1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:04,680 Speaker 1: When American explorers first entered the West, they found an 2 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:08,680 Speaker 1: unfamiliar world of landscapes and animals. Their journals and accounts 3 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:12,680 Speaker 1: preserved as an ecological baseline for what the West was 4 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,639 Speaker 1: only two hundred years ago. I'm Dan Flores, and this 5 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:20,720 Speaker 1: is the American West, brought to you by velvet Buck. 6 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:22,160 Speaker 2: Still in barrel. 7 00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:25,479 Speaker 1: Velvet Buck arrives this summer, just in time for the 8 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:26,920 Speaker 1: season that calls us home. 9 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 2: A portion of. 10 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,919 Speaker 1: Every bottle supports backcountry hunters and anglers to protect public lands, 11 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:51,400 Speaker 1: waters and wildlife, enjoy responsibly the wild new world of 12 00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:57,920 Speaker 1: the American Serengetti. Once, for twenty years I lived on 13 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,920 Speaker 1: the great Plains of the West. I've never been so 14 00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:06,880 Speaker 1: impressed with a landscape, if you can suspend disbelief over 15 00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:10,240 Speaker 1: that sentence for a moment. I grew up in forests, 16 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:13,440 Speaker 1: have lived for the past three decades in or near 17 00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:17,320 Speaker 1: the Rocky mountains, and I'm passionately in love with deserts. 18 00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:20,640 Speaker 1: And I travel to oceans since, like most of us, 19 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:24,880 Speaker 1: I find something hypnotic and satisfying in an ocean beach. 20 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:29,800 Speaker 1: But here's the thing. The sea, the woods, the mountains 21 00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:35,080 Speaker 1: all suffer in comparison with the prairie. What Romantic Age 22 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:39,280 Speaker 1: landscape painters used to call the sublime, by which they 23 00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:44,320 Speaker 1: meant on awe capable of stealing the dialogue in your head, 24 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,760 Speaker 1: is reachable more easily in vast horizontal planes than in 25 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:54,000 Speaker 1: any other kind of setting. That sublimity arises from the plains, 26 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:59,960 Speaker 1: unfathomable boundaries and a self confident grandness of scale, combined 27 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:06,880 Speaker 1: with an echoless calm, almost monotony of sensory effect. In 28 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,160 Speaker 1: the years I lived there, I found the great plains 29 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:13,840 Speaker 1: endlessly stunning me. The place is a sensual feast of 30 00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:18,360 Speaker 1: the minimal. But I do understand that there's something larger 31 00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:22,080 Speaker 1: going on here. For at least the past fifty thousand years, 32 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:25,760 Speaker 1: since we humans left Africa and began to explore the planet, 33 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:29,600 Speaker 1: taking the measure of one landscape after another, we seem 34 00:02:29,639 --> 00:02:33,440 Speaker 1: to have been searching. This may be a simple impulse, 35 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,519 Speaker 1: for in the literature of exploration, the places that aroused 36 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:44,080 Speaker 1: our strongest passions always resembled our original African home. Yellow 37 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:47,639 Speaker 1: savannahs speckled to the limits of our site with herds 38 00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:51,760 Speaker 1: and packs of wild animals. Think of the Massai Mara 39 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:55,680 Speaker 1: and the serengetti as our templates the sights of our 40 00:02:55,800 --> 00:03:04,000 Speaker 1: earliest rememberings of whence we'd come two hundred years ago. 41 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:08,280 Speaker 1: Except for East Africa itself, no part of the globe 42 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 1: thrilled us in the same primeval way as the American 43 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:16,720 Speaker 1: planes today. The Plains is a drought and dust plague 44 00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:21,600 Speaker 1: habitat of big farm machinery and hog farms or fracking wells. 45 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,360 Speaker 1: Often ignored or laughed about flyover country. But once it 46 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:32,840 Speaker 1: was not yet de buffaloed, dewolved, degressed, then the Great 47 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:35,920 Speaker 1: Plains was one of the marvels of the world. With 48 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:40,560 Speaker 1: its amazing ecology of big charismatic animals. The Plains enabled 49 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,840 Speaker 1: Americans and Europeans of all backgrounds to experience home base 50 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:49,040 Speaker 1: one last time. Because of that, the Plains once was 51 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: a destination for adventurers, for scientists, and for literary types 52 00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:57,800 Speaker 1: from around the globe. Out on these vast horizontal yellow 53 00:03:57,840 --> 00:04:01,760 Speaker 1: sweeps in the midst of grassland, bison herds and packs 54 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:06,120 Speaker 1: of various kinds of wolves and flapping, hooting scavenging birds 55 00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:11,760 Speaker 1: was where American and European scientific and literary travelers, rediscovering 56 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:23,200 Speaker 1: their home base, recorded our first impressions of the American West. 57 00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:28,359 Speaker 1: It was the early fall in eighteen o four, and 58 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,640 Speaker 1: for four months, twenty eight year old Meriwether Lewis and 59 00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:34,960 Speaker 1: thirty two year old William Clark had been leading their 60 00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:38,839 Speaker 1: core of discovery up the Missouri through a setting and 61 00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:42,600 Speaker 1: among animals similar to those of Virginia, where they had 62 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:47,000 Speaker 1: both grown up. They had found white tailed deer, black bears, 63 00:04:47,200 --> 00:04:51,520 Speaker 1: and elk numerous on the lower river. But late that summer, 64 00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:56,400 Speaker 1: and geographically they were roughly where today's Nebraska, South, Dakota, 65 00:04:56,440 --> 00:05:01,280 Speaker 1: and Iowa now meet, the country began to change. Trees 66 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:05,200 Speaker 1: were shorter, horizons were farther away, and on the hills 67 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:09,160 Speaker 1: above the river, they no longer had views of continuous forests, 68 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:14,960 Speaker 1: what their French hunters called prairies, were replacing views of trees. 69 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:18,880 Speaker 1: The air was growing drier, and the splines and pegs 70 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:21,799 Speaker 1: on their keel boats started falling out of their fittings. 71 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:25,680 Speaker 1: In the next three weeks, Lewis and Clark passed into 72 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:30,120 Speaker 1: the American version of Asia, from which so many of 73 00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:35,159 Speaker 1: the West's animals had come, or Africa, whose planes these 74 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:41,159 Speaker 1: horizontal grasslands resembled. The transformation happened between about ninety seven 75 00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:45,360 Speaker 1: and ninety nine degrees of west longitude, some two hundred 76 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:49,480 Speaker 1: miles due west of the Mississippi River. If our modern 77 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:53,560 Speaker 1: cities had existed, then the zone of change demarcating a 78 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:57,159 Speaker 1: kind of an Appalachian in America from a rocky Mountain 79 00:05:57,200 --> 00:06:04,400 Speaker 1: America would have run roughly through Austin, Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Wichita, 80 00:06:04,440 --> 00:06:08,240 Speaker 1: and Fargo. Today, some of those towns are more intriguing 81 00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:10,760 Speaker 1: than others, but one of the things they all share 82 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:14,280 Speaker 1: is a sense of being on an edge. I grew 83 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:16,719 Speaker 1: up a little farther east, but I still recall the 84 00:06:16,839 --> 00:06:22,039 Speaker 1: powerful feeling of some undefined but profound alteration looming just 85 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:26,480 Speaker 1: beyond the western horizon. The feeling was always there, and 86 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:28,760 Speaker 1: it excited me enough that as soon as I could 87 00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:36,200 Speaker 1: drive a car, I at once went west to see 88 00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:41,039 Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark got to experience the change entire Instructed 89 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:44,279 Speaker 1: by Jefferson to seek out any and all new life forms. 90 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:47,880 Speaker 1: On August twenty third, the party killed and died on 91 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:51,920 Speaker 1: the first bison most of them had ever seen. By 92 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:55,280 Speaker 1: September the seventh, they were among their first prairie dogs 93 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:58,840 Speaker 1: colony squirrels that made nests in burrows in the ground 94 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:01,760 Speaker 1: rather than in trees. A week later there was an 95 00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:06,000 Speaker 1: even more remarkable encounter what they called a buck goat 96 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,680 Speaker 1: of this country, more like the antelope or gazella of 97 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:14,600 Speaker 1: Africa than any other species of goat. The prong horne 98 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:19,000 Speaker 1: was one of America's original contributions to evolution, the striped 99 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:23,240 Speaker 1: thoroughbred of the West. Three days later, the explorers encountered 100 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:26,760 Speaker 1: a curious kind of a deer of a dark gray color, 101 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:31,080 Speaker 1: the ears large and long, and with a strange pogo 102 00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:35,520 Speaker 1: stick gait that'd seen a mule deer familiar to Spanish 103 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:39,080 Speaker 1: settlers in New Mexico and California, but unlike any deer 104 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:42,720 Speaker 1: seen by Americans from east to the Big River. This 105 00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:46,320 Speaker 1: came on the same day they saw a remarkable bird 106 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:49,960 Speaker 1: of the species of corvas. It was their first sighting 107 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:55,520 Speaker 1: of a black billed magpie, a beautiful thing, Clark wrote. 108 00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:59,080 Speaker 1: The day after that, in the vicinity of present day Chamberlain, 109 00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:04,360 Speaker 1: South Dakota, the explorers encountered another American original. All that 110 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:06,600 Speaker 1: September they had been seeing what they assumed was some 111 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:10,320 Speaker 1: new kind of fox, and on the eighteenth William Clark 112 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:14,840 Speaker 1: finally shot one. The sleek caned was no fox, though, 113 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:18,239 Speaker 1: but it wasn't the Eastern wolf the Americans knew either. 114 00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:23,360 Speaker 1: They decided to call it a prairie wolf. Decades later, 115 00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:27,200 Speaker 1: nationalists would discover that this was the same animal many 116 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:31,800 Speaker 1: Native people and Spanish settlers knew as the coyote, the 117 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:36,680 Speaker 1: avatar of the Western Indian deity coyote, and another special 118 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:42,000 Speaker 1: contribution from North American evolution. Lewis and Clark had passed 119 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:45,959 Speaker 1: through the portal into North America's version of the Serengetti. 120 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:52,880 Speaker 1: That analog isn't specious either. Despite Jefferson's hopes, masdons, mammoths, 121 00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:56,880 Speaker 1: and camels no longer roamed the West, but its historic 122 00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:01,960 Speaker 1: bestieri preserved poetry and spectacle, with thronging masses of bison 123 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:06,760 Speaker 1: playing a role similar to that of East Africa's migrating wildebeasts, 124 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:12,120 Speaker 1: pronghorns resembling nothing less than antelopes or gazelles, gray wolves 125 00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:16,120 Speaker 1: filling the niche of wild dogs in Africa, coyotes doing 126 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:20,720 Speaker 1: an almost exact impression of jackals, and an ancient American 127 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:26,120 Speaker 1: animal that was now fast returning escaped wild horses functioning 128 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:30,719 Speaker 1: like zebra hers. Africa had retained its lions, and its elephants, 129 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:34,360 Speaker 1: of course, and its hyenas and cheetahs. While America had not, 130 00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:38,880 Speaker 1: but America Serengetti had another king of beasts, the grizzly bear. 131 00:09:39,880 --> 00:09:43,320 Speaker 1: As Lewis and Kark were about to discover, this formidable 132 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:47,400 Speaker 1: bear played a lion like, almost a godlike role. In 133 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:53,800 Speaker 1: the West, the open country was filled with a cacophony 134 00:09:53,880 --> 00:09:57,360 Speaker 1: of sound. Pary dog towns loaded the earl space with 135 00:09:57,559 --> 00:10:02,840 Speaker 1: chirruping and trilling. Redtailed hawks screamed overhead. Bull elk with 136 00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:07,480 Speaker 1: racks heavy enough to affect how they moved, whistled haunting challenges. 137 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:09,280 Speaker 2: Bison muttered and. 138 00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:13,480 Speaker 1: Bellowed with a sound that resembled far away continuous thunder. 139 00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:16,920 Speaker 2: Coyotes, hip and wolves howled the. 140 00:10:16,880 --> 00:10:23,080 Speaker 1: Continent's original national anthem, morning and evening and throughout the nights. 141 00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:27,200 Speaker 1: And grizzly bears, well, grizzly bears had a repertoire of sounds, 142 00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:31,760 Speaker 1: some hair raising beyond all experience. These Americans hadn't heard 143 00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:38,079 Speaker 1: them yet. When they did, they would never forget. They 144 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:41,240 Speaker 1: got their first intimation. They were in Grizzly Country on 145 00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:44,800 Speaker 1: October seventh of eighteen oh four, when they saw bear 146 00:10:44,880 --> 00:10:48,800 Speaker 1: tracks three times the size of their footprints. But the 147 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:52,240 Speaker 1: fascinating animal of the moment, in part because it was 148 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:56,839 Speaker 1: so unprecedented, was the pronghorn. It struck them as an 149 00:10:56,920 --> 00:11:02,440 Speaker 1: almost inexplicable creature. Already shot a buck and now hoping 150 00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:06,240 Speaker 1: to collect a female for science, Lewis stalked a harem 151 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:09,360 Speaker 1: of seven, only to have them whirl away and disappear. 152 00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:12,960 Speaker 1: In another few minutes, he saw the same ban three 153 00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:17,880 Speaker 1: miles distant. I had this day an opportunity of witnessing 154 00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:22,280 Speaker 1: the agility and superior fleetness of this animal, which was 155 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:26,160 Speaker 1: to me really astonishing, he wrote in his journal. When 156 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:28,959 Speaker 1: I beheld the rapidity of their flight along the ridge 157 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:32,640 Speaker 1: before me, it appeared rather the rapid flight of birds 158 00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:37,320 Speaker 1: than the motions of quadrupeds. The Americans had no way 159 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:40,079 Speaker 1: of knowing that in prong horns they were seeing one 160 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:44,920 Speaker 1: of the best extant expressions of deep continental evolution. When 161 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:49,080 Speaker 1: Merriwether Lewis stood amazed at prong horn speed. Their predators 162 00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:52,760 Speaker 1: were gray wolves and coyotes, neither of which can run 163 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:55,920 Speaker 1: much more than forty miles an hour, Yet with their 164 00:11:56,040 --> 00:12:01,240 Speaker 1: light bones, broad nostrils, and windpipes, delivering turbo charged oxygen 165 00:12:01,559 --> 00:12:05,120 Speaker 1: to outsize lungs and hearts. One hundred and twenty pound 166 00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:08,160 Speaker 1: buck prong horns can top fifty five miles an hour, 167 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:13,120 Speaker 1: and slighter doze can hit sixty five to seventy Female 168 00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:18,800 Speaker 1: prong horns, Lewis and Clark ultimately discovered consistently bore twin fawns, 169 00:12:19,360 --> 00:12:23,760 Speaker 1: but wine in the matter of gazelles. In Africa, prong 170 00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:28,199 Speaker 1: horns formed herds that crowded younger animals to the outside. 171 00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:30,280 Speaker 2: But again, why would they do that. 172 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:35,040 Speaker 1: Prong horns possessed gigantic eyes, as if they were searching 173 00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:39,199 Speaker 1: for danger at some great distance. The American naturalists were 174 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:49,439 Speaker 1: dazzled but endlessly puzzled at these antelope goats. On October twentieth, 175 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:52,840 Speaker 1: a week shy of the Mandan villages where they planned 176 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,160 Speaker 1: to spend the winter, and in the midst of what 177 00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:58,920 Speaker 1: they said were great numbers of buffalo, elk, deer, and goats, 178 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:02,240 Speaker 1: the Americans got their first look at a white bear, 179 00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:05,760 Speaker 1: by which they meant a grizzly. In a premonition of 180 00:13:05,800 --> 00:13:09,240 Speaker 1: the relationship they would soon forge with grizzlies, they shot it, 181 00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:12,439 Speaker 1: but the bear seemed to shrug off the hit and escaped. 182 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,440 Speaker 1: That winter of eighteen oh four to five, they heard 183 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:20,480 Speaker 1: many grizzly stories from their Mandan hosts, whose awe of 184 00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:24,599 Speaker 1: and respect for the giant bears actually had the Americans 185 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:33,120 Speaker 1: snickering in private. Heading up to the Missouri in the 186 00:13:33,160 --> 00:13:36,360 Speaker 1: spring of eighteen oh five, the Americans got their first 187 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:40,440 Speaker 1: sense of grizzly natural history in what is now North Dakota, 188 00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:46,760 Speaker 1: about halfway between today's Man and Williston. Notice first that 189 00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:50,360 Speaker 1: these cities are far out on the Great Plains, which 190 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:53,680 Speaker 1: in fact was a primary grizzly range in the west. 191 00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:57,720 Speaker 1: The party found drowned bison washed up on the riverbanks, 192 00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:01,000 Speaker 1: as well as many tracks of the white bear of 193 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:02,200 Speaker 1: enormous size. 194 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:04,080 Speaker 2: As they put it, they. 195 00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:09,960 Speaker 1: Were seeing proof that grizzlies scavenged buffalo casualties. Over the 196 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:13,400 Speaker 1: next two weeks, as the expedition pushed upriver towards the 197 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:17,880 Speaker 1: present Montana border, bear tracks in the river mud increased. 198 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:20,520 Speaker 1: But the only bears they glimpsed, as they put it, 199 00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:23,760 Speaker 1: are at a great distance and generally running from us. 200 00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:27,720 Speaker 1: The Indian account of them does not correspond with our 201 00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:32,840 Speaker 1: experience so far, Lewis confided to his journal that was 202 00:14:32,880 --> 00:14:36,720 Speaker 1: about to change. On the morning of April twenty ninth, 203 00:14:36,800 --> 00:14:41,320 Speaker 1: walking along the shore, Lewis encountered two grizzlies and shot 204 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:42,000 Speaker 1: both of them. 205 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:44,680 Speaker 2: One escaped, but the other. 206 00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:48,920 Speaker 1: A young male, at once came after the explorer, pursuing 207 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:53,200 Speaker 1: Lewis until more shots, downding. This young animal was the 208 00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:56,360 Speaker 1: first grizzly bear Lewis was able to examine close up. 209 00:14:57,160 --> 00:15:00,000 Speaker 1: The legs of this bear are somewhat longer than those 210 00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:04,640 Speaker 1: of the black as are its talons and tusks incomparably 211 00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:09,160 Speaker 1: larger and longer. Its color is yellowish brown, the eyes 212 00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:13,600 Speaker 1: small black and piercing. The fur is finger thicker and 213 00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:17,760 Speaker 1: deeper than that of the black bear. While he contended 214 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,680 Speaker 1: that it is a much more ferocious and formidable animal 215 00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:25,800 Speaker 1: and will frequently pursue the hunter when wounded, Lewis also 216 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:30,160 Speaker 1: concluded that against their heavy rifles, grizzlies were by no 217 00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:33,880 Speaker 1: means as formidable or dangerous as they have been presented. 218 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:39,320 Speaker 1: That was a foolhardy arrogance about American technology, and a 219 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,480 Speaker 1: few days later, on May fifth, and encounter with a 220 00:15:42,520 --> 00:15:45,600 Speaker 1: fully grown bear would sow the first seeds of doubt. 221 00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:50,240 Speaker 1: This time they came up against a most tremendous looking 222 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:54,840 Speaker 1: animal and extremely hard to kill, notwithstanding he had five 223 00:15:54,920 --> 00:15:58,520 Speaker 1: balls through his lungs and five others in various parts. 224 00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:03,680 Speaker 1: They also began to perceive the individuality of grizzly personalities. 225 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:07,680 Speaker 1: This bear did not attack, but instead made the most 226 00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:11,520 Speaker 1: tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot, then swam 227 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,880 Speaker 1: to a sandbar and took twenty minutes to die. Doing 228 00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:19,480 Speaker 1: a kind of field autopsy, Lewis found the bear's heart 229 00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,160 Speaker 1: to be the size of that of a large ox. 230 00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:26,080 Speaker 1: The maw ten times the size of a black bear's, 231 00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:29,360 Speaker 1: was filled with flesh and the fish the bear had 232 00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:32,760 Speaker 1: been catching when he had been unfortunate enough to fall 233 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:36,520 Speaker 1: under the gaze of the American travelers. In his journal, 234 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:39,960 Speaker 1: William Clark wrote that this bear was the largest of 235 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:44,400 Speaker 1: the carnivorous kind I ever saw. Around the campfire that night, 236 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:48,440 Speaker 1: several members of the party decided their curiosity about grizzly 237 00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:54,080 Speaker 1: bears is pretty well satisfied. But this was a group 238 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,200 Speaker 1: of men straight out of the colonial experience. They were 239 00:16:57,280 --> 00:17:01,240 Speaker 1: used to shooting virtually every animal they saw, with grizzlies 240 00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:05,240 Speaker 1: in almost every case they were firing on an unsuspecting 241 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:09,880 Speaker 1: animal minding its own business, unless they're guarding a carcass, 242 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:14,240 Speaker 1: surprised at close range, or are females protecting their young. 243 00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:18,840 Speaker 1: Grizzly bears don't normally charge people, but they don't react 244 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,920 Speaker 1: well to being attacked. As this rodeo repeated again and again, 245 00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:27,000 Speaker 1: the bears increasingly assumed the role in the explorer's journal 246 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:33,639 Speaker 1: accounts of monsters. In Lewis's almost classic line, these bear 247 00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:38,679 Speaker 1: being so hard to die rather intimidates us all, and 248 00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:42,040 Speaker 1: there was an obvious solution to that. He could have 249 00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:46,359 Speaker 1: just told his men to stop shooting every grizzly they encountered, 250 00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:52,560 Speaker 1: but of course that was not the American way. I 251 00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:54,920 Speaker 1: know what it's like to be charged by a grizzly bear. 252 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:58,560 Speaker 1: In twenty years of living in Montana with grizzly bears 253 00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:01,120 Speaker 1: in the mountains, I never had a bad bear encounter, 254 00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:04,560 Speaker 1: but I have had the experience of seeing a grizzly 255 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:08,520 Speaker 1: come on at full gallop. So I struggled to understand 256 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:13,240 Speaker 1: intentionally provoking a grizzly bear like some frat party dare 257 00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:15,800 Speaker 1: by shooting it in the ribs with a muzzle loader. 258 00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:19,720 Speaker 1: My own thirty or so seconds with a charging grizzly 259 00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,159 Speaker 1: was in Alaska. Our group saw a grizzly up ahead, 260 00:18:23,320 --> 00:18:27,040 Speaker 1: climbing a riverbank. As we approached the spot, my companions 261 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:30,639 Speaker 1: and I were suddenly presented with the heart stopping vision 262 00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:35,040 Speaker 1: of a chestnut blonde grizzly launching at full speed directly 263 00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:39,000 Speaker 1: at us. All the eye could register were detach details 264 00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:43,919 Speaker 1: rippling fur in the sunlight, tiny and focused eyes, glimpses 265 00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:48,880 Speaker 1: of curved white fangs, and an irresistible onward motion closing 266 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:53,000 Speaker 1: the distance too fast a register. Then our guide loosed 267 00:18:53,040 --> 00:18:56,080 Speaker 1: a piercing whistle that skidded the bear to a stop 268 00:18:56,119 --> 00:19:02,560 Speaker 1: barely sixty feet away. Handsome, symmetrical and upright ears scanning 269 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:08,080 Speaker 1: the bear's black eyes suddenly locked a split second, What 270 00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:12,280 Speaker 1: the fuck crossed his face, followed by a studied, almost 271 00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:15,600 Speaker 1: nonchalant turned to his right, and then, like a quarter 272 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:18,480 Speaker 1: horse under quirk, he was bounding and crashing through the 273 00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:22,240 Speaker 1: dwarf willows as hard as he could, run away from us. 274 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:27,280 Speaker 1: After a few minutes of the gods were still alive confusion, 275 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:31,520 Speaker 1: we realized what had happened. The bear had heard our 276 00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:35,920 Speaker 1: voices bouncing off a distant cutbank. Thought that's where we were, 277 00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:40,360 Speaker 1: and had fled in exactly the wrong direction. The charge 278 00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:44,359 Speaker 1: we just experienced was actually a grizzly bear running for 279 00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:51,000 Speaker 1: its life to escape us. Meriwether Lewis didn't tell his 280 00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:54,960 Speaker 1: men that science had been satisfied, though, so they just 281 00:19:55,240 --> 00:19:59,600 Speaker 1: kept tempting fate. At one point, six of them approached 282 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:03,160 Speaker 1: to within in forty yards of a grizzly grazing quietly 283 00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:07,400 Speaker 1: on spring grass in the open prairie. Four men shot him, 284 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:11,240 Speaker 1: while two reserved their fire. In an instant, this monster 285 00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:14,480 Speaker 1: ran at them with open mouth, Lewis scribbled that night, 286 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,880 Speaker 1: they finally perforated the bear with eight balls, each hit 287 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:21,959 Speaker 1: only serving to direct the furious animal to the shooter, 288 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,879 Speaker 1: until several of them had to dive off a twenty 289 00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:27,960 Speaker 1: foot cliff into the river in a rage. The bear 290 00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:31,520 Speaker 1: plunged off the bank right after them, before finally expiring. 291 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:36,320 Speaker 1: The Stories of these needless assaults on grizzly bears raised 292 00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:39,159 Speaker 1: no eyebrows back East when the Lewis and Clark journals 293 00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:42,080 Speaker 1: went into print, but they did manage to lay the 294 00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:46,120 Speaker 1: blame on the bears, giving the grizzly its Lenaean name 295 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:53,120 Speaker 1: Ursus Harribelus. Lewis and Clark ended up encountering, usually confronting, 296 00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:56,600 Speaker 1: thirty seven grizzly bears during the course of their expedition. 297 00:20:57,359 --> 00:21:01,080 Speaker 1: By following rivers, they were conducting what field biology calls 298 00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:06,720 Speaker 1: line transsect sampling. Barriccologists believe Lewis and Clark's experiences on 299 00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:10,440 Speaker 1: the Missouri in eighteen oh four eighteen oh six give 300 00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 1: us a good feel for how many grizzly bears were 301 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:17,960 Speaker 1: in the West when Americans first arrived. The Americans saw 302 00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:21,679 Speaker 1: all their grizzlies in one thousand miles stretch in the 303 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:24,840 Speaker 1: high plains east of the main chain of the Rockies. 304 00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:28,000 Speaker 1: They saw no grizzlies at all in the depths of 305 00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:31,520 Speaker 1: the mountains or in the Pacific Northwest, and their line 306 00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:36,480 Speaker 1: transect obviously missed grizzlies farther south in California, for example, 307 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:41,840 Speaker 1: or in Colorado the desert southwest. Nonetheless, thirty seven bears 308 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,040 Speaker 1: and roughly one thousand miles means they were seeing a 309 00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:51,800 Speaker 1: bear roughly every twenty five miles. As ecology infers population demographics, 310 00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 1: that translates to nearly four grizzly bears in every block 311 00:21:55,880 --> 00:22:00,520 Speaker 1: of ground ten miles by ten miles and a half 312 00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:03,399 Speaker 1: million square miles of the grizzly bears range in the 313 00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:09,560 Speaker 1: lower forty eight from California to the western edges of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, 314 00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:14,680 Speaker 1: and Iowa. Bar ecologists estimate that in the early eighteen hundreds, 315 00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:18,879 Speaker 1: some fifty six thousand grizzly bears ranged across the West. 316 00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,359 Speaker 1: The Americans Line transact missed a great deal of the 317 00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:30,120 Speaker 1: bird and animal riches of the West, which is why 318 00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:34,199 Speaker 1: Jefferson planned other scientific explorations and why the rest of 319 00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,560 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century featured new US expeditions into the West 320 00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:44,520 Speaker 1: every subsequent decade. Though tragically depressive, Meriwether Lewis was a 321 00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:49,240 Speaker 1: kind of self taught American Humboldt, a brilliant field naturalist 322 00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:52,879 Speaker 1: for whom evidence based science appeal more than religion or 323 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:57,600 Speaker 1: supernatural explanations. So it wasn't just grizzly bears or prong horns, 324 00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,360 Speaker 1: coyotes or magpies. The Party in introduced to the new 325 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:05,840 Speaker 1: scientific understanding of nature in the West. Among their many 326 00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:10,560 Speaker 1: other discoveries were big horned sheep. These animals bound from 327 00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,720 Speaker 1: rock to rock and stand apparently in the most careless 328 00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:17,639 Speaker 1: manner on the sides of precipices of many hundreds of feet. 329 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:20,680 Speaker 1: They are very shy and are quick of both scent 330 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:24,000 Speaker 1: and sight. The horns occupy the crown of the head 331 00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:28,440 Speaker 1: almost entirely, is how they put it. They also saw plains, 332 00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:31,800 Speaker 1: gray wolves, the shepherds of the buffalo herds, they said, 333 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:36,359 Speaker 1: black tail deer a version of mule deer, Roosevelt's elk 334 00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:41,280 Speaker 1: like black tails, a Pacific Northwest variation, mountain goats, white 335 00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:47,760 Speaker 1: tailed jackrabbits, swift foxes, western badgers, numerous species of ground squirrels. 336 00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,120 Speaker 2: And beyond the mammals, all of. 337 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:55,560 Speaker 1: These cutthroat and steelhead trout, white sturgeon, two new species 338 00:23:55,600 --> 00:24:01,440 Speaker 1: of rattlesnakes, horn toads. As for birds, harry chickens, four 339 00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:06,040 Speaker 1: new corvids, including western ravens, sage grouse, and five other 340 00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:10,760 Speaker 1: new species of grouse. Three new geese, including the lesser Canadian. 341 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,080 Speaker 1: Five new species of woodpeckers, among them a western piliated 342 00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:20,120 Speaker 1: woodpecker and a woodpecker named after Meriwether Lewis. Three new jays, 343 00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,720 Speaker 1: including the pinion jay, a new nighthawk, and a new 344 00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:28,600 Speaker 1: poor will the western meadowlark, the western tanager, the western 345 00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:32,439 Speaker 1: mourning dove, the long billed curlew, three new gulls, and 346 00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:36,840 Speaker 1: two new terns, more prairie birds, the prairie horned lark, 347 00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:41,399 Speaker 1: and McCown's long spur, and among several other birds, the 348 00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,920 Speaker 1: whistling swan. When they return with their specimens and their 349 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:50,480 Speaker 1: voluminous notes, and despite their having seen wild horses fat 350 00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:55,080 Speaker 1: as seals grazing the Colombian gorge, all hoped that the 351 00:24:55,080 --> 00:25:00,919 Speaker 1: West might hold living masdons or camels faded. The West 352 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:04,560 Speaker 1: offered up a completely different America than the East, which 353 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,840 Speaker 1: now seemed a many partly tropical and partly European, but 354 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:13,760 Speaker 1: with no elephants anywhere, extinction appeared to be final even 355 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:21,880 Speaker 1: in the west. In the West, the world still seemed dewy, fresh, 356 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:26,880 Speaker 1: and American Eden. The naturalists who went there were ecstatic. 357 00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:31,920 Speaker 1: In Lewis and Clark's time, American universities were only barely 358 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,040 Speaker 1: starting to turn out trained field naturalists. It's why no 359 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:41,200 Speaker 1: real naturalists accompanied Lewis and Clark. Trained naturalists weren't long 360 00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:46,480 Speaker 1: in coming, but most were Europeans. Thomas Nuttall, for example, 361 00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,640 Speaker 1: arrived from Yorkshire in eighteen oh eight at the age 362 00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,280 Speaker 1: of twenty two, and at once came to the attention 363 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:56,560 Speaker 1: of a prominent American professor of the natural sciences, Benjamin 364 00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:00,479 Speaker 1: Smith Barton of the University of Pennsylvania. Martin had been 365 00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:04,840 Speaker 1: Jefferson's advisor on natural sciences for the President's Western expeditions. 366 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,800 Speaker 1: One of his students, doctor Peter Custis, as I'll relate 367 00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:12,840 Speaker 1: in another podcast, became the first American trained scientist to 368 00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:18,120 Speaker 1: explore the West. Barton became a Nutall advocate, though introducing 369 00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:22,600 Speaker 1: him to William McClure of the American Philosophical Society, who 370 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:27,439 Speaker 1: nominated Nuttall for membership in the society. With patrons like these, 371 00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:31,080 Speaker 1: Nutdall got to explore across the West for the next 372 00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:35,720 Speaker 1: three decades. In eighteen eighteen and eighteen nineteen, not All 373 00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,199 Speaker 1: embarked on a natural history expedition to the edge of 374 00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:45,000 Speaker 1: the Southern Prairies. Nudall's route took him diagonally southeast to northwest, 375 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:50,400 Speaker 1: across the Arkansas Territory, then westward as far as central Oklahoma, 376 00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,600 Speaker 1: and on south to the Red River and the border 377 00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:58,520 Speaker 1: of Spanish Texas. If you read Nutall's Southwestern Journal today, 378 00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,760 Speaker 1: it's clear he was naturalizing along the edge of that 379 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:07,160 Speaker 1: great ecological change from east to west. The change made 380 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:13,280 Speaker 1: a huge impression on almost everyone. Every traveler who entered 381 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,680 Speaker 1: the Great Plains from the east had an experience like Nutdalls. 382 00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:21,320 Speaker 1: The ecotone that marked this ecological boundary sometimes changed the 383 00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:23,560 Speaker 1: country from east to west in no more than twenty 384 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,920 Speaker 1: or thirty miles. In eighteen nineteen, Nutall travel right down 385 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,080 Speaker 1: that seam from the present Tulsa area southward along the 386 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,520 Speaker 1: western stretches of the Washitaw Mountains to the Red River, 387 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,960 Speaker 1: moving in and out of prairie country like an immense 388 00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:44,520 Speaker 1: meadow covered with luxuriant herbage and beautifully decorated flowers, he said, 389 00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:48,240 Speaker 1: and he encountered there bison, of course, which were the 390 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,920 Speaker 1: commonest mammal marker of the edge. 391 00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,040 Speaker 2: Of the prairie. 392 00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:57,119 Speaker 1: Then, in eighteen nineteen and eighteen twenty, a government expedition 393 00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:02,040 Speaker 1: led by Stephen Long explored the Colorado Front Range and 394 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,880 Speaker 1: returned across the plains, thinking that they were examining one 395 00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,520 Speaker 1: of President Jefferson's targeted rivers in the west, the Red 396 00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:15,800 Speaker 1: River of the South. Long's naturalists included Edwin James Thomas Say, 397 00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,800 Speaker 1: and Say was the grandson of the famed eighteenth century 398 00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:25,760 Speaker 1: American naturalist John Bartram and painters Samuel Seymour and Titian Peel, 399 00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,920 Speaker 1: crossing today's Texas and Oklahoma plains, and they were actually 400 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,240 Speaker 1: on the Canadian River rather than the Red They traveled 401 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:39,280 Speaker 1: through what they called inconceivable numbers of herbivorous animals and 402 00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:44,160 Speaker 1: innumerable birds and beasts of prey. Herds of wild horses 403 00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:48,600 Speaker 1: five hundred strong surrounded them, and with disease epidemics still 404 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:53,800 Speaker 1: suppressing Native American populations, the animals were also tamed that 405 00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:58,600 Speaker 1: they appeared wholly unaccustomed to the side of men. The 406 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,040 Speaker 1: bisons and the wool moved slowly off to the right 407 00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,240 Speaker 1: and left, leaving a lane for the party to pass 408 00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:10,560 Speaker 1: through long road. Long's official report claimed that the western 409 00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:15,960 Speaker 1: plains seemed peculiarly adapted as a range for buffaloes, wild goats, 410 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,760 Speaker 1: and other wild game, and he concluded that country was 411 00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,520 Speaker 1: best left just as they had found it. Seymour's and 412 00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:28,080 Speaker 1: Peel's paintings portraying the West as a paradise of animals 413 00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,720 Speaker 1: and landscapes, were the first visual representations of the inland 414 00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:34,480 Speaker 1: west the world ever saw. 415 00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:37,560 Speaker 2: The accolades kept coming too. 416 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:43,160 Speaker 1: Englishman John Bradbury, a romantic nature lover who accompanied fur 417 00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,920 Speaker 1: trade parties for safety, had never seen the like the buffaloes, 418 00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:51,560 Speaker 1: elks and antelopes had made paths which were covered with 419 00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,400 Speaker 1: grass and flowers. I have never seen a place, however, 420 00:29:55,480 --> 00:30:00,480 Speaker 1: embellished by art equal to this in beauty on John 421 00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:04,200 Speaker 1: Kirk Townsend, who accompanied Nuddall with a fur trading party 422 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,160 Speaker 1: up the Platte River in eighteen thirty four, thought the 423 00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,560 Speaker 1: pronghorn in particular one of the most beautiful animals I 424 00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,920 Speaker 1: ever saw. As it bounds over the plain, it seems 425 00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:18,320 Speaker 1: scarcely to touch the ground, so exceedingly light and agile 426 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:22,920 Speaker 1: are its motions. On crossing south pass over the Rockies, 427 00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:27,240 Speaker 1: Townsend wrote, I never before saw so great a variety 428 00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,719 Speaker 1: of birds in the same space. All were beautiful, and 429 00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,800 Speaker 1: many were new to me. He sent his collections of 430 00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:38,160 Speaker 1: Western birds, like the Townsend solitaire, for example, and his 431 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:44,920 Speaker 1: animal skins to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 432 00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,160 Speaker 1: As travelers moved from the East and began to enter 433 00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:53,440 Speaker 1: the west, Bison, elk, pronghorns, coyotes, and prairie dogs were 434 00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,560 Speaker 1: always the new animals whose presence coincided with the first 435 00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:02,480 Speaker 1: appearances of a grassland dominated landscape. Americans in the nineteenth 436 00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:07,040 Speaker 1: century were fascinated sensory observers of these changes, and repeatedly 437 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:13,440 Speaker 1: recorded a predictable progression. Explorer John C. Fremont's journey Westford 438 00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,480 Speaker 1: from Chateaus landing on the Missouri in the year eighteen 439 00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:22,000 Speaker 1: forty two captured it. A month's travel up the Kansas River. 440 00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:26,280 Speaker 1: As the woodlands opened in the sweeping grassy prairies, Fremont 441 00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:29,000 Speaker 1: began to report pronghorns running. 442 00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:29,360 Speaker 2: Over the hills. 443 00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:34,080 Speaker 1: The next day he noticed that artemisia or sagebrush had 444 00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,479 Speaker 1: become common. The day after that, elk began to appear 445 00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,400 Speaker 1: on the river. Within a week after that they were 446 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,120 Speaker 1: among the buffalo herds, and at that point wolves in 447 00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,720 Speaker 1: great numbers surrounded us during the night, howling and trotting about. 448 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,760 Speaker 1: It had become clear that the task of a close 449 00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:57,720 Speaker 1: examination of the West and describing all these brand new 450 00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: species to Western science was going to take decades, and indeed, 451 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:08,120 Speaker 1: with expirations by topographical engineers like Fremont in the eighteen forties, 452 00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 1: William Emery Marveling at the Desert Southwest on the Mexican 453 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,400 Speaker 1: Boundary Survey in the eighteen fifties, John Wesley Powell's The 454 00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,920 Speaker 1: Sense of the Grand Canyon for the US Geological Survey 455 00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,920 Speaker 1: in the eighteen seventies, and the work of Seehart Miriam's 456 00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:30,160 Speaker 1: Biological Survey in the eighteen nineties. This was a scientific 457 00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:33,760 Speaker 1: task that took up the whole of the nineteenth century. 458 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,880 Speaker 1: By its end, though science and the American government had 459 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,000 Speaker 1: laid out for the world not just the Great Plains, 460 00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,280 Speaker 1: but the landscapes and animal life of the whole of 461 00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:49,240 Speaker 1: the American West, the American publican just about everyone else 462 00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:53,479 Speaker 1: was bewitched. Despite all the change and all the loss, 463 00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:58,200 Speaker 1: that magical sense of the West has never yet gone away. 464 00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:04,880 Speaker 1: While of Stegner's timeless phrase, the region remains today a 465 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:26,480 Speaker 1: geography of hope. 466 00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,280 Speaker 3: In this episode, a lot of what you talk about 467 00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:49,440 Speaker 3: is euro Americans crossing this ecological gradient in the continent, 468 00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,680 Speaker 3: sort of the revelation of all these new species in 469 00:33:53,800 --> 00:34:00,960 Speaker 3: this unfamiliar beastiary. And you know, the the plains, right, 470 00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,680 Speaker 3: And I'm just curious what strikes me about that is 471 00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:08,960 Speaker 3: I had my own I mean, obviously it's like a 472 00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:14,200 Speaker 3: very different experience in two thousand and eight. But I 473 00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,720 Speaker 3: remember when I was twenty one getting in my truck 474 00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:22,160 Speaker 3: and driving west and having this that immersive experience and 475 00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:25,440 Speaker 3: watching the land change underneath your feet. Yeah, And I 476 00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:30,279 Speaker 3: know you grew up in Louisiana, and I wonder what 477 00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:36,280 Speaker 3: your personal journey was like for the first time crossing 478 00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:36,880 Speaker 3: into the West. 479 00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:39,160 Speaker 2: Well, I. 480 00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,399 Speaker 1: Had an absolute fascination with what was immediately to the 481 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,279 Speaker 1: west of me because I grew up in northwestern Louisiana 482 00:34:53,320 --> 00:35:00,319 Speaker 1: and Cattle Parish, which is near Shreveport in Cattle Parish, 483 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:05,200 Speaker 1: and my family had been in Louisiana for three hundred years, 484 00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:09,279 Speaker 1: and I knew that we had in our background, we 485 00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,520 Speaker 1: had stories still and when I was in graduate school, 486 00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,040 Speaker 1: I got to read about read actual accounts of some 487 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,560 Speaker 1: of these people who were traders to the tribes up 488 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,239 Speaker 1: the Red River, and so I kind of had this 489 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,200 Speaker 1: sense of I had ancestors who had gone up the 490 00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:30,759 Speaker 1: Red River and gone into the West, and so I 491 00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:35,520 Speaker 1: was really fascinated with it. And as soon as my 492 00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,600 Speaker 1: parents would and I got a driver's license, and my 493 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:44,040 Speaker 1: parents thought that I could be trusted to go overnight 494 00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,120 Speaker 1: or for a couple of nights. The first thing I 495 00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:51,080 Speaker 1: did in a car was to drive straight west, and 496 00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:56,480 Speaker 1: I only drove to I drove past Dallas and Fort Worth, 497 00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:00,480 Speaker 1: where the country really fort Worth it really begins to change, 498 00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,160 Speaker 1: or in what's called the Grand Prairie, and so it 499 00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:08,480 Speaker 1: really opens up. And I drove about as far west 500 00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,560 Speaker 1: I think as Wichita Falls or something, and then turned 501 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:15,520 Speaker 1: up north into Oklahoma and drove through some of southern 502 00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,000 Speaker 1: Oklahoma up to Lawton, which is where the Comanches and 503 00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:24,600 Speaker 1: the Kiowas and the southern Cheyennes ended up, and also 504 00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,359 Speaker 1: the Caddos who had come out of the country where 505 00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,040 Speaker 1: I grew up, and then drove back to Louisiana. But 506 00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:34,040 Speaker 1: I've never gotten over the experience of that, and one 507 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:36,839 Speaker 1: of the things that I've always remembered about it. Two 508 00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,520 Speaker 1: things I really remember about it at night was that 509 00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,120 Speaker 1: when the night fell, I was used to living in 510 00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:45,680 Speaker 1: a country where you couldn't see one hundred yards because 511 00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,040 Speaker 1: of the density of the forest, and when night fell, 512 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,840 Speaker 1: I began to see the lights of towns that appeared 513 00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,319 Speaker 1: to be twenty thirty miles away, and I thought that 514 00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:01,600 Speaker 1: was tremendously exciting. And then the other thing that I 515 00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,000 Speaker 1: got to see at night was it looked like the 516 00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:11,520 Speaker 1: stars were bigger, polished. The night skies looked far more 517 00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,840 Speaker 1: vibrant than I was ever used to in Louisiana. So 518 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:19,440 Speaker 1: in those ways, I mean, I didn't see many animals, 519 00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,719 Speaker 1: you know, and I was hoping to see prong horns 520 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:26,200 Speaker 1: and prairie dogs, and I don't remember seeing very many animals. 521 00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,759 Speaker 1: But I got at least to see that change, that 522 00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:34,640 Speaker 1: ecological change, and I think that's been something magical for 523 00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,040 Speaker 1: people coming out of the East for a long time. 524 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,360 Speaker 1: I think, you know, the Spaniards coming up from say 525 00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:45,080 Speaker 1: Mexico through the Chihuahuan Desert to Santa Fe or to California, 526 00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:49,000 Speaker 1: they didn't experience that kind of transformation. But going from 527 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,799 Speaker 1: the East and entering the West for the first time, 528 00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,239 Speaker 1: I think it was really moving. So that's one of 529 00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,080 Speaker 1: the things I was trying to kind of describe in 530 00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:58,480 Speaker 1: this episode. 531 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,719 Speaker 4: Met this kid one time that had moved from Florida. 532 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,640 Speaker 4: He was living on by Fort Myers, Florida, and he 533 00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:10,360 Speaker 4: moved to bos of Montana, and he was telling me 534 00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,040 Speaker 4: he didn't like it because it was such a big town. 535 00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:17,400 Speaker 4: And I said, this town is not a fraction size 536 00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,600 Speaker 4: of Fort Myers. He goes, but yeah, but you can 537 00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:22,800 Speaker 4: see it all in Fort Myers. 538 00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:29,759 Speaker 2: You don't know how big it is. That's exactly it. 539 00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:34,040 Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see it, and you know, the ability 540 00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:38,399 Speaker 1: to see the world is to me a very really 541 00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:40,920 Speaker 1: powerful thing. I mean, you know, as I kind of 542 00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:44,120 Speaker 1: argued in this episode, and a lot of this comes 543 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:48,520 Speaker 1: from my book American Serengetti, I mean, I think this 544 00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:50,600 Speaker 1: is kind of a genetic memory because I think this 545 00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:55,719 Speaker 1: humans we sort of emerged into who we were in 546 00:38:55,800 --> 00:39:00,560 Speaker 1: the open country of Africa, and I think we were 547 00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,120 Speaker 1: there for a very long time. I mean, you know, 548 00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:06,399 Speaker 1: I've even I'm convinced that this is true. I've never 549 00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,719 Speaker 1: really seen any scientific corroboration for it. But I think 550 00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,720 Speaker 1: the reason everybody sets the thermostat at seventy two degrees 551 00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,880 Speaker 1: or somewhere around seventy two degrees, whether you're in Edmonton 552 00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:19,279 Speaker 1: or you're down in Mexico City, is because we grew. 553 00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,360 Speaker 1: We come, in a evolutionary sense, from a place where 554 00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:28,000 Speaker 1: that was what we evolved to. Yeah, that was the 555 00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,719 Speaker 1: mean temptuary, that was what was comfortable to humans, and 556 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:32,880 Speaker 1: so one of the things that enabled us to go 557 00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,520 Speaker 1: around the world was the invention of fire because we 558 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,320 Speaker 1: could go to much colder places and keep it seventy 559 00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:42,440 Speaker 1: two degrees around the campfire. So yeah, I think that 560 00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:46,280 Speaker 1: there's a you know, beyond just staying warm or cooler 561 00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:49,080 Speaker 1: or whatever. There's a genetic memory of that kind of 562 00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:54,560 Speaker 1: open landscape that is pretty deep in US, and it 563 00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:56,840 Speaker 1: certainly has it moves me. 564 00:39:57,840 --> 00:39:58,759 Speaker 2: Where do you think of. 565 00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:05,879 Speaker 4: When you when you imagine a a sort of baseline 566 00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:12,080 Speaker 4: for North American ecology. You know, there are people and 567 00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,360 Speaker 4: we've had some you know, you and I have some 568 00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:19,879 Speaker 4: exposure to folks at Colossal biosciences who are looking at 569 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:25,800 Speaker 4: like an ecological baseline being pre human for North America, 570 00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:29,360 Speaker 4: meaning that the interest in like bringing back Willie mammoths 571 00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:36,400 Speaker 4: and other things. I tend to when I picture in 572 00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:38,960 Speaker 4: my mind the like what it ought to look like? 573 00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,279 Speaker 4: I always go to it ought to look like what 574 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,520 Speaker 4: Lewis and Clark saw. J I mean like like it's 575 00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,880 Speaker 4: it seems achievable in some ways, in some places it's achievable. 576 00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,880 Speaker 4: It just seems like that if we're talking about what 577 00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:57,560 Speaker 4: was it like it was that day? 578 00:40:58,640 --> 00:40:59,839 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know it was that. 579 00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,439 Speaker 4: No, I'm there where do you where do you sit 580 00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:04,440 Speaker 4: on that? 581 00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,640 Speaker 1: That's That's that's where I am too. And I when 582 00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:11,759 Speaker 1: I imagine, you know, the West is I ideally want 583 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,640 Speaker 1: it to be, It's that world. And I think that's 584 00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:17,000 Speaker 1: one of the great things that the Lewis and Clark 585 00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:22,840 Speaker 1: expedition did for us is it gave us a mental 586 00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:28,720 Speaker 1: image of what the West was like before it really 587 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:36,080 Speaker 1: was being degraded and and you know, just kind of eaten. 588 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:37,320 Speaker 2: Away at the edges. 589 00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,799 Speaker 1: And Lewis and Clark, I think they saw it at 590 00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:46,719 Speaker 1: a moment when it still was the country that you know, 591 00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,040 Speaker 1: Native people had been living in and had managed, and 592 00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:56,520 Speaker 1: that all those populations of wild creatures were still there 593 00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,560 Speaker 1: and still healthy. And so they give us an image 594 00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:01,200 Speaker 1: of what that was. I think that's part of the 595 00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,080 Speaker 1: fascination with Lewis and Clark. And it's only about three 596 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:10,000 Speaker 1: decades later that it really starts coming unraveled, but man, 597 00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:13,160 Speaker 1: their image of it is a really powerful thing. Yeah, 598 00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:16,640 Speaker 1: that's the one for me and I. You know, so 599 00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:20,359 Speaker 1: Steve and I are both involved with colossal biosciences, and 600 00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,360 Speaker 1: they kind of have a plis to scene idea of 601 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:26,239 Speaker 1: how they would like the world to look and I 602 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:26,880 Speaker 1: would love. 603 00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:27,120 Speaker 2: To see that. 604 00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,640 Speaker 1: But you can kind of go to Africa, you know, 605 00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:34,240 Speaker 1: and see the Pleista scene. It still exists in places 606 00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:39,720 Speaker 1: like Kenya and Tanzania and South Africa. But this particular world, 607 00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:44,400 Speaker 1: it's the Lewis and Clark world, is really a special one. 608 00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:51,160 Speaker 3: In this episode, you draw a lot on the descriptions 609 00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:56,279 Speaker 3: of naturalists who are experiencing this world for the first time, 610 00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:03,480 Speaker 3: and it strikes like, obviously Lewis wasn't a trained naturalist, 611 00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,680 Speaker 3: but his description of pronghorn moving, I think is probably 612 00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,480 Speaker 3: better than anything that I could imagine. I mean, that 613 00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:11,400 Speaker 3: sort of makes the hair on my next stand up. 614 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,879 Speaker 3: But I wonder if you can just talk a little 615 00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:18,560 Speaker 3: bit about this whole genre of travel writing and sort 616 00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,759 Speaker 3: of where its strongest in terms of capturing what the 617 00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:27,240 Speaker 3: world looked like and where there are omissions or blind 618 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:31,120 Speaker 3: spots in these in these naturalists they're headed west. 619 00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:35,640 Speaker 1: Well, I think that this kind of natural history travel 620 00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:39,359 Speaker 1: writing is one of the foundations of American literature. I mean, 621 00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:44,440 Speaker 1: I think you know you can certainly you can trace 622 00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,319 Speaker 1: it back to people like William Bartram, for example, who 623 00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:51,200 Speaker 1: with his book Travels, which he wrote in seventeen ninety 624 00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:54,440 Speaker 1: one was the first book written by an American that 625 00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:58,040 Speaker 1: really attracted the attention of you know, the European intellectual 626 00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,640 Speaker 1: and literary community and finally decide, well, these Americans, you know, 627 00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:03,839 Speaker 1: they may turn out to amount to something after all. 628 00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:09,120 Speaker 1: And I think that established a tradition, and you can 629 00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:13,000 Speaker 1: track it through time right into Edward Abbey. 630 00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:13,400 Speaker 2: Or somebody like that. 631 00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:18,320 Speaker 1: I mean, it's and it appears in every decade through 632 00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:23,520 Speaker 1: most of American history. I mean from Thureau to Abbey 633 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,560 Speaker 1: and then back to William Bartram in the seventeen nineties. 634 00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:30,080 Speaker 1: There's just a continuous threat of this. I think what 635 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:35,759 Speaker 1: is distinctive a little bit about the American situation in 636 00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,880 Speaker 1: writing about the West, traveling to the West, writing about 637 00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,920 Speaker 1: all these animals they're seeing, adding them all to science, 638 00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:50,560 Speaker 1: to Western science, to Lenayan science, placing everything into a 639 00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:57,840 Speaker 1: family and a genus and creating a species, is that 640 00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:08,320 Speaker 1: it doesn't ever quite rise to the point of doing 641 00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:13,680 Speaker 1: what say physics was doing, which was coming up with 642 00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:20,399 Speaker 1: a big explanatory theory to sort of cover everything from 643 00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:26,320 Speaker 1: an apple falling on Newton's head to the Earth revolving 644 00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:31,000 Speaker 1: around the Sun and Jupiter's moons revolving around Jupiter, and 645 00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,520 Speaker 1: what they kept doing was just kind of adding more 646 00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,960 Speaker 1: pebbles to the pile, stacking the pebbles higher and higher 647 00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:44,840 Speaker 1: and higher. And then along comes somebody like Charles Darwin, 648 00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,920 Speaker 1: who is twenty five years old, is actually in college 649 00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,319 Speaker 1: in order to become an ordained minister, and happens to 650 00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:57,919 Speaker 1: get a gig on the USS Beagle and travels around 651 00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,719 Speaker 1: a lot of the world and comes back and has 652 00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:05,000 Speaker 1: an epiphany that no human being in history has ever had. 653 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,880 Speaker 1: I suddenly understand. He realizes, at the age of about 654 00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,719 Speaker 1: twenty six or twenty seven, why there is such a 655 00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:17,280 Speaker 1: diversity of life on the planet. I understand how it works. 656 00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,960 Speaker 1: And that was always been to me when I've studied 657 00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:25,280 Speaker 1: American naturalists and all these people going west and writing 658 00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,920 Speaker 1: all these wonderful accounts like the Long Expedition account of 659 00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:33,840 Speaker 1: traveling through huge herds of bison and wild horses, and 660 00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,279 Speaker 1: the wolves and the bison just sort of move out 661 00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,600 Speaker 1: of the way unless you go through. I mean, I 662 00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:41,800 Speaker 1: love those descriptions, but they never none of the Americans 663 00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:45,000 Speaker 1: ever got to the point of understanding the big picture. 664 00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:49,080 Speaker 1: And you know, once Darwin publishes On the Origin of 665 00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,360 Speaker 1: species in eighteen fifty nine, and then certainly we began 666 00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,600 Speaker 1: to have whether you're an American or not, you begin 667 00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:59,040 Speaker 1: to have plenty of opportunity to start plugging your work 668 00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:00,680 Speaker 1: into this theory. 669 00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:03,400 Speaker 4: But it's so funny that age, because he looks like 670 00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,800 Speaker 4: he was you see, he looks like he was born old. 671 00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:11,640 Speaker 1: Picture hard picture at twenty five. Well, you know, I mean, 672 00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,640 Speaker 1: we right, he does kind of. We always seehim, oh 673 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,000 Speaker 1: as this scraggly haired old. 674 00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:20,040 Speaker 2: Guy and like the black wool. Yeah, he was boring, 675 00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:20,799 Speaker 2: But I mean. 676 00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:22,560 Speaker 1: Part of it is that he waits for thirty five 677 00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,560 Speaker 1: years before he ever writes the damn book. And he 678 00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:30,800 Speaker 1: knows this all through the eighteen twenties, eighteen thirties, eighteen forties. 679 00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,279 Speaker 1: He knows how it all works. But he says, you know, 680 00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,399 Speaker 1: at one point he said, if I wrote about this, 681 00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:41,160 Speaker 1: it would be like committing murder, you know, I just 682 00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:46,080 Speaker 1: and then of course Wallace writes him a letter and says, 683 00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:48,200 Speaker 1: you know, I sort of come up with something. I'm 684 00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:50,360 Speaker 1: not sure what to call it. You know, Darwin had 685 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,400 Speaker 1: already resolved on the idea of natural selection. I'm not 686 00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:55,360 Speaker 1: sure what to call it, but it looks like, to me, 687 00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:57,160 Speaker 1: this is how nature works. 688 00:47:57,160 --> 00:47:58,239 Speaker 2: And that's when Darwin. 689 00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,800 Speaker 1: Decided, Okay, I've got to got to publish. 690 00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:02,440 Speaker 2: Can't keep sitting on this. 691 00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:07,440 Speaker 4: In your episode, you you talk about Lewis. 692 00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:07,879 Speaker 1: And Clark. 693 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,600 Speaker 4: Coming out and just they're like they can't help with themselves, 694 00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:14,480 Speaker 4: but try to mix it up with grizzlies. 695 00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:15,480 Speaker 2: They can't help. 696 00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,239 Speaker 4: Like they see it and they're like, it's just we're 697 00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:19,719 Speaker 4: just gonna have to go over and shoot it. 698 00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:20,960 Speaker 1: Uh. 699 00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:26,680 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a there was a nez Perce man named 700 00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:28,759 Speaker 4: yellow Wolf. I told you I was gonna ask about 701 00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,360 Speaker 4: yellow Wolf, a nez pers Man named yellow Wolf who 702 00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:35,400 Speaker 4: after the nez Perce War and eighteen seventy seven, he 703 00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,840 Speaker 4: goes into Canada. Was sitting bowl and they go and 704 00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:39,640 Speaker 4: I don't. 705 00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:40,360 Speaker 2: Know what we'd call it. 706 00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:43,839 Speaker 4: They're like, Uhney, well, how would you describe when they 707 00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:46,920 Speaker 4: go into Canada? Well, the refugees, Yeah, to become refugees 708 00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:51,560 Speaker 4: and trying to escape the US military. Yeah, but some 709 00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:53,640 Speaker 4: of these of these hundreds of people that are up there, 710 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,560 Speaker 4: young guys kind of trickle back down just to go 711 00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,359 Speaker 4: see what's going on, you know. 712 00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:01,200 Speaker 2: Back where these live. 713 00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:04,480 Speaker 4: And in this in this character yellow Wolf and a 714 00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,080 Speaker 4: couple of the young men to start filtering the way 715 00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,520 Speaker 4: back down down through the Great Plains and into the 716 00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:12,120 Speaker 4: rockies around the Bitterroot Mountains. 717 00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:14,399 Speaker 2: But yellow Wolf will describe that. 718 00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,799 Speaker 4: He had that same problem Lewis and Clark had, like 719 00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,239 Speaker 4: when he ran into a grizzly, he had to confront it, 720 00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,400 Speaker 4: but it was like a personal calling of his. He 721 00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,560 Speaker 4: he knew it was unusual that he had to confront it. 722 00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:29,399 Speaker 4: He had to go after it. It was like part 723 00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:33,600 Speaker 4: of his identity. That seems to like like that would 724 00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:37,440 Speaker 4: be anomalous, right, I mean, doesn't it seem like most 725 00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:40,960 Speaker 4: of the tribes and the Great Plains and Inner Mountain 726 00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:41,839 Speaker 4: West and you know. 727 00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:43,440 Speaker 2: Avoided the animals. 728 00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,520 Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, is there a fair way to is there 729 00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,120 Speaker 4: like a fair way to sort of encapsulate what the 730 00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:51,920 Speaker 4: attitude was toward grizzly bears. 731 00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,239 Speaker 1: Well, I think the attitude, you know, it was in 732 00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:59,320 Speaker 1: some ways individualistic, as yellow Wolf's experiences kind of imply 733 00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,799 Speaker 1: there were some people who I think believe that in 734 00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,359 Speaker 1: order to establish your credentials as a warrior or a 735 00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:12,360 Speaker 1: potential leader of your people, I mean a grizzly taking 736 00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:15,600 Speaker 1: on a grizzly bear was equivalent to taking on someone 737 00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,520 Speaker 1: else in the battle, because this was an animal that 738 00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:20,400 Speaker 1: was equally dangerous. 739 00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,560 Speaker 4: Well, so you do encounter tales like that. 740 00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:26,439 Speaker 1: You do encounter that, You do encounter some tales like that, 741 00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:33,200 Speaker 1: you know, and even and I'll talk about this in 742 00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:37,000 Speaker 1: a later episode when I talk about the the Safaris 743 00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:42,879 Speaker 1: that you know, all these European elites began to take 744 00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:45,680 Speaker 1: in the West from the eighteen thirties on. They were 745 00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,960 Speaker 1: doing it in Africa at the same time too, and 746 00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:51,000 Speaker 1: they were going out on they called it prairie fever. 747 00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:53,000 Speaker 1: They would go out on the Great Plains. 748 00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:57,920 Speaker 4: And being Randall felt that, yeah, yeah. 749 00:50:56,920 --> 00:50:57,960 Speaker 3: Every now and then. 750 00:50:57,800 --> 00:50:58,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, prairie fever. 751 00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:02,520 Speaker 1: So one of the things that they that some of 752 00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:06,360 Speaker 1: the people who had experiences in Africa prior to coming 753 00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,839 Speaker 1: to North America would do is they would equate a 754 00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,480 Speaker 1: battle with a grizzly bear as the same thing as 755 00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:18,160 Speaker 1: shooting a lion in Africa. And so if you took 756 00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:21,239 Speaker 1: on a lion in Africa and you won that contest, 757 00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,840 Speaker 1: then this was something in North America that was the equivalent. 758 00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:27,239 Speaker 1: So people actually did that, and I've got I'll tell 759 00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,480 Speaker 1: in a later podcast a really kind of funny story 760 00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:32,520 Speaker 1: about a guy who was determined to do that and 761 00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:35,080 Speaker 1: it didn't turn out quite the way he was hoping 762 00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:35,720 Speaker 1: that it would. 763 00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:40,960 Speaker 4: But well, let me ask you. I was gonna say 764 00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:42,440 Speaker 4: the same thing in a different way, but it's a 765 00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:47,360 Speaker 4: different question. Just like today. Just like today, in grizzly 766 00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,520 Speaker 4: bear country, you can just go out and walk down 767 00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:53,720 Speaker 4: a trail, you know, do nothing wrong. There's a bear 768 00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:57,479 Speaker 4: and it's got a dead moose calf. You stumble into it. 769 00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:00,840 Speaker 4: Its response is, you know, to get you away from Yeah, 770 00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:05,400 Speaker 4: it hits you, maybe bites you, and if it goes 771 00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:07,520 Speaker 4: wrong for you, you're just dead. 772 00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:08,600 Speaker 2: Yep right. 773 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,560 Speaker 4: And and this bear didn't put any thought into it. 774 00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:14,440 Speaker 4: It took him ten seconds and he just was simply saying, 775 00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:15,960 Speaker 4: don't take my thing. 776 00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:16,799 Speaker 2: Right. 777 00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,279 Speaker 4: That had to be happening, Oh it did, you mean, 778 00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:22,160 Speaker 4: like it had to be a part of it had 779 00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:24,120 Speaker 4: to be a part of native life that you just 780 00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:27,560 Speaker 4: now and then stumbled into the wrong thing and people 781 00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:28,560 Speaker 4: got killed by grizzlies. 782 00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:29,319 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they did. 783 00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:32,200 Speaker 1: I mean, so the you know, the Hugh Glass story 784 00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,520 Speaker 1: is one of the classic ones. That's the one that 785 00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,960 Speaker 1: they made into the Revenant, and that's one where it 786 00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,200 Speaker 1: obviously happened to a mountain man where he just happens 787 00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:44,080 Speaker 1: he's at the wrong place at the wrong time, and 788 00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,480 Speaker 1: he stumbles into a bear, and it becomes one of 789 00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,520 Speaker 1: the epic Western stories. I mean, I tell the story 790 00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:52,080 Speaker 1: in American Serengetti of one of these kind of events 791 00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:55,120 Speaker 1: happening in the eighteen twenties, a little earlier than Huglass 792 00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:58,040 Speaker 1: down in Colorado, where a bunch of guys out of 793 00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:03,279 Speaker 1: Arkansas and Louisiana who I'm convinced have no idea what 794 00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,680 Speaker 1: the hell of grizzly bear is. They make a camp 795 00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:11,439 Speaker 1: and cops of willows at the base of pretty close 796 00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:17,200 Speaker 1: to Pike's Peak. And while they're making camp, somebody lets 797 00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:22,880 Speaker 1: out a shout bear bear and this one guy and 798 00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:26,040 Speaker 1: this seems to be something fairly common in these grizzly 799 00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:26,760 Speaker 1: bear encounters. 800 00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:28,960 Speaker 2: I mean, this is a group of twenty five or 801 00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:29,880 Speaker 2: thirty people. 802 00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:35,440 Speaker 1: The bear singles out one guy and goes after this 803 00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:39,680 Speaker 1: one guy, and this guy cannot get away. He climbs 804 00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:42,480 Speaker 1: up a tree and the bear drags him out of 805 00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:46,680 Speaker 1: the tree, and finally they manage the other other guys 806 00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:48,760 Speaker 1: in the group managed to kill the bear. 807 00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:51,000 Speaker 2: I mean he's a big old male. 808 00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:54,239 Speaker 1: And the guy that the bear has been going after, 809 00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:57,239 Speaker 1: you know, I mean, he's still alive. And they all 810 00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,200 Speaker 1: sit around camp and ask it, so are you oky, 811 00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:01,640 Speaker 1: how are you doing? It looks like you're. 812 00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:03,000 Speaker 2: Gonna You're gonna be okay. 813 00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,040 Speaker 1: Man, that was incredible, and the guy says, nope, I 814 00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:09,600 Speaker 1: heard my skull break. I ain't gonna make it. And 815 00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,960 Speaker 1: as they sat around that night, they said, he got 816 00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:18,239 Speaker 1: quieter and quieter, and during the night one of the 817 00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:20,040 Speaker 1: guys got up and went over to check on him, 818 00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,600 Speaker 1: and they could see something running out of the side 819 00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,600 Speaker 1: of his head where the bear had only one canine left, 820 00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:30,879 Speaker 1: but that one canine had penetrated his skull and by 821 00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:34,959 Speaker 1: morning he had died. But that kind of thing where 822 00:54:34,960 --> 00:54:38,400 Speaker 1: you just happened and don't really have any idea what's 823 00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:41,920 Speaker 1: going on, you know, I mean, Lewis and Clark were saying, damn, 824 00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:44,000 Speaker 1: there's a bear. Let's you know, let's get five or 825 00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:44,799 Speaker 1: six guys and. 826 00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:46,440 Speaker 2: You hold your fire. 827 00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:50,839 Speaker 1: Yeah, but this was happening to people where they had 828 00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:52,840 Speaker 1: no they were just stumbling into. 829 00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:55,600 Speaker 4: The experience, and presumably it had to happen to Native Americans. 830 00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:57,080 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's no doubt it did. 831 00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:01,640 Speaker 4: Yeah, well Dan, thanks again man, look forward to talking 832 00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:02,359 Speaker 4: about the next show. 833 00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:02,520 Speaker 1: Ye. 834 00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:04,680 Speaker 2: It's been fun, fun with you guys. Thank you. 835 00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:21,080 Speaker 1: M M m