A Teton Country Anthology

Roberts Rinehart, 1990. paperback. Like New. 6x0x9. For over a century, the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming has been written about as a uniquely beautiful and alluring portion ofAmerica. Its attractiveness has also, as Robert Righter points out in his introduction, created a “dramatic human history,” involving Native Americans, trappers, explorers, mountain­ eers, stockmen, settlers, guides, sportsmen, scientists, dude ranchers, artists, writers, and—more recently—developers, winter-sports enthusiasts, oilmen, and the rich and famous seeking less-crowded, more-unspoiled country with unmatched scenery. Righter’s editorial approach samples significantwriting on the Teton area’s natural features and wildlife, its history—issues of develop­ ment, conservation, land use, and government protection versus private owner­ ship in particular—and varied visitors and residents whose accounts taken from diaries, books, and periodicals form the fourteen anthology selections. The writings focus on explorations beginning in the 1870s, treks for sporting adven­ ture between 1885 and 1898, extended visits and settlement, and controversial issues after the turn-of-the-century involving the elk herd, establishment of Jackson Hole National Monument in 1943, and the growing awareness of the irreplaceable aesthetic values of the area’s natural environment. Some selections are by well-known authors—Owen Wister, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and the long-time resident conservationists and writers, Olaus and Margaret Murie. There are also interesting and lively pieces by the Englishman William A. Baillie-Grohman, reacting to the region in 1880 with a sharp eye and considerable humor; Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson , wife of the writer-naturalist, describing an imaginative tenderfoot’s initial impressions of the country and its inhabitants in 1898; Fanny Kemble Wister, writing in 1911 as a young girl very much taken with Wyoming dude-ranch life; Frances Judge, portraying ranching as difficult but rewarding and colorfully characterizing her strong, life-loving grandmother; and by Fritiof Fryxell, a ranger-naturalist, whose verbal landscape painting emphasizes the region’s appeal to the human sense of beauty and wonder.