Let's Talk Wyoming
A podcast about Wyoming and everything we talk about including the weather, politics, energy & agriculture, sports & everything else effecting our state.
Let's Talk Wyoming
Untamed Wyoming Chronicles of Weather, Wildlife, and the West's Legendary Adventurers
Embark on a journey through Wyoming's ever-shifting landscapes, from the whims of its capricious weather to the heartbeat of its wildlife and the grit of its historical figures. Feel the chill of rainy days transform into the budding warmth of spring, and witness the impact of Mother Nature on our sports schedules, including the University of Wyoming Cowboy football team's game plans. As we weave through the state's sports transitions, we also pause to honor the maternal strength of both humans and nature, exemplified by the legendary grizzly bear 399, whose story of survival and motherhood captivates us all.
Prepare to be transported back to the rugged days of the Old West, where the line between legend and fact blurs with each retelling of Calamity Jane's adventurous life. As we sift through tall tales to find the true essence of this iconic figure, we also set sail on Yellowstone Lake aboard the Annie, reliving the pioneering 1871 expedition with Ferdinand V. Hayden at the helm. This tale is more than a recollection of past exploits; it's a nod to the origins of the conservation movement, reminding us of the inextricable connection between our nation's history and its natural wonders. Join us for this narrative tapestry that celebrates the spirit and stories that are unmistakably Wyoming.
Good morning and welcome to let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host, and today we'll be taking a look at Wyoming weather. A little bit of Wyoming cowboy news. 399 is back in the news. Also. Happy Mother's Day to all our mothers out there. We'll have a story on Annie Oakley and the Annie, the first sailboat on Yellowstone Lake. Thanks for joining us and I hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 1:Taking a look at Wyoming weather here on the 10th day of May, what a crazy end of April first part of May we've had here in Wyoming. Here in the Bighorn Basin. We've had cold weather, we've had rain and cold weather and rain and cold weather. Sun's shining. Today Late in the day, it looks like maybe we're going to have some temperatures start to maybe warm up a little bit, slowly but surely. It looks like we're going to get into some dry weather, but right now we are green everywhere. Just been really strange this weather. It gets maybe in the high 60s this afternoon and was out sweating, not used to these type of temperatures, usually out with a coat and making sure you bundle up and making sure you put an extra blanket on the bed. It gets cold at night. So Wyoming weather right now water. The creeks are starting to run, we've had some rain. I noticed the Bighorn River is starting to come up, getting a little higher flows through there. Boysen has to be filling up and it's the same way across the state. But our weather we're getting closer to that summer weather. Before long we're going to be complaining about it being too hot, but right now, man, it's green out there. Great time to come to the state of Wyoming and enjoy this beautiful weather. Great time to come to the state of Wyoming and enjoy this beautiful weather, taking a look at Wyoming sports and a little bit of everything else, trying to catch up on quite a few things.
Speaker 1:The Wyoming Cowboy football team finished their spring game. They had it two weeks ago. They were originally going to have it in Cheyenne, wyoming, but the weather was so bad that weekend with the forecast they ended up having it on a Thursday afternoon in Laramie at the War Memorial Stadium to a lot smaller crowd. It was kind of disappointing. They were kind of wanting to close out the year with that spring game and get some fans in the stands to see the new look Cowboys. They just couldn't get it in. With weather conditions stuff going on. The biggest thing is with the University of Wyoming. Right now, with War Memorial, they're doing some construction work on the west bleachers that lower set. They've replaced that and put new bleachers in upgrading the stadium and so that's why they wanted to move it out of Laramie and it's always nice to get it at another town, get people in the Cheyenne area. That would draw a good crowd of people to the game. But football is over. As they'll start preparing for their 2024 season, it'll be pretty interesting. A lot of new faces. They've got a really difficult schedule this year, so we'll see how the Cowboys do.
Speaker 1:Hot off the press news for any Wyoming basketball fans Wyoming Cowboy basketball fans Coach Linder has left the program. He's going to Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Coach Linder has left the program. He's going to Texas Tech University in Lubbock Going to be an assistant coach. Quite a change from head coach to being an assistant coach. So now the Cowboys are in the process of having to start looking for a new head coach. They've been signing some players out of the portal and I've noticed that two or three of them already have decommitted from the Cowboys, not knowing who the coach is. So whoever comes in is going to have a task of trying to rebuild the Cowboys. So we'll see what happens with the Cowboys in the upcoming days ahead.
Speaker 1:And other important news here in the state of Wyoming, one of our celebrities has been seen. Bear number 399 over in the Jackson area has appeared. She's quite the celebrity. I've spent some time on YouTube watching some of the videos of what's going on with her and how everybody is handling this. It's just amazing the onslaught of people. I think the state of Wyoming needs to be paying her a salary. She's bringing in a lot of money to the state. Quite a celebrity. I learned some stuff watching some of these shows and they talked about that she has a tendency to keep her cubs around people around the road and such, because of the male grizzlies protecting her cubs. She doesn't like to get out away from there because the male grizzlies just avoid any type of human contact and they stay away from the road and so this way she has a chance to protect her babies. But she's back in the news. She's reappeared and is out and about. They're going to take and have a jaunt all over the area and there'll be definitely a crowd following her about.
Speaker 1:And finally, we want to make sure everyone remembers their mothers on May 12th. Happy Mother's Day to my mother. My mother passed away years ago but, as all mothers are, they're there in our heart and I hope you get a chance to celebrate with your mother. Treat her nice. She's the only mother you have. Again, happy Mother's Day to all our special mothers in our life.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to look at a story from filehistoryorg, clamity Jane, heroine of the West or an Ordinary Woman, by Rebecca Hine. Clamity Jane's life is two stories the facts of her biography and the nearly parallel rise of the romantic tales that today comprise the Calamity Jane legend. Was Martha Connery a gun-toting, hard-drinking, swashbuckling female who could drive a mule team and fight Indians like a man? Or was she an alcoholic prostitute stuck in poverty and forced to labor at menial jobs in life both dreary and mundane? The truth probably lies somewhere in between. James McLaird, in Calamity Jane, the Woman, and the Legend, comments that Martha Canary was an ordinary woman of her time with little in her life or behavior that would merit special interest. Yet certain notable traits reoccur in McClary's account Uncommon generosity, most often in helping sick or injured people, and a spunky spirit shown in her greeting to her friends, especially after a long absence. The emergence of Calamity Jane's legend, fanciful tales such as her role as professional scout for General George Crook and others or her supposed close relationship with Wild Bill Hillcock, probably inflated the true tales of her generosity and spirited behavior.
Speaker 1:Disentangling fact from myth is the heart of Nicolera's biography. You notice that since Canary was illiterate and left no correspondence, documentation is mostly limited to contemporary newspaper accounts, reminiscence by acquaintances and witnesses, whether reliable or not, and a few legal documents, mostly county records and census figures. After a rise to celebrity, she published a booklet, the Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane, by herself, most likely with the help of a ghostwriter. Mclaird notes that while this short account generally follows a historic record of events in the West during her lifetime, calamity Jane, while sometimes telling the truth, also exaggerated and disordered her role in many of these events. This further confuses the trail, creating a string of documented facts connected only by the best available information. In a census taken in Mercer County, missouri, it reports that in 1860, robert and Charlotte Canary, living near Princeton and probably farming, had three children. Martha, age four, was the oldest, so she was born sometime in 1856, possibly on May 1st, as she claims in her Life and Adventures.
Speaker 1:The next documented fact in 1869, the census taken in Carter, now Sweetwater County, wyoming Territory, places Martha in Piedmont, a small Union Pacific town. Now it goes down 20 miles from the Utah line near present-day Evanston. This census correctly lists her birthplace as Missouri but reports her at the age of 15. She was actually 13, and there was no mention of her parents. Martha was almost certainly orphaned, sometimes between 1866 and 1867. In her life and adventure she reports Mother died at Blackfoot, montana, 1866. I left Montana in the spring of 1866 for Utah and remained in Utah until 1867 where my father died. Since her narrative correctly places her in Piedmont sometime after that, mcaird comments if there are any doubts that Martha's life and adventure include some reliable information, they should be stifled by the Carter County Census. From this point McLaird explains no contemporary documents exist to confirm or deny stories about the next five years.
Speaker 1:In the life and adventures, after mentioning her residence in Piedmont, she claims she visited Fort Russell near Cheyenne in 1870, where she would have been 14, and Fort Sanders near Laramie, wyoming, in 1872. When she accompanied the Jenny Expedition from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to the southern Black Hills, the US government had commissioned this expedition sending geologists Walter P Janney and Henry Newton to investigate the mineral resources in the Black Hills the year after Custer and 1,000 troops had found gold there and pressure was building fast to take the land away from the Sioux. Jk Lane, acting assistant surgeon for the expedition, was also a correspondent for the Chicago Daily Tribune. Lane's June 19, 1875 article, the Gold Hunters, confirms Calamity Jane's presence with the expedition. This piece is also the first contemporary report identified by her soon-to-be-famous nickname. First contemporary report identifying Clamity Jane by her soon-to-be-famous nickname. Lane notes. Column is dressed in a suit of soldier blue and straddles a mule equal to the professional black snake swingers in the Army.
Speaker 1:After returning to Laramie, probably with a supply train, clamity Jane next accompanied General George Crook on his 1876 expeditions into northern Wyoming territories to attack the Cyan and the Sioux. Regarding the endearing myth that Calamity Jane was a scout for Crook and others, captain Jack Crawford in March 5, 1904, article for the Journalist, explains that he was well acquainted with every scout employed by the government. Calamity Jane was never employed as a scout by General Crook, who gave her no recognition whatsoever except to order her out of camp when he discovered she was a camp follower at which Crawford almost certainly meant to imply that she was a prostitute. In June of 1876, calamity Jane rode into Deadwood, dakota territories, with James Butler, hickok, wild Bill and a conspicuous parade down the main street of the town. This episode began to rise to national fame.
Speaker 1:Here are two stories illustrating her flair for life and her generosity surfaced from her time in and around Deadwood in the summer and fall of 1876. At a reception for General Crook, who traveled to the Black Hills in early September after his defeat at the Battle of Rosebud, dr Valentine McGillicuddy, medical officer with Cook's Army, reported that he danced with Calamity Jane. They cavorted through the half-drunken mob. Calamity shrieked at old pals and slapped them on the back as they passed. Later that fall a minor named Jack McCartney broke his leg. He lived alone in an isolated cabin between Central City and Lee, south Dakota, and was unable to care for himself. Calamity Jane, then only 20, heard the story, raised money by asking for checks instead of drinks at the down saw she frequented, then purchased supplies and engaged a packer at Deadwood. Arriving at McCarthy's cabin around Thanksgiving, she cared for him there and declared comments that this story may be true, adding that Calamity's flamboyant behavior, probably referring to her dance with McGillicuddy, as well as her habit of dressing as a soldier or scout, and thereby fooling some of the men in the Jenny and Crook expeditions, made it possible for newspapers to ignore her.
Speaker 1:She made a good copy. On October 15th of 1877, calamity was featured hero heroine in Edward Wheeler's dime novel Deadwood Dick, the Prince of the Road or the Black Rider of the Black Hills. This fictitious portrayal of Clamity Jane catapulted her into the public eye. Fantastic stories proliferated, but no doubt inspired by the dime novel episodes. These rumors including her unerring aim with a gun or ox whip, fighting Indians and scuttling cliffs.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, the real Calamity Jane continued her ordinary existence, living in the Dakota Territories from 1878 to 1881, and in the Montana Torrey until the late 1884s. In November of that year, calavity returned to the area that is now Wyoming, where she remained for the next 10 years, mostly in the Western part. During this decade she married William Steers and also had a daughter, jessie, born possibly in Lander on October 28th of 1887. According to McLaren, her marriage to steers is documented by a certificate of marriage in the bingham county idaho territory dated may 30th of 1888. Clavity, also claimed as husbands or by her name, was associated with clinton burke and a man named corning and possibly king. Neither relationship appears to have lasted.
Speaker 1:Although the life and adventure is authored by Mrs M Burke, most of the newspaper reports about her during her decade in Wyoming focuses on one of two themes drunk and disorderly, or Calamity Jane's tall tales told by herself. An example of the later is in the Cheyenne Daily Leader on June 21, 1887, which refers to her as both Calamity Jane and Mary Jane Steers and quotes her story. At Big's Mart I was courted by a pretty little army officer who challenged another officer who spoke to me to fight a duel. The myth was gaining ground, directing the final nine years of her life towards the promotion of the life and adventure. Selling photographs of herself and appearing in the Wild West shows. Clamity apparently visited Yellowstone Park several times to sell her promotional material to the tourists. Will Frackleton in his 1941 memoir Sagebrush Dentist told of her first visit to his dental office in Sheridan, wyoming, adding I saw Clamity again in 1897 when I took a pack trip to Yellowstone Park. She was dressed in men's clothes and seemed a little older and much grayer. When Clamity learned that her pack horses were missing, she swore a blue streak.
Speaker 1:Clamity continued to exploit her increasing fame, appearing in the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, new York, in the summer of 1901, while in Buffalo she encountered a friend, wirt Newcomb, a Montana cowboy visiting the exposition with his eastern relatives. When Martha saw Newcomb after a performance she yelled Slim, old Slim From Mile City, damn my skin If it ain't. Newcomb stopped the flood of happy profanity, explaining that his relatives were churchgoers. Then he introduced them. Never was I more amazed at a change in front of a person, never could you imagine it could be the same person. She was as polite as one of the party and entertained them all royalty, for 15 or 20 minutes. After returning to South Dakota in November of 1901 and spending some time in Montana as well, calamity died two years later in Terry, south Dakota, on August 1st of 1903. She was 47.
Speaker 1:Heroic myths about Calamity Jane are so interwoven with her truer accounts of her generosity, audacity and high spirits that all stories of her life merit close examination. Yet one thing that seems certain, though Calamity Jane had an ordinary life, even sad life, dogged by drinking problems which almost certainly killed her. She was kind to friends and strangers alike, and her daring behavior, such as disguising herself as a man on a military and scientific expedition was an unusual woman for her time. Today we want to look at a story that came across in wildhistoryorg and this was by Jet B Conner, the Annie, the first sailboat on Yellowstone Lake.
Speaker 1:One fine summer morning, two men shoved a small boat off the northern shore of a high mountain lake in Wyoming and rowed away while members of their party on land gathered to watch, and rode away while members of their party on land gathered to watch. Ordinarily this event would be US Congress for the purpose of gathering information on the mineral, economic and topographic resources of the Yellowstone Basin. A place of mystery and rumors. It was one of the four government surveys operating in the West. That year, in 1879, they would combine to become the US Geological Survey the two men who were heading for a prominent island several miles offshore to see what they might find.
Speaker 1:While all members of the party celebrated the boat's successful launch, they worried about weather. Winds could roll the water with little warning on that high mountain lake, whipping the surface into a furious white caps. Geologist, physician and paleontologist ferdinand v hayden designed the skin on frame boat. Woodworkers at fort ellis, near today's bozeman montana, have built it to specification, then disassembled it plank by plank to be packed on a mule to the lake's northern shore. Once there and reassembled with heavy canvas covering the frame, a rudder, oars fashioned from a timber on the site and a blanket strung between two masts for the sail, and the craft was ready, although there was contradictory descriptions about its size, including several by the designer himself. Our little bark, hayden reported, was somewhere between 11 and 12 foot long, by three and a half and four and a half feet wide and 22 inches deep.
Speaker 1:Hayden's team of more than 30 men included photographer William Henry Jackson, artist Thomas Moran and Henry Elliott, scientists, soldiers providing military escort, a cook, guides and several sons of prominent congressmen Hayden had invited on purpose to join the adventure. In addition, the expedition included horses, pack mules and a two-wheel cart odometer to measure distance, and there was a portable boat. After leaving Fort Ellis in mid-July, the group followed the Yellowstone River south and upstream towards the lake, taking their time to camp, survey and collect materials along the way. Hayden had pressed the Grant Administration and the Reconstructionary Congress for an expedition to explore Yellowstone. He wanted to document a landscape full of otherworldly geological features. Meant a landscape full of otherworldly geological features? Vents spewing constant steam, periodic lofty geysers, wildly colored hot springs, mud volcanoes and even stories of petrified trees. Explorers, trappers, miners, hunters and natives have reported all these wondrous features. And if what he found lived up to the fantastic descriptions, hayden wanted Congress to preserve the region and not let it fall prey to land speculators and commercialization. Like most Americans of the time, he had no trouble with the idea that, in order for the US government to take possession of Yellowstone, indigenous people would have to be dispossessed of still more territory in addition to most of the continent already lost. Stopping to camp for a few days at Mammoth Hot Springs, hayden noted commercialization already happening. Two men with foresight of commendation had preempted 320 acres covering most of the Hot Springs area, anticipating that when the Northern Pacific Railroad was complete, the area will become a famous place of resort for those seeking the pleasures and medicinal healing properties of the terrace, hot springs and pools.
Speaker 1:Leaving Mammoth and resuming the trek towards the lake, moran took time to climb down and sketch the Tower Falls area. Farther upriver, the party paused for several days and met the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Here Moran and Jackson spent their time sketching and photographing the canyon and lower and upper falls of the river. The scenery was breathtaking. The well-known landscape painter Thomas Moran, who is justly celebrated for his exquisite taste as a colorist, exclaimed with a sort of regretful enthusiasm that these, these beautiful tents, were beyond the reach of human art.
Speaker 1:As the party continued south, the forest thickened with downed lodgepole pines and bramble, making travel difficult. But there were also barren areas of the thermal activity to explore along the way, and not without certain hazards. The entire surface is perfectly bare of vegetation and hot yielding in many places. To slight pressure, I attempted to walk about among these shimmering vents and broke through to my knees, covering myself with hot mud, to my great pain and subsequent inconvenience. Hayden wrote of the mud volcano area at the southern end of what became known as the Hayden Valley, at the southern end of what became known as the Hayden Valley.
Speaker 1:Finally, the party reached the north shore of the lake and set up camp where we had one of the finest views of this beautiful sheet of water. Here they reassembled the boat. Annie was named for Annie Dawes, the daughter of Henry L Dawes, a congressman whose efforts had proved critical for funding the expedition. Dawes' son, chester, was all along on the expedition and is shown in a William Henry Jackson photograph with Jim Stevenson in the boat. Some later reports refer to the boat as Anna Stevenson, who was Hayden's assistant, and Elliot, a sketch artist, were the two men who successfully made their way out to the island and back. The weather having cooperated on that summer day, aiden promptly named the island for Stevenson, as he was undoubtedly the first human that ever set foot upon it.
Speaker 1:For the duration of the expedition, annie assisted in hydrographic, topographical and pictorial surveys of the lake and surrounding peaks. The boat performed a most excellent service. Aiden wrote for Describner's Monthly. Surroundings of the lake were made in every direction and the greatest depth discovered was 300 feet. A survey was made of the shoreline from the boat and, with numerous bays and indentations, they estimated the distance to be around 175 miles. So far as beauty of scenery is concerned, it's probably that this lake is not surpassed by any other on the globe.
Speaker 1:After leaving the boat to continue scouting waters of the Yellowstone Lake, hayden led a small group including Moran and Jackson west over the high divide between the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers to the Firehole Basin Farther south. The men explored the geyser area and witnessed old, faithful castle, geyser, mud puffs and other features of the streaming landscape. After exploring, photographing, sketching and recording their observations. The party returned to Yellowstone Lake. In 1972, less than a year after Hayden completed his expedition, congress passed the law creating America's first national park. The Department of the Interior was to manage it. For the next few years it remained a wilderness, accessible only to intrepid visitors, until 1883 when Jay Cook's Northern Pacific Railroad was completed, bringing tourists to Livingston Montana Territory just 50 miles north of the park's northern boundary. For a few years after the government created the park, officials allowed the commercial enterprise Hayden had mentioned to continue at Mammoth Hot Springs. Although the new national park prohibited tribes from hunting on their traditional communal grounds, poaching by others increased alarmingly, to the point that it was put under the authority of the US Army for Protection in 1886. The Army established a base at the foot of Mammoth Hot Springs to house troops and from there they managed the park for more than three decades. Many of the structures are still used today.
Speaker 1:A portable boat did not return from the shores of Yellowstone Lake at the end of the expedition. Portable boat did not return from the shores of Yellowstone Lake at the end of the expedition. Instead it was left disassembled and cached somewhere on the north shore, men not wanting to pack it back out. Hayden and most of the party returned north through the Mirror Plateau east of the Yellowstone River. Another group, including Moran, traveled back by the way of the Madison River.
Speaker 1:Today, visitors can see only a few sailboats on Yellowstone Lake, although it attracts plenty of powerboats, hardshell canoes and kayaks during the summertime. Occasionally, watchers can even spot the skin on frame-folding kayaks, some with traditional wood frames and rubberized skin, some using exotic carbon fiber frames and lightweight skin material. These portable and very seaworthy crafts, often fitted with sails, can be packed up and transported almost anywhere, just like the Annie, but for most sightseers a commercial boat, the Lake Queen, motoring out of Bridge Bay Arena in the northern part of the lake, is a good way to get out on the water and to see Stevenson Island up close. While there is no evidence he ever sketched or later painted it, moran's August 4th diary entry record a direct experience he had in the Annie. He took the boat to the springs farther around the lake, had a hard pull to get back as the lake was rough and the wind was against us.
Speaker 1:Throughout the 1871 expedition, yanny proved her capabilities while completing her remarkable mission. You know, you read this story and you can only envision, if you've been to Yellowstone, what it was like for these people at that time. You can only imagine just how gorgeous Yellowstone Park is. But at this time, with nobody really being in the park, you were seeing something that just was something you'd never forget, and people are still going to Yellowstone Park and will for a long time to take in the beauty of God's creation, yellowstone National Park. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy our podcast. As per the Code of the West, we ride for the brand and we ride for Wyoming. We'll be right back. 3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1. Go, go, go Go. © BF-WATCH TV 2021.
