Finding
friends and inspiration on the river
By Jessianne Castle EBS ENVIRONMENTAL & OUTDOORS EDITOR
LIVINGSTON –
The sky opened up and water fell from the heavens in a high basin tucked away
in Paradise Valley. The rain dropped cold upon my neck, but it quickly passed,
a cool kiss in the August sun. As rolling thunder and bright lightning jarred
my bones, I embraced the heavy smell of damp and living soil.
From some
500 yards, I watched two grizzly bears eat caraway root, despite the downpour;
I was as drenched as they were. Even with wet clothes, I didn’t shiver right
away; I wasn’t cold at first. It must have been a warmth radiating from within,
for my senses were thrumming in this place: The Greater Yellowstone.
It was
midway through an immersive week-long field course, an experience that embraced
the confluence of writing, adventure and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The
course was one of four offered this year by Missoula-based Freeflow Institute,
a fledgling organization founded last year in order to give emerging writers,
artists and athletes the time, community and inspiration needed for thoughtful,
creative work.
I was one of
11 participants, joined by Freeflow founder Chandra Brown and intern Steph
Maltarich, as well as professional journalists and course instructors Alexis
Bonogofsky and Elliott Woods. We gathered at Pine Creek Lodge south of
Livingston on Aug. 12, a group of strangers hailing from across the state and
nation, joined by the common interest of the pen. Many of us were professional
journalists, writers and editors. A resident of Shields Valley north of
Livingston, I was the only writer venturing into my proverbial backyard.
With the
gentle babbling of Pine Creek as a backdrop, we began the course by listening
to the weighty words of notable authors Terry Tempest Williams, Rick Bass and
Doug Peacock. As the Perseids meteor shower shot sparks across the eastern sky,
we were told to be fierce in our passions and embrace writing as a place to
come together.
Following in
the Freeflow mission—to take the practice of writing outdoors—we spent the
following days on an intensive study of the Yellowstone River. Guided by Ashea
Mills, a longtime veteran guide in Yellowstone Park, our party sojourned
through the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone River, hiking 20 miles over two
days in the hot and arid belly of the beast—the very headwaters of the
Yellowstone, the last major undammed river in the Lower 48.
While
traversing the boulder-strewn slopes and tight cliffs of the Black Canyon, we
discussed the decades-old debate over whether to allow paddling on the scenic
and treacherous Black Canyon whitewater, while allowing the conversation to
flow, ebb and undulate to encompass questions over park visitation,
recreational use versus conservation, and the question of what it means for a
place to be wild.
Once through
the park, we took to rafts and floated from Gardiner to Emigrant, accompanied
by river guides Jim Hepburn and Nathan Herring. We made splashes around Yankee
Jim’s formidable rapids and took pit stops in Gardiner and Tom Miner Basin,
among others.
It was at
Tom Miner Basin where we watched the grizzlies feast, accompanied by Daniel
Anderson, whose family owns the Anderson Ranch. One of just a handful of
landowners in the basin, the Andersons are well versed in the conservation
conversation. They are largely a cow-calf operation that partners ranching
heritage with sustainable living and are members of the reputed Tom Miner Basin
Association that seeks to reduce predator conflict and maintain healthy
stewardship of the land.
Daniel, a
master’s student at the University of Montana in Missoula, hosted our group at
his family home as a part of his larger Common Ground Project, which launched
this year. Seeking to provide a platform for intentional, meaningful
conversation, Common Ground is a place where groups can come to talk, with
conversation framed around building community through learning, storytelling
and experiencing a sense of place. The Common Ground ethos is something
essential to the question of preserving the Greater Yellowstone.
On the
eleventh hour—the last day of our campaign on Aug. 17—we arrived at Chico Hot
Springs and the glory of naturally warm mineral hot springs. The warm water was
an antidote to river weary soldiers, but it also became an elixir for the mind
as we discussed strategies for conservation and a way of going forward. Those
who’ve participated in a field course, an experiential learning journey, know
the feeling of information overload.
Throughout
the trip, Bonogofsky and Woods guided our party of dawning writers. For me, it
was a pilgrimage of sorts: within a backdrop of a familiar place I met
strangers and came out with friends as well as a deeper sense of place and home
and what it means to protect those still wild corners on the map. At one point,
Woods said something that remains etched in my mind: “Journalism is the first
draft of history.”
It is now
that our actions matter. And it is this place—the mountains, the rivers, the
sagebrush plains, the hills, the valleys, the brooks and the springs—that needs
our full attention. It is now that we must intentionally experience the Greater
Yellowstone so that we might choose responsibly and shape what will be the
Greater Yellowstone of tomorrow.
