Meet our Guests: Roger Clark

Roger Clark

Grand Canyon Program Director, Grand Canyon Trust

Flagstaff, AZ

10/9/18

Roger Clark seems at home on the rim of the Grand Canyon. With only open air below, Roger stands atop limestone explaining to us the layers of rock that comprise this awe-inspiring view. Before the geology lesson, we sat beside hunks of metal bolts that had been installed to transport engineers from the US Bureau of Reclamation, who were studying the canyon below as a potential site for Marble Canyon Dam. The work of David Brower and the Sierra Club stopped this project in its tracks and set a precedent of permanent protection for this canyon.

Roger began his career as a college professor and museum curator but after years he decided that was not what he truly wanted to do. Leaving academia, he naturally became a river guide on the Colorado River, forming a bond with the water and walls of the canyon. This love of the natural world is clear when he speaks about the multitude of topics that he is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about, ranging from uranium and coal mining to Native American tribal rights to development along the rim and preservation of the Canyon’s unique vistas. These are areas of immense challenge for environmentalists, and it would be difficult for a single person to take on any one of them. Yet Roger handles the entire Grand Canyon program with a subtle confidence and deep knowledge of history and politics.

As an educator, Roger has a deeply welcoming and helpful spirit that encourages every question and always leaves the asker satisfied. After spending his life in this chasm of political and economic interests, natural and indigenous resources, and absurd beauty, Roger Clark showed us his Grand Canyon, and took us over the edge.

By Eliza van Wetter

Photo by James Baker

Meet our Guests: Amy Irvine

Amy Irvine

Author

Norwood, CO

10/5/18

“We’re not going to survive if we think we’ve already lost”.

Amy Irvine, 6th generation Utah native and author of the books Trespass and Desert Cabal, joined us for a three-day writing workshop during our stay on Comb Ridge, a central location to the Semester in the West program. On Amy’s first night with us, we discussed our hopes and fears with one another and felt the gravity of the environmental crisis on our hands. The concerns held but previously unstated by the group washed over us harder than the night’s pelting rain.

Using the consuming guilt and fiery passions held by everyone, Amy harnessed our drive, and helped us uncover the potential of 21 driven individuals, allowing us to regain a sense of power in a moment of vulnerability and despair. “Every one of your voices counts in a way you can’t imagine”, Amy announced after giving us our cumulative project: writing a comment letter on Bears Ears National Monument’s precarious fate. “Can you say the thing that nobody has said in a way someone might listen?” she asked. The comment letters we wrote were designed to be different than the typical letters sent in comment periods, focused on place and moments within the place that had inspired us to write a letter. The goal of the letter was to invoke a similar feeling of familiarity with the location to readers who may have a part in the decision-making process regarding Bears Ears.

Amy helped us gain confidence in nature writing, focusing deeply on our location at Comb Ridge and bringing to mind the late author Ellen Meloy’s “Deep Map of Place.” Bright colorful sunrises and sunsets falling across the sandstone ridges, along with sneaky cacti and black sagebrush growing in small stone cracks provided bountiful inspiration. As our visit with Amy went on, many members of the group became increasingly self-assured, sharing pieces with the group which evoked a new sense of hope and confidence. Each of us submitted a final comment letter to the BLM, hopefully guiding the agency as it struggles with how to best manage the unique resources of this remarkable place.

By Kate Dolan

Photo by James Baker

Meet our Guests: Mary O'Brien

Mary O’Brien

Utah Forest Program Director, Grand Canyon Trust

Castle Valley, UT

9/28/18

Mary O’Brien, ecologist for the Grand Canyon Trust, sits with dusty, Chaco-clad feet outstretched under the shade of a pinon pine, explaining our assignment: an ecological assessment of a spring near Monroe Mountain in southern Utah. She’d like us to report on the spring’s habitat, its species and their relationships to each other and the spring. Simply stated, she wants us to observe. “I see science as a way to interview the world,” she explains. This sentiment represents Mary well. She possesses a curiosity and devotion to the natural world that is hard to come by. Melding biology with politics, activism, and passion, Mary understands the intersectional way that science merges with other disciplines.

Mary often wears a wide, eye-crinkled smile or an intensely serious frown. While showing us a dying aspen stand, she wears the latter. Leaning over a juvenile tree, she notes its buds have been browsed, explaining that its opportunity for growth this year has been stunted. It’s something most of us wouldn’t notice, but Mary is acutely aware of the destruction that ungulates, especially cattle, are inflicting upon our public lands. During our two weeks with her, she teaches us how to notice the signs of an ecosystem in trouble, from overgrazed bunchgrasses to murky brown creek water. But Mary doesn’t just immerse us in her world of ecology. On a crisp, sunny afternoon at the Koosharem Guard Station in the Fish Lake National Forest, she introduces us to two men she works with in a collaborative. The collaborative aims to bring people of different backgrounds together to decide how best to manage grazing on public lands. Mary is the only environmentalist and only woman in the group and uses her voice to “speak for the plants,” as she puts it. She is not intimidated to be in the minority: it fuels her fire.

One thing that’s clear about Mary is that she is tireless in her environmental efforts. For the past 35 years, she has worked sixty hours a week, pushing against the strong conservative forces that seek to destroy the land. After some wins, but many defeats, she still remains steadfast. Walking in an aspen grove, I asked Mary how she stays hopeful. “Well, if I feel defeated then they’ve won,” she replies, chuckling. Knowing Mary as I do now, I’m certain she won’t back down until she’s won.

By Abby Hill

Photo by Whitney Rich

Meet our Guests: Steve & Robin Boies

Steve & Robin Boies

Owners, Hubbard-Vineyard Ranch

Jackpot, NV

9/15/2018

Robin and Steve Boies smile down at us with welcoming eyes and lean back casually against the propane tank in their yard, the word “LOVE” graffitied on the side in big white and blue lettering. We gather on the residential portion of their Hubbard-Vineyard Ranch, located just outside of Jackpot, Nevada. The ranch has been passed down through four generations and is equally a profession, passion and lifestyle for the couple. As we watch their countless dogs roam free under the gentle late-summer sun, the Boies admit their only complaint is the constant whoosh of passing cars on Highway 93, which runs parallel to their property.

Steve and Robin own 13,000 acres of private land, and the rest of their 130,000 ranching acres are under control of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). At the center of competing interests between state and federal bureaucracy, mining companies, environmental groups, and fellow ranchers, the Hubbard-Vineyard ranch reveals the great complexities that arise for the modern-day rancher in Northeastern Nevada.

The Boies are major proponents of combining ranching with conservation. They practice an Allan Savory-esque holistic management style which supports grassland regrowth and requires two years of pasture rest for every year of use.

 As our conversation turns from crested wheatgrass re-emergence to the impact of the Paris Agreement withdrawal, it is clear that the Boies are well informed and deeply passionate about resolving the multipronged issues they face. While there are no obvious solutions, it is comforting to know there are people like the Boies willing and dedicated to push in the right direction.

By Amara Killen

Meet our Guests: Steve Fuller

Steve Fuller

Winterkeeper, Yellowstone National Park

Canyon Village, WY

9/10/18

We sat at our campsite in Yellowstone National Park, as darkness gripped the forest. A weathered, quiet man walked into our chair circle with three carousel trays, a screen and a slide projector. Steve Fuller was about to show us his life’s work as a photographer in Yellowstone. Steve began his work in Yellowstone as a winter keeper at Canyon Village in 1973, and every frigid winter cleared snow from the roofs of over 100 buildings. Steve got this process down to a science after a short time. 

When he wasn’t knocking monstrous blocks of snow off of the Park’s buildings, Steve explored the landscape with his Kodachrome film camera in hand—often at 40 degrees below zero. One of the only people in the Park during Yellowstone’s wild winters, he was able to capture splendid visual stories that are seldom seen in person. His photos reflect the artist within him, and each seems to be the product of endless competition between composition and quality; they are simply inspirational. Steve isn’t a photographer, but a storyteller, and his vivid anecdotes of the park’s dramatic change of season almost make the photos unnecessary. 

Within Yellowstone’s 2.2 million acres, over 4 million people visit a handful of places in the park each year - most of them taking the same photo as everyone else. It’s very difficult to capture scenes that are beautifully composed in a place visited by so many people, but Steve’s seclusion and talented eye allow him to capture the changing of the seasons in images - photos that have helped me to do the same in my own compositions. 

Steve’s eyes lit up at the idea of being in grand isolation in the dead of winter; taking photos that no one else can when his canvas is Yellowstone’s vast landscape is an exceptional pleasure for him. The playground of Yellowstone is packed with an endless number of nooks yet to be explored, if you just know where—and when—to look. 

Still living in the Park, Steve is set to retire this year, but carries his Nikon DSLR around his neck everywhere he goes, searching for the next shot. I don’t think anyone doubts that he’ll get exactly the one he wants.

By Ethan Thomas

Meet our Guests: Dan Wenk

Dan Wenk

Superintendent, Yellowstone National Park

Mammoth Hot Springs, MT

9/9/2018

The first thing Dan Wenk asks of us when we arrive at our meeting point within the Yellowstone National Park administration buildings at Mammoth Hot Springs is to sit down with him. Sitting on damp, elk scat-covered grass petting his lab Juno, it is difficult to imagine this man as the highest-ranking official in Yellowstone. But the passion he speaks with for not only the ingenuity of the park but also for the incredible conservation efforts that have taken place, makes it clear he is the man in charge.

Wenk has worked tirelessly to form the world’s first national park into more than a tourist destination. He is a champion for bison protection and has put them along with other controversial animals such as wolves at the forefront of the Yellowstone identity. The most common and least understood species here, though, will always be Homo sapiens. 

“For those interested in public lands management and what we do and why, Yellowstone is…” he trails off searching for the words “… it’s complicated” he finished. And complicated it is.  Balancing the needs of grizzly bears, wolves, elk, bison, tourism and conservation is by no means an easy job. One of the most complicating aspect is the challenge of managing an ecological island within a land that does not have the same conservation mindset as Wenk. The wild animals he has been tasked to manage do not obey the borders the surrounding communities do and they often do not live long enough to make it back into the park.

As if on cue, a huge bull elk bugles from across the street where it has been casually meandering its way across the fields of manicured lawns and asphalt. The tourists itching to get closer look are being controlled by a ranger in an orange vest. Proof of the big job Wenk has of managing not only the wildlife but also the people who come to it.

By Eliza Van Wetter

Meet our Guests: Karrie Kahle

Karrie Kahle

Outreach Coordinator, Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition

Livingston, MT

9/7/2018

Karrie Kahle sets a strong example when it comes to grassroots activism. She has been quoted in newspapers ranging from the Billings Gazette to The Guardian, spreading awareness about Lucky Minerals’ proposed mining project in Montana’s Paradise Valley. Lucky Minerals, Inc. proposed two gold mines at the top of Emigrant Gulch, a mountain about an hour north of Yellowstone National Park. While Karrie spoke with us, her voice and words were brimming with sincerity and genuine optimism, which is something we do not always get from speakers. It is hard to find an environmental success story nowadays.

In addition to her career as the special events planner at Chico Hot Springs in Emigrant, Montana, Karrie is the outreach coordinator for the Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition. She and others started the environmental group when Lucky Minerals proposed the operation in an area where there are several fresh water sources on both public and private land. Other mining companies have drilled exploratorily, but Lucky proposes to dig deeper than others have, which could potentially disrupt the water table and therefore many recreational activities that would disrupt the booming tourist industry in the Valley.

Karrie’s group had the political support of Ryan Zinke while he was the US Representative of Montana’s at-large district, before he was appointed to his current job as Secretary of the Interior by President Trump. Zinke’s stance is now up in the air, however. In order to stop mining in the valley for time immemorial, Karrie has helped drive bills toward introduction in both the U.S. House and Senate, where in both houses, they are under consideration.

By Isabel McNeill

Photos by Jessie Brandt