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Subtitled “Science in America’s First National Park”, Johnson’s book introduces readers to ten different studies – ranging in topics from the home ownership around the park to brucellosis in cattle, bison, and elk to policy marketing for Yellowstone – and invents them to consider how science shapes our understanding of and commitment to preserving Yellowstone. Each chapter detailing a study is written by the primary researcher with most researchers hailing from Montana State University.
This book reaffirmed my own personal beliefs about management of the park: Wyoming needs to stop feeding the elk, people need to stop building theirs home so they border the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the three states home to Yellowstone should embrace the reintroduction of the wolf. Alas, no new knowledge here.
The most interesting aspect of this book for me was the varied uses of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is the focus of my geography major. Just about every researcher used the software to map the locations of homes or track the movements of large mammals or, even, map the bottom of Yellowstone Lake. Very interesting, indeed.
Book Mentioned:
- Johnson, Jerry. Knowing Yellowstone: Science in America’s First National Park. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2010. Print. 184 pgs. ISBN: 9781589795228. Source: Library.
The Honors Project:
I read this book for The Honors Project, my own personal challenge to read more books about economics, food, and/or geography in preparation for writing my honors thesis. My goal for this project is to learn as much as I can about these topics so I can formulate better questions and, in turn, produce a better honors thesis. You can find out more information by checking out my introductory post, project post, or spreadsheet of titles.
Chosen as an honor book for the Montana Book Award, Lancaster’s novel introduces readers to thirty-nine year old Edward Stanton, a man who has Asperger’s Syndrome and a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Fixated on numbers, Edward writes down the time he wakes every morning and the temperature of the day (actual, not the forecast).
His father, Edward Senior, decides he can longer deal with his son and moves his son into a small house on the other side of Billings, Montana. Edward Senior corresponds with his son through his lawyer, which greatly aggravates Edward Junior and provides much fodder for his nightly complaint letter. After meeting his new neighbor and her son, Edward’s life changes drastically over the course of 25 days (or 600 hours, as Edward prefers to look at it).
Properly capturing mental illness in a fictional book is a difficult task, and Lancaster did a superb job of portraying Edward as well as the frustrations Edward Senior feels. I kept thinking about this book long after I finished it. The glimpses into Edward’s thought process are both touching and illuminating. The roller coaster ride Edward is placed on by his father’s constant rejection and his introduction to Donna and Kyle is both frustrating and heartwarming.
I could have done without the play by play of each episode of “Dragnet” that Edward watches. I understand explaining it is a part of his compulsive behavior but I soon grew tired of reading about the episode in question. This is the only thing I disliked about this book. Otherwise, it’s a superbly written novel that I definitely recommend.
Book Mentioned:
- Lancaster, Craig. 600 Hours of Edward. Helena, MT: Riverbend Publishing, 2009. Print. 278 pgs. ISBN: 1606390139. Source: Library.
Book Cover © Riverbend Publishing. Retrieved: August 8, 2011.
I blatantly stole Egan’s book off my parents’ bookshelf and then, like most books I borrow without asking, let it languish on my bookshelves for about three years. Subtitled “Away to the New West” Egan’s book contains a fairly damning portrayal of those who move into the western states of Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Montana (like me) and build McMansions in the mountains without concerns for the locals (not like me).
Specifically, the books focuses on these cities: Jackson Hole, WY; Catron County, NM; Acoma, NM; Lake Havasu City, AZ; Supai, AZ; Escalante, UT; Las Vegas, NV; St.George, UT; Highlands Ranch, CO; Butte, MT; Paradise Valley, MT; Bitterroot Mountains, ID; Joseph, OR; Sunnyside, WA; and American River, CA.
Particularly, the book looks at the question of possession and ownership of the West’s natural resources such as water and land. Egan interviews Kit Laney, the self-described “Last Cowboy in America” who refuses to pay the US government for grazing rights on public lands; Patricia Mulroy, the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, who works to bring more water to Las Vegas’ casinos, golf courses, and subdivisions, even if it means damming the Virgin River running through Zion National Park in Utah; and Robert P. McCulloch, a zealous developer who reassembled each stone of the London Bridge in the Arizona desert in an attempt to draw people to his contrived dream town: Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
“Over the past century and a half, it has been the same crew, whether shod in snakeskin boots or tasseled loafers, chipping away at the West. They have tried to tame it, shave it, fence it, cut it, dam it, drain it, nuke it, poison it, pave it, and subdivide it. They use a false history to disguise most of what they are up to. They seem to be afraid of the native West — the big, cloud-crushing, prickly place. They cannot stand it that green-eyed wolves are once again staring out from behind Aspen groves in Yellowstone National Park. They cannot live with the idea that at least one of the seventeen rivers that dance out of the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada remains undimmed.” (pg. 6)
As the quote above shows, this has had devastating effects for the natural environment of these western states. The bison are driven out of Paradise Valley, Montana to make room for cattle, a species not native to the area and completely dependent upon humans to help them, and to prevent the (undocumented) spread of brucellosis from bison to cattle. Cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles are dependent upon water from upstream and continue to drain these waterways, which leads to the destruction of wildlife in these waterways. Egan also addresses urbanization and suburbanization of the West as well as the hot button topic of public land usage by ranchers, miners, and loggers. I found his essay on the preservation of the so-called Western culture, which has been manufactured over time to reflect the dominance of cattle (and cowboys) on the landscape.
I found Egan’s essays to be completely involving with entertaining writing and an impressive entwinement of historical and personal perspectives. The empathy, humor, and consternation Egan expresses in his book are not clouded by sentiments — something I would struggle with. Egan manages to capture the spirit of such a large chunk of land in only 266 pages. I highly recommend this eye opening and often disturbing history of the exploration, colonization, and exploitation of the West.
Book Mentioned:
- Egan, Timothy. Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West. New York: Vintage Departures, 1999. Originally published 1998. Print. 266 pgs. ISBN: 067978182X. Source: Borrowed.
Connor Ford and Ed Tully jump from airplanes and fight fires side by side in Montana’s mountains. This fateful summer, though, Ed brings his girlfriend, Julia Bishop, along with him and Connor finds himself braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot have. After the fire’s disastrous path through their lives, Connor leaves the land he loves and travels around the world taking photos of the world’s worst wars. The photographs brings him fame, but never happiness while Julia struggles to balance the happiness she has and the happiness she knows she could have had.
There’s a lot of guilt in this novel. So much guilt that guilt almost becomes the only two things holding these separate tales together. One tale is about smoke jumpers and their struggles; the other book is about a man who travels the world to forget the women he loves but cannot have. Because of this, the book seemed to drag on forever.
What’s more, I had a hard time taking this tale seriously because Evans misspelled the name of both the town I live in and the town next to us. I know it’s a novel, but it is supposed to take place in real places; real places that I know and loved.
Book Mentioned:
- Evans, Nicholas. The Smoke Jumper. New York, NY: Dell Book, 2001. Print. 560 pgs. ISBN: 0440235162. Source: Purchased.
While my mom is attempting to become knowledgeable in all things, I’m more interested in the wildflowers I see on my hikes. I can easily identify the large mammals (bison, grizzly bear, gray wolf, deer) during trips through Yellowstone, but the tiniest flower is not something I can name right on the spot. According to Schiemann’s introduction, there are approximately 2,500 flowering plants growing in Montana, and his book features more than 350 species. Not comprehensive, by any means. And Schiemann says he has tried to include Montana’s more beautiful and most common wildflowers, as well as examples of less common species.
After using this book for over three weeks, I’ve decided that (a) there are too many white flowers in Montana and (b) there are too many yellow flowers in Montana. I’ve pretty much decided photographing yellow and white flowers aren’t worth it because I won’t be able to identify them when I get home. There are a couple of exceptions, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to identify yellow or white flowers upon site. I also need a book that concentrates on wildflowers common to the county or at least region of Montana that I live in. Schiemann’s books include flowers native to certain sections of Montana I have not visited, but some of the flowers I see every day are not included. Very frustrating.
“Wallflower — Erysimum asperum. Wallflower, also called prairie rocket, is an 8- to 30-inch-tall biennial, with bright yellow or orangish yellow, four-petaled flowers arranged in a tight raceme. The stem is occasionally branched and has a cluster or spreading, linear to elliptical leaves at the base and numerous alternate, linear steam leaves. The margins of the leaves are entire or may be toothed, and the surface is covered with fine hairs.” (pg. 156)
“Great Plains Paintbrush — Castilleja sessiliflora. Great Plains paintbrush, called by many other names, including downy paintcup, may not be recognized at first as a paintbrush. The clustered steams are 4 to 12 inches tall and covered with shaggy hairs. The lower leaves on the stem are linear and the upper ones have a pair of narrow lobes. The corolla consists of a long curved tube, longer than the narrow three- to five-lobed greenish bracts that are tinged with pink or red and covered with fine hairs. the flowers vary from pink to purple or pinkish green to yellowish green, or a combination of these.” (pg. 92)
As for the structure of this book, I appreciate the “thumbnail identification guide” included at the beginning of the book as identifying a red photo was much easier when the red flowers are all printed side-by-side on one page. That said, though, when a flower isn’t of a rarer color such as red or isn’t funnel or bell-shaped, the pictures are too small for me to identify a flower based on pistil color, leaf arrangement, or anything other than the number of petals. Of course, the guide makes it easier to narrow down my photo of a yellow flower to the seventeen that include five petals, but I still have to turn to the larger photo in the back to really identify it. And even then that’s not possible because the photo within the book doesn’t always include the leaves, which often distinguish one yellow flower from another.
Book Mentioned:
- Schiemann, Donald Anthony. Wildflowers of Montana. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 2005. Print. 306 pgs. ISBN: 0878425047. Source: Library.
