The Yellowstone-Grand Teton region was not officially discovered and its
scenic marvels were not publicly proclaimed until the 1870’s, beginning
with the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition. For thirty years before,
from 1841 to 1869, this region was a Paradise Lost, rarely visited by
white men. But for thirty years before that, or from 1807 to 1840, this
region had hundreds of appreciative visitors. These were the Rocky
Mountain fur trappers. While searching for the golden-brown fur of the
beaver, destined for the St. Louis market, these adventurers thoroughly
explored this fabulous region. Although news of their discoveries
received scant public notice back in the settlements, or was discounted
as tall tales, to them belongs the honor of being the first actual
explorers of these twin parks.
Neighboring Yellowstone and Grand Teton, established as National Parks
in 1872 and 1929, respectively, are separately managed today as units of
our National Park System. But geographically, now as well as in the
early nineteenth century, they embrace one unique region, characterized
by topographic and geologic features that are the crescendo of a great
scenic symphony. Here, at the heart of the continent, the source of the
three major river systems of the continent—the Columbia, the Colorado,
and the Missouri-Mississippi—may be found the greatest geyser basins,
the largest mountain lake, the most colorful of kaleidoscopic canyons,
one of the richest arrays of wildlife, and one of the most spectacularly
beautiful mountain ranges in the world. The Yellowstone-Grand Teton
region has historical unity, also, particularly during the obscure but
heroic age of the Rocky Mountain fur trade.
“Colter’s Hell”—bearing the name of the legendary discoverer, and
conjuring up visions of a primitive “Dante’s Inferno”—is the term which
visitors today associate with the early history of Yellowstone National
Park and its universally famous hydrothermal wonders. Actually, the
wandering, bearded, buck-skinned beaver trappers never referred to the
geyser region of the upper Madison as Colter’s Hell. As we will see, the
real Colter’s Hell in Jim Bridger’s day was another place altogether,
having nothing to do with anything within Yellowstone Park itself. In
trapper times the Yellowstone geyser area had no fixed name but was
variously described by them as a region of “great volcanoes,” “boiling
springs” or “spouting fountains.” On the recently discovered Hood and
Ferris maps (see below) it is labeled “the Burnt Hole” (although this
name seems to have been restricted by Russell and others to the Hebgen
Lake Valley). Captain Bonneville tells us that his men knew of this
region as “the Firehole” and this name, as applied to the river draining
the geyser basins, survives today.
Yellowstone Park, carved out of territorial Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho,
is a rough-edged rectangle of 3,500 square miles that straddles the
twisting course of the Continental Divide. It is a geological circus, a
unique creation of ancient volcanoes and glaciers, flanked on the
southeast and east by the Absaroka Range, on the north by the Snowy
Range, on the northwest by the Gallatin and Madison ranges, on the west
by the Centennial Range, and on the south by the Teton Mountains.
From the Park flow the headwaters of two continental rivers and their
major tributaries. From here the Snake River arcs southward toward
Jackson’s Hole and the cathedral-like Tetons, destined to join the
Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Here the Firehole and Gibbon
rivers, draining the principal geyser basins, unite to become the
Madison River, and here also arises the Gallatin, these being two of the
Three Forks of the Missouri. Here arises a branch of the North Fork of
the Shoshone River, a tributary of the Bighorn. And here, after its
birth near Two Ocean Pass, begins the mighty Yellowstone River which,
after passing through its vast mirror-like lake and its prismatic
canyon, flows out onto the plains to receive the Bighorn and join the
Missouri on its marathon journey to the Mississippi River and the Gulf
of Mexico.
[Illustration: Indians at Jackson Lake.]
This region held a fortune in coveted beaver skins, but it was remote,
snowbound, haunted by the vindictive Blackfeet, and plagued by weird
visions, sulphurous fumes, and uncanny noises. Here indeed was fertile
soil for a legend.
On a clear day Yellowstone Park visitors can see to the south the
mountain spires which identify Grand Teton National Park of Wyoming, an
indefinable shape of 500 square miles. (The actual boundaries of these
neighboring parks are separated by a scant five miles.) The Tetons are
perhaps the most distinctive of the granite giants which comprise the
Rocky Mountains. A series of sharp pyramids of naked rock, the peaks
stand like sharks’ teeth against the sky. The most precipitous sides and
the most needle-like summit belong to the highest of these, the Grand
Teton, which rises over 7,000 feet from its immediate base, nearly
14,000 feet above the level of the distant sea.
The Teton Mountains are the most conspicuous landmarks of a region which
contains the scrambled sources of the three greatest river systems of
continental United States. As we have seen, Yellowstone Park to the
north gives birth to the eastward-flowing Missouri and the westward
flowing Columbia waters. East of the Tetons, in the Wind River
Mountains, is the head of Green River which rolls southward to merge
into the mighty Colorado River, tumbling through the arid lands to the
Gulf of California.
Jackson’s Hole is that part of the Upper Snake River Valley which lies
at the eastern base of the Teton Range. One of the largest enclosed
valleys in the Rocky Mountains, its glaciated floor extends about sixty
miles north and south, and varies up to twelve miles in width. It is
bounded on the west by the Tetons, on the east and south by the less
pretentious Mount Leidy Highlands and the Gros Ventre and Hoback
Mountains. The Gros Ventres merge imperceptibly into the Wind River
Mountains farther east, the crest of which forms the Continental Divide.
The southern extremity of the Tetons merges with the eastern end of the
Snake River Range near the canyon where the Snake River escapes from the
valley.
Historic Jackson’s Hole, also known as “Jackson’s Big Hole”—but now
politely refined to just plain Jackson Hole—was named in 1829 for David
Jackson, one of the partners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. To the
early trapper a “hole” was a sizeable valley abounding in game, and
usually (with the exception of Yellowstone’s “Firehole”) associated with
some distinctive personality—hence Brown’s Hole, Pierre’s Hole,
Gardner’s Hole, etc. However, Jackson’s Hole was more than just a
pleasant spot for trapping and camping. Research gives substance to the
view that this was the historic crossroads of the Rocky Mountain fur
trade.
Jackson’s Hole was destined by geography to become a traffic center of
the Western fur trade. Between South Pass at the head of the Little
Sandy and the northern passes above the Three Forks of the Missouri it
offered the most feasible route across the Rocky Mountain barrier. In
addition, it was the focal point of a region that was highly prized and
vigorously contested because of its populous beaver streams. Here
trappers’ trails converged like the spokes of a great wheel and, after
Lewis and Clark, most of the important trapper-explorers crossed
Jackson’s Hole on their journeys.
[Illustration: Indian “Buffalo Jump”—Yellowstone Valley.]
In historic times there were seven gateways to and from Jackson’s Hole:
northward up Snake River; northeastward up Pacific Creek to Two Ocean
Pass; eastward up Buffalo Fork to Twogwotee Pass; eastward up the Gros
Ventre to Union Pass; southward up the Hoback to Green River; westward
via Teton Pass or Conant Pass (at the south and north extremities of the
Teton Range) to Pierre’s Hole.
[Illustration: “Dawn of Discovery”—Exhibit in Fur Trade Museum, Grand
Teton National Park.]
The Tetons received their name from French-Canadian trappers who
accompanied the earliest British expeditions into this territory. As
they approached the range from the west, they beheld three towering
mountains upon which they bestowed the name of “Trois Tetons” (“Three
Breasts”). This romantic designation was readily adopted by the lonely
trapping fraternity to whom the sharp snowy peaks (now known as the
Grand, Middle and South Tetons) became a beacon to guide them through
the hostile wilderness. To the Indians the Tetons were variously known
as “The Three Brothers,” “The Hoaryheaded Fathers,” and “Tee Win-at,”
meaning “The Pinnacles.” The earliest Americans in the region, being
more practical than romantic, could find no better name for the silvery
spires than “The Pilot Knobs,” while an official Hudson’s Bay Company
map indicates with equal homeliness, “The Three Paps.” The name “Three
Tetons” survived, however, and was officially recognized by
cartographers. The name first appeared publicly in the Bonneville Map of
1837.
The Upper Snake River (i.e., above the mouth of Henry’s Fork) was called
“Mad River” by the Astorians. Others simply referred to it as the
“Columbia River” or “the headwaters of the Columbia,” but to most of the
fur trappers it was “Lewis River” or “Lewis Fork,” so originally named
in the Clark Map of 1810 for Capt. Meriwether Lewis, as Clark’s Fork of
the Columbia was named after his fellow explorer, Capt. William Clark.
This name was much more appropriate than its present one, which is
derived from the Snake or Shoshone Indians, and first appears on the
Greenhow Map of 1840.
In spite of past efforts by water power advocates to “improve” it by a
dam, Yellowstone Lake remains just as it was when first discovered by
John Colter, the original “Lake Eustis” of the Clark Map of 1810.
Jackson Lake, however, was enlarged by a dam built in 1916 by the Bureau
of Reclamation. This lake is identifiable with the “Lake Biddle” of the
Clark Map of 1810, the “Teton Lake” of Warren A. Ferris, and the “Lewis
Lake” referred to frequently by another trapper, Joseph L. Meek. There
is today a tributary of the Upper Snake known as Lewis River, heading in
a Lewis Lake within the confines of Yellowstone National Park, neither
of which are to be confused with the historic “Lewis River” and “Lewis
Lake.”
[Illustration: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.]
[Illustration: POWDER HORN]