by James Perry
Lock your doors.
The Day We Leave
Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
ONE of the most rewarding moments of working in Yellowstone is the day we leave. Being seasonal workers, we know exactly what day we’re going to be cut loose, and as the departure date nears it occupies our thoughts more and more until it becomes an obsessive fantasy. Everyone swaps stories of what they plan to do once they’ve turned in their uniforms; the places they’re going to visit, the people they’re going to see, the sleep they’re going to catch up on, the good food they’re going to eat (God yes, the food!).
It can feel like you’ve just come from the Moon when you finally hit the road: the radio in your car picks up strange songs from groups you’ve never heard of; people talk about episodes of TV shows you’ve never seen; or the government has fingered a new official enemy (“What? We’re at war with France!?”). It’s amazing how out-of-touch one can get in just a few months, and with a few thousand dollars in your pocket at season’s end it can seem as if all of America is a vast cotton-candy continent just waiting to be tasted. It’s a bit like being released from prison (I imagine), but more like school holidays. It’s a lot like Jack Kerouac’s dreaming of winewomenfriends atop Desolation Peak. After six months in the secluded Rockies you almost expect a greeting, cheering crowd at the entrance gates when you leave: “Welcome back! We missed you!”
It’s glorious. And then it’s gone. The fine thread that holds our summer community together unravels the moment the company washes its hands of us. We pack our vehicles and leave. A few people try to extend the show by car-pooling to another park or winter resort, but Yellowstone, like a sated lover, turns her back to us and sleeps.
We quickly come to realize that we’ve left something special up there in the mountains, and that the “real world” is a lot less friendly than we remembered it. Maybe the first inkling occurs when we drive by pastures dotted with slow, uncomprehending cows instead of the muscular and wary bison we’ve grown accustomed to. Or else it’s when we think of hot springs when we see clouds of steam pouring from an industrial smokestack. Certainly the realization has come when, as a friend once told me, the only wilderness to be found is by lying on the lawn at night, gazing up at the starry sky.
And that is a large part of the reason why I’ve kept coming back to Yellowstone, against all the well-intentioned counsel of friends and family over the years. Despite the overarching corporate presence in my life (I work at the company store, eat at the company cafeteria, sleep in the company dorm), there is a prevailing quality of rightness about this place. It’s as if being surrounded by wild animals, unspoiled scenery, clean air and trout-filled streams were natural or something.
I had a good laugh at a Far Side cartoon that showed a middle-aged Peter Pan in an office cubicle, staring into space. The caption read:
Thirty years had passed, and although he had no real regrets about marrying Wendy, buying a home, and having two kids, Peter found his thoughts often going back to his life in Never-Never-Land.
I imagine ex-Yellowstone employees the world over pausing at work to dwell on a memory of uncomplicated laughter under the pines before the world closed in on them and filled their days with matters of consequence.
Epilogue
I’VE worked in other national parks, trying them on like hats, but I would always discard them as a seasonal fad and return to my old chapeau. It seemed that Yellowstone had spoiled me for natural places. While I could appreciate springtime in the Sierras, the dramatic storms and sunsets of the Grand Canyon, or the tropical sultriness of the Florida Everglades, none of them had that ineffable je ne sais quoi of my adopted mountain home. Why was this? It took me a while to realize that the difference was not in the parks at all. Yellowstone was different because I loved her. I could say of the other parks what The Little Prince said of the other roses that were not his own: "You are beautiful, but you are empty... One could not die for you." Yellowstone is more important than all the other parks because it is she that I have explored; because it is from her rivers that I have drunk when thirsty; because I have eaten her berries; because I have listened to her waterfalls and hailstorms and gushing geysers and winter silences; because it is she that I have longed for when away. Puisque c'est ma rose.
I used to joke about how, when I finish my final season, I should be given a little parcel of land in the Park. But part of the reason that I love Yellowstone is exactly her inaccessibility. No one lives here. We’re all squatters. Yellowstone is the perfect lover; always willing to take you in, demanding only your physical exertion, and then disappearing in the night with nothing more than lipstick traces on the mirror which read, "Call me anytime."
fini
My good friend, do not grieve, but depart;
and if your love lingers on, some day return.
- Gautama Buddha
SOURCES
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Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, New York, 1995.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass.
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Fontenot, Brit. Striking Similarities: Labor Versus Capital in Yellowstone National Park.
Yellowstone Science, Volume 5, No. 4, p. 16. Fall 1997.
Fritz, William J. Roadside Geology of the Yellowstone Country.
Mountain Press Publishing Co., Missoula, Montana, 1985.
Glover, Cal. A Grizzly Death in Yellowstone.
Homestead Publishing, Moose, Wyoming, 1994.
Haines, Aubrey L. The Yellowstone Story, Vols. 1 & 2.
Yellowstone Library and Museum Association, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 1977.
Heinlein, Robert A. Stranger in a Strange Land.
Ace/Putnam Books, New York, New York, 1961.
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, New York, 1940.
Hughes, Ted. Birthday Letters.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1998.
Lohse, Joyce B. A Yellowstone Savage: Life in Nature's Wonderland.
J.D. Charles Publishing, Colorado Springs, CO., 1988.
McGahan, Andrew. Praise.
Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., New York, New York, 1992.
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Vistabooks, LLC, Silverthorne, CO., 1999.
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G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, New York, 1955.
Plath, Sylvia. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams.
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St. Martin’s Press, 2004.
Russell, Charles M. Trails Plowed Under.
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Schullery, Paul. Mountain Time.
Simon and Schuster, New York, New York, 1988.
St. Exupery, Antoine de. The Little Prince.
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Smith, Robert B., & Siegel, Lee J. Windows into the Earth: The Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
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Squatters in Paradise
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Perry was born in England to an American father and a French mother. He moved with his family to the United States at the age of two and soon began working in Ye
llowstone National Park (or so it seems). This is his second book. His first book, Fortune’s Child: Travels on the Open Road, is very difficult to find.
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[1] Firearms were allowed in Yellowstone when a rider was attached to the Credit Card Consumer Relief bill of 2009, which made it legal for loaded guns to be brought into our National Parks. Yippee kai-ay.
[2] Listen, some of my best friends are cooks. They're really wonderful people and I'd never for an instant consider putting them in the same category as these fuck-ups. I'm stating this disclaimer on their behalf in part because of my concern for their feelings, but mostly because I don't want them to slap my steak with their penises.
[3 ]3 Alston Chase wrote about how elk had become too numerous in the Park and quoted a researcher who made the unfortunate claim that the herds had so denuded the browse that "the northern range would not burn if you napalmed it." This was written two years before the massive fires of 1988. Embarrassing. However, the response from the pettifoggers in service of the NPS was no better. Park historians Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey inveighed against these affronts, writing that the ungulate population in the northern range had been historically high. This claim was refuted by the more independent-minded Mary Ann Franke in her book To Save the Wild Bison, when she revealed that the only source these officials relied upon was the journal of a prospector who claimed to have seen "thousands of buffalo quietly grazing" close to the north boundary of what would soon be Yellowstone Park in 1870. This proximate prospector also claimed to have caught "thousands of fish" - a journal entry artfully ignored by the Park historians.
[4] The last act of the Clinton administration before leaving office was to phase out the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. When George W. Bush took office however, this edict was ignored, leading to lawsuits, recriminations, tears, a skit on The Daily Show, and general political burlesque. When the dust had settled (momentarily) a compromise had been reached in which the old 2-stroke snowmobiles were banned from the Park, while cleaner, quieter 4-strokes would be allowed to ply the winter roads in lower numbers and under supervision.
[5] The reader will recall my own ineffectual attempts to effect change in the company.