Illustrator Rick Peterson's take on the East Coast from the perspective of Greater Yellowstone. Click on image to make it larger.
Maybe you still don’t realize it, neighbors,
but we hicks of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem dwell in that part of the
American boondocks otherwise known as “the flyover’ to tens of millions of
sophisticated bi-coastal Americans.
Sorrowfully, our long tenure of splendid
isolation is slipping away at blazing speed.
Today we’re being rapidly invaded by an
unprecedented number of urban refugees who seem perfectly content to remind us
how nonbougie we’ve been all these years. They believe it’s for our own good
that they help transform our towns into versions of whatever lesser, blighted,
overpopulated, suburbanized, traffic-ridden hellholes they are now fleeing.
Perhaps it’s time we schooled them on what the
essence of living in our corner of the flyover is.
When illustrator Saul Steinberg drew his
now-immortal cover image for The New Yorker Magazine in 1976—a cartoon titled View of the World From 9th Avenue—he
confirmed the smug attitude that Manhattanites have of the Interior West, regarding
us, at best, as afterthoughts not even warranting mention on the map.
In pure jest, Steinberg actually poked fun at
the provincial mindset of Easterners and their condescending belief that they
reside at the center of the known universe. Certainly, it’s a point of view
shared even today by those West Coast hipsters, be they from LA, San
Fran/Silicon Valley, Portlandia or Seattle who still don’t seem to realize that
the plural for wapiti ain’t elks.
Unfortunately, we’ve often allowed outsiders to
define who we are. The way the rest of the country thinks about us has been
shaped mightily by the opinions of outside writers who parachute out of the
sky, spending a couple of days in Greater Yellowstone and then return to
Brooklyn Heights, claiming they are our interpreters for the rest of the world.
But, intimidated by our wide open spaces, they
think we ought to fill landscapes up. They write stories, based on their own
lack of understanding about nature, that continue to fuel irrational fears
about grizzlies and wolves. And they prop up malcontents like the Bundy clan as
being representative of the general mindset of all ranchers.
But the truth is, Greater Yellowstone doesn’t
need outside validation, neither from misinformed reporters who have anointed
themselves our translators, nor must we prove Greater Yellowstone’s worth as a
remarkable, unparalleled region on the planet.
Not long ago, I asked my oldest friend, the
illustrator Rick Peterson, to put together his own Steinbergian take, not of
how we are seen in the eyes of those on the coasts but rather the view from
Greater Yellowstone looking east and west. Enjoy his portrayals of Greater
Yellowstone as we look toward the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. (His illustrations will also be appearing at Mountain Journal under the heading "Postcards From Wonderland").
What can the rest of America learn about us,
especially those interloping developers who mistakenly believe our communities
would actually be someplace special if only they had a Trader Joe’s and more
spas offering seaweed wrap skin treatments?
Note to rest of nation; we don’t need you telling
us Greater Yellowstone is cool because it’s so unlike the places you reside;
what we need you to grasp is what sets our region apart—its abundance of large
wildlife species—exists only because things
are different here.
We have open spaces because we value them. We
have forests and clean water because we've insisted upon better stewardship of the backcountry. We have grizzlies and wolves, in spite of the
wishes of some predator-loathing politicians, because conservationists in the region touted and
proved the value of bringing them back.
Looking westward toward the Pacific Ocean, illustrator Rick Peterson offers the view from Greater Yellowstone. Click on image to make it larger.
Yes, we have some damned fine places to
explore, but the caliber of our wildlife would not exist if we adopted the same
kind of industrial-strength models of outdoor recreation that are now de
rigueur in Colorado, Utah, and California.
So what is your take-home lesson from the
flyover? There’s nothing that could be
imported from the coasts that would make Greater Yellowstone better. If you don’t have the sophistication to
appreciate the wild essence of this ecosystem, please keep flying over or,
better yet, stay where you are.
About Todd Wilkinson
Todd Wilkinson, founder of Mountain Journal, is author of the book Ripple Effects: How to Save Yellowstone and American's Most Iconic Wildlife Ecosystem. Wilkinson has been writing about Greater Yellowstone for 35 years and is a correspondent to publications ranging from National Geographic to The Guardian. He is author of several books on topics as diverse as scientific whistleblowers and Ted Turner, and a book about the harrowing story of Jackson Hole grizzly mother 399, the most famous bear in the world which features photographs by Thomas Mangelsen. For more information on Wilkinson, click here. (Photo by David J Swift).
