lose.

Yellowstone National Park - A Place of Wonder

We would all do well if we were to heed that lesson. From the largest animal to the smallest, Yellowstone lives that lesson every day. It is the fundamental nature of the world to embrace itself and live every moment of life to its fullest. An elk does what it does because it must. It eats, it sleeps, it runs and it reproduces the next generation of elk because that is what evolution has bred it to do. Just as the predator, wolves, cougars and others kill to eat, sleep and breed because they must do so also. It is the balance they have been created to maintain. They cannot survive otherwise.

Of all species, only the human animal deliberately goes outside those boundaries. We have built our world to exclude the natural and in doing so we are in danger of losing a part of ourselves. That part is a vital essence and its absence in our lives may destroy us in the end. If we can't see ourselves as a part of this world, then we are doomed. We will break down our world into pieces and systematically kill it until we have eventually killed ourselves. Yellowstone is able to remind us that we are a vital part of nature, and that we cannot survive without the natural world.

Do we reject our world or embrace it? Love our world, preserve it, or kill it and therefore kill ourselves? Does Yellowstone inspire great passion in me because of who I am? Or does it help define me as a human being, bring forward in me those passions, the best of myself, the most spiritual side of my being? I choose to believe the latter.