©Bert Gildart: I remember well one of the overwhelming longings of my earlier years. Scurrying across the nation in marathon drives, bound for seasonal employment in Glacier and Yellowstone parks during the late Sixties, a group of college chums and I invariably detoured off Interstate 94 on the western edge of North Dakota for a glimpse of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the enchanting Badlands.

In those years the red, scorched-appearing land mystified us as much as the musty side streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter in spring; and over a period of four or five years we saw from a distance the Badlands by the cool of the evening and the fiery heat of the day.

Always we yearned for added time to explore more intimately the incredible jumble of rocks and benign expanses of grasslands that made, as the French trappers called them, these Mauvaises Terres à Traverser (Bad Lands to Cross).

REALIZING A DREAM

In recent years Janie and I made this long standing dream of mine come true, and on several occasions have spent weeks here, following wild horses, intercepting bison and trying to convince prairie dogs that our body shape do not represent that of a coyote, or the shadow of a hawk or eagle.

These past few days we’ve been trying to convince all these critters that we’re simply photographers-and apparently we worked appropriately. Images included here are ones taken these past two days and only these past two days.

Initially, I was attracted here because of the namesake, and as I became more familiar with this landscape, I also learned of Roosevelt’s considerable involvement.

OUR 26^th PRESIDENT

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which takes up a small portion of the Badlands, honors our 26^th president, a man who was also a perceptive natural-history writer, an influential conservationist and an intrepid adventurer. It does so by preserving much of the area through which he roamed and worked as a young rancher.

The large park is divided into two main units (North and South) that are separated by a distance of 50 miles. A small section, situated between the two main ones, does little more than mark the site of Roosevelt’s long-vanished Elkhorn ranch house. Most of the land Roosevelt cherished has been protected for the enjoyment of future generations.

MOTHER & WIFE DIED SAME DAY

After Roosevelt’s wife and mother died on the same day in 1883, the young New Yorker escaped to the Badlands, where he found solace in the land and rekindled his exuberance for living. Before leaving the Badlands that year, Roosevelt established his own ranch there and bought cattle.

In the process of managing his cattle during annual visits, he grew physically stronger and overcame a number of childhood afflictions.

Later, he commented, “If it had not been for my experience in the great state of North Dakota, I would never have been President of the United States.”

Roosevelt’s experiences in what is now the park were mostly between 1883 and 1887. He might have continued as a part-time rancher, but the devastating winter of 1887 killed most of his herd and eliminated much of his capital. His love of the land and nature remained, however.

UNPARALLELLED CONSERVATION RECORD

“I hate a man who would skin the land,” bristled Roosevelt, who did more for conservation than any president. He established the first national wildlife refuge at Pelican Island in Florida and then added 50 others; he also created many national monuments and parks.

Today, we wonder how he might have felt seeing the last remnants of the vast bison herds relegated to a few isolated “islands.”

With those recollection in mind again, we’re departing today for the final leg of our journey to Bismarck, North Dakota. The meeting promises the opportunity to learn more about conservation issues of the times; seminars on improving writing and photography and the posting of blogs.

As well–and perhaps most important–the four-day conference offers the chance to renew acquaintance with people we see all too infrequently.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under National Lands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.