John Heminway: American Master Of Dramatic Earthly Storytelling
From writing for legendary Wyoming outdoorsman Curt Gowdy to exposing elephant ivory poachers on film, John Heminway fights for wildness by telling the truth
John Heminway, who makes his home near Big Timber, Montana, stops for a breather while trying to track the transport of illegal ivory taken from poached elephants in Africa to middlemen and then on to Asia. Photo courtesy John Heminway
by Todd Wilkinson
John Heminway knows how the wonders of Earth can teeter on the edge of oblivion when truth, courage and personal safety are on the line. Without storytellers like him, iconic animals and the wildest corners of the globe—including his home base, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem— might today be only distant pale artifacts.
Heminway has fearlessly ventured into the perilous trenches of international wildlife trafficking. He's also, in his brilliant non-fiction portrait, In Full Flight, has chronicled extraordinary lives like that of Dr. Anne Spoerry, a pathfinding "flying doctor" in Kenya who confronted a question for the ages: can a person atone for personal sins committed in the past if you devote yourself to doing good in the present? (It's a story that ought to be made into a motion picture). At the present, he is working on a documentary about a new "smart city" being built in the remote desert of Saudi Arabia.
As a filmmaker for National Geographic, a travel correspondent for PBS and author of half a dozen books about Africa and Montana, Heminway in many ways has amassed a resume that aspiring young storytellers can only dream of. But where does he go to derive personal solace? In recent years it's been at the old Bar 20 ranch he and his wife purchased, located near the West Boulder River south of Big Timber and with the chiseled summits of the Absaroka-Beartooths hovering in constant view.
Not only do Heminway's award-winning books and nature documentaries testify to his convictions as a conservationist, but his life of derring-do, in defense of nature and humanitarian concerns, are present in his field journals, notepads, b-rolls that never made it before millions of viewers and audio interviews. Heminway's remarkable trove is now part of the Montana State University Library's rapidly growing Archives and Special Collections. Best of all, it represents a remarkable resource not only for historians but the public and future generations of students.
The MSU Library Special Collections Archives, led by Library Dean Dr. Kenning Arlitsch, head of Special Collections Jodi Allison-Bunnell and their colleagues, has been steadily amassing its reservoir of archives involving influential
people who have connections to Montana or the Rocky Mountain West, including the documents of giants like the late writers Wallace Stegner and Ivan Doig as well as documents from grizzly researcher Frank Craighead, artists Bob and Gennie DeWeese and noted conservationists Rick Reese and Mike Clark. Heminway’s correspondence, letters and material spanning the arc of his
career, is one more remarkable contribution.
“Mr. Heminway has spent his bold and audacious career
traveling to the world’s most far-flung corners documenting the riches of our
planet,” says Ann Vinciguerra of the
MSU Library. “His collection dating from
the 1960s through today, includes manuscripts, original 16 mm films, journals,
photography, and more. It captures the life’s work of one of Bozeman/s most creative
forces.”
Heminway credits the late and legendary Wyoming outdoorsman
Curt Gowdy with ushering forward his career path. During his formative years, he was a writer for many memorable episodes of Gowdy's pioneering TV show, The
American Sportsman.
Recently, Mountain Journal engaged Heminway in an interview.
MOUNTAIN JOURNAL: What are a few key ingredients for storytelling?
JOHN HEMINWAY: I have sat at the feet of some of the world’s great story tellers, and I never stop learning, slack jawed in admiration. What is curious is their acceptance… and now mine… that stories, if they are to be successful, must evolve. They are gossamer. Listening and watching is a big deal for me. One watches one’s audience and one adapts. Stories are always incomplete, always ready to be made better. It is obvious that the successful story must have a defined arc. No laundry list of events or names. You always must arrive somewhere far away, somewhere unexpected, somewhere both uncomfortable and fulfilling. Lastly—and I probably will be challenged on this—stories should not depend on the truth, but, at the end, must tell the truth. Need I explain?
"When you are on to a good story you tend to get careless about yourself. An ivory carving factory outside of Beijing was not especially welcoming. I diverted attention while my cameraman stole into the factory to film surreptitiously. Our removal was not especially pleasant. By the far the sketchiest episode was in Garamba in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo."
MOJO: Battle For the Elephants attracted global attention
and won critical praise at Jackson Wild (previously the Jackson Hole
International Wildlife Film Festival).
That documentary was followed by Warlords of Ivory. These films
brought the plague of African elephants being poached for their ivory to the
forefront of 21st century consciousness. And there’s a direct
parallel for rhino horn too. What are the things about making those films that
give you satisfaction? And how do you,
as a visual storyteller, hold yourself together with objectivity, when you are
encountering forces that are disturbing and seemingly overwhelming?
HEMINGWAY:
Thanks for asking. There were many awards as you know. More importantly there
were individualized events where the films seemed to have far more impact. On
one occasion (In Bangkok at a C.I.T.E.S. gathering) there was an outburst in
the back row. It bordered on fisticups. Amazingly, the big satisfaction for me is not in broadcast. So what if a couple of million people saw the films. What counts are the small events when people are provoked enough to ask tough questions. I recall showing it to the First lady of Kenya plus a scrum of diplomats—that was exciting. And then at the U.S. State Department, or in a small screening room in front of several key US senators. I could go on. One of my favorite screenings was in a creaking metal hangar in the north of Kenya. There the audience were Samburu game guards. For an hour after the projector and all Africa went dark, they plied me with endless questions. At the end, I felt our 50 minutes of film truly changed minds and I could not have been happier. One unexpected triumph was a screening in Burlington where Ashley McAvey and her daughter approached me requesting use of the film in the Vermont legislature. With it, she lobbied lawmakers and the governor and after five years successfully outlawed all trade in ivory and other animal products in her state. She now hopes Vermont’s leadership will extend to other states.
MOJO: That's a great example of how impact ripples and we see it every day with citizens in Greater Yellowstone rallying to defend wildlife here in our region that has been called "the American Serengeti." You're a big fan of Lisa Samford and her team at Jackson Wild that champions film as a medium capable of reaching mass audiences.
HEMINGWAY: I should note I have encountered many inverted evidence of success. I am thinking of China’s decision to outlaw all our films. High praise indeed. Finally, over time, our films have given birth to many copycats. We led the way, while other filmmakers have been happy to bask in the glory with very creditable films of their own. I don’t mind. No need to remind myself that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Sometimes, for Heminway, the impact of seeing wildlife slaughtered for its parts, could be overwhelming. Here he plots his next move while making a film about elephant poaching. Like a gumshoe detective, his skills as an investigative reporter yielded two impactful documentaries. Photo courtesy John Heminway
MOJO: Telling stories about international illegal
trafficking in wildlife parts and the involvement of warlords isn’t for the
faint of heart. I would imagine it’s a little like asking the mafia if you can
ride along to do a film about organized crime.
How did you pull it off and how much peril were you and your crew in?
HEMINWAY: When you are on to a good story you tend to get careless about yourself. An ivory carving factory outside of Beijing was not especially welcoming. I diverted attention while my cameraman stole into the factory to film surreptitiously. Our removal was not especially pleasant. By the far the sketchiest episode was in Garamba in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Trailing through 10-foot-tall elephant grass with armed game rangers, stumbling over human remains, driving the Dungu road, said the be the most dangerous in Africa, flying in the dark in literally darkest Africa, hoping beyond hope someone would drive a Land Rover up and down the grass strip to show us the way, namely, where to land—these stand out as knee-wobbling highlights—moments that still provoke the old frisson. The tragedy of Garamba is that, following our film work there, thirteen of the game rangers who worked side by side with us lost their lives in gun battles with poachers. I never cease recalling their faces, and their valor.
Images from top to bottom: The plague of ivory poaching continues with majestic bull elephants falling victim every day to poachers and the forces of black market traders, though the ultimate villains are human consumers of tusks transformed into carvings. Heminway and crew worked closely with local game guards and he praises their heroism. Ultimately, he says, local people, whether in the Northern Rockies with grizzlies and wolves or people in Africa with elephants and rhinos, determine whether wildlife crimes persist or are halted. He believes in the power of young people to change the world for the better. In photo just above, he chats with Maasai as they discuss the problems in Kenya and Tanzania.
MOJO: Receiving early schooling in Switzerland, you’re able
to appreciate how the rest of the world views us. You became smitten, early on,
with Africa and you’ve seen it undergo vertigo-inducing changings—the ongoing indelicate reckoning
with white colonialism, social instability and civil wars that ravaged people
and nature, and now, there's climate change. Today, the Chinese have a ubiquitous colonizing presence across Southern
Africa but this wave, in terms of negative impacts on nature, seems different,
yet it’s happening and it doesn’t seem to be called out. Your thoughts?
HEMINWAY:I was so damn lucky to feel myself part of a big world as early as 9 years when I was chucked out of the house to make my way in a boarding school where Americans were in the minority. Being different from me had merit, early on. Language, names, looks—the more extreme the better. And so when I got to Africa, I did everything to embrace the wonder, to listen out, notice, smell the unsmellable, and give in to dazzlement. I haven’t changed much and the wonder continues. I arrived in Africa during the last days of colonialism. I have to say I enjoyed it at the time, but then it was gone, and I liked what it left behind even more. I like to believe I have embraced evolution in all its dimensions. But I must confess I despair of the Chinese invasion for it portends regression. One moment there were 100 Chinese nationals in all the continent. Today there are possibly five million-- and they are here to stay, not as integrators, but as destabilizers, with direction from afar. The trade-offs do not make sense to me—low interest loans in return for commodities. This is simple colonialism. We have been there before, and it wasn’t good. The question is how can Africa assert its independence in the face of such temptation?
MOJO: In the 1960s, you, as a young man, became a writer for The American Sportsman, the forerunner to outdoor hunting and fishing shows. What was it like working with native Wyomingite and famous sportscaster Curt Gowdy and can you share just a few of your memorable experiences?
Many younger MoJo readers might not know of Curt Gowdy, the legendary sportscaster from Wyoming and host of a pioneering outdoor TV show. Heminway cut his teeth as a young writer working side by side with Gowdy.
HEMINWAY: Curt was fabulous. He was my entry into the work I do today. I had to learn his intonation, the words he couldn’t pronounce, the meter of his singsong. It was a wonderful tutorial. I think I wrote more than a hundred segments for Curt Gowdy, and I am grateful to this day. During our time together, there were countless memorable incidents. The final one stands out—maybe 18 years ago, when I was sitting in the audience in Cody at the inauguration of Buffalo Bill Museums’ Draper Wing of Natural History. I was attending the event because my wife was on the board, and I had played a small role in getting Richard Leakey to be the keynote speaker. Sitting next to him, to my surprise, was Curt, also on the dais. It was a classic Proustian moment. He and I hadn’t seen each other in over 25 years. He spotted me in the audience, our eyes met and shook his head in bafflement. I saw in him my past, recalling all those all-nighters trying to get his intonation and delivery right. He had given me a career, and now in the blazing Wyoming sun I looked up and tried my damndest not to cry.
MOJO: Your life as a journalist/documentarian was whetted at
just 23 when you wrote The Imminent Rains about an expedition across Africa.
How did that early experience affect your view of the world today?
HEMINWAY: There I was, just out of college, driving a beat-up Land Rover across half of Africa with a beautiful girl and a cockamamie dream. It was high adventure. Nothing went as planned and we saw an Africa that seemed to me, age 22, innocent, raw, seductive and bloody-minded. AWA: Africa Wins Again—that was our mantra. Those six months on the road have been my beacon ever since.
MOJO: In 2016, Montana State University awarded you an
honorary doctorate and you gave a moving acceptance speech about “the truth”
and its differing meanings. Particularly prescient is that you called out
“post-truth” as a lie yet it was before Kellyanne Conway notoriously espoused
the virtue of “alternative facts” and all opinions allegedly being equal. What
is the danger of the age we are in—and what are the implications for not only
society but people concerned about the persistence of healthy landscapes and wild
places?
HEMINWAY: I think fighting for the health of our planet and the equity of its inhabitants represents the battle of our century. Growing up I never imagined human beings would ever regress to the depths of mindlessness we witness today. Truth? Who would ever imagine we would now have to fight for such an obvious concept? And who could ever predict the decline in the earth’s health would be so precipitous as it is today? The problem is this: Bad guys talk louder, uglier and more violently than the good guys. They have the guns, and we know only to fight with bare fists. This is a fight for our lives and the wellbeing of our planet. Every day I dispel all thoughts of advancing age and its insults, so I can remain on the frontlines of this battle for truth and our very existence.
MOJO: When you think of human nature, and the pattern over
time of our species, how do we not consume the things we love about life on
this planet—and the other beings we share it with—to their oblivion?
HEMINWAY:
I cannot get E.O. Wilson’s 2009 words out of my mind: “The real problem of
humanity is the following: “we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval
institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous…”
MOJO: At the end of Henry David Thoreau’s classic for the
ages, Walden, he says that “it’s not worth the while to go around the
world to count the cats in Zanzibar,” meaning not only that one doesn’t need to
go elsewhere to discover their self but what matters most is right in front of
us. We need to take stock of that. So, a
question: You’ve traveled around the world, to wild places, and yet you choose
to live here, in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Why? What makes this place
special? What’s worth fighting for, and what’s the best way to wage the battle
for its protection?
HEMINWAY: I believe that everyone who lives in this majestic land has both a responsibility to save it, as well as a shared imperative to broadcast hard-won lessons to the rest of the world. Nature is still winning in Greater Yellowstone, despite dizzying development, private enclaves and out of state avarice. Our job is not to stand still and reminisce, but to draw lines between the dispensable and the sacred. We must choose winnable battles, and never give up. Hordes are moving here not to stop, listen and learn as we once did, but to change this place into their idea of normalcy. It’s the vulgarian’s way. If our corner of the planet is not to become an irrelevancy, we must recognize that and cause a stir.
Never forget that either through legacy or dumb luck, we have found ourselves shipwrecked in paradise. So keep fighting, spreading the word and being grateful.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Below: watch Heminway's short acceptance speech after receiving an honorary doctorate from Montana State University. In his remarks, he astutely predicted the grave dangers of dwelling in a world dominated by half-truths, alternative facts, and disregard for science. Make sure you never miss a MoJo story by signing up for our free weekly newsletter. Click here: https://bit.ly/3cYVBtK
