By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
Three fur trappers – one with severe wounds to his hip and thigh, another who has lost his pants – walk 220 miles through the wilderness with no food after being attacked by Blackfoot Indians.
John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fashions some crude snowshoes and sets out alone on a couple hundred-mile hike after wintering with the Crow tribe.
Members of the Medical Lake book club gathered Wednesday, May 12 to hear these and other stories surrounding the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, as told by Montana author Harold Picton.
A teacher at the Yellowstone Institute in Yellowstone National Park and professor emeritus of wildlife management at Montana State University, Picton has written more than 100 scientific articles regarding species from fruit flies to grizzly bears as well as three books: “Saga of the Sun,” “Montana's Wildlife Legacy: Decimation to Restoration” and “Buffalo: Natural History and Conservation.”
Picton, who has close friends in the area, has given several presentations to the book club over the years on everything from volcanoes to buffalos. This time around he focused on some seldom-told stories pertaining to those rugged – and often colorful – characters who trapped, explored and toured the Yellowstone wilderness during the 19th century.
“I guess I'm automatically a historian, just because I've been involved in the Yellowstone area for so long,” Picton told the group of about 20 who gathered at the Medical Lake Library. “I ran across these accounts of events that nobody ever seems to mention or discuss very much. They're in books but they're kind of buried.”
A number of stories dealt with an overly ambitious U.S. Army lieutenant named Gustavus Doane who, on one occasion in winter of 1876, set out with a band of eight men to explore the Grand Canyon of the Snake River. Troubles beset the crew early and often, and they were ultimately forced to abandon their journey when their boat was badly damaged and supplies ran out.
“They kill a horse and boil the meat and one man makes the comment in his journal that it tastes like horse sweat smells. Apparently it wasn't too appetizing,” Picton said.
In another yarn, the ever-daring Doane and his troop rescue a band of tourists from certain peril. “It's like some scene out of a John Wayne movie,” Picton said. “He rides around this big mountain and hears gunfire ahead and sees through the smoke a bunch of tourists that have been surrounded by Nez Perce Indians. They've been having a gun battle all day, so he just gallops up and saves them.”
Picton said telling offbeat stories like these is a great way to open people up to what the dramatic history of Yellowstone has to offer.
“Some of these stories are interesting and, to me, worth repeating,” Picton said. “They're wrinkles in the general flow of history; kind of been folded up in the pages and nobody ever stretches out the pages to read.”
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].
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