NOTE: This essay was written in my first month as a seasonal Ranger at the South Gate of Yellowstone. Enjoy.
24th of May, 2007 Long day of work today, 0700-1700, working in the booth and stuffing newspapers in anticipation of the upcoming swarm of tourists on Memorial Day weekend (starting tomorrow!). Snow in morning, rain in afternoon. A constant light mist, a female rain according to the Navajos. Not many of them up here, unless they’re on vacation. Nope mainly just the Shoshone, the sheepeaters, from the reservation near Dubois (doo-boys, if you’re local) coming up with kids and grandparents in tow. They flash their tribal ID cards which automatically waive the now $25 entry fee and sends us straight from “hello” to “have a nice day, watch out for those bears!”. Of course they know that, but apparently the photographer that got mauled up Trout creek yesterday wasn’t listening. He survived but I’m sure the bear won’t for much longer as they still haven’t found it yet…
After my shift ended I clean the kitchen and cook a large pan of Dirty Rice (Zatarain’s: Ranger’s best friend) and then venture back out into the rain to send a brief email home. On the way back I stop at the “Presidential Suite” and, stowing my bike around the side, I slip inside. A little history: The Presidential Suite is old park housing that is now considered a historic structure and so cannot be torn down or even renovated to make it liveable again. John (my boss) has written off the place and just keeps it sealed up, using it now and then to store some pieces of miscellaneous equipment.
It is an interesting building, about 50’ by 30’ with exposed rafters and the occasional water stain where the copious winter snows have found a way in. The floor is old hardwood, any semblance of stain long since gone, with scraps of spotty beige carpeting laid out around and under the hodgepodge of furniture. There is no paint on the walls, or even drywall for that matter, and there are various bits of miscellania pinned into the spaces between the exposed studs. The former occupants were students about my age, I’m not sure how many years ago. They leave traces of their presence everywhere; guitar tablature in one of the dusty cabinets, notes to eachother about various aspects of the job long past now. There is a sheaf of green papers in the metal cabinet by the kitchen with a whole bunch of recipes, most of them variations on a theme of Buffalo. I guess after a summer here you do start to hate the huge, dumb bastards. Although I do have to admit though that my heart still skips a beat when one walks through my yard unexpectedly. I go into the small kitchen which fills one corner of the building. Some utensils sit in jars, a mix, no rhyme or reason to what’s there. I count three spatulas. An aborigine stares down serenely from a postcard between two studs above the scarred kitchen table. Other postcards cover the walls, mostly of cities in other countries that I may never see. Old trail signs from deep in the Yellowstone backcountry sit on the rafters interspersed with the occasional Elk antler (illegal to collect those now) or ancient beer can. From one screw hangs a steel cookpot with the bottom burned out.
I like it here, the place has character. It reminds me of a little trading post or other equally interesting structure from another era. There are walls dividing the remaining space into 3 bedrooms and a small bathroom which sports a faded sign on the door that reads “private function”. The filtered grey light of the storm is fading fast and rain continues to drum softly on the roof filling the room with a sort of quiet music. I go in search of the breaker box to see if I can turn on the lights in here. I find it, after a brief hunt, in a bedroom stacked with boxed picnic tables. I open it up and play with some of the switches inside until the lights work. Now the whole place is lit up with the warm glow of the bare bulbs of the simple fixtures. I wouldn’t mind living in here, sure I’d have to share it with some of the woodland animals; no big deal really, since I already share my bunkhouse with a squirrel as well as my roommate. Not sure who is more of a rodent… Ed Abbey shared his NPS airstream with a bull snake for a month in Arches, so why shouldn’t I room with a squirrel or two?
There are some large solar panels which I move laboriously across the room into one of the empty bedrooms so I can work on the living room. I rearrange the some furniture, and take the small coffee table off of the dusty couch. Behind it, between the studs in a shadow is a photocopied drawing of four people; there is no label or hint to their identities but I know them at once. It is Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang, with Hayduke glowering through his beard, Doc Sarvis chomping down on his customary cigar, and Seldom-Seen and Bonnie looking vaguely abashed on either side of Doc. Whoever lived here, I think they were my kind of people… I switch off the power and get back on my bike.
The rain has lightened a bit as I ride back to the bunkhouse. This afternoon has been an interesting glimpse of something that I can't quite put my finger on, yet it feels as though I have accomplished or learned something. Maybe it was simply the experience of being in a place so heavy with stories...
-Charlie Kolb, Snake River Ranger Station, Yellowstone
