Jackson Hole Underground

Edward Rothstein of The New York Times writes a thoughtful essay about his visit to the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

Rothstein probes the meaning behind pastoral depictions of wilderness:

There is some fantasy in this, a simplification that can lead the way
into kitsch. But if taxidermy, hunting and painting are modes of capture, they are also modes of tribute. The moose heads mounted on walls or sold for thousands of dollars in souvenir shops in Jackson are affirmations of the hunter’s power and prowess. But like many paintings at this museum they are also monuments to a particular kind of encounter with the wild, in the wild. Environmentalism and hunting and painting become strange bedfellows.

Rothstein more vividly experiences the wild from the trails of Grand Teton park.

Gary Strieker is using new media to spotlight critical environmental issues.

Tonight the Jackson Hole Film Institute and Pursue Balance are sponsoring a free talk and screening of some of Strieker’s films from 7 to 9 p.m. at Teton Mountain Lodge. The filmmaker will be on hand to answer questions.

Strieker is a former award-winning international correspondent for CNN who went on to found the Environment News Trust, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to producing video news reports. His short films can be viewed at the Assignment Earth home page and via Yahoo! video, as well as on a new half-hour program on PBS.

Recently Strieker has worked with Jackson journalists Melinda Binks and Rebecca Huntington on stories such as coal-bed methane drilling in the Powder River Basin, delisting of bald eagles and depleted trout stocks in Idaho.

Binks, a videographer who owns Fall Creek Productions, and Huntington, the former ace environmental reporter for the News&Guide, also will show some of their work.

Strieker will screen “Mountains of Coal,” a feature about hilltop mining in West Virginia, and the short films “Mexican Wolves” and “Smuggling Apes.”

(Updated 6/27 with photos from the actual river trip, shot by passenger Paul Schnell)

I was back on the river yesterday, after a week’s layoff due to foul weather. The flow in Grand Teton National Park is surging, with the sudden arrival of sunshine finally triggering a melt-off in the high country.

Earlier I wrote about the experience of exploring the river in the park, and that’s the way spring has been: abundant wildlife, elk sightings nearly every trip, the uncertainty around each bend of not knowing just what you’ll encounter.

Last night, on the last of my three trips, I rowed into a small side channel. It’s quiet, and a good place to see wildlife up close, when animals happen to be there.

Within minutes I had spotted what looked like a large dirt clump on the side of the river. It was too large to be a beaver, but it wasn’t moving. We floated closer. A tourist asked me a question, and the brown shape slowly roused, turned around and looked at us with sad eyes.

“It’s a grizzly bear,” I said, and the tourists screamed.

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I have returned to river guiding on my first and favorite stretch of the Snake in Grand Teton National Park. There are many reasons for this, chief among them a desire to spend more time outside and less staring at a computer, while getting paid for it.

Late last week, a call came over the radio from two guides in front that I should hug a certain bank a few miles downstream of Deadman’s Bar. There was a carcass I might want to have a look at, the guides said.

So I rowed my boat, slowly rounding a curve. I stood on the oar frame to get a better look, and as ten expectant tourists arched their necks, we came in sight of … a dead wolf.

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(Updated 5/20 with slide show and note about Grizzly No. 399)

Photos © 2008 by Sue Cedarholm. Click to enlarge.

At last, Mother Nature flipped the switch, and Jackson Hole was thrown from winter into the glory of summer.

There was no better display of the exuberance this weekend than the foxes denning in the Karns Meadow along Flat Creek in downtown Jackson.

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