Showing posts with label Yellowstone National Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yellowstone National Park. Show all posts

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Monday, July 23, 1973. Old Faithful Inn added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Old Faithful Inn in 1909.
Today In Wyoming's History: July 23: 1923  1973   Old Faithful Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution:  On This Day.
  President Nixon refused to turn over tape recordings to the Senate or special prosecutor.

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Oops.

I'm a bit late to this but, um, no, that was Grant.

Roosevelt was just 13 years old at the time.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if the same thing was attempted today, Wyoming's Congressional representation would oppose it, and probably the senior elected officials in the state as well.

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Sunday, August 23, 1942. The beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Today in World War II History—August 23, 1942: 80 Years Ago—Aug. 23, 1942: Battle of Stalingrad officially begins: German Army Group B reaches the Volga River near Stalingrad.

Stalingrad is claimed to be the largest battle in history.

In addition to what is noted above, the Luftwaffe bombed the city, resulting in 40,000 civilian deaths and the reduction of much of the city to rubble.  Troops of the German 16th Panzer Division almost reached the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, the USSR's largest tank producer.


Martha Hanson, age 45, was mauled by a bear at Yellowstone National Park near her tourist cabin. She would die from her injuries on the 27th.

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Monday, August 14, 1922. The Shipping Board.

In London, a conference between Weimar Germany and the United Kingdom about adjusting the German reparations, which was horrifying the French, broke off without results.

The IRA took Dundalk.   Following the fall of Cork, the IRA's campaign had reverted to a guerilla campaign.

A packed lunch and later dinner for 48 people at Loch Marie hotel in Scotland inflected the diners with botulism from canned duck paste.  Eight would ultimately die from the disease.  All of those who died had sandwiches made from the duck paste.

It's stories like this that have always freaked me out about home canning.

Hebrew, Arabic, and English were designated as the official languages in Palestine.

President Harding's Shipping Board was headed to a conference, giving us a glimpse into regular men's ware of the period.


It was summer, and therefore warm, which explains the straw boater hat.  Nonetheless, this fellow was otherwise wearing a three piece suit.

Note the watch chain.


Another three piece suit, but this fellow has an early version of a fedora that he's carrying.  Note the watch chain yet again.

Also, this fellow has rimless glasses, but they're the old style with the bridge that rested on the nose.  I.e, no nose pieces.



Dressed for traveling, and with a suit that's a bit rumply, this fellow has opted for a wool newsboy cap, something I wear in the winter myself, but not in the summer.  Also a three piece suit and he also has a watch chain.

We'll throw in this Army aviator whose photo was taken the same day for an unrelated reason.



Lt. Paul Wilkins in the uniform of that period.

The Semi Centennial Geyser erupted in Yellowstone.

Thursday, June 16, 2022

Yellowstone. A really radical idea.

A really radical idea that won't happen, but maybe should.


There have been really horrific floods, as we all know, in Yellowstone National Park. Roads in the northern part of the park may be closed for the rest of the summer.  Here's a National Park Service item on it:

Updates

  • Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance.
  • Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.
  • The National Park Service will make every effort to repair these roads as soon as possible; however, it is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.
  • To prevent visitors from being stranded in the park if conditions worsen, the park in coordination with Yellowstone National Park Lodges made the decision to have all visitors move out of overnight accommodations (lodging and campgrounds) and exit the park.
  • All entrances to Yellowstone National Park remain temporarily CLOSED while the park waits for flood waters to recede and can conduct evaluations on roads, bridges and wastewater treatment facilities to ensure visitor and employee safety.
  • There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated.
  • The park’s southern loop appears to be less impacted than the northern roads and teams will assess damage to determine when opening of the southern loop is feasible. This closure will extend minimally through next weekend (June 19).
  • Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen. This will likely mean implementation of some type of temporary reservation system to prevent gridlock and reduce impacts on park infrastructure.
  • At this time, there are no known injuries nor deaths to have occurred in the park as a result of the unprecedented flooding. 
  • Effective immediately, Yellowstone’s backcountry is temporarily closed while crews assist campers (five known groups in the northern range) and assess damage to backcountry campsites, trails and bridges.
  • The National Park Service, surrounding counties and states of Montana and Wyoming are working with the park’s gateway communities to evaluate flooding impacts and provide immediate support to residents and visitors.
  • Water levels are expected to recede today in the afternoon; however, additional flood events are possible through this weekend.

Here's an idea.

Don't rebuild the roads.

For years, there have been complaints about how overcrowded Yellowstone National Park has become.  A combination of a tourist economy and high mobility, and frankly the American inability to grasp that the country has become overpopulated, had contributed to that.  For years there have been suggestions that something needed to be done about that.

Maybe what is needed is. .. nothing.

Well, nothing now, so to speak.

Yellowstone was the nation's first National Park.  It was created at a time when park concepts, quite frankly, were different from they are now.   Created in 1872, its establishment was in fact visionary, and it did grasp in part that the nation's frontier was closing, even though the creation of the park came a fully four years prior to the Battle of Little Big Horn.  There was, at the time of its creation, a sort of lamentation that the end of the Frontier was in sight, and the nation was going to become one of farms and cities.

Nobody saw cities like they exist now, however, and nobody grasped that the day would come when agricultural land would be the province of the rich, and that homesteading would go from a sort of desperate act to something that people would cite to, in the case of their ancestors, as some sort of basis for moral superiority.  Things are much different today than they were then.

Indeed, in some ways, the way the park is viewed is a bit bipolar.  To some, particularly those willing to really rough it, Yellowstone is a sort of giant wilderness area.  To others, it's a sort of theme park. 

The appreciation of the need to preserve wilderness existed then, but what that meant wasn't really understood.  The park was very much wilderness at first, and some things associated with wilderness went on within it, and of course still do.  Early camping parties travelled there.  People fished there, and still do.  Hunting was prohibited early on, which had more to do with the 19th Century decline in wildlife due to market hunting than it did anything else.  This has preserved a sort of bipolarism in and of itself, as fishing is fish-hunting, just as bird hunting is fowling. There's no reason in fact that Yellowstone should have not been opened back up to hunting some time during the last quarter-century, but it is not as just as the park is wilderness to young adventurers from the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, and hearty back country folks of all ages, it's also a big public zoo for people from Newark or Taipei.  

Since 1872, all sorts of additional parks have been created. Some are on the Yellowstone model, such as Yosemite.  Others are historical sites such as Gettysburg or Ft. Laramie.  All, or certainly all that I've seen, are of value.

But they don't all have the same value.

Much of Yellowstone's value is in its rugged wilderness.  Some cite to the geothermal features of the park, but that's only a small portion of it.  And for that reason, much of Yellowstone today would make more sense existing as a Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the act that helps preserve the west in a very real way, and which western politicians, who often live lives much different than actual westerners, love to hate.

A chance exists here to bring back Yellowstone into that mold, which it was intended in part to be fro the very onset, and which many wish it was, or imagine it to be, today.

Don't rebuilt the roads.

That would in fact mean the northern part of the park would revert to wilderness, truly.  And it means that many fewer people would go to the park in general.  And it would hurt the tourist communities in the northern areas, and even in the southern areas, as the diminished access to the park would mean that the motorized brigade of American and International tourists wouldn't go there, as they wouldn't want to be too far from their air-conditioned vehicles.

But that's exactly what should be done.

Friday, June 10, 2022

Today In Wyoming's History: June 9, 2022. Mount Doane renamed First People's Mountain

Today In Wyoming's History: June 92022  The US Board on Geographic names has announced that Mount Doane in Yellowstone National Park is being renamed First People's Mountain.

Gustavus Doane was an Army officer and the peak was named for him during his lifetime.  He is associated with the Marius Massacre where he was an officer, and Native American groups have accordingly been seeking a change in the mountain's name since at least 2018


Tuesday, February 9, 2021

February 9, 1941. "Give us the tools, and we will finish the job."

 Winston Churchill delivered an international radio address on this date.


In it, he stated:

Five months have passed since I spoke to the British nation and the Empire on the broadcast. In wartime there is a lot to be said for the motto: “Deeds, not words.” All the same, it is a good thing to look around from time to time and take stock, and certainly our affairs have prospered in several directions during these last four or five months, far better than most of us would have ventured to hope.

We stood our ground and faced the two Dictators in the hour of what seemed their overwhelming triumph, and we have shown ourselves capable, so far, of standing up against them alone. After the heavy defeats of the German air force by our fighters in August and September, Herr Hitler did not dare attempt the invasion of this Island, although he had every need to do so and although he had made vast preparations. Baffled in this mighty project, he sought to break the spirit of the British nation by the bombing, first of London, and afterwards of our great cities. It has now been proved, to the admiration of the world, and of our friends in the United States, that this form of blackmail by murder and terrorism, so far from weakening the spirit of the British nation, has only roused it to a more intense and universal flame than was ever seen before in any modern community.

The whole British Empire has been proud of the Mother Country, and they long to be with us over here in even larger numbers. We have been deeply conscious of the love for us which has flowed from the Dominions of the Crown across the broad ocean spaces. There is the first of our war aims: to be worthy of that love, and to preserve it.

All through these dark winter months the enemy has had the power to drop three or four tons of bombs upon us for every ton we could send to Germany in return. We are arranging so that presently this will be rather the other way round; but, meanwhile. London and our big cities have had to stand their pounding. They remind me of the British squares at Waterloo. They are not squares of soldiers; they do not wear scarlet coats. They are just ordinary English Scottish and Welsh folk men, women and children-standing steadfastly together. But their spirit is the same, their glory is the same; and, in the end, their victory will be greater than far-famed Waterloo.

All honour to the Civil Defense Services of all kinds-emergency and regular, volunteer and professional who have helped our people through this formidable ordeal, the like of which no civilized community has ever been called upon to undergo. If I mention only one of these services here, namely the Police, it is because many tributes have been paid already to the others. But the Police have been in it everywhere, all the time, and as a working woman wrote to me: “What gentlemen they are!”

More than two-thirds of the winter has now gone, and so far we have had no serious epidemic; indeed, there is no increase of illness in spite of the improvised conditions of the shelters. That is most creditable to our local, medical and sanitary authorities, to our devoted nursing staff, and to the Ministry of Health, whose head, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, is now going to Canada in the important office of High Commissioner.

There is another thing which surprised me when I asked about it. In spite of all these new war-time offenses and prosecutions of all kinds; in spite of all the opportunities for looting and disorder, there has been less crime this winter and there are now fewer prisoners in our jails than in the years of peace.

We have broken the back of the winter. The daylight grows. The Royal Air Force grows, and is already certainly master of the daylight air. The attacks may be sharper, but they will be shorter; there will be more opportunities for work and service of all kinds; more opportunities for life. So, if our first victory was the repulse of the invader, our second was the frustration of his acts of terror and torture against our people at home.

Meanwhile, abroad, in October, a wonderful thing happened. One of the two Dictators – the crafty, cold-blooded, blackhearted Italian, who had thought to gain an Empire on the cheap by stabbing fallen France in the back – got into trouble. Without the slightest provocation, spurred on by lust of power and brutish greed, Mussolini attacked and invaded Greece, only to be hurled back ignominiously by the heroic Greek Army; who, I will say, with your consent, have revived before our eyes the glories which, from the classic age, gild their native land.

While Signor Mussolini was writhing and smarting under the Greek lash in Albania, Generals Wavell and Wilson, who were charged with the defense of Egypt and of the Suez Canal in accordance with our treaty obligations, whose task seemed at one time so difficult, had received very powerful reinforcements of men, cannon, equipment and. above all, tanks, which we had sent from our Island in spite of the invasion threat. Large numbers of troops from India, Australia and New Zealand had also reached them. Forthwith began that series of victories in Libya which have broken irretrievably the Italian military power on the African Continent. We have all been entertained, and I trust edified, by the exposure and humiliation of another of what Byron called

“Those Pagod things of sabre sway
With fronts of brass and feet of clay.”

Here then, in Libya, is the third considerable event upon which we may dwell with some satisfaction. It is just exactly two months ago, to a day, that I was waiting anxiously, but also eagerly, for the news of the great counter-stroke which had been planned against the Italian invaders of Egypt. The secret had been well kept. The preparations had been well made. But to leap across those seventy miles of desert, and attack an army of ten or eleven divisions, equipped with all the appliances of modern war, who had been fortifying themselves for three months – that was a most hazardous adventure.

When the brilliant decisive victory at Sidi Barrani, with its tens of thousands of prisoners, proved that we had quality, manoeuvring power and weapons superior to the enemy, who had boasted so much of his virility and his military virtues, it was evident that all the other Italian forces in eastern Libya were in great danger. They could not easily beat a retreat along the coastal road without running the risk of being caught in the open of our armoured divisions and brigades ranging far out into the desert in tremendous swoops and scoops. They had to expose themselves to being attacked piecemeal.

General Wavell – nay, all our leaders, and all their lithe, active, ardent men, British, Australian, Indian, in the Imperial Army – saw their opportunity. At that time I ventured to draw General Wavell’s attention to the seventh chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, at the seventh verse, where, as you all know-or ought to know- it is written: “Ask, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The Army of the Nile has asked, and it was given; they sought, and they have found; they knocked, and it has been opened unto them. In barely eight weeks, by a campaign which will long be studied as a model of the military art.

An advance of over 400 miles has been made. The whole Italian Army in the east of Libya, which was reputed to exceed 150,000 men, has been captured or destroyed. The entire province of Cyrenaica –  nearly as big as England and Wales – has been conquered. The unhappy Arab tribes, who have for thirty years suffered from the cruelty of Italian rule, carried in some cases to the point of methodical extermination, these Bedouin survivors have at last seen their oppressors in disorderly flight, or led off in endless droves as prisoners of war.

Egypt and the Suez Canal are safe, and the port, the base and the airfields of Benghazi constitute a strategic point of high consequence to the whole of the war in the Eastern Mediterranean.

This is the time, I think, to speak of the leaders who, at the head of their brave troops, have rendered this distinguished service to the King. The first and foremost, General Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of all the Armies in the Middle East has proved himself a master of war, sage, painstaking, daring and tireless. But General Wavell has repeatedly asked that others should share his fame.

General Wilson, who actually commands the Army of the Nile, was reputed to be one of our finest tacticians -and few will now deny that quality. General O’Connor, commanding the 13th Corps, with General Mackay, commanding the splendid Australians, and General Creagh, who trained and commanded the various armoured divisions which were employed these three men executed the complicated and astoundingly rapid movements which were made, and fought the actions which occurred. I have just seen a telegram from General Wavell in which he says that the success at Benghazi was due to the outstanding leadership and resolution of O’Connor and Creagh, ably backed by Wilson.

I must not forget here to point out the amazing mechanical feats of the British tanks, whose design and workmanship have beaten all records and stood up to all trials; and show us how closely and directly the work in the factories at home is linked with the victories abroad.

Of course, none of our plans would have succeeded had not our pilots, under Air Chief Marshal Longmore, wrested the control of the air from a far more numerous enemy. Nor would the campaign itself have been possible if the British Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Cunningham, had not chased the Italian Navy into its harbours and sustained every forward surge of the Army with all the flexible resources of sea power.

How far-reaching these resources are we can see from what happened at dawn this morning, when our Western Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Somerville, entered the Gulf of Genoa and bombarded in a shattering manner the naval base from which perhaps a Nazi German expedition might soon have sailed to attack General Weygand in Algeria or Tunis. It is right that the Italian people should be made to feel the sorry plight into which they have been dragged by Dictator Mussolini, and if the cannonade of Genoa, rolling along the coast, reverberating in the mountains, reached the ears of our French comrades in their grief and misery, it might cheer them with the feeling that friends-active friends-are near and that Britannia rules the waves.

The events in Libya are only part of the story: they are only part of the story of the decline and fall of the Italian Empire that will not take a future Gibbon so long to write as the original work. Fifteen hundred miles away to the southward a strong British and Indian army, having driven the invaders out of the Sudan, is marching steadily forward through the Italian Colony of Eritrea, thus seeking to complete the isolation of all the Italian troops in Abyssinia. Other British forces are entering Abyssinia from the west, while the army gathered in Kenya in the van of which we may discern the powerful forces of the Union of South Africa, organized by General Smuts is striking northward along the whole enormous front.

Lastly, the Ethiopian patriots, whose independence was stolen five years ago, have risen in arms; and their Emperor, so recently an exile in England, is in their midst to fight for their freedom and his throne. Here, then, we see the beginnings of a process of reparation, and of the chastisement of wrongdoing, which reminds us that, though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small.

While these auspicious events have been carrying us stride by stride from what many people though! a forlorn position, and was certainly a very grave position in May and June, to one which permits us to speak with sober confidence of our power to discharge our duty, heavy though it be in the future while this has been happening, a mighty tide of sympathy, of good will and of effective aid, has begun to flow across the Atlantic in support of the world cause which is at stake. Distinguished Americans have come over to see things here at the front, and to find out how the United States can help us best and soonest.

In Mr. Hopkins who has been my frequent companion during the last three weeks, we have the Envoy of the President, a President who has been newly re-elected to his august office. In Mr. Wendell Willkie we have welcomed the champion of the great Republican Party. We may be sure that they will both tell the truth about what they have seen over here, and more than that we do not ask. The rest we leave with good confidence to the judgment of the President the Congress and the people of the United States.

I have been so very careful, since I have been Prime Minister, not to encourage false hopes or prophesy smooth and easy things, and yet the tale that I have to tell today is one which must justly and rightly give us cause for deep thankfulness, and also, I think, for strong comfort and even rejoicing. But now I must dwell upon the more serious, darker and more dangerous aspects of the vast scene of the war. We must all of us have been asking ourselves: What has that wicked man whose crime-stained regime and system are at bay and in the toils what has he been preparing during these winter months? What new devilry is he planning? What new small country will he overrun or strike down? What fresh form of assault will he make upon our Island home and fortress; which let there be no mistake about it is all that stands between him and the dominion of the world?

We may be sure that the war is soon going to enter upon a phase of greater violence. Hitler’s confederate, Mussolini, has reeled back in Albania, but the Nazis- having absorbed Hungary and driven Rumania into a frightful internal convulsion- are now already upon the Black Sea. A considerable Nazi German army and air force is being built up in Rumania, and its forward tentacles have already penetrated Bulgaria.

With – we must suppose – the acquiescence of the Bulgarian Government, airfields are being occupied by German ground personnel numbering thousands, so as to enable the German air force to come into action from Bulgaria. Many preparations have been made for the movement of German troops into or through Bulgaria, and perhaps this southward movement has already begun.

We saw what happened last May in the Low Countries, how they hoped for the best: how they clung to their neutrality: how woefully they were deceived, overwhelmed, plundered, enslaved and since starved. We know how we and the French suffered when, at the last moment, at the urgent belated appeal of the King of the Belgians, we went to his aid. Of course, if all the Balkan people stood together and acted together, aided by Britain and Turkey, it would be many months before a German army and air force of sufficient strength to overcome them could be assembled in the southeast of Europe. And in those months much might happen.

Much will certainly happen as American aid becomes effective, as our air power grows, as we become a well-armed nation, and as our armies in the East increase in strength. But nothing is more certain than that, if the countries of southeastern Europe allow themselves to be pulled to pieces one by one, they will share the fate of Denmark, Holland and Belgium. And none can tell how long it will be before the hour of their deliverance strikes.

One of our difficulties is to convince some of these neutral countries in Europe that we are going to win. We think it astonishing that they should be so dense as not to see it as clearly as we do ourselves.   I remember in the last war, in July 1915, we began to think that Bulgaria was going wrong, so Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, Sir F. E. Smith and I asked the Bulgarian Minister to dinner to explain to him what a fool King Ferdinand would make of himself if he were to go in on the losing side. It was no use. The poor man simply could not believe it, or could not make his Government believe it.

So Bulgaria, against the wishes of her peasant population, against all her interests, fell in al the Kaiser’s tail and got sadly carved up and punished when the victory was won. I trust that Bulgaria is not going to make the same mistake again. If they do, the Bulgarian peasantry and people, for whom there has been much regard, both in Great Britain and in the United States, will for the third time in thirty years have been made to embark upon a needless and disastrous war.

In the Central Mediterranean the Italian Quisling, who is called Mussolini, and the French Quisling, commonly called Laval, are both in their different ways trying to make their countries into doormats for Hitler and his New Order, in the hope of being able to keep, or get the Nazi Gestapo and Prussian bayonets to enforce, their rule upon their fellow countrymen. I cannot tell how the matter will go, but at any rate we shall do our best to fight for the Central Mediterranean.

I dare say you will have noticed the very significant air action which was fought over Malta a fortnight ago. The Germans sent an entire Geschwader of dive-bombers to Sicily. They seriously injured our new aircraft carrier Illustrious, and then, as this wounded ship was sheltering in Malta harbour, they concentrated upon her all their force so as to beat her to pieces. But they were met by the batteries of Malta, which is one of the strongest defended fortresses in the world against air attack; they were met by the Fleet Air Arm and by the Royal Air Force, and. in two or three days, they had lost, out of a hundred and fifty dive-bombers, upwards of ninety, fifty of which were destroyed in the air and forty on the ground. Although the Illustrious, in her damaged condition, was one of the great prizes of the air and naval war, the German Geschwader accepted the defeat; they would not come any more. All the necessary repairs were made to the Illustrious in Malta harbour, and she steamed safely off to Alexandria under her own power at 23 knots. I dwell upon this incident, not at all because I think it disposes of the danger in the Central Mediterranean, but in order to show you that there, as elsewhere, we intend to give a good account of ourselves.

But after all, the fate of this war is going to be settled by what happens on the oceans, in the air, and – above all – in this Island. It seems now to be certain that the Government and people of the United States intend to supply us with all that is necessary for victory. In the last war the United States sent two million men across the Atlantic. But this is not a war of vast armies, firing immense masses of shells at one another. We do not need the gallant armies which are forming throughout the American Union. We do not need them this year, nor next year; nor any year that I can foresee. But we do need most urgently an immense and continuous supply of war materials and technical apparatus of all kinds. We need them here and we need to bring them here. We shall need a great mass of shipping in 1942, far more than we can build ourselves, if we are to maintain and augment our war effort in the West and in the East.

These facts are, of course, all well known to the enemy, and we must therefore expect that Herr Hitler will do his utmost to prey upon our shipping and to reduce the volume of American supplies entering these Islands. Having conquered France and Norway, his clutching fingers reach out on both sides of us into the ocean. I have never underrated this danger, and you know I have never concealed it from you. Therefore, I hope you will believe me when I say that I have complete confidence in the Royal Navy, aided by the Air Force of the Coastal Command, and that in one way or another I am sure they will be able to meet every changing phase of this truly mortal struggle, and that sustained by the courage of our merchant seamen, and of the dockers and workmen of all our ports, we shall outwit, outmanoeuvre, outfight and outlast the worst that the enemy’s malice and ingenuity can contrive.

I have left the greatest issue to the end. You will have seen that Sir John Dill, our principal military adviser, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, has warned us all that Hitler may be forced, by the strategic, economic and political stresses in Europe, to try to invade these Islands in the near future. That is a warning which no one should disregard. Naturally, we are working night and day to have everything ready. Of course, we are far stronger than we ever were before, incomparably stronger than we were in July, August and September. Our Navy is more powerful, our flotillas are more numerous; we are far stronger, actually and relatively, in the air above these Islands, than we were when our Fighter Command beat off and beat down the Nazi attack last autumn. Our Army is more numerous, more mobile and far better equipped and trained than in September, and still more than in July.

I have the greatest confidence in our Commander-in-Chief. General Brooke, and in the generals of proved ability who, under him, guard the different quarters of our land. But most of all I put my faith in the simple unaffected resolve to conquer or die which will animate and inspire nearly four million Britons with serviceable weapons in their hands. It is not an easy military operation to invade an island like Great Britain, without the command of the sea and without the command of the air, and then to face what will be waiting for the invader here.

But I must drop one word of caution; for, next to cowardice and treachery, overconfidence, leading to neglect or slothfulness, is the worst of martial crimes. Therefore, I drop one word of caution. A Nazi invasion of Great Britain last autumn would have been a more or less improvised affair. Hitler took it for granted that when France gave in we should give in; but we did not give in. And he had to think again. An invasion now will be supported by a much more carefully prepared tackle and equipment of landing craft and other apparatus, all of which will have been planned and manufactured in the winter months. We must all be prepared to meet gas attacks, parachute attacks, and glider attacks, with constancy, forethought and practiced skill.

I must again emphasize what General Dill has said, and what I pointed out myself last year. In order to win the war Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States; he may tear great provinces out of Russia, he may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire-nay, in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world- will be on his track, bearing with them the swords of justice.

The other day, President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late Presidential Election [Mr. Wendell Willkie] a letter of introduction to me, and in it he wrote out a verse, in his own handwriting, from Longfellow, which he said, “applies to you people as it does to us.” Here is the verse:

. . .Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate! 
What is the answer that I shall give, in your name, to this great man, the thrice-chosen head of a nation of a hundred and thirty millions? Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt: Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well. 
We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

There was more than a little bravado in the closing lines.  The speech itself acknowledged that things were set to get worse, and Churchill no doubt knew that was true.  For the time being, however, combat action was largely going the British way.

British forces continued to advance in Libya but their commanders decision to carry on to Tripoli will be overridden.

Day 528 February 9, 1941

British naval forces bombarded Genoa.

An Allied convoy was very badly hit near the Azores:

Today in World War II History—February 9, 1941


“Beau and young Morgan stallion at Lamar Ranger Station, February 9, 1941.”  Based on the date, the horse is either Wakefield Duke or Black Baron. Photo: Ernest R. Augustin, Jr., Photographs, #YELL 185380.3177, Yellowstone National Park Archives"

From:  Horse Sense

Monday, December 14, 2020

December 14, 1920 Sometimes the headlines are too good to pass up. And the "Gipper" dies of pneumonia.

I realize its unfair, but with the headlines we've had recently, maybe its nice to know that there've been bad ones before.

On the same day the baffled Congress was photographed with guests and young help, or at least the Senate was.

Senator France of Maryland was photographed with a mothers' group from his state.

And the Senate pages were photographed with "Marshall".  As I don't know anything about how this institution works, I don't know if the head of the Senate pages is termed a marshall, or if that was the older gentleman's name. 

The Wyoming State Tribune published an article about the commercialization of Yellowstone National Park.


And coal was in the headlines.

The House of Lords passed an amended version of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 which meant that a home rule bill had passed that body for the first time, if way too late.


Saturday, January 18, 2020

Wyoming. Twenty-five Years of Wolves.

Wolves in Natrona County, Wyoming.  A long ways from Yellowstone.  2011.


What I'd forgotten, until I read an item on the Tribune on the Colorado story, is that this past week marks the 25th anniversary of their reintroduction into Wyoming.  Here's the short snipped about it on our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History:
Today In Wyoming's History: January 121995  Wolves retintroduced to Yellowstone National Park.
It's odd to think that something I had a minor involvement in, in the form of a legal commentator, is now sufficiently far in the past that it's history.

It's also odd to think it's only 25 years ago.

Twenty five years ago I wasn't married, but I was about to be.  Our marriage would take place that upcoming March, so we were engaged and only a few months out from getting married.  I'd have placed wolf reintroduction further back in time from that for some reason.

That I would is an odd thought in and of itself as the article I co authored on the topic was published in the spring of 1990, five years prior.  For some reason I'd have placed the actual reintroduction around 1993 or so, but why that sticks out in my mind I'm not sure.  That year in general sticks out in my mind as my father died that April.  It wasn't a great year.  Not every one is.

I'd first experience wolves myself in 2000.  I was hunting near the park in a very warm year and I'd drawn both a sheep tag and a moose tag, something that you really don't want to do. Hunting moose, by myself south of the park, I heard them howling at night.  I saw them early one morning when I was hunting one side of a swamp, and they were hunting the other side.

In 2011, when the photograph taken above was snapped by me, on a cell phone, they were in Natrona County.  Their presence where I took that photo was a very open secret at that time, but I didn't know they were there until I took the photo.  A couple of years went by, that photo is only eight years old, and a pack had established itself in the farming district just outside of Casper.  The U.S. Fish & Wildlife had to intervene in that as it was a heavily agricultural area and livestock losses were inevitable, but the wolves reportedly remain on the east side of Casper Mountain.

In 1990, when wolf reintroduction in Wyoming was a hot topic, I recall seeing speakers on it and I've already written on that.  But one thing I knew then and recall thinking was baloney was how the propaganda on wolves de natured them, if you will.

Wolves would never leave the park, it was claimed.  Wolves wouldn't harm anything.  Tales about wolves and their nature, including their killing of humans in times past, were all fairy tales.

In actuality, it was obvious right from the onset that wolves would leave the park.  What wasn't appreciated was how rapid their advance would really be.  It's been blistering in real terms.  Twenty five years ago only seems like a long time if you are fairly young.  It's less than half of my lifetime and it's not a long time.

That provides a good reason not to reintroduce wolves to Colorado.  A natural reintroduction is always better than a forced one.  The process in Wyoming wasn't smooth and it took about 20 years to work it out.  Part of the reason for that was that the level of trust was very low, made low in part by their advocates telling fables that immediately turned out not to be true.

Indeed, as I felt then, and as I still feel now, it's not the wolves that cause the problems.  It's their advocates.  The advocates don't really have to live with them the way that a declining number of people who really live outdoors do.  Most of those people aren't really opposed to wolves themselves, but rather the fantasies of the advocates.

Scenes of days gone by. . . which doesn't mean that they never happened.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Mid Week At Work: Today In Wyoming's History: August 29, 1870. Mt. Washburn ascended.

From Our Companion Blog, Today In Wyoming's History:
Today In Wyoming's History: August 29:  1870  Mount Washburn in Yellowstone National Park ascended for the first time by members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition.   The scientific/topographic expedition was under a military escort lead by U.S. Army Cavalry officer, Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, who made this report:
The view from the summit is beyond all adequate description.  Looking northward from the base of the mountain the great plateau  stretches away to the front and left with its innumerable groves and  sparkling waters, a variegated landscape of surpassing beauty, bounded  on its extreme verge by the cañons of the Yellowstone. The pure  atmosphere of this lofty region causes every outline of tree, rock or lakelet to be visible with wonderful distinctness, and objects twenty  miles away appear as if very near at hand. Still further to the left the snowy ranges on the headwaters of Gardiner's river stretch away to the  westward, joining those on the head of the Gallatin, and forming, with  the Elephant's Back, a continuous chain, bending constantly to the  south, the rim of the Yellowstone Basin. On the verge of the horizon  appear, like mole hills in the distance, and far below, the white  summits above the Gallatin Valley. These never thaw during the summer  months, though several thousand feet lower than where we now stand upon  the bare granite and no snow visible near, save n the depths of shaded  ravines. Beyond the plateau to the right front is the deep valley of the East Fork bearing away eastward, and still beyond, ragged volcanic  peaks, heaped in inextricable confusion, as far as the limit of vision  extends. On the east, close beneath our feet, yawns the immense gulf of  the Grand Cañon, cutting away the bases of two mountains in forcing a  passage through the range. Its yellow walls divide the landscape nearly  in a straight line to the junction of Warm Spring Creek below. The  ragged edges of the chasm are from two hundred to five hundred yards  apart, its depth so profound that the river bed is no where visible. No  sound reaches the ear from the bottom of the abyss; the sun's rays are  reflected on the further wall and then lost in the darkness below. The  mind struggles and then falls back upon itself despairing in the effort  to grasp by a single thought the idea of its immensity. Beyond, a gentle declivity, sloping from the summit of the broken range, extends to the  limit of vision, a wilderness of unbroken pine forest.
William Henry Jackson on Mount Washburn a few years later.
If reading this description, and looking at this photo, makes you think that this work was considerably more exciting, interesting and valuable than your own today. . . well it probably indeed really was.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Allowing Tribal Hunts in Yellowstone National Park. . . .

has been proposed by a Montana Legislative Committee

I'm sure that will go nowhere, and I'm also sure that even if Montana passed such a law, it'd do nothing, as its a Federal enclave and the Federal government wouldn't allow it.

But, it's a good idea.

Humans, of the natural hunting type, are the only species absent from the Yellowstone ecosystem.  Tourism, at least in its present form, isn't bad by any means (although its now too intense in Yellowstone), but that's not really our real role in nature.  Allowing the Tribes to take a few buffalo inside the park would be a good idea for a lot of reasons.  But it won't happen.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Today In Wyoming's History: August 25, 1916. National Park Service formed.

Today In Wyoming's History: August 25:  1916. National Park Service formed.

The NPS took over a role which had been occupied by the Army, that of patrolling the National Parks. Their uniform still recalls the Army of 1916 to a small extent, in that they've retained the M1911 style campaign hat, in straw and felt, as part of their uniform.

On this, it's also the case here that the Yellowstone just ceased last year using the Army built courthouse, built in 1908, in favor of a newly constructed one. Still, that's pretty good service for a small Army courthouse really.


In 1916, the cavalry branch, which had been heavily involved in patrolling the parks, was committed to the Cold/Lukewarm war with Villa. I wonder if part of the reason that the Park Service came into being in 1916 was because this mounted service was needed to free up the Army's mounted arm for it's primary military role?

Monday, August 1, 2016

Today In Wyoming's History: August 1, 1915: Automobiles first admitted into Yellowstone.

 Automobile, Yellowstone National Park, 1922.

In updating our blog Today In Wyoming's History, I couldn't help note this item, which fits into the time period we look at on this blog:
Today In Wyoming's History: August 1:

1915  Automobiles first admitted into Yellowstone National Park.
Quite the difference, then and now.

Saturday, June 11, 2016