Reminds me of the conclusion to one of the great motion pictures of the Western genre.... how its theme is intertwined with the story you share..... seems there's been a lot of printing of the legend... and not just on the silver screen.
Given my PhD in Mythology, I have thought a lot about this very notion, particularly as it relates to myths that appear to have some historical antecedent. For example, I am convinced there was a Trojan War and an Arthur of the Britons (note, I don't here say King Arthur). Yet those tales grew in the telling until they became myth, er, legend. And I would daresay that those legends made for better stories than the actual history.
NB: One of the great scholars of Arthurian literature was Roger Sherman Loomis, Williams '10 (that is, Class of 1910).
It's very gratifying to me that with your PhD, you still find value in this Substack. I don't have the academic background; I've just been trying to tell stories my whole career. When it comes to stories of humans' relationships to nature, it certainly seems that the legends work better than history -- and that's the dynamic I'm trying to explore here, what we both gain and lose from that. I appreciate your contributions! :)
Thanks for the good word. I have really been enjoying your substack. You write very well and inspire me to get off my duff and set up my own.
My PhD program had a set curriculum and one of the classes I came to love was "Psyche and Nature". Have you read David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous? There are a lot of great nature myths, particularly when the hero goes into the wilderness to seek wisdom.
At Williams, in Gail Newman's amazing class, Literature of the High (German) Middle Ages, we read Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival where the eponymous hero gains wisdom under the tutelage of Trevrizent, the wise old man/hermit, who lives in the forest.
Many mythologies have the hero (or heroic twins in a Navajo tale) needing to go into the wilderness (i.e., out into nature) before they can assume their roles in their communities.
Holy Cow! If only I had known.... In my defense, I'll note that you posted then before our reunion, hence, before I had learned about this wonderful substack!
A few years back I was reading some 17th-Century books at Houghton Library to try to understand what life was like in early colonial Massachusetts. A recurring theme was of white women ravaged by native people. Turns out that the stories of settlers at the hands of angry savages was a literary commonplace, as central to their era as heroic lone white men v The Wilderness you've identified here a mere 150 years ago.
(trying to shrug, hoping to blunt the force of the argument I fear is coming) So did Yellowstone become the world's first national park because Everts' story fit this ancient archetype? I'm arguing No. It was Moran, Jackson, Hayden, art, science. Granted, one could argue that Hayden might not have taken his expedition if Everts' story hadn't been so popular -- but I believe that road leads only to cynicism and despair, so I'm going to take this other road.
Personally I'm a fan of the 1869 Folsom/Cook expedition, for two reasons. First, these were curious Montana residents who came back with amazing stories that nobody believed because "who the hell are you?" Washburn and later Hayden were in effect arbitraging class-based reputations. Second, it suggests that these "discoveries" were inevitable; if not Colter/Folsom/Everts/Hayden, then someone else.
But my point is more about how we may be getting waylaid based on the ways that "lone white man versus the wilderness" (Everts, Colter) is a "masculine conception of adventure," as Heather Hansman discussed last week (https://naturalstories.substack.com/p/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-woman-outside). If Yellowstone today is not a story of a lone white man versus the wilderness, then maybe its origin story shouldn't be either.
Reminds me of the conclusion to one of the great motion pictures of the Western genre.... how its theme is intertwined with the story you share..... seems there's been a lot of printing of the legend... and not just on the silver screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=363ZAmQEA84
Yup! It's been sort of a theme of mine. :) https://naturalstories.substack.com/p/print-the-legend
Given my PhD in Mythology, I have thought a lot about this very notion, particularly as it relates to myths that appear to have some historical antecedent. For example, I am convinced there was a Trojan War and an Arthur of the Britons (note, I don't here say King Arthur). Yet those tales grew in the telling until they became myth, er, legend. And I would daresay that those legends made for better stories than the actual history.
NB: One of the great scholars of Arthurian literature was Roger Sherman Loomis, Williams '10 (that is, Class of 1910).
It's very gratifying to me that with your PhD, you still find value in this Substack. I don't have the academic background; I've just been trying to tell stories my whole career. When it comes to stories of humans' relationships to nature, it certainly seems that the legends work better than history -- and that's the dynamic I'm trying to explore here, what we both gain and lose from that. I appreciate your contributions! :)
John--
Thanks for the good word. I have really been enjoying your substack. You write very well and inspire me to get off my duff and set up my own.
My PhD program had a set curriculum and one of the classes I came to love was "Psyche and Nature". Have you read David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous? There are a lot of great nature myths, particularly when the hero goes into the wilderness to seek wisdom.
At Williams, in Gail Newman's amazing class, Literature of the High (German) Middle Ages, we read Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival where the eponymous hero gains wisdom under the tutelage of Trevrizent, the wise old man/hermit, who lives in the forest.
Many mythologies have the hero (or heroic twins in a Navajo tale) needing to go into the wilderness (i.e., out into nature) before they can assume their roles in their communities.
Holy Cow! If only I had known.... In my defense, I'll note that you posted then before our reunion, hence, before I had learned about this wonderful substack!
Fascinating!
A few years back I was reading some 17th-Century books at Houghton Library to try to understand what life was like in early colonial Massachusetts. A recurring theme was of white women ravaged by native people. Turns out that the stories of settlers at the hands of angry savages was a literary commonplace, as central to their era as heroic lone white men v The Wilderness you've identified here a mere 150 years ago.
(trying to shrug, hoping to blunt the force of the argument I fear is coming) So did Yellowstone become the world's first national park because Everts' story fit this ancient archetype? I'm arguing No. It was Moran, Jackson, Hayden, art, science. Granted, one could argue that Hayden might not have taken his expedition if Everts' story hadn't been so popular -- but I believe that road leads only to cynicism and despair, so I'm going to take this other road.
Was Colter's Hell a similar impetus to the Hayden expedition? What other/earlier anecdotes caught attention?
Personally I'm a fan of the 1869 Folsom/Cook expedition, for two reasons. First, these were curious Montana residents who came back with amazing stories that nobody believed because "who the hell are you?" Washburn and later Hayden were in effect arbitraging class-based reputations. Second, it suggests that these "discoveries" were inevitable; if not Colter/Folsom/Everts/Hayden, then someone else.
But my point is more about how we may be getting waylaid based on the ways that "lone white man versus the wilderness" (Everts, Colter) is a "masculine conception of adventure," as Heather Hansman discussed last week (https://naturalstories.substack.com/p/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-woman-outside). If Yellowstone today is not a story of a lone white man versus the wilderness, then maybe its origin story shouldn't be either.