Copyright by Neel Gregory Baumgardner 2013
The Dissertation Committee for Neel Gregory Baumgardner Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:
Bordering North America: Constructing Wilderness Along the Periphery of Canada, Mexico, and the United States
Committee:
Erika Bsumek, Supervisor
H.W. Brands
John McKiernan-Gonzalez
Steven Hoelscher
Benjamin Johnson Bordering North America: Constructing Wilderness Along the Periphery of Canada, Mexico, and the United States
by
Neel Gregory Baumgardner, B.B.A, M.B.A.
Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin May 2013
Bordering North America: Constructing Wilderness Along the Periphery of Canada, Mexico, and the United States
Neel Gregory Baumgardner, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013
Supervisor: Erika Bsumek
This dissertation considers the exchanges between national parks along the North American borderlands that defined the contours of development and wilderness and created a brand new category of protected space – the transboundary park. The National Park Systems of Canada, Mexico, and the United States did not develop and grow in isolation. “Bordering North America” examines four different parks in two regions: Waterton Lakes and Glacier in the northern Rocky Mountains of Alberta and Montana and Big Bend and the Maderas del Carmen in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas and Coahuila. In 1932, Glacier and Waterton Lakes were combined to form the first transboundary park. In the 1930s and 1940s, using the Waterton-Glacier model as precedent, the U.S. and Mexican governments undertook a major effort, ultimately unsuccessful, to designate a sister park in Mexico and combine the two areas into another international space. Finally, in 1994, Mexico established two protected areas, including the Maderas del Carmen, adjacent to the Big Bend. Ideas about parks and wilderness migrated across borders just as freely as the flora and fauna these spaces sought to protect. Moreover, a multiplicity of views and forces, from three different Park Services, the visiting public, private enterprise, local landholders, competing government agencies
iv and international NGOs, and even the elements of nature itself, all combined to shape the trajectory of park development.
v Table of Contents
List of Maps and Pictures ...... ix
Introduction...... 1 Case Studies...... 3 Project Questions and Methodology...... 8 National Parks and Protected Spaces...... 12 Putting Wilderness Back on the Map ...... 15 “Nature’s Periphery”: The Business of Parks...... 20 Setting Boundaries in the Borderlands ...... 25 Transboundary, or International Peace, Parks ...... 28 Conclusion ...... 32
Chapter 1 - Making National Parks in the Northern Rockies and Chihuahuan Desert ...... 34 The Northern Rockies: A Story of the U.S./Canadian Borderlands ...... 39 The Chihuahuan Desert ...... 44 On the Inside Looking Out ...... 50 A Monopoly of Use ...... 68 Conclusion -- Worthless Lands?...... 74
Chapter 2 - Finding Wilderness: Assigning Labels and Meanings to the Elements of Protected Spaces ...... 79 Early Wildscapes of Waterton Lakes...... 81 Early Glacier Wilderness ...... 86 Early Big Bend Wilderness...... 96 Conclusion ...... 110
Chapter 3 - Constructing Wilderness: Differentiating Parcels in Protected Spaces113 “The Fall Line”: Formalizing Wilderness in the Parks...... 113 Making Glacier Wild ...... 121 Making Big Bend Wild...... 129
vi Making Waterton Wild ...... 138 A Wilderness for the Maderas del Carmen...... 148 Conclusion ...... 155
Chapter 4 - From Rails to Concrete: The Business of Parks and Preservation ...157 Business Beginnings: The Evolution of H.H. Hanson...... 160 Louis Hill’s Great Northern...... 166 Small Business in Big Spaces...... 178 A Wilderness Economy in Nature’s Periphery...... 184 A Natural Brand and Balance Sheet ...... 190 Conclusion ...... 198
Chapter 5 - Dividing Lines: Inscribing the 49th Parallel and the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte...... 200 Taming the 49th Parallel ...... 204 Two Halves of a River: the Rio Grande and Rio Bravo del Norte ...... 217 Good Fences: Sorting Wildlife and Domestics along the Mexican Border225 Two-legged Migrants...... 231 A Closed Border ...... 235 Conclusion ...... 237
Chapter 6 - Transboundary Parks: Bridging Borders and Combining National Parks ...... 240 Parks on the 49th Parallel...... 244 What’s in a Name? – Waterton Glacier International Peace Park...... 251 A Southern Peace Park?...... 255 Sorting out Public and Private Interests: Maurice Minchen, Cananea Cattle, and Miguel Gonzalez...... 263 An Integrated Waterton-Glacier ...... 280 Transnational Cultural Attractions: The Northwest Passage, Waterton Townsite, Gilberto Luna, and Boquillas...... 284 Integration and Division in the Big Bend ...... 292 Conclusion ...... 299
vii Epilogue: “Troubled Wilderness”...... 301
Bibliography ...... 306 Archival Sources...... 306 Printed and Secondary Sources...... 309
viii
List of Maps and Pictures
Map of Protected Spaces along Montana and Alberta...... 5 Map of Protected Spaces along Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Texas...... 7 Photo series from the top of Santa Helena Canyon (May 1923) - E.E. Townsend58 Calumet Baking Powder Can Top (Author’s photo) ...... 109 1912 Great Northern Railway Route Map...... 171 1923 Great Northern Railway Annual Report Cover ...... 190 Map of the 49th Parallel along the U.S.-Canada Border...... 205 Map of the U.S.-Mexico Border ...... 218 View of Santa Helena Canyon proposed dam sites (February 1942) ...... 222 “Repurposed” fencing near the former Homer Wilson Ranch in Big Bend (Author’s Photo)...... 227 Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park Pavilion at Goat Haunt, Montana (Author’s Photo) ...... 237 1949 Texas Ranches “West of the Pecos”: Note Minchen’s substantial holdings northwest of the park ...... 265 Craft Sale Display in Boquillas Canyon Overlook Parking Lot (2010) – Author’s Photo ...... 297
ix Introduction
Canadian standards regarding the maintenance of natural ecological conditions and natural phenomena do not coincide with our principles … It does seem highly desirable that in the formative period in the establishment of the Big Bend National Park in Texas and the Rio Bravo National Park in the Republic of Mexico that comparable wildlife, forestry, etc. standards and objectives be established. You have a marvelous opportunity to promulgate and perpetuate a singular contribution to International comity and perpetuate on the southern boundary our National Park Service standards and objectives.1 -- 8/24/1939 Memo to U.S. Park Service Regional Director Herbert Maier from Glacier Superintendent D.S. Libbey
In his August 1939 letter to the U.S. Park Service Southwestern Regional Director, Glacier National Park Superintendent D.S. Libbey warned that the Mexican national park then being considered as a complement to Big Bend in Texas would likely face the same challenges encountered in Waterton Lakes, the Canadian park just north of Glacier. His advice that the Park Service should apply lessons learned from the interrelationship between Glacier and Waterton Lakes to the potential development of a Mexican park bordering Big Bend underscores the fact that the National Park Systems of North America did not develop and grow in isolation. Rather, ideas about parks and wilderness evolved over time and migrated across borders just as freely as the flora and fauna these spaces sought to protect. As parks on the periphery of three nations, these spaces were profoundly shaped by a cast of national actors, philosophies, and local uses that preceded and, in some cases, continued after the parks. In this quest to reconfigure the landscape, no process or actor truly prevailed, but the results of their efforts, beginning with Waterton-Glacier, led to a brand new kind of protected space – a transboundary or international park.
1 8/24/1939 Memo to Acting Regional Director Maier from Superintendent D.S. Libbey, Box 951 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
1 The history of national park development begins in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States launched programs to set aside lands for federal protection. As originally conceived in North America, these protected spaces were designed for largely utilitarian purposes, such as the protection of natural resources, in addition to the preservation of particularly fascinating natural scenic elements. In 1872, the world’s first national park, Yellowstone, was established in the western United States on publicly held lands formerly occupied by Native Americans.2 Yellowstone’s creation as a federal or national park rested on the simple fact that there was as yet no state and therefore no local government entity in place to serve as the park’s sponsor. Yellowstone was carved out of the Wyoming Territory as well as smaller slivers of territorial Idaho and Montana. Wyoming was not admitted to the Union for another eighteen years so, unlike the first Yosemite Grant made to the State of California in 1864, Yellowstone was a wholly federal project. In short order, this “Yellowstone Model” of a national protected space served to inspire the creation of additional national parks in the United States, the balance of North America, and around the globe. Canada created its first protected space, Rocky Mountain National Park, now called Banff, in 1885. Although Banff, like Yellowstone, encapsulated the grandeur of the northern Rockies, it was a set of small hot springs discovered by railway workers constructing the Canadian Pacific’s transcontinental line that truly inspired the creation of a public resort. Even though the Canadians may have drawn inspiration from the
2 A controversy over which park is first—Yosemite or Yellowstone— persists to this day. The original grant for the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias was established in 1864 and ceded by federal government to the State of California. The park wasn’t federalized until 1890. Although Lincoln’s approval of the Yosemite Grant preceded the creation of Yellowstone by eight years, the valley and Sequoias may have been of national importance but were originally given to California to manage as a state park.
2 Yellowstone Act for the poetic “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” language used in the park’s enabling act, Banff was more closely modeled after the more commercialized Hot Springs Resort in Arkansas.3 Three decades later, Mexico followed suit. In 1917, conservationist and Mexican Forestry Chief Miguel Ángel de Quevedo convinced President Venustiano Carranza to establish Desierto de los Leones National Park. Mexico’s first protected space was located on the southwestern edge of Mexico City. It included a seventeenth century Spanish Carmelite monastery but, most importantly, contained nearly four thousand acres of pine and fir trees considered critical to the maintenance of the watershed for the capital and the entire Central Plateau. Canada and Mexico adopted the same naming convention, labeling both areas as “national parks,” or parques nacionales, but in contrast to Yellowstone, more utilitarian urges—national health and watershed protection respectively—were at the root of these first parks.4
CASE STUDIES
From these three beginnings, Canada, Mexico, and the United States pursued the creation of additional parks; however, it is the parks each nation developed along its
3 In late January 1886, A. M. Burgess of the Canadian Department of the Interior wrote to Major John Wesley Powell to thank him for providing a photograph, map, and materials relating to the Arkansas Hot Springs. He also alerted Powell that they “have just commissioned Mr. John R. Hall, the Secretary of this Department, to proceed to the Arkansas Hot Springs, and make us a Report upon the System on which they are managed.” 1/25/1886 Letter to Major Powell from A.M. Burgess, Parks Canada Microfilm T1648X, Canadian National Archives (Ottawa, Ontario). 4 For historical overviews of the creation of each country’s national park system, refer to the following monographs: for Canada, W.F. Lothian, A Brief History of Canada's National Parks (Ottawa, Ontario: Environment Canada, 1987); for Mexico, Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995) and, most recently, Emily Wakild, Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico’s National Parks, 1910-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2011); for the United States, Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987).
3 borders that provide the best exploration of the intricate sets of interaction and influence that shaped concepts of boundaries, use, preservation, and wilderness. To this end, this dissertation, “Bordering North America,” examines four different parks in two pairings: Waterton Lakes in Canada as compared to Glacier in the United States and Big Bend in the United States as compared to the Maderas del Carmen in Mexico. While historians, to a varying extent, have chronicled the evolution and expression of national park movements within each country, the degree to which influence and ideas crossed borders has yet to be examined in detail. Focusing on these North American parks sharing common boundaries provides a more robust understanding of how human interaction with these spaces impacted each nation’s methods of balancing use and preservation and the ties between nature and national identity. Before addressing the questions key to such an evaluation, it is helpful to briefly review the history of the establishment of each of the four park case studies.
4
Map of Protected Spaces along Montana and Alberta5
In 1895, Canada set aside its fourth national park enclosing a set of lakes in southern Alberta named for British naturalist Charles Waterton. Created just ten years after Banff, Waterton Lakes preserved monumental mountain scenery at its intersection
5 Map sourced from < http://www.gorp.com/parks-guide/travel-ta-glacier-national-park-montana- sidwcmdev_067475.html> (Accessed by Author, 4 April 2013).
5 with the Great Plains and the territory of the Kainai or Blood First Nation of Alberta.6 In 1910, the U.S. Congress created its eighth park, Glacier, in the Rocky Mountains of northern Montana primarily out of lands ceded to the United States by treaty from the Salish, Kootenai, and Pikuni or Blackfeet peoples. These parks meet at the 49th Parallel North, the designated border between the United States and Canada, running from the Great Lakes to Vancouver Island. By 1932, in recognition of a shared geography and commingled flora and fauna, these counterparts were combined to form Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first such transnational protected space of its kind. Fifteen hundred miles south, Big Bend National Park was established in the Chihuahuan Desert of southwest Texas in 1944 on, as its name would imply, a significant bend in the Rio Grande. Unlike Waterton-Glacier, Big Bend was primarily fashioned out of private land parcels acquired by the State of Texas and deeded to the federal government in the early 1940s.7 Using the Waterton-Glacier model as precedent, the Mexican and U.S. governments undertook a major effort, ultimately unsuccessful, to form a sister park in Mexico, tentatively named “Parque Nacional de la Gran Comba,” and combine the two areas into another international space.8 A 1944 Park Service brochure confidently predicted that along with the Mexican park, there would be "one great international park, which will typify the common interests of the two sister republics and their common desire to maintain the existing relationship of friendly
6 In 1895, Waterton Lakes was first established as a Kootenay Lakes Forest Park and subsequently re-titled a “national park” in 1911. 7 Waterton Lakes and Glacier were created from public (or “Crown” land as Canadians refer to it), but it’s important to point out that in both these spaces, private land, either held individually or communally, was also purchased or taken by each federal government prior to the creation of the parks. 8 “Parque Nacional de la Gran Comba” translates as “National Park of the Big Bend.” The space generated a variety of possible names, including Rio Bravo National Park as previously noted in Glacier Superintendent Libbey’s August 1939 letter.
6 neighbors.”9 In this period, the U.S. needed Mexico as an ally and deployed conservation as an aspect of the “Good Neighbor” policy to this end. Yet, a true, comparable southern peace park never materialized primarily due to marked differences in each country’s conservation focus and competing local interests. In the end, it would take over fifty years for Mexico to designate a companion park.
Map of Protected Spaces along Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Texas10
In 1994, the Mexican government created the Maderas del Carmen Flora and Fauna Protected Area (FFPA) in Coahuila.11 The boundaries drawn by this FFPA were largely ceremonial as the government owned only a few parcels within the newly designated space. While the Mexican Park Service lacked the funds to acquire more property, a Mexico-based multinational aggregate producer, CEMEX, did, and in 2000, it
9 “Big Bend National Park” Brochure, Department of Interior, 1944, Center for American History Collection, General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. 10 Map sourced from
7 began purchasing large tracts of land within the preserve. The U.S. and Mexican parks met at the Rio Grande, also known as the Rio Bravo del Norte in Mexico, the designated border between the two countries running from the paired cities of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso to the river’s terminus in the Gulf of Mexico. The centerline of the streambed marked the international divide with half of the river owing allegiance to each country. All together, these four case studies trace the arc of national park development along the North American borderlands through the course of the 20th century from the first parks of Waterton-Glacier, the mid-point with Big Bend in Texas but failed attempts in Mexico, and the most recent string of parks in Coahuila and Chihuahua, including the Maderas del Carmen.
PROJECT QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY
This comparative study of Waterton-Glacier, Big Bend and the Maderas del Carmen, can be distilled into two key questions. First, if one accepts the premise that few, if any, natural spaces in North America were left that had not been directly or indirectly impacted by human activity at the time of park creation, how did decision-makers and park administrators in these three countries go about choosing these sites and managing them as national parks? Or, to put it more simply, why and how were these areas recast as wilderness? Second, once each place was established, how did the multiplicity of views and forces from three different park services, the visiting public, private enterprise, local landholders, competing government agencies and international NGOs, and even the elements of nature itself all combine to shape the trajectory of park development and influence emerging narratives of national identity?
8 To address the first query, this project examines the creation of protected spaces and ideas of wilderness as they were developed in the North American borderlands of the northern Rocky Mountains and Chihuahuan Desert. Long before the parks were established within these two regions, land moved through a number of successive stages of occupation and ownership. The first rounds of dispossession were predicated on the so-called inefficient use of productive lands by local or indigenous groups in favor of miners, ranchers, homesteaders, and other speculators. Yet, in a peculiar mental shift that preceded the parks, the second dispossessions were based on reconstituting these same lands as essentially valueless. Their primary productive use became aesthetic or at least more closely tied to the preservation of biodiversity. "Bordering North America” considers this cycle of dispossession not as a singular event that ended after the parks were created but as a continuous and imperfect practice that has never been completed. Paradoxically, even after establishment, these spaces have been subject to a number of significant ongoing human interventions. The not so thinly veiled objective in eliminating evidence of generations of human habitation was to ensure the landscape conformed to the narrative of pristine nature. With removal, elements of nature could then be reemphasized, and the environment could be rehabilitated. However, private owners of lands adjacent to and even inside national parks continued to use and exercise their own sense of stewardship over the land. This process has been differentiated under the various national guises of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, although certain similarities exist. The second question addressed in this dissertation is meant to illuminate how protected spaces were influenced by the networks of places that surround them and by the people that continue to use and inhabit them. Residents, landowners, businesses both big and small, visitors, and even the administrators entrusted with preservation all had
9 different understandings of protected space. Since these parks are situated where national borders meet, the construction of these spaces has been profoundly influenced by different sets of international, national, and decidedly local actors. People from both adjacent communities and farther flung places have contributed to altering the definition and deployment of wilderness in each space over time. These questions are not only interdisciplinary but also comparative. Many historians—and naturalists, for that matter—have written discrete stories that center on a particular aspect of each space, its political development or cultural history, for example. However, no works have dealt with the flows between the parks and adjacent spaces or integrated the experiences from both borders. Interestingly, only one of the four spaces, Big Bend, has attracted significant interest from historians. No monographs focus on the histories of Waterton Lakes or the relatively new Maderas del Carmen, and the U.S. Park Service has only recently commissioned a comprehensive administrative history for Glacier. The interdisciplinary approach of environmental history lends particular benefits to this project. In these spaces, the story of wilderness can be more fully understood by examining it through a number of historical lenses: national parks, wilderness, business, and each set of borderlands, including the American West, Mexico’s North, and the Canadian West. For this project, these histories must be layered together to show how each type of vision was developed and applied, or at least attempted, on the land and are also rooted in an extensive review of archival documents, photographs, and oral histories from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. In addition, this project benefits from reading the land itself.12 Traveling through the landscapes and finding evidence of
12 By “reading the land,” I refer to using historical photographs as well as current views of the land to determine what flora, fauna, objects, and people have been removed, reprioritized, or reinvigorated by the developments on the ground. For example, in Big Bend, much of the evidence of human habitation has
10 previous human activity provides a further layer of analysis and context to the archival photos and documents. Research and wandering in each space have been of equal importance. The story of national parks stands at the confluence of a variety of histories and fields. As with all projects, “Bordering North America” owes a debt to the many scholars who have contributed to the evolving historiography. The challenge and promise of crafting this dissertation is its engagement with five distinct bodies of literature. The balance of this introduction focuses on the five areas where archival research intersects with historiography and attempts to shed some light on the key questions of this project regarding the manner in which the lands were recast as national parks and how various human actors have impacted park development. These five areas include the creation of national parks; the divergent ways in which wilderness has been constructed; the ongoing role of private enterprise in the development of parks; the impact of national borders on parks and, in turn, parks on larger borders; and the influence of flows of ideas and resources along borderlands in the creation of a novel form of protected space: transboundary parks. All of these areas consider how distinct visions of national park development, sometimes complementary but more often in conflict, have directly shaped the land and objects we find on it today. The next five sections of this introduction serve as a review of the historiography as it relates to this project and preview the analysis in each associated dissertation chapter.
been consciously bulldozed or degraded over time, but traces remain. While hiking former ranch fence lines, one may see, in places, straight lines of posts. While the barbed wire strains have been removed, these posts speak to the human subdivisions the Park Service tried to obliterate.
11 NATIONAL PARKS AND PROTECTED SPACES
The historiography of national parks begins by asking why these spaces were even set aside in the first place, especially given the dominance of the idea of efficient land use since the earliest European settlements in the Americas. How did Yellowstone, Banff, Desierto de los Leones, and all the spaces that follow come to be? Tools ranging from warfare to diplomacy and, perhaps most effectively, disease displaced indigenous peoples from their lands, including parcels that would eventually become reified as national parks. The case justifying dispossession rested on the supposed inefficiency of Indian land tenure. Better use could be made, or so the argument went, by farmers and eventually other types of development. Oddly, the creation of national parks relied on somehow piercing this argument. To this end, historian Alfred Runte characterized these parks as “worthless lands.”13 Runte argued that only spaces that had been previously vetted and proven “worthless” by definitive attempts to extract value in activities such as mining and homesteading could then safely be set aside as national parks. For example, Yellowstone could become a park because its high average elevation leads to a very abbreviated growing season, and its volcanic geology precludes stores of precious metals. These environmental and resource conditions militated against other viable private enterprises. Running counter to Runte’s assertion, monographs over the past decade, including the works of Philip Burnham, Karl Jacoby, Mark David Spence, and Louis Warren detailed and humanized the local actors who were present and opposed restrictions on
13 Historian Alfred Runte advanced the “worthless lands” theory in his cornerstone exploration of American National Parks, a book that has been updated periodically, most recently with its fourth release in 2010. He argued that parks could only be established in areas that had no other apparent beneficial economic use. Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 49.
12 land use resulting from the creation of parks. These works showed how individuals and communities, including Native Americans, were marginalized and how many traditional land use practices, such as camping, hunting, and cutting timber were, in effect, criminalized and reconstituted as squatting, poaching, and thievery.14 Another key aspect of parks literature revolves around the types of uses permitted within these newly minted spaces. Historian Roderick Nash historicized the debate between proponents of use and preservation, which was essentially over whether parks were for humans (anthropocentric) or nature (biocentric).15 This conflict was often billed as a pitched battle between public and private interests, such as the famous—but frequently mischaracterized—dispute over the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.16 Park histories, like Nash’s, highlighting these conflicts tend to cloud historical memory as much as they present a clear story of a specific place given that pristine nature was not merely found but had to be created.
14 For example, in Glacier, Spence profiled the Blackfeet’s loss of rights to hunt, fish, and gather wood and medicinal plants. Yet, forfeiting these rights of use was neither a singular event nor was it only applicable to one particular group. On the contrary, it happened again and again in each space and was usually contested. These multi-layered stories of loss only become clearer in the aggregate. Sampling of the historiography of dispossession of land and rights of use in national parks: Philip Burnham, Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and the National Parks (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000); Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Mark D. Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Louis Warren, The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). 15 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 325. 16 The traditional story about Hetch Hetchy goes roughly as follows. The City of San Francisco sought to use the Hetch Hetchy Valley (designated a part of Yosemite National Park in 1890) for a hydroelectric project. The City’s application was approved by the Secretary of the Interior in 1908 and ultimately signed into law by President Wilson in 1913 with the passage of the Raker Act. A pitched battle then raged in the intervening years for the heart and soul of the national park idea. Yet historian Robert Righter found no evidence for such a pitched battle between public and private interests. It was rather two competing visions of public use: public recreation or the creation of a public utility for water and power generation. Robert W. Righter, The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
13 In the first chapter, “Making National Parks,” the four case studies in this dissertation demonstrate that a variety of uses preceded the establishment of these spaces and, in marked contrast to the literature, even remained in place thereafter. In establishing public ownership, the responsibilities and prerogatives of use fell to those who managed each space, usually Park Service administrators. Under their leadership, park resources were used as well as conserved. For example, in 1917, the Canadian Parks Service plowed twenty acres in Waterton Lakes to plant oats and timothy. Although private farms were excluded, the park demonstrated the benefits of growing hay and other feed crops both for domestic work stock as well as for wildlife if winter conditions were particularly harsh and necessitated supplemental feeding. Exercising this newfound monopoly over resources, park managers established parameters of use that persist into the present day.17 On the ground, national parks were never monolithic constructions but rather an amalgamation of previously used spaces. For example, in the Big Bend, the Texas State Legislature appropriated $1.5 million to buy property for the proposed park, accumulating almost 700,000 acres by 1942. Landowners received letters explaining, “you picked the one small spot in land that is fit for nothing unless the Federal Government can turn it into some sort of scenic beauty.”18 This was news to full time residents, many of whom had been ranching within the bounds of the proposed park since the late nineteenth century. To effectively recast the area as wild, the Park Service implemented a policy of removing most evidence of prior use, including fencing and structures. This action attempted to dislodge the visible connections with the park’s
17 Internal developments range from hotels, museums, and visitor centers to other recreational venues more typically found outside of national parks – for example, movie theaters, playgrounds, tennis courts, and golf courses. 18 J.C. Epperson to M.C. and A.C. Donahoe, 6 June 1942, Box 2005/041-27, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
14 history and perpetuated the incorrect notion that parks were fashioned out of whole natural cloth. Moreover, a number of private “inholdings” persisted when these parks were formed.19 Even with a concerted effort in Canada and the United States to eliminate these interior non-public parcels, it was impossible for Park Services to completely eradicate private land from within.20 Far from being “worthless” lands, national parks steadily developed, taking old forms of use in new directions, eliminating others, and shaping a new joint public/private enterprise of nature tourism. Perhaps not surprisingly, these new park developments, accreting over time, began to undo earlier attempts to showcase parks as unadulterated wilderness.
PUTTING WILDERNESS BACK ON THE MAP
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain [emphasis added].21
19 In the United States, private property adjacent to or within the park boundaries has been reframed pejoratively under the label “inholders” and Canadian and even more so Mexican parks have sizable communities situated within. Indeed, in the United States, over six percent, or 5.4 million acres, of the national park land area remains in private hands. Susan Gallagher, “National Parks Contain Private Land: Conservationists Worry That Private Land Within National Parks Will Fall Prey To Development,” The Associated Press, November 21, 2007, accessed August 20, 2008, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/21/ap/national/main3530890.shtml. 20 Article 27 in the Mexican Constitution of 1917 prevented the sale of ejidal (communally-held agricultural) lands until the article was amended in 1992 to come into compliance with Canadian and U.S. land tenure practices for NAFTA. David Yetman, “Ejidos, Land Sales, and Free Trade in Northwest Mexico: Will Globalization Affect the Commons?,” 41 American Studies (2000). 21 The definition continues: “An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this chapter an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.” 16 U.S.C. 1131. Reprinted in Lary M.
15
This passage, arising from decades of concerns over development and ten years worth of stalled drafts in the Senate and House, appeared in the final Wilderness Act passed in September 1964 by the U.S. Congress. This legislation, for the first time, provided a common definition, designation process, and set of management restrictions for federal lands as wilderness, including national parks. Despite years of human interaction with the land, the Act identified wilderness as a place where humans and their uses were only temporary intrusions. In Wilderness and the American Mind, historian Roderick Nash traced the lineage of the term wilderness. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, migrants to and across the Americas viewed wilderness as a particular place – the vast interior “unsettled” space – at first abundant, then fleeting, first dangerous, then tamed.22 With overland migration and settlement, by the nineteenth century, there were definite signs of an impending tipping point.23 Despite the presence of Native Americans for millennia, what North Americans viewed as untouched nature was quickly disappearing through the development of cities, farms, and other forms of resource extraction. As the abundance of so-called “open” land diminished, a very different conception of wilderness appeared. Similar to the lament associated with the decline of North American indigenous populations, poets and intellectuals romanticized the loss of wilderness. With the designation of Yellowstone, this fascination led to setting aside the first of many areas as national parks.
Dilsaver, ed., “An Act to Establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the Permanent Good of the Whole People, and for Other Purposes,” America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 1994), 277. 22 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). 23 Char Miller, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Washington: Island Press, 2001), 23.
16 As Nash and more recently John Miles argued, the concept of wilderness preceded that of national parks, but after parks were created, the two ideas commingled uneasily.24 Only over time, and especially as new development within parks proceeded at a rapid pace, did park administrators and some of those who visited and enjoyed the spaces develop an almost Turnerian anxiety about the changes set in motion at the very places meant to permanently preserve the sense of openness and possibility lost with the closure of the American frontier.25 This lament prompted the initial zoning of parks to begin to create clear, fixed lines between developed areas and the natural domain. Nonetheless, this anxiety reconstituted itself as more and more visitors poured into parks, encouraging the construction of more roads and infrastructure and, along with it, renewed concerns about the proper balance between use and preservation. Concerns about overdevelopment, subject only to the administrative discretion of the Park Service, prompted additional calls for restraint.26 Ultimately, these calls, in part, led to the passage of the Wilderness Act. In 1995, historian William Cronon created quite a stir with the publication of an essay entitled “The Trouble with Wilderness.”27 In this piece, he argued that wilderness was, primarily, a social construction.28 National parks as the very places where nature
24 John C. Miles, Wilderness in National Parks: Playground or Preserve (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), 3. 25 Frederick Jackson Turner invoked his theory of American development in his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered at the 1893 American Historical Association meeting at the Chicago Columbian Exposition. The frontier thesis provided a guarded assessment of an American future without this “safety valve” of free land and abundant resources. This sense of loss, operating both as perceived and real, influenced all aspects of conservation. Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1920). 26 Mark Harvey, Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). 27 William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), 79. 28 A contention made all the more controversial by the coincidental timing of its release with the Republican takeover of Congress after the 1994 midterm elections.
17 was deified certainly encapsulated a more complex and nuanced picture of the interplay between human culture and the physical environment. Yet, even if it were possible to remove human actions, wilderness itself was never a static construction. It constantly changed. As historian Mark Fiege showed in Irrigated Eden, even with straightforwardly constructed irrigation works, keeping natural forces at bay required constant human intervention and tending. In park spaces, as in Fiege’s canals, attempts to manipulate wilderness by Park Services just as often produced a panoply of unintended consequences.29 It remains a challenge for park administrators to determine how to dial back cultural encroachment to a particular historic era and institute management practices to this end. The chapters “Finding Wilderness” and “Constructing Wilderness” trace how each Park Service or managing entity attempted to implement the wilderness concept. The break between these two chapters coincides with the passage of the Wilderness Act. With the preparation of Wilderness Study Proposals in the early 1970s, the U.S. Park Service was, in essence, forced to tie its own administrative hands by proposing that large areas of the parks remain as strict wilderness and ceding control to Congress, assuming that body would take action on these recommendations. In some cases, Congress obliged, but in others—like Big Bend, Glacier, and even the nation’s very first park, Yellowstone—the concerns of local interests stalled Congressional passage of these restrictions.30 In those instances, the spaces existed in a sort of legal limbo where the
29 Historian Mark Fiege’s monograph depicted the often unforeseen impacts of the development of a system of irrigated agriculture in the early twentieth century American West. Focusing on the Snake River in Idaho as a regional case study, Fiege sought to explain the development, operation, and ongoing significance of irrigated landscapes. Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), 8-9. 30 Parks without Congressionally-designated wilderness used the still pending Wilderness Study Proposals to demarcate areas to be managed as de facto wilderness until Congress took formal action.
18 sections proposed as wilderness were treated as if officially declared, but ultimately, the parks retained administrative control and could increase or reduce the size of these areas. Compared to the United States, Canada and Mexico were relatively late to institute wilderness programs, but both have established formal wilderness use and zoning practices in their national parks. With a significantly smaller population and more undeveloped space, especially in the Arctic North, Canada did not experience the same degree of concern about the depletion of natural resources.31 In contrast, Mexico’s relative material scarcity provoked a tendency to open up rather than restrict resources for development.32 In 2000, Canada’s Parliament revised its National Parks Act to provide for legislatively prescribed wilderness zones, yet the Canadians adopted a different approach to wilderness management termed “ecological integrity.”33 Rather than trying to replicate historical conditions, this model focused on constructing a functioning ecosystem, not merely a historically accurate one, and embraced the types of human interventions, anathema in the U.S. Wilderness Act, integral to maintaining an area’s environmental health. In late 2005, the Maderas Del Carmen was designated the first wilderness area in Mexico; however, the initial impetus for the designation came from the private rather than the public sector. Since spaces deemed worthy of wilderness protection did not fall within the public domain, Mexico perpetuated a wholly different model for protection where private actors, like CEMEX, could voluntarily pledge land holdings to serve as
31 Philip Dearden and Rick Rollins, eds., Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning and Management (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993), 28. 32 Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 111. 33 Stephen Woodley, "Ecological Integrity: A Framework for Ecosystem-Based Management." Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change, David Cole and Laurie Yung, eds. (Washington: Island Press, 2010), 107.
19 wilderness.34 As this was a self-imposed process not subject to legislative review, it could be more quickly designated, and, in the future, perhaps just as easily reversed. In 2010, the Canadian Parliament adopted a formal wilderness zoning plan for Waterton Lakes National Park. In the end, the Canadian and Mexican counterparts to Glacier and Big Bend have codified wilderness with much wider latitude for managers, while in each case, the U.S. parks failed to invoke this highest level of protection. These spaces allow us to examine Canadian and Mexican interpretations of wilderness that have yet to be enacted in their American counterparts. Within parks, setting the balance between use and wilderness was not only left to park managers. All the spaces, developed and undeveloped, were also widely influenced by both the magnanimity and profit motive of private commerce.
“NATURE’S PERIPHERY”: THE BUSINESS OF PARKS
In North America, the history of national parks has been intimately linked to economic development. Private enterprise has been directly involved in the creation and use of protected spaces. Early on, railroads such as the Northern Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Great Northern, and Santa Fe facilitated the creation of Yellowstone, Banff, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks respectively.35 Historians Richard Orsi, Marguerite Schaffer, and Richard West Sellars explored how commercial interests,
34 As the October 2005 press release explains, “Due to the fact that public owned land is not common in Mexico, the designation of Mexican wilderness areas needs to be a voluntary process where responsible private landowners like CEMEX commit their land to the wilderness concept.” October 1, 2005 Press Release “El Carmen: The First Wilderness Designation In Latin America,” accessed July 19, 2010, http://www.wild.org/WWC/docs/El_Carmen.pdf. 35 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 10.
20 including railroads, were involved in creating and popularizing parks but not how integral they were to park development.36 The chapter, “From Rails to Concrete: The Business of Parks and Preservation,” investigates commercial visions of protected space. In the absence of significant Congressional funding or Interior Department oversight, Louis Hill’s Great Northern built critical infrastructure and funneled visitors to Glacier and eventually to Waterton Lakes. The Great Northern completed a transcontinental railway from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington in 1893. Seventeen years later, these tracks formed the southern boundary of Glacier National Park. The railroad provided funding and manpower to construct roads and trails and, in 1914, organized the Glacier Park Hotel Company to build and operate the park’s hotels and chalets. Exercising a virtual monopoly on accommodations in the park, the railroad expanded north in 1927 with the construction of the Prince of Wales Hotel on Upper Waterton Lake, linking the two parks together five years before calls for an international peace park. The intermingling interests of corporations with nature have served as a continuous thread from early parks to the present. Businesses have long leveraged symbols to sell products and to recast the corporate enterprise itself. In Creating the Corporate Soul, Roland Marchand showed the evolution of conscious efforts in the twentieth century to remake the corporate image,
36 For more information about the linkages between businesses and national parks, refer to the following monographs: Richard Orsi, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Marguerite S. Shaffer, See American First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001); Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). For an overview of transcontinental railroads as political and economic actors, see the following monograph: Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York.: W. W. Norton, 2011).
21 sullied by size and scandal.37 Marguerite Schaffer’s See America First profiled one example of these campaigns: the Great Northern’s use of advertising imagery of Glacier to build a strong set of associations between the railroad and the natural world.38 Hoping to tap into the market for scenic European tourism, the railroad built up the park to showcase American wonders and self-branded as the “Glacier Park Line,” placing emblems of the park’s mountain goats on locomotives. More recently, economist Michael Conroy in the book Branded shows how businesses have adopted the marker of being green or sustainable in efforts to change the corporate image.39 Modern corporations have sought to incorporate conservation methods in sourcing and production processes as well as fostering the protection of biodiversity. For one such company, CEMEX, a global producer of concrete products founded in 1906 in Mexico, this commitment also presumably flowed from the highly visible environmental impacts associated with the extraction of raw materials and production processes for aggregates.40 In its 2006 Sustainable Development Report, the company highlighted the Maderas Del Carmen project in Coahuila as the prime example of its corporate environmental stewardship.41 The project afforded CEMEX an opportunity to offset some of the more unsavory byproducts of concrete production, such as borrow pits, in an attempt to recast the company’s natural balance sheet. Yet, for the Del Carmen project to
37 Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 38 Marguerite S. Shaffer, See American First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001). 39 Michael E. Conroy, Branded!: How the ‘Certification Revolution’ is Transforming Global Corporations (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2007). 40 According to a 2006 Business Week ranking crafted by the Boston Consulting Group of companies from “rapidly developing economies,” dubbed the RDE 100, that it considers most likely to succeed, CEMEX is the “world's third-largest cement producer and leading producer of ready-mix-concrete.” 2006 Business Week RDE 100, accessed July 24, 2010, http://bwnt.businessweek.com/top_100_multinational/2006/. 41 2006 CEMEX Sustainable Development Report, 34, accessed May 15, 2012, http://www.cemex.com/InvestorCenter /files/2006/CX06SR_English.pdf.
22 be a true corporate asset, it had to represent a pure, unadulterated wilderness. Unlike the ulterior motives of nineteenth-century railroads, CEMEX had much different business prerogatives in setting aside the reserve. Rather than develop the space for tourism, because of the company’s need for a green offset, there were no plans to open up the preserve except for limited scientific studies. Creating wilderness without tourism is not generally a profitable venture, especially given the company’s aspirations to reintroduce native species, such as the desert bighorn sheep. At some point, there may be pressure to offset these losses with gains via extraction, direct or indirect, unless these efforts produce sufficient goodwill among its customer base. If not, CEMEX may be forced to sell its holdings just as the Great Northern eventually opted to in Glacier and Waterton, as the percentage of visitors arriving by train was eclipsed by automobile in the 1950s. By examining Waterton-Glacier and Big Bend, it is possible to historicize the evolving uses of nature as a symbol for big business and how business interests far outside of the parks impacted developments within. The development of parks was not only a story of big business. Worthy of equal consideration to the work of these corporate behemoths were the stories of smaller local boards of trade and chambers of commerce. Counter to the prevailing impression of human displacement in historical literature, these groups and the businesses that comprised them also exerted a great deal of influence on the establishment and development of parks. Local communities adjacent to parks, typically termed “gateways” in the United States, benefited from providing accommodations, restaurants, guided tours, and a variety of other services. Parks became incubators for local businesses, but as historian Hal Rothman described in Devils Bargains, communities made trade-offs to
23 serve as gateways to natural spaces.42 The remote collections of small towns that ring parks have looked to those spaces for some measure of economic salvation, especially since jobs in extractive industries, such as mining and forestry, have dissipated. While Rothman provides the sobering details of the downsides of embracing parks, “Bordering North America” focuses on how local communities continued to be involved in and exert control over the development of these spaces. In unpacking the story of Chicago, William Cronon adopted the metaphor of “nature’s metropolis” to better interrogate the sets of material flows that bound the city to its hinterlands.43 His work revealed not only the singular ability of Chicago to remake these spaces but, in turn, the natural world’s impact on the metropole. In analyzing national parks, an inverse device can be termed “nature’s periphery.” Oddly, keeping these protected spaces undeveloped provided a nexus for economic activity in nearby towns and adjoining spaces. From big to small businesses, wilderness within a park encouraged development on its periphery and beyond. Historical literature has incompletely characterized parks as the culmination of earlier forms of private speculation giving way to a more public, natural one. The state did engage in new speculation, of sorts, to claim the grand mantle of wilderness for its lands. However, as evidenced by the participation of the Great Northern, CEMEX, and local businesses, this speculation was not only motivated by altruism or the search for national prestige but also in the less sublime expression of capitalism. In this process, businesses and other groups also reshaped and repackaged nature, often looking beyond political boundaries to do so.
42 According to Rothman, park developments have provided a bulwark of support for local communities, but at a real cost of driving down wages while making these communities less affordable for long-time residents. Hal K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998). 43 William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991).
24 SETTING BOUNDARIES IN THE BORDERLANDS
In their 1999 essay “From Borderlands to Borders,” historians Jeremy Adelman and Stephen Aron argued that as territorial claims became settled in the mid-nineteenth century, borderlands morphed into bordered lands.44 In essence, territorial competition gave way to more straightforward exchanges. Yet this conclusion discounts the myriad resource flows that emanated from each country and depended on unencumbered crossings. Even though treaties mandated boundary maintenance at substantial cost, the borders of the 49th Parallel and the Rio Grande remained porous no matter how clear the lines. Indeed, national parks relied on semi-permeable borders where the flows of flora and fauna were permitted and indeed essential to the healthy ecosystems the parks were intended to encapsulate. Flora and fauna typically ranged far beyond the boundaries set and managed by Park Services because these boundaries were not constructed with these natural flows in mind. These same borders were intended, usually in vain, to exclude environmental flows from other types of usage: tailings from mining, air pollution from manufacturing, domesticated grazing animals, and even the seeds of plants deemed invasive species like Spotted Knapweed in Waterton-Glacier or Tamarisk in Big Bend. In order to better focus on borderlands interaction and exchange between parks in the next section, this chapter, “Dividing Lines: Inscribing the Borderline of the 49th Parallel and the Rio Grande,” examines motivations for the significant ongoing investment in maintaining these political boundary lines. After 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Rio Grande as the international boundary. The entire U.S./Mexico border extends for 1,954 miles, and the river marks two thirds of it. Over
44 Jeremy Adelman and Stephen Aron, "From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History," The American Historical Review, Vol. 104, No. 3 (June 1999), 815-16.
25 two and a half times this length, the longest common international border between two countries runs 5,525 miles between the United States and Canada.45 Big Bend, extends 118 miles or 6% of the first border, and Waterton-Glacier is only 43 miles or 0.78% of the latter.46 Nonetheless, although representing relatively small portions of much longer border lines, each of these spaces have outsize impacts on the boundaries separating the three countries. From the docks at Canada’s Waterton Townsite, one can board the Motor Vessel “International,” constructed by the Great Northern Railroad in 1928 and cruise the length of Upper Waterton Lake to the U.S. Ranger Station at “Goat Haunt.” About halfway through this excursion, a peculiar sight meets the traveler off each side of the boat. Extending up the mountains from the shore, a swath twenty feet wide has been clear-cut through the forest. This represents the 49th Parallel, the international boundary established by treaty with Great Britain in 1846 and, since 1925, periodically cleared of all vegetation by the International Boundary Commission (IBC), a joint agency of Canada and the United States. In searching for more cost-efficient methods to clear the border swath of vegetation, the IBC, beginning in 1955, turned to spraying herbicides by helicopter to defoliate the line. The environmental consequences of this action in Waterton-Glacier led the IBC to suspend this practice for all border maintenance operations. In the Big Bend, the presence of the Rio Grande seemingly obviates the need for comparable maintenance by the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC),
45 1,538 miles of that distance comprised the border between the state of Alaska and the Yukon/British Columbia provinces. 46 In Waterton-Glacier, there is approximately 21 miles of boundary between the two parks. Glacier has an additional 2 miles of boundary with private land in Alberta and 20 miles of boundary with Crown land in British Columbia. Big Bend shares 118 miles of boundary with the Mexican states of Coahuila and Chihuahua.
26 the U.S./Mexico joint agency set up in 1899 with responsibility for maintaining the international border. Nevertheless, the IBWC contemplated dams and reservoirs within the three major canyons formed by the Rio Grande in the Big Bend primarily as a means of managing the river’s seasonal floodwaters that encountered bancos downstream, hundreds of miles from the park. Bancos, also called oxbows, are any series of undulating curves in the riverbed.47 Sudden increases in stream flow at these bends produce dramatic shifts in the course of the river and create problems for borders tied directly to the river’s channel. Although the creation of international parks has promoted more cooperation in the management of shared ecological resources beyond political subdivisions, park managers have not been able to completely erase the boundaries that divide them. Differences in park management have determined that while these spaces might be important representations of transboundary conservation in one sense, the clarity of a defined border was equally essential so that the perceived or actual lack of protections—like those mentioned earlier by Glacier Superintendent Libbey—on one side of the political line might be more easily explained. While the component parts of the ecosystem flow across jurisdictions, the Canadian and Mexican spaces were perhaps more often viewed by U.S. park managers as buffer zones helping to maintain the highest standards of protection on the American side of the lines. The American parks represented the kernels of wilderness that would be preserved by the decidedly lesser layers of protection that surrounded them. Picking case studies on the borders has provided a unique opportunity to see how different national conceptions of protected space have been deployed and
47 Leon C. Metz, "Bancos of the Rio Grande," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed June 26, 2012, http://www.tsha online.org/handbook/online/articles/rnb08.
27 changed in attempts to manage ecosystems that never neatly conformed to the political lines drawn or, for Glacier, cut between them.
TRANSBOUNDARY, OR INTERNATIONAL PEACE, PARKS
While historians have been writing about borderlands since Herbert Bolton, scholars have devoted most of their attention and analysis to the land and peoples of the
Mexican North and U.S. Southwest.48 In 2010, Benjamin Johnson and Andrew Graybill compiled an edited volume placing borderlands methods and questions into a larger framework by incorporating the U.S./Canada border region as well.49 This broader approach fit nicely with attempts over the past two decades to coin “Atlantic” and “Pacific” histories that can more readily contain and reveal the myriad cultural and economic exchanges across actors and geographies. The study of national parks can also benefit from this approach as protected areas, larger ecosystems, and the parties that interact with those ecosystems range far beyond specific boundaries. Borderlands are usually defined as points of interaction between peoples, and these border parks provide novel test cases. By isolating four parks in two zones, the larger natural environments of the Rocky Mountains and Chihuahuan Desert can be kept constant while providing a distinct portrait of how each country grappled with protecting pieces of the same ecosystems. The concept of a “national park” has been thoroughly interrogated, and the genesis of this naming convention has been previously discussed. However, a
48 Herbert E. Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest (1st ed., 1921; Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996). 49 Benjamin H. Johnson and Andrew R. Graybill, eds., Bridging National Borders in North America: Transnational and Comparative Histories, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 3.
28 transboundary or international peace park is a relatively new construction. From the creation of Yellowstone in 1872 to the present, over 7,000 national parks have been established worldwide, and of these, 227 are transboundary parks. Yet three quarters of these 227 border zone parks have been formed only within the past two decades.50 The creation of these shared spaces stands as a testament to how necessary and difficult it can be to share ecosystems that range across multiple countries. Unlike national parks that traditionally focus preservation efforts inward, these spaces and mechanisms for shared management operate in a wider framework based on the need to regulate material scarcity – animals with far-flung ranges or conflicting water rights, for example, or the potential for economic development through tourism. Given the quite recent surge in this form of protected space phenomenon, there is very little literature to date.51 In creating the world’s first national park, the United States also created an idea that became a significant export. This singular innovation has grown into a global movement evidenced by the establishment of thousands of national parks and preserved spaces worldwide. Most national parks follow the American approach that privileges the preservation of the natural environment over indigenous or resident cultures. The act of forming parks, wherever they are now located, usually involves dispossession. In parks, preserved spaces attempt to wipe clean contemporary populations who are deemed either culturally invisible or politically unfit keepers of the land so that an idealized, albeit inaccurate, view of pristine nature can dominate the landscape.52 Yet, it would also be
50 Michael Schoon, Brief History of Transboundary Protected Areas, accessed July 7, 2012, http://www.tbpa.net/ page.php?ndx=17. 51 For a history of transboundary peace parks around the globe, see Saleem H. Ali, ed., Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007). 52 For more information about this debate between “pristine” wilderness over park life with people in it, see the compilation of essays edited by William Cronon in Uncommon Ground. William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995).
29 unwise to characterize these landholders as merely foils for park administrators. Many locals truly embraced these spaces as their own and took pride in their roles as guides and stewards. They have been close observers of the Park Service and have critiqued any actions they deemed detrimental to the long-term interests of the parks and the communities that surrounded them. Indeed, efforts to legislate wilderness in Big Bend and Glacier were defeated by local concerns about the economic implications of a wilderness overlay. The chapter “Transboundary Parks: Bridging Borders and Combining National Parks” explores the origins of the peace park idea and explicit connections between Waterton-Glacier and the Big Bend. Just as North America produced the first national park, the continent also provided the novel form of the first international space in 1932.53 The idea for a peace park originated just one year before with Rotary Clubs on both sides of the border, but local Alberta boards of trade and Montana chambers of commerce were also active in the campaign. This effort was a mix between a novel marketing gimmick and sincere commemoration of the long-standing peace and friendship between neighbors, especially poignant given the clouds of war forming in Europe. Neither the U.S. nor Canadian Park Services wholly embraced the peace park concept, but they acquiesced given its potential to drive increased visitation and revenue for each park and their benefactors. Even with a newly combined name, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, each legislative act, U.S. and Canadian, made clear that administration and sovereignty remained entirely separate.
53 For more information about the creation of International Peace Parks, see the following chapters in this edited collection: Saleem H. Ali, ed. Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007). For Waterton-Glacier: The Waterton–Glacier International Peace, Park Conservation amid Border Security (Randy Tanner, Wayne Freimund, Brace Hayden and Bill Dolan). For perspective on cooperation in the Big Bend region: Bridging Conservation across La Frontera, An Unfinished Agenda for Peace Parks along the US–Mexico Divide (Belinda Sifford and Charles Chester).
30 Unlike the marked ambivalence that met the idea of an international peace park for Glacier, the U.S. National Park Service took an active, sometimes evangelical, role in pushing for a comparable designation on its southern border. Mexican and U.S. Park Service officials actively pursued the designation of a “sister” park in Coahuila and Chihuahua in the 1930s, but their efforts were undone by a variety of hard political and economic realities on both sides of the border. All of the major historical narratives of Big Bend written by Arthur Gomez, John Jameson, Ron Tyler, and Michael Welsh focus on the unwillingness or inability of the Mexican government to follow through in establishing a park.54 Only historian Emily Wakild’s most recent article, “Border Chasm,” effectively argues that irreconcilable conservation goals and the region’s remoteness quashed even the personal engagement of Mexican officials.55 By widening the investigation further to other transboundary projects beyond the Big Bend, “Bordering North America” reveals that competing private interests played a much more central role than public actors. Mexican ranching and tourism interests were conflicted as to the best economic use of the space, but ultimately, it was a major private enterprise that intended to displace both of these industries that facilitated the creation of a Mexican protected space over sixty years later.
54 Arthur R. Gomez, A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1990); John R. Jameson, Big Bend on the Rio Grande: Biography of a National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Ronnie C. Tyler, The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1996); Michael Welsh, Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park (National Park Service Administrative History, 2003) 55 Emily Wakild, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009), 453.
31 CONCLUSION
In 1832, George Catlin, fearing the imminent demise of American Indians, called for the preservation of at least a portion of the environment and peoples of the Great Plains: “What a beautiful and thrilling specimen for America to preserve and hold up to the view of her refined citizens and the world in future ages! A Nation’s Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty!”56 Every dissertation and most books about parks studiously invoke Catlin for this first named call to action. Yet, by focusing on humans and nature, perhaps he provided a more meaningful assessment of what preserved spaces actually represent. The idea of wilderness has been and continues to be used to arbitrarily separate humans from the landscapes they inhabit. As William Cronon admonished, “any way of looking at nature that encourages us to believe we are separate from nature – as wilderness tends to do – is likely to reinforce environmentally irresponsible behavior.”57 It is important to remember that Catlin’s vision, however romantic, was based on his very real observations of human interaction with the natural environment of the Great Plains. Mythology and debate over the ecological Indian aside, North American spaces testify to the continuous presence and impact, however slight or severe, of humans from indigenous peoples to the successive waves of newer arrivals and migrants.58 The narratives of pristine nature are built, in part, by removing, obscuring, or overlooking evidence of these incursions. These spaces are important for the preservation of the natural environment but must also be understood
56 George Catlin, Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians (London: H. G. Bohn, 1851), 261-262, accessed April 15, 2012, http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/32970/0412?id=9b9893af42176d74. 57 Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 87. 58 Shepard Krech, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999).
32 historically through the profound personal tradeoffs and state and private speculations that often engendered their creation. With CEMEX’s 2006 purchase of the former Adams Ranch in Texas just across the river from the Maderas Del Carmen and between Big Bend National Park and Black Gap State Wildlife Management Area, the first transnational space along the U.S./Mexico border was land acquired by a private Mexican corporation.59 Surely, this was an odd realization of the now almost seventy-year dream of an integrated peace park. Just as in Waterton Lakes, Glacier, and Big Bend before it, one of the first activities of the new park managers was to remove structures and fencing that had subdivided the land into smaller pastures and fields in an attempt to uncover and foreground its natural roots. Wilderness in any park serves as a sort of natural palimpsest. Although with time, what is written underneath becomes less readily apparent, the overlay of nature in national parks is often as much a human as natural construction. No matter what interventions attempt to erase human intrusions, it continues to be a combination of both.
59 8/28/2006 Press Release (Texas Parks and Wildlife Department), accessed April 17, 2012, http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/text.phtml?req=20060828a.
33 Chapter 1 - Making National Parks in the Northern Rockies and Chihuahuan Desert
In the spring of 1921, officials of the Canadian National Park Branch began an unusual construction project on the scenic rolling slopes at the base of Mount Crandell in Waterton Lakes.60 The Waterton Superintendent alerted the Parks Commissioner that William Thompson, the Golf Course Manager from Banff National Park, had visited Waterton and laid out a golf course to be built that season. According to the report, Thompson “was very enthusiastic regarding the site, which, in his opinion, is a marvelous one considering its present wild state.”61 The golf course’s original nine holes were finished that same season and subsequently expanded to eighteen in 1931. The condition of wildness observed by Thompson, it seems, was not a major impediment to recasting the space as a much different type of recreational venture. Unlike hotels, museums, and visitor centers, which usually occupied a relatively small footprint, the golf course development took in a large swath of the park. In addition to taking up space, the course also required significant infrastructure for maintenance, such as the installation of a 60,000-gallon tank, irrigation pipelines for watering the greens, and an on-site plant nursery to propagate the creeping bent grass needed for the putting greens.62
60 Recreation was not strictly limited to golf. There was also a swimming pool, tennis courts, and a children’s playground constructed by the Government in the nearby Waterton Townsite. [undated 1932] “Waterton Lakes National Park” Memo from J.B. Harkin, Microfilm T11266, Canadian National Archives (Ottawa, Ontario). 61 5/11/1921 April Superintendent Report to Commissioner, Box 206, WLNPA. 62 According to the 1937 Annual Waterton Park Report, the water for the tank was drawn and pumped from Pass Creek after a dam was constructed “to ensure an ample supply of water for the pump.” 1/5/1937 Waterton Lakes Annual Report ending 12/31/1936, Box 206, WLNPA.
34 Park brochures highlighted the course as one of the significant draws to the space with an “exceptionally attractive club-house which is open to visitors.”63 Indeed, the Canadian Parks Service considered golf courses like the one at Waterton to be one of the major attractions to its national park system.64 Interestingly, the golf course, like other outdoor spaces in the park, was susceptible to drought but suffered more in public perception from the expectation that it would be well-watered, lush, and constantly tended. A park visitor in 1948 complained that “the golf course, with the exception of one fairway cut out of the woods, is very dry and brown. It lacks a good water supply for the greens. Many of the greens are black.”65 It is those scorched greens that represent one of the central dilemmas of all national parks, including Waterton Lakes. Parks are used as well as preserved. Nature was and is but one of many attractions that commingle within the larger space to draw and keep tourists. It would be easy to categorize the golf course and its sustaining infrastructure at Waterton as an unnatural attraction. Yet golf courses, as large a development shadow as they cast, did not represent the first emergence of man-made landscapes from supposed pristine wilderness as many scholars have demonstrated. Parks are merely another, albeit perhaps the last, construction imposed on previously used spaces. At Waterton and in other national parks, the same flat, buildable sections that drew homesteaders proved similarly ideal for visitor centers and golf courses. Each protected space is by definition bounded, preserved in perpetuity for the benefit of the citizens of today and their posterity. As such, these spaces occupy a special
63 [undated 1940s?] “Waterton Lakes National Park Canada” brochure, Microfilm T12928, Canadian NA. 64 11/22/1954 Memo for the Deputy Minister, Microfilm T9871, Canadian NA. 65 10/8/1948 “Notes on Visit to Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta” by J.G. Perdue, Microfilm T12928, Canadian NA.
35 place in historical memory: pristine, monumental, unpeopled, and unchanging.66 Yet, as exemplified by the construction of the golf course at Waterton Lakes, these clever short- hands do not match the reality on the ground. Each national park preserves the mythology of a pristine wilderness that is decidedly not so. Rather, the spaces are full of human history, conflict, and exchange. Because they are situated on a variety of borders – natural and national – Waterton Lakes, Glacier, Big Bend, and the Maderas del Carmen are ideal case studies for understanding this exchange and how the interaction between institutions and individuals possessing diverse ideas about the space they occupied shaped each space’s evolution. When examining the prior and, in some cases, ongoing uses of the landscape for human settlement, resource development, and aesthetics, it becomes clear that rather than the preservation of an unpeopled wilderness, the imposition of a national park designation is simply a continuation of the story of human impact on the region. Parks traditionally have been defined by the supposed absence of economic activity. Historian Alfred Runte advanced the “worthless lands” thesis as the explanatory basis for the creation of national parks.67 According to Runte, parks could only arise out of lands unsuited for mining, agriculture, or homesteading. After all, this was the era of parceling
66 Historian Hal Rothman highlights the importance of these types of landscapes in the United States as a sort of national “sipapu.” “Americans saw themselves as ‘nature’s nation’…As the American West became the psychic location of the national creation myth, Americans understood their experience and identity as a people being formed anew and refashioned.” Along with Canadians and Mexicans, each nation borrowed ideas about the mythical importance of parks, but the protected spaces in each country shared a common composition that was not a pure wilderness, but instead, a hybrid of private and public lands. Hal Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 41. 67 Historian Alfred Runte advanced the “worthless lands” theory in his cornerstone exploration of American National Parks, a book that has been updated periodically, most recently with its fourth release in 2010. He argues that parks could only be established in areas that had no other beneficial economic use: for instance, where high elevation and an abbreviated growing season precluded grazing or agricultural pursuits. Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987).
36 out public lands for private ownership. In the United States, the Homestead and Dawes Acts, among others, redistributed millions of publicly or communally held tribal acres into more “productive” forms.68 To overcome the prevailing practice of land distribution and keep land out of private hands, the government needed proof that the land was unsuited for other commercial ventures. While this proposition of parks as “worthless lands” appears to bear out in examining the small geographic profiles of early national parks (save for Yellowstone, which was drawn to include a massive swath of territory for the simple fear of excluding any of the scenic wonders of “Colter’s Hell”), the lands encompassed within Big Bend, Glacier, the Maderas del Carmen, and Waterton Lakes continued to have value, and not just as tourist attractions, but also for more traditional economic mainstays such as homesteading and agriculture. In some instances, lands on the periphery were ceded back to the communities that surrounded them either directly by excising these spaces from the parks or indirectly through permits that allowed grazing or timber extraction, for example, to continue. At the same time, Park administrators discovered that the more utilitarian plots within the parks were highly valuable for internal park use, such as the careful tending of creeping bent grass on the slopes below Mount Crandell and the planting of grazing crops as valuable forage for domestic livestock in the parks used for transportation or food. Even more important, these places served as winter range for wildlife coming down from higher elevation for shelter and forage and as a hunting ground for the predators that followed them.
68 Historian Patricia Limerick showcased the steady stream of lands that passed from public to private hands, albeit not always to the ideal “yeoman farmers” of Thomas Jefferson’s agrarian vision. Patricia N. Limerick, Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1987), 61, 197.
37 The bounds of protected spaces were not drawn only once and set forever but rather moved by legislative decree or in the evolving sets of uses allowed along the periphery and even in the hearts of each park. In redrawing these boundaries, both U.S. and Canadian parks and their neighbors often realized the downside of not fully protecting the target ecosystem. For example, the exclusion of adequate winter forage often led to conflicts with locals who endured the decimation of their cover crops or hay stores as well as the expanded menu afforded to predators in the form of their domestic stock. Examining these case studies shows the shortcomings of Runte’s argument. Parks were not discrete, self-contained entities that broke sharply from prior uses of the land once they were designated as parks. Rather, the flows of nature and people regularly pierced the boundaries of each space. This chapter begins with a summary of the early development of Waterton- Glacier in the northern Rockies and Big Bend in the Chihuahuan Desert and then examines these early parks through two novel lenses: that of the interior private landholders and that of people and organizations tasked with managing each space. First, areas reconstituted as national parks were often home to Native Americans and more recent successive waves of homesteaders. As such, these private parcels had to be integrated into the plans for the larger space. The section “Inside Looking Out” examines the fate of these private lands, sometimes acquired but more often occupying a legal limbo between private and public. Private holdings and uses persisted in parks. Their continued presence denied the realization of efforts to definitively portray these spaces as uncorrupted nature. Next, this chapter also examines how park officials were tasked with providing for the enjoyment of visitors as well as the preservation of resources for the future. Yet to facilitate tourism, each Park Service decided how it would consume the park resources it
38 was entrusted to protect. The section “A Monopoly of Use” weighs how different National Park Services exercised their newfound monopoly. It is the development of parks that ironically leads to mid-century warnings of threatened despoliation by the very people and agencies entrusted with their protection. This fear ultimately prompted calls to more clearly delineate what is natural from what is not.
THE NORTHERN ROCKIES: A STORY OF THE U.S./CANADIAN BORDERLANDS
F.W. Godsal, a rancher in Pincher Creek and Vice-President of the Western Stock Growers Association, originally proposed establishing Waterton Lakes as a national park.69 The timing of his proposal was opportune, as the Canadian Department of the Interior was also conducting a survey of the water resources of the mountain lakes and rivers as part of a long-term irrigation plan for Alberta. Two important areas surveyed as future reservoir sites were the Belly and Waterton Rivers, both originating in the glaciated mountains just south of the 49th parallel in the United States. Instituting a park provided protection against forest fires and other detrimental uses associated with permanent settlement in these vital watershed areas.70 Moreover, preserving this space recognized its long-standing historical use by local Albertans as a recreational spot. Godsal, writing in September 1893 to the Interior Department argued that:
the Crows Nest Pass and Waterton Lakes have been for years a common resort for the surrounding neighborhood for camping and holiday making and there being but few such places in the country, I think they should be reserved for ever for the use of the public otherwise a comparatively small number of settlers can control
69 For a historical overview of the creation of Canada’s national park system, including a brief review of Waterton Lakes, refer to: W.F. Lothian, "A Brief History of Canada's National Parks." (Ottawa, Ontario: Environment Canada, 1987). 70 I. A Getty, History of the Human Settlement at Waterton Lakes National Park, 1800-1937 (1970), Box 115, WLNPA.
39 and spoil these public resorts. Every day that it is delayed increases the probability of friction between the Government and settlers that may build in these spots.71
Godsal highlighted the urgency of such a designation and anticipated an impediment, the presence of private parcels that bedeviled the efficient administration of many national parks in Canada and beyond. Forwarding Godsal’s letter to Secretary of the Department, William Pearce, the Superintendent of Mines, added his own approval noting that only two private claims were to be found in the area and the bulk of the land belonged to the Crown.72 Beyond this, in a nod to Runte’s “worthless lands” thesis, he recommended the Minister sanction the park because “the lands are of no value for cultivation and of very slight value for grazing.”73 On May 30, 1895, an Order-in-Council designated Waterton Lakes as “set apart for a Forest Park.”74 In 1909, H.R. MacMillan, Assistant Inspector for Forest Reserves issued a report on changing the area’s status from a Forest Reserve into a national park. While playing up the beauty of the mountains and lakes, he also alluded to the long-standing human intrusions, referring to the Blakiston Brook Valley as “the ancient pathway of the Indians in their expeditions across the mountains, and was until thirty years ago used by the
71 9/12/1893 Letter to Superintendent of Mines Wm. Pearce from F.W. Godsal, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 72 Federal public lands in Canada were referred to as “Crown land.” 73 9/23/1893 Letter to Secretary of the Department of the Interior from Superintendent of Mines, Box 249, WLNPA. 74 According to the Library and Archives Canada, an Order in Council is a “legislative instrument generated by the governor-in-council, and constitutes a formal recommendation of Cabinet that is approved and signed by the governor general. Orders-in-council address a wide range of administrative and legislative matters, from civil service staffing to capital punishment, and from the disposition of Aboriginal lands to the maintenance of the Parliamentary Library.” In short, an order in council is usually made in accordance with an Act of the Canadian Parliament; http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/orders/index-e.html. 5/30/1895 Order in Council signed by Clerk John J. McGee, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
40 Kootenay’s on their annual Buffalo hunting trips.”75 More recently, these old Indian paths were repurposed to form a roadway to the short-lived boomtown of Oil City. While the form of speculative endeavor may have changed, the park area remained a corridor of transit for those seeking resources. MacMillan tied the need for a change in how Waterton was managed to the areas beyond it, noting the dearth of moose and elk that might be replenished with stocks in adjacent British Columbia and Montana. He warned that “if hunting is continued, the game will soon learn that they are unmolested in the Glacier National Park, and will retreat there, where a larger and more rugged area awaits them.” Although MacMillan underscored the need to prevent taking game, other uses seemed perfectly permissible, even desirable, in such a natural setting. For example, he advocated that fire-damaged timber should be reutilized as “posts, corral poles, small building logs and fuel,” underscoring “it should be cut so as to reap some benefit from it.” Although some previous uses, like hunting, must be discontinued within the park to allow that use to continue outside of it, the simple fact that the land had been properly “vetted” by attempts to extract value only confirmed his conclusion that “this territory is good for nothing but timber and park purposes.” In 1911, the Kootenay Lakes Reserve, originally set apart under the Forest Reserves Act, but more closely mirroring other pleasure resorts set aside along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, was rebranded as Waterton Lakes National Park administered by the Commissioner of Dominion Parks.76 It was only Canada’s fourth national park after Banff, Glacier (in British Columbia), and Yoho.77
75 [1909?] Assistant Inspector Forest Reserves H.R. Macmillan, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 76 11/25/1909 Memo to Deputy Minister from R.H. Campbell, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 77 The Canadian Glacier National Park, in British Columbia, was established in 1886 twenty-four years before the American protected space of the same name in Montana.
41 Immediately south of Waterton Lakes and moving across the international border represented by the forty-ninth parallel, the Continental Divide bisects what is now Glacier National Park in Montana. Lands east of the divide were originally part of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and a forest preserve designated in 1891 occupied the territory to the west.78 In 1885, George Bird Grinnell, noted conservationist and editor of Forest and Stream, having heard many accounts of the country, went to the area on a hunting trip. Just like MacMillan, Grinnell also noted the ongoing human presence on the land, noting that the region was “visited by parties of Kootenais from the west, and by Crees and Bloods from the north … The Blackfeet, too, camped about the lakes and hunted the mountain bison found in the valleys and on the foothills.”79 Suitably impressed, Grinnell envisioned setting the area aside as a national park. The Great Northern Railroad laying track westward from Minneapolis reached the Marias Pass on the Continental Divide in 1891, and he believed that it might be enlisted to support the project. However, another potential use of the area intervened. With the discovery of minerals, notably copper and gold in the region in the 1880s, a government commission, including Grinnell, negotiated with the Blackfeet to purchase a substantial section of land extending from the Divide to the eastern prairie and open it up to mining claims. The tribe agreed to a purchase price of $1.5 million and executed a treaty in 1895 that reserved a number of use rights for the Blackfeet.80
78 Philip Burnham, Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and the National Parks (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000), 39-48. 79 G.B. Grinnell, “The Beginnings of Glacier National Park,” in Madison Grant, Hunting and Conservation: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1925). Box 115, WLNPA. 80 Historians Philip Burnham, Benjamin Johnson, and Mark David Spence chronicle the loss of land and use rights by the Blackfeet in what became Glacier National Park: Burnham, 43; Benjamin Johnson, “Wilderness Parks and Their Discontents” in Michael Lewis, ed., American Wilderness: A New History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 113.; Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
42 After Grinnell negotiated the purchase in 1895-6, mining activities were formally permitted in 1898, but the treaty only validated the situation in place on the ground where hundreds of anxious prospectors had already established claims.81 Even then, after only two or three more years of prospecting, minerals were simply not found in quantities large enough to justify the cost of extraction, and the few claims filed were almost all abandoned. Thus, without the prospect of any other private development to be derived from this newly minted public parcel, Grinnell and, importantly, the Great Northern Railroad lobbied Congress to set aside the area as a national park.82 While the mining claims did not pan out, seemingly proving Runte’s proposition that park could then be fashioned out of “worthless lands,” the presence or possibility of other developments intruded in the legislative language creating the space. In 1910, Congress finally agreed to the designation and established Glacier as the nation’s ninth national park. The short history of alternate uses appeared to constitute a minor challenge in recasting the area as parkland and decoupling a traditional sense of economic value from the landscape. Similar to the language that appears in authorizing legislation for earlier parks, Glacier National Park was established as a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the United States. Yet, the enabling legislation also pointedly acknowledged the economic value of the space, specifically recognizing protections for a number of existing and future uses, including water reclamation and existing settlements, primarily along Lake McDonald in the western section of the park, which had previously been a national forest.83 Although one form of resource extraction,
81 Grinnell, “The Beginnings of Glacier National Park.” 82 Spence, 81-83. 83 For example, “nothing herein contained shall affect any valid existing claim, location, or entry under the land laws of the United States or the rights of any such claimant, locator, or entryman to the full use and enjoyment of his land.” U.S. Congress, Statutes at Large, "An Act To establish The Glacier National Park in the Rocky Mountains south of the international boundary line, in the State of Montana, and for other purposes." S. 2777, Public Act No. 171 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910). Library of
43 mining, may not have gained traction, contrary to the “worthless lands” justification, Glacier’s very enabling act recognized these continuing uses. Two decades later, similar issues regarding the recognition of existing uses in national park creation played out in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, Coahuila, and Chihuahua during the establishment of Big Bend. Pre-existing economic activities, primarily ranching and mining, were also present on the land, but, by then, the proven economic viability of tourism justified a significant investment by the State of Texas to displace one form of enterprise for another.
THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT
With the growing popularity of national parks, the Park Service attempted to develop an organized method to evaluate the growing number of prospective additions to the system. A small group of Park Service employees were tasked with distinguishing legitimate additions from questionable “park barrel” projects that had the potential to diminish the quality of the overall portfolio. The original 1933 proposal to create a national park in the Big Bend region of Texas was dropped by the Park Service over apparent concerns about whether it should be a national or state park.84 An official of the
Congress, American Memory Collection, http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?collId=amrvl&fileName=vl022//amrvlvl022.db&recNum=0&itemLi nk=D?consrvbib:1:./temp/~ammem_VpuA::@@@mdb=mcc,gottscho,detr,nfor,wpa,aap,cwar,bbpix,cowell bib,calbkbib,consrvbib,bdsbib,dag,fsaall,gmd,pan,vv,presp,varstg,suffrg,nawbib,horyd,wtc,toddbib,mgw,nc r,ngp,musdibib,hlaw,papr,lhbumbib,rbpebib,lbcoll,alad,hh,aaodyssey,magbell,bbcards,dcm,raelbib,runyon, dukesm,lomaxbib,mtj,gottlieb,aep,qlt,coolbib,fpnas,aasm,scsm,denn,relpet,amss,aaeo,mffbib,afc911bib,mj m,mnwp,rbcmillerbib,molden,ww2map,mfdipbib,afcnyebib,klpmap,hawp,omhbib,rbaapcbib,mal,ncpsbib,n cpm,lhbprbib,ftvbib,afcreed,aipn,cwband,flwpabib,wpapos,cmns,psbib,pin,coplandbib,cola,tccc,curt,mhare ndt,lhbcbbib,eaa,haybib,mesnbib,fine,cwnyhs,svybib,mmorse,afcwwgbib,mymhiwebib,uncall,afcwip,mtaft ,manz,llstbib,fawbib,berl,fmuever,cdn,upboverbib,mussm,cic,afcpearl,awh,awhbib,sgp,wright,lhbtnbib,afce snbib,hurstonbib,mreynoldsbib,spaldingbib,sgproto&linkText=0. 84 Historical monographs about the Big Bend region tend to focus on the longer history of the area in the context of its connections with New Spain, Mexico, and the early United States. Michael Welsh’s 2003
44 Texas State Parks Board indicated that the State Legislature, if it had acquired the land, would have developed it for recreational purposes rather than as an example of outstanding scenery. Writing to the Park Service Director in January 1933, Conrad Wirth concluded the area was not up to “national park standards.”85 Acknowledging this conclusion, a bill establishing Texas Canyons State Park out of fifteen sections of public school land near the canyons along the Rio Grande was signed by Governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson that same year.86 Yet Roger Toll, the former Superintendent of Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone National Parks and the Park Service official personally tasked with evaluating the suitability of proposed system additions, conducted an inspection trip of the Big Bend region in 1934. Toll determined what areas were and were not park caliber, and after his tour, he described the whole region as “a wilderness area. Most of it is arid, has a very sparse population, and is used for the grazing of cattle, sheep, and goats … The Big Bend Country seems to be decidedly the outstanding scenic area of Texas.”87 Completely reversing Wirth’s conclusion from the previous year, in a subsequent letter to the Park Service Director, Toll recommended that the federal government acquire all lands
park administrative history, commissioned by the National Park Service, offers the most comprehensive examination of the space as a park. Arthur R. Gomez, A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1990); John R. Jameson, Big Bend on the Rio Grande: Biography of a National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Ronnie C. Tyler, The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1996); Michael Welsh, Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park (National Park Service Administrative History, 2003). 85 1/19/1933 Memo to Director Horace Albright from Conrad Wirth, Box 821 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 86 Summary of Events that led to the establishment of the BBNP, Box 11 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 87 “If the rims of the three canyons and the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains were accessible by road, the area would offer a scenic trip that would be of national interest. The area will not have many visitors until the facilities of access and accommodation are provided. It is believed that this area is suitable for a national park.” 3/3/1934 Letter to Director Arno Cammerer from Roger Toll, Box 1 (Roger Toll Notebook), BBNP Archives.
45 surrounding the principal features, including the Chisos Mountains and the three canyons along the Rio Grande and “as much of the balance of the tract should be acquired as proves to be practicable.” Importantly, he did not encourage the wholesale acquisition of all the intervening parcels, much of which was ranchland or contained the scrub of the Chihuahuan Desert, noting “some private ownership will not seriously interfere with the general public use of the area.” Toll easily imposed notions of wilderness on an area that had been thoroughly used although, perhaps because of his previous experience as a superintendent, he was resigned to the presence of private lands within parks and definitions of wilderness at the time were less rigid. Even so, with the limited amount of public monies generally available for land acquisition, he believed it best to prioritize targets. Toll was undoubtedly encouraged by the positive local sentiment that supported the establishment of the park. Indeed, he was accompanied on his tour by two members of the Brewster County Chamber of Commerce as well as ranchers Homer Wilson and Sam Nail, both of whom owned property within the targeted area. Nail even furnished overnight accommodations and horses for an excursion into the Chisos Mountains just east of his ranch. The original Park Service vision for the space totaled approximately 1.5 million acres with some 1,252,360 acres in private ownership.88 Park Service employee Herbert Maier conveyed excitement and optimism about the new prize: “We are starting out with an almost untouched wilderness area, and every element of the development will have some first class prototype in some National Park. Everything done at the Big Bend by us, therefore, should be equal to or better than a similar thing already done” [emphasis
88 1/31/1935 Memo to Secretary of the Interior from Director Cammerer, Box 2013 (Office of the Secretary Central Classified Files, 1907-36), NARA (College Park, MD).
46 added].89 Big Bend represented a fresh start. The Park Service looked to capitalize on its best ideas and avoid past mistakes as it encountered what was, from its perspective, a clean canvas. However, the notion of the area being an “untouched wilderness” was rather suspect considering eighty-three percent of the proposed space was held in private hands. The desertscape of Big Bend was not the aesthetic target for national park development. Indeed, the Park Service was primarily interested in the river canyons and the Chisos Mountains due to the possibility of preserving an intact ecosystem. The initial land acquisition strategy discouraged spending funds on anything but scenic throughways to connect these anticipated major park attractions. Yet by focusing on the primary watersheds along the river and mountains, the other lands, then disconnected from water, lost utility for any other purposes and became much easier to acquire. The original vision for the park was scaled back to accommodate the $1.5 million in funds appropriated by the state legislature. Chapter 4, “The Business of Parks,” offers context for why the state legislators were willing to designate such a large sum to effectively transfer lands from one economic use, primarily ranching, to another, tourism. After a little over a year of acquisition activity during 1941-42, all but approximately 12,000 of the 788,000 acres needed had been purchased by the Big Bend Land Department (BBLD).90 After the official transfer of BBLD lands to the Federal Government on June 6, 1944, the park opened to visitors shortly after the close of World War II. In a concurrent effort, the U.S. and Mexican governments attempted to pair the creation of a national park in the Big Bend of Texas with a sister park that straddled the
89 5/31/1935 Letter to Assistant Director Conrad Wirth from Herbert Maier, Box 821 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 90 8/17/1942 Letter to Amon Carter from Harry Connelly, Box 22 (Amon Carter Papers) Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University.
47 Mexican states of Coahuila and Chihuahua.91 Miguel Angel de Quevedo, President Lazaro Cardenas’ head of the Mexican Department of Forestry, Fish, and Game, led a 1935 Mexican delegation in discussions about establishing an international park on the borderlands. “The Mexican government faced an extraordinarily difficult task in administering national parks,” historian Lane Simonian recounts.92 “In contrast to the United States, where national parks were created from lands already in public ownership (or in those cases where the land was privately owned, landholders could be bought out, phased out, or removed outright), Mexico’s national parks often included areas not owned by the government.” In Mexico, the land tenure system and lack of public funds precluded widespread acquisition and designation of protected spaces. Since long-standing Mexican law prohibited the purchase of communal property or ejidos, scholar Lane Simonian points out that, “public officials had to enlist the support of peasants in protecting their resources within national parks.”93 Thus, although Big Bend National Park was created in the United States, Mexico initially failed to establish a “sister” park. For a variety of reasons that are examined in detail in the chapter 6, “Transboundary Parks,” a Mexican park did not materialize for another sixty years. On
91 Given the recent establishment of the Maderas del Carmen (1994), very few histories have been authored to date. In addition, none of the articles/books are stand-alone, but rather focus on the larger international space comprising the Big Bend and del Carmens: Emily Wakild, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009) Saleem H. Ali, ed. Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007). For perspective on cooperation in the Big Bend region: Bridging Conservation across La Frontera, An Unfinished Agenda for Peace Parks along the US–Mexico Divide (Belinda Sifford and Charles Chester). For a historical overview of the creation of Mexico’s national park system, unfortunately without mention of the Maderas del Carmen, refer to: Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Emily Wakild, Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico’s National Parks, 1910-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2011) 92 Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1995), 100. 93 Simonian, 100.
48 November 7, 1994, 520,950 acres of the Maderas del Carmen in Coahuila and 693,025 acres of the Cañón de Santa Elena in Chihuahua were established by legislative decree as protected spaces.94 While the decree prevented the establishment of new populated areas within the protected space, it did nothing to exclude the multitude of residents who pre- dated its creation.95 With the re-categorization of land as parks, it was these residents of Mexico, along with their continental peers in Canada and the United States, who now found their properties and, by extension, themselves absorbed in a novel overlay that awkwardly confounded notions of private homesteads and unrestricted use. Recent historical monographs have focused on local residents, primarily revolving around their dispossession and exclusion from protected spaces as each management agency sought to recast these areas as wild.96 One obvious way to institute this wilderness narrative was to remove previous settlers and the physical evidence of their presence. Historian Louis Warren eloquently described winners and losers in such nationalizations of the commons in the guise of national parks, forests and wildlife refuges in the United States. This same struggle played out within the boundaries of parks, and along the borderlands it is easier to see and compare how each park and government dealt with this “problem” differently. In focusing on what was lost—and there was certainly much lost to indigenous groups as well as a variety of more recent immigrants—it is easy to forget that private holdings still pervaded these sites. In Canada, Mexico, and even in the United States, where the U.S.
94 7/14/1995 Memo to Big Bend Division Chiefs and Staff from Superintendent Jose Cisneros, Box 1 (Chief Ranger Office Files), BBNP Archives. 95 11/7/1994 “Maderas del Carmen” Decree, Box 1 (Chief Ranger Office Files), BBNP Archives. 96 Historiography of dispossession of land and rights of use in national parks includes: Philip Burnham, Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and the National Parks (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000); Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Mark D. Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Louis Warren, The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
49 Park Service regularly appropriated funds in attempts to phase out private holdings within park boundaries, sizable communities remained. Indeed, according to statistics from 2007, in the United States, over six percent, or 5.4 million acres, of the national park land area was in private hands.97 While historians have portrayed disaffected locals as on the outside wistfully looking in, this continuing presence suggests that quite a few remained on the inside looking out. In many cases, these locals were instrumental in fighting to make these spaces into national parks. Parks, especially the case studies examined, often started as “backyard playgrounds” for locals who hoped park status would safeguard their recreation while at the same time expanding access and economic prosperity.
ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT
One peculiarity that seems equally prevalent in Canada, Mexico, and the United States is the impact park designation had on part or full-time residents owning or residing on private parcels within the park limits. Park officials often pejoratively referred to these individuals as “inholders.” This label implied that these properties no longer fit with the newly designated status of national park. Administrators overseeing each park attempted to set the right balance between public and private ownership, but in most cases and especially where park land surrounded private parcels, this eventually meant setting a goal to eliminate private holdings. In Waterton Lakes, a 1910 Inspection by the Commissioner of Dominion Parks indicated that the only residents were operating a few remaining oil wells at Oil City and
97 Presumably, the statistic of private holdings in Canada and Mexico is much greater, as neither of these governments have consistently appropriated monies for land acquisition. Susan Gallagher, “National Parks Contain Private Land: Conservationists Worry That Private Land Within National Parks Will Fall Prey To Development,” The Associated Press, November 21, 2007, accessed August 20, 2008, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/21/ap/national/main3530890.shtml.
50 perhaps a nearby copper claim.98 Indeed, the one-time boomtown was reverting back to nature as trees encroached on the once neatly platted streets just a few miles northwest of the soon to be platted park townsite.99 One resident’s location, however, did cause profound concern. J.B. Ferguson of St. Catherines, Ontario was offered a purchase option of $2,500 for a quarter section of land. Seeking permission for the payout, the Parks Commissioner J.B. Harkin wrote the Deputy Interior Minister advising that “as you are aware it is very desirable that no fee simple titles should prevail in any of the Parks.”100 This parcel was not in a remote, far flung section of the park. Rather than blocking a natural vista or serving as a critical component of the larger wilderness, it was centrally located within the proposed townsite where the Parks Service hoped to provide basic services to the visiting public and lease lots for summer cottages. Harkin carefully explained that his initial offer of $2,250 was rebuffed by Ferguson, who hoped to extract some small profit from the property since he was absorbing a loss of $65,000 on fruitless explorations for coal oil.101 Interestingly, the quarter section was originally patented to J.G., also known as “Kootenai,” Brown in 1892 and subsequently sold by him to Ferguson. Brown was one of the early inhabitants of the area and an advocate for the establishment of the park. He was also one of the first to turn a profit on the space. According to Brown, “he [Ferguson] paid me $2000.00 for it. Of course there was an oil boom then, I do not think it is worth much more now, although
98 12/31/1910 Letter to R.H. Campbell from Howard Douglas, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 99 “The streets are growing up to young trees, the houses are becoming dilapidated, and the machinery is gradually finding its way to the farmers’ workshops.” [1909?] Assistant Inspector Forest Reserves H.R. Macmillan, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 100 “It is a fine hay meadow and should you in the future have buffalo or other animals on the Park, would be very valuable. There were 157 acres when I sold, since about four acres have been carried away by the Pass Creek and the cabin is also gone.” 3/26/1912 Letter to Mr. Cory from J.B. Harkin, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 101 2/3/1912 Letter to Commissioner of Dominion Parks from Chief Superintendent Dominion Parks, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
51 land has much increased in value since.”102 The Parks Service was concerned that Ferguson’s land was contiguous to some of the recently surveyed summer home lots in the park that have been thrown open to the public for entry.103 So although Ferguson failed to capitalize on the first oil boom, the new “parks boom” allowed him to gain a reasonable, if not substantial, return on his original investment. Across the border, and unlike the American experience in Glacier, the Canadian Parks Service did not uniformly eliminate or discourage private ownership. Instead, Waterton Lakes continued the same model established in Banff National Park, where a central townsite was developed with amenities for visitors and also lots for permanent and seasonal residents. Importantly, the lots were not sold in fee simple but, rather, in the form of long-term leases with the Parks Service retaining ownership. By November 1910, lakefront private villa lots were surveyed. These prime lots were available for an annual lease of $15 provided the applicant built a dwelling costing not less than $300 within one year.104 Other interior lots were leased for as little as $10 with a similar requirement for cottage construction.105 Business and residential leases were issued for a term of forty- two years and were renewable indefinitely.106 The 1919 Waterton Superintendent Report noted the high level of interest in the newly surveyed subdivision: “As it was impossible for me to accept applications, I took the names and addresses of 42 persons who are interested and wish to be advised when applications will be accepted. These are largely visitors from neighboring towns, more particularly Lethbridge, and appear to be a well to
102 9/13/1911 Letter to Commissioner Howard Douglas from Superintendent John George Brown, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 103 1/19/1912 Memo to Deputy Minister W.W. Cory from J.B. Harkin, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 104 1911 Historical Summary of Parks (précis descriptions from files). WLNPA. 105 5/4/1921 Letter to L.J. Patterson from Superintendent, Box 203, WLNPA. 106 9/2/1926 Letter to M. Gardner-Smith from Commissioner, Box 141, WLNPA.
52 do select class of people who would build attractive cottages.”107 This profusion of interest of lots and corresponding construction of cottages created an urban hamlet on the shores of the lake, but it was another set of private uses that stood out during a visit from the superintendent of the adjacent American park. In 1937, while touring Waterton, E.T. Scoyen, the Glacier Park Superintendent, noted the unusual appearance of oil wells some six to eight miles from the Waterton Townsite but still within the park: “it was something of a jarring note to see an oil well in the midst of such magnificent mountain scenery.”108 To reassure Scoyen, the Canadian official pointed out that the wells were not located on land belonging to the park. Even with Ferguson’s removal, Waterton, like Glacier, continued to have issues with privately- held properties located within the bounds of the park. While a summer home or cottage might seem a bit out of place, it could still be explained if it occupied an area branded as a townsite. Industrial activity, such as oil wells, seemed totally incongruous in this setting. Of course, Scoyen’s righteous indignation over the presence of this type of impermissible use conveniently overlooked the history and complications of private land use within the park he managed. Moving back across the 49th Parallel to the United States, the members of the much larger community of inholders in what became Glacier National Park were quicker to realize the economic potential of the properties they held within the anticipated park space. D.F. Smith, a Kalispell attorney, wrote the Interior Department in May 1908, a full two years before the park’s establishment, wondering “is there anything in the law or Regulations governing such matters, that would prevent a party owning and in possession
107 11/12/1919 Quarter ending September 1919 Superintendent Report to Commissioner, Box 206, WLNPA. 108 12/16/1937 Letter to E.T. Scoyen from H.C. Bryant, Box 1 (Central Files of the Regional Wildlife Technician, 1929-41), NARA (San Bruno, CA).
53 of patented land within the newly created Glacier National Park from opening and conducting a saloon upon his own land within such Park?”109 The Interior Department declined to permit Smith to open a bar. In the instructions Major Logan received as the park’s first superintendent, the Secretary of the Interior made it clear that “the flora, animals, birds, fishes and wonders of nature on the government lands within the park must be carefully preserved from any interference whatever.” Given the territory’s previous status under the administration of the Forest Service, he was advised that “during the summer of the present year, no doubt, parties will be found bringing sheep, cattle, horses and other stock upon the government or park lands for purpose of grazing; in such cases it will be your duty to advise the persons in charge of the flocks, herds, etc., that they are trespassing upon government or park lands, and require them to immediately depart with their stock from the reservation.”110 Nonetheless, this outright prohibition on grazing did not strictly apply to private lands within the parks. These individuals were entitled “to use their own lands for any lawful purpose except that if they desire to graze sheep or cattle thereon, or to cut timber therefrom, they must first have the metes and bounds of the land properly marked and defined.”111 As long as property holders clearly delineated their parcel within the park, they could continue to exercise full control over their land. Not all parties viewed inholdings as wholly undesirable or even incompatible with park operations. During this period, both Senators from Montana, T.J. Walsh and Burton Wheeler, were also summer residents of Lake MacDonald, located on
109 5/26/1908 Letter to Secretary of the Interior from D.F. Smith, Box 26 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 110 4/3/1911 Letter to Superintendent Logan from Secretary of the Interior, Box 14 (Central Files, 1907- 39).,NARA (College Park, MD). 111 4/3/1911 Letter to Superintendent Logan from Secretary of the Interior, Box 14 (Central Files, 1907- 39), NARA (College Park, MD).
54 the western side of the park. In March 1913, Walsh confided to Park Superintendent James Galen that he was “strongly opposed to the project of acquiring by purchase or condemnation the lands held in private ownership in the Park.”112 Sending a map indicating locations of private lands within Glacier, Galen largely concurred with Walsh’s sentiment: “I cannot give any good reason why the Government should purchase all the lands held in private ownership within Glacier National Park and upon more mature consideration I do not believe that this would be a wise policy to pursue except in one or two instances.”113 Galen only favored acquisition in those instances where owners might make major changes in the landscape, such as cutting timber or subdividing land for home construction, especially in locations visible to tourists. Ultimately, it was this concern for the tourist experience that led to a major push to purchase inholder properties ten years later. In a 1923 letter to the Park Service Director, J. Ross Eakin, the Glacier Superintendent, commented on the tenuous nature of private property within a national park. “When the Park was created, there were two homesteads only at the foot of Lake McDonald and three at the head of Lake McDonald. These homesteads could have been purchased at reasonable figures at that time,” he observed. With the subdivision of lots by owners, including the Slack family, Eakin worried, “the situation is absolutely beyond our control on Lake McDonald at present and any one who will drive the main
112 “I have, for instance, no desire to sell my property, nor have it taken away from my by condemnation proceedings. That perhaps ought not to influence my official action, but I cannot quite understand how the private holdings about the Lake interfere in the slightest degree with its use.” 3/28/1913 Letter to Superintendent from Senator T.J. Walsh, Lands Files, Box 1, GNP Archives. 113 “My observation is that the land held in private ownership around Lake McDonald and that up the North Fork of the Flathead does not greatly interfere with the administration of the Park to be so held, however the timber land held by John E. Lewis between the Flathead River and Lake McDonald on either side of the Belton-Lake McDonald road would be a very desirable acquisition for the Government for the reason before stated, that if it was logged off it would leave the Government Belton-Lake McDonald road within very unsightly surroundings.” 1/27/1914 Letter to Senator T.J. Walsh from Superintendent, Lands Files, Box 1, GNP Archives.
55 automobile road at the foot of Lake McDonald and view the hodge-podge of buildings, the lack of sanitation, and above all else the sordidness of the whole outfit, would immediately be convinced that if the Park Service does not use every possible means to close the transaction with Mr. Slack, they are laying themselves open to severe criticism.”114 In the end, the U.S. Park Service, suffering from limited funds, offered Slack a larger section with timber in a more remote part of the park in exchange for his property on Lake McDonald, noting that “we will be much the gainer in the long run because after all we are dealing in scenery and Mr. Slack is only dealing in lumber.”115 This observation blithely passed over the fact that both parties, in essence, were engaging in the commodification of nature. Similar to the acquisition of Ferguson’s property in Waterton to provide space for the construction of a townsite, the U.S. Park Service did not enter into a land exchange agreement with Slack so that the property could be reincorporated into nature. Instead, Glacier instituted a visitor service center at the foot of Lake McDonald not altogether different from the townsite created along Upper Waterton Lake. It was perfectly permissible to sacrifice the wilderness interior far from park roadways and the tourist eye in the exchange with the Slacks in order to create a common space for visitor use. The Park Service strongly desired to control all aspects of the user/visitor experience, including the original presentation of the park. The Southerland holding near the railway depot at West Belton was also targeted for acquisition because, according to officials, “in the wrong hands [it] can absolutely prevent us from ever giving to the
114 11/15/1923 Letter to Acting Director A.E. Demaray from Superintendent, Lands Files, Box 1, GNP Archives. 115 8/8/1930 Letter to Director, National Park Service from F.J. Solinsky, Lands Files, Box 1, GNP Archives.
56 western entrance an attractive gateway. Right today the beauty of our concrete bridge over the middle fork of the Flathead is impaired by the unsightly structures just beyond.”116 Entrance gateways ultimately proved more difficult to control than interior parcels because land acquisition was ineffective. It merely pushed the transition line back a few hundred feet without controlling the types of private development that visitors were exposed to on the new periphery before entering the more controlled environment of the park. At the same time, with the very act of making a park, the government also materially increased the value of lands along the periphery and inholdings. In the first Annual Report for Glacier, in 1911, the Superintendent pointed out that “at the present time the most desirable land at the foot of Lake McDonald is held in private ownership, and I am satisfied that the land can be purchased cheaper to-day by the Government than at a later date.”117 By 1924, the Superintendent acknowledged, “there still remains within the exterior boundaries of Glacier Park, 15,761.28 acres of privately owned lands. Some of this bordering on the shores of Lake McDonald, has become prohibitive in value and it is unlikely that the Government can ever hope to secure it.”118 Ace Powell, an early landowner, lamented that “the attitude of landowners and perhaps the early park visitors, was a protective one: ‘This area is my Park.’ Now the land is viewed as belonging to the government, as people distinguish themselves from their government. The park administrators and rangers got on very well with the local landowners until about the mid-1920’s.”119 As the Park Service developed the space, more conflicts with private
116 8/8/1930 Letter to Director, National Park Service from F.J. Solinsky, Lands Files, Box 1, GNP Archives. 117 1911 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives. 118 1924 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives. 119 6/4/1976 Ace Powell Interview, Oral History Files pre-1999 Box, GNP Archives.
57 property holders were perhaps inevitable since each group coveted the same views and parcels that went along with them. This change in the perspective of the inholders grew even starker as private holdings remained in the park over multiple generations and the Park Service’s acquisition efforts were inadequately funded.120 Even with annual efforts to purchase these interior properties in the 1930s and 1940s, inholders continued their persistent presence in all the parks across the United States and also Canada and Mexico. The consideration of Big Bend for a national park presented a novel dilemma, as Texas, by nature of its peculiar method of entry into the Union, had no federal lands. Therefore, all lands, save a few public parcels held by the state, had to be purchased before they could then be ceded to the federal government for use as a park.121
Photo series from the top of Santa Helena Canyon (May 1923) - E.E. Townsend122
120 According to historian John Ise, in 1927, the U.S. Congress first appropriated funds, and just $50,000 at that, to purchase private parcels in national parks. John Ise, Our National Park Policy: A Critical History (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), 319. 121 The Republic of Texas entered into the union as a state by Congressional resolution and retained all its public land for the consideration of maintaining responsibility for payment of public debts. Indeed, even long after the Big Bend acquisition program was completed, Texas had approximately 1% federally owned land in comparison to other Western states, ranging from Nevada’s high of 85% to Washington’s low of 35%. (statistics from Figure 1 - Proportion of federally owned lands as percentages of state areas, ca. 1955). Karen Merrill, Public Lands and Political Meaning: Ranchers, the Government, and the Property between Them (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 6. 122 E.E. Townsend was a notable backer for the establishment of Big Bend and is often referred to as the “Father of Big Bend National Park.” As a local resident of Alpine, he escorted tourists and dignitaries into the space long before it was on the radar of the National Park Service. Views from top of Santa Helena
58
H.W. Morelock, President of Sul Ross Teacher’s College in Alpine, Texas and an early advocate of creating a national park, asked “what would be a finer thing for Texas, just as advertising medium, than to have located within its borders one of the largest National Parks on the American Continent?”123 The State took on the lead role in acquiring land, and, in order to turn the area into a national park worthy of Morelock’s vision, the State Legislature appropriated $1.5 million.124 The Texas State Parks Board (TSPB, the precursor to the current Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) set up the Big Bend Land Department (BBLD) to acquire property for the proposed park. From a small core of approximately 13,000 acres of state park land, the BBLD accumulated almost 700,000 acres from surrounding private property, school fund land, and unallocated state lands belonging to the General Land Office.125 Notably, in its correspondence, the BBLD assured landholders, of whom many had purchased land sight unseen as part of a variety of speculation schemes, that Big Bend was “fit for nothing excepting park purposes and that is why it was selected” [emphasis added].126 Obviously, local residents found this
Canyon, including wheat fields along Terlingua Creek (May 1923), E.E. Townsend Papers, Torch Energy Collection (Houston, TX). 123 “The Big Bend National Park, A State Asset,” (bulletin prepared by Morelock) April 1937, Center for American History Collection, General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. 124 James W. Steely, Parks for Texas: Enduring Landscapes of the New Deal (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999), 200. 125 “This public domain of land has been the basis of growth for the State’s two big educational funds, the Permanent School Fund and the Permanent University Fund, as a result of mineral exploration within Texas and especially because of oil development on public land set aside for the benefit of these funds.” General Land Office of The State of Texas, “History of Texas Land,” (Austin, TX, 1958), 3. 126 TSPB to Kenneth W. Miller, 19 March 1946, Box 2002/131-42, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Interestingly, a 1909 report by Canadian federal forest inspector H. R. MacMillan used similar language: “It has been stated that this territory is good for nothing by timber and park purposes, aside from the mineral value. It has been shown that it will make an excellent game reserve…There is no doubt that these points together with its geologic features and its general scientific interest will render it worthy of being made into a National Park [emphasis added].” Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands, “The Geology Recognizes No Boundaries” in The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests: Essays on Regional History of the Forty-ninth Parallel, Sterling Evans, ed. (University of Nebraska Press: 2006), 311.
59 assertion patently absurd and easily controverted by their own livelihoods. This notion of “worthless land” carried forward long after the park’s establishment as historian Alfred Runte specifically cited Big Bend as an example of parks that were “to the best knowledge at the time, economically valueless from the standpoint of their natural wealth.”127 In addition to intensive and profitable mining activities, primarily quicksilver, E.E. Townsend’s panoramic photographic series above showed that land was also used for farming, with extensive wheat fields along Terlingua Creek, as well as grazing pasturage for a variety of stock animals. With clearly productive grazing land, the BBLD attempted to discount the value to those initially unwilling to sell.128 They adopted rather heavy-handed tactics in pursuit of their goals, focusing on first acquiring land with water and water rights to pressure the owners of adjoining unwatered parcels to sell.129 Anticipating the value and appeal of a national park, some property owners attempted to trade for comparable land outside of the park’s designated boundaries.130 Indeed, one man, E.M. Newman, exhibited great foresight in his attempts to make money off this newly minted “worthless” space:
Here is my proposition, which, still gives me a small grip on the idea that ‘Old Father Time’ would bring me some financial results. I wish an acre adjoining Big
127 Runte, 140-1. 128 “You referred in your letter to the great amount of mohair you have produced and sold during the last few years, but you overlooked the fact that these years have seen the best continued high prices and most seasonable rainfall that have been known in Big Bend country.” TSPB to Boye Babb, 26 June 1942, Box 2005/[final box number TBD due to reclassification]A-D, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 129 “We are informed, even at this time, that your son-in-law, Mr. Turner, has moved his goats to the river to get water and is actually using lands that belong to the State of Texas.” TSPB to Boye Babb, 26 June 1942, Box 2005/[final box number TBD due to reclassification]A-D, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 130 “I am sending you a County [map] showing about the area of the Park, the location of your land, and the location of some land that we own outside of the Park area that we can trade to you for yours, provided you so wish to do. This land we wish to trade to you is no good, but it is a little better than yours because it is more level and has some soil.” TSPB to Edward Jud, 23 February 1942, Box 2005/041-27, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
60 Bend at Lajitas, southwest corner of the Bend project, level enough that it may be utilized in way of camps, stands, etcetera, also an acre at Persimmon Gap at the entrance of the Big Bend project where the Marathon road enters the project or an acre near Coopers store and the two acres admissible to the roads or highways that enter the project and $76 in cash and the deal will be over.131
The BBLD did not have access to these parcels, so Newman’s dual gateways to Big Bend were unrealized. Newman and other locals were not the only ones forcing the BBLD to recognize the value they associated with the land. In the process, value shifted from being strictly tied to the economic activities associated with individual parcels. The large number of absentee owners presented unique challenges as the BBLD struggled to find up-to-date addresses for correspondence relating to the acquisitions. In these letters, the Land Department explained again and again that:
We realize that professional promoters from other states years ago concluded that they would have a gold mine if they could acquire some of the cheapest land in the State of Texas and sell it out to people residing in other states at fabulous prices when compared with the real value. You unfortunately became one of their victims. Texas is an extremely large state, as you know, and you picked the one small spot in land that is fit for nothing unless the Federal Government can turn it into some sort of scenic beauty [emphasis added].132
Women as well as men were subject to the land speculation industry of the 1920s and 1930s. Katherine Southworth preserved an original copy of a letter from one such prospector about her purchase of twenty-six acres in the Big Bend area for $518.40 in 1921. The Columbia Sales Company’s banner proclaimed “when you buy fee oil lands you don’t lose.”133 Southworth assuredly did, as her property was appraised by the State
131 E. M. Newman to TSPB, 27 February 1942, Box 2005/041-27, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 132 J.C. Epperson to M.C. and A.C. Donahoe, 6 June 1942, Box 2005/041-27, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 133 “We note with pleasure your recent purchase through our Agents of some of our Brewster County, Texas, oil lands. We feel that we can say to you that you have used good judgment and have made a good investment. The many eminent Geologists who have reported this territory as promising for the next great oil field will cause millions of dollars to be spent in development work in this locality as soon as financial
61 in 1941 at only $26.134 In the end, worthless lands could be designated just like wilderness. A new form of speculation in parks relied on a different form of value that might only accrue with the combination of sufficient parcels, like Southworth’s, in order to repackage them into a contiguous park. With this “worthless lands” lament and, importantly, with the context of a real estate market that had bottomed out during the Great Depression, the State was able to purchase land at an average price of only one to two dollars per acre with unimproved land like Southworth’s priced at the lower end of the scale. The serendipitous timing of the BBLD efforts certainly facilitated the easy acquisition of land for Big Bend National Park, but even with this advantage, as in Glacier, thousands of acres of private land remained within the stated boundaries of the park. Displacing these private parcels awaited further expenditures by the federal government, but again, as in Glacier, available funds were never extensive enough to make the park more than close to complete. Sixty years later, Mexican officials hoped to create a park of their own south of the Rio Bravo del Norte, the river also known as the Rio Grande in the United States, in the midst of a sea of private land. In the mid-1990s, the Maderas del Carmen was established with a simple decree that in actuality did little more than to redefine what the space was called. Without the motivation to displace long-standing residents or the deep pockets required to accomplish
conditions improve. Some of this development work will be near your property, which will mean much to you as well as ourselves. You have an opportunity of becoming independent from this investment, - this is the only safe way to make an investment in oil; the only way to make large returns from a small investment and, at the same time, know that your money is safe in land.” Columbia Sales Company to Katherine Southworth, 12 March 1921, Box 2005/041-26, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 134 “Am so sorry that I have been misled in buying this land and paid so much for it and then not get anything near what it cost me. I am a widow and have no income. I had hoped that when I got old I would have something coming in from this land. I am now 71 and nothing to depend on for a living.” Katherine Southworth to TSPB, 12 March 1942, Box 2005/041-26, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
62 this end even if desired, the Mexican Parks Service instead attempted to formally codify a viable balance of uses that had long prevailed over the northernmost parts of Chihuahua and Coahuila. Not until later in the decade, when CEMEX became involved, did a fundamental shift in vision and finances conspire to truly make over the space.135 The target area for a Mexican Park between the villages of Santa Elena, Chihuahua and Boquillas, Coahuila showed that, like all other park spaces, it too was home to a long history of use and variety of human developments. Boquillas was first established in 1896 as a mining town.136 At its peak, over 1,000 inhabitants made their living extracting lead, silver, and zinc from the nearby Puerto Rico Mine.137 The village of Santa Elena was founded in 1935 to grow cotton along the alluvial floodplain of the Rio Bravo del Norte.138 Farming, ranching, and candelilla wax harvesting dominated the regional economy and, into the 1940s, large landed estates were the norm. It was the workers on these estates that pushed for agrarian land reforms and the establishment of ejidos. Ejidos are communally owned tracts of land where residents share in ownership, a right that is passed down from one generation to the next. Ejidos, originating out of the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century, were codified into law by the nation’s 1917 Constitution and became a common tool to redistribute hacienda land in Mexico.139 An ejido was organized in Santa Elena in 1953, and a number of others quickly followed.
135 More on CEMEX’s involvement in chapter 4, “The Business of Parks.” 136 “Boquillas is the most accessible Mexican village bordering Big Bend National Park – accessible from the north side of the Rio Grande, that is…There is no bridge and the crossing is not considered an official port of entry. A ferry boat operates for visitors and residents alike during daylight hours. The village is approximately one mile from the boat landing.” 1996 Brochure on “Border Towns: Santa Elena and Boquillas,” Box 1 (BIBE-01602), BBNP Archives. 137 1989 Brochure on “Rio Grande Village,” Box 1 (BIBE-01602), BBNP Archives. 138 [undated 1980s/90s] Brochure on “Santa Elena, Mexico,” Santa Fe Archive Box, BBNP Archives. 139 S.L. Harris, 2008. “Conservation Easements on Mexican Ejidos: An Alternative Model for Indigenous. Peoples.” Masters Thesis, Evergreen State College.
63 A 1997 study of the area in Mexico paralleling Big Bend National Park showed that it contained sixteen ejidos covering 80.6% of the land. Twenty-one privately held properties made up the balance. As in the 1940s, the main economic activity was raising livestock, including cattle, goats, horses and, more recently, donkeys. Since the establishment of Big Bend in the mid-1940s, donkeys, in particular, grew in popularity as they were an essential means of conveyance for the trickle of tourists that visited from the adjacent American park. Crossing the Rio Grande on foot or flatbottom boat, tourists then paid for donkeys to carry them the remaining distance to the town centers. Ejidal members shared a common stock range, which was informally subdivided into individual parcels without any fences to mark the boundaries. Indeed, the lack of fencing overall meant that livestock ranged freely and sometimes penetrated the usually minor barrier of the river to take advantage of the lush grasses of the Big Bend that had not been subjected to intense grazing for decades. After livestock, the next most significant activity was the collection of the candelilla plant for the production of wax. Because the area remained largely disconnected from the interior of Mexico due to the lack of reliable paved roads, residents of these border communities regularly crossed the river to purchase food, gasoline, and other household items from stores in Big Bend National Park.140 Similar to the situation in Texas before the establishment of Big Bend, the Mexican Federal Government did not possess enough sizable public parcels to cobble together into a park. Unlike Texas, however, the Mexican states did not have funds to allocate for the purchase of land, and, even if they did, it would have been a difficult legal proposition. While agents of the State of Texas could and did condemn private lands with just compensation to owners to repurpose them for use as a national park, across the Rio
140 [undated 1997] Alternatives for the use of the natural resources of the region between Santa Elena and Boquillas, Mexico (Cooperative Agreement between BBNP, Sul Ross State University, and Profauna A.C.), Supt. Secy. Office Box, BBNP Archives.
64 Grande, a different set of laws and land tenure preserved private prerogatives, at least for a time. Mexican property law protected individually and communally held parcels from government expropriation. National borders could and did matter for private landholders. It took the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s to bring systems of land tenure into closer alignment with Canada and the United States.141 Mexican property law reforms and the availability of a partner with deep pockets fundamentally altered the situation on the border. In conjunction with negotiations to finalize the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992, a major change to the Mexican Constitution gave ejidos, for the first time, the ability to disband.142 Thereafter, ejidal property could be subdivided and sold off as private parcels.143 Due to the implementation of the trade agreement, land tenure law was now equivalent across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. One unintended consequence of the creation of a free trade zone was that it also enabled the final realization of a Mexican protected space to adjoin the Big Bend. The amendment to ejidal land rights and privately funded acquisition provided an alternative mechanism for the Mexican government to promote conservation. CEMEX, a Mexico-based multinational producer of concrete and aggregates, for reasons that are delineated in Chapter 4, “The Business of Parks,” attempted to deploy the U.S. model for making national parks, at least in part. A few years after Mexico established the Sierra del Carmen Flora and Fauna Protection Area, CEMEX began to acquire large tracts of
141 Article 27 in the Mexican Constitution of 1917 prevented the sale of ejidal (communally-held agricultural) lands until the article was amended in 1992 to come into compliance with Canadian and U.S. land tenure practices for NAFTA. David Yetman, “Ejidos, Land Sales, and Free Trade in Northwest Mexico: Will Globalization Affect the Commons?,” 41 American Studies (2000). 142 Sifford and Chester, 211. 143 This policy change is reminiscent of allotment whereby Native American Reservations were individually allocated and the “leftover” property was opened up for Euro-American settlement and other purposes.
65 ejidal lands within the newly designated preserve. Reminiscent of early railroad support for national parks in the United States and Canada, such as the Great Northern’s interests in Glacier and Waterton Lakes, CEMEX and a variety of public and private agencies and non-governmental organizations have participated in managing this space. CEMEX hired and entrusted Billy McKinney and Bonnie McKinney with the Maderas del Carmen project. Both of them had previously worked for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in the Black Gap State Wildlife Management Area located just east of Big Bend National Park. According to Billy Pat McKinney, the administrators of Big Bend had a peculiar reaction to the land acquisition strategy for the new Mexican space. “I had a guy [the Park Superintendent] from Big Bend National Park looking at maps of the El Carmen with me … and he said, ‘You cannot displace those people from those lands for this,’” explained McKinney in a November 2002 article in High Country News. As a longstanding resident of West Texas, McKinney was floored by the Superintendent’s reaction. “My jaw must have dropped down to my belt buckle. The U.S. government condemned my grandfather's ranch - just flat took it - to make Big Bend. And this guy has the nerve to tell me that CEMEX can't offer market price for land to accomplish something like this?”144 It took a Mexican corporation with deep pockets to be able to even partially replicate the U.S. model of dispossession. Yet it is interesting to ponder the reasons behind the reticence of the Big Bend superintendent. Was it only a reaction against the past practices of the Park Service in the region, or did it reflect concerns about whether the town of Boquillas might be targeted, thus eliminating what for many visitors to Big Bend had become an integral part of the international tourist experience? Displacing the
144 Hal Herring, “How to make your own Yellowstone, Mexican style: A corporate behemoth races to restore a Coahuilan gem,” High Country News (November 11, 2002); http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.PrintableArticle?article_id=13523.
66 Mexican population from the small towns along the river would change the way tourists had experienced the space for over sixty years. Regardless, CEMEX’s efforts merely represented a continuation, albeit by private means, of a long-standing practice of constructing national parks that traced its arc through the twentieth century beginning with the Canadian and U.S. Park Service strategies in Waterton, Glacier, and eventually the Big Bend. CEMEX’s involvement did raise the specter of private control over public spaces. There may be a substantial downside to the outsourcing of wilderness to non- governmental interests. Geographer Sally Fairfax commented on the sometimes capricious nature of conservation when left to private hands. She lamented that the refusal of the U.S. Congress to purchase land for parks “allowed Rockefeller types to control the agenda and put the less powerful at a disadvantage regarding both their own land and access to the benefits of conservation.”145 With CEMEX’s efforts in the Maderas del Carmen, perhaps a similar circumstance is developing in the contemporary Mexican borderlands. However, given the American and Canadian experience of displacement and dispossession for former residents, it is debatable if private acquisition is any more arbitrary than more public forms. The main difference between a private Maderas del Carmen and the more public forms of Waterton, Glacier, and Big Bend arises in what types of uses appear, or simply continue, after the formation of the park. Whether by public or private means, inholders were never fully eliminated from any of these spaces, and park managers continued to have to negotiate the exercise of private interests in spaces prized as public lands. Moreover, each park exercised its own monopoly over park resources, a monopoly that was never questioned as these uses,
145 Sally K. Fairfax, et al. Buying Nature: The Limits of Land Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy, 1780-2004 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005), 87.
67 however similar to private ones that were clearly prohibited, directly or indirectly enabled the growth of tourism.
A MONOPOLY OF USE
With the completion of the land acquisition phase, each new park manager faced the same question as that of previous private owners – that is, what to do with their land.
At the very moment of creation, each Park Service had a monopoly over the areas they owned outright. Regardless of prior uses, whether agriculture, mining, or homesteading, park managers viewed these landscapes as largely pristine and uncorrupted, ready to be molded and developed to their own ends. Although national parks are predicated on emphasizing nature and natural processes, in each case, park resources were used as well as conserved. Notable anomalies included grazing, farming, and water reclamation, but a number of other visitor and Park Service uses rounded out a pervasive and wide-ranging set of impacts that were rarely considered: water intakes, firewood for campgrounds, excavation for road fill, and garbage dump sites, to name a few. None of the early settlers in the Waterton Lakes area appear to have developed significant acreages of land beyond perhaps the average sized garden plot. Rather, it was the agency that was responsible for managing the park itself that first undertook, in 1917, to break 20 acres to the plow and embarked that year on a venture to plant oats and timothy. The original farm area was enlarged and fenced, and, in 1921, 967 bushels of oats and 74 tons of hay were harvested.146 One of the key reasons for Park-sponsored
146 The 1921 Annual Report detailed farming operations in Waterton Lakes: “The 19 acres broken last year are already seeded. Eleven acres across the river on old farm were ploughed and allowed to be, to encourage weed seed germination. Later this will be disced, harrowed, and seeded, and it is hoped that the weeds will thereby be destroyed. Further land is being cleared for hay harvest, and some for new breaking.” 5/11/1921 April Superintendent Report to Commissioner, Box 206, WLNPA.
68 agriculture in Waterton Lakes was strictly economic. According to monthly reports in 1921, the park realized massive savings, at least 90 percent per ton of hay and 76 percent per bushel of oats, by engaging in on-site farming rather than importing these staples.147 Although private farms were disallowed, the park demonstrated the benefits of public ones by growing hay and other feed crops both for domestic work stock as well as for wildlife if winter conditions were particularly harsh and necessitated supplemental feeding. Townsite residents also benefitted from the use of park resources, notably the gathering of dry and cutting of green timber for home heating and cooking.148 Timber and stone were also repurposed as private building materials. The superintendent counseled that “regarding stone, no charge is made for such as are gathered along the road-side, but for quarrying, again the regulations of the Park must be considered, and a small charge is here made.”149 Park officials were concerned with the appearance and quality of home construction, so the use of local materials was encouraged for aesthetics as well as economy. To provide for decorative sidewalks while displacing the impact of an unsightly quarry, flagstone was secured on the eastern shore of Waterton Lake from where it was transported by boat to the townsite.150 Crossing over the international line dividing Upper Waterton Lake, Glacier Park officials and private enterprise also benefitted from the consumption of
147 “Hay if bought would cost us from $30.00 to $40.00 per ton, and oats from 55 cents to, in the case of oats fit for seed, 75 cents per bushel. By raising our own hay and oats, the cost is cut down to approximately $3.00 per ton for hay and 12 ½ cents per bushel for oats.” 10/8/1921 Memo to Mr. Sparks from Maxwell Graham, Box 235, WLNPA. 148 Per Parks Canada policy instructions to the local superintendent “so long as logs can be secured without damaging the appearance of the Park you may allow bona fide applicants to cut same. They may cut only such logs as are marked for the purpose by a warden and must so carry on operations that no debris is left on the ground.” 9/5/1916 Memo for Mr. Cooper from J.B. Harkin, Box 123, WLNPA. 149 10/4/1923 Letter to R.M. Archer from Superintendent, Box 141, WLNPA. 150 10/21/1936 September Superintendent Report to Commissioner, Box 206, WLNPA.
69 natural resources. In his first annual report, in 1911, Superintendent Logan commented on the ordering of a sawmill and use of timber: “In many places the cutting of fully matured timber will not in the least mar the beauty of the park, but will benefit the growing timber.”151 This conclusion coincided with the need for an infusion of milled lumber to construct visitor facilities as well as cord wood for heating. On the east side of the park, the Great Northern Railroad built the Many Glacier Lodge and installed a 120 horsepower hydro-electric generator to take advantage of the falls below Swiftcurrent Lake. The August 1915 issue of The Hotel Monthly remarked on the ingenuity of utilizing the falls to bring modern conveniences as well as enhanced safety to the lodge.152 Unlike Waterton Lakes, Glacier did not permit individuals adjacent to the park to maintain grazing leases. However, within the space, the Superintendent allowed grazing for park stock and the Park Saddle Horse Company, the private concessioner that offered a multiplicity of saddle trips for the visiting public.153 A type of human “grazing” was also encouraged by the Glacier Park Hotel Company, the subsidiary of the Great Northern that operated most of the park lodging. Their Service Regulations instructed waitresses to “take pride in the appearance of your tables. Provide them daily with fresh wild flowers which you will find in profusion not far from any hotel in the Park at which
151 1911 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives. 152 “The energy developed is distributed in and about the hotel for lighting; for the up-to-date motor controlled apparatus for the kitchen, etc. (which must be available at all hours); also for motor driven water pumps, for domestic, for grounds, and for fire protection purposes.” 8/1915 “A Week in Glacier National Park.” The Hotel Monthly, Box 26 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 153 4/30/1920 Letter to Director Mather from Superintendent Payne, Box 262 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
70 you are employed.”154 Presumably, the wait staff had to travel a bit further afield each day as they consumed the stock of wildflowers nearest each hotel property. While public entities and private concessioners freely consumed resources, the National Park Service held private inholders responsible not only for despoiling the natural environment, but, perhaps more importantly, preventing the proper development of these spaces for tourism.155 In many cases, the parks simply added their own developments to areas previously used rather than returning acquired parcels “back to nature.” For example, the primary goal of the elimination of private home/cottage ownership at the foot of Lake McDonald, also known as Apgar, was to make way for the construction of a major visitor hub in an area replete with hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, gift shops, boat docks, and other types of visitor services. Indeed, Apgar, the name chosen for the site, acknowledged the 1895 entry of Dimon Apgar, a homesteader and early hotelier who built cabins at the foot of the lake.156 Some aspects of this development, such as the campgrounds, were operated by the Park Service, a public entity, but others, such as the hotels, restaurants, and gift shops, were largely operated by private concessioners. National parks provide some of the earliest instances of the exercise of the governmental power of eminent domain to convert one private use for
154 1923 Service Regulations and Information for Employees, Box 22.F.9.1B (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 155 Director Newton Drury in testimony before the Senate Committee on the Interior and Insular Affairs ceded to the conflict among uses: “Not only does this situation result in undesirable developments; it also means the destruction in many cases, of natural features such as forests, which should be preserved, as well as soil erosion, the effects of which cannot be confined to the non-Federal lands. In numerous cases, such ownerships prevent the construction of roads or other developments needed for the satisfactory use of the parks.” 1/7/1949 “The National Park Service” by Director Newton B. Drury prepared for the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on the United States Senate, Microfilm T12918, Canadian NA. 156 “Apgar Village” in “Historic Place Names” Appendix, Through The Years In Glacier National Park: An Administrative History (National Park Service); http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/glac/appa.htm.
71 another, albeit sanctioned and supported by the larger public purpose of public use and enjoyment. Unlike at Waterton and Glacier, the widespread use of the Big Bend as ranchland prior to the creation of the park served to materially constrain the types of permissible uses going forward but did not forestall them altogether. For example, the Park Service continued the hot springs resort originally opened in 1909 by J.O. Langford along the banks of the Rio Grande. The Park Service even contemplated establishing a working longhorn cattle ranch, but excitement over this effort was quickly diffused by the glaring discontinuity of removing ranchers from the space only to reintroduce a different form of working ranch.157 This extensive evidence of prior human use even prevented the Park Service from making minor accommodations to ensure food for park personnel. Given the park’s remote location over eighty miles from the closest town, Big Bend officials attempted to allow park personnel to grow vegetables, raise chickens, and graze cows for milk. In September 1944, Superintendent Ross Maxwell wrote to the Regional Director asking permission and promising that “the chickens will be kept in small enclosures with small houses for shelter and will not be allowed the freedom of range around the park headquarters … No free range for the cow will be permitted within the park area.”158 Although the Park Service management appreciated the difficulty of obtaining fresh food,
157 Historian John Jameson indicates the Park Service dropped the idea of a working longhorn cattle ranch due to budget concerns and the real possibility that the park did not include the breed’s historical range. Yet, an overlooked, but equally important factor was simply the unfortunate timing of creating a public ranch while private ranches were pointedly excluded. Jameson, 72-4. 158 9/27/1944 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent Maxwell, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
72 the request was denied.159 Again, the displacement of ranching to create the park prevented its replication in any visible form, even on a small scale. In the Maderas del Carmen, CEMEX used its private monopoly to dramatically reverse decades of use. Of all the parks, the del Carmens inverted the typical park creation story in that the company that bought the land had no desire to open up the space to commercial tourism. Rather, CEMEX managed it as perhaps the purest form of wilderness found in any of the four case studies. In this case, park managers worked to reintroduce extirpated species such as the black bear and bighorn sheep, while tourism took a backseat to scientific studies. The motivation for CEMEX’s peculiar strategy for implementing this style of wilderness overlay will be explored more fully in Chapter 4, “The Business of Parks.” The Maderas del Carmen was a substantive break from this tradition of continuing use. As a private reserve within a publicly designated protected area, CEMEX enforced its own prerogatives in remaking the space as a wilderness. While exercising this monopoly of use over park resources certainly did not materially harm these spaces, it did practically establish certain types of uses that often persist to this day. Most of these uses are incidental and necessary to one of the major objectives found in the mission of any national park – that is, to provide for public use and enjoyment of these spaces. These every day, pedestrian uses were part and parcel of the simple fact that parks were meant to be visited by tourists on a daily basis. It is these uses, major and minor, that ultimately defined areas of the park that became more associated with development and, as a result, eventually led to calls for a more definitive line between where human uses remained intensive and where, to paraphrase the words of the U.S. Wilderness Act, humans were visitors who did not remain.
159 10/14/1944 Memo to Regional Director from Acting Director Tolson, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
73
CONCLUSION -- WORTHLESS LANDS?
National parks do not “preserve themselves” even though many of these spaces are located in such remote or inhospitable areas that they do not easily lend themselves to development or exploitation. By the “worthless lands” hypothesis according to which parks were not designated until it was proven to Congress that no other productive uses were possible, parks have thus been assumed to be both lands at the margin and marginal lands. Yet, this has always been a bit of a red herring. As even a cursory review of the four case study parks suggests, these spaces were widely used before and after their rebranding as national parks. While these areas were neither worthless nor entirely suited to traditional land development, the resulting national parks continued to host a variety of uses. While not all of the lands that comprised national parks were previously developed by humans, the areas were certainly not untouched or pristine. In making national parks, administrators made wide use of spaces that already bore markers of the continuous human presence within the natural frame. Sometimes these uses perpetuated previous interventions in the land such as farming or ranching, but they also broke new ground to create a network of roads to bring visitors closer to park attractions and, once there, other infrastructure like hotels and visitor centers to keep them in place. These new developments perpetuated a human presence on the land. Like Waterton, Glacier established a golf course but for private ends. To draw and keep tourists in the Glacier Park Hotel, located near the Great Northern’s eastern railway station and “gateway to the park,” the company developed a golf course. Since this enclave was a few miles east of the actual park boundary, building an eighteen-hole
74 course required the Great Northern to lease allotted land on the Blackfeet Reservation.160 Louis Hill, the railroad’s President, wrote Colonel S. Maynard Rogers with the Canadian National Parks Service to inquire about the scope of golf courses in Jasper and Waterton Lakes. In reply, Colonel Rogers indicated that the Canadian Pacific Railway spent almost $400,000 on the Jasper course, a sizable investment that was “proving a splendid asset in the transportation revenue of the company.” Based on his experience in constructing courses in the mountains, he also warned Hill to factor in the unanticipated cost of hauling dirt: “You may take it for granted that in a mountain area which usually does not furnish sufficient suitable earth for the construction of fairways and greens you will have to face an expenditure of approximately $10,000 per fairway before you can secure a real first class course.”161 With these valuable insights, Hill elected to proceed, and the Great Northern soon issued a press release anticipating its course as “the first golf links in the history of Uncle Sam’s tourist playgrounds."162 This boast was untrue on two counts. First, the golf course and Glacier Park Hotel were on the Blackfeet Reservation, not in the park.163 Second, the Wawona Golf Course in Yosemite National Park actually predated Glacier’s, having opened in 1917.164 Interestingly, the Great Northern felt compelled to add this false aura of novelty to what was already a unique opening and setting. The press release tied the space to the Blackfeet past, “where the bones of buffalo still may be picked up by players hunting lost balls,” but it closed with a much more
160 6/15/1926 Letter to H.A. Noble from W.P. Kenney, Box 22.F.9.4F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 161 5/21/1927 Letter to Louis Hill from Colonel S. Maynard Rogers (Canadian National Parks), Box 66.E.3.5 (Louis W. Hill Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 162 [undated 192X] Press Release “Indian Boys Devise ‘Bow and Arrow’ Golf as First National Park Link are Laid Where Their Forefathers Hunted Buffalo,” Box 22.F.9.4F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 163 The hotel and its grounds are located in the Blackfeet Reservation approximately two miles from the eastern boundary of Glacier National Park. 164 Karen Misuraca and Maxine Cass. Insiders' Guide to Yosemite (Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press, 1996), 25.
75 contemporary association. Along with the commonplace of bleached buffalo bones, players would be directly “guided” by Indian youth serving as caddies.165 Upon inspecting the newly completed links, William Tucker, a Golf Course Engineer, wrote in July 1929 to W.P. Kenney, Vice President of the Great Northern, with a novel observation: “I noticed considerable wild grasses developed on and around putting greens and fairways … [it was] a local dwarf foxtail, native to low lying ground like Glacier Park, and was no doubt distributed by using top soil from the lowland for top dressing the greens.” The advice Hill received from the Canadians about the necessity of hauling dirt proved correct, but the top dressing for the fairways and greens carried a bit of nature in reserve. Tucker was unconcerned with this wild growth, anticipating that “if the greens are tended to properly, and are seeded and thoroughly dressed this summer and fall, and eventually we can crowd this grass entirely out of the putting greens.”166 Remaking the area as a golf course mapped the typical narrative of weeds onto local flora, and the wild grasses of the prairies surrounding Glacier were persistent. It took ongoing maintenance to eventually rid the course of the foreground of nature that, outside of the golf links, formed a scenic background for the players to enjoy. The Great Northern in Glacier attempted to squeeze all of the original nature out of their golf course development, viciously attacking any evidence of native species that continued to poke through the imported and well-manicured grasslands they constructed. At present, both golf courses in Glacier and Waterton Lakes remain in place. The administrators of Glacier National Park have no official position on the course
165 “They will have to depend upon the Indian boys for caddies since there are no other kids living in this immediate neighborhood.” [undated 192X] Press Release “Indian Boys Devise ‘Bow and Arrow’ Golf as First National Park Link are Laid Where Their Forefathers Hunted Buffalo,” Box 22.F.9.4F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 166 7/6/1929 Letter to W.P. Kenney from William Tucker, Box 22.F.9.4F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
76 in East Glacier, as it is not technically located on Park Service land. As part of a 1975 park planning review, Waterton Lakes officials concluded that since park fauna were already grazing the fairways as part of their winter range, there was nothing to gain from its [the golf course’s] removal.167 In Waterton, what started off as an unnatural attraction meant to pull in additional visitors transformed over time to a natural landscape that provided habitat and forage as well as a place for tourists to have fun. Golf courses, while considered outmoded by contemporary standards, perfectly encapsulate a modern anachronism in park management – because of their longevity, they have been grandfathered in as a historical and therefore appropriate use.168 At the same time, many other aspects of early park history – uses that were false starts, such as resource extraction or others which were simply displaced, such as human settlement – are simply ignored or diminished in an attempt to recast the areas as an example of unspoiled wilderness. In large part, parks are about layering. The balance of the chapters examines some of the many lines and layers, private and public, commercial and cultural, national and international that competed with and sometimes complemented the natural layer that always remained underneath.
167 “No critical resources are jeopardized by the present facility, while by its nature it does not deprive faunal specifies of winter range. Reversion to a natural state, therefore, would have very little direct impact on the park … It is acknowledged that a golf course is inappropriate when judged by modern attitudes towards national parks. However, no strong practical arguments for its removal exist and consequently it is recommended that the golf course be accepted as an historical fact of life.”1975 Waterton Lakes National Park Planning Proposals (Master Plan) by Mike Murtha, Box 124, WLNPA. 168 Even today, golf courses continue to generate appeal. In Texas, the small town of Lajitas, just a couple of miles west of Big Bend, includes the closest golf course to the park. In the 1980s, real estate developer Steve Smith tried to create a year-round resort attraction on the periphery of the park. The development also had a strong international association, including a golf course that straddled the Rio Grande. The “19th” hole was tended by a resident of Paso Lajitas, the small Mexican village across the river. Since the river prevented golfers from crossing, this greens keeper sloped its contours so that any shot landing on the green would trickle down to the flag, practically guaranteeing a hole in one. The Lajitas Resort declared bankruptcy in 2007, but the golf course remains.
77 Although parks privileged nature, these spaces also represented a continuity of uses – some public, some private – that often complemented the mission and desires of each Park Service to promote tourism. Uses enabled this influx of visitors so essential to the manufacture of a constituency for nature. Different parts of this constituency would on the one hand welcome new development and, on the other hand, blanch at it. It took some time for the accretion of developments to threaten the notion of what constituted proper use of park lands. Parks clearly contained traditional stores of value – land used for farming, grazing, homesteading, and a variety of business ventures. What truly perpetuated a novel store of value was the re-conceptualization of land for use as a recreational space. This recasting was effective as long as remaking the spaces in favor of nature was not overdone. The mandate for use and preservation challenged these spaces by, at times, showing too much visible evidence of human incursions. The resulting compartmentalization led to another type of persistent use in parks – crafting areas reserved specifically as wild spaces. While each Park Service exercised a monopoly over resources for use, they also employed a monopoly to rebrand the labels associated with each parcel under their care. One of the monikers they consistently associated with parks was wilderness. It is the application of this label, first covering small, then successively larger sections of each park that the next two chapters consider.
78 Chapter 2 - Finding Wilderness: Assigning Labels and Meanings to the Elements of Protected Spaces
It has occurred to me that as there is not likely to be much wheeled traffic there for some years to come, probably the picturesqueness of the place would be better maintained by having only trails cut, instead of regular streets for the time being.169
In a 1912 letter to the Commissioner of the Canadian Parks Service, J.G., better known as “Kootenai,” Brown, the earliest caretaker for Waterton Lakes, noted the potential to despoil scenery by laying out roads within the park’s only major developed area, its townsite. The rudimentary townsite, located on the western shore of Upper Waterton Lake, was meant to serve as the central destination for tourists as well as summer cottagers. Yet, Brown was reticent to begin clearing streets. He suspected the simple pathways he cleared would give way to paved streets and, with increased visitation, the construction of restaurants and hotels thus filling in the contours of the first sanctioned development. Over the subsequent years, the changes that Brown feared certainly eliminated evidence of the natural world in the immediate townsite, but also provided a stark contrast between the new development and the balance of the park’s landscape. In each space, including Waterton Lakes, these earliest development forays began to create the rough lines of separation between the places where tourists concentrated their use and the balance retained, more or less, in a state of nature.
Wilderness has been famously dissembled by William Cronon as primarily a social construction, but this chapter considers how the term has been applied as a ready label for sets of very real places.170 Although starting off as a figment of the mind as
169 12/16/1912 Letter to Chief Superintendent from Commissioner, Box 235, WLNPA. 170 In this piece, Cronon argues that “there is nothing natural about the concept of wilderness. It is entirely a creation of the culture that holds it dear, a product of the very history it seeks to deny.” Whether one concept is reducible to the other, differences between wilderness and humanity become increasingly obscure. The infusion of relativism with the post-modernist critique has challenged the very premise of objectivity associated with the liberal arts and sciences. In environmental history, debates over language
79 Cronon suggests, park managers consciously bestowed this label to serve as a contrast to the human incursions and developments, like the Waterton townsite, that have pervaded national parks over time. Just like these developments, wilderness, too, has found expression in various park landscapes by being marked on the ground. Far from being terra incognita, these spaces have been thoroughly investigated, mapped, and constructed to adhere to an often slippery definition of what constitutes nature without us. In the guise of park managers, we make a range of interventions that marks our continuing presence, however light, on the land. For example, decades of active fire suppression in parks have created an understory of decaying matter and kindling that has made uncontrollable fires all the more destructive. Even bark beetle infestations and the proliferation of invasive species have confounded park managers in terms of how much they can and should do in a wilderness, to manage what should be unmanageable. In Irrigated Eden, historian Mark Fiege grappled with the dilemma of maintaining man-made interventions on the landscape in the form of irrigation works.171 While Fiege’s canals demonstrated the relatively small scale, but persistent challenge of preventing nature from impeding water distribution, in the much larger areas of wilderness, park managers contended with a variety of human and naturally induced environmental changes and, importantly, whether and how to intercede. Although national parks are often cast as static constructions, and the wilderness within them is supposed to harken back to a particular historical place and time, both the term and the places labeled by it continue to evolve.
arise from a persistent fear that post-modernism is undercutting the preservationist philosophy. Cronon’s point of view is controversial because his arguments have been co-opted by individuals and interests who favor a more development-oriented approach. However, in fairness, Cronon admonished “any way of looking at nature that encourages us to believe we are separate from nature – as wilderness tends to do – is likely to reinforce environmentally irresponsible behavior.” William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), 79, 87. 171 Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), 8-9.
80 In parks, wilderness has moved through a continuum of expression. This chapter traces the evolution of wilderness from an idea to its earliest association with park areas beginning with concerns like Brown’s over the growing network of roads to the first specific carve-outs, referred to as scientific or research reserves in the United States, to the wholesale fear of overdevelopment in the mid-twentieth century and corresponding attempts to draw clearer lines of demarcation between development and nature.
EARLY WILDSCAPES OF WATERTON LAKES
Here, in these vast playgrounds, among the great mountains and primeval forests, thousands are re-discovering the pure pleasure of simple and strenuous life in the open. In these sanctuaries of the primitive and wild, they are recovering with a strange thrill their ancient companionship with Nature, and finding room again for that old sense of wonder in the mystery and miracle of her ways for which our mechanical and material civilization has often little room.172
As this 1927 brochure attested, visitors to Waterton Lakes found regeneration in nature, but, oddly, in rekindling this ancient companionship, visitors also relied heavily on material civilization to gain access to these wilds. As much as wilderness beckoned, even in the parks, civilization was never that far behind. The same townsite for which “Kootenai” Brown had hesitated to clear streets experienced a surge in growth during the sixteen years since Waterton Lakes had achieved the status of a national park. The townsite, along with the roads and trails emanating from it, provided visitors with a springboard from which to reenter nature. So launched, the size and untouched quality of the places they then encountered were fundamental to having a meaningful wilderness experience.
172 1927 Brochure Waterton Lakes Park by M.B. Williams, Box 66.E.3.7 (Louis W. Hill Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
81 A January 1936 memo to Canadian Parks Service Director J.B. Harkin wrestled with the earliest notion of wilderness as it was fleshed out in two types of proposed improvements: “signage” and roads. Harkin realized that what the Parks Service accepted and rejected would, over time, effectively delineate the boundaries of development and use within the park’s spaces. J.H. Blackmore, a local M.P., forwarded a proposal for placing large white stones across the faces of the mountains that would serve to identify the name of each peak, but Harkin chose to reject this suggestion.173 This seemed like an easy call as it would permanently modify the viewscape and emblazon the hand of man on an area that was valued for the lack of these types of markers. A far more substantial quandary revolved around the growing network of park roads. The memo laid out concerns about the relative importance attached to roads and trails.174 Harkin feared that encounters with wilderness were diminished without some measure of physical labor and the ratcheting down of speed gained with hiking over driving. This expanding network of roads led the Parks Service to grow increasingly alarmed at the loss of so-called wilderness. At the 1937 Canadian National Park Superintendents Conference held in Ottawa, the designation of specific areas as wilderness was first considered. “Certain outlying primitive areas should be preserved and no access, except for fire-fighting purposes, should be given,” admonished the conference report.175 This proposal would have effectively sealed off these areas from visitation, but it was left to the departing superintendents to review the inventory of park
173 The Parks Service responded that this proposal “is not in keeping with National Park ideals, and apart from the fact that it would entail heavy expenditure, it is very doubtful if such work would enhance the general appearance of the landscape.” 1/1/1936 Memorandum to Director J.B. Harkin from J. Campbell, Microfilm T10434, Canadian NA. 174 “It is felt that too free access to certain points by motorists might tend to destroy the natural aspect of the landscape, while approach by trail would retain this all important aspect of primeval surroundings.” 1/1/1936 Memorandum to Director J.B. Harkin from J. Campbell, Microfilm T10434, Canadian NA. 175 1/4-14/1937 Recommendations made by the National Parks Superintendents at Conference held in Ottawa, Box 137, WLNPA.
82 lands and make specific recommendations. To this end, the Waterton Superintendent wrote back to the Parks Bureau Controller in February 1937 declining to recommend any such spaces in the park. Due to the small size of Waterton, the superintendent concluded that “the area which could be set aside would have to be so small as to be of little benefit for the purpose intended.”176 He failed to see any real benefit to designating wilderness within Waterton, especially since the park had been cut in half by the 1930 National Parks Act making it only 220 square miles, or less than fifteen percent of the size of Glacier National Park, its counterpart in Montana. Roads and other developments already carved up the park into smaller, fragmented sections. This left no area the superintendent deemed large enough to bear the marker of wilderness. Thereafter, specific references and action on wilderness in Waterton and in other parks were infrequent because of the perceived abundance of undeveloped lands in Canada. Unlike the United States, Canadians had not yet experienced the anxiety associated with the “closure” of the frontier. A June 1946 memo to the Parks Service Controller claimed that “we have vast areas of wilderness, not protected by special enactment, so that most Canadians can still go to wilderness when they wish to do so.” “True natural wildernesses can never be made from areas that have undergone development. Once a wilderness has been ravished, it is impossible to return it satisfactorily to its former state,” the memo’s author continued.177 Presumably, Canadian national parks still contained wilderness, at least those spaces that had not been developed, but this memo made clear the imperative of anticipating wilderness needs in
176 “If it is to be the National Parks policy to prevent any possibility of over-development for the benefit of future generations and the recommendations made in Paragraph 22, regarding the limitations of road building, are faithfully observed, I see no cause for setting aside wilderness area in Waterton Lakes National Park.” 2/18/1937 Letter to Controller, National Parks Bureau from Superintendent, Box 137, WLNPA. 177 6/19/1946 Memo to Mr. Smart from Harrison F. Lewis, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA.
83 time to prevent these areas from being permanently sullied. Once lost, it was thought irredeemable. The difficulty of setting aside wild spaces within the parks was perhaps best illustrated in a 1948 Manual for Field Officers laying out the precise purpose of Canadian National Parks.
The ecological student would state as his ideal that a National Park should be an area of primitive landscape, set aside as a sanctuary of nature, and containing all the animal species historically known to have inhabited the area in sufficient numbers to maintain themselves. He would leave the area unmolested, except for scientific investigation and education, permitting natural laws to hold sway, believing that a proper balance would be provided by nature itself. This ideal undoubtedly would operate satisfactorily in an area sufficiently extensive to permit nature to have her full scope in balancing conditions. However, such primitive conditions would not altogether fit in with our practical ideas of to-day, because we require these national domains for the use, benefit and enjoyment of the present generation as much as for those succeeding us.178
The Manual invoked almost the same modification, “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” as that found in the 1916 U.S. Park Service Act, portraying the grand purpose of American national parks. The policy clearly promoted the need to militate against over-development, but the conception of wilderness was also limited to the small areas that were exclusively held as reserves for scientific inquiry and even then subservient to a higher purpose. The aims of public use and enjoyment precluded casting too wide a net in designating spaces as wilderness. A series of Canadian Parks Service memos in the 1950s made clear that the definition and limitations of wilderness remained in flux. Again, wilderness seemed to be best understood in small, more limited forms. A January 1953 memo confirmed wilderness as an area:
178 1948 Manual for the Guidance of Field Officers in the National Parks of Canada, Box Parks Mgt. 1, WLNPA.
84 to be preserved in its natural state in perpetuity, and its maintenance as such precludes disturbance of any kind by human action. Such areas are set aside chiefly for scientific, and to some extent for recreational purposes … I would concur in the establishment of wilderness areas of small size which would be of prime interest for the purposes I mention, but chiefly of interest to biologists. Such areas might vary from one to six square miles in extent … The proposal to tie up two-thirds of the area of these six national parks as wilderness areas would undoubtedly work serious hardships on future administrations, apart from the fact that such a scheme could be dangerous to their orderly development.179
Too much wilderness protected too stringently could end up destroying the very qualities sought after in parks. For example, by casting the label too widely, managers might be prevented from removing dead or diseased timber. Conveniently, this managerial latitude tied together the quest for aesthetics, commercial profit from cutting, and the health of nature. Another January 1953 memo pivoted back to the need to maintain a careful balance between wilds and everything else. The Acting Parks Chief placed wilderness areas within the context of planned development.180 Good long-term planning would ensure that there was sufficient space for wilderness and development, thus enabling such orderly development rather than hampering it. Just as ideas about wilderness passed at the national level between the administrators of parks and conservation groups, the correspondence between Glacier and Waterton Lakes Superintendents demonstrated international influence on a smaller, local scale. Waterton’s Superintendent Atkinson wrote to his colleague at Glacier to
179 “For instance, such a scheme could result in extensive stands of overmature timber becoming a breeding ground for insect and disease epidemics, causing damage not only to the parks but to the surrounding provincial forests…The public I am sure would prefer travelling through healthy timber stands to that of a vista of dying, dead, and windthrown trees…A ban on timber-cutting operations over infested and diseased areas could conceivably seriously upset the balance of nature by giving too good protection to such large areas.” 1/3/1953 Memo for the Deputy Director, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA. 180 “The chief reason is not necessarily scientific but rather, as you remark in your marginal note, to preserve for posterity areas in a natural state. It is not proposed to deny acceptable recreational activity. It is proposed to deny commercial developments.” 1/17/1953 Memo for the Director from Acting Chief J.A. Hutchison, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA.
85 acknowledge the importance of park planning efforts.181 Atkinson sought to make use of a master planning process that he had observed in operation at Glacier, including the use of park zoning schemes like wilderness. The close proximity of these parks along the border more easily facilitated the transfer of ideas about managing parks. Although early conceptions of Canadian wilderness were constrained, in effect, by the country’s natural abundance, increasing development in each of its parks brought the concept into sharper focus. Ideas about wilderness were also fostered by its implementation in American parks. This was especially true in cases like Waterton Lakes where wild spaces were directly shared with Glacier. Glacier too went through its own evolution as park managers grappled with how best to preserve its natural spaces.
EARLY GLACIER WILDERNESS
A friend of mine, Professor Joseph Rock, who is a plant explorer for the Bureau of Plant Industry, is now in the wilds of Northern India or Tibet, and one of his avowed duties is to collect high-altitude ornamental plants which are intended for experimental planting in Glacier National Park … I certainly hope he will find something which will help us to cover the unsightly slope behind Many Glacier Hotel. I believe there is sufficient soil on that slope to retain a shrub growth of some sort; if it proves to be a flowering shrub it should convert the present unsightly hill side into an object of beauty.182
181 “I have suggested the inclusion of period planning in the agenda for our Superintendents’ Conference, which is to take place in Ottawa, fairly soon. I have in mind, of course, your Master Plan procedure, and would be glad to receive from you, if at all possible, the manner in which such a plan is originally decided upon.” 1/31/1953 Letter to Superintendent J.W. Emmert from Superintendent J.H. Atkinson, Box 137, WLNPA. 182 5/28/1924 Letter to H.A. Noble from Superintendent Kraebel, Box 22.F.8.9B (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
86 In May 1924, Glacier Superintendent Charles Kraebel wrote the manager of the Many Glacier Hotel of Professor Rock’s efforts to find ornamental plants for the park from a comparable climate half a world away. Although the backside of the hotel embraced a remarkable view of the spine of the Continental Divide and Grinnell Glacier, the front entrance was framed by a far less scenic spectacle, a bench of peculiarly colored exposed rocks. Looking for a way to improve upon nature, apparently Professor Rock was unsuccessful in this quest as the bare rock edifice remains to this day. The very same Kraebel, Superintendent at Glacier from 1924 to 1927, fretted about the speed of change in the park. Upon leaving his post, in a personal letter to the new Superintendent, J. Ross Eakin, Kraebel expressed his concerns, writing that “Glacier has a great future before it and we can only hope, for the sake of generations yet unborn, that the Service will not push its development too rapidly and try to build all the trails and open all the beauty spots in a decade.”183 His successor struggled with this development sentiment, how to deploy wilderness on the ground, and the meaning behind the trade-offs necessary for its preservation. In considering the impact of proposed water reclamation projects on the West side of the park, Eakin expressed a preference for a reservoir and scenic roadway as it might also lend a hand in displacing private residents from the area. In just two decades, with the continued threat of the construction of the Glacier View Reservoir on the western flank of the park, the answer was still a road, but one that led to additional Park Service developments. An internal memo written by the Chief of Recreational Planning lamented that defending the park from reservoir development meant getting “more of the public acquainted with the area than is possible under present conditions. It
183 5/30/1927 Letter to Superintendent J. Ross Eakin from Charles Kraebel, Box 2, Charles Kraebel Papers, The Bancroft Library.
87 is suggested, therefore, that the Service give consideration to the development of a good road up the North Fork and the development of additional recreational facilities, such as campgrounds.”184 Access and interest and, ultimately, public support were joined together in these park sponsored developed areas. In a difficult conundrum, the Park Service repeated a similar pattern throughout its portfolio of nature. It had to popularize wilderness in order to ensure its protection. It was the introduction of the automobile into parks in the 1920s that first led to calls for clarification of exactly where cars belonged. By proxy, this demarcation also netted the first wilderness zones. In a December 1927 letter to the Glacier Superintendent J. Ross Eakin, Park Service Chief Engineer F.A. Kittredge called for the preparation of maps “showing the respective areas opened to auto travel and closed to auto travel.”185 The Park Service hoped to squelch criticism of cars invading nature by showing the relatively small area open to auto travel. Eakin sought guidance from Kittredge and proposed a map loosely based on a sketch from Yosemite.186 Kittredge pointed out that “in Yosemite Park hatched areas were shown a short distance on both sides of the road…The shading of different widths is intended to represent the total area which may be made accessible to automobile travel.”187 The maps labeled the places that did not permit auto travel outside of these shaded areas with the term “wilderness” and served as a rough outline for future wilderness zoning. The Glacier road system, in essence, served as the developed framework from which wilderness areas could hang. Acting Park Service Director Demaray remarked on
184 12/18/1950 Memo to Assistant Director Wirth from Ben Thompson (Chief of Recreational Planning), Box 993 (Administrative Files, 1949-71), NARA (College Park, MD). 185 12/14/1927 Letter to Superintendent Eakin from Chief Engineer F.A. Kittredge, Box 122, GNP Archives. 186 12/17/1927 Letter to Chief Engineer F.A. Kittredge from Superintendent Eakin, Box 122, GNP Archives. 187 1/9/1928 Letter to Superintendent Eakin from Chief Engineer F.A. Kittredge, Box 122, GNP Archives.
88 the self-imposed limitations of road construction, writing that “it has always been the policy of the Park Service to retain large areas of the parks in their original condition.”188 Extending this philosophy to all the national parks, Director Albright remarked that “we have really made very great progress in reserving wilderness areas. All of our road planning is now worked out in such a way as to leave approximately seventy-five percent of every national park in a wilderness condition” [emphasis added].189 It appears roadless areas, for the U.S. National Park Service, provided the best markers for indicating wild spaces and, at seventy-five percent, sizable ones at that. Roads opened up the vistas for visual inspection and, for those willing to go further on foot or on horseback, an even more intimate view. The newfound accessibility of these park areas penetrated by roads led to a keen focus of the Park Service on any damage to the aesthetics of these viewsheds that could be noted by tourists. Although the Park Service sought to faithfully respect natural conditions, it often felt compelled to help things along, especially where any natural disturbance was apparent to visitors, such as the bare rock Kraebel and his friend hoped to ornament with plants from the Himalayas. In 1930, legislation was proposed to establish a plant nursery and replanting effort to restore Glacier to natural conditions given forest fires and cutting of privately-owned timber within the park. Writing in support of the action, Director Albright noted that “the natural landscape in Glacier National Park has suffered more injury in recent years as a result of disastrous forest fires than any other national park. Unfortunately a great deal of this deplorable devastation occurred along roads and trails
188 “It was decided that the road program for Glacier Park should be limited to the reconstruction of the present road system on the east, the present wagon road up the north fork of the Flathead River on the west to the international boundary line, and one new road across the continental divide.” 9/30/1929 Letter to C.B. Lester from Acting Director Demaray, Box 122, GNP Archives. 189 “We are now setting up research reserves within the wilderness areas these to be left absolutely alone and admission to them granted only to research workers.” 4/16/1930 Letter to Robert Marshall from Director Albright, Box 150 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
89 where visitors must see it as they pass through the park.”190 In an unstated corollary to preservation, wilderness must look the part and, in this effort, even natural processes could be aided. Especially in areas readily visible to tourists, it was incumbent on the Park Service to quickly “repristine” the spaces rather than waiting for nature to take its course. While Canadian Parks Service officials doubted whether wilderness could be assisted, Glacier managers visibly ramped up efforts to dramatically remake the spaces in the park. The building of roads and de facto wilderness status for roadless areas brought into sharp relief whether accessible areas could ever qualify to use the term. In a letter to the Park Service Director, Chief Landscape Architect Thomas Vint contended that “most discussions of the subject amount to little more than areas in which there are no roads. My conclusion is that if we set up too rigid a standard we will be protecting only those sections of the park in which no one wants to go to.”191 Clearly, the National Park Service was wholly confident that its administrative protections were sufficient to preserve the natural areas as wilderness. Though perhaps the more important point was that often the areas that originally attracted interest in creating a park were the first to be developed with roads, scenic viewpoints, and other infrastructure to support tourism. If wilderness did not somehow encompass these more accessible spaces, what exactly was the Park Service setting out to protect? A sizable increase in visitation facilitated by roadways produced its own impact on the natural environment. Before the advent of scalable technology to hard surface
190 “Of course nature in thirty or forty years will take care of a great deal of the damage itself by natural reforestation where the fires have not killed the seed, but even where such natural reforestation is possible, the scars could be wiped away within a few years by a vigorous program of planting, especially at those scarred scenic points most visible to the eyes.” 5/10/1930 Memo to Secretary of the Interior from Director Albright, Box 236 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 191 3/18/1932 Letter to Director, National Park Service from Thos. Vint (Chief Landscape Architect), Box 150 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
90 roads, the park spread oil as a measure to reduce dust. Beginning in 1932, this strategy was extended to trails. According to the park newsletter, Glacial Drift, leading trails were oiled for several miles, and “the air has remained dust-free and pure for horseback parties which formerly progressed the forest paths enveloped in a choking cloud of dust.” As a result, the newsletter pointed out that “no longer do the trees and shrubs stand drably laden with dust along Glacier’s trails. No longer is the purity of the faces of the wild flowers sullied with grime and dirt.”192 Oddly, the oiling was characterized as much a wilderness protection measure as a benefit to the lungs and eyes of passing tourists. The first attempt to create highly restricted wilderness areas was in the form of so- called scientific or research reserves instigated by the Park Service’s Wildlife Division. Frederick Dale, the Naturalist assigned to Glacier, received instructions for research projects that began with making a broad survey to “determine which areas are ‘sacred’, i.e., particularly valuable for wild life and indispensable as faunal hinterlands for the park.” He was further instructed to note areas “worthy of freedom from all development.”193 In his October 1934 Report, he grappled with the ways in which the natural distribution patterns of animals were manipulated for certain ends. He conceded that “the extent that is advisable to maintain completely primitive conditions is not quite clear. In a sense, the park itself is an artificiality, as are the developments within it.”194 For example, he considered the use of artificial salt licks at Many Glacier Chalet to lure bighorn sheep closer to the buildings and roadways.195 Although Dale dismissed these
192 9/1933 Glacial Drift Notes from Glacier National Park, GNP Library. 193 7/5/1934 Letter to Frederick Dale from Ben Thompson, Box 3 (Washington Office of Wild Life Division, 1934-36), NARA (College Park, MD). 194 “Dale recognized that “the ideal of maintaining primitive conditions in our parks is as yet sufficiently new to require some delicacy in bringing it to a satisfactory realization.” 10/15/1934 Monthly Report of the Naturalist Assistant Glacier National Park by Frederick H. Dale, Box 191, GNP Archives. 195 Salt licks were “placed between two buildings, and sheep are lured within a few feet of the road. Here it is possible for tourists to approach within a few feet of the animals as they lick the salt. If the salt were
91 intrusions placed by the hotel company to provide an incentive for animals to be visible, the concessioner was clearly acting with the knowledge and tacit approval of the Park Service. In September 1935, Victor Cahalane wrote at length to George Wright, Chief of the Wildlife Division about the practical difficulties in selecting research reserves in the national parks. Cahalane feared that “the parks are being mechanized and artificialed until it is necessary to set aside and protect from encroachments of appurtenances of civilization small portions which we have named research areas.” He complained to Wright that “if we must reserve any considerable portion of a national park against all except foot and horse travel we admit that that park is no longer a wilderness, and that we have failed in our duty to preserve the scenery and other natural objects for the enjoyment of future generations.” For Cahalane, the pendulum had already swung too far in favor of irreversible change. Indeed, he deemed that no part of Glacier National Park could be set aside as a research area.196 He concluded that human influence through the introduction of invasive plants or extirpation of animal species had already permanently altered any area that might have previously been suitable as a natural baseline. Nonetheless, Cahalane’s objections aside, two areas of Glacier, the upper Quartz Valley and Marthas Basin, were recognized as wilderness and rezoned as Primitive Research Areas.197 Over time, Wildlife Office officials like Cahalane and Wright worried that national parks no placed a hundred yards from this spot the sheep could be seen in their normal habitat and would have more interest to most tourists.” Ibid. 196 “In this case this is not by reason of a network of roads, but because all streams now contain exotic species of fish, because the wolverine and fisher have been exterminated from the entire park and the bison and antelope from the east side, and because exotic plants (principally ‘weeds’) have been carried to practically every corner of the park.” 9/7/1935 Memo to George Wright from Victor Cahalane, Box 7 (Records of Washington Office of Wildlife Division), NARA (College Park, MD). Historian Richard Sellars also invokes this correspondence between Cahalane and Wright. Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 108-12. 197 12/27/1935 Letter to Superintendent Scoyen from Chief George Wright, Box 7 (Records of Washington Office of Wildlife Division), NARA (College Park, MD).
92 longer contained areas with a pristine natural baseline. They sought even minimally impacted parcels within the larger spaces to keep as sacrosanct so that these areas could be preserved, studied, and hopefully replicated throughout the balance of each park. Even with the designation of these two special areas in Glacier, the Park Service records are silent as to how, if at all, the reserves were used or studied. It appears that they held little more than symbolic value for the Park Service as within seven years, the Glacier Superintendent upended Cahalane’s view and contended that the whole park was a wilderness.198 The Glacier Superintendent’s views were not an aberration. Officials at each Park Service considered the entirety of the properties they managed to be wholly wilderness in character. The dilemma in the interaction between built and unbuilt environment can perhaps best be reflected in the proposed reconstruction of Two Medicine Lake-Twin Falls Trail. The Park Engineering Job Form filed in January 1937 described the project as such:
Visitors from the artificialized environment of the Lodge at Two Medicine Lake are accustomed to make the trip in the company-owned motor launch to the upper end of the lake, where they disembark and follow the 1½ miles of trail to the falls. It is felt that to pave this wilderness trail with a bitulithic surface would quite destroy the simple, unspoiled naturalness of the environment and would deprive many appreciative persons of the wilderness atmosphere which, with the accompanying glimpses of wildlife, is the very thing which drew them to the spot … Truly undisturbed areas, where the wilderness atmosphere is not spoiled, have shrunk.199
198 “There is a grave question in my mind as to whether there is a real need for such wilderness research areas in Glacier since the entire park is maintained in such status and the development features proposed are essential for the proper administration and protection of the area.” 6/16/1942 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent, Glacier NP, Box 951 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 199 1/18/1937 Job Comment Form, Box 131, GNP Archives.
93 Improving the trail’s surface could either reinforce or erode the wilderness experience. Nevertheless, Superintendent Scoyen wrote in March to the Park Service Director in an attempt to make the case for necessary trail improvements. This hike to Twin Falls became an officially sanctioned attraction, part of the railroad’s regular tour of the Two Medicine area, and could no longer be cast a simple amble in the woods.200 In these terms, the sheer scale of visitation had outpaced the regenerative ability of nature to erase the evidence of so much repetitive traffic. The sheer number of footfalls was apt to betray the previous throngs of sightseers. A contemporary term employed by park managers is “use trails,” which represent the myriad sets of repetitive paths cut through nature by travelers. Sometimes the main trail has been blocked by a tree fall, flooded by rains, or the simple inertia of other visitors finding a shortcut to a better view. Unaddressed, use trails can magnify the evidence of disrupted nature for subsequent visitors. To mitigate the impact at Twin Falls, the Park Service sought to employ a hardscape material that would not so easily betray use as bare ground. In a strange turn of logic, in order to maintain the area’s wilderness qualities, it was essential to permanently despoil a strip of land at least large enough to support the regular foot traffic of boat parties en route to the falls. The Park Service Director was dubious of the proposal, refusing to grant permission yet he acceded to surfacing with gravel or clay and sand.201 Although surfacing the trail was permissible, the type of material used needed to blend
200 “The past summer, park operators installed a new type of tour which provides, for practically all persons arriving by train, a side trip to Two Medicine, a trip up to the lake in the launch and a hike up to Twin Falls. As these are standard tours, it means that some afternoons there are several hundred people on this trail at one time and it can no longer be maintained as a simple little one track woods trail.” 3/4/1937 Letter to Director from Superintendent Scoyen, Box 131, GNP Archives. 201 He responded that “in view of the fact that this trail is quite distant from any physical developments in the park, and because of the fact that it is located in about as primeval a forest as is reached by the average visitor to Glacier National Park, surfacing of the trail with bituminous material, which would be distinctly out of place in these surroundings, cannot be approved.” 4/14/1937 Letter to Superintendent from Acting Director Demaray, Box 131, GNP Archives.
94 with the natural surroundings. Presumably any remaining dust problems could always be solved with a simple application of oil. While areas like that around Twin Falls were easily construed as wilderness, it was more difficult to find this quality in other sections of the park. In 1954, after a series of water rights disputes with Canadians, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wanted to investigate the engineering feasibility of constructing massive tunnels within the park to divert the stream flows of the Belly and Waterton Rivers. Although wholly originating within the Rocky Mountains of the United States, these rivers otherwise flowed north into Alberta and Canadian points beyond. This type of project potentially fell under the reclamation guarantees in the park’s enabling Act although the Park Service strongly opposed both the project and even the initial efforts to make surveys in the park.202 To bolster their case, the Glacier Superintendent prepared a Waterton-Belly River Diversion Project Report and sought photographic evidence to argue against the construction of the massive tunnels needed to capture the entire flow of each river prior to its entry into Canada. While updating the Regional Director on his efforts, the Superintendent was concerned that:
the character of the landscape at site of the tunnels, canals, and reservoir areas for the most part has little scenic or wilderness appeal. Note the pictures already used in the report, most of which were not taken in the immediate area involved but of scenic distant views or features out of the area. Low wooded ridges offer poor photographic possibilities and might produce the exact opposite effect from that intended if used in the same report with outstanding scenic views…Possibly an Ansel Adams or a Ralph Anderson could compose the type of picture desired, regardless but our photographic files offers mute testimony that the areas directly involved lack the attractive quality of landscape that is found further back in the park.203
202 6/22/1954 Memo to Assistant Secretary Lands from Director, NPS, Box 19 (Glacier NP Numerical Subject Files, 1949-65), Rocky Mountain NARA (Denver, CO). 203 The memo cites Ansel Adams and Ralph Anderson. Adams was a world-famous photographer of the American West. Anderson served as a Park Ranger in Yosemite in the 1930s and joined the Park Service
95
The Park Service grappled with how best to defend the park from utilitarian intrusions in areas that were on the aesthetic margins. Only suitably framed photographs could make the case for wilderness, but officials realized the high degree of variability of park scenery. Not all spaces within the park inspired with equal sublimity. As long as the Park Service aspired to put together an ecosystem, even an incomplete one like that in Glacier, they had to recognize that parks so constructed were, after all, compositions with elements of beauty as well as more mundane parts of nature. From the park’s creation up to the 1950s, the administrators of Glacier National Park struggled with how to regulate development and foster scientific research within the space. Finally, another park in the Big Bend region of Texas offered a fresh start and the potential to capture a long sought after self-contained ecosystem. Even with such a demonstrably clear prize, the Park Service continued to struggle with the definition and deployment of wilderness.
EARLY BIG BEND WILDERNESS
Historian John Miles chronicles the deployment of wilderness in the U.S. National Park System. Moving from being merely the mirror image of development, wilderness became a key point of competition between the Park Service and Forest Service as the latter attempted to prevent the former from poaching its landholdings to be rebranded as national parks. Beginning in the 1930s, a set of new parks, including the Everglades, Isle Royale, Olympic, and Big Bend became what Miles termed “wilderness
Publicity and Information Division in 1953. 4/25/1955 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent, Glacier, Box 19 (Glacier NP Numerical Subject Files, 1949-65), Rocky Mountain NARA (Denver, CO).
96 parks.” For reasons ranging from local concerns about competition for tourist dollars to the difficulty of development, these spaces were anticipated to be undeveloped preserves. Yet, in lumping Big Bend into this mix, Miles does not focus on the primary reason Park Service biologists and administrators alike prized the park – the possibility of encapsulating a full ecosystem, a natural wilderness.204 Preserving the Chihuahuan Desert required a profound conceptual shift in the typical definition of national park beauty, but the 1940s was a time when other forms of nature began to be appreciated on their own terms. In addition to Big Bend, the Park Service established the Everglades in Florida, protecting an extensive subtropical sawgrass marsh. From the mountain fastnesses or peculiar oddities of earlier spaces, the desert at first glance appeared sterile and lifeless. Indeed, the Park Service largely viewed the deserts within Big Bend as a buffer for one of their often-stated objectives – to finally, at long last, preserve an ecosystem in its entirety. The Chisos Mountains, termed a sky island because its elevation profile, provided a vertical escape route for habitat and species to retreat upslope, floated over the desert expanse and harbored, according to biological reports, a unique self-contained patchwork of plants and animals that could be preserved, studied, and viewed.205 While other parks were hopelessly small and unable to surround a discrete piece of the natural world, preserving the isolated sky islands of Big Bend finally provided an opportunity to realize this ambition. Up to that point, all parks
204 Miles indicates that unlike the Everglades, the Big Bend did not “break new ground on wilderness.” Yet, much of the Park Service correspondence at the time belied this notion as officials were intrigued by the possibility of protecting an intact ecosystem. In addition, Miles argues “keeping it wild would not be as difficult or controversial as doing so in some other places.” This contention also overlooks the active interest in development that led local communities to initially advocate for the park and lobby against later efforts by the Park Service to designate formal wilderness in the 1970s. Miles, 91-2. 205 “Everyone concerned with the development of the Big Bend area should keep constantly in mind the fact that the Chisos Mountains come nearer to constituting a natural and complete biological unit than any other area in the entire National Park System, with the single exception of Isle Royal.” Special Report: Notes on Big Bend National Park (Proposed), 5, Box 1XX (Central Files of the Regional Wildlife Technician, 1929-41), NARA (San Bruno, CA).
97 existed within arbitrary boundaries, but the Park Service was hopeful that strategic acquisitions in the Big Bend would give them an opportunity “to get it right” and preserve a fully intact ecosystem. With the lofty prize of the Chisos Range, much of early park planning revolved around what to do with this important space. The lack of roads was recognized as a viable means to ensure wilderness protection. An August 1935 report from W.G. Carnes, Deputy Chief Architect, demanded that “a road should be built no farther into them [the Chisos] than at the possible lodge site mentioned above and that the balance of the mountains should be developed only with foot and horse trails.”206 Wildlife Technician W.B. McDougall noted that Big Bend “will be the only national park that includes a complete biological unit: the entire Chisos Mountains with the surrounding flats. This is extremely important and must be safeguarded in every possible way.”207 Perhaps the high degree of sensitivity and concern about the fate of the Chisos can be better appreciated within the context of an example from Glacier National Park. In 1938 a Park Service Wildlife Technician lamented that “as is the case in many of our national parks the administration of game resources is greatly hindered because a biologic unit was not secured in the first place. We wish very much that the park could extend farther into the Indian Reservation on the East.”208 Much of the winter range for Glacier’s wildlife extended beyond the bounds of the park onto the grasslands of the Great Plains within the Blackfeet Reservation. While the Park Service hoped to secure the Chisos, the prospects
206 “The impressive scenery in the various canyons and the climax of all the inspiring panorama, on the South Rim, would be considerably damaged and cheapened in value if made too easily accessible.” 8/16/1935 Report on Proposed BBNP by W.G. Carnes, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 207 11/30/1935 Preliminary Report on a Plant Ecological Survey of the Big Bend Area of Texas by W.B. McDougall, Box 1 (Central Files of the Regional Wildlife Technician, 1929-41), NARA (San Bruno, CA). 208 10/30/1938 Letter to Willis Kendig from H.C. Bryant, Box 1 (Central Files of the Regional Wildlife Technician, 1929-41), NARA (San Bruno, CA).
98 for acquiring more of the Blackfeet Reservation were quite remote as historian Mark David Spence clearly laid out in his monograph, Dispossessing the Wilderness.209 From the creation of Glacier up to the present, the Blackfeet Indians and park officials have constantly tangled over how to deal with resource flows the park’s boundaries never contained. Park Service biologists assumed the Chisos was impervious to disruption by such natural flows. As discussed in chapter 1, “Making National Parks,” the Big Bend Land Department was tasked with acquiring land for the park. Its efforts over 1941 and 1942 were highly successful, but the Park Service was concerned about the impact of delays in the transfer of park lands from ranchers. As of September 1942, thirty-five residents whose land was acquired secured unrestricted grazing reservations until December 31, 1944.210 Director Newton Drury worried about the lack of protection in the interim period before the Park Service assumed control.211 In a 1944 Press Release, Dr. Walter P. Taylor, Fish and Wildlife Service Senior Biologist, underscored the importance of restoration while admonishing that “the normal and original populations cannot be reestablished in the area until the environment is restored to the condition which existed prior to the advent of the white man.”212 Terminating adverse uses such as grazing and
209 Glacier Park wildlife seasonally ranged onto lower elevation flatlands not only in the Blackfeet Reservation, but also in Waterton Lakes National Park. Mark D. Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 210 9/22/1942 Letter to Lloyd Wade from Big Bend Land Department, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 211 “The properties in general are deteriorating…Several of the old ranches had trees that were kept alive by irrigation, and since the people have left these ranches, many of the fine old trees are beginning to show signs of dying. We shall need this shade and should have authority to give these trees all possible protection.” While the Park Service tried to eliminate ranching activity, Drury viewed the water resources developed on former ranches as essential infrastructure for the newly minted space. Even if the irrigation systems and some of the trees they supported were artificial constructions, these intrusions were nonetheless important to maintain. 5/24/1944 Letter to Amon Carter from Director Newton Drury. Box 22 (Amon Carter Papers) Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University. 212 7/14/1944 Press Release, Mike Welsh Box (Administrative History), BBNP Archives.
99 hunting was crucial. Taylor’s statements and many of the reports produced prior to the establishment of the park concluded that the ranching interests had “ruined” the productivity of the area through overgrazing. In order to establish the park, it was paramount to disrupt these other competing uses, and what better way to accomplish this than to blame the ranchers for their own demise.213 At the time, and certainly in retrospect, not everyone agreed with the prevailing narrative of an environmentally despoiled landscape. Julia Moss, the daughter of rancher Sam Nail, attributed changes to other environmental factors, notably persistent drought. In a 1994 oral history interview, Moss indicated that in remembering the Great Depression people often “forget what a bad, bad drought [we had]. And when the park people keep talking about the vegetation, you know, how the ranchers had ruined the land…There wasn’t much to ruin. There just wasn’t any grass.” In her view, the Park Service falsely accused ranchers of increasing the number of stock over the capacity of the range, but Moss claimed, “None of them had the money to buy more stock to bring in.”214 She contended ranchers like her parents were already operating on the financial margin because of the inherent limitations of grazing stock on marginal land. Moss also expressed confusion about the fate of their family home, writing “it was pretty native. I mean, it was an adobe, just Mexican style, because Daddy had had a Mexican build it…I never did, really, understand why the park tore it down, but when they first went in they tried to obliterate every sign of human habitation.”215 In fact, the
213 At the same time Roger Toll was characterizing Big Bend as a wilderness, a report examining the area for submarginal land purchases depicted the region as “entirely cattle country, but over-grazing and the resulting dwindling of grass and other vegetation, and consequent severe erosion, lowered the range carrying capacity until it is now impossible to profitably graze more than one head of cattle or horses on each fifty or more acres.” [undated 1935] Big Bend State Park Extension Proposed Submarginal Land Purchase, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 214 2/27/1994 Julia Moss Interview, Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives. 215 2/27/1994 Julia Moss Interview, Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives.
100 Park Service bulldozed the Nail homestead. Moss speculated that “they [the Park Service] didn’t want anything to look like man had ever lived there. I think they wanted it back – I don’t even know if they wanted it to look like Indians were there.” Indeed, in October 1942, after the bulk of land acquisition in Big Bend was completed, including the Nail property, the State Parks Board not only wanted to exclude ranching activities, but also announced a prohibition on hunting, shooting, or depredation of any kind. “The NPS is said to be anxious to preserve the area and have it returned to its former condition, ‘as it existed when the wild horsemen of the Comanches signaled their smoke fires from the mountain peaks’,” according to the memo.216 To create the impression of wilderness, albeit a scarred one, it was important to remove the visible evidence of those who at least Park Service officials viewed as the perpetrators of damaging the land. In addition to the removal of modern settlement, this vision recalled the era when Native Americans held full sway over the land as the ideal historical marker to recast the area as a wilderness. Of course, this only invoked the “idea” of Native Americans and, unlike intentions with a variety of charismatic wildlife species, Park Service officials never advocated for reintroduction of the human inhabitants that made this vision real. In a 1985 interview, Bill Burnham, the son of Waddy Burnham, a cattle rancher in the Big Bend at Government Springs from 1908 to 1942, praised his father as a “conservationist.” Burnham contended his father “didn’t overgraze the country in any way. He kept the country in good shape.”217 Like Julia Moss, Burnham placed the blame for environmental changes on the prevailing drought of the period. Overall he cast the whole area as “good cattle country,” and though his father ranched there for thirty-four
216 TSPB Memo to newspapers interested in BBNP project, 30 October 1942, Box 2005/041-18, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 217 “That Green Gulch area was full of oak and the oak trees have really thinned out, are gone just about.” 6/2/1985 Bill Burnham Interview, Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives.
101 years, according to Burnham, “he only fed one winter. 1916 was the only year he ever had to feed his cattle.” Picking apart who and what is responsible for the condition of the land in the Big Bend is a difficult exercise in sorting through competing narratives. According to the ranchers, the lands that comprised the park suffered from a prolonged drought, but grazing was a continual presence from the dawn of the 20th century until the acquisition of parcels by the State and Federal Governments in 1941 and for a year or two thereafter. Even then, most of the large ranchers were reluctant sellers, some of whom relocated their operations just outside of the newly bounded park. According to the children of Waddy Burnham and Sam Nail, whose accounts must, of course, be viewed with a fair amount of apprehension, their fathers exercised care and concern in stocking rangelands. They obviously also invested a significant amount of time and money in fencing to protect their investment in livestock from predation as well as water wells and pumps to provide access to perhaps the most scarce resource of all. Ranches tended to congregate around the Chisos Range or other “sky islands” that afforded better access to elevated grasslands and additional water resources. Ross Maxwell, the Park’s first Superintendent disagreed with the assessment of Fish and Wildlife Service biologists who, in his view, placed too much of the blame for environmental degradation on ranching operations.218 Canadian Parks experienced similar pressures to expand beef production during wartime. H.A. deVeber, Waterton Lakes Superintendent, noted that “[i]n many cases the
218 “Dr. McDougall has presented the very darkest conditions and it is my belief that he is unduly alarmed. There are certain areas, Tornillo Flat for instance, where it will take years for the desert grasses to come back. In other areas, however, I anticipate that the recovery will be relatively rapid…I have been told by several ranchmen, including the late Homer Wilson, Sam Nail, and Boye Babb, that they had too much stock and if they intended to stay here they would reduce their herds, but since they had sold out and were moving away they were going to get what they could. In one respect, you can’t blame them much for that attitude.” 10/4/1944 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent Maxwell, Mike Welsh Box (Administrative History), BBNP Archives.
102 herds were increased beyond the limit of the home range, and two years of less than normal precipitation had a damaging effect on the range. Consequently, there have been many requests for grazing permits, which, had they been granted, would have resulted in the park being overrun with cattle.”219 Yet, in Big Bend, it was the Park Service’s own policy to grant grazing extensions to many of the ranchers, in part to ease their transition from the space.220 While well intentioned, this policy, along with the grazing practices of the ranchers, most likely facilitated degrading the land the Park Service inherited and reformed into a national park. Nevertheless, perhaps there was an even larger need than the establishment of the park to portray grazing in Big Bend as fundamentally detrimental. Walter Taylor of the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote to Director Newton Drury in August 1944 to cite Big Bend as the best example of why all the national parks should not be thrown open to grazing as part of the effort to secure resources, meat in this case, for the Second World War.221 Taylor minimized the potential contribution of livestock production in parks to the war effort as “negligible while the continuing modification of park values in the wrong direction would be quite large … There are few or no other activities which may or might be permitted within the Parks that would be so seriously detrimental to their
219 “As the demand for beef increased during the war, all farmers and ranchers increase their herds in order to cash in on the lucrative business of raising and selling beef cattle.” 6/13/1945 Letter to Controller, National Parks Bureau from Superintendent H.A. deVeber, Box 210, WLNPA. 220 9/22/1942 Letter to Lloyd Wade from Big Bend Land Department, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 221 Historian John Ise discussed efforts to open up parks and, more broadly, other areas managed by the Interior Department as a wartime measures during both world wars, but, for World War II, this pressure was compounded by widespread national drought in the spring of 1944. “Livestock men, always patriotic in war time and anxious to do their full part to feed the nation, again tried to get their cattle and sheep into the parks, but Ickes and Drury managed to keep grazing in the major parks down to prewar level.” John Ise, Our National Park Policy: A Critical History (Baltmore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961), 449-51.
103 future maintenance and development.”222 The perils Big Bend faced served as a good proxy argument in ongoing efforts to open up national parks as a wartime expedient.223 In June 1944, biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Service prepared a comprehensive report for the development and operation of the new park unit. The report called for restricted areas to put in place along the Rio Grande, especially the hot springs section, and the Chisos Mountains. For these areas, it identified the best management procedure was to leave them alone. It also called for an outright prohibition on tourism in certain side canyons along Panther and Bois d’Arc creeks, Pine, and Pulliam canyons, all prime habitats for black bear and other rare mammal species. The report noted that “none of the area is untouched and none of it is an unspoiled virgin condition.”224 It made clear that the blame for environmental devastation was tied to the presence of domestic livestock. The blame for the degradation was clearly placed with the ranchers and the practice of overgrazing. In its view, the Park Service simply had to intervene in order to stop further damage. However, in a prescient nod to future debates over wilderness designation, the report admonished that “when in doubt on any phase of artificial development, do nothing. There is far more danger of too much interference with Nature than too little, even under enlightened National Park Service management.”225 Although
222 8/21/1944 Letter to Director Drury from Walter P. Taylor, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 223 Even the patriotic context of the war was channeled to show just how imperative it was to revert this space to its former grandeur: “The superior values of this and similar areas under natural conditions are some of the things that the boys are fighting for in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Islands today.” 6/1944 Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park. Box 1 (NPS Western Region Central Classified Files, 1923-65). NARA (San Bruno, CA), 38. 224 “The native vegetation is so severely injured in much of the Big Bend area that it is questioned whether any other national park was initially established in as depleted conditions.” 6/1944 Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park. Box 1 (NPS Western Region Central Classified Files, 1923-65). NARA (San Bruno, CA), 36. 225 Underscoring the need for a light hand, Park Service managers should “let Nature handle the job of restoring depleted vegetation.” 6/1944 Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park. Box 1 (NPS Western Region Central Classified Files, 1923-65). NARA (San Bruno, CA), iv.
104 wilderness as a legislatively defined prescription was still sixteen years in the future, the report detailed areas of the park where human impacts should be significantly limited in favor of plant and animal relationships. The overall tone favored limiting human intervention to removal of previous intrusions and doing no further harm. Initial plans favored restrictions on further development within the Chisos Basin where the Civilian Conservation Corps had previously built a camp and a variety of road and trail improvements.226 Instead, the Park Service favored development along the Rio Grande at the former Daniels and Graham Ranches where, as spaces that were already impacted, the restraint necessary in the Basin area would not be required. Nevertheless, practical considerations would eventually trump or, at least, hamper full-fledged efforts to enforce restrictions in the Basin. With average summer temperatures in the Chihuahuan Desert running into triple digits, the Chisos Basin was susceptible to development simply because it was several thousand feet higher than the surrounding desert and river basin and as much as twenty degrees cooler. In addition, the Basin and South Rim provided unrivaled views of the entire park and into Mexico. The roads and structures already in place in the form of the CCC encampment produced significant momentum to continue within the existing footprint. Superintendent Maxwell ultimately concluded that “it is better to continue the development in the Basin rather than to scar a new area.”227 Yet, continued use of the Basin, did not preclude recognizing the canyons that emanated from it, including Pine
226 To this end, the Park Service leadership believed that “little to no work should be done to adapt the CCC Camp for use as park headquarters as to do so will make the change more difficult.” 5/30/1944 Memo to Regional Director from Acting Director Hillory Tolson, Box 832 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49). NARA (College Park, MD). For more context on the development of CCC work programs at state and national parks, like Big Bend, refer to: H.W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Anchor Books, 2008), 331-4. 227 “Our Department and Service made certain promises to the State of Texas whereby those people could enjoy the recreational values of this Chisos Mountains.” 12/16/1944 Letter to Walter Taylor from Superintendent Maxwell, Box 17 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX).
105 Canyon, as sensitive areas. In this canyon, the first Park Master Plan in 1945 noted an “unusual association of rare plants and animals because of which this particular portion of the Park should be afforded very careful protection … There should be no developments whatsoever in this area, this being the one locality in the Park where wildlife interests should be given full priority over those of humans.”228 The plan recognized Pine Canyon as the literal heart of the whole Chisos ecosystem the park was originally intended to protect. As such, the Canyon informally became the park’s first wilderness area. In Big Bend, the broader outlines of wilderness protection were vested in two very different strategies: regeneration and destruction. In early 1946, the Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park summarized a visit to Big Bend with a rather obvious sentiment: “It is not ‘virgin territory’. It has been used and in some cases badly abused. It will take a lot of time and care for the scars of use to heal and the area to recover.” To expedite this recovery, he viewed it as crucial to eliminate livestock, acquire remaining private land, and post notices against hunting. His final recommendation, obliterating all man-made structures, was more in line with aesthetics, but was equally essential to effectively remaking the space.229 Evidence of ranching pervaded the landscape, and it was difficult to recast the area as wilderness without removing these nettlesome reminders of the land’s most recent past. In terms of natural recovery, the September 1947 Superintendent’s Monthly Report claimed that “Big Bend vegetation is making a
228 “Use by visitors should be carefully restricted to such activities as can have no harmful effect upon the plant and animal inhabitants.” 2/20/1945 Wildlife Conservation Section of Master Plan for BBNP, Box 5 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 229 “This involves the razing of old buildings and structures, but is primarily a fence eradication project.” 4/4/1946 Memo to Director from Edmund Rogers, Box 824 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
106 remarkable come-back.”230 In stark contrast to the doom and gloom assessments of irreversible ecological damage, the elimination of grazing paired with better than average precipitation in the late 1940s produced a decidedly more positive set of changes. Not all of this natural recovery was unaided. Similar to Glacier with its use of an on-site native plant nursery to assist with the replenishment of scarred areas within the park, Big Bend also adopted this strategy to reinvigorate depleted grasslands. However, in Big Bend, the Park Service approach required even more intensive efforts given the scarcity of water. In September 1947, Superintendent Maxwell reported a milestone of replanting 1,100 acres of native grasses.231 The Park Service employed agricultural techniques and equipment in an attempt to promulgate grasses. The continuity and challenges of restoration work were featured prominently in the 1952 Superintendent’s Annual Report:
About 5,000 small dams were made with seeding in the pit and along the sides of the dam. Some thousand acres have been pitted on the Tornillo Flat area, all of which has been seeded … In addition to this type of project the Service has also planted about 250 cottonwood and willow trees, and has started a nursery of some 750 cuttings…250 desert willow plants obtained from an Albuquerque nursery were planted along road scars and cuts. These have been watered from water trucks from time to time and about 75% of them have started. Unfortunately,
230 “With good rains a year ago, grass and shrubs reseeded, and this year’s rainfall has turned the area into an undreamed-of paradise. The Chisos Mountain section has grass a foot high, and the previously desolate areas of Tornillo and Tabosa Flats, Burro Mesa, are covered with grass and weeds.” 9/4/1947 Superintendent’s Monthly Report, Box 1 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 231 “It is the policy of the National Park Service to keep all Park Service areas in the most natural condition possible and not to promote or perform projects that will give too much artificiality. Consequently, we have entered into a program which we hope will in a way restore portions of the area to its natural condition. Under this program we took what in this country is normally called a ‘dry land disc plow’, removed two discs, leaving one, offset the center of that disc by two inches, reassembled the plow and put it in operation. When this plow is in operation behind a tractor, it cuts a pit approximately five inches deep in the center and about four feet long. We went into some of the most arid and barren areas, using this pitter on the contour, and pitted and planted more than 1100 acres of native grasses this past year.” 8/24/1951 Letter to Director, Farm Experiment Station from Superintendent Maxwell, Box 9 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX).
107 however, the deer browse them back practically as fast as they put on new leaves.232 The scarcity of water was a constraint that the Park Service attempted to overcome through time-consuming manual watering and the construction of mini-earthen dams to slow and contain what little rainfall that fell in the desert. In 1953, W.B. McDougall made field observations of plant life recovery, which was, in his view, slow-going. As expected, water provided the key limiting factor to both natural and man-made efforts to promote revegetation.233 Superintendent Maxwell provided a healthy dose of skepticism as feedback on McDougall’s report: “[t]o those of us without his background it will continue to be ‘phenomenal’ and ‘remarkable’. Certainly, to our stockmen neighbors who cannot conceive of anyone with any sense allowing grass to grow to maturity, the recovery here has been indeed little short of a miracle.”234 With regard to water storage, Maxwell expressed no issues with maintaining the old ranchers’ tanks as is “in spite of the recognized unnatural nature of them, simply because they have been there so long. The wildlife has long learned to depend upon them, it does provide for a wider distribution of wildlife and consequent better human enjoyment of our wildlife display.”235 The indicators of a robust wilderness ecosystem were, in no small part, supported by a mix of unnatural elements. Wells and other water
232 1952 Superintendent’s Annual Report, Box 1 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 233 “There will never be moisture enough through a long series of years to support the present number of shrubs plus a good stand of grass…This will be a very slow process…In the Chisos Mountains, where there is always more moisture than is available on the desert, the recovery is much more rapid.” 10/23/1953 Memo to Acting Regional Director from W.B. McDougall, Box 2350 (Administrative Files, 1949-71), NARA (College Park, MD). 234 11/30/1953 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent, Big Bend, Box 2350 (Administrative Files, 1949-71), NARA (College Park, MD). 235 “We have now established a natural balance with the predators which prevents the development of the undesirable features of such artificial watering spots. Our park visitors and supporters like to see deer, etc. watering at as many locations as possible – in fact they tend to judge the success of our program entirely on how many deer they see along the road. We cannot possibly disabuse all of them of this false belief, and consequently we believe this is a little compromise which will offend no one but a complete purist, and which will have many beneficial results for us generally.” 11/30/1953 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent, Big Bend, Box 2350 (Administrative Files, 1949-71), NARA (College Park, MD).
108 infrastructure provided for the maintenance of wilderness as well as the potential to despoil parts of the Chisos by enabling the construction of a full range of tourist accommodations. The Park Service only belatedly and reluctantly recognized that the most essential ingredient for wildlife, water, required the ongoing presence of artificial structures originally developed by the ranchers.
Calumet Baking Powder Can Top (Author’s photo)
To effectively recast the area as wild, the Park Service implemented a policy of removing most evidence of prior use. While water enclosures were preserved, buildings, fences, roads, pens, and other telltale signs of human habitation were studiously eliminated. The 1954 Superintendents’ Annual Report highlighted ongoing restoration efforts, including the removal of fencing and structures.236 By literally wiping the landscape clean, the visual evidence eventually belied the historical truth about past
236 “Cleanup of fences and trash accumulated from ranching days along the main road near the North Entrance was accomplished with rehabilitation and maintenance funds. All of the unused buildings in the Basin utility area and the major buildings at the Johnson ranch on the Rio Grande were obliterated. Several old road sections were scarified and planted, the backslopes and drainage sections cleaned and seeded, and unsightly debris removed. Restoration of the park area, which was highly modified by ranching operations prior to the park establishment, must continue for many years.” 1954 Superintendent’s Annual Report, Box 1 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
109 human presence. Yet, even with a concerted clean-up effort by the Park Service, it was difficult to eradicate all the evidence of prior human habitation in the park. The Calumet Baking can top pictured above was found just a few hundred feet from the edge of the park road approximately four miles north of Panther Junction Visitor Center. This top represents just a sampling of the detritus from human settlement that remains scattered along the floor of the Chihuahuan Desert in this and many other locations throughout the Big Bend. While the former ranchlands of the Big Bend were scoured and cleaned, across the river, as described in the first chapter, the lands of Maderas del Carmen remained covered, albeit lightly, with human settlements – predominantly agricultural plots near the river and, beyond that, range for cattle, goats, and other livestock. Making wilderness in any form in Mexican spaces, like the Maderas del Carmen, would have to wait until the dawn of the twenty-first century.
CONCLUSION
Beginning as a complete overlap, the Venn diagram that represented what was a national park from wilderness gradually separated over time. Rather than encompassing the whole space, wilderness was relegated to smaller pockets branded “scientific reserves” in the United States. Even then, biologists worried that there were few, if any, parcels within parks that had not been at least indirectly impacted by humans. Superintendents often ignored these scientific reports and proclaimed that parks and wilderness coincided perfectly. In the newest park at the mid-century, Big Bend, biologists and park managers hoped to again bring the concepts together, at least in the
Chisos Mountains. This “sky island” comprised a working ecosystem that they could finally protect as an area wholly separate from the natural world that surrounded it. Yet,
110 even there, the pressure to open the space for tourism brought intrusions in an area believed to be the best example in the entire U.S. Park Service portfolio of a complete wilderness. Finally, park officials struggled with how to deal with previous human incursions, especially in areas like the Big Bend where old wells and stock tanks proved vital to maintaining vibrant populations of mobile fauna that were considered so essential to the tourist experience and in defining the area as a true wilderness. At the same time, efforts to literally replant and replenish the wilderness in the form of grasslands met opposition from the same fauna that the Park Service tried to protect (i.e. browsing) as well as the environmental constraints of the desert that necessitated constant watering and tending to realize even marginal progress. Wilderness also revolved around the slippery question of what constituted a historical natural baseline and exactly how far back each Park Service intended to dial cultural intrusions on the natural world. Deploying wilderness on the ground was complicated by such attempts to replicate an elusive historical standard and the necessity of ongoing interventions to address natural and manmade changes that continued to remake the spaces in different ways. The full definition of wilderness remained to be fleshed out, and the U.S. Park Service and other federal land managers attempted to do just that in making interventions on the land. In the 1950s and 60s, the Canadian and U.S. Park Services were finally beginning to explore what park zoning, including wilderness, would look like on the ground. As infrastructure development spread and began to have a visible impact, each organization grappled with how best to define wilderness and realize it. The key was long-term planning that would clearly demarcate with physical lines the boundaries of the long- contested philosophical argument between use and preservation in each Service. Within this, Canada, and later Mexico, would pursue an administrative approach that relied on their Park Services to make proper determinations of what activities each park parcel
111 would permit. In the United States, outside groups, like the Wilderness Society, pushed the National Park Service toward a legislatively-codified model that, if successful, would provide a more intransigent set of protections for wilderness. Rather than being able to simply shift lines as a matter of managerial discretion, wilderness boundaries would have the force of law, only changeable with another legislative decree. The next chapter, “Constructing Wilderness,” tracks this diverging story of wilderness from the 1950s to the present.
112 Chapter 3 - Constructing Wilderness: Differentiating Parcels in Protected Spaces
“THE FALL LINE”: FORMALIZING WILDERNESS IN THE PARKS
The fall line marked the frontier of the seventeenth century; the Alleghenies that of the eighteenth; the Mississippi that of the first quarter of the nineteenth; the Missouri that of the middle of this century (omitting the California movement); and the belt of the Rocky Mountains and the arid tract, the present frontier.237 In a scaled down parallel to the exploration of the American West, national parks were also explored and developed. As spaces set aside and specifically meant to exemplify the frontier, these incursions led to a similar style of frontier anxiety. Like Frederick Jackson Turner’s lament that after the 1890 Census no fall line could be drawn to separate the settled from the frontier, as the twentieth century progressed, various developments in parks made it more difficult to differentiate between human uses and nature. As it became more muddled, park managers instituted wilderness zoning as an attempt to clarify that line. Resolving a second frontier anxiety over lost nature in parks seventy years after Turner proved doubly difficult not only in setting boundaries, but in figuring out how to manage the spaces within the newly drawn lines. Development, in Turner's description of the frontier, "begins with the Indian and the hunter; it goes on with the disintegration of savagery by the entrance of the trader ... the pastoral stage in ranch life; the exploitation of the soil by the raising of unrotated crops of corn and wheat in sparsely settled farm communities; the intensive culture of the denser farm settlement; and finally the manufacturing organization with the city and the
237 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1894); http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/turner/chapter1.html.
113 factory system."238 Areas later rebranded as national parks were not disconnected from the frontier exploration and exploitation that Turner described, but in the process of becoming parks, another wave of new migrants entered these spaces. While Turner recounted romanticized tales of explorers, traders, farmers, and other business magnates populating the West in successive waves, national parks had their own panoply of migrants: from sportsmen, railroad tycoons, and hotel concessioners to the park managers as well as the very same homesteaders settling areas that only later would become the province of nature. Their titles may not be as iconic as those employed by Turner, but their impacts to the land were just as profound. Indeed, their role in shaping a set of common traits and ideals relating to preserving land may prove less fleeting than the common American identity Turner hoped to locate in the experience of “westering.” In parks, these “pioneers” made development and wilderness real on the land, and wilderness was not simply the mirrored reflection of development. Wilderness was just as carefully constructed. These earlier migrants gave way to successive waves of recreational hikers and families that camped within the spaces. Based upon their use, government bureaucrats drew up plans for more trails, roadways, and facilities thus contributing to the expansive development and, as a result, the same type of tension that Turner famously associated with the American frontier, albeit writ small in the individual spaces that comprised national parks. During the 1960s and 1970s in the United States and Canada and in the early 2000s in Mexico, these concerns evolved into more formal efforts to codify wilderness protections via zoning and, in the United States, legislative prescriptions like the 1964 Wilderness Act. Most histories, in examining the impact of the Wilderness Act, focus on the struggle to get the legislation passed through the U.S. Congress or where wilderness
238 Ibid.
114 has been successfully invoked.239 Taking a different tack, this chapter reviews two cases where wilderness was proposed, but never instituted.240 Big Bend and Glacier fit in the category of de facto wilderness where the Park Service attempts to manage proposed areas as wilderness without the explicit consent of Congress. This last phase has also marked a divergence in wilderness between Canada, Mexico, and the United States where a more hands-off policy of wilderness management has intersected with human and naturally induced changes that pose threats to the stability of the ecosystems so identified. Finally, after 2000, Canada and Mexico also embarked on a more formalized status for wilderness, but, importantly, the methods of managing their protected spaces were markedly different. While the U.S. Wilderness Act limited management prerogatives, Canadian and Mexican approaches gave much more latitude to park officials and private managers. It remains to be seen just how much change will be allowed and facilitated within the spaces deemed so crucial to the identity of national parks. In June 1956, Senator Hubert Humphrey rose on the floor of the U.S. Senate to make a case for additional safeguards to protect the nation’s natural wonders. Humphrey pointed out “there are no laws of Congress that protect these areas of wilderness as wilderness. Even in the national parks and monuments the pressures for roads and non- wilderness recreational and tourist developments threaten in many places to destroy the
239 Three monographs encapsulate this historical arc of the idea of wilderness finding expression in the law: Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967); Mark Harvey, Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005); and John C. Miles, Wilderness in National Parks: Playground or Preserve (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009). 240 “In part because of the opposition of local congressional members and a changing national political climate, several large parks containing huge tracts of de facto wilderness never gained the added protection of the Wilderness Act, among them Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Big Bend, in addition to Great Smoky Mountains.” In this one sentence, historian Richard Sellars only briefly summarized the reason for Congressional failures to establish wilderness, but failed to elaborate on what underlay these cases of inaction and the resulting implications for the de facto wilderness zones. Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 212.
115 primeval back-country wilderness.”241 Howard Zahniser, President of the Wilderness Society and the legislation’s author and chief proponent, worked diligently through eight years of Congressional sessions to achieve a more stringent level of protection for these spaces within the nation’s parks and forests.242 Canadian Parks Service officials closely followed the progress of this legislation. Throughout this period, a series of newsletters from the Wilderness Society and other U.S. conservation publications can be found in the Canadian Parks Service files in the Canadian National Archives in Ottawa. One of these, from the fourth quarter 1955 edition of National Parks Magazine, includes Howard Zahniser’s original case for wilderness:
In addition to our needs for urban and suburban parks and open spaces; in addition to the need for a countryside of rural loveliness, a landscape of beauty for our living, and in addition to the needs for parks and parkways and well- developed areas for all kinds of outdoor recreation, there is a need also to secure the preservation of some areas to be left unmanaged – areas undeveloped by man’s mechanical tools and civilization. These are the areas of wilderness that still live on in our national parks, national forests, state parks and forests, and in other categories of land. These areas are in jeopardy not only from exploitation for commodity purposes and from appropriation for engineering uses, but also from development for recreation, even from efforts to protect and manage them as wilderness [emphasis added].243
Zahniser concluded his case with the ironic zinger that these areas were threatened by, presumably misguided, efforts to manage them as wilderness. He argued that human management as well as recreational interventions was overdone even in areas recognized
241 6/14/1956 Senator Hubert Humphrey Address on the Senate floor concerning S. 4013 (National Wilderness Preservation System), Box 1947 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 242 Although the Wilderness Act was first introduced in 1956, it did not pass through both houses of Congress until 1964. For a complete history of the legislation, consult Mark Harvey’s monograph: Mark Harvey, Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). 243 “The Need for Wilderness Areas” by Howard Zahniser. National Parks Magazine (October-December 1955), Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA.
116 as primitive. Perhaps Zahniser had in mind efforts to “rewild” Big Bend at the time. In hindsight, these attempts to prevent and contain soil erosion had a whole set of unintended consequences, such as the planting of tamarisk, which is now viewed as a tenacious invasive species, to borrow from current language that differentiates between what is natural and unnatural in protected spaces. In this period, Canadians also flirted with formally codifying wilderness protections. In January 1956, writing to the Chief of the Canadian National Parks Service, D.J. Learmonth advocated for the establishment of formal wilderness.244 Interestingly, the memo referred to the minimum size of such areas as 100,000 acres, which was directly in line with similar proposals by the Wilderness Society in the United States.245 Canadian conceptions of wilderness were surely shaped by U.S. efforts to help the concept gain traction. Another memo from the mid-1950s attempted to flesh out how this concept would look on the ground in more specific detail. To illustrate, it included a map of a hypothetical wilderness area within Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. An area of 130,000 acres (approximately 13.5% of the Park) was outlined as wilderness and within that a smaller area of 6,000 acres was labeled as primeval.246 Unlike the single wilderness zone proposed in the United States, the Canadian proposal anticipated two
244 “To ensure success of such a policy when the time comes to actually reserve these areas, it would be necessary to use very exactly defined terminology in describing the nature of a wilderness area, its purpose, the limitations on developmental works and the type of protection and other activities provided for as it is possible that in time the term Wilderness Area may come to mean something quite different from our present concepts.” 1/9/1956 Memo for J.R.B. Coleman, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA. 245 1/9/1956 Memo for J.R.B. Coleman, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA. 246 “The small area would be maintained in its true primeval state with all evidence of modern man excluded except for such traces incidental to foot travel and primitive camping. This would be the true primeval area for scientific study and for those visitors wishing to travel or camp in areas lacking any facilities. A very primitive path…would provide access to the boundary of this area.” Accordingly, the surrounding environs “would be the normal wilderness area with no permanent human residents, no roads, no commercial developments and only sufficient trails of pack horse standard to fulfill forest protection and administrative requirements.” [undated 1955?] “Wilderness Areas – National Parks of Canada,” Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA.
117 zones where this primeval zone would be the protected kernel, of sorts, located within a much larger buffer. To aide the impression of impenetrability, only a sketchy pathway led to the outer bounds, and no further. Importantly, the memo established that these wilderness areas would be no more than 20% of the total area of any one Park. Eighty percent of the park would be called something else. The only exception to this rule rested in parks that were not large enough to contain a wilderness zone of sufficient area “to allow a person to spend a week travelling about without back tracking.” Accordingly, the diminutive Waterton Lakes had 5,600 acres suggested for the “primeval” designation with the balance of 20,000 acres as a wilderness area “buffer zone.” Smaller parks needed a higher level of overall protection via expansive primeval/wilderness zoning so that the impacts of development within or outside the space could be mitigated. In the United States, the National Park Service had substantial concerns with the Wilderness Bill.247 Director Conrad Wirth wrote to Zahniser to express the agency’s ambivalence.248 He believed that the existing Park Service protections far outpaced anything put in place by other federal agencies. After all, most of the national parks, Big Bend a notable exception, had been created out of the supposed whole natural cloth of existing national forests or other federal lands. Vast areas within the national parks remained undeveloped, and the Secretary of the Interior, referring to the draft wilderness legislation, claimed “under the standards established by the act, at least 98 percent of
247 John C. Miles, Wilderness in National Parks: Playground or Preserve (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009),142. 248 “It is our view that nothing would be gained from placing such areas in the National Wilderness Preservation System as provided in the bill. On the contrary, we feel that by lumping national park and monument areas with other types of areas such as national forest areas, national wildlife refuges, and Indian Reservation areas, it is probable that the degree of preservation afforded the park and monument areas could be diminished.” 3/19/1956 Letter to Howard Zahniser from Director Wirth, Box 1947 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
118 park lands will qualify as wilderness” [emphasis added].249 Even if such broad areas might qualify as wilderness, very few Park Service proposals ever approached this percentage, and, as it turned out, proposals would face significant opposition from the local communities that had often worked the hardest to secure the parks in the first place and derived most of the economic benefits from their establishment. The principles of the 1964 Wilderness Act were certainly derivative of the earlier efforts to protect wilderness within the national parks and forest reserves. In fact, the language codifying the purpose of such reserves modifies the 1916 Park Service Organic Act by stating that “these [protected spaces] shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use as wilderness” [emphasis added].250 In defining wilderness, humans and their uses are clearly marked as only temporary intrusions on these spaces.251 Most definitions of wilderness focused on what it was not – an absence of roads, cabins or other structures, people, and in some cases even explicit trails. The only proactively defined aspect of wild lands centered on its size, and the ability of humans to travel on camp trips for days on
249 3/20/1961 Letter to Director, National Park Service from Secretary of the Interior, Box 16 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA (Ft. Worth, TX). 250 16 U.S.C. 1131. Reprinted in Lary M. Dilsaver, ed., “An Act to Establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the Permanent Good of the Whole People, and for Other Purposes,” America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents. (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 1994), 277. 251 “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” The definition continues: “An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this chapter an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.” 16 U.S.C. 1131. Reprinted in Lary M. Dilsaver, ed., “An Act to Establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the Permanent Good of the Whole People, and for Other Purposes,” America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents. (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 1994), 277.
119 end. It was much easier, even in the legislative act that mandated and regulated wilderness areas, to frame the concept in opposition. The Act prescribed a fixed set of recreational and scientific uses deemed to not adversely impact the area. Moreover, the prohibitions ensured that modern intrusions were limited solely to emergency situations or management imperatives.252 Although the Act identified wilderness as areas where man is a visitor who does not remain, Zahniser pointedly included previously debilitated spaces, such as former mining or homestead sites, as having the potential for wilderness designation upon their rehabilitation. He recognized the dearth of “uncorrupted” spaces, even within the public domain, but, given his earlier expression of concern for the harm that was visited upon parks by some wilderness management efforts, it is unclear what form this rehabilitation might take. Unfortunately, historian John Miles largely confines his depiction of national park wilderness primarily to a discussion of development projects (Mission 66, for example) rather than considering the myriad types of interventions in wilderness areas that Park Service officials contemplated and executed.253 Even with the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, the Park Service remained ambivalent, believing that it was redundant and duplicative of its efforts and existing standards of preservation. As officials in each park prepared plans for wilderness designations, outside groups often prodded the Park Service to increase or decrease,
252 “There shall be no commercial enterprise and no permanent road within any wilderness area designated by this Act and, except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act (including measures required in emergencies involving the health and safety of persons within the area), there shall be no temporary road, no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area.” 16 U.S.C. 1131. Reprinted in Lary M. Dilsaver, ed., “An Act to Establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the Permanent Good of the Whole People, and for Other Purposes,” America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents. (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 1994), 277. 253Miles, 132.
120 depending on their orientation, the percentage of land to be set aside. In compliance with the Act, wilderness areas were proposed for Glacier and Big Bend, but never realized. Even such a hard-fought legislative success as the Wilderness Act produced a number of notable failures in deployment. For national parks from Yellowstone, the nation’s first, to Big Bend and Glacier, the U.S. Congress never instituted formal wilderness areas. Although studies identified lands as potential wilderness in each of these parks, they exist in a sort of legal limbo where the Park Service is tasked with protecting them as wilderness until Congress takes action. For these parks, that day has yet to come. The balance of this chapter reviews the failed attempts to institute wilderness in Glacier and Big Bend in comparison with successful, but uniquely different approaches in Waterton Lakes and the Maderas del Carmen.
MAKING GLACIER WILD
Glacier’s Wilderness Proposal had to deal with the long history of human use that preceded the park as well as the very language of the park’s establishment Act. The Glacier Park Act provided unfettered access for water projects, and the park is home to some of the first reservoirs built by the fledgling Bureau of Reclamation. Notably, the Sherburne Dam, completed in 1919, impounded the waters of Swiftcurrent Creek into a 145,202 acre-feet reservoir.254 The Superintendent initially believed that the reclamation provision included in the park’s enabling legislation had to be modified in light of existing reservoirs on the east side and the potential for new projects along the Flathead
254 U.S. Reclamation Service St. Mary Storage Unit Milk River Project Sherburne Lakes Reservoir Dam Feature History (1914), BOR Library (Billings, MT).
121 River west of the divide.255 Given the broad, unrestricted nature of the reclamation language, any proposed wilderness areas might be impacted by this provision and would be susceptible to the development of uses incompatible with such a designation. In addition, the Park Service was at least temporarily concerned the Blackfeet Tribe might successfully invoke use rights negotiated long before the area was set aside as a national park.256 Parklands on the eastern side of the Divide were originally purchased by the federal government from the tribe, but there was an ongoing dispute between tribal members and the Park Service about what, if any, enumerated rights remained after the incorporation of the space into the park. Ultimately, each of these dilemmas was dismissed by a careful drawing of wilderness boundaries and finding ways to side step the rights of the Blackfeet.257 A 1971 Preliminary Wilderness Study divided the park among three proposed wilderness units that together comprised almost 90% of the park. The clever drawing of lines and use of management zones provided the buffer necessary for activities, structures, and roads that could not be encompassed within wilderness.258 Inholdings
255 2/10/1971 Memo to Midwest Region Director from Superintendent, Glacier NP, Box 221, GNP Archives. 256 In an early draft of the Wilderness Study, in the section “Adverse Effects that Cannot be Avoided,” the word “Delete” was hand written in the margins for the following language: “Should the Blackfeet Tribe choose to exercise its right to cut wood and timber, the entire area in Glacier National Park east of the Continental Divide could not be included in wilderness.” [undated] Early Draft of Wilderness Study Report, Box 221, GNP Archives. 257 For a complete discussion of Blackfeet experiences in Glacier as a national park, see the following monographs: Chapter 6 in Mark D. Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) and chapter 3 in Philip Burnham, Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and the National Parks (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000). 258 In the northern unit, “on Lake McDonald, Lake Sherburne, and Waterton Lake a management zone of 1/8 mile back from the lake shores is recommended to permit management actions…In the case of Lake Sherburne, to buffer from present and future water impoundment activity…Along the north and east boundary, adjacent to the international boundary and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, a management zone 1/8 mile in width has been provided…The international Boundary between the United States and Canada has historically been marked by a narrow strip through the forest cover. This has recently been accomplished by use of herbicides. This international Boundary management activity will be accomplished
122 were also excluded from proposed wilderness unless acquisition by the United States was already in process, but a number of residents had definite opinions on the advisability of a wilderness designation. John Rice, one of the inholders, scolded the Park for assuming superior judgment in crafting the wilderness proposals, remarking “some of us feel that a review of the travel habits and the nature interest of our traveling public may change frequently within the 25-year-freeze under the Wilderness Act. Certainly this has been the case in Glacier National Park during the 40 years of my knowledge of the Park.”259 Most inholders and even those interested parties adjacent to the park were not prepared to defer to the Park Service as the best stewards of Glacier. The Wilderness Act implementation process provided for public input, and hearings were conducted in Great Falls and Kalispell, Montana. Individual testimony ran the gamut and offered a unique counterpoint to Park Service designs to apply another overlay on the park. One of the inholders used the anticipated establishment of wilderness in the park as a marketing ploy to sell property. “Glacier National Park for Sale,” the ad began. “Here is a once in a lifetime opportunity! It is very possible that this will be the LAST time land within the boundaries of a National Park will be available for private ownership … The 68.13 acres available for sale are just a stone’s throw from the ‘top of the nation’ – the Continental Divide of the United States!”260 This tract fronting Cracker Lake on the eastern side of the park, underscored the impending loss of private prerogatives with deployment of the Wilderness Act. Charles Green, an inholder and real estate agent listing the Cracker Lake property, portrayed the very notion as elitist at its
in the management zone, outside the proposed wilderness unit.” 9/1971 Preliminary Wilderness Study Report, Box 221, GNP Archives. 259 10/15/1973 Letter to Superintendent from John Rice, Box 35 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), Volume 4. NARA (College Park, MD). 260 Real Estate Advertisement, “68.13 acres in Beautiful Glacier National Park For Sale,” The Wilderness Society, CONS130 Series 4 Box 41 Folder 18 Denver Public Library.
123 core. “The whole concept of Wilderness Areas is wrong in a democracy, when 2% of wealthy people can put millions of acres of public land into such classification for their enjoyment. The day will soon arrive when this large majority will demand and get more and better roads into these areas so they too can see and enjoy them.”261 Yet, not even all inholders held this view.262 Members of the Blackfeet Nation also testified at the hearing in Great Falls. In his testimony, Peter Red Horn made clear the ties that bound him and other members of the tribe with the space. “We were mighty proud of it. We are still proud of it. This is our home,” intoned Red Horn, a full-blooded Blackfeet Indian. “This is something that we share with our friends, the great State of Montana, that’s all the citizens and the people that we have invited now, and I understand now number into the millions.”263 He reaffirmed the tribe’s rights to the park’s timber, but indicated “we don’t want to go into the reservation as this language tells us and knock the trees down in front of Mr. Briggle’s [the Park Superintendent’s] house.” Red Horn did not approve of a wilderness plan that did not acknowledge and give proper consideration to the tribe. Phillip Roy, the Blackfeet Tribal Attorney, feared tribal property rights could be endangered by the
261 5/29/1974 Letter to Superintendent, GNP from Charles Green (Realtor in Coram, MT), National Park Service, Glacier National Park Records 1910-84, GLAC 16346, GLAC-882, Box 221, Folder 221-6 (Lands, Water and Recreation Planning). 262 Testimony of Pam Ranney: “My husband and I are negotiating to sell our land [Apgar area] which was given to him by his mother a number of years ago, and as landowners right now, we would petition all other landowners in that area to sell their land to the Park. They seem to be offering a reasonable price, and I think any price is worth it for the wilderness. And there should be a provision, until this land can be acquired, and it will take a while because there are a lot of people who don’t want to sell it, but it should be arranged so that when it is acquired it will pass, you know – Well, it’s all right if it has a little cabin on it and stuff, but at least protect it so that is couldn’t be turned into some commercial venture, and the road out there is pretty crummy, and it’s mostly a stream and a spring and you know, it would be easy to turn back into a wilderness.” Transcripts of Public Hearings in Kalispell and Great Falls, 10/18/1973 (Kalispell Hearing Testimony), National Park Service, Glacier National Park Records 1910-84, GLAC 16346, GLAC-882, Box 221, Folder 222-1 (Lands, Water and Recreation Planning). 26310/15/1973 Transcript of Public Hearing in Great Falls, Montana Wilderness Recommendation for Glacier National Park, Box 222, GNP Archives.
124 wilderness plan. The Blackfeet were considering constructing a hydroelectric dam on the St. Mary River, which would raise the water level of Upper St. Mary’s Lake by one foot, and other recreational tourism projects that might actually benefit from more wilderness restrictions. Don Hummel, the President of Glacier Park, Inc., had purchased the majority of the Great Northern hotel properties in December 1960 and framed the debate as it related to the intersection between recreation and economics: “Of the total visitation of the Park, one per cent of the back country is proposed to be set 917,000 acres of land for this one per cent, and we are going to reserve 96,000 acres of land for the other 99 per cent.”264 Hummel countered “we are going to need more space, not less space, to serve our people’s outdoor recreational needs.” He pointed to the Park Service’s competence as evidence that the park’s wilderness needed no protection. In the view of those testifying, including Hummel, local managers were best able to set and maintain the proper balance between use and preservation. Presumably, local administrators, albeit part of a national organization, were more responsive to pressures to meet local needs. On the other hand, Clifton Meritt, of the Wilderness Society, called for modifications that would reserve an even greater percentage of the park (1,013,000 acres) as wilderness. In line with the Wilderness Society’s approach, Edward Abbey, the monkeywrencher himself, wrote to the Superintendent in support of a more expansive wilderness proposition: “All of the park except essential service areas already in place should be given the protection of permanent, official wilderness status. All of it. What else are the national parks for?”265 In the conclusion, the Public Hearings Index of
264 See chapter 4, “The Business of Parks,” for more information on the role of private enterprise, including the Great Northern Railroad’s development of tourist infrastructure within Glacier National Park. Ibid. 265 “When we want commercial-type recreation we’ll go to Disneyland. As for transportation into and within the park, this should be limited to non-motorized forms of travel, such as the human foot, the horse,
125 Responses included a tabulated breakdown of opinions based on letters received and hearing testimony entered into the record: 87 were in favor of the NPS Proposal, 319 supported more wilderness, 21 wanted wilderness without a specific recommendation, only 4 called for less wilderness, and 76 desired no wilderness at all.266 By this scorecard, those in favor of taking action on wilderness seemed to be in the majority. Nimbyism is usually associated with wanting to exclude certain types of projects from one’s own neighborhood – for example, garbage dumps, power substations, or commercial manufacturing locations.267 Yet, national parks produced their own peculiar brand of implied ownership. For local communities, a tied history and previous uses inspired a critique of decisions to exclude development from these spaces. Residents of parks or towns along the periphery often maintained a proxy sense of possession and ownership for the national parks in their literal backyards. Conversely, environmental groups usually based much further afield also adopted each of these spaces and worked to assure their preservation at all costs. These groups feared accommodation or compromise at any of the spaces represented an avenue for intrusive, extractive, or simply improper activities to prevail in all parks. How is this sense of personal and community entitlement developed? The ways locals interacted with parks became engrained and part of a tradition and, therefore, exceedingly difficult to change. In this way, even practices that were of dubious value to the Park Service’s mission of protecting the natural environment have clung to permanence as instrumental to the very way the space is experienced. Any proposals that attempted to dislodge these practices, including the creation of a the bicycle, the canoe, rowboat, and sailboat…For those tourists who are too old, infirm or obese to walk, the Park Service should provide free, efficient, electrically-powered (if possible) shuttle-bus service to principal points of interest in the park.” 11/6/1973 Letter to John Davis and William Briggle from Edward Abbey, Box 34 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), Volume 1, NARA (College Park, MD). 266 11/28/1973 Memo to Midwest Region Director from Superintendent, Glacier NP, Box 221, GNP Archives. 267 Nimby stands for “Not in my backyard.”
126 wilderness overlay, had to overcome this inertia, and the benefits to park and its environs had to overcome the objections of the park’s constituents, whether fiery locals or equally impassioned groups that could only claim the park as part of their metaphorical backyard. Based on study and input from public hearings in Great Falls and Kalispell, the Park Service prepared a final set of Wilderness Recommendations in 1974. Modifications included a variety of adjustments such as reducing enclaves around backcountry chalets, and adding 2,760 acres to the wilderness based on the acquisition of private holdings. Along the International Boundary, a non-wilderness management zone, fifty feet in width, was set aside. The total wilderness recommendation included 917,600 acres, or approximately 90% of the park.268 According to the 1977 Park Master Plan, a final wilderness proposal with a slightly higher acreage (927,550 acres) was submitted to Congress in June 1974 and subsequently shelved in committee. Although the enumerated responses reflected from the hearings favored action, the rationale and political imprimatur of the opposition carried the day.269 Even without Congressional action on the proposal, for practical purposes, certain types of wilderness uses became rationed for the first time with the institution of the first backcountry management plan in 1973. Overnight use of the backcountry was regulated through the issuance of mandatory Backcountry Use Permits. These permits limited the number of people and horses and further controlled backcountry use through a system of designated campsites. In a clear bid to “repristine” the spaces previously used by backcountry users, the Park Service removed an estimated fifty year’s worth of camping debris.270 In 1984, the Park Service updated the Wilderness Recommendation again,
268[undated 1974] Wilderness Recommendation for Glacier National Park, Box 221, GNP Archives. 269 5/1977 Final Master Plan for Glacier NP, Box 104, GNP Archives. 270 Going forward, according to the Resource Management Plan, “a continued maintenance program, plus the continued use of the pack-in, pack-out procedures by all backcountry users, should be effective in
127 further increasing the proposed wilderness to 963,155 acres based on land ownership changes and reducing setbacks from road corridors.271 According to the Park Superintendent, between 1974 and 1984, the proposal was reintroduced in Congress, but never made it to a final vote. Nevertheless, the Park Service continued to manage all proposed wilderness areas as if formally designated by Congress.272 In 1988, the Park Service launched a major re-vegetation program by collecting native seeds and cuttings from habitats throughout the park. The Superintendents’ Annual Report from that year noted “rehabilitation projects were completed at twenty-five backcountry sites, seven frontcountry sites, and a complex project was initiated at Sperry Chalet.”273 Although wilderness was never formally instituted, Glacier actively managed and attempted to rehabilitate spaces sullied by a variety of human uses, including ongoing impacts in areas unofficially branded as wilderness. By 1993, Glacier’s Native Plant Nursery provided seed and propagated plant materials for revegetation efforts park-wide, and plant propagation “included production of 7,000 containerized plants from 34 different species … An additional 7,500 plants were grown from seed (22 different species).”274 Given the close proximity and a comparable inventory of plant species, the nursery also provided seed stock across the border for rehabilitation projects in Waterton Lakes. While tourism conformed to the Wilderness Act’s definition of a place where man
preserving the pristine qualities of the backcountry.” 3/1980 Resource Management Plan for Glacier National Park, Box 257, GNP Archives. 271 The Goathaunt exclusion was reduced to 10 acres, and along the International Boundary, the 50-foot nonwilderness management zone persisted. 9/1984 Wilderness Recommendation for Glacier National Park, Box 221, GNP Archives. 272 12/30/1988 Letter to Steven Whitney from Superintendent, Glacier. Central Files, Box 12, GNP Archives. 273 In addition, “Herbicide treatment continued a second year at experimental plots. They are helpful in determining the effect of various chemicals on non-target species.” 1988 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives. 274 1993 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives.
128 is a visitor who does not remain, the Park Service’s ongoing management and rehabilitation regime surely kept human presence and projects, right or wrong, as a constant. Wilderness, designated or undesignated, still required active interventions to smooth or erase the visible evidence left by even temporary human uses, such as hiking and camping. Further south along another international border, another park also struggled with the limits of rehabilitating wilderness. While engaging in replanting roadsides and areas disrupted by large development projects in Glacier, the Big Bend showed the Park Service attempting to actively rewild swaths of the park on an even larger scale.
MAKING BIG BEND WILD
As shown in chapter 2, “Finding Wilderness,” in Glacier, for the U.S. Park Service, the designation of scientific or research reserves represented one of the earliest and strictest forms of wilderness protection.275 These areas were deemed the most sensitive to human induced change and also served as benchmarks to gauge the health of other sections of the park.276 The timing of Big Bend’s establishment provided an immediate opportunity to implement a reserve in the new space, but unlike the concerns of Wildlife officials in Glacier, the staff at Big Bend simply overlooked the human impacts that made the idea of a pristine reserve a bit suspect. The year before the final
275 Historian John Miles argued that little came of the scientific or research reserve program first initiated by the Park Service Wildlife Office in the early 1930s. While this contention is supported by the mere naming of spaces in Glacier, in Big Bend, albeit much later in 1963, shows the implementation of a research reserve accompanied, oddly, by the redevelopment of water resources that had decidedly unnatural origins – Nail’s wind-powered well. Miles, 100-2. 276 4/15/1963 Memo to All Field Offices from Director, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
129 passage of the Wilderness Act, the Big Bend Superintendent sought to set aside Pine and Juniper Canyons as scientific reserves, writing to the Director that “the unusual associations of rare plants and animals are found relatively undisturbed in the above- named canyons, and should be afforded maximum protection for research purposes.”277 Although the Chisos Basin had been minimally developed by a Civilian Conservation Corps work project, side canyons like Pine and Juniper still retained the primordial qualities that had enthralled the Park Service with the space from the beginning. Yet, Julia Moss, daughter of Big Bend rancher Sam Nail, related a different tale of Pine Canyon’s history. Nail came out to Big Bend in 1909 and married Nena Burnham whose family ranched along Green Gulch.278 Although for most of his tenure he ran approximately four hundred Hereford cattle on a ranch near Cottonwood Creek, Nail’s first residence in the area was a log cabin he built in Pine Canyon along the eastern slope of the Chisos Mountains. Ultimately, he relocated to the west side of the mountains because it was too difficult to get in and out of the Pine Canyon area, but his presence suggests that the canyon was far from untouched by recent human activity, and his homestead made an unexpected, but lasting contribution to the ecosystem. Certainly wilderness focused on the landscape features of places like Pine Canyon, but, for a concept so fixed and tied to specific geographies within parks, it was also inextricably linked to the variety of flows that penetrated and escaped its narrow bounds. This mobility of resources – predominantly fauna – ultimately defined wilderness just as much as the sometimes common ground where these elements
277 “The forest of these canyons is a mere relict of the extensive forests that covered this region during cooler moister periods of the past…To date, the research here has been mostly in the realm of ‘nature observations.’ A great amount of pure research is needed before we can even begin to guess at the true significance of this unique area.” 5/27/1963 Memo to Director from Superintendent, Big Bend, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 278 5/1/1985 Julia Moss Interview, Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives.
130 interacted. These persistent natural flows demonstrated the shortcomings of a geographically bounded definition of wilderness and challenged Park Service officials to make difficult exceptions to management standards that enabled the proliferation of wildlife – key visible markers of wilderness in their own right. The presence of a reliable water supply was key to the ability of these preserves to support natural diversity. In 1964, Gene Williamson, a member of the park staff, spent over one hundred hours locating and cataloging various springs. The objective of the so- called “Spring Well Rehabilitation Program” was to find and, if necessary, uncover springs at different points throughout the park to provide water for wildlife. These springs were deemed so critical that Williamson went as far as constructing protective detention dams around springs near wet weather creeks to ensure sporadic rains did not damage them.279 Local park management made this initial study into an annual effort in order to secure a continuous and reliable water supply. With such a scarce commodity in the desert as water, Park Service officials saw the benefit of engaging in ongoing efforts to maintain the supply even if it necessitated putting man-made structures in place to capture and protect it. These efforts reached even into the wilderness of Pine Canyon where the Park Service struggled with exactly how far to go in providing water resources. In July 1964, two months before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law, the Chisos District Ranger informed the park superintendent that the canyon contained an old rancher’s livestock well. Although this clearly was an aberration, especially in an area considered for scientific reserve status, park officials opted to develop the well. “A culvert was placed in the old well channel to permanitize it and a windmill frame with motor has been placed over the well. Work is still going on to get
279 1/15/1964 Spring Well Rehabilitation Program by Gene Williamson, Box 1965 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
131 this windmill in operation,” reported the ranger. Indeed, he further noted that wildlife was already making good use of the resulting “springs.”280 However, the Park Service Regional Director questioned the wisdom of this approach: “It is our opinion that reactivation or even maintaining any mechanical watering devices should be avoided. Windmill water production creates an artificial situation and presents a continuing maintenance problem – not to mention the incongruity of the windmill in a wilderness.”281 In all likelihood, the refurbished well site had belonged to none other than Sam Nail.282 It is unclear from the record how long the windmill at Pine Canyon was kept in place, but, if it is any indication, a windmill still runs today at the homestead just west of the Chisos Mountains where Nail moved to from Pine Canyon. Although Nail’s house was bulldozed by the Park Service, the windmill continues to pump water for wildlife and the remnants of the tree orchard that provided Julia Moss’ family with the rare treat of fresh fruit in the Chihuahuan Desert. Attempts to draw lines over the land that denoted wilderness proved difficult not only because of the incongruities presented by leftover man-made structures, but also due to the park’s location on the international boundary with Mexico. The Superintendent of Big Bend, providing feedback on the draft Park Wilderness Plan, eliminated a proposed wilderness area across the river from a new Mexican agricultural cooperative or ejido, in anticipation of the development of a future Class B border crossing for residents to gain
280 “Pine Canyon of the Chisos Mountains which is a perfect haven for many of the wild animals, contains a well which was used prior to establishment of the Park for watering livestock. Because this canyon is such a good site for wildlife it was decided to develop this well for water.” 7/10/1964 Memo to Superintendent, Big Bend from Chisos District Ranger, Box 13 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX). 281 8/24/1965 Memo to Superintendent, Big Bend from Acting Regional Director, Box 13 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX). 282 After Sam Nail, Pine Canyon was occupied by Lloyd Wade and, according to the Park’s Administrative History, had not been pastured for five years (prior to 1937). Perhaps Wade owned the same parcel after Nail moved the western slope of the Chisos. Michael Welsh, Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park (National Park Service Administrative History, 2003), 289.
132 access to resupply via park roads. The lack of usable roads in northern Coahuila and Chihuahua meant that Mexican settlements often relied exclusively on park roads for access to supplies and markets for the goods they produced. He also redrew wilderness boundary lines back from the center point of the Rio Grande as it fell under the jurisdiction of the International Boundary and Water Commission.283 A 1971 preliminary Wilderness Study included thirteen units with 523,800 acres or approximately 74% of the park’s total area. The wilderness zones extended to within 1/8 mile of the park boundaries, including the river except for the canyons where the line went right up to the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande. The study addressed the presence of problematic old stock tanks assuring “natural elements are obliterating these tanks and most are either partially silted or have eroded away. Wildlife has become dependent upon those that still hold water. These will be retained and allowed to deteriorate slowly, permitting wildlife to shift gradually to natural water sources.”284 This transition to natural water sources presumably meant less availability of water with unstated, but obvious implications for wildlife. Moreover, although natural processes would eventually eliminate these old structures, it is unclear if contemporary efforts to clear springs and construct culverts persisted. Sometimes attempts to rehabilitate the landscape were counterproductive. In Big Bend, it is easy to see, for the first time, how efforts to recreate wilderness presented challenges for its later recognition. As previously discussed, in Glacier, the Park Service employed a plant nursery to try to remedy natural disruptions along roadways which did not fall within wilderness areas, but in Big Bend there was evidence of attempts to turn
283 12/29/1970 Memo to Director, Western Service Center from Superintendent, Big Bend, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 284 8/1971 Wilderness Study BBNP, Box 23 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), Volume 1, NARA (College Park, MD).
133 used spaces back to terra incognita. Perhaps the scale of intervention was only possible because of the narrative of environmental degradation placed on the ranchers at the time of the park’s founding as discussed in chapter 2, “Finding Wilderness.” Yet, local staff struggled to reestablish grasslands for wilderness aesthetics as well as to provide much needed forage for wildlife. Park officials employed agricultural machinery and tools in an attempt to regenerate depleted grasslands near Tornillo Creek. While the plantings were effective, they failed to perfectly replicate the former grasslands. In fact, the use of farm implements produced an effect that, in hindsight, should not have been surprising. When Big Bend officials prepared a draft wilderness proposal for the park, they purposely excluded a section of Tornillo Flats because the symmetrical rows of plantings made the area appear artificial. Such an artificial appearance, even if made up of natural grasses, effectively disqualified the area for inclusion in the wilderness.285 The consistency of the plowed furrows, meant to reconstitute the grassland as it existed prior to the heyday of cattle and sheep ranching, actually worked against the incorporation of these spaces into the wilderness zone. The very act of planting when paired with environmental constraints produced an interim, if not end, result that betrayed the artificiality of these efforts. The visual symmetry of even natural grasslands precluded labeling them as wilderness at least for now. Perhaps over time, if the patchwork of grasses grew together, this area could again join the pantheon of wilderness. This decision certainly constrained the types of interventions the Park Service could make to mend human or natural impacts in areas so designated for fear that these actions would materially harm the appearance, if not the
285 For example, one of the proposed wilderness units near Tornillo Creek excluded an area with a “soil and moisture control project that has the unnatural appearance of symmetrical agricultural land.” 8/1971 Wilderness Study BBNP, Box 23 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), Volume 1, NARA (College Park, MD).
134 health, of the ecosystem. Appearance mattered, and the visual artificiality of attempts to reconstitute nature simply could not pass muster as wilderness. To solicit feedback on the draft plan, in August 1971, the Park Service conducted a Public Hearing in Alpine where a number of parties provided testimony. Carter Newsome, speaking on behalf of the American Quarter Horse Association, analogized the park’s problems with a reference to the ranching industry that had dominated before the establishment of the park. “If a rancher was overstocked at a certain well he wouldn’t shut the pasture gate to the next pasture, would he? Well, that’s what this plan is going to do,” admonished Newsome. He closed by imploring, “It’s a wilderness area now. Why go to the trouble to designate it so?”286 Those opposed to the designation viewed it as not only locking up the land in this category, but also as an indirect means to permanently lock out visitors from the space. Of the tabulated responses relating to the Big Bend Wilderness Proposal: 2,260 supported the NPS Proposal, 708 wanted more wilderness, 191 preferred less wilderness, 2,066 (including 525 school children) favored wilderness without a specific recommendation, and 65 sought the status quo or no wilderness.287 Again, as in the Glacier hearings, clear majorities favored taking action to promote wilderness, but local Alpine resident Johnny Newell argued that this presentation underrepresented the true numbers of those opposed to the wilderness proposal, claiming “you have given the same weight to letters written as a class assignment by school children in cities far removed and who have never seen this area as you have given to knowledgeable, reputable, responsible citizens.”288
286 [1972] Tabulated Responses from Individuals BBNP, Box 23 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), Volume 3, NARA (College Park, MD). 287 1/15/1972 Wilderness Proposal BBNP Public Hearing, Box 23 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), Volume 1, NARA (College Park, MD). 288 3/1/1974 Letter to Park Naturalist, Big Bend from W.J. Newell (Chairman, Big Bend National Park Development Committee), Box 8 (BIBE Administrative Files), BBNP Archives.
135 As in Glacier, one of the key arguments made by the groups and individuals opposing wilderness designation was that it was unwise to “lock up” the land and tie the hands of future generations. Groups like the Big Bend National Park Development Committee, originally formed in the 1930s to raise funds and lobby the National Park Service for the creation of the park insisted they had a responsibility to help the Park Service keep the area open and accessible to the people of Texas and beyond.289 Newell, the group’s Chairman, wrote to the Superintendent explaining, “We have opposed the designation of 79% of the park by Congress as wilderness area which, in effect, would be a frozen, non-reversible action. We do, however, approve your managing this area as a wilderness at the present time.” In retrospect, perhaps one of the most surprising arguments repeated again and again was the solemn respect for the management practices of the National Park Service.290 This strong faith in the ability of the Park Service was clearly rooted in the feeling that they were beholden to local interests and, at a minimum, open to considering reasonable prospects for development. As with Glacier National Park, Big Bend did not receive Congressional approval for its wilderness proposal. In both cases, the results of responses from the wilderness hearings favored action. Yet, the same types of local interests that opposed wilderness restrictions prevailed in each case. The park’s 1980 Master Plan included 533,900 acres classified as wilderness pending legislative action, but there was no forward momentum or real prospects for any since the proposal was sent to the U.S. Congress in November 1973.291 The Park Service considered these areas as de facto, if not de jure wilderness,
289 1/11/1977 Letter to Superintendent, Big Bend from W.J. Newell (Chairman, Big Bend National Park Development Committee), Box 7 (BIBE Administrative Files), BBNP Archives. 290 The West Texas Chamber offered testimony that “the National Park Service has done a commendable job in operating this park for over 25 years. We believe they can continue to do a good job as they work with the local groups of long interest in the Park.” 1/15/1972 Statement of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, Box 23 (Wilderness Public Hearing Records), NARA (College Park, MD). 291 1980 Master Plan for BBNP, Box 2 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
136 but faithfully protecting these resources as such was not always easy. In 1982, Big Bend’s Chief Ranger still described Pine Canyon as a microecosystem, “of all the prime resources of our multifaceted park, Pine Canyon ranks among the best.”292 The area’s remote location made it exceedingly difficult to monitor. In Pine Canyon, the Park Service would be confronted with the confluence of different policies: forty years of fire suppression (an even shorter period than in older parks), challenges in restricting access when visitor access had long been favored, and the constraints against human interventions in areas designated as wilderness. The Park Service attempted, often in vain, to materially restrict access in hopes of saving this important environment at the heart of the park. The Chisos Mountains were viewed as the ecological prize from the earliest reports on the proposed park where biologists were enraptured by the possibility of finally having a park that contained a fully intact ecosystem. Parts of the Chisos, such as Pine Canyon, received heightened protection for purposes of scientific study, but the fate of the Chisos was largely sealed by the very first development project in the yet to be established park. The work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in locating water sources in the Basin, constructing roads and even barracks provided the initial infrastructure for development. Moreover, the preservation patterns at Big Bend neatly conform to the trends at other national parks. In a repeating pattern, often the sites that held the first and
292 “The environmental protection clubs gave it special attention during the wilderness review of the early 70’s. The road was one of a very few in the park singled out for curtailed public access…In late 1979, I got a gate erected approximately 1¼ miles back from the terminus. It was promptly driven around by the 4x4 set.” He further acknowledged “the little canyon is a tinder box, from ground to crown…It is way overdue for an over-thorough burn-out,” he was pleased to be able to place a metal gate one and a quarter miles back from the road’s terminus at the canyon entrance. Yet, this attempt to block easy access was undone by visitors with four-wheel drive vehicles who could simply navigate past the minor obstacles around it. Expressing concern, he continued, “There were three illegal fire rings at the end of the road (right where you would apply the torch if you wanted to burn out Pine Canyon); no special fire-warning signs exist.” 4/5/1982 Memo to Superintendent from Chief Ranger, Box 14 (BIBE Administrative Files), BBNP Archives.
137 greatest appeal for tourism and science were also targets for development. In an effort to present what makes each place unique and provide for exploration of the same, these spots were susceptible to the types of development that were typically viewed as the antithesis of wilderness. Roads and infrastructure ensured that human impacts were concentrated in areas like the main valley in Yosemite, the geyser basins of Yellowstone, the glacier fields named for George Bird Grinnell in Glacier, and the high basin of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend. Once in place, even in an area as sensitive as Pine Canyon in Big Bend, this infrastructure was difficult, if not impossible, to remove. The Canadian Park Service went down a parallel path for wilderness, but ultimately adopted a wholly different model that used zoning, but retained more administrative control to make interventions within nature. They closely followed American efforts, but chose to pursue other options to sanctify and preserve areas as wilderness.
MAKING WATERTON WILD
Concerns about the impact of designating wilderness on Canadian tourism echoed those brought up in the United States. A 1956 Canadian Parks Service study considering wilderness areas in the Canadian National Parks concluded that “to set aside large sections of the major parks as wilderness areas would certainly ensure the complete preservation of these areas in their natural state, but would probably mean that they would be enjoyed by a relatively small number of visitors to the parks.”293 The question
293 3/14/1956 Memo for Director Hutchison from Deputy Minister R.G. Robertson, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA.
138 revolved around how best to incorporate wilderness without, as feared, effectively walling off sections of the parks. In 1960, the Canadian Parks Service drafted a set of recommendations for National Park Policy to flesh out the meaning of its original National Parks Act passed in 1930. This policy statement was formalized and presented to the House of Commons in September 1964, the same month the Wilderness Act was instituted in the United States. In fact, the document explicitly referenced a quotation from U.S. National Park Wilderness legislation: “To change the character of the park scene or to modify or impair the natural environment, destroys a part of its capacity to yield those benefits to the visitor.”294 The basic purpose of parks was defined as “to preserve, for all time, outstanding natural areas and features as a national heritage.” In support of this goal, the policy attempted to flesh out what structures and uses were permissible. For example, hiking trails were to be completely excluded from scientific or research areas. Moreover, in wilderness zones, trails should only be of a “rudimentary nature.” In marked contrast to the U.S. model, the Canadians viewed wilderness as more than a backdrop for a well- marked trail. To conform to a true wilderness experience, visitors should have to employ at least basic navigation skills to find and make their way. Although many Canadian parks, including Waterton Lakes, had offered leases for summer homes, over the long term, the report called for letting leases expire and acquiring any dwellings constructed thereupon. In addition, to fully protect parks, the Parks Service needed to use park zoning to guide development. Interestingly, the policy recommended that these wilderness areas “should not be unchangeable, but changes should only be made after thorough study.”
294 If not instituted, the report warned, “eventually parks may find themselves without a suitable wilderness area, without lakes or valleys that are accessible only by foot, horse or canoe, or without other of the many qualities that are part of the reason for their establishment.” 5/20/1960 Recommended National Parks Policy, Box 124, WLNPA.
139 Thus, wilderness and other zoning classifications continued to fall within the administrative discretion of the Parks Department, rather than restricted by legislative fiat as in the United States. In June 1961, the wilderness concept that formed the basis for the report was introduced to Canadian Park Superintendents.295 To parallel the competing objectives of use and preservation, Canadian parks were initially bifurcated into two simple zones. In a January 1964 Memo on Park Zoning, the term “semiwilderness zone” was used to identify the areas of the park not protected as strict wilderness, including roads and visitor centers. Yet, Canadian officials struggled with this terminology. An earlier memo on zoning described the term “semi-wilderness” as “too vague in meaning.”296 Even with the difficulty of separating parks into two zones, the Parks Service was intent on moving forward. In anticipation of the upcoming June 1966 public hearings on designating wilderness in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the United States, the Canadian Branch sent a representative to listen in on the hearings. An internal memo explained, “As this is an approach to park use concepts in which we are concerned, having someone from the Branch sit in on such hearings as these could well provide a very useful source of information.”297 While the U.S. Park Service had a relatively straightforward process in place to identify and designate wilderness areas in parks, Canadian Parks Service officials struggled with how to translate national policy to local park situations. Yet, this first attempt by the U.S. National Park Service to designate wilderness in the Great Smoky Mountains turned out to be a rather inauspicious event for the representatives of the Canadian Parks Service to observe as the hearings largely centered on the wide area excluded from the park’s
295 10/10/1961 Memo on “Zoning of National Parks” for J.R.B. Coleman, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA. 296 1/11/1963 Memo “Zoning Terminology” by J.R.B. Coleman, Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA. 297 5/26/1966 Memo to Director from Regional Director D.B. Coombs.,T16489, Canadian NA.
140 wilderness for an anticipated transmountain roadway.298 It was also a peculiar test case as the area was located in the eastern United States and had much more visible evidence of previous human incursions. Before officially becoming a national park in 1934, park land in the Smoky Mountains had been acquired by the states of North Carolina and Tennessee and was cobbled together from farms and homesteads, much like Big Bend National Park in Texas.299 In Waterton Lakes, one of the smallest units of the Canadian National Park System, a 1966 backcountry study revealed the challenges of recasting the space using the terminology of wilderness. In January 1967, J.W. Thorsell published a unique survey that attempted to identify how individuals used the backcountry in Waterton Lakes National Park. Thorsell provided paper questionnaires for backcountry hikers at a variety of trail registration locations throughout the park. He observed that Waterton had the highest percentage of land zoned as wilderness out of any Canadian National Park (fifty- nine percent), and justified the need for the survey to determine exactly what happened in this highly protected zone since up to then it remained “an enigma, even to those that frequent these areas.”300 Thorsell’s study, the first of its kind in a Canadian National Park, was prompted, or at least informed, by the 1962 Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) Study conducted in the United States between 1958 and 1962.301 In Waterton, during the summer months of 1966, there were 12,657 backcountry
298 Miles, 172-4. 299 Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 115-17. 300 J.W. Thorsell, “Waterton Lakes National Park Visitor Use Survey: 1966 Wilderness Recreational Use” (January 1967), WLNPA Library. 301 In evaluating Waterton’s backcountry, Thorsell quoted from the ORRRC wilderness criteria from 1962 which defined it as “(a) extensive land acreage without roads; (b) no mechanized travel is permitted; (c) existence of an unmodified ecology, limited provision of primitive facilities; (d) the area is free enough from people to allow frequent opportunity for isolation.” Thorsell, “Waterton Lakes National Park Visitor Use Survey: 1966 Wilderness Recreational Use”
141 users defined as those who hiked or rode on horseback more than one mile from a roadway. This cross section represented only 3.3% of the total park visitation that year. Two-thirds of respondents considered the areas they hiked in to be a “wilderness.” Thorsell determined that these visiting backcountry hikers were more apt to label the Waterton trails as wilderness than park managers or townsite residents. Interestingly, those who self-identified as locals, presumably more familiar with the landscape, only considered one of the trails along the Belly River in the southeast of the park to be a true wilderness area. Thus, the only trail all surveyed groups, locals and visitors, agreed was in a wilderness was not, in fact, labeled as such on the preliminary park zoning plan. Although unstated in Parks Service documents, the presumed reason why this section was not included in the wilderness zone was its proximity to the Blood Indian Timber Reserve, a private area held by the Blood Tribe of Alberta.302 Perhaps those that regularly frequented the space were able to draw clearer distinctions, but this very familiarity could also diminish the appreciation for the wonders a fresher set of eyes might perceive. Wilderness, starting as an intellectual construction, when finally projected on the land, varied yet again as it reencountered the landscape of the mind. Hikers, based on experience and proximity, enforced much different expectations on what kind of landscapes qualified for the term. For some, a well-trodden path belied the notion, however false, that they were the first to encounter this particular landscape. For most, the mere newness of a space was enough to find comfort even in the obvious tracks of visitors who had travelled along the trails before. Ultimately, Thorsell determined, “a wilderness area should be, I believe, one in which there are no ‘well kept’ trails, at best old Indian trails or game trails. No man-made facilities which are intended for use by the general public. ‘Trapper cabins’, etc. are O.K.” Using this definition, he concluded that
302 10/26/1936 Memo to Deputy Minister J.M. Wardle, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
142 Waterton Park did not contain anything close to a true wilderness. For Thorsell, if not for most of the backcountry visitors who frequented Waterton, a defined path that could be travelled without the need to resort to route-finding skills was no wilderness. This restrictive definition, if applied widely, would greatly diminish the percentage of Waterton or any other park that qualified for this designation. Taking Thorsell’s survey into account but overlooking his conclusions, in 1967, the Canadian Parks Service developed the Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan to finally codify wilderness as part of a broader effort to institute zoning that ensured a better balance between use and the preservation of park resources.303 As the smallest of the Canadian Parks in the Rocky Mountains, Waterton had, by far, the highest density of visitors per square mile. Expanding from the earlier two-phase designations of wilderness, the plan delineated use among five separate categories. Class I, or Special Areas, encompassed 2.6% of the park’s acreage, including approximately 5.2 miles of rare prairie grassland. Class II, or Wilderness, contained the highest percentage of park lands (66%), albeit divided into three separate areas that spanned the western and southern sections of the park. These roadless wilderness areas represented the fundamental purpose of Waterton and all Canadian Parks: “the preservation and use of these areas in their natural state” [emphasis in original]. Class III, or Natural Environmental Areas (21.4% of the park), included buffers around park roadways and much of the area of the former Lineham estate along Cameron Creek and a large zone completely surrounding the Blood Indian Timber Limit. Class IV, or General Recreation Areas (6.9% of the park), represented campgrounds and other semi-developed day use areas. Class V, or Intensive Use Areas (0.3% of the park), contained the most intensively developed spaces such as the Townsite, government buildings and the Prince of Wales
303 Waterton Lakes National Park Provisional Master Plan (1967), WLNPA Library.
143 Hotel. Finally, the park’s namesake lakes accounted for the remaining 2.8% of the space. In an attempt to comply with Thorsell’s unique definition of wilderness, proposed trail development called for a small number to be “designed and retained as near as possible to resemble game trails, marked only by blazes to satisfy the demand for the most hardy and dedicated wilderness traveler.” In this way, wilderness would not only be a geographical zone, but could be appreciated as a human experience that more closely resembled entering the natural world on one’s own terms. The best intentions and the guidance of the Canadian National Parks Act alone could not protect the sanctity of each space. Although the Canadian Parks Service clearly sought to implement comprehensive zoning that included wilderness areas, the permanence of these designations continued to be open to question. In May 1967, Alex Reeve, Assistant Director of National Parks proposed a booklet on park zoning with small maps of each park. Reeve remarked that “since the maps would be small the specific delineation of the wilderness areas would be such that the maps would not tie us down too tightly if amendments to the wilderness boundaries had to be made later.”304 The small scale of the maps could be used to delineate and obscure at the same time. The Waterton Lakes Superintendent believed the finalization of a park master plan as critical because “until this is done, we are open to pressures of a large magnitude which could produce anomalies which would be inconsistent with this area remaining as a National Park.”305 The 1978 Park Management Plan stated “only by attempting to balance supply and demand, even in a somewhat arbitrary manner, can there be any assurance that Waterton Lakes National Parks will remain an island of tranquility.”306 The 1970s seemed to be the pinnacle for the “loved to death” period for national parks. This plan
304 5/23/1967 Letter to Mr. Melville from Alex Reeve, Microfilm T16689, Canadian NA. 305 10/29/1973 Letter to Director Western Region from Superintendent T.W. Smith, Box 140, WLNPA. 306 Waterton Lakes National Park Park Management Plan (May 1978), WLNPA Library.
144 was the first update of the first long-range plan completed in 1967. The new plan noted that the entire southern boundary, Glacier National Park, “is zoned as a wilderness area in which no facility development is allowed.” As with the 1967 plan, Land Use again employed five zones. Class I was redefined as sites with very restricted access, primarily applicable to four archaeological sites a few acres in size and comprising only 0.03% of the park. Importantly, the specific locations were not indicated on the park map to ensure anonymity. This class represented a wilderness within a wilderness with truly no access; however, the importance of this restriction stemmed more from the cultural, not the natural, significance of the sites and the importance to Canadian First Nations. Class II remained the wilderness environment suited for low-intensity activities such as hiking and primitive camping (48.2% of the total area, down from 66% in the 1967 plan). Class III shifted from buffer zones to natural areas for the same type of activities in Class II, but at a higher level of use. The degree of trail improvements and entry quotas served to regulate the line between the wilds of Class II and III. Most of the southwestern portion of the park fell in this class (46.6% of the park), including most of the Glacier boundary. Class IV continued to be campgrounds and day use areas while Class V had the most development in the form of visitor services. Not until a set of 1988 amendments to the Canadian National Parks Act was the formal designation of wilderness areas permitted within Canadian parks, usually corresponding with existing Class II boundaries.307 While the identification of these boundaries remained with Parks Canada, an Order in Council would ensure a legislative prohibition on future development similar to the intent of the U.S. Wilderness Act passed
307 Kevin McNamee, “From Wild Places to Endangered Spaces: A History of Canada’s National Parks” in Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning and Management, Philip Dearden and Rick Rollins, eds. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993), 35; Rick Rollins, “Managing the National Parks” in Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning and Management, Philip Dearden and Rick Rollins, eds. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993), 79.
145 two decades before. This further constrained activities in a designated wilderness area that were likely to impair its character. Thereafter, acceptable activities were restricted to: park administration, public safety, the provision of basic user facilities including trails and rudimentary campsites, traditional renewable resource harvesting activities, and, in rare circumstances, access by air to remote areas.308 Again, unlike in the United States, the administrative discretion of the Canadian Parks Service was never limited by such designations. The 1992 Waterton Park Management Plan shifted the bulk of the zoning (79%) back to Class II, or wilderness, with the recognition that “parks are increasingly becoming islands as more development takes place outside their boundaries.”309 The 2000 Management Plan categorized an even higher percentage of the park (83%) as wilderness.310 In February 2003, Waterton’s Superintendent wrote to Glacier’s Superintendent with a promise to pursue formal designation in conjunction with the 1988 amendments to the Park Act.311 Finally, in 2009, Waterton Lakes National Park achieved legislatively designated wilderness through action by the Canadian Parliament. Even then, Canadians adopted a different approach to wilderness management termed “ecological integrity.”312 Ecological integrity, according to Stephen Woodley, Chief Scientist at Parks Canada, is markedly different from strictly managing wilderness as the focus is on creating and maintaining conditions that allow ecosystems to function in a state as close to nature as possible. Importantly, this involves significant human
308 1994 Parks Canada Guiding Principles and Operational Policies, Box 124, WLNPA. 309 Waterton Lakes National Park Park Management Plan (November 1992), WLNPA Library. 310 Waterton Lakes National Park of Canada Management Plan (May 2000), WLNPA Library. 311 2/18/2003 Letter to Glacier Superintendent Mick Holm from Waterton Lake Acting Superintendent Bill Dolan, 2003 Central Files Box, GNP Archives. 312 Stephen Woodley, "Ecological Integrity: A Framework for Ecosystem-Based Management." Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change, David Cole and Laurie Yung, eds. (Washington: Island Press, 2010), 107.
146 interventions with the landscape that fall far outside of the scope of permissible management action in U.S. parks managed as wilderness. For example, U.S. parks have leveraged small scale prescribed burns to try to reverse decades of accumulation of material on the forest floor. In marked contrast, the Canadian Parks Service has used large-scale industrial equipment to dramatically alter the composition of forests by removing forest species deemed invasive and engaging in massive replanting of favored flora. Moreover, the Canadian approach, rather than attempting to forestall environmental changes that make it difficult, if not impossible in the long term to maintain a stable and historically accurate natural tableaux, have instead opted to construct self-sustaining ecosystems, even if that approach includes decidedly unnatural elements. In Waterton Lakes, for example, Parks Canada has aggressively intervened to construct tunnels under roadways that had blocked the migration of the long-toed salamander and to replant seedlings of the threatened white bark pine.313 Whether ecological integrity is a more viable method of wilderness management may be moot as it is most certainly a much more resource intensive approach. With pressures to reduce budgets, especially for activities that are not obviously beneficial for visitation and that have lengthy project time horizons, these methods may give way to other development projects, such as the massive maintenance backlogs, that have more direct bearing on human visitation. Regardless, the Canadians have adopted an approach that gives them more leeway to adapt and make large scale changes based on conditions observed in the landscape while U.S. parks must operate more slowly and incrementally to conform to the management prerogatives of areas set aside as wilderness. With a history of only forty-eight years since the passage of the Wilderness Act in the United States and mere decades of wilderness approaches in Canada and Mexico, the jury is still
313 “Spotlight on Ecological Integrity,” http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/waterton/plan/plan5.aspx
147 out. In Mexico’s North in the early 2000s, a private entity deployed a model of wilderness that embraced “ecological integrity” in the space opposite another American park.
A WILDERNESS FOR THE MADERAS DEL CARMEN
In her recent study of Mexican National Parks from 1910 to 1940, historian Emily
Wakild contrasts the conception and deployment of wilderness in Mexican Parks with the U.S. model.314 She argues that parks forged in the period of the Mexican Revolution attempted to meld conservation with social justice. Wilderness, as defined by the United States in 1964 and subsequently exported as a conservation principle, simply did not reflect the patterns put in place and the reality that private ownership was included in Mexican spaces, not just because authorities had little money available for land acquisition, but also because the resources were conserved specifically for use by such local populations. Although the Maderas del Carmen is far outside the geography she focuses on for her portrayal of early Mexican parks, this parcel, also contemplated as a park by Mexican Forestry officials in the 1930s, complicates her assessment by containing sections that definitely meet the definition of wilderness. The evolving story of the deployment of wilderness in this space continues below, but the broader backstory of the creation of an international space is covered in chapter 6, “Transboundary Parks.” American conservationists placed the hopes for the reinvigoration of wilderness in the Big Bend on areas viewed as uncorrupted in northern Coahuila. In a 1940 article in The Living Wilderness, Aldo Leopold hoped to “induce Mexico to save some samples of
314 Emily Wakild, Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico’s National Parks, 1910-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2011), 155-62.
148 what we no longer have on our side of the border.” These spaces were not only aesthetically pleasing, but provided “just across the line, samples of unspoiled mountain country, to compare them with samples of our own side which have been subjected to the classical exploitation-conservation process.”315 Writing the year before land acquisition for the Big Bend Park began in Texas, Leopold clearly viewed the Big Bend as a modified landscape due to the long-standing ranching activities that permeated even the rarified environment of the Chisos Mountains. He looked to Mexico as a natural baseline for measuring the changes that had taken place, and, perhaps, the best source for the renewal of flora and fauna that had been damaged or removed.316 The Big Bend region of Coahuila and Texas was also unique because the high altitude mountains and plateaus provided suitable habitat for the southernmost remnants of flora that extended up the spine of the Rockies into Canada. In a 1954 presentation to the Saltillo Rotary Club, Big Bend Superintendent Lemuel Garrison described the northern Mexican wilderness not only as a mirror to the protected space in Texas immediately across the Rio Grande, but a repository of flora more readily found in places like Glacier and Waterton Lakes. Garrison pointed to the unusual combination of desert and mountains “with many trees; and while some of these trees are the typical trees of Mexico and the life zone we call the Upper Sonoran life zone, along with them are the typical trees of southern Canada.”317 These mountains, or “sky islands,” encapsulated the last remnants of these species that had nowhere else to go, but up. With a warming
315 “We have no faunas or floras which have not been abused, modified, or ‘improved’; in the Mexican mountains the whole biota is intact.” Aldo Leopold. “Origin and Ideals of Wilderness Areas” The Living Wilderness (July 1940), Microfilm T16489, Canadian NA. 316 Historian Roderick Nash argued that Leopold’s insights gained in Mexico provided the foundation for his land ethic, more fully articulated with the publication of A Sand County Almanac in 1949. Nash, 192. 317 “The Douglas fir, the Ponderosa pine, the limber pine, the white pine, the quaking aspen – these are all trees of Canada, and it is indeed startling to find them in Mexico in the Sierra Fronteriza in greater variety than we find them across the river in our own Sierra Chisos.” 4/20/1954 Talk by Lemuel Garrison Before the Saltillo Rotary Club, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives.
149 climate trend in place at the conclusion of the Little Ice Age, species were forced to reach up rather than out to find a suitable habitat. Where the climate in the surrounding desert floor had changed, the flora were no longer directly connected to the ecosystem that had spawned them. In the Big Bend, the Chisos “sky island” had been subject to pressures from large scale grazing, but the Sierra del Carmen range of northern Coahuila had largely avoided this fate. The Mexican agency responsible for managing national parks, the Comision Nacional De Áreas Naturales Protegidas, or CONANP, categorized protected spaces according to their state of nature and use. The management zones considered for the Flora and Fauna Protected Area of the Maderas del Carmen were the following: Wild, Outstanding Natural, Recovery, Exploited Resources, and Special Use. As the strictest classification, wild zones were places that:
Exhibit a conservation state of good to excellent, where the typical species of the unit are abundant, like for example the great mammals: black bear, puma, mule and white tail deer, wild collar boar and some birds, like wild turkey. In these places one is able to find representative elements of the Chihuahuan Desert and the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range, as well as those properties or typical [uses] of the region. By the natural conditions, or those related to the property regime, apparently they have never been subject to logging [forest exploitation] or cattle grazing. The uses allowed in these zones are solely scientific research and education, as long as it does not contemplate modifications in the habitat or introduction of exotic species, and is subject to special authorization of the administration of the area.318
Thus, as in Canada and the United States, the definition was predicated on the lack of human use. It also harkened back to the pre-Wilderness Act presumption favoring these sites as a natural baseline for scientific research rather than as a destination for tourism.
318 My translation of an excerpt from “Programa de Manejo del çrea de Proteccion de Flora y Fauna Maderas del Carmen México,” 53-59; http://www.conanp.gob.mx/anp/programas_manejo/maderas_carmen.pdf.
150 One of the natural markers of site health referred specifically to the condition of the candellila plant:
In the case of the candelilla it was considered in good condition, at the sites where this resource has not been used, where the adult plants are very abundant and reach relatively great height, depending on the terrain conditions they can reach a diameter greater to 50 cm and a height greater than 70 cm; regular, if it has been used recently or at the moment is being used, but still some plants exist with the same dimensions as the previous ones, normally these are in protected sites, like narrow canyons, crevices, thickets [bushes] or very dense lechuguillas and in inaccessible sites, generally in the short border areas, the great plants continue being abundant; and bad, where only a few plants exist, which are generally very small and appear in isolated form, even in the protected sites and with difficult access. 319
Yet, this same plant was widely used by locals and provided a means of trade income through the production of wax products, including candles.320 Harvesting of candellila was also noted in the formative period of Big Bend National Park. In the brief two-year interim period between state land acquisition and the formal transfer to the federal government, one former landholder subleased his property for the removal of candellila, a plant used even today in the production of wax.321 The State Parks Board admonished this leasing practice, but referred to the candellila simply as “weeds.” Years later the U.S. Park Service dramatically altered their definition of indigenous flora. Candellila and other species termed native were then deemed threatened
319 My translation of an excerpt from “Programa de Manejo del çrea de Proteccion de Flora y Fauna Maderas del Carmen México,” 53-59; http://www.conanp.gob.mx/anp/programas_manejo/maderas_carmen.pdf. 320 It was formerly used in the production of phonograph records. 321 “After you gave us an option to purchase and reserved grazing rights only for the year 1942, you gave a lease on four sections for removing candelia [candellila] weeds. We felt that you had grazing rights only and that for the year 1942, while the lease that you gave is subject to renewal for a second year. Parties to whom you gave the lease had practically no other land under lease in that area and this gives them an excuse to remove the weed from almost any part of the country” [emphasis added]. TSPB to H. R. Richburg, 26 June 1942, Box 2005/[final box number TBD due to reclassification]46, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
151 by non-native, invasive species that were often introduced by the Park Service itself, such as tamarisk. In a more discriminating process than the one used to exclude human residents completely from of the natural environment, all types of flora and fauna were also finely sorted into discrete categories of native and invasive. In the Maderas del Carmen, the health and vigor of candellila thus served as a marker of wilderness. The presence of the candelilla wax plant served as a key indicator of the health of the wilderness in the Maderas del Carmen. Yet, the long history of use of this same plant species for a variety of human uses, including phonograph records, candles, and, more recently, cosmetics, ensured that it was only found in abundance in the most remote areas that had not been susceptible to harvesting. In essence, even in areas without large-scale road construction or development, the very definition of wilderness employed by the Mexican Park Service confirmed its rarity as a place untouched by human hands. Yet, given the long history and multiplicity of human uses for the plant, its spread and range must surely be attributable to past human actions as well. Even in this formidable space, wilderness must be applied in the mode of recovery. Wilderness must be fashioned out of lands that have been previously used, most recently as a stock range or for dry land agriculture. However, these spaces also have a much longer lineage of use, evidence of which has been preserved often because of the desert environment itself. Natural processes of erosion and other forces have been slow to modify human impacts and structures, even those long abandoned. In late 2005, the Maderas del Carmen was designated the first wilderness area in Mexico, and, according to the press release, also the first one in Latin America. However, the initial impetus for the designation came from the private rather than the public sector. As the press release explains, “Due to the fact that public owned land is not common in
152 Mexico, the designation of Mexican wilderness areas needs to be a voluntary process where responsible private landowners like CEMEX commit their land to the wilderness concept and compatible conservation and management practices.”322 The type of wilderness established in the Maderas del Carmen was also shaped by its global roots. The designation was not sought by the local community, but rather by a multinational corporation working with global conservation groups. Chapter 4, “the Business of Parks,” explores the motivations of CEMEX in creating a wilderness for the Maderas del Carmen in more specific detail. The very next year, CEMEX Resource Manager Bonnie McKinney wrote an article in Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine on efforts to reintroduce desert bighorn sheep in the mountains of the Maderas del Carmen.323 Oddly, after the fence lined subdivisions of the former ranches and ejidos were removed, the private managers of the Maderas del Carmen re-inscribed the land with a new set of fences. In the late 1990s, a massive predator-proof fence was built to enclose 11,000 acres. Rather than representing a permanent addition to the landscape, this barrier was meant to foster the rewilding of the larger preserve by protecting a small herd of desert bighorn sheep.324 Within this new type of wilderness ranch, beginning in November 2000 with a small nucleus of only fifty captured bighorns transplanted from other locations within Mexico, by September 2010, had increased to a herd of over 200. In addition, forty bighorns were also moved from the safety of the enclosure to begin the slow process of repopulating the surrounding wilds.
322 October 1, 2005 Press Release “El Carmen: The First Wilderness Designation In Latin America,” http://www.wild.org/WWC/docs/El_Carmen.pdf. 323 Bonnie Reynolds McKinney, "Room To Roam: The El Carmen initiative aims to preserve a one-of-a- kind ecosystem in Mexico and enhance wildlife corridors on both sides of the border," Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, November 2006. 324 Texas Parks and Wildlife News Release “Desert Bighorn Sheep Restoration Program” (Winter 2010), http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/news_roundup/bighorn_sheep_release_at_big_bend_ranch /cemex-el_carmen.phtml.
153 Big Bend National Park officials had also hoped to facilitate the direct reintroduction of bighorns and other species, but feared the presence of predators would quickly eliminate any animals brought into the park before animals could successfully breed and multiply to sustainable herd numbers. Although they considered constructing a protective fence, they simply could not overcome the internal dissonance that such an enclosure would apply to the landscape. Perpetuating the current wilderness disallowed the construction of any such outliers, even if temporary, in an attempt to reconstitute the diversity of species upon the land. Indeed, Big Bend National Park has noted the reappearance of Black Bears in the Chisos Mountains, not through any managed effort at reintroduction, but through their natural migration from the Mexican Sierra del Carmen range. In essence, each space needed the other. The mobile elements that comprised each park were instrumental in defining each space as a wilderness. These natural flows would not have been able to exist without the other spaces. The elk of Glacier needed the higher elevation habitat of the American park during the summers, but also required the lower elevations of Waterton Lakes for winter forage. Black bears, long present in the Chisos mountains of the Big Bend, had been extirpated by ranchers in the 1920s before the advent of a national park. While Park Service officials were reluctant to reintroduce predators, the mountains of the Sierra del Carmen provided an expedient source for the natural repopulation of black bears into the space. The deployment of the concept of “ecological integrity” in Canadian Parks including Waterton Lakes and the efforts of CEMEX resource managers in the Maderas del Carmen to reintroduce and promulgate native species highlight the fundamental differences between wilderness management in the three countries. While Canada and Mexico have used wilderness as a label for parks, the types of ongoing interventions park
154 managers have considered and exercised in parks, albeit in the name of creating a functioning natural system, have been much more extensive than in the United States.
CONCLUSION
In the end, wilderness has only been officially declared and sanctioned in two of the four spaces examined. Both Big Bend and Glacier’s wilderness proposals originally forwarded to Congress for action in the late 1970s, have stalled. Local opposition has prevented each proposal from moving out of Congressional committee. Yet, their sister parks in Canada and Mexico have achieved the elusive object unrealized in each American space. In 2005, a private wilderness appeared on the maps of the Maderas del Carmen, and, in 2009, the Canadian Parliament instituted wilderness in Waterton Lakes. Within the realm of protected spaces, it is not uncommon for the land to have moved through a number of successive stages of occupation, ownership, and modification. In all the parks, previously subdivided land was recombined in an attempt to replicate its former condition as a natural space. Yet, this was not a simple process. On the contrary, it required a significant amount of man-made interventions, such as the re- fencing of the landscape in the Maderas del Carmen to preserve the nascent crop of bighorn sheep from predators. Rebalancing in favor of nature in these parks has required a steady set of often imperfect interventions. In Irrigated Eden, historian Mark Fiege recounted the ongoing maintenance required of irrigation works on the Snake River in Idaho.325 Fiege’s artificial canals may differ markedly in appearance from the more natural Park Service wilderness, but, in the end, the necessary human effort required to
325 Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), 8-9.
155 maintain each space may not be altogether different. It remains to be seen if wilderness, even in a limited form, can continue to exist without constant monitoring and tending from human caretakers. In parks, it has already taken a substantial clean-up effort in a vain attempt to remove all the physical evidence of prior human uses. Yet, even this eradication effort is incomplete and must be ongoing given the continuing impact of human visitation on the land. The implementation of wilderness has required each agency or park manager to struggle with how best to privilege and promote natural processes on the land. Yet, Canadian and Mexican land managers exercised greater latitude over the methods used to rewild these spaces. Depending on how it is defined and the amount of environmental change permitted, wilderness may actually require even more human tending. One set of ever-present caretakers in parks was the private enterprises that worked for and profited from their establishment. The next chapter investigates the complex linkages between the private sector and what is perceived as that most public of all ventures – national parks.
156 Chapter 4 - From Rails to Concrete: The Business of Parks and Preservation
Private enterprise figured prominently in the creation of the very first national park. In August 1870, nine men, including Nathaniel Pitt Langford, set off from Helena, Montana on the Washburn-Doane Expedition to debunk the rumors of Colter’s Hell and, once and for all, document the contents of the Yellowstone region. Langford’s September 20th diary entry recounted an alleged conversation that has become part of the park’s mythological past. Late in the evening, a group of men huddled around the campfire near the junction of the Gibbon and Firehole Rivers. While some of the group contrived to secure ownership of the choicest sections they had seen in the river canyons and geyser basins, one member, Cornelius Hedges, U.S. Attorney from the Montana Territory, objected. Hedges told his counterparts “there ought to be no private ownership of any portion of that region, but that the whole of it ought to be set aside as a great National Park, and that each one of us ought to make an effort to have this accomplished.”326 This campfire tale has been invoked by the Park Service as the origin story for Yellowstone and, by direct lineage, all American national parks. Yet, as historians Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey uncovered, N.P. Langford, subsequently known as “National Park” Langford and originator of the campfire mythology, was actually on the payroll of the Northern Pacific Railroad.327 The railroad
326326 Nathaniel Pitt Langford, The Discovery of Yellowstone Park (The Haynes Foundation, 1905). 327 According to the “campfire myth” of Yellowstone’s founding, Langford was responding to this suggestion: “The proposition was made by some member that we utilize the result of our exploration by taking up quarter sections of land at the most prominent points of interest, and a general discussion followed. One member of our party suggested that if there could be secured by pre-emption a good title to two or three quarter sections of land opposite the lower fall of the Yellowstone and extending down the river along the canon, they would eventually become a source of great profit to the owners.” This “campfire legend” has been invoked by the Park Service as the origin myth for the national parks.
157 was building track across southern Montana, just north of the proposed park, and hoped to bring tourists into the space. While the appeal of this myth lies in the idea that parks were created to be free of commercial exploitation, individuals, like N.P. Langford who championed parks, were often motivated by the potential public parks held for private financial gain. Of the early Canadian and American parks, the railroads’ interest in building a constituency for Pullman passenger cars helped the establishment, promotion and early development of a variety of spaces: the Canadian Pacific in Banff, the Northern Pacific and Yellowstone, the Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon, and the Great Northern and Glacier.328 Indeed, the Great Northern took a direct role in managing Glacier for several years prior to the creation of the U.S. Park Service. The history of business in parks is worthy of examination given the ongoing role commerce has played in park development. Although parks have traditionally been defined by the supposed absence of commercial activity, in actuality parks provided a financial multiplier for communities existing within and adjacent to these spaces and, as such, produced a robust economy of wilderness. Over the course of the twentieth century, as parks proved to be viable economic propositions, even widespread existing uses, like ranching in the Big Bend, were objectively weighed against tourism and, if found lacking, displaced. More recently, with the growing importance of businesses being perceived as green and/or exercising sustainable practices, modern corporations have sought to enhance their images through identification with national parks. The ready
Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003). 328 For more information about the linkages between businesses and national parks, refer to the following monographs: Richard Orsi, Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Marguerite S. Shaffer, See American First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001); Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
158 associations the public made between parks and natural protection provide essential cover for businesses trying to emphasize their own ties to nature or to distract from adverse environmental impacts, often derived from their core business. It was an attempt to build this kind of association that drove a Mexican multinational, CEMEX, to redevelop the Maderas del Carmen. Unwilling to simply slap a padlock on the gates of the former agricultural ejidos that used the space and call it wilderness, the company invested millions of dollars not only in attempts to erase evidence of these prior uses, but also to reintroduce native species and apply their own vision of nature once occluded back onto the land. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the economics of space have evolved to the odd point where land has become valuable for not being used at all. This chapter traces this arc of the business-park relationship through the examples of large and small businesses that were not only impacted by parks, but that were in many ways architects of them. Some businesses worked on a national and international scale, such as Louis Hill and the Great Northern Railroad’s support of Glacier and Waterton. Some businesses were significantly smaller, like Johnny Newell and his Gulf Oil gas station franchises in rural West Texas who sought to displace existing ranch and agricultural uses in order to build a new wilderness economy in their place. More recently, the Mexican multinational corporation, CEMEX has further expanded the concept of a wilderness economy by incorporating preservation without tourism as a part of its business brand. Regardless of scale, however, these businesses saw the benefit of broadening the appeal of spaces through their reassignment as national and, ultimately, international parks. Indeed, it was the Great Northern in Waterton-Glacier and local businesses surrounding the Big Bend that first saw the true potential of creating international spaces, thus expanding even further the number of constituents who would visit, enjoy, and, importantly, pay for the experience.
159 One of these earlier businesses, and a transnational one at that, illustrated an unusual counter-narrative to the origin myth of parks in the Waterton Lakes and Glacier which focused on the false notion that these spaces were wholly pristine natural areas. Yet, as we shall see, making myths and making money were often at odds and the tension between the two meant that private enterprises within the parks had to evolve as the U.S. and Canadian governments changed approaches to harvesting resources in keeping with the new protected status of each space.
BUSINESS BEGINNINGS: THE EVOLUTION OF H.H. HANSON
Early in the history of park development, the wilderness economy was born of pre-existing land uses, as exemplified by the story of H.H. Hanson and his Water, Oil, Land and Power Company. In 1910, Hanson found himself in the difficult circumstance of seeing the future of his timber operation disappear as the land supporting that business was suddenly transformed upon the creation of Glacier National Park. However, after short period of transition, he was able to bridge the gap successfully between the old and new park economics and create an enterprise that better conformed to the new uses of the land and the realities of his time. According to his son John, H.H. Hanson, President of the Waterton, Oil, Land and Power Company, set up a sawmill on the north end of Upper Waterton Lake in 1906. The Lake was divided by the international border, with approximately half of the body in each country. The Waterton River, originating in the glacial high country of the United States, flowed north to create a series of lakes, including Upper Waterton, before continuing on its trek to Lake Winnipeg and its final destination, Hudson Bay. Timber extracted from the American National Forest could easily be floated down the lake for processing in
160 Alberta. From his perch along a promontory, a natural constriction along the lake, Hanson travelled south into the United States to cut and haul timber to the Waterton River, whereby the water currents conveniently carried the logs by his mill. The family ran the mill and also engaged in a bit of the tourist trade, as Waterton was a Federal Forest Reserve when the Hansons arrived.329 With the pending establishment of Glacier National Park on May 11, 1910, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture conferred with the Interior Secretary regarding the continued effectiveness of Hanson’s contract to cut timber, which by its terms gave the company until October 20, 1910 to remove timber from the area. The Interior Secretary agreed to honor the contract but questioned “whether the moneys from the sale of timber under this contract subsequent to May 11 should be paid to the Forest Service or to this Department.”330 Although the contract would be honored, the Interior Department claimed any proceeds from the point of the transfer of administration forward. As Congressional appropriations for early park administration were hardly substantial, this was a very practical consideration. In 1910, as the end of the period for timber harvesting in the United States grew closer, Hanson sought to negotiate a contract extension with the U.S. Interior Department. Correspondence from the Canadian Parks Service revealed why he was unsuccessful in this effort. Glacier Park officials discouraged the renewal, fearing that cutting additional timber stands would destroy the “beauty” of the park.331 Yet, just two years after this decision, the U.S. Park Service allowed the Bureau of Reclamation to cut timber in the park’s Sherburne Valley for the construction of the Milk River Irrigation
329 Waterton Park Community Association Oral History Project. Interview with John P. Hanson (May 1980), Box 117, WLNPA. 330 5/24/1910 Letter to Secretary of Agriculture from Acting Secretary of the Interior, Box 26 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 331 6/1/1914 Memo to W.W. Cory from T.W. Dwight, Box 1XX, WLNPA.
161 Project.332 Falling on bad times with his source of timber now locked up in an American Park, Hanson also ran afoul of the Canadian park in which he resided. “As you are a squatter living … in Waterton Lakes Park, which is not permitted within any area set apart for national parks,” the Superintendent of Waterton Lakes wrote him in May 1915, “it has been decided to request you to vacate your present holdings.”333 Hanson and his family lived on a parcel that had once belonged to the Hudson Bay Company but was now located within the Waterton townsite area being developed as a service center for tourists and summer residents.334 Hanson’s saw mill and spartan residence no longer fit the townsite foreground the Canadian Parks Service wished to use as a viewing platform for the backdrop of Waterton and Glacier’s mountainscapes. To earn some meager wages after losing access to timber stores, Hanson performed whatever work he could find, including a contract with the Canadian Irrigation Branch. Indeed, to smooth the way for his removal, the Waterton Superintendent wrote to the Irrigation Branch to ask them to find a replacement to read and repair gauges monitoring water flow in and around the park.335 By April 1916, the rhetoric used to characterize Hanson dramatically escalated. A letter from the Commissioner of Police who had legal jurisdiction over Waterton Lakes but lived in nearby Rocky Mountains Park termed him a “vagrant” in Waterton Lakes. Moreover, the Commissioner described his house as “filthy and unsanitary; and, as it is situated on the north side of the bridge near the principal entrance to the Park, it is an eyesore and is anything but creditable to the Park or Department.”336
332 1912 DOI U.S. Reclamation Service St. Mary’s Storage Feature of Milk River Project Feature History, BOR Library. 333 5/20/1915 Letter to H.H. Hanson from Superintendent, Waterton Lakes Park, Box 1XX, WLNPA. 334 3/6/1916 Letter to Superintendent, Waterton Lakes Park, Box 1XX, WLNPA. 335 2/22/1916 Memo to E.F. Drake, Box 1XX, WLNPA. 336 4/10/1916 Letter to J.B. Harkin from Silas Carpenter, Box 1XX, WLNPA.
162 Hanson presented a problem, but not because the Canadian Parks Service intended to demolish his property and let it revert to its natural condition. Located at the gateway to a townsite that they hoped to populate with seasonal visitors and permanent residents, such an unseemly eyesore would hurt sales of lots and, more broadly, dissuade tourism. The Commissioner further justified the need for immediate action by claiming Hanson had “a weakness for poaching and is often hard pressed for food. His position therefore in the Park is a great temptation to him as he has facilities for illegal fishing and killing of game, without being easily detected.” Upon being served notice that he would be charged with living in the Park without permission, Hanson reluctantly chose to vacate his property.337 Waterton officials were finally free to reclaim and repurpose this prime lake front real estate for park purposes, and not a moment too soon. The Police Commissioner noted the timeliness of Hanson's removal, alleging that he had been preparing a scheme to smuggle liquor and opium from Montana via the Upper Lake.338 What started as a transnational business opportunity ended with the re-designation of its owner and his family as squatters who had to be evicted from the land. In just a handful of years, Hanson, in the guise of a single business person, was relabeled using all of the terms Karl Jacoby identifies for unfortunate, out-of-place locals: squatter, poacher, and thief.339 Hanson was operating under an outdated model. Although the timber he prized had not lost inherent value as a commodity that could be cut, bundled, and resold, the way timber was viewed in these spaces, including, unfortunately for Hanson, the one in which he lived, fundamentally changed. Both Park Services bet that the value of the
337 Based on correspondence, Hanson presumably vacated his property in late April or early May 1916. 338 5/4/1916 Letter to J.B. Harkin from Silas Carpenter, Box 1XX, WLNPA. 339 Historian Karl Jacoby expertly examines the responses of ordinary people to the application of conservation in the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Rather than simply fade away, H.H. Hanson readily navigates this continuum of use by remaking the way his business employed nature. Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 2.
163 forests as a whole, intact ecosystem surmounted what it might be worth in pieces. Yet, this wasn’t the last appearance from Henry Hanson. Hanson remade himself by shifting his geographic focus to the United States and proposing a new business venture that better complemented the way natural resources were now viewed. The very same Hanson who ran into trouble in Waterton Lakes made another application to the U.S. Department of the Interior and, this time, not for the right to cut timber. Instead, after leaving Waterton Townsite, he sought permission to operate a gasoline-powered boat launch for conveying tourists on Upper Waterton Lake. The Glacier Superintendent wrote to the Interior Secretary in support of Hanson’s proposition, “as there is some demand for transportation on the Waterton lake and up to the present time there has been no boats operating on that lake, excepting on the Canadian side.” Interestingly, the Superintendent saw two key advantages. First, by providing for a boat concession, the Park Service would exert more control over the number of people who entered Glacier from the Canadian side. Second, and, perhaps more importantly, given the very limited park budget, Hanson could then serve as an unpaid registration agent.340 Basically, with fees collected from tourists serving as his sole source of income, he could exercise the combined duties of Ranger and Customs Officer without drawing a salary from the Interior Department. He secured this permit, and after successfully transporting passengers by boat for five years, Hanson proposed expanding his operation by constructing lodging and meal facilities near an area referred to as “Goat Haunt” in Glacier on the southern tip of the lake. The U.S. Park Service determined that these facilities were needed “as at the present time there is no suitable place for the people that enter Glacier Park by way of Waterton Lake to secure meals or supplies, and there are a number of Canadians that go
340 6/5/1916 Letter to Secretary of the Interior from Superintendent, Box 210, GNP Archives.
164 up there each season to camp.”341 Hanson proposed constructing a temporary log building at the southeast end of Waterton Lake, and the Park Service Engineering Division concurred, issuing a permit to operate the new camp. In February 1921, Engineer Daniel Hull wrote Director Stephen Mather about the development, portraying Hanson as a “rough and ready type of man of the Alberta country lying just north of the park” willing to invest his own money to construct the facilities.342 This description of Hanson was a far cry from the dispirited “vagrant” who had fled across the lake five years earlier. He learned to change his business proposition to better fit the novel constraints of a national park. Even then, the Park Service acceded to Hanson’s proposal only after consulting with the Glacier Park Hotel Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Great Northern Railroad, which was engaged in constructing hotels and backcountry chalets throughout the eastern section of the park. The growing stream of Canadian visitors would not attract their attention and capital for a few more years. After adding hotelier to his titles, Hanson dropped from the historical record, presumably displaced yet again by the Great Northern’s construction of the boat launch “International” in 1927 to carry passengers across Upper Waterton Lake. Hanson’s story touches on the key issues of this chapter. The first half of Hanson’s story conforms to the predominant park narrative that locals and their activities did not persist. Yet, his “second act” reconfirms the argument that locals, businessmen in his case, did not quietly fade away. Indeed, businesses were fundamental to the viability of parks. These enterprises stepped into the vacuum left by governments remaking of these spaces. Hanson bridged the gap between the old and new economics of parks. He
341 1/24/1921 Letter to Director Mather from George Goodwin, Box 9 (General Records of the Engineering Division, 1917-26), NARA (College Park, MD). 342 2/14/1921 Letter to Daniel Hull from Director Mather, Box 9 (General Records of the Engineering Division, 1917-26), NARA (College Park, MD).
165 remade his business, gained a new source of revenue, and established a brand, albeit short-lived, as the first purveyor of transnational nature tourism between national parks. Hanson shows the importance of the border, not only in remaking his own image and reputation, but also as a unique and enticing draw in itself. Just as Hanson relied on the currents of the Waterton River to bring timbers within range of his saw mill on a promontory jutting out into the lake, each government and business reconstituted like Hanson’s hoped the draws of nature would bring a new harvest of the wilderness economy – tourists on both sides of the 49th Parallel. His success would soon draw the attention and investment of the Great Northern Railroad.
LOUIS HILL’S GREAT NORTHERN
While Hanson represented a transnational business on perhaps the smallest scale, the Great Northern Railroad was a much larger enterprise with a commensurately larger impact across each park. Traditionally, railroads viewed the land through the prism of finding low, level grades in which to most efficiently lay tracks that were close to resources that might be extracted. However, in national parks, these companies were engaging in a new type of prospecting, one based not on extracting resources but preserving them. Rather than disaggregating nature into commodities to be extracted and shipped away, these companies aggregated nature on a grand scale, looking to assemble the forests, lakes, mountains, and streams into a new style of resource.343 This new model of a wilderness economy complicated business interactions with the land as they had to
343 Few historical monographs delve beyond the stealthy political work that railroads did to establish national parks. For example, Richard Orsi’s Sunset Limited describes the railroad’s significant role in working to have the original 1864 Yosemite Grant recombined with the federal park designated in 1890, but there is little exploration of the economic dividends accrued by this action. Orsi, 358-70
166 weigh much more precisely than they had in the past their impact on the landscape. Careless development might impact the profitability of their tourist operations. Just as it knit together the continent by rail, this corporate behemoth melded the parks of Waterton Lakes and Glacier together and forged a new model for businesses to associate their brands with nature. In 1878, U.S. government surveyors mapping the 49th Parallel up to the Continental Divide characterized the summit of the Rocky Mountains as “lying off the usual lines of travel, and presenting no inducement to commercial enterprise, there was nothing to bring its actual value fairly to the notice of the general public.”344 The isolation that they encountered would be relatively short-lived. While the survey party, upon completing their work at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, had to float down the Missouri River on Mackinaw boats for eighteen days to reach the track terminus at Bismarck in the Dakota Territory, the railroad was constantly advancing west to open up the country to settlement as well as instituting a new practice of preservation. The Great Northern Railroad would learn a valuable lesson in conservation and economics from the experience of its transcontinental peer, the Northern Pacific, in Yellowstone. Like the Northern Pacific Railroad in Yellowstone, the Great Northern did much more than simply drop off and collect tourists at the park’s front entrance.345 The 1888 Annual Report of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company gushed over the opening up of 17,000,000 acres of Indian Reservation lands in
344 Reports upon the Survey of the Boundary between the Territory of the United States and the Possessions of Great Britain for the Lake of the Woods to the Summit of the Rocky Mountains (Washington, DC: GPO, 1878), IBC Library. 345 Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 20.
167 Montana along the Missouri and Milk Rivers for settlement.346 This railroad was organized in 1879, and all its property and lines were leased to the Great Northern in 1890. In that same year, the Great Northern reported the discovery of the Marias Pass over the Rocky Mountains. At just 5,213 feet, this pass offered a highly favorable grade and transit point connecting the company’s rail networks, completed the shortest transcontinental line, and finally realized the long-standing ambition of a Northwest Passage, albeit by steel rails instead of the navigable waters of the Missouri.347 These same tracks laid over Marias Pass also eventually represented the southern boundary of a new national park. In 1901, John Muir wrote of his travels to the Flathead Forest Reserve and his positive impression of the area that was to become Glacier National Park in just nine years. The railroad that conducted his party to the reserve was crucial to its development. Muir advised interested parties to “get off the track at Belton Station, and in a few minutes you will find yourself in the midst of what you are sure to say is the best care- killing scenery on the continent.”348 Muir’s vivid description of Glacier’s high country reconfirmed his lucky penchant for finding natural places that he would help to popularize in prose. A 1902 edition of the “Great Northern Pocket Books” travel guide series focused on Lake McDonald, only a short distance from the railroad’s terminal at Belton. Echoing Muir’s sentiments, the brochure identified this corner of the Rocky Mountains as “a much-frequented summer resort, not only for lovers of delightful
346 1888 Annual Report of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway Company. Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies Annual Reports (1870-1968), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 347 1890 Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company. Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies Annual Reports (1870-1968), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 348 “If you are business-tangled, and so burdened with duty that only weeks can be got out of the heavy- laden year, then go to the Flathead Reserve; for it is easily and quickly reached by the Great Northern Railroad.” John Muir. Our National Parks (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1901), 17.
168 scenery and students of natural science, but also for those who need rest from the distracting and killing influences of the ‘madding crowd’.”349 In an obvious nod to its future status, the whole area was branded “The Yosemite of the Rockies.” The railroad would do even more to popularize the space once it became a park. In 1912, James J. Hill resigned as Chairman of the Board of the Great Northern to be replaced by his son, Louis. In his final address, included as an appendix to the company’s Annual Report, James Hill reflected on his life’s work shepherding the railroad to completion. He placed its value solidly on
the resources of the country it traverses. From the head of the [Great] lakes to Puget Sound this is rich agricultural land. From fifty to one hundred miles of the line run through mountain valleys, but even these are susceptible of cultivation. Barring only the actual summits of the mountain passes, the country is capable, under the best modern agricultural treatment, of multiplying its wealth indefinitely and furnishing increasing and profitable tonnage for years to come. The Great Northern is now wrought so firmly into the economic as well as the corporate body of the land as to have fitted itself permanently into the natural frame of things.350
According to Hill, the future success of this venture would depend on the utilization of natural resources. Interestingly, he viewed the Great Northern not as a mere conveyance or man-made intrusion, but instead as a permanent natural feature of the land itself. The railroad was key to the process of remaking the land and its products to useful ends, but the contours and boundaries of use suddenly changed with the designation of Glacier National Park in 1910. In his recent monograph, Railroaded, historian Richard White argues that 19th century transcontinental railroads were incomparable political and economic actors more notable for their overreach and failures
349 9/1902 Brochure “Lake McDonald: ‘The Crown of the Continent’,” Box 16 (Morton J. Elrod Papers), K. Ross Toole Archives (The University of Montana-Missoula). 350 1912 Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company, Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies Annual Reports (1870-1968), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
1 69 than their initial success in building networks that straddled the continent.351 When evaluating the short and long-term costs of these enterprises, the railroads came up short, in particular when considering the negative impact on the natural environments each crossed. Yet, while railroads like the Great Northern and the scores of settlers that followed in their wake demonstrably changed the land, White does not address the singular contribution railroads also made to the natural ledger by securing protected spaces like Glacier National Park. While the railroads in White’s narrative cleverly invoked political support to repair their financial failures, the story of Glacier and Waterton Lakes tells us much more about the moral dissonance within the railroad’s ambition to promote passenger tourism through a delicate balance between use and preservation. In Waterton-Glacier, as in perhaps no other places the railroad laid its tracks, officials had to consider how environmental modifications might constrain their ability to market the property for tourism. At the same time, the railroad had a vested interest in making modifications not only to directly support tourism through the construction of trails, roads, and hotels, but in reclamation works that captured the water essential if any of the properties they held in markedly arid eastern Montana could be marketed and sold as successful farms. The 1912 Great Northern Annual Report contained the first mention of Glacier. To begin to leverage the wholly different kinds of resources represented by the park, the company began construction of a seventy-room hotel at Glacier Park station, the eastern gateway to the park, and a small dormitory at Belton station near the western entrance. The park also appeared for the first time in shaded silhouette on the railroad’s route map.
351 Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York.: W. W. Norton, 2011).
170
1912 Great Northern Railway Route Map
With no National Park Service yet in place in the United States, railroad engineers were engaging in an early form of master planning for the development of the park. The Great Northern took responsibility for much of the road building on the eastern side adjacent to its Glacier Park station. They spent $90,900 to construct a thirty-four mile road from the station to camps along upper St. Mary’s Lake. Using the camps as hubs, company engineers crafted trail spokes, preferably in loops so as to avoid scenic repetition, to take tourists to feature attractions.352 Trails became roads, allowing temporary camps to evolve into larger, permanent chalets and hotels. In business terms, small developments, once proven over time, justified additional investment.
Glacier National Park predated the establishment of the National Park Service by six years, and the railroad stepped into the administrative vacuum. In particular, Louis Hill, assuming the presidency from his father James, exhibited a zealous energy in developing the park. In keeping with his railroad management style, Hill was very hands-
352 “It would seem most desirable to have good trails constructed into Iceberg Lake and up the south fork of Swift Current pass from our McDermott Camp. These trails should also be relocated so as to eventually become roads.” 8/12/1912 Letter to A.H. Hogeland (St. Paul, Minn.) from Assistant Engineer, Box 66.E.3.3 (Louis W. Hill Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
171 on, discharging one forceful missive after another to the park superintendent and Interior Department officials in Washington. For example, in August 1911, Hill harangued Superintendent W.R. Logan by telegram, writing, “Party [of tourists] just returned from trip, visiting all Great Northern camps. Greatly disappointed to find practically no new trail work done this year. Camps well located and would make wonderful trip if trails between could be opened up.”353 As a result, Hill threatened to stop advertising the park to railroad customers. The Interior Department attempted to smooth out this initially awkward working relationship by holding public hearings in 1913 to better coordinate development in Glacier Park. “The way I look at it is that the Great Northern has gone in here and erected those chalets and it is up to us to accommodate the travel to them. All I want to do is to move as expeditiously, harmoniously and as rapidly as possible,” indicated C.S. Ucker, the Chief Clerk of the Interior Department.354 This new working relationship granted the railroad significant latitude in using park resources. In the same hearing, Ucker inquired about the construction of new water-powered electrical plants for lodging at McDermott and Sperry, asking simply, “Do you damage the landscape?” “Not at all,” peremptorily replied the railroad’s representative, J.M. Cathcart.355 Ucker appeared satisfied. In 1916, the Glacier Park Hotel Company signed a twenty-year lease with a rental rate of just $5 per acre per year and a $50 annual assessment for water power generation.356
353 8/6/1911 Telegram to Major W.R. Logan from Louis W. Hill, Box 217, GNP Archives. 354 2/5/1913 Hearing on Glacier National Park Matters, Box 23 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 355 2/6/1913 Hearing on Glacier National Park Matters, Box 23 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 356 “Under the supervision of the supervisor of the park, may collect or manufacture ice, quarry stone, mine coal, and use dead, fallen, or other timber in the park as far as may be necessary in the construction of buildings, telegraph or telephone lines, for fuel, and other subordinate matters appurtenant to the operation of the hotels and camps.” 1916 Contract with Glacier Park Hotel Co. for Maintenance of Hotels, Chalets, and Camps in Glacier National Park, Montana, Box 257 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
172 In 1914, the Glacier Park Hotel Company was capitalized with $1,500,000 in stock to assume ownership and operation of the hotels and camps built by the railroad at Glacier Park Station, Two Medicine, Going-to-the-Sun, and St. Mary’s. Additional lodging was also under construction for the next summer season at Many Glacier and Granite Park.357 In conjunction, the railroad launched its first widespread Glacier Park publicity campaign, anticipating and hoping these new facilities would be filled by visitors conveyed to the park by train, thus materially increasing the company’s passenger revenue. Hill’s organization and money created Glacier’s infrastructure and funneled visitors to the space. It is not a far reach to suggest that without the railroad, there would be no national park. At a minimum, it would not be experienced in the way it is today. He paid attention to even the smallest details. In May 1920, while in Spokane, Washington, Hill purchased several boxes of perennial flowers and wrote to advise the gardener at the Glacier Hotel that he “would like to have these planted around the border and around in the flower beds near the hotel.”358 The Great Northern, described in a memorial to the late James Hill as an “instrument for the development of this country,” exercised its own narrative over Glacier and Waterton Lakes.359 The goals of private enterprises like the railroad often dovetailed with the efforts of each country’s Park Service to open up these spaces for visitation. However, businesses also had a vested interest in preserving the natural setting, although they did not always seek the same balance between use and preservation
357 1914 Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company, Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies Annual Reports (1870-1968), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 358 5/22/1920 Letter to Gardener from Louis W. Hill, Box 66.E.3.3 (Louis W. Hill Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 359 1916 Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company, Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies Annual Reports (1870-1968), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
173 as the government agencies that managed the spaces. Sometimes, the Great Northern sought more development, but at other times, the company had an even more stringent vision for protection. The U.S. Park Service pushed for the construction of a transmountain road in Glacier, which would cross the Continental Divide and connect the park’s two halves. Since it already provided such a link, the railroad, perhaps unsurprisingly, resisted this effort. In August 1922, Great Northern Vice President W.P. Kenney personally wrote to the Park Service Director to discourage the plan. Kenney framed his argument in terms meant to appeal to the core of the Park Service’s mission: “The National Park Service can, of course, put roads through that will appeal to people to go through the park on a fast auto trip and thereby satisfy their curiosity, but they will destroy for the thousands of other tourists the beauty and charm that now appeal very greatly to them.”360 It is easy to dismiss this line of reasoning as merely self-serving, but Kenney also wrote separately in September to H.A. Noble, the manager of Great Northern Hotel Company, to elaborate: “It is apparent that the National Park Service, at least those in Washington, overlook almost entirely the essential features of the Park and the fact that the Park should be developed in the interior, accessible only to horseback riders and hikers.”361 In the same letter, he outlined the proper way to experience a park, drawing a stark contrast between Glacier and Yellowstone: “It is very plain that they [the Park Service] feel it is more desirable to develop, as in Yellowstone, and induce thousands of people to come with their ‘flivvers’ and drive over the mountain on the new road” (Author’s note: “Flivvers’ is a slang reference to an old, inexpensive automobile).362 The Great Northern had a
360 8/26/1922 Letter to Acting Director Cammerer from W.P. Kenney, Box 247 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 361 9/2/1922 Letter to H.A. Noble from W.P. Kenney, Box 22.F.9.1B (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 362 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flivvers.
174 particular aesthetic in mind, one that reinforced its business model while preserving the park’s wilderness. Nevertheless, the company eventually embraced the automobile, finally adding two auto camps between 1933 and 1940.363 The railroad was more directly tested in weighing its stake in the park by land parcels it also held hundreds of miles away in eastern Montana. The Bureau of Reclamation sought to create reservoirs within the park and divert waters to the Milk River, a river that flowed from close to the park through eastern Montana and usually ran dry during the most crucial period of the agricultural season. One of the reservoir sites was located in the Swiftcurrent Valley, just a few miles downstream from an area the railroad was developing as a major tourist destination. One of the early issues encountered by the Bureau of Reclamation was how to provide adequate power for the construction equipment needed for this multi-year endeavor. To this end, their engineer hoped to harness the seventy-five foot drop of McDermott Falls along Swiftcurrent Creek. While the railroad did not approve of the hydroelectric project for fear that it would impair the beauty of the location where it planned to construct an expansive hotel property, the railroad did nothing to forestall the development of a reservoir further downstream and out of view of the tourists they hoped to bring into the eastern side of the park. Ultimately, wood, in the form of park trees, provided the fuel needed to generate steam power for the dam project, thus further magnifying the environmental footprint of the project. In 1924, with 28,580 acre-feet of water stored in Sherburne Lakes Reservoir, the Great Northern Railway began a settlement campaign in the lower Milk River Valley of
363 4/15/1950 Memo to President F.J. Gavin, Box 22.F.8.6F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
175 eastern Montana.364 By 1925, eighty families, comprising about 430 people, settled in the Chinook and Malta divisions as a result of the Great Northern’s efforts. Settlers paid the railroad’s land development subsidiary, on average, $40 to $50 per acre for irrigated tracts.365 One development paved the way for another, but the railroad had to grapple with how to balance among uses. As the Sherburne reservoir attests, even spaces within national parks varied with some areas serving more utilitarian purposes than others. In the end, Great Northern officials achieved the best possible scenario whereby the glaciers and the waters they produced scenically cascaded by their hotel property while also gathering further downstream behind the Reclamation Bureau dam only waiting to be released when needed by the farmers that settled on suddenly valuable railroad property. The Great Northern’s expansive vision also aspired to integrate Glacier and Waterton Lakes. A 1915 Report on Waterton Lakes prepared for Canadian Parks Commissioner J.B. Harkin lamented the park's distance from the Canadian Pacific line and its resultant disadvantage in development. While Waterton was cut off from the capital the Canadian Pacific poured into Banff and Jasper National Parks, the report’s author, P.C. Hervey, concluded that the best solution was to funnel tourists from the Great Northern and Glacier, and to this end, he proposed constructing a lakeshore drive extending south from the township in the center of the park to the international border. Hervey felt confident “the Great Northern people would build to connect up to give them a direct entrance to the townsite at Waterton Lakes Park.”366 Rather than approach the U.S. Interior Department, the Canadians opted to directly contact the railroad, the
364 Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (1924) (Washington DC: GPO, 1924), BOR Library. 365 Twenty-third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (1925) (Washington DC: GPO, 1925), BOR Library. 366 3/9/1915 Report on suggestions for Waterton Lakes Park to Commissioner J.B. Harkin from Chief Superintendent P.C. Hervey, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
176 organization with the deep pockets and incentive to think and spend on a grander scale. After estimating the construction costs of building a road directly through the center of the two parks, the railroad and U.S. Government deemed the project unfeasible. A connecting road ultimately had to be placed further to the east outside the parks along the more level and buildable plains. Even with this false start, five years before the creation of the international peace park, the railroad effectively integrated the two spaces under the auspices of a multinational business. Waterton Lakes continued to struggle with slow development due to the lack of private investment capital. The Waterton Lakes Superintendent noted the need for a major hotel in the park, but unlike in Glacier, the Canadian Parks Service was unwilling to offer a lodging monopoly that would have guaranteed future returns.367 Finally, during 1926-28, the Great Northern constructed the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Townsite.368 Afterward, railway advertisements invited Glacier Park visitors to step across the line into Canada and the “Land of the ‘Northwest Mounted.’” A 1930 brochure informed travelers that all the hotels and chalets in Glacier and Waterton Lakes “are conducted on the American plan. They are not managed for the purpose of making a quick profit in a short season, but rather for the comfort and convenience of Great Northern passengers who come to Glacier Park.”369 Pairing this investment in infrastructure with their monopoly of transportation into the park, the Great Northern effectively controlled the flow of tourism into both spaces. In 1926, Horace Albright, Stephen Mather’s Deputy at the U.S. Park Service, made a tour of the Canadian National Parks. He reported back to Mather on the
367 11/18/1919 Letter to Commissioner of Dominion Parks from Superintendent, Box 131, WLNPA. 368 4/15/1950 Memo to President F.J. Gavin, Box 22.F.8.6F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 369 [undated 1930?] Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park Brochure (Great Northern), Montana Historical Society Archives.
177 widespread influence of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the nation’s only transcontinental carrier and a major national park backer. Albright observed “the Great Northern seems to have a hold on Waterton Lakes Park similar to Canadian Pacific influence further north, and I would not be surprised if it attempts to control transportation from the United States into Waterton Lakes Park.”370 This perception, if not also reality, of control persisted in Waterton and Glacier. In a letter written sometime in the early 1930s, ostensibly from the U.S. Park Service Director to an individual in the Interior Department planning to travel to Glacier National Park and make a report back to Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, noted “most of the visitors in Glacier Park honestly believe that the region belongs to the Great Northern Railway – as indeed it does to all intents and purposes.”371 From the park’s opening in 1910 until car travel began to eclipse passenger rail arrivals in the 1940s and even beyond that, private business and public parks were inseparable to travelers. Yet, as H.H. Hanson’s previous story foreshadows, parks like Glacier and Waterton Lakes were not just the exclusive province of large-scale business. Hanson’s story highlights the ingenuity of small businesses in finding and exploiting niches to be a part of this new style of tourism. These stories of small business can be found in all the parks.
SMALL BUSINESS IN BIG SPACES
While much has been written about the impact of big business in working to have protected spaces set aside, national parks were local constructions long before they
370 9/20/1926 Letter to Director Mather from Assistant Director Horace Albright, Box 630 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 371 [undated] Correspondence from Director[?], Box 19, GNP Archives.
178 became national and international. As such, small businesses adjacent to and within these spaces were equally interested and engaged in their creation and ongoing development. The range of services these businesses offered was central to the ability of the parks to operate and accommodate tourists. Whatever minimal capacity for overnight stays within parks was usually eclipsed by private offerings located outside. Residents of gateway towns made their livelihoods on the seasonal harvest of tourism. In turn, like the railroads, the small businesses within these communities developed as deep a set of associations with parks. The local allegiance to place did not abate with its rebranding as a national park. Instead, locals continued to exercise their own opinions about what to do with the playgrounds they now shared with a much larger constituency. While the prevailing narrative of national parks revolves around dispossession of people and displacement of uses, small businesses and their owners often persisted. Even in Waterton Lakes, despite H.H. Hanson’s removal from what was to become the central townsite, the creation of the very same townsite actually institutionalized the presence of private sector business and home ownership through the availability of long-term leases. The Canadian Parks Service encouraged entrepreneurs to set up shop throughout the park in order to meet the needs of the traveling public. For example, George Annand and his family sold vegetables and milk in Waterton Park. In 1922, he operated a dairy at the Pass Creek campground. “We had our cows, and our living tent and our milk tent. We bottled the milk, separated the cream and so forth,” according to Annand. “We’d come out from May til September and move back to the farm. But in 1924 we come out and stayed.”372
372 Waterton Park Community Association Oral History Project. Interview with George Annand (June 16, 1995), Box 117, WLNPA.
179 On the contrary, private leases, except for long-term concessions by subsidiaries of the Great Northern, were not allowed on the other side of the international line. Denying private leases in American parks, like Glacier and later Big Bend, constrained opportunities for small businesses to flourish within these spaces. These types of smaller scale enterprises were instead mostly relegated to the “gateway” towns on the park peripheries. Yet Waterton Township, in the center of the park, featured a variety of small shops, groceries, restaurants, and hoteliers. Even the common constraint of a short visitor season, usually from May through September in these north latitude parks, that seasonally restricted returns on any capital investment did not inevitably lead to outcomes that favored big over small businesses. Rather, fundamentally different park policies toward business led to a greater diversity of scale in one place and not the other. Whether located within or outside parks, small businesses persisted and attempted to influence the ways in which parks were developed, not surprisingly to maximize opportunities. In the Big Bend, local business tried to preserve local prerogatives even after the first small protected space, Big Bend State Park, was established in the Chisos Mountains and three river canyons. In April 1934, Pete Crawford, the State Game Warden for the Big Bend District, wrote to J.E. Casner, President of the Brewster County Chamber of Commerce, to encourage the continuation of public hunting within the enlarged State Park. He hoped the park would perpetuate hunting, fishing, and camping “in a rugged wilderness setting, and in a land of romance and glamour along the Mexican Border.”373 Like the Great Northern in Waterton-Glacier, local Texas entrepreneurs saw the economic benefits on tying the Big Bend into a broader international framework.
373 He summarized this conservation/recreation approach as follows: “hunting, fishing, camping and general outdoor life would be provided in a rugged wilderness setting, and in a land of romance and glamour along the Mexican Border.” 4/21/1934 Letter to J. E. Casner from Pete Crawford, Box 1X, BBNP Archives.
180 Although preserving the space for its scenery was important, it would benefit local communities to have the broadest possible set of uses, including hunting and fishing, for the proposed space. Casner had accompanied Ben Thompson of the Park Service Wildlife Office on his early April 1934 expedition to investigate the resident wildlife. Thompson wrote to Roger Toll, head of the Wildlife Office, later that month to indicate agreement on the proposed boundaries and suitability for park status but also to express some alarm at the scope and scale of development proposed by the Chamber of Commerce.374 With utmost tact, Thompson wrote suggesting, “national parks were developed very carefully and with a long time plan in mind.”375 Yet given the large number of ranches throughout the area, it would take a significant amount of money to realize Thompson’s vision of a truly unfragmented space. Although at some odds over the vision for park development, the push to secure land acquisition funds from the state’s treasury was secured by the local business community making a case for the broadest possible economic impact of the park. W.J., or “Johnny,” Newell moved to Alpine, Texas in January 1939 to join a partnership that owned the regional Gulf Oil distributorship.376 He became interested in the Big Bend Park Project after a trip to the region with Park Service officials, and as a business owner, he saw the huge potential economic benefit of the park. When the bill in the state legislature to purchase land for the park floundered in 1941, Newell and Jim Casner, Chamber President and owner of the local Chevrolet dealership, drove to East and North Texas respectively to drum up votes. Travelling through towns using their Gulf and Chevrolet connections, each man called upon local legislative patrons to make the
374 4/16/1934 Letter to Roger Toll from Ben Thompson, Box 1X, BBNP Archives. 375 4/16/1934 Letter to Roger Toll from Ben Thompson, Box 1X, BBNP Archives. 376 Oral History of W.J. Newell, Archives of the Big Bend, Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library, Sul Ross State University (Alpine, Texas).
181 case that a national park would draw tourists from all over the nation, and, importantly, tourists that would travel and spend money through these parts of Texas en route to the park. Based in part on their lobbying efforts, the appropriations bill passed by one vote.377 To be sure, as the region benefitted, so did Casner and Newell. Indeed, Newell’s company constructed the gas station at Panther Junction in the center of the park.378 Newell also created a series of free auto logs that described scenic attractions throughout West Texas in relation to the park and the gasoline stations that he owned. While the Big Bend National Park project was shepherded by business on a more local scale than Glacier, the National Park Service still relied on a proven concessioner to manage the commercialized interior. The company that operated hotels and restaurants at Mammoth Cave National Park, National Park Concessions Inc., was brought in to manage the first visitor accommodations located in the Chisos Basin. With so much to do to set up the park for visitors, it was easier for an existing provider to assume responsibility and conform to the mission of the Park Service.379 Historian Hal Rothman wrote about the occasional devil’s bargain that communities surrounding protected spaces entered into by ceding so much of their livelihoods to the whims of tourism.380 Certainly, Big Bend provided an example of a set of communities in far West Texas that actively worked to create a national park and then tried to ensure its development aligned with their own economic self-interest. In raising
377 The Texas Senate adopted the conference committee report by a vote of 15 to 14. [undated] Memo on the Creation of Big Bend National Park, Archives of the Big Bend, Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library, Sul Ross State University (Alpine, Texas). 378 [undated 1955] Instructions and Specifications for Service Station located at Panther Junction, Box 1 (Southwest Regional Office General Correspondence), Rocky Mountain NARA (Denver, CO). 379 “If a guy’s going to get out here, he has to have something to eat…And of course if he’s going to stay out here he has to have some comforts.” 9/19/1997 Garner Hanson Interview. Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives. 380 Hal K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998).
182 money to buy property for the state’s first national park, Texans viewed Big Bend through an economic lens. A State Civic League defined “the State’s No. 1 enterprise – a new goal in its economic life – is the development of its most promising tourist magnet, the Big Bend National Park. Scenic attractions are now regarded as natural resources and must be developed with the same zeal.”381 Local chambers of commerce sought to expand the old definition of natural resources beyond the petroleum, livestock, and agriculture into which they had already tapped. The Park Service began to recognize the major impact parks had on development. In January 1949, Park Service Director Newton Drury testified before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the United States Senate. In addition to describing the parks as stores of leisure for a productive citizenry, he focused on the newfound economic role of the parks. “The expenditure of funds for recreation is also important economically to the extent that it stimulates the development of undeveloped areas of the country and brings stabilizing and balancing influences into the economy of certain states and communities,” Drury intoned.382 Perhaps this is at the root of what Hal Rothman described as a “devil’s bargain.” These communities hoped the boom/bust nature of resource extraction or the hardscrabble nature of farming or ranching could be, at least partially, mediated by the introduction of the tourist trade. While Rothman focused on what these communities risked and sometimes lost in the process, parks continued to be highly sought after. The success of early parks, like Glacier, paved the way for states to form parks, such as the Everglades, Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains, and Big Bend, out of
381 1/14/1941 First Annual Banquet East Side Civic League Souvenir Program. Box 350 (Amon Carter Papers) Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University. 382 1/7/1949 “The National Park Service” by Director Newton B. Drury prepared for the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on the United States Senate, Microfilm T12918, Canadian NA.
183 parcels with more widespread patterns of use and that had clearly generated economic value over time.383 The proven viability of nature tourism created a novel situation where parks relied on the small and large businesses that developed to provide services to the visiting public. National parks became stores of value in their own right and, as such, were able to serve as incubators for the growth of businesses, large and small, on their peripheries.
A WILDERNESS ECONOMY IN NATURE’S PERIPHERY
The common byproduct of the creation of protected spaces has been the promotion of businesses that support tourist incursions into the parks. Historian William Cronon coined the term “nature’s metropolis” to describe the iterative developments between the city of Chicago and its environs.384 National parks also had such peripheries. Oddly, ruling out development in the core of the park allowed, even encouraged, the development of spaces along its geographic edges and, in a few carefully selected areas, within the protected space itself. At park entrances and in adjacent towns the tourist public found the myriad range of expected services from restaurants to hotels. Historian Alfred Runte, as discussed in chapter 1, deployed the “worthless lands” thesis to explain lands set aside as national parks.385 While the park case studies showed
383 The U.S. Congress established national parks in the Everglades and Great Smoky Mountains in 1934 and the Big Bend and Shenandoah in 1935. 384 William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991). 385 Historian Alfred Runte advanced the “worthless lands” theory in his cornerstone exploration of American National Parks, a book that has been updated periodically, most recently with its fourth release in 2010. He argues that parks could only be established in areas that had no other beneficial economic use: for instance, where high elevation and an abbreviated growing season precluded grazing or agricultural pursuits. Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987).
184 unequivocally that private parcels did remain, what were once considered worthless lands were now brimming with value. The success of nature tourism ratified the designation of other national parks even those, like the Big Bend, that required the assembly of private lands and displacement of other uses. What was begun by the railroads in an attempt to find new ways to leverage the capital they had already invested in building an extensive transportation network grew into a commercial end unto itself. How do parks pay economic dividends? It is a complicated question, and certainly one that park boosters and detractors spent as much time considering as the natural merits of each space. Some analyses revolved around opportunity cost. In Waterton Lakes, Commissioner J.B. Harkin resorted to economics in an attempt to stave off another potential public use for the property: irrigation. In the debate over the construction of a reservoir and power plant in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite, John Muir enjoined that “nothing dollarable is safe.”386 And yet, while the simple reduction of these spaces into revenues and expenses belied the premise that such a lowest common denominator as money can be effectively used to fully express notions of value, Harkin relied on these contributions in making the case for Waterton. In a lengthy 1922 memo rebutting the Canadian Irrigation Department’s proposal to utilize Upper Waterton Lake as a reservoir, he argued that Waterton as a park generated an ongoing stream of $1 million in tourist revenue per year based on a miniscule investment of $236,000.387 With projected annual crop revenue of only $440,625 derived from using the lake to water 75,000 acres, irrigation would not pay equal dividends.388 Moreover, Harkin claimed irrigation could not co-exist with park status as other uses set up a tipping point whereby the park could
386 John Muir, “The Hetch-Hetchy Valley: A National Question,” American Forestry Vol. 16 (May 1910). 387 “To irrigate the 75,000 acres in the Waterton irrigation project at $5.00 per acre would cost $375,000 per annum.” 3/25/1922 Memo to Mr. Cory from J.B. Harkin, Box 122, WLNPA. 388 [undated 1948] Report on Waterton Lake Irrigation Scheme, Microfilm T12672, Canadian NA.
185 no longer function as such. Measuring harm to the scenic attractiveness of a place presented obvious challenges, but determining a natural baseline was the foundation for all the public and private profits to be gained. For the Big Bend, the analysis of ledgers was especially critical given the need to raise money to purchase and repurpose lands that already had a clear economic track record. As with most back of the envelope projections, numbers varied widely but firmly in support of the initial investment required of the State of Texas. In 1937, the Park Service estimated tourist dividends of $1.6 million in the first year of operation alone.389 That same year, Amon Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star Telegram and chief fundraiser for the park, determined the total annual amount of money accruing to Texas from the proposed park at $3,585,000 (including $225,000 in federal expenditures for development and maintenance with the balance from visitor travel expenditures).390 A June 1945 radio address in Chihuahua by Park Service Regional Director M.R. Tillotson also gravitated toward an economic case for Mexico to establish a companion park.391 By design, these models focused on positive contributions from the park in the form of direct federal investment in construction and ongoing salaries for park staff but also cited indirect benefits that were much more elusive to quantification. These soft revenues included gas and lodging taxes for local government and tourist purchases from private enterprise. These booster analytics rarely acknowledged that the park also
389 1937 “A Million Dollar Campaign thru Popular Subscription” to Purchase Land for Big Bend National Park, Box 1 (Horace Morelock Papers), BBNP Archives. 390 [undated 1937] “Estimated minimum amount of money that will come to Texas per year from outside the state as a direct result of establishing the Big Bend National Park,” Box 21 (Amon Carter Papers) Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University. 391 “With necessary improvement of roads to make Chihuahua, Saltillo, and similar cities readily accessible the flow of tourist business and tourist dollars to those cities would be impossible to calculate. This prophecy is not an idle guess on my part. It is based on our actual experience as to the benefit of national parks to their nearby communities in the United States.” L.A. Garrison, “A History of the Proposed Big Bend International Park,” Archives of the Big Bend, Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas.
186 negatively impacted the ledger by removing property from county tax rolls and eliminating future potential revenue from land sales or mineral extraction. One Dallas resident, Homer Stimson, wondered about the inclusion of public school lands in the proposed park. “Who knows whether or not these school lands contain oil, gas and other minerals? The Constitution set these lands apart to the public free school fund of Texas. To use them for any other purpose violates the Constitution and wrongs the school children of our state,” Stimson complained.392 Boosters continued to stress economics long after the park was created. In a September 1975 interview, Alpine businessman Johnny Newell estimated the total annual economic impact from Big Bend at $35 million.393 Most of these benefits, albeit substantial and impressive, ended up in private hands, but were enabled by public expenditures. In 1929, the Associated Trade Boards of Southern Alberta sought more funds for Waterton Park. They made the case in an article in the Calgary Herald that “the national parks of Alberta are valuable assets for the province. They attract thousands of tourists each year … No effort should be spared to enhance their charm for the visitors, for it is a matter of good business.”394 What constituted development expanded beyond the construction of infrastructure directly tied to experiencing the natural environment to a number of decidedly “unnatural” attractions. For example, in 1952, the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce praised the Minister of Resources and Development for investing in the park, adding hopes that the Department
392 5/15/1939 “Robbing School Children to Create National Park” (Dallas News), Box 829 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 393 The science of measuring the economics impact of parks remained untethered from reality as this figure was about one-third more than the tax valuation of all of Brewster County. Oral History of W.J. Newell, Archives of the Big Bend, Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas. 394 “Improvements to Waterton Park.” Calgary Herald (12/8/1929), Microfilm T10434, Canadian NA.
187 would carry through with plans for a new swimming pool in 1953.395 Public expenditures begat private profits by developing road infrastructure that facilitated tourist access, but also supplementing the natural draws of the parks with artificial amenities like a pool in Waterton. This newfound status as incubator for business led to calls for more park development to draw in more tourists to experience the natural space so they could also be part of the market for businesses that surrounded it. The more enticements and projects that parks contained, the longer tourists would stay and be accessible to the businesses that catered to them and the parks. Private enterprise negotiated a delicate course in supporting the efforts of park administrators. In the 1960s, wilderness classification and zoning began to be deployed in U.S. and Canadian parks. Private enterprise prepared counterarguments to this new policy and management trend. “Much could be learned from the development which has taken place in the European Alps and which has led to enjoyment of the outdoors on a scale which is simply unknown in North America, “admonished the Banff-Lake Louise Chamber of Commerce in response to a recently published “National Parks Policy” commenting on the restrictive view of wilderness.396 As the earliest parks in the United States and Canada explicitly referred to the value of the Swiss Alps as a tourist attraction, the Chamber repurposed this European venue to serve as an alternate model for wise commercial development of Canadian spaces, arguing, “We believe that the best way to bring people to the wilderness is to make it more accessible, to provide comfortable accommodation adjacent to the wilderness area, and to provide secondary amusements.”
395 11/24/1952 Letter to R.H. Winters from D.S. O’Connell, Microfilm T9871, Canadian NA. 396 Although this detailed critique of policy was submitted by the Banff Chamber, it is reasonable to assume it also represented business interests in Waterton and many other parks. July 1965. “National Parks Policy: A Submission of the Banff-Lake Louise Chamber of Commerce to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources,” Box 139, WLNPA.
188 More accessibility meant higher visitation and profits. Although reluctant to fundamentally change the nature of parks, businesses were concerned about how wilderness zoning might permanently limit the upside potential from future tourism. We have already seen in chapter 2, “Making Wilderness,” how businesses reacted to specific wilderness proposals in each space. It is interesting to note that even today, the agencies that manage parks still frame part of their purpose in economic terms. In its land protection vision for the year 2000, the Canadian Ministry of Environment described its $300 million annual budget as resulting “in an increase in the gross domestic product … of almost $900 million. In other words Environment Canada – Parks’ expenditures have almost a three-fold multiplier effect.”397 Yet, this windfall did not accrue evenly and not all parties shared in it. In strictly fiscal terms, national parks were losing propositions for governments. While the overall economy may benefit, national parks themselves, at least in direct terms for the management organizations like Environment Canada, have operated in the financial red. A national park is a peculiar economic entity when considered from this vantage point. To be fair, parks made money, but not nearly enough to cover the costs of maintenance and development. Park Services instituted entrance, camping, and permit fees to help defray these costs, but there was also a pressure to minimize such fees. This was by design, as the parks could, in theory, charge higher rates for admission, but the notion of parks as public grounds has perpetuated a bias toward unrestricted access. High fees of any sort would preclude the public from enjoying the very spaces held in common trust. Food, lodging, and souvenirs, although regulated, could be priced with a profit margin. The actual price of admission was never afforded this luxury. This would conflict
397 1987 Our Park – Vision for the 21st Century, Report of the Minister of Environment’s Task Force on Park Establishment, Box 124, WLNPA.
189 with the more fundamental democratic purpose of encouraging visitation across the socio-economic spectrum, given the parks' standing as places “for the people.” Although most parks operated at a loss and were subsidized by the federal government, entities on their periphery also used them for financial gain. These losses were easily borne by governments, but the cost of operating within a national park, while a boon for some businesses, proved challenging for others in the private sector. While tying a business with nature had other benefits, it remains to be seen whether the balance sheet can overcome the bottom line. Nature’s periphery extended beyond being a convenient incubator for businesses near the park to serving as a readily accessible brand that could be co-opted by businesses much further afield.
A NATURAL BRAND AND BALANCE SHEET
1923 Great Northern Railway Annual Report Cover
What it meant to be associated with national parks as a business changed dramatically over time. From initially serving to bolster the profitability of mainline operations, associations with parks went from being solely defined in direct economic
190 terms to being an important component of a company’s brand. The early work that railroads, like the Great Northern, did to encourage the public to embrace national parks through campaigns like “See America First” ultimately made it possible for contemporary businesses like CEMEX to adopt a brand association that was already clearly understood by the public.398 Parks were used to reflect the mantle of wilderness back onto the companies that supported them, and businesses aspired to be linked to nature because of the work that natural association could do for their own brand. Railroads transformed from being solely a means to get visitors into parks to being an institution of the park itself. In 1913, H.A. Seward, a passenger agent with the Great Northern, responded to an inquiry from a traveler, Minnie Scott, about what there was to see and do in Glacier Park. “Since this vast tract, containing 1,500 square miles of the most beautiful mountain scenery in our land, was made a national park, it has been the aim of this company to provide comfortable accommodations for the tourist, the nature lover, the scientist, the camera enthusiast, the painter and the poet,” wrote Seward. As a result, he assured Scott that “today we are in a position to give the seeker of outdoor life, where the mountain and pine laden air is always bracing and invigorating, where the Indians once claimed their Happy Hunting Grounds, where Nature speaks, every comfort and convenience that could be desired.”399 The park became, in essence, a mix between private and public reserve. While a public space, as all national parks were, Glacier, especially in its early years, was in many ways the private province of the Great Northern
398 Shaffer’s monograph shows the interconnections between tourism and national identity. Border parks, like Waterton-Glacier and Big Bend, complicate the “See America First” mantra as these parks expanded this notion to include spaces that cut across national boundaries. The international associations these natural spaces provided became as important to business as their direct contribution to the bottom line. Marguerite Shaffer, See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001). 399 8/19/1913 Letter to Minnie Scott from H.A. Seward (General Agent, Great Northern Railway Company), Box 1, Horace A. Scott Papers, Montana Historical Society Archives.
191 and its passengers like Minnie Scott. People arrived and departed almost exclusively by the railroad timetable. They stayed in railroad hotels and journeyed on the backs of railroad horses. The various tours from which tourists elected to see the space were based on carefully screened and scripted options developed by the railroad. Over time, the Great Northern literally rebranded itself in association with Glacier National Park. An image of a Rocky Mountain goat standing on a rocky precipice in the park appeared in Annual Reports and brochures and was even painted on the sides of its locomotives. The basis for this branding association was the massive investment in new corporate assets in the forms of hotels, chalets, camps, restaurants, and stables. These properties were added to the inventory of assets alongside locomotives and Pullman cars. Balance sheets reflect the underlying assets and liabilities tied to a particular business venture, while the income statement focuses on revenues, hopefully positive, derived from the same. Certain industries require a significant amount of capital investment. Certainly, railroads carried large upfront costs to lay and maintain tracks and buy the large equipment needed to transport products from point to point. Building out and maintaining a transportation network that stretched over half a continent from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast also required a sizable ongoing investment. Such fixed capital costs were borne by the company, whether it transported one or one hundred million bushels of wheat. Since railroads actually produced nothing, their end product was transporting goods made by others and, in the absence of goods, people. For the Great Northern, building a strong association with Glacier was about maximizing the railroad’s capacity. One of the biggest assets for the company was not even reflected in its balance sheet – the park itself. For the Great Northern, leveraging this green asset enabled the company to smooth out the cycles of boom and bust that impacted capacity on their lines. Further
192 south and almost a century removed, a Mexican multi-national had much different business imperatives in mind. CEMEX, founded in 1906 in Mexico, has become one of the top global producers of cement and aggregates.400 In the preface to its 2006 Sustainable Development Report, the company directly linked its success to development projects: “As more people improve their quality of life by building and improving homes, schools, hospitals, businesses, roads, and bridges, the demand for our products increases.”401 At the same time, CEMEX publicly embraced the idea of sustainability and espoused a philosophy of corporate responsibility for the natural environment. “Our commitment to the conservation of biodiversity comes from our sustainability vision and the core values of our company,” according to the CEMEX report. It also presumably flowed from the detrimental impacts that resulted from the extraction of raw materials and production processes for concrete aggregates. In Mexico’s Maderas del Carmen it became possible for a private company to buy into the natural brand.402 The Maderas Del Carmen project was highlighted as the prime example of corporate environmental stewardship, and, since 2000, CEMEX has purchased over 120,000 hectares of land.403 Yet, unlike the Great Northern’s plan for Glacier, for CEMEX, the Maderas Del Carmen represented a pure wilderness without any
400 2006 Business Week RDE 100; http://bwnt.businessweek.com/top_100_multinational/2006/. According to a 2006 Business Week ranking crafted by the Boston Consulting Group of companies from “rapidly developing economies,” dubbed the RDE 100, that it considers most likely to succeed, CEMEX is the “world's third-largest cement producer and leading producer of ready-mix-concrete.” 401 2006 CEMEX Sustainable Development Report; http://www.cemex.com/cc/cc_re.asp. 402 In a series of corporate case studies from the end of the 19th century through World War II, Roland Marchand shows the evolution of conscious efforts to remake the corporate image. Although the crises that companies like CEMEX faced at the dawn of the next century also were related to scale and size, they had to go far beyond advertising and public relations to mitigate the environmental impacts of their business. Rather than ads, CEMEX invoked the visual imagery of a reconstituted and rewilded Maderas del Carmen. Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 403 2006 CEMEX Sustainable Development Report, 35; http://www.cemex.com/cc/cc_re.asp.
193 of the amenities traditionally associated with a national park. Indeed, there was no plan to open up the preserve to large-scale tourism. Thus although it created some jobs in “repristining” wilderness, the closure of the protected space to visitation other than select scientific research projects dramatically reduced the potential economic impact on the region and to the company. Wilderness without tourism is not generally a profitable venture, especially given CEMEX’s aspirations to reintroduce native species, such as the desert bighorn sheep. Patricio Gil described the company’s expansive conservation activities as “the rewilding of this sky island through intensive habitat restoration programs, the removal of all fences and cattle, and the reestablishment of big mammals such as the desert bighorn sheep – a flagship species that represents the true historic wilderness.”404 At some point, there will surely be pressure to offset these losses with gains via extraction, direct or indirect, unless these efforts produce substantial goodwill in the company's primary customer base. The Great Northern grappled with this very decision thirty-eight years after founding the Glacier Park Hotel Company. In 1950, railroad staff prepared a memo for President F.J. Gavin based on a conference with U.S. Park Service Director Newton Drury.405 Given that the railroad’s hotels no longer stimulated passenger rail travel, the fact that the U.S. government or another entity could continue to provide lodging, the dramatic unprofitability of operation and need for significant capital expenditures, and the highly restrictive nature of their lease, the analysis concluded that the railroad should drop out of its upcoming contract renewal with the Interior Department on December 31,
404 Patricio R. Gil, “El Carmen: The First Wilderness Designation in Latin America,” International Journal of Wilderness Vol. 12, Number 2 (August 2006), 39. 405 “Drury feels that it will be impossible to induce an outside concessionaire to take over these operations and the Park Service itself can not provide the facilities due to inability to obtain appropriation from Congress.” 4/15/1950 Memo to President F.J. Gavin, Box 22.F.8.6F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives.
194 1951. Although the number of train passengers remained relatively steady, it had been eclipsed by automobile tourism. For example, in 1925, 31%, or 12,500 out of 40,000, tourists arrived by train. By 1949, train passengers represented only 1.6% of arrivals, or 7,138 out of 478,839. To accommodate this more mobile class of tourists, the Secretary of the Interior asked the Great Northern to build additional auto camps. Although these camps were much more profitable than hotels and chalets, the memo raised a fundamental concern about straying too far from the railroad’s original purpose, that is, stimulating passenger rail traffic. Since 1912, the Great Northern had invested heavily in Glacier and Waterton Lakes constructing a series of hotels, chalets, roads, stables, and other structures. The return on this investment was materially tempered by the short visiting season, usually May through September, before inclement weather prevented tourists from travel. Without offsetting the positive impact of passenger ticket sales, the railroad appeared to be trapped in a cycle of steadily increasing operating deficits. Indeed, in the forty-five years from 1914 to 1949, the Glacier Park Hotel Company lost $69,119 on gross revenues of $14,185,045. Even looking at a more recent picture, from 1937 to 1949, the company’s losses were $212,027 on revenues of $6,112,389. Interestingly, in 1949, the hotels and chalets both recorded net losses against revenue (-3.8% and -5.7%, respectively), but the auto camps both had positive net income (representing +15.3% of revenue). The average annual gross passenger revenue of $210,000 could represent a positive offset to these losses. But one can conclude that these passengers would travel on the line anyway, staying in the same properties managed by the National Park Service or another park concessioner, and the railroad perhaps would be able to gain a greater return for its capital investment elsewhere. An engineering study of the railroad’s park hotels estimated that a sizable capital investment of $9,325,000 would be needed for
195 maintenance, improvements, and expansion. The railroad elected to hold on for a bit longer, but, in 1960, the Great Northern finally sold interest in its Glacier Park concessions to a private businessman from Arizona who formed a new management entity, Glacier Park, Incorporated. Passenger rail service, now under the newer guise of Amtrak, still makes daily stops at Belton and East Glacier Stations. Park Service Rangers board the trains and provide commentary on the park for the short excursion between stations. Is it sustainable for the private sector to engage in this type of large-scale conservation? It is difficult to determine the true nexus of corporate responsibility. Is it inherent to the corporation or more fleeting, perhaps driven by having particular leaders, like Louis Hill, in place? Or, as the book Branded! argues, is it influenced by the interests of large NGOs and institutional investors who value the conservation agenda?406 In Glacier, the minimal revenues drawn from the operation of hotel and horse concessions within the park made way for larger profits in the form of passenger rail for a time. The park was a loss leader, of sorts, for the railroad, but as the transportation industry changed, this model proved unsustainable. In the Maderas del Carmen, a different form of ledger is developing, a green balance sheet. Yet this too remains a loss leader. While the Great Northern leveraged losses from their wholly owned subsidiary, Glacier Park Hotel Company, into passenger ticket revenue on the main line, CEMEX is attempting to find green offsets for the environmental degradation inherent to the production of concrete. Over the course of the 20th century, pollution has been increasingly off-shored, but by its very nature, cement production and its impacts have remained both highly local and visible. The Maderas del Carmen project attempts to mitigate these myriad localized
406 Michael E. Conroy, Branded!: How the ‘Certification Revolution’ is Transforming Global Corporations (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2007).
196 impacts by off-shoring conservation. By holding this area separate and rehabilitating it as the exclusive province of wilderness, CEMEX hoped to lend a natural association with their brand and secure an effective environmental asset in their natural balance sheet. Yet, in so doing, CEMEX faced an even bigger challenge than the Great Northern. The Great Northern could expect to draw some revenues, however fleeting, from park visitation. CEMEX, by characterizing the reserve as a wilderness without tourism, must rely solely on the positive contribution this space lends to its brand. Businesses have broadened the constituencies of parks to an ever-growing international audience. These spaces moved from being exclusively the province of locals to piquing a national interest and, from there, based in large part on the efforts of businesses like the Great Northern, they became international. Indeed, CEMEX prized the Big Bend and Maderas del Carmen as symbols of their efforts to promote conservation in large part because these were not just national spaces. They had become international finally realizing the dreams of promoters from the 1930s in both Texas and Mexico. Yet, with the ebb and flow of business cycles it may become more difficult over time for CEMEX and other companies that are heavily invested in nature to maintain these types of costly operations unless there continues to be a clear benefit to this association. Even if CEMEX must ultimately divest its natural holdings as the Great Northern was eventually compelled to do, it is in this expanded constituency and the international appeal of these spaces whereby their future is hopefully secured. However, it remains unclear if in spaces like the Maderas del Carmen, where tourism has been discouraged and there have been few direct interactions between the public and the space, whether the same level of fondness found in more accessible national parks has been cultivated.
197 CONCLUSION
This chapter opened by briefly recounting the oft-repeated “campfire myth” of Yellowstone’s creation, but Glacier National Park has an interesting, yet untold campfire analog. On the evening of July 14th, 1923, Park Ranger Arthur Best was on a boat patrolling St. Mary’s Lake and noticed a fire on the shoreline. He went closer to investigate and discovered three men who had been swimming, stark naked, drying themselves around a campfire. Concerned about the high winds spreading the flames into the adjacent forest, Best asked them to extinguish the blaze, and at this suggestion, one of the men became very agitated. He ordered the Ranger away, saying, “he would take it up with Washington and see to it that [Best] was run out of the park.”407 Obviously drunk, the man continued to rant and inveighed the Ranger to pay more attention to the maintenance of the park’s trails. Later, Best found out this altercation had been with none other than Louis Hill. Hill certainly had his own ideas, superior ones in his view, of how best to run the park and who was able to run it, and this random encounter by the campfire showed the not so hidden place of private enterprise in the park. For much of the twentieth century, parks have been promoted and developed by private enterprise. In examining the end of this commercial arc, the striking conclusion is how far beyond the mere quest for direct contributions to the bottom line these types of natural associations have moved. From Hill’s first affixing of the symbol of Glacier Park to the railroad’s fleet of locomotives, businesses, like CEMEX, now strive for the work this symbol of parks can do for their brand. Even without deriving any profits from spaces like the Maderas del Carmen, the indirect gains companies accrue more than offset the investment, or at least so far.
407 [undated] 1923 Letter to James Brooks (Assistant Superintendent, Glacier NP) from Arthur Best (Ranger), Box 27 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD).
198 Businesses blurred the lines between private and public that separated the parks from the communities that surrounded them and, in the case of Waterton-Glacier and Big Bend, the international lines that demarcated one country and one space from the other. The next chapter probes the lengths governments went to maintain these same lines of the 49th parallel and along the Rio Grande that symbolically divided spaces that had been joined by legislation or custom. Although each government endeavored to make these boundaries clear, the presence of the parks continuously blurred those distinctions.
199 Chapter 5 - Dividing Lines: Inscribing the 49th Parallel and the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte
The Contracting Parties, in order to provide for the maintenance of an effective boundary line between the Dominion of Canada and the United States and between the Dominion of Canada and Alaska … hereby agree that the Commissioners appointed under the provisions of the Treaty of April 11, 1908, are hereby jointly empowered and directed: to inspect the various sections of the boundary line between the Dominion of Canada and the United States and between the Dominion of Canada and Alaska at such times as they shall deem necessary; to repair all damaged monuments and buoys; to relocate and rebuild monument's which have been destroyed; to keep the boundary vistas open; to move boundary monuments to new sites and establish such additional monuments and buoys as they shall deem desirable; to maintain at all times an effective boundary line between the Dominion of Canada and the United States and between the Dominion of Canada and Alaska, as defined by the present treaty and treaties heretofore concluded, or hereafter to be concluded [emphasis added].408 – 1925 Treaty of Washington
The 49th Parallel was designated by two separate treaties in 1818 and 1846 as the official border between the United States and Canada from the Great Lakes to the Continental Divide and then from the Divide west to the Pacific only venturing south to skirt the bottom of Vancouver Island. Where trees and dense foliage covered the national border, another 1925 treaty quoted above tasked the International Boundary Commission and its survey crews to remove a continuous strip of vegetation in order to erect stone and metal monuments that periodically marked the border. Giving the persistence of natural growth, this clearing was not a one-time proposition, but, rather, required periodic intensive maintenance in order to preserve views between monuments. In these areas, this act of removal literally wrote the international line on the ground, or at least a twenty-foot
408 See Treaty Between the United States and Great Britain in Respect of Boundary Between the United States and Canada, U.S.-Gr. Brit., Feb. 24, 1925, 44 Stat. 2102.
200 wide swath that, assuming well-calibrated instrumentation, contained the true line within its margins. As it turns out, in Waterton-Glacier as well as in the Big Bend, national boundaries and national park boundaries perfectly coincided. While borderlands scholarship is built on the foundation of obscuring these lines, these arbitrary lines had material impacts on the development and management of each country and, in where these geographies overlapped, the four protected space case studies tracked in this dissertation. Borderlands and transboundary histories has fruitfully placed a number of widely different geographies and cultures in conversation. The next chapter, “Transboundary Parks,” attempts to employ this framework, but this chapter seeks to compare the actual borderlines themselves. Even a cursory consideration of contemporary debates about immigration, the environment, and politics in the United States show clear differences between the northern and southern border. Historicizing the ways these two national borders were constructed and maintained provides insights into an alternate framework, writ small, for considering the borderlands. Especially in areas like national parks, the border was an important marker of separation, but also meant to be selectively obscured as populations from both sides of the border were welcomed and encouraged to cross and visit. As previously reviewed in chapters 1, 2 and 3, most, but not all permanent residence gave way to more temporary intrusions. Like countries, national parks have well tended boundaries. What makes a park is defined in equal measure by the ways in which those boundaries are drawn, what is contained within its bounds, and the mix of spaces that fall outside of it. Each of these components conspired to make and remake the places we call national parks. This chapter focuses on these lines of demarcation. Waterton-Glacier and the Big Bend appear along a portion of these boundaries, but these international lines extend well beyond the parks.
201 Established by treaties, the 49th parallel bifurcates Waterton Lakes in Alberta from Glacier in Montana, and the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo del Norte, separates Big Bend in Texas from the Maderas del Carmen in Coahuila. The treatment of nature provides a window into international relations, and defining national borders has required much more effort than the legal provisions codified in each treaty afforded. The maintenance of a static and visible border has necessitated the constant effort of two Boundary Commissions, one in the north and the other in the south. Along the 49th parallel, the International Boundary Commission (IBC), a jointly appointed body with equal representation from the Canadian and U.S. governments, not only placed and maintained metal and concrete monuments along the border’s entire length, but also expended a great deal of human effort to periodically clear a corridor in the vast areas covered with forest growth. Along the boundary line and for ten feet on either side of it, all types of vegetation and trees were removed. This twenty foot wide swath provided absolute, if fleeting, clarity to the border but was also a glaring anachronism, especially since natural areas continuously blurred these man-made distinctions over time. A demarcated boundary required constant human action. National Parks had outsize impacts on both of these international lines. Along the U.S./Canada border, the use of herbicides by the IBC to save money and time in clearing a visible vegetation break along the 49th parallel ran headlong into the Canadian and U.S. Park Services’ efforts to obscure that very same line. Concerns about the impact on trees outside of the border zone presented an untenable problem for the Commission, which ultimately elected to suspend this clearing method for the entire boundary, not just the small part that corresponded with the two national parks. In the Big Bend, the Rio Grande offered a seemingly maintenance-free natural demarcation between the United States and Mexico. However, the seasonal floodwaters coursing through the river had a tendency to
202 forge new channels, especially in the softer banks and slight elevation declines of the sections closest to the river’s terminus in the Gulf of Mexico. These meanders had the potential to literally remake the border and unwittingly move residents and their property from one national domain to the other. Unlike Hetch Hetchy or Hoover, the dam contemplated for the canyons of the Big Bend was not justified on the beneficial use of the waters to provide drinking water, agricultural produce, or power, but rather in its ability to control and regulate the annual floods that threatened to modify the downstream borderline. While the dam sought to clarify the border far outside of the Big Bend, the border within the park was also contested. As much as the construction of border walls between the United States and Mexico and the quandary over immigration dominates the current news cycle, efforts to fence the border have a much longer lineage that is connected with the remote protected spaces in Organ Pipe and Big Bend rather than the urban boundaries that have seen walls spring up more recently. In the 1940s, interest in a border wall, or more accurately fencing, can be attributed to a perceived menace of creatures with four, not two legs. Domestic cattle from Chihuahua and Coahuila presented a multi-layered challenge for the U.S. Park Service, as grazing in the newly created park not only represented a simple conflict over private resources, it also upended the wilderness narrative the Park Service wanted to create. In addition, Mexican cattle were associated with disease vectors like “foot and mouth” disease that threatened to contaminate U.S. domestic stocks and park wildlife. However, before consideration of who and what migrated back and forth across borders, it is important to historicize the creation of these political lines.
203 TAMING THE 49TH PARALLEL
No description can do justice to the magnificence of this mountain scenery. As we approached it day by day, the Chief Mountain, near the forty-ninth parallel, stood pre-eminent in distinctness and grandeur, resembling a gigantic obelisk broken off at the summit. There is an infinite variety in the mountain range near the parallel. It requires but little aid of the imagination to see a city in ruins, in which fortifications, pyramids, and other familiar objects present themselves to the eye.409 The official report of the 1878 Northern Boundary Survey was flush with vivid descriptions of the dramatic uplift the members encountered as they journeyed from the flat expanse of the Great Plains over the Rocky Mountains, which prevented easy passage along the new line dividing territorial Montana and Alberta. The party reached what they referred to as “Chief Mountain Lake,” now known as Upper Waterton Lake, by travelling north of the boundary and then south (up) the valley of the Waterton River. They camped at the foot of the lake in the vicinity of the current Waterton Townsite, a location that, according to the party, “afforded us a comprehensive view of lake and mountain scenery, which, for picturesque beauty and grandeur, is probably not excelled, if equaled, by any on the continent.” From this camp, they made boats to travel up the body of the lake to complete the survey. After landing on the western shore and triangulating the location of the parallel, they stacked a mound of stones to mark the boundary line. This rock cairn represented the first official designation of the border at the 49th Parallel, silently dividing the United States from Canada along the intermingled waters of Upper Waterton Lake. This section begins with the first U.S. Park Service Ranger stationed along the border just
409 The survey expedition obligingly conformed to typical expedition narratives exalting the natural scenes encountered but also struggled to find a useful vocabulary with which to describe its surroundings. Reports upon the Survey of the Boundary between the Territory of the United States and the Possessions of Great Britain for the Lake of the Woods to the Summit of the Rocky Mountains (Washington, DC: GPO, 1878), IBC Library.
204 a few miles south of that cairn and then provides an expanded history of border clearing operations led by the IBC.
Map of the 49th Parallel along the U.S.-Canada Border
As the above map illustrates, the Convention of 1818 established the 49th north circle of latitude as the international boundary between Canada and the United States from the Lake of the Woods to the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains.410 The Oregon Country beyond was subject to competing national claims that threatened to bring Great Britain and the United States to war over the last continental spoils of Manifest Destiny. In 1846, with a border war already underway with Mexico over Texas and the Southwest and the real prospect of armed conflict looming in both the north and south, President James Polk acceded to a compromise, and the Oregon Treaty extended the use of this parallel west from the summit of the Rockies to Vancouver Island. In an attempt to
410 Frank Jacobs, “A Not-So-Straight Story,” New York Times (November 28, 2011); http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/a-not-so-straight-story.
205 realize this treaty on the ground, the 1878 Northern Boundary Survey began its methodical trek westward, surveying and placing crude monuments along the 49th Parallel where the prairies of the Great Plains intersected the Rocky Mountains, including Waterton Lake. In 1910, Waterton Lakes and Glacier found common ground along this same line. This border was also the duty station for Glacier Backcountry Ranger Albert Reynolds. In the front cover of his daily journal, Reynolds recorded his post as the international boundary line on Chief Mountain Lake, “sometimes called Kootenai or Waterton Lake,” as well as his Blackfoot Indian name, “Nichi Ke Simo,” translated as “Our old friend the old man.”411 Just like the park itself, Reynolds’ duty post was located on two borders – one international, the other tribal. After all, only fifteen years before, the small cabin that the ranger built and called home was part of the Blackfeet Reservation. Reynolds began the slow process of making the landscape ready for human consumption by determining the best scenic destinations and the easiest ways to travel between them. He spent the majority of his days clearing trails, conducting patrols, and building the cabin near the boundary. A characteristically brief journal entry from October 5, 1911 indicated that he “went out on the trail and worked till 12 PM then had lunch and went back on the trail and cut brush and took out all the small stumps as far as Boundary Creek.”412 Although tasked with building and maintaining trails to tighten the linkages between Glacier and Waterton, he operated largely within the orbit of the Canadian park. Due to the remoteness of his station, he received his supplies and mail at Waterton Mills, located just north of the current park’s townsite. While traveling back to the boundary camp from Waterton Mills, he lamented that “of all the trails I ever
411 1911-12 Journal of Albert Reynolds (Glacier National Park Ranger), Box 17, GNP Archives. 412 1911-12 Journal of Albert Reynolds (Glacier National Park Ranger), Box 17, GNP Archives.
206 undertook to get over that Canadian trail holds the winning hand. It is up and down … It is a disgrace to the Canadian government to have such a trail when a few hundred dollars could make a good one.” However rough, these early trails provided the only access to the sections of the American park closest to the international border, as it took some time for Glacier’s internal trail network to reach the southern end of the lake. Until regular boat service was instituted on Waterton Lake in 1916, the trails that Reynolds and Canadian Wardens tied together were the only means to travel between the parks. It was this trail along Upper Waterton Lake that crossed over the boundary line that divided Waterton from Glacier and, at the same time, Canada from the United States. For roughly forty-three miles, Glacier straddles the border while Waterton, the smaller of the two parks, covers about half of that length east of the Continental Divide. While representing slightly less than one percent of the total length of the boundary between Canada and the United States, Waterton-Glacier, as a protected space, had an outsize impact on the way the IBC approached maintenance. The IBC was created by treaty in 1908, and in 1925, another agreement, quoted at length at the beginning of this chapter, tasked it with maintaining the border swath and monuments. According to its first report and assessment in 1926, earlier fieldwork along the entirety of the U.S./Canadian border had been obscured or erased by natural processes or the construction of roadways and other types of development. Thus, from time to time, in accordance with treaty, the Commission would have to remove vegetation from the swath and tend to its concrete monuments “to keep the Boundary well defined and easily identified.”413 Nonetheless, along Upper Waterton Lake, a 1928 Guidebook called attention to the still visible border, indicating “there is no mistaking it, for no matter what
413 First Joint Report of the International Boundary Commissioners of the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada for the Period 7/17/1925 to 12/31/1926, IBC Library.
207 schoolbooks say, here at least it is by no means an imaginary line.”414 It took another four years for the IBC to make its own assessment. In July 1932, the U.S. and Canadian Commissioners inspected the line from the Browning/Cardston Highway to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. According to the Annual Report, the stone monuments were in good condition, but the vista, which had not been cleared since 1909, needed to be re-cleared, as mandated by treaty.415 The Report also noted that Waterton Park officials specifically asked Commissioners to place monuments on both sides of Upper Waterton Lake “so as to adequately indicate the location of the Boundary Line thereon and enable people traveling by boat on the lake to know when they have crossed from one country into the other.” By this point, the Great Northern’s motor launch, “International,” ferried visitors along the lake, and the act of crossing the border became an important part of the visitor experience. Whether by boat or hiking the shoreline trail, it was important for this tourist novelty to be clearly marked. A 1932 article in the U.S. Daily reaffirmed that “topographically and geologically, Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada and Glacier National Park in the United States are one stupendous area, even though that imaginary line does, or did, cut across the middle of Waterton Lake and give it half to one park and half to the other.”416 Finally, in 1937, just five years after the creation of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the Commission’s field teams re-cleared the boundary. Although the line that cut across the lake was still left to the imagination, after the clearing operation it was quite easy to see
414 “The surveyors took care to assure that when they cut an undeviating 66-foot-swath up over mountain and cliff, through forest and brush, and on seemingly to an unending horizon.” D.W. Buchanan. A Complete Guide to Waterton Lakes National Park (Lethbridge: D.W. Buchanan Publisher, 1928), Box 116, WLNPA. 415 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1932, IBC Library. 416 Joseph Dixon. “Joint Playground for America and Canada” U.S. Daily (June 29, 1932), Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA (Ottawa, Ontario).
208 and connect the twenty-foot wide swaths that were cut out of the trees and proceed up from the water’s edge in a straight line into the mountainous terrain that surrounded it. In a strange juxtaposition, the line between the recently joined parks became all the more self-evident.417 A February 1936 U.S. Park Service Wildlife Division Memo questioned the wisdom of such clearings: “Running a row of conspicuous stakes or cutting a ten-foot swath around the park is in such cases marring a wilderness just as much as if it were run through the middle of a choice part of the park. Where the park boundaries fall in these wilderness areas, the boundaries should not be conspicuous enough to offend.”418 In essence, the park and international boundary fell in the middle of the newly combined peace park, yet this periodic practice of clearing, mandated by treaty, was fixed in place. How to ensure environmental protection even with the necessity of creating visible metes and bounds remained the challenge. The IBC’s evolving methods for clearing in the mid- 1950s would ultimately bring this question into sharp relief. The 1955 IBC Annual Report alerted readers almost in passing to a major new development. The Report described typical activities of the Commission and noted the slow pace of construction in the International Peace Gardens straddling the border of Manitoba and North Dakota.419 It also rather inauspiciously remarked on a new method of border clearing that Commissioners hoped would address the mounting costs of
417 “The boundary vista was recleared from the summit of the Rocky Mountains eastward to the western limit of the prairie; the boundary was marked on the shores of Cameron Lake by two cairns and on Waterton Lake by two new concrete monuments.” Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1937, IBC Library. 418 2/21/1936 Memo for Mr. Cahalane, Box 823XX (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 419 Update on International Peace Gardens: “The building of stone parapets, flower basins and fountains across and adjacent to the boundary was proceeding, but at a slow pace due to lack of funds. It had been the intention for the masons to place boundary plaque on line on the crossing stone parapet, but to date this had not been done.” Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1955, IBC Library.
209 putting crews out in the field. Given the high recurring cost of repeated clearings, the Commission sought a more economical method for maintaining the border. To this end, along the New Hampshire/Quebec border, chemicals were tested for vegetation control. A chemical compound, No. 2-4-5, manufactured by Dow Chemical, was diluted with diesel fuel and sprayed on a test section of a little over one mile. According to the report, “It is hoped by subsequent periodic inspections of the sprayed areas to evaluate the effectiveness of the chemicals and to assess the benefits of any resulting ecological change.” Also in this year, the 49th parallel from the summit of the Rocky Mountains eastward to the prairie was re-cleared the old-fashioned way – by hand. The next year, a re-inspection of the chemical application along the New Hampshire/Quebec boundary provoked cautious optimism. Spraying killed ninety-four percent of the second-growth maple stumps. In stark contrast, adjacent untreated stumps showed one hundred percent re-growth.420 The Commission deferred final judgment for one more season. This period would allow the observation of the types of growth that would replace the eliminated trees, either beneficial lower cover grasses or higher shrubs and bushes that could compound the difficulty of future clearing operations. In 1957, another inspection of the boundary plots yielded a seemingly clear answer. Only grass and other low scattered growth were present in the now two-year-old cleared vista between New Hampshire and Quebec. The IBC’s Annual Report optimistically concluded that “chemical treatment has thus proved a great help to future control of the vista and may be extensively used hereafter” [emphasis added].421 The high
420 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1956, IBC Library. 421 “The vista was covered with grass and similar growths about knee high and only one live bush was found and that about 10 feet from the line and thus may have been missed in the spraying.” Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1957, IBC Library.
210 kill rate paired with the lower cost and ease of delivery made the expanded use of chemical treatment highly desirable. While the efficacy of spraying was proven in the relatively flat zones of the eastern border between the United States and Canada, the Commission had yet to confront the more highly varied and inaccessible topography posed by the West. In 1959, the IBC tested the application of chemicals by helicopter in the boundary zone between British Columbia and the state of Washington.422 Crews found dry pellets could be accurately dropped in mountainscapes, but the Commission again had to wait for subsequent inspections to gauge the effectiveness against re-growth. Results from this test section were inconclusive, so in 1962, IBC field workers placed pellets in an area that had been manually cleared more recently.423 After reexamining this test area in 1963, the Commission observed an unsatisfactory growth-retarding rate of only twenty-five percent.424 They speculated that the pellet form was ineffective with the predominantly coniferous tree growth in the region and switched to another herbicide, Tordon 101, which was sprayed on another test section. In 1965, after two full seasons of data, the IBC determined that “a very high percentage of kill can be obtained by this method.”425 By 1967, the Commission raved about the chemical's ability to treat vista sections in just seven days and at only ten percent of the expense associated with sending teams in the field.426
422 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1962, IBC Library. 423 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1963, IBC Library. 424 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1964, IBC Library. 425 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1965, IBC Library. 426 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1967, IBC Library.
211 In 1968, thirteen years since the border swath had been maintained by hand, the chemical method of clearing was finally instituted at Waterton-Glacier. A helicopter carrying a seventy-gallon suspended tank and pump flew over the vista, dousing the area with a double application of the herbicide Tordon 101. By the end of June, the treatment had been applied from Piegan, Montana to Cameron Lake, a small backcountry lake that, like Upper Waterton, straddled both parks and countries.427 Soon thereafter, the notion of chemicals as a quick and easy solution began to slowly unravel. A 1969 evaluation of aerial spraying activity called for more passes at three to four year intervals to ensure the twenty-foot swath would be fully cleared.428 The 1970 Report introduced the first notes of caution, including an advisory limiting spraying near lakes and recreational areas, and specifically declared that no aerial treatment was to be applied within the International Peace Garden, presumably to prevent undoing the significant investment in the formal gardens surrounding the line.429 In June 1971, an IBC official visited Waterton and Glacier National Parks to investigate the impact of herbicide spraying conducted in 1968. The team physically inspected the entire boundary vista running the length of the parks. After examining the area, a Commission Report concluded that herbicides damaged trees outside the swath without controlling growth within it.430 Within a year of this visit, the IBC Joint Reports stopped including any details on clearing procedures; however, it seems the
427 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1968, IBC Library. 428 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1969, IBC Library. 429 The international line within the Peace Gardens, as the name of the space implies, was marked with walking paths and formal gardens that were tended on a regular basis. A de facto exception to the treaty mandate was thus in place within the highly constructed nature of the Peace Gardens, but not in the so- called wilderness that straddled the line in Waterton-Glacier. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1970, IBC Library. 430 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1971, IBC Library.
212 environmental damage and, even more importantly, the ineffectiveness of the chemicals in maintaining the swath led to a wholesale change in technique that reverted to older, more labor intensive methods of clearing. The impact of chemical clearing was magnified by Waterton-Glacier’s status as an international peace park. A November 1973 letter to one of the Canadian Boundary Commissioners lamented the ongoing residual evidence of the use of “Tordon” in 1968 for boundary strip clearing: “Due to the application of herbicides the ‘cleared’ zone is now in most places wider than 50 feet.”431 The swath was more than doubled in size, far exceeding the treaty mandate of twenty feet. Scientists from Lethbridge University, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and the Canadian Forestry Service investigated the damage in the fall of 1970 and spring of 1973. They noted that tree mortality spiked on downhill slopes adjacent to the sprayed area. Interpretation of aerial color photographs estimated the spraying killed 1,490 trees on the Canadian side and 1,236 trees on the U.S. side outside the vista.432 The scientists requested that the IBC suspend the use of chemicals due to the area’s dual designation as national parks and a joint peace park. This status necessitated employing the highest care to ensure no adverse environmental impacts outside of the vista. While killing a tree labeled by treaty as a “weed” within the border swath was intended, the killing of the same species of tree just outside of the swath was antithetical to the alternate construction bestowed on it in a national park wilderness. As it turned out, there was little, if any, margin for error between trees. In 1973, Francis Popper, an engineer for the Commission, traveled to the boundary swath accompanied by
431 11/30/1973 Letter to Commissioner A.F. Lambert from Senior Assistant Deputy Minister J.H. Gordon, Box 136, WLNPA. 432 “Generally, the dead trees were down-slope from the boundary zone; this is especially true west of Waterton Lake. For the most part, the strip of dead trees was two to three trees deep, and on occasion up to five trees deep.” October 1972 “Photo Interpretation of Tree Mortality Alongside the International Boundary: Waterton Lakes National Park” by P.A. Murtha (Forest Management Institute), Box 136, WLNPA.
213 a member of the Canadian Parks Service. A Parks Branch official described abnormalities caused by the spraying, but when in the field, according to Popper, he had a hard time identifying them. “One would almost have to be a naturalist to identify them,” Popper frustratingly observed.433 While acknowledging tree damage from the spraying regime, Popper’s solution was to continue chemical treatment employing a more targeted delivery method, either using tractors or by hand. Officials at Glacier and Waterton actively pushed for either no clearing at all or the use of manual methods.434 The Glacier Superintendent characterized the vista as an “artificial scar” that is “incongruous with the concept of an International Peace Park and hinders our goal of preserving a naturally functioning ecosystem where natural processes are permitted to shape the native plant and animal communities.”435 In 1986, a budgeted expenditure of $214,094.99 appeared for the clearing of the 49th Parallel in Montana- British Columbia/Alberta.436 The Park Service, while maintaining its objection to the clearing, ended up assuming responsibility for it. In 1987, Glacier Park officials and the IBC successfully negotiated an agreement for the Park Service to supervise the clearing of the forty-mile section of the border covered by the park as well as the painting and repair of survey monuments.437 Begrudgingly accepting the inevitability of the clearing, park trail crews worked from June to September to finish the project in a manner that
433 5/29/1973 Letter to Assistant Director Lawrence Hadley from Engineer Francis Popper, Box 136, WPNPA. 434 [undated 1973] Letter to Commissioner Richard Herman from Secretary of the Interior, Box 136, WLNPA. 435 5/6/1986 Memo to Director, National Park Service from Superintendent, Glacier. Central Files, Box 9, GNP Archives. 436 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1986, IBC Library. 437 “Trees and brush shall be cut to such a width that at all places the international boundary vista will have a clear skyline, free of overhanging trees and limbs, for a width of at least 20 feet, 10 feet on each side of the boundary line. Brush shall be cut to within 6 inches, and trees to within 12 inches, of the ground.” 7/1/1986 Memorandum of Agreement between the NPS and IBC for maintenance of a section of the International Boundary Line. Central Files, Box 9, GNP Archives.
214 restricted the impact solely to the twenty-foot swath and nothing more. “A historic day, indeed! The border swath is officially completed,” exclaimed a member of the west side crew in the Boundary Bay Warden Patrol Cabin logbook. “Praise the Lord and pass the whisky. We survived.”438 To protect the zone immediately outside of the vista, they exclusively used chain and brushing saws and did not employ any herbicidal sprays. Interestingly, an article in the Hungry Horse News quoted Jack Potter, a Glacier Park wilderness specialist, as finding many of the trees on the edge of the vista growing back that had supposedly been killed by spraying in 1968.439 Both parks worked to introduce legislation in the Canadian Parliament and U.S. Congress to amend 1925 Treaty provisions mandating the periodic clearing of the international boundary.440 At present, these initiatives have not advanced in either venue. The next round of field clearing activity in 2002 was also subcontracted to Glacier Park crews for the boundary adjoining the national parks.441 The Commission continued its periodic pitched battle with the natural world to shear political lines through the landscape. Realizing that mechanical cutting promoted vigorous vegetative growth, the IBC looked for alternative methods, including biological vegetation management techniques such as the application of targeted fungi to attack trees from within.442 For
438 Boundary Bay Warden Patrol Cabin Log Book, Box 247, WLNPA. 439 Jerry DeSanto, “Cooperation helped establish Canadian boundary,” Hungry Horse News, June 24, 1987, WLNPA. 440 “It was felt that the Park crews might be better able to accomplish the clearing while minimizing helicopter flight time, preventing conflicts with visitors and wildlife, and avoiding other deleterious effects on other Park resources.” 1987 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives. 441 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/2001, IBC Library. 442 “In 2003, the Canadian government approved the use of Myco-Tech, a biological vegetation management product. Recent research shows the product to be effective … Here is how Myco-Tech works. The technique is simple. Once the tree is cut, the stump is treated with a naturally occurring fungus contained in a clay paste which enters the stump and infects it in a biological manner, killing the tree. Many fewer shoots grow after this treatment. By using this technique, the IBC will reduce the workload of future
215 now, the vista remains in place, albeit with some re-growth since the last clearing in 2002. With the construction of a boat dock in “Boundary Bay,” the vista has become a popular tourist attraction in its own right for passing boaters as well as hikers that follow the lakeside trail originally blazed by Ranger Albert Reynolds. The clearing of the vista triangulates the imperatives of treaty mandates, a bureaucracy struggling to reduce costs and adopt new technologies, and the anachronism of the world’s first international park being cut in half every fifteen to twenty years as a result. Most historical monographs have focused on pesticides as a larger class of chemical agent targeting a variety of pests, rather than herbicides as a specific subcategory focusing on the elimination of unwanted plants.443 Works ranging from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to James McWilliams’s American Pests and David Kinkela’s DDT and the American Century consider the deployment of a range of chemical methods to control undesirable insects, disease vectors, and vegetation growth.444 The use of chemicals in an escalating attempt to gain control, prevent disease, and generate good crop outcomes led to a variety of unintended, or at least unanticipated, consequences.445 For purposes of complying with the boundary treaty, all of the vegetation within the twenty-foot swath was effectively reclassified as weeds.446 Herbicides, designed to target particular plant species for eradication were repurposed to
cutting operations.” Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/2003, IBC Library. 443 Other than “tactical” or “weaponized” herbicides, like Agent Orange, deployed during the Vietnam War. 444 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990); David Kinkela, DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011); James E. McWilliams, American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). 445 The translation of these effects to humans through the food chain or by consequence of direct contact clearly shows the interconnections of man with nature. 446 James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 13.
216 eliminate all species that happened to fall within the boundary zone. In order to provide absolute clarity to the border, the IBC leveraged this technology to maintain a visible swath between survey monuments. When the same governments that enacted the border maintenance treaties also established two national parks that were combined into a novel international space, this type of clarity appeared to be rendered moot. Yet, even with the controversy that erupted from the 1968 chemical clearing involving Waterton-Glacier, tending borders remained so important that the Commission reverted back to more costly methods that each government, in turn, found a way to pay for. Clearing the entire border remained a more important exercise than allowing just forty miles of it to revert to nature.447
TWO HALVES OF A RIVER: THE RIO GRANDE AND RIO BRAVO DEL NORTE
Within Texas, water rather than land marks the line separating Mexico from the United States. As per the provisions of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the dividing line between Mexico and the United States within the State of Texas is located in a river initially formed by headwaters in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Specifically, the center of the river channel marks the boundary, so in essence, half of the river way belongs to each country. In Mexico, this river is known as the Rio Bravo del Norte. In the United States, it is referred to as the Rio Grande.
447 In an odd way, perhaps this manual clearing method fit in better in the swath between the two national parks. Aside from the gasoline-powered chainsaws employed by trail crews, these methods came closer to conforming to the bias toward labor-intensive human interactions favored in spaces labeled as wilderness.
217
Map of the U.S.-Mexico Border
As the above map indicates, where the river encounters the hard limestone of the Mesa de Anguila and Sierra del Carmen range, it has cut three massive canyons: Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas. This chapter section looks at dams considered for the Rio Grande. The historiography of dams has focused on the goals on flood control, generation of hydroelectric power, irrigation, and even recreation.448 Yet, the dams contemplated along the Rio Grande, had another essential function: the preservation of the border itself. In 1915, a civil engineer, C.F. Carachristi, proposed an international dam in Santa Elena Canyon. Although Carachristi noted the potential for power generation and the availability of impounded waters for downstream use, the primary objective for this dam
448 For a discussion of dam construction and the manipulation of nature, refer to: Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (New York: Penguin Books, 1993); Robert W. Righter, The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995); Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Pantheon, 1985).
218 was to control the flood waters of the Rio Grande.449 The dam would rise 370 feet above the present river level in Santa Elena Canyon, creating an approximately 3,785,000 acre foot reservoir almost fifty miles long.450 According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the average annual flow of the Rio Grande River below Presidio, Texas from 1901 to 1913 was 2,045,000 acre feet or roughly two-thirds of the total flow entering the entire lower Rio Grande Basin. The lower Rio Grande Valley was subject to massive flooding from the river’s upper basin in New Mexico and Colorado, the Rio Conchos and its tributaries in Mexico as well as the Pecos and Devil’s Rivers in Texas. These floods posed a direct threat to downstream agriculture but also had the potential to literally change the international boundary. Given the remote location and lack of arable land available for irrigation, the primary justification for the construction of dams within the canyons of Big Bend derived from the need to protect the international border downstream from conditions in the river itself. Although the solid limestone banks of the three canyons where the dams could be placed provided an incontrovertibly clear delineation of the border, changes in the lower basin’s softer stream channel were often the unfortunate byproduct of seasonal flooding that passed through the canyons of the Big Bend. Since the border was, at least ostensibly, tied to the course of the river, any changes could inadvertently modify the border and any landholdings subsumed within it.451 This predilection for channel movements resulted from a phenomenon referred to as bancos. Bancos are significant bends or curves in the river, usually found in soft alluvial soil where the riverbed has only
449 [undated 1915?] The Proposed Santa Helena International Dam, Box 49 (Records of the Boundary and Claims Commissions), NARA (College Park, MD). 450 An acre-feet is a common unit of volume measure for reservoirs. As the name implies, it indicates the water storage capacity by the number of acres covered to a depth of one foot. 451 According to the treaty, the border was actually tied to the site of the original riverbed at the time of its execution. Subsequent changes in the river channel would necessitate a hodgepodge of land and water monuments to legibly tie the boundary lines together.
219 a slight drop in elevation.452 When fast-moving floodwaters encounter these bancos or “oxbows,” the river has a tendency to come completely out of its banks and forge a wholly new course. An upstream dam, or dams, could lessen the impact of these flood events and secure the border by regulating and rationing the river’s flow. The construction of dams upstream from the Big Bend shifted priorities away from Santa Elena Canyon. La Boquilla Dam, completed in 1913 on the Rio Conchos, the largest tributary of the Rio Grande, was the first in a series of Mexican and American water reclamation projects for the Rio Grande watershed.453 The Elephant Butte Dam, constructed on the Rio Grande in central New Mexico by the Bureau of Reclamation, diminished concerns about floodwater control. The reservoir behind the dam began filling in late 1915.454 The expansive agricultural and municipal use of these large reservoirs dramatically cut stream flows in the Rio Grande. For example, the upper Rio Grande effectively ceased to flow in Fort Quitman, Texas just past the cross-border city pairing of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. According to U.S. Army Engineers, from that point forward, more than ninety percent of the water in the Rio Grande emanated from the Rio Conchos, entering the river near Presidio, Texas just upstream of Santa Elena Canyon.455 Although La Boquilla Dam did not fully contain this watershed, the dam in Santa Elena Canyon proposed by Carachristi was not deemed economically viable by the Army Corps
452 “By 1970 American and Mexican boundary commissions had sliced through 241 bancos by straightening the river. Those bancos that protruded into Mexico went to Mexico, the others to Texas. More than 30,000 acres of land changed hands, most of it in the lower Rio Grande valley. The United States got 18,505 acres, and Mexico received 11,662.” Leon C. Metz, "Bancos of the Rio Grande," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rnb08), accessed June 26, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. 453 David James Dean, “A River Transformed: Historic Geomorphic Changes Of The Lower Rio Grande In The Big Bend Region Of Texas, Chihuahua, And Coahuila” (Master’s Thesis, Utah State University, 2009), 12. 454 Robert Autobee, Rio Grande Project History (Bureau of Reclamation, 1994) http://www.usbr.gov/projects//ImageServer?imgName=Doc_1305577076373.pdf 455 Dean, “A River Transformed,” 13.
220 of Engineers because of the lack of a local market that might benefit from power generation or irrigation and concerns that Carachristi’s proposal was colored by his purported financial interests in mining in northern Mexico.456 Nevertheless, the idea for damming the canyons remained, at least on paper. When Roger Toll investigated the Big Bend in 1934 and recommended the creation of a national park there, he included in his findings a description of the area from E.E. Townsend. Townsend, a Texas legislator and early park booster, evoked the beauty of its canyons along with a proposed three hundred foot dam creating a reservoir “more than one hundred square miles, dotted with islands, bays and straits wedging themselves back among the mountains.”457 He argued that the essential function of flood control would also provide for enhanced recreational benefits and wilderness access to remote parts of the park that visitors would otherwise have a difficult time reaching.
456 12/8/1915 Letter to Chief of Engineers (U.S. Army). Box 49 (Records of the Boundary and Claims Commissions), NARA (College Park, MD). 457 1934 “Big Bend Park” by E.E. Townsend, Box 1 (Roger Toll Notebook), BBNP Archives.
221
View of Santa Helena Canyon proposed dam sites (February 1942)458
In February 1944, the United States and Mexico successively negotiated a Treaty for the "Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande." It contained provisions for apportioning tributary waters of the Rio Grande and the construction and operation of international dam projects. Article 5 of the treaty provided for three dams. The first of these would be located “between Santa Helena Canyon and the mouth of the Pecos River.”459 The treaty also prompted a request from the Park Service that the Bureau of Reclamation, Geological Survey, and International Boundary Commission be proscribed from placing a dam or reservoir within the limits of Big Bend National Park without the specific authorization of Congress.460 As it turned out, this protest was unnecessary. In 1946, the International Boundary and Water Commission
458 Dam Site Possibilities on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend District, IBWC Library (El Paso, TX). 459 11/14/1944 U.S./Mexico Treaty for Utilization of Colorado, Tijuana, and Rio Grande, Box 6 (BIBE- 01508), BBNP Archives. 460 4/24/1944 Memo to Under Secretary from Associate Director Demaray, Box 3852 (Office of the Secretary, Central Classified Files, 1937-53), NARA (College Park, MD).
222 conducted hydrologic studies to investigate the best locations for flood control and water development. According to their report, from Fort Quitman, Texas just past El Paso, there was little appreciable water gain until the Rio Conchos entered the river above Presidio, providing approximately 870,000 acre feet. Most of this flow was already contained by La Boquilla Dam’s 2,116,000 acre foot reservoir, and the Don Martin reservoir, holding 1,123,000 acre feet, was added in 1930. Not until farther downstream of the park, the Pecos River and the Devils River added 300,000 and 460,000 acre feet, respectively.461 Indeed, the main flow of the Rio Grande was impounded behind Elephant Butte Dam in New Mexico. Rather than utilizing the park’s canyons, additional international dams and reservoirs were constructed further downstream after other tributaries augmented the river’s flow, first the Falcon Dam upstream of Matamoros/Brownsville in 1954 and then the Amistad Dam upstream of Ciudad Acuna/Del Rio in 1968. So it appears that the confluence of upstream irrigation and power interests and better potential downstream construction sites with tributary inflows, in essence, “saved” the development of dams within the canyons of Big Bend. In the effort to rationalize the dramatic variation in the river’s flow, these dams proved better alternatives.462 Even though the dam that was considered for the canyons of the Big Bend was never constructed, the fact that the project was even contemplated demonstrates the importance of maintaining the international border between Mexico and the United States. Unlike the continuous clearing operations required to maintain the swath along the
461 1/1946 The Rio Grande International Dams Project: The Lower Rio Grande Under the Treaty of 1944 (IBWC), Box 8 (Department of State, Records of the International Boundary and Water Commission, 1927-62), NARA (College Park, MD). 462 However, according to the opinion of the Interior Department’s Chief Counsel, the construction of a reservoir within the park continues to be an open possibility because the Water Treaty with Mexico supersedes the Congressional Act establishing the park. Conflicts are governed by the latest legislative action – in this case, the execution of the treaty on November 8, 1945. 6/8/1951 Letter to Howard Zahniser (Wilderness Society) from Regional Director Tillotson, Box 1808 (Administrative Files, 1949-71), NARA (College Park, MD).
223 northern border between the United States and Canada, the presence of the river boundary, at least in Texas, seemed to preclude the necessity of a similar effort. Yet, the seasonal floodwaters of the same insured that, like the northern borderline, human maintenance would be just as burdensome. Although the resulting maintenance was not distributed across the entire border, it rested instead on the construction of major water control projects to guarantee its unchanging appearance. Historian Richard White attests in The Organic Machine, “‘conquering’ nature involves human beings with the world so thoroughly that they can never be disentangled.”463 The technology and scale of these practices (for example, dam construction or salmon hatcheries that White observed along the Columbia River) are unparalleled in human history, and they make it even more difficult to separate the river from their human elements. Along the Rio Grande, enforcing the stability of man-made borders also necessitated man-made structures to regulate the flow of the river. In a strange inverse of what White observed along the Columbia, the structures were meant to maintain the “natural” course of the river, not just to repurpose it for other human uses. Ultimately, the construction of Falcon and Amistad reservoirs further downstream solved most of the issues relating to the international boundary.464 Even in the Big Bend where the river was not prone to disrupt the shape of the border, the mobility of domestic fauna presented a novel set of challenges.
463 Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 7. 464 In addition, in particularly troublesome spots on the river prone to erosion, the IBWC used concrete to permanentize the channels so that floodwaters would be unable to escape the beds and banks and forge a new course and obscure the original boundary.
224 GOOD FENCES: SORTING WILDLIFE AND DOMESTICS ALONG THE MEXICAN BORDER
This chapter section historicizes the institution of fencing in protected spaces adjacent to the southern border of the United States. Rachel St. John’s 2011 monograph, Line in the Sand, reviews the history of the U.S./Mexico border. Yet, her geographical focus on the western “half” of the border, from the Pacific Ocean to the point where the Rio Grande assumes responsibility, misses the opportunity to consider the possibility of double bordering, the institution of fencing along a waterway that already clearly marked the divide.465 Even within her mapping, the institution of fencing at Organ Pipe National Monument shows the challenge of bordering an area noted primarily for its natural features. Just as the swath visible between Waterton-Glacier provided jarring artificial evidence of the border, the Organ Pipe fencing, while also providing visual evidence of the boundary, represented a practical consideration in the absence of a Mexican protected space to discourage the migration of Mexican cattle into the United States. Big Bend officially became a national park unit in June 1944, and the Park Service began to enforce all its borders. On July 16, 1944, O.P. Senter, the park’s first ranger, officially went on duty for the first time at 8 a.m.466 Many of his early journal entries involved patrolling, making contacts with local ranchers, remodeling the superintendent’s house, and disassembling the Civilian Conservation Corps barracks from the 1930s. In late August, he travelled to the Hot Springs and Boquillas area with Superintendent Ross Maxwell and posted “Government Property” signs on all the buildings. Senter periodically posted additional “Government Property” as well as “No
465 “For most of its length the border stands lonely of human activity, save for the barriers erected to prevent crossings—a patchwork of steel mesh, picket fencing, vehicle barriers, and barbed wire that rise above the desert floor marking the boundary line’s course from the Pacific Ocean to the Rio Grande.” Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 1. 466 7/1944 Ranger O.P. Senter Diary, Big Bend National Park, Box 1, BBNP Archives.
225 Hunting” signs throughout the park. In late September, he participated in a round-up of so-called “wet horses” with the Customs Service and Texas Rangers, resulting in the capture of fifteen Mexican horses and mules. He also repaired the Burnham ranch fence in Green Gulch to keep the Burnham cattle out of the Basin and drove six stray cattle back down to Green Gulch. For the December opening of hunting season, according to the Superintendent, Ranger Senter stayed near the northern entrance, stopping incoming cars to explain rules and regulations relating to wildlife protection.467 Signage and Senter’s physical presence were essential to making the park boundaries more apparent, but with the elimination of private ranchland within the park, it was also crucial to recombine the multiplicity of subdivisions. Internal fencing left behind to divide one range from another no longer had any meaningful purpose. The old adage, "good fences make good neighbors," bears closer examination in this context. In some cases, borders were created to be fixed lines, but Park administrators also contemplated more highly fluid zones. In a 1934 letter about the redevelopment of Big Bend, U.S. Park Service plans called for the elimination of internal fences previously constructed by ranchers so as to permit the free movement of wildlife within the park but also called for extensive fencing on the newly drawn periphery to keep out competition from domestic livestock and allow the native flora to reestablish itself.468
467 12/3/1944 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent Maxwell, Box 21 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX). 468 6/26/1934 Letter to Conrad Wirth from Herbert Maier, Box 1 (Central Files of the Regional Wildlife Technician, 1929-41), NARA (San Bruno, CA).
226
“Repurposed” fencing near the former Homer Wilson Ranch in Big Bend (Author’s Photo)
Within only six years of the park’s opening, the Big Bend superintendent reported that “ranchmen at their own expense have salvaged wire and posts from existing fences within the park and moved these fences and constructed them on the park boundary in the northwestern sector of the park.”469 To this end, ranchers repurposed and redeployed approximately twenty-two miles of fence to the northern boundaries with corresponding reductions in trespass grazing. At the same time, Park Service officials coveted the porous nature of the river, the international boundary.470 They looked to Mexico for the restoration of the many species
469 1950 Superintendent’s Annual Report, Box 1 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 470 More in the chapter 6, “Transboundary Parks,” about how Park Service officials in each country varied of the utility of these lines.
227 previously extirpated from park lands. According to a 1944 Park Service Ecological Survey of the Big Bend, bighorn sheep, prong-horned antelope, black bears, gray wolves, and other species migrating from Mexico “would likely be the best, most natural, and possibly the quickest form of permanent restoration.”471 Northern Mexico represented an ideal game store with relatively untouched desert and ski islands replete with flora and fauna. The experience at Waterton-Glacier demonstrated the importance of free movement along the border as the “international” elk herd spent the summer months in Glacier’s high country while wintering in the lower elevation river valleys and plains of Waterton Lakes.472 The availability and accessibility of substantial and diverse populations of wildlife in Mexico provided an easy and cost-effective means to reintroduce species that had been long displaced from the U.S. side in favor of using the range for domesticated stock. Moreover, with the continuing presence of ranching north of the park, it proved politically untenable for the Park Service to be actively involved in the reintroduction of certain predator species that might “interact” with the domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats on these private parcels. Yet northern Coahuila and Chihuahua, just like west Texas, was home to ranching, especially along the well-watered plains of the Rio Bravo. The crucial decision on regulating the international boundary rested with the creation of a suitable companion park in Mexico. If private ranching interests could be displaced from both locales, a fence would be wholly unnecessary.473 When it became apparent that no park of any form
471 6/1944 Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park, Box 1 (NPS Western Region Central Classified Files, 1923-65), NARA (San Bruno, CA). 472 In 1912, C.H. Chapman, Superintendent of Glacier, extended an offer to send elk to Waterton if only the Canadians vouched for their protection. This offer was turned down, but Bert Riggall, a local rancher and guide, noted the migration of some elk into the park by 1920. I.A Getty, History of the Human Settlement at Waterton Lakes National Park, 1800-1937 (1970), Box 115, WLNPA. 473 Superintendent Maxwell postulated, “If Mexico establishes a park on their side of the Rio Grande and if they follow our policy with regard to protection of wildlife and the elimination of grazing, then the Rio Grande boundary should not be fenced. If, however, they establish a game preserve sort of park and allow
228 would be developed in northern Mexico, the U.S. Park Service had to determine a suitable course of action. In July 1946, Big Bend Ranger George Sholly wrote to the Mexican Consul regarding 150 head of trespass stock. “We will appreciate your notifying the concerned ranchers adjoining Big Bend National Park across the Border to remove their livestock prior to August 10, 1946. After that date we will be compelled to gather this stock and turn it over to the Customs for condemnation proceedings,” warned Sholly.474 Like those of neighboring Texas ranches to the north of the park, these cattle were now trespassing on public land. Nonetheless, people and undomesticated wildlife were welcome. In fact, human migrants were actively recruited. In February 1945, Ranger Senter made trips to Lajitas and Study Butte to hire Mexican laborers for various park construction projects, and on May 31st, he prepared an emergency fire plan given the extreme heat and drought conditions and then trained an all Mexican fire crew and laborers in case action was needed.475 Nevertheless, certain four-legged migrants were decidedly unwelcome and led to the contemplation of the first border fencing. To revisit this proposal, it is first necessary to travel westward along the U.S./Mexico border. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the Antiquities Act to designate Organ Pipe National Monument in southern Arizona. The monument preserved elements of the Sonoran Desert, including the rare cactus that gave the space its name. The southern range of this preserve brushed up against the international boundary with the Mexican state of Sonora. Faced with cattle incursions from Sonoran ranches, the U.S. Park Service constructed eight miles of light fencing paralleling the
grazing, then I think we will have to fence the Rio Grande boundary in order to protect our own interests.” 12/16/1944 Letter to Walter Taylor from Superintendent Maxwell, Box 17 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX). 474 7/25/1946 Letter to Sr. Walker from Chief Ranger George Sholly, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935- 95), BBNP Archives. 475 7/1944 Ranger O.P. Senter Diary, Big Bend National Park, Box 1, BBNP Archives.
229 boundary line with some success in discouraging the entry of Mexican livestock. In 1947, the International Boundary and Water Commission contemplated a more substantial and permanent fence in Organ Pipe and along the river in the Big Bend. This fencing was not just intended to prevent trespass grazing. Mexican cattle were associated with foot-and- mouth disease, a potential threat not only to the U.S. domestic cattle industry but also to the desirable populations of wild fauna within the parks.476 Asked to weigh in on pending Congressional legislation to construct fencing, U.S. Park Service Director Newton Drury recommended “a favorable report be submitted on this proposed legislation which would authorize the construction, operation, and maintenance of the … ’Rio Grande border fence project’ between the United States and Mexico” [emphasis added].477 Even though such a fence would have surely contrasted with the wilderness narrative the Park Service was attempting to construct, Director Drury supported the legislation and potential blight on the park’s periphery to prevent an even bigger impact to the interior by free roving Mexican cattle. Ultimately, legislation to institute a border wall was unsuccessful due to the high estimated cost and difficult logistics of construction. In lieu of a fence, the Park Service resorted to the old-fashioned practice of horse patrol and round-ups, like the one Ranger O.P. Senter joined in September 1944, to manage the problem. They leveraged former private ranch holding pens now in the park, such as those at Sam Nail’s former homestead just west of the Chisos Mountains. For example, a February 1949 edition of the Alpine Avalanche featured an ad for trespass horses and mules, “eighty-six head, more or less, of Mexican horse stock and mules,
476 Historian John McKiernan-Gonzalez’s monograph considers the impact of public health along the Texas-Mexico border and deploys the novel framework of medical bordering. John McKiernan-Gonzalez, Fevered Measures: Public Health and Race at the Texas-Mexico Border, 1848–1942 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012). 477 12/23/1947 Memo to Solicitor from Director Newton Drury, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives.
230 various ages, sizes, color, and brands.”478 Unless claimed by their rightful owners, the impounded stock would be offered at public sale to the highest bidder at the Nail Ranch. Park Service Rangers, Border Patrol, and Texas Rangers all patrolled the river in an attempt to keep cattle out. Park administrators sought assistance from Mexican ranchers to recover and return wandering livestock, but these patrols also exposed these same ranchers to legal jeopardy. The Boquillas District Ranger reported that fifty-nine men in Boquillas and San Vicente, two Mexican towns along the river, owned at least 392 cattle and other stock animals, but in Boquillas, Coahuila, only a handful of men possessed an immigration crossing permit. He characterized a rancher seeking stock as similar to “a hunted animal.” The Border Patrol made a practice of harassing Mexican nationals on park land.479 The problem of four-legged migrants clearly intersected with the treatment of their two-legged caretakers.
TWO-LEGGED MIGRANTS
For most of the history of the parks, formal procedures for human migrants, especially tourists traveling from the park into the villages of northern Mexico, were either non-existent or poorly enforced, but as the U.S. Federal Government tightened control over immigration at first superficial, then more substantive changes filtered to the border parks as well. In Waterton-Glacier, no roads provided close access to the border. Connecting roads ranged far outside of the two parks, so travelers passed through a formal port of entry long before they entered each protected space. Hiking trails, like
478 2/24/1949 Ad in Alpine Avalanche, Box 21 (BBNP Central Files, 1943-65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX). 479 2/12/1957 Memo to Chief Ranger from Boquillas District Ranger, Box 6 (BBNP Central Files, 1943- 65), NARA Archives (Ft. Worth, TX).
231 those traveled by Ranger Reynolds, led between parks, but the primary mode of transport that regularly took a sizable number of tourists across the boundary was the motor launch from Waterton Townsite to Goat Haunt Ranger Station on opposite ends of Upper Waterton Lake. In March 1958, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service wrote to the Glacier Park Superintendent about placing a “warning sign” at trails crossing Boundary Creek and the Belly River. These signs would remind backcountry travelers of the need to check in at the Chief Mountain Customs Station located on the main auto route connecting the two parks.480 Presumably, this honor system method resulted in minimal compliance, so the border was effectively unregulated. In 1965, a large dock and pavilion was finally built at the southern end of Waterton Lake. As a result, boaters stepping off the motor launch were greeted by a welcome panel with the following message: “WELCOME to the United States Section of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park where two nations have joined two national Parks in a symbol of lasting friendship.”481 Yet these same visitors were not required to show a passport or any other form of identification if they wanted to venture further south into the heart of the park and points beyond. In 1967, adjacent to the actual boundary, the Waterton Lakes Master Plan was amended to include an “international campground” at Boundary Bay on Upper Waterton Lake. According to the Glacier Superintendent, U.S. Immigration adopted a lax stance on the proposal, expressing no objections except that non-U.S. or Canadian citizens using the camp should be required to carry some proof of identity.482 In the Big Bend, the U.S. Park Service contemplated a way to make travel between Mexico and the United States seamless and uninterrupted. Rather than managing
480 3/25/1958 Letter to Superintendent, Glacier from Acting District Director (Immigration and Naturalization Service), Box 4 (Glacier NP Mixed Subject Files, 1953-65), Rocky Mountain NARA (Denver, CO). 481 [undated 1965] Two Parks, Two Nations, One Ideal, Box 250, WLNPA. 482 April 1967 Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan, Box 124, WLNPA.
232 a gateway or check point at the physical border, the Park Service concocted a novel approach. A 1942 Memo laid out a strategy for visitors to go through Customs procedures at the periphery of the proposed peace park. As in Waterton-Glacier, each park would maintain administrative control over its sovereign space, but visitors would enjoy unfettered access between the two parks.483 Indeed, this approach was realized even without the establishment of a Mexican park. Park visitors continually crossed the Rio Grande, in particular to visit Mexican settlements like Boquillas, without having to go through Customs in either country. “There is no port of entry or bridge,” gently warned a park brochure on “border towns” from the 1980s. “A flatbottom rowboat operates as a ferry on a daily basis. The National Park Service cannot be held responsible for injuries sustained while crossing the river on the ferry boat or while visiting the village. If you decide to visit Santa Elena, don’t forget that you are a visitor in another country with a different language and customs.”484 The fluidity of the border was an essential part of the visitor experience as well as offering practical benefits to the Mexican communities along the river, which benefitted from more direct access to mail, gas, and groceries as well as tourist dollars. The relative isolation of these villages due to inadequate road infrastructure meant that they operated out of necessity as self-sustaining settlements within the periphery of the American park.485 This status quo practice of informal crossing remained in place until the late 1990s. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made unstaffed crossings, like those in Big Bend and Glacier, illegal.486 Functionally, however, this change had
483 3/25/1942 Memo to Regional Director from Chief, Recreational Planning Division, Box 824 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 484 [undated 1980s/90s] Brochure on “Santa Elena, Mexico,” Santa Fe Archive Box, BBNP Archives. 485 The next chapter, “Transboundary Parks,” elaborates on the creation and importance of this transboundary cultural tourism. 486 7/2/2001 SOP for Closure of International Crossings, Box 2 (CENT Files), BBNP Archives.
233 little impact on either park. First, it took eleven years for U.S. Customs to officially notify the Park Service of the change. Second, closure was further put off until a “Memorandum of Understanding” could be negotiated between the federal agencies. In July 1997, Jose Cisneros, the Big Bend Superintendent, emailed his counterpart at Glacier for guidance on border crossings.487 At Glacier’s Goat Haunt Ranger Station, three rangers received training and an Immigration Inspector designation allowing them to serve as Customs Inspectors for tour boats operating on Waterton Lake and also to inspect individuals crossing the international border in Glacier National Park.488 In June 1998, the U.S. Customs Service and the Park Service completed an agreement to legalize reentry for Big Bend visitors returning from Boquillas, San Vicente, and Santa Elena. Commissioned rangers received delegated Customs authority to regulate border crossings between the park and the Mexican villages.489 Even then, visitors and residents on both borders would have noticed little difference. The small number of rangers so trained had other assigned duties and were not able to effectively police the substantial migratory traffic. It took another completely unrelated event thirteen years later to materially impact the way the border operated.
487 “Do any of your visitors have occasion to cross into Canada and return through your parks? Do Canadian citizens cross into your parks and how does Customs deal with that?” 7/9/1997 Email to Glacier Superintendent from Jose Cisneros (BBNP), 1997 Central Files Box, GNP Archive. 488 6/5/1996 Letter Stephen Frye (Chief Park Ranger) from Donald Whitney (INS), Box 1 (Jose Cisneros Files), BBNP Archives. 489 1999 Superintendent’s Annual Report, Box 7 (Superintendent’s Annual Narrative Reports, 1981- 2001), NARA (College Park, MD).
234 A CLOSED BORDER
The events of September 11, 2001 cast a wide net over civil society, including these remote national parks. New restrictions and regulations were put in place at all border crossings, and the U.S. Federal Government asserted authority over the informality that had long prevailed in Waterton-Glacier and Big Bend, but even this action took time. Perhaps the “middle ground” long represented by both transboundary areas was finally giving way to more rigid and consistent border enforcement. While in Glacier, park rangers posted notice and informed tourists and hikers of the border closure, in the Big Bend, the Park Service and Border Patrol abruptly began enforcing the rules in May 2002 by arresting tourists and Mexican nationals crossing the river between Boquillas and the Rio Grande Village. Post-9/11 rule enforcement has decimated Mexican border towns that once enjoyed ample tourism from Big Bend National Park. As one resident of Boquillas simply put it, “Señor Bin Laden changed things.”490 Another resident of Boquillas lamented: “Before the closure, everything was easier. What we didn’t get from Mexico, we could buy at Rio Grande Village. That’s where we bought most of our food, actually. And gasoline, gasoline is way cheaper on the American side. Now, we can’t buy anything.”491 For the first time since the park opened, the border crossings remained closed. Border closures limited the ability not only for tourists but also U.S. and Mexican park administrators to cross back and forth across the river. The only way for these land managers to comply with the law while still conducting their duties was under the auspices of the International Boundary and Water Commission. In 1950, the Commission adopted an official identification card for personnel travelling on either side of the
490 Big Bend Gazette (August 1, 2004). 491 Big Bend Gazette (August 1, 2004).
235 boundary line.492 It was solely this power, post-9/11, that allowed agents of the National Park Service to participate in activities that took them across the river. In contrast, CEMEX personnel, which managed a major portion of the Maderas del Carmen preserve as well as adjacent property in Texas were forced to travel hundreds of miles by car to an official port of entry in Del Rio rather than simply cross the Rio Grande. Crossing the line, once a mainstay for tourists and the towns that catered to them alike, is now actively discouraged. The Big Bend park newsletter, The Paisano, sternly warns visitors about crossing the border: “There are NO authorized crossings in Big Bend National Park. Crossing at Boquillas, Santa Elena, or other locations along the Rio Grande is prohibited … The U.S. Attorney’s Office has indicated that it will prosecute any criminal violations regarding any illegal crossings. If you reenter the United States at any point within Big Bend National Park, you may be liable for a fine of not more than $5,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both.”493 In marked contrast, the Glacier Vacation Guide provides a much softer admonishment: “People in tour boats and private boats arriving from Waterton Lakes National Park to Goat Haunt are not required to clear customs and immigration unless they travel beyond the immediate shore area of the Ranger Station. Those returning on the same boat will not be considered to be seeking admission into the United States. All hikers crossing the International Boundary from Canada are considered to be applying for admission to the United States, and are required to report to Park Rangers at Goat Haunt for inspection.”494
492 7/1/1950 Identification Cards of the International Boundary and Water Commission, Box 7 (Department of State, Records of the International Boundary and Water Commission, 1927-62), NARA (College Park, MD). 493 Summer/Fall 2008 issue of the Big Bend Paisano; http://www.nps.gov/bibe/parknews/ upload/V28N2.pdf. 494 Summer 2008 Vacation Guide for Glacier National Park; http://www.nps.gov/glac/ planyourvisit/upload/vacationplanner08web.pdf.
236
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park Pavilion at Goat Haunt, Montana (Author’s Photo)
Waterton-Glacier visitors stepping off the “International” motor launch from Waterton townsite to Goat Haunt and entering the Peace Park Pavilion are also greeted by a disturbing juxtaposition. A beautiful picture of the mountainscape of Glacier National Park is obscured by the resplendent image of the twin towers of the World Trade Center that stood at the tip of Manhattan. This jarring visual and accompanying text serve to explain new procedures where cross-trained and deputized Rangers serve as border patrol agents for United States and Canadian citizens crossing the international border within the park. As of yet, no comparable program has been implemented in the Big Bend.
CONCLUSION
Borders are not as impermeable as they might appear. Indeed, the fluidity of movement in Big Bend and Waterton-Glacier demonstrates that borders between parks
237 and even nations do not always coincide with a static notion of sovereignty. Even long settled borders remain contested and subject to all types of violations. After the events of September 11, 2001, there has been a renewed emphasis on maintaining clarity and control. Regardless, understanding boundaries means looking beyond straight lines on a map or the undulating paths of a river. To be meaningful, the lines had to reshape the areas they surrounded, and each Park Service attempted to do just that. Just like national governments, park administrators realized the importance of marking and maintaining boundaries. Neither the powers of the state or the Park Service could be projected without a clear demarcation of their domain. Traditionally, borders preserve private and public prerogatives to gain access to resources. National parks turn this interest on its head as the preservation of resources becomes the key. Interestingly, the creation of transboundary peace parks presented an opportunity to make borders more nebulous. Yet even creating a mutually agreed upon and beneficial recharge zone for water, flora, and fauna could not diminish the need for the clarity of political lines. Why? First, states had an ongoing interest in controlling any and all resources that cross boundaries. As more control was exerted in border cities and major road crossings, some activities, especially those considered contraband, were pushed to more remote, less accessible areas. Second, national parks were managed differently. For each Park Service, it was essential to provide an understanding of what it was responsible for so certain non-conforming uses could be more easily explained. For example, as we’ll see in the next chapter, the U.S. National Park Service could explain oil drilling, mining, or other types of development in Waterton Lakes and the Maderas del Carmen by highlighting the borders between the parks. Third, parks created and deployed a narrative of pristine nature. In many cases, physical evidence of prior human habitation and activities was removed. Without clear boundaries, continuing inholdings or private uses
238 on the periphery would undercut the natural narratives each Park Service hoped to perpetuate. Fourth, borders provided an “unnatural” curiosity. Tourists are drawn to sites like the Four Corners area in the American Southwest, the boat dock near the cleared swath of the 49th parallel in Waterton-Glacier, and the center point of the Rio Grande to photo document the oddity of the political planes that divide us. The next chapter focuses on attempts to move beyond borders to combine the sovereign spaces of Canada, Mexico, and the United States into a new form protected space – a transboundary park.
239 Chapter 6 - Transboundary Parks: Bridging Borders and Combining National Parks
There are two view points to be kept in mind in linking up with the United States Glacier Park. If we do link up with that park doubtless we will get many tourists than at present and of course the getting of tourists is good business for Canada. On the other hand we have to bear in mind that such linking up would have the effect of making Waterton Lakes Park a sort of adjunct to the U.S. Park.495
In April 1915, J.B. Harkin, Commissioner of the Canadian Parks Service, weighed the positive and negative aspects of coupling Waterton Lakes with its U.S. counterpart, Glacier. While a connection with the American space just over the 49th parallel would likely funnel more tourists into Waterton, and perhaps other Canadian parks beyond it, the Canadian park suffered two notable disadvantages. First, Glacier was seven and a half times bigger than Waterton. As a consequence, U.S. officials had, in relative terms, more money, and invoked different standards for park management in Glacier that might be foisted upon its smaller Canadian counterpart. Second, Waterton lacked the same level of corporate sponsorship and, therefore, supplemental funding for development. While the Canadian Pacific Railroad sponsored parks like Banff further north, there was never a railroad link to Waterton, likely because the railroad viewed it as a competitor to its tourism operations in Banff. Officials for the Canadian space had to weigh the dual influence of the U.S. park and its corporate benefactor with the potential benefits of increased tourism. To facilitate a permanent link, in February 1916, Stephen Mather, Director of the U.S. National Park Service, wrote to Harkin asking for a description of the layout of
495 4/15/1915 Letter to Chief Superintendent, Dominion Parks from Commissioner, Microfilm T11266 Canadian NA.
240 Waterton Lakes National Park, “particularly in view of the possibility of roads being laid out in Glacier in such a way that they could be related later to your own park.”496 Responding to Mather’s inquiry, Harkin observed that “from the game standpoint and every other standpoint it is recognized here that it is very desirable that your Glacier Park and our Waterton Lakes Park should in reality constitute a continuous park area.”497 Although preserving and showcasing scenery was a key aspect of each park’s mandate, officials in both countries recognized that many of the most prized resources in these spaces were highly mobile rather than fixed. Flora, fauna, and other valuable resources, like water, flowed across the international divide with impunity. As Harkin’s earlier comments made clear, this continuity of the natural world was recognized with some degree of caution. Directly linking the parks together would not only facilitate the transfer of tourists between spaces, but also open up each nation’s park to the influence of the other. The ecosystems that Waterton-Glacier and the Big Bend highlighted, the Rocky Mountains and Chihuahuan Desert respectively, cut across and far beyond both parks. National parks that fall along international borders complicated attempts to overlay wilderness on lands that were already subject to human intervention and use. The presence of political borders, especially ones so well marked as demonstrated in chapter 5, provides a unique opportunity to assess common efforts to preserve the natural world and also to showcase how different conservation philosophies were deployed on the ground. While resources navigated freely across the imaginary political lines and even the corresponding minor geographical impediments, like the Rio Grande, these same
496 2/16/1916 Letter to J.B. Harkin from Stephen T. Mather, Parks Canada Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 497 3/1/1916 Letter to Assistant to the Secretary Stephen T. Mather from J.B. Harkin, Parks Canada Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
241 barriers have proven to be far more formidable obstacles in telling the history of these parks.498 It is only by holding these lines of separation in constant focus that the fundamental tension of international parks becomes clear. On the one hand, park managers preferred the borders to be clearly marked so that administrative autonomy was retained and any differences in management and disparities in content between the two spaces were more easily explained. On the other hand, the openness and transparency of
498 Historical monographs, where available, only lightly cover the advent and deployment of the international park concept in each space. For Waterton-Glacier, no monographs discuss the international park development. Indeed, for Glacier, the Park Service is just now funding a comprehensive park administrative history that is currently underway. For Big Bend, several monographs detail the development of the park, but most strictly confine their evaluation of an international space to the decade of the 1930s. Only a 2009 article, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” by Emily Wakild explores events after 1940 and then only briefly. Major Park Service histories, such as those by Alfred Runte, W.F. Lothian, Lane Simonian and even Emily Wakild’s Revolutionary Parks in 2011, are exclusively focused on the national park experience within the traditional confines of the nation-state. Even then, in Runte’s National Parks, Big Bend is only briefly mentioned, and the coverage of Glacier focuses on early development. Runte never addresses the international element aside from a reference to threats from external buffers in the 1980 State of the Parks Report. Roderick Nash’s massive intellectual history of wilderness which reserves a whole chapter to review international efforts to promote wilderness conservation, focuses primarily on the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve Program and World Heritage Sites, but does not incorporate the experience of international parks. Saleem Ali, an ecologist and environmental planner, produced an edited volume in 2007, that is the first and only work to consider both borders and all four park case studies. It also includes a number of other transboundary park case studies that encapsulate shared natural resources. It is these spaces, Ali and the other authors argue, that promote long term environmental stability and peace between adjoining nations. Yet, in focusing on areas where the sharing of scarce resources is imperative, the authors fail to consider areas where the creation of parks was more arbitrary and discretionary. Although the establishments of Waterton-Glacier and the Big Bend corresponded with negotiations of major treaties to secure transboundary water rights, the formation of international parks were disconnected from these efforts. Arthur R. Gomez, A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1990); John R. Jameson, Big Bend on the Rio Grande: Biography of a National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); W.F. Lothian, "A Brief History of Canada's National Parks." (Ottawa, Ontario: Environment Canada, 1987); Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 374-8; Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 140-1, 262; Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Ronnie C. Tyler, The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1996); Emily Wakild, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009); Emily Wakild, Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico’s National Parks, 1910-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2011); Michael Welsh, Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park (National Park Service Administrative History, 2003).
242 the border were essential to the repopulation of species, access to winter and summer habitat, and, for human visitors, the presentation of decidedly unnatural transboundary cultural attractions. This final chapter tells two stories of combination. First, in 1932, Waterton- Glacier was joined to form the world’s first international peace park. Yet initially, this designation was meant to exist in name. Over time, however, the two parks became better integrated with transportation links and joint management agreements. Next, beginning in the 1930s, Mexican and U.S. officials influenced by the novel precedent of Waterton- Glacier attempted to replicate that model in the Big Bend of Texas, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. Historical inquiries to date have stopped at the end of the 1930s in searching for the reasons why these efforts did not result in a formalized transboundary space. Instead, by focusing on the 1940s, after Big Bend National Park was established and opened, it is possible to understand not only why the formal brand of international park failed, but also the underlying basis for achieving a new type of international space there in the 1990s. Indeed, even without the designation of a sister park in Mexico for over fifty years, the Big Bend fell within an unofficial transboundary area that played upon cultural rather than natural linkages between the two spaces. Small border towns provided tourists with an opportunity to see a cross-cultural wilderness of sorts where residents struggled to navigate self-sufficiency between living off the land and operating within the orbit of the new American national park. Big Bend and Waterton-Glacier became transboundary cultural as well as natural attractions. Unlike most national parks, these spaces pointedly embraced a unique transnational cultural history. While many of the previous uses of national parks were dismissed and covered up in park interpretation, the international aspects of these parks were often showcased as a significant part of the history of each place. Indeed, a large
243 part of the appeal of these spaces was rooted in their transnationality. One of the most intriguing aspects of these parks for visitors was the ability to freely and safely cross over into and experience another country and culture. The changing lineage of national parks and wilderness protection over the course of the twentieth century illustrate how national officials and local actors have recognized the benefits of protection that transcend political boundaries. From early ideas of simple linkages by trails, highways and waterways that would stimulate nature tourism within each space to more complex concepts of coordinated management and facilitating transboundary cultural experiences, the modern form of international peace parks grew from these beginnings. As with many historical events, especially historic firsts, the net impact on these original parks was gradual at the outset. Over time, cooperation between the parks inspired a series of comparable projects around the world. Today, of the 7,000 national parks worldwide, 227 are transboundary peace parks.499 The very first of these began along the borderlands of Alberta and Montana,
PARKS ON THE 49TH PARALLEL
This chapter section considers the earliest linkages between Waterton Lakes and Glacier National Parks by trails, roads, and the displacement of water reclamation interests on the major lake that the two parks shared. Based on these efforts, in August 1924, U.S. Park Service Director Stephen Mather and Glacier Superintendent Charles Kraebel toured Waterton and provided pointed assessment of the partnership. Ultimately,
499 Saleem H. Ali, ed., Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007).
244 it was the Great Northern, rather than either Park Service that integrated the spaces economically a few years before the spaces were joined with a common name. Chapter 5 began with a few excerpts from Glacier Ranger Albert Reynolds’ duty log. He was posted along in Montana just south of the international boundary and began to construct trail linkages to the Canadian Park. Yet, these early trails primarily served to make the northernmost reaches of Glacier accessible from Waterton rather than effectively combine the two spaces. To that end, Canadian Parks Commissioner J.B. Harkin, hoped to cement a direct link by road. Writing in May 1919 to the U.S. Park Service Director, expressed a preference for a direct, monumental route along Upper Waterton Lake proceeding south through the mountains along the early trails that Reynolds had blazed: “We have done no construction work on this road as the surveys show that it would be an expensive piece of work and of course would be of little value unless there was a connection with your end.”500 Acting Director Horace Albright wrote back to concur with Harkin on a scenic mountain road circuit but ultimately deferred such a costly connection to the future.501 For a period of time, the significantly lower cost of trail development served to link the parks, albeit providing access for far fewer visitors than any road or rail connection. Both parks worked together to achieve these connections. Waterton Lakes Superintendent George Bevan requested permission to link up new Canadian trails on the west side of Waterton Lake and Cameron Lake. This connection required trail work in
500 5/13/1919 Letter to Acting Director Albright from Commissioner J.B. Harkin, Box 37 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 501 In Glacier, the massive investment in hotels and backcountry chalets by a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railroad required the allocation of limited funds first to the construction of internal access roads. “Building any road in our Glacier National Park is an extremely costly proposition to undertake, and we are afraid that we will not be able to build the road to Waterton Lake through the mountains for a good many years due to the fact that we have so much highway improvement to undertake in the sections of the park that are accessible from the big hotels.” 5/20/1919 Letter to Commissioner J.B. Harkin from Acting Director Albright, Box 37 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD).
245 the United States along the so-called Boundary Creek because of its proximity to the 49th parallel. To this end, Glacier Superintendent Walter Payne wrote the U.S. Park Service Director to encourage the clearing and enlargement of the Boundary Creek trail.502 Glacier officials saved a substantial sum by cooperating with the Canadian trail crews already in place along the border. These early tenuous linkages by trail were threatened by other ideas about the best use of these spaces. Water reclamation interests were active in both parks, and proposals threatened to impair the scenic wonders of Glacier and Waterton Lakes, but officials in the Canadian Parks Service employed arguments regarding natural links between Waterton and Glacier to defend against such threats. In 1922, J.B. Harkin rebutted an Irrigation Department proposal to utilize Upper Waterton Lake as an irrigation reservoir. He based his novel defense on the fact that Waterton offered visitors from the United States an opportunity to “get the taste and desire for mountain scenery and mountain recreation. The fame of Canada’s mountains extends everywhere throughout the United States. Every person who visits an American Park immediately becomes a prospective visitor to the Canadian Parks … Canadian Parks undoubtedly have scenery to sell which is of a higher quality than the American Parks possess.”503 Harkin portrayed Waterton as the critical hook for this influx of American tourists, for “once an American motorist comes into Canada, his financial value to the country (otherwise what he spends here) depends exactly on how long he remains … Canada therefore needs Waterton. Destroying it means the loss of millions of dollars for all time to come.” Waterton Lakes served as an important entry point and first impression of the Canadian parks and other destinations. Turning it into an
502 “I will, if this meets with your approval, try to arrange with Superintendent Bevan to have this crew do the work in conjunction with his work thereby saving the cost of putting a crew which would be expensive.” 4/16/1919 Letter to Director, National Park Service from Superintendent Payne, Box 37 (Central Files, 1907-39), NARA (College Park, MD). 503 3/25/1922 Memo to Mr. Cory from J.B. Harkin, Box 122, WLNPA.
246 eyesore by repurposing the central lake shared by both parks as a reservoir would sully this introduction, dissuade tourists from venturing further into the Canadian interior, and stop the tourist dollars that accompanied them. As Harkin defended Waterton against water reclamation projects, he and his U.S. counterparts also undertook many projects to establish more permanent road connections between the parks. During the 1920s, the parks worked closely together to determine the best road connecting points along the international boundary since a direct connection over the mountains proved too costly. U.S. Park Service Acting Director Arno Cammerer wrote to Commissioner Harkin in March 1923 to discuss eastern approaches.504 Again, with limited funds, road construction gravitated toward the more easily buildable flat prairielands to the east of each park. While Waterton included a portion of the lowland prairie, for Glacier, this meant construction in the Blackfeet Reservation outside of the park.505 In August 1924, an American delegation, including Director Stephen Mather and
504 The Canadians already had a rudimentary wagon road along the Belly River terminating close to the border, but Cammerer confided, “We do not contemplate building a road into the Belly River country but plan to join up with the Canadian Road on the west side of the Park. It is also contemplated to relocate and rebuild the present road to the International Boundary on the east side if we can get the necessary rights-of- way through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation … It is probable the Service will never construct a road into the Belly River country, reserving this northern section for development entirely by trail.” Glacier officials intended to keep the Belly River relatively wild and inaccessible, but the Canadian roadway made this American wilderness more accessible to visitation from Waterton. 3/5/1923 Letter to Commissioner Harkin from Acting Director Cammerer, Box 120, GNP Archives. 505 To provide motorists with fresh views and obviate the need to backtrack, park officials sought a viable route for a loop road between the two spaces. The primary challenge of this project was the geographical limitation of Waterton Lakes. The Canadian park boundary ended at the Continental Divide, which also served to divide the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The 1924 Glacier Superintendent’s Annual Report called for cooperation between Washington and the Dominion of Canada “in order to bring about the enlargement of Waterton Lakes National Park so that its western boundary will coincide with the western boundary of Glacier Park. This is needed to guarantee the protection of great numbers of moose and deer which annually drift to and fro across the International boundary west of the Continental Divide.” Conservation objectives and the need for a loop route connecting the North Fork road on the west side of Glacier with the Babb road in the east overlapped when considering the need for Canadian park expansion. Unfortunately, neither objective was met, as the contemplated addition to Waterton fell within lands owned by the province of British Columbia, and the provincial government was not inclined to cede it to the Canadian Federal Government. A one-way connection had to suffice. 1924 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives.
247 Glacier Superintendent Charles Kraebel, visited Waterton Lakes to discuss mutual development. In a memo to the Director summarizing the meetings with Canadian officials, Kraebel pointed out the success of the recently completed Babb-Boundary road route along the eastern prairie.506 As the parks became more closely and permanently intertwined, these connections inevitably spurred observations comparing the management approaches of the two Park Services. While Kraebel lauded these shared goals, what is most striking is his assessment of the notable differences in park management. He laid out impressions from the tour of Waterton as follows:
Accompanied by Mr. Knight [Herbert Knight, the Superintendent of Waterton Lakes] we made a short automobile tour of the environs of his headquarters, visiting the golf course, administrative buildings, the newly developed auto camp ground, and the village of summer homes which constitutes an extensive community under lease. Our general impression was of a definite contrast in policy between the Canadian and American National Park Services. The Canadian parks seem to be administered with the idea of exploitation or utilization for revenue in somewhat the same way as are the American National Forests as against our own park policy of perpetuating great natural wonder spots solely for the enjoyment and edification of our own and future generations.507 Kraebel applied the staple bias of the Interior Department against U.S. National Forests, administered by the Department of Agriculture to denigrate the standards of Canadian National Park development. Kraebel’s view, shared by subsequent Glacier Park Superintendents, including D.S. Libbey as discussed in the Introduction of this dissertation, deliberately overlooked the fact that many of the features he found questionable, like golf courses and other private developments, were also found in
506 The meeting also reinforced the desire for a loop road connecting with the Blackfeet National Forest road on the west side of the North Fork of Flathead River and the expansion of Waterton Park into British Columbia. “Originally this road was intended to meet the then proposed American transmountain road from Flattop Mountain over the Divide and down Belly River. But, subsequent to our pushing of the Babb road, the Canadian road was changed to meet this instead.” 8/9/1924 Memo for Director Mather from Superintendent Chas. J. Kraebel, Box 141, WLNPA. 507 Ibid.
248 Glacier. Indeed, Glacier even contained reclamation projects, which Canadian administrators had prevented in Waterton Lakes. The one key aspect that differentiated the two parks, as Kraebel pointed out, was the presence of leased home sites in Waterton Townsite. Yet, even on this point, Glacier contained far more wholly private fee simple inholdings that were not subject to lease termination or development restrictions, as Parks Canada exercised in the Waterton Townsite.508 A letter written two years later to Mather from Assistant Director Horace Albright highlighted perhaps the real cause for concern, the fear that allowing more inholdings in U.S. parks would also allow them to gain a permanent foothold and be all the more difficult to displace, a fear borne out in all the case study parks as evidenced in chapter 1.509 The ongoing lack of funds available for land acquisition and the tenacious hold of early private landholders made the perpetuation of this type of opening simply untenable. The ridicule of Waterton Townsite, in actuality, belied concerns a bit closer to home. The presence of inholdings in Waterton Lakes made U.S. park administrators all the more self-conscious of their own short-comings in dispelling private land from Glacier. Whatever differences in park administration espoused by park managers, private development interests recognized the value of links between the two parks to facilitate access and support tourism. Glacier’s private development arm, the Great Northern Railroad, encouraged even more linkages and new trails north into Canada. With an eye to providing excursions for tourists in its soon to be opened Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Townsite, railroad officials looked to the development of trails all along the
508 As mentioned in chapter 1, “Making National Parks,” home/cottage leases invoked an annual fee, building restrictions, and extended for a forty-two year term. 509 “The Canadian officials agreed that it would be ruinous to start a summer home policy in the American national parks because we have a much larger population and a vast number of rich people able to build and maintain pretentious summer homes.” 9/20/1926 Letter to Director Mather from Assistant Director Horace Albright, Box 630 (Central Classified Files, 1907-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
249 international border, speculating that they “cannot yet figure out what will be the ultimate development but presume that it will be desirable to have as many trips available as possible at each end of the [Upper Waterton] lake.”510 A motor launch from the Townsite across the length of the lake could provide unequalled access to Glacier’s northeast backcountry. In addition, the road to Cameron Lake could also open up the Upper Kintla region in the northwest of Glacier.511 In essence, Waterton, via road and waterways, afforded excellent trailheads for access to the remote wilderness in Glacier’s north country. The Canadian park made this otherwise inaccessible space freely open to parties of American and Canadian tourists. The impact of private development interests over the two spaces culminated with the opening of an American hotel situated on a promontory overlooking Upper Waterton Lake. The Glacier Superintendent noted the official opening of the Prince of Wales Hotel on July 25, 1927, labeling it “a great asset to Glacier National Park. The lure of a foreign country, the attractions of Waterton Lakes National Park and an extensive advertising campaign will attract many visitors, many of whom will visit Glacier.”512 The Great Northern’s latest addition provided an obvious scenic lure but also appealed to more pedestrian desires. With the inclusion of a beer parlor, tourists could take a vacation from stateside Prohibition as well as experience the natural beauty of southern Alberta. Perhaps one intention of the linkage between the parks was to reinforce the superiority of Glacier, and by extension all U.S. parks, to the visiting public. Maintaining the appearance of wilderness in Glacier required the displacement, or relocation, of
510 [undated 1926?] Glacier National Park Suggested New Trails, Box 120, GNP Archives. 511 The Railroad relied on the feedback from its Pullman Car patrons. James Simpson, President of Marshall Field & Company traveled from the Upper Kintla to the head of Upper Waterton Lake “and stated that he had seen nothing else in the Park to equal it, at the conclusion of a three weeks camping trip.” [undated 1926?] Glacier National Park Suggested New Trails, Box 120, GNP Archives. 512 1927 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives.
250 undesirable uses to adjacent sites, so Waterton, served as important buffers.513 Developments, like additional hotels and even beer parlors, in these locations provided desirable amenities for visitors so that Glacier National Park could preserve its wilderness ideal. Within a few years, local boosters sought a new mechanism to bind the two spaces even closer together.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? – WATERTON GLACIER INTERNATIONAL PEACE PARK
By May 1932, Glacier and Waterton Lakes had been combined to form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first transnational protected space ever so designated. The idea for a formal union originated just one year before, with the efforts of local Rotarians. Rotary Clubs on both sides of the border were instrumental in pushing for the creation of the peace park. According to the July 1934 issue of The Rotarian, the idea emanated from the first annual goodwill meeting of Alberta and Montana Rotarians at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes on July 4, 1931.514 With heightened tensions in Europe, the Clubs hoped to rebrand the parks as a solemn invocation of peace, but there were certainly other interests at play in this effort. Hoping to make a profit from the expansion of regional and international tourism, local Alberta business interests supported the initiative. In early 1932, the Calgary, Lethbridge, Pincher Creek and Waterton Lakes Boards of Trade and the Medicine Hat Chamber of Commerce, communities adjacent to Waterton Lakes National Park, wrote to Canadian Prime Minister R.B. Bennett to urge the establishment of an international peace
513 Tourist lodging and other related development also took place in adjacent spaces to the west and east of the park in the Blackfeet National Forest and Indian Reservation respectively. 514 Frank Chapin Bray, “Play Bridges National Frontiers” The Rotarian (July 1934) , Parks Canada Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
251 park.515 Indeed, the Pincher Creek Board of Trade letter included an impromptu map already billing the town as “the Hunter’s Haven” and identifying areas adjacent to the park for auto camping and big game hunting.516 These organizations saw the economic potential of a novel marketing strategy that embraced a peaceful space in a time of war.517 The surrounding towns hoped to benefit by association with close access and services for visitors. The designation as a peace park smacked of a publicity stunt, and, oddly, there was a real fight over which space could properly claim the mantle of “peace” in its name, Waterton-Glacier or another smaller international project under construction six hundred miles further east. A proposal to set aside 3,000 acres, half in Manitoba and half in North Dakota, for an International Peace Garden was introduced in 1929 at the Annual Conference of the International Association of Gardeners.518 In a telegram to the Canadian Prime Minister, the Associated Boards of Trade of Manitoba insisted that the word “peace” be reserved exclusively for the manicured gardens that would straddle the two states.519 Finally, in the spirit of compromise, both areas ended up incorporating the term. Although neither the U.S. nor Canadian Park Services wholly embraced the peace park concept due in large part to concerns about the loss of administrative control, they recognized the positive impact on visitation and revenue that might come with even a simple name change. A memo from Canadian Parks Commissioner J.B. Harkin
515 2/11/1932 Letter to R.B. Bennett from Walter Huckvale, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 516 2/29/1932 Letter to R.B. Bennett from H. Clements, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 517 Moreover, wartime usually corresponded with declines in park visitation so communities looked for any and all means to boost what would most likely become a constricted market for tourism. 518 4/26/1932 Memo to H.H. Rowatt, Box 234, WLNPA. 519 “The business men of Manitoba strongly urge that this undertaking be recognized by the Dominion Government and that the word peace be not included in the name of any other park.” 4/7/1932 Telegram to R.B. Bennett from W. Sanford Evans, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA.
252 highlighted the commercial benefits of having a reconstituted park as “the only one in the world recognized as being international and I think this fact would help to increase the tourist business to the Waterton end of the Park, both from the United States and from foreign countries.”520 Yet he hastened to add that no international administration was planned.521 The U.S. Congressional debate over the bill to designate Waterton-Glacier as a peace park largely centered on confirming the benefits that would accrue to the American park. Representative William Stafford of Wisconsin raised concerns about the potential for American expenditures in the Canadian portion of the unified park. “Should we be a party to providing easy access to those persons on this side who wish to satisfy their thirst [for liquor], in order to go to Canada, into Alberta,” Stafford asked. Representative Scott Leavitt, the bill’s sponsor, countered “they are really one great park … they are visited by thousands of people, not only the people of these two nations but the people of the world.”522 Stafford’s concerns ranged beyond the moral hazard of drink to lost revenue for U.S. business interests tied to Glacier. Nonetheless, based on the fact that the U.S. based Great Northern Railroad, through its hotel subsidiary, built and operated most of the lodging options in both spaces, there was little merit to concerns about losing money to Canadian properties. In the end, each legislative action taken by the U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament made it clear that administration and sovereignty remained with the individual nations.523
520 2/4/1932 Memo to Deputy Minister H.H. Rowatt from J.B. Harkin, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 521 “It should be made clear from the start that there would be no international administration of the areas concerned but that Canada would exclusively deal with the Canadian section and the United States deal with the American section. Any attempt to have an international body administer the areas as one unit would, I fear, only lead to difficulties and complications.” 2/4/1932 Memo to Deputy Minister H.H. Rowatt from J.B. Harkin, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 522 Congressional Record-House (March 7, 1932), Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 523 Sovereignty and administration thus were guarded closely. Section Two of the U.S. Act stated, “for purposes of administration, promotion, development, and support by appropriations that part of the said
253 Adding to the almost passé quality of this new alignment, no high level officials from either country attended the dedication of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Yet both countries’ leaders sent appropriate missives to be read for the record. Canadian Prime Minister R.B. Bennett expressed the hope that the new Peace Park “may be dedicated to the maintenance and the enlargement of that good neighborhood which has brought us so closely together.”524 President Herbert Hoover characterized the dedication as “a further gesture of the goodwill that has so long blessed our relations with our Canadian neighbors, and I am gratified by the hope and faith that it will forever be an appropriate symbol of permanent peace and friendship.”525 Each message, strong in symbolism, but lean on specific impacts, underscored the ephemeral nature of the designation itself. In creating the first international peace park, it was unclear exactly what had been accomplished. Although over time, there would be more mutual cooperation between the two parks, this initial designation existed in name only. However, even this kind of inconclusive accomplishment remained elusive along the U.S./Mexican border.
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park within the territory of the United States shall be designated as the Glacier National Park” [emphasis added]. 5/2/1932 H.R. 4752, An Act for establishment of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Box 250, WLNPA. The same section in the Canadian Act contained an even more explicit declaration that “the Canadian section of the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park shall continue to be one of the National Parks of Canada set apart by chapter thirty-three of the statutes of Canada, 1930” [emphasis added]. 5/26/1932 Act respecting the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, Box 250, WLNPA. 524 6/17/1932 Telegram to J.S. Stewart from R.B. Bennett, Microfilm T11266, Canadian NA. 525 7/16/1959 Pamphlet on “Unveiling and Dedication of the Canon Middleton Peace Park Plaque,” Microfilm T9883, Canadian NA.
254 A SOUTHERN PEACE PARK?
Even though high level government officials on both sides of the line were engaged in recreating this designation along the border between Mexico and the United States, a comparable peace park proved more daunting than the one year it took Alberta and Montana Rotarians to realize their initiative. In the glow of the success at Waterton- Glacier, Mexican and U.S. officials saw another opportunity to combine spaces, but unlike Waterton Lakes and Glacier, already long-established protected spaces, the parks of the Big Bend had to be created before they could be combined. The history of efforts to create an international peace park in the Big Bend has been described by historians Arthur Gomez, John Jameson, Ron Tyler, Michael Welsh, and, most recently, in an article by Emily Wakild.526 These stories have usually focused on public agency contacts between the U.S. Park Service and Mexican Department of Forestry, Game and Fish, the impact of American land ownership in northern Mexico, or the consequences of the untimely deaths of George Wright and Roger Toll, both members of the International Parks Commission. Historians have neglected Park Service engagement with private landholders, the consideration of a modified version of the Mexican park that allowed for grazing and other uses, the importance of Waterton-Glacier as a model for development, and similarities between the role of businesses in establishing and developing Glacier/Waterton and the Maderas del Carmen, already profiled in Chapter 3, “The Business of Parks.” This chapter section concentrates on three areas of activity during the
526 Arthur R. Gomez, A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1990); John R. Jameson, Big Bend on the Rio Grande: Biography of a National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Ronnie C. Tyler, The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1996); Michael Welsh, Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park (National Park Service Administrative History, 2003); Emily Wakild, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009).
255 mid-1930s: the development of an International Parks Commission between Mexico and the United States, survey expeditions into the proposed Mexican park, and a letter from the Glacier Park Superintendent proffering advice from his experiences with the Canadian Parks Service in Waterton Lakes. These initiatives, often portrayed as the end point of efforts to create an international space along the U.S./Mexican border provide background for a more detailed discussion of the 1940s, a decade neglected by historians, in the chapter section, “Sorting out Public and Private Interests,” that follows. The views of U.S. officials about the style of park they hoped Mexico would establish along the Rio Bravo del Norte were shaped by these early contacts and, importantly, by the counsel of Glacier’s superintendent. While Park Service officials had been ambivalent about an international peace park for Glacier, the U.S. National Park Service adopted a more central role in the push for a comparable designation on the southern border. In August 1935, Josephus Daniels, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, reported on a positive meeting with Miguel Quevedo, Chief of the Mexican Bureau of Forestry, Game and Fish, about establishing a game reserve in Coahuila.527 In less than two months, Park Service officials held a meeting in El Paso, Texas with Daniel Galicia, Quevedo’s lieutenant and an engineer. According to Galicia, his Department intended to designate a companion park based upon his recommendations. Yet Galicia had never even been to the Big Bend area, although a trip was planned, and he asked for representatives of the U.S. Park Service to accompany him. The space was far from Mexican centers of population and would not have appeared on the radar of Mexican conservation officials if not for its association with the Big Bend
527 “I found Mr. Quevedo personally most enthusiastic at the idea. His chief interest seemed to be in the possibility of making the park a great game reserve. He pointed out in this connection that the big game in the northwestern part of the State of Coahuila, some of the finest in the country, is in danger of extinction.” 8/16/1935 Letter to Secretary of State from Josephus Daniels, Box 821 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
256 park project. Although the bulk of the land along the Rio Grande in northern Mexico was held privately, much of it in grants to former Mexican Army generals, Galicia did not believe it would be difficult to acquire property for a park, if not by direct purchase, then by land exchange.528 Just as J.B. Harkin looked to Waterton as a tool to expand Canadian tourism, U.S. Park Service officials also hoped to maximize revenue from tourism, and, to gain the support of Mexican officials, touted the ability of the joint park to expand tourism in Mexico.529 In 1937, as mentioned in chapter 4, “The Business of Parks,” Amon Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star Telegram and chief fundraiser for the park, determined the total annual amount of money accruing to Texas from the proposed park at $3,585,000.530 Work to investigate and establish a joint park proceeded quickly from these initial meetings. In November 1935, Mexican and U.S. officials met in Washington and established a Joint Commission to identify potential international parks. As a forester, Quevedo also called for the institution of “tree plantations” for border cities all along the international line.531 While this proposal was accepted, these plantations, as more or less wholly constructed natural areas, worried U.S. officials. “No doubt these would be
528 “Mexico has at present only two national parks of the American type and their organization has not been developed to the point of ours. Generous national appropriations for adequate park developments are not as yet common to that country.” 10/5/1935 Report on the Conference with Mexican Representatives Concerning the Proposed Big Bend International Park by Herbert Maier, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives. 529 They portrayed the international space as the ideal entry point between the two countries. From this common introduction, Mexican and U.S. tourists could then fan out north and south into each country. 530 This figure included $225,000 in federal expenditures for development and maintenance with the balance from visitor travel expenditures. For more detail on the economic impact of parks, refer to the section “A Wilderness Economy in Nature’s Periphery” in chapter 4. [undated 1937] “Estimated minimum amount of money that will come to Texas per year from outside the state as a direct result of establishing the Big Bend National Park,” Box 21 (Amon Carter Papers) Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University. 531 For more information on Quevedo’s background, see the following article: Emily Wakild. "'It is to Preserve Life, to Work for the Trees': The Steward of Mexico's Forests, Miguel Angel de Quevedo, 1862- 1948" Forest History Today (2006): 4-14.
257 classified as metropolitan park or State park projects,” acknowledged Park Service Regional Director Herbert Maier.532 This concern about branding of protected spaces highlights differences between U.S. and Mexican conservation approaches with U.S. officials, like Maier, displaying unease with how the national park label was to be deployed and discounting other project ideas in favor of focusing on the Big Bend. In February 1936, members of the newly formed International Parks Commission, including Conrad Wirth, Roger Toll, George Wright, Raul Ibarra, Juan Trevino, and Daniel Galicia traveled through West Texas and Coahuila to identify the geographical boundaries for a Mexican park.533 Tragically, just days after the conclusion of this trip, two American members of the Parks Commission, Roger Toll and George Wright, were killed in a car accident near Deming, New Mexico.534 Their tragic deaths have provided an easy narrative marker to assign the ultimate demise of the international park idea, but two subsequent expeditions in May and September of 1936 provide a clearer view of project’s trajectory. In May 1936, U.S. Park Service Director Arno Cammerer led another expedition into the proposed international space. An Interior Department memo summarizing the trip
532 “In the resolutions they are referred to as ‘International Parks’ and we let it go at that rather than to introduce explanations through the interpreter at this time as to National Park policies affecting such classification.” 11/24/1935 Report on the Conference with Mexican Representatives Concerning the Proposed Big Bend International Park by Herbert Maier, Box 821 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 533 A trip diary entry from the summit of Vaca Peak recounted, “the wooded area extends only for a few miles and in the distance may be seen the treeless desert broken by several low barren mountain ranges which are evidently fault blocks. In the left center of this panorama is evident a peculiar rock tower which is beyond the wooded area and somewhat below the skyline.” Galicia pointed out this natural feature to serve as the eastern boundary for the Mexican space. 2/17/1936 Diary of a Trip from Alpine, Texas to the Big Bend and Old Mexico with the International Park Commission by Carroll Wegemann, Box 1 (Roger Toll Notebook), BBNP Archives. 534 Some historians of the Big Bend attributed the break in momentum toward establishing border parks to the death of Toll and Wright. Although both men were important members of the International Parks Commission, work in Big Bend and other places along the U.S./Mexico border continued. Indeed, Toll and Wright were traveling west from Big Bend to investigate other potential transboundary park locations
258 warned, “So far as I could ascertain there was no general support nor demand from any considerable portion of the population, nor any urgent support by higher authorities.”535 Quevedo and his associates continued to support the proposal, but it was obviously vulnerable. It appears that early on, the Americans realized the small likelihood that the Mexican space could be established. Moreover, the debate among Mexicans about the designation served to highlight the tension between conservation and preservation in Mexico and how best to use public and private parcels of land for the benefit of their people. Without the confluence of abundant public lands or funds to buy out existing landholders and develop parks and without a public providing political and financial support through their votes and visitation, national parks were always difficult propositions. Even then, the financial distress and government instability associated with a global financial Depression compounded the gravity of contemplating expenditures that would potentially remove productive ranching lands and diminish their important contribution to the national income. Yet, Mexican conservation initiatives certainly did not languish in this period. From 1935 to 1940, the Cardenas Administration established forty national parks, far outpacing the efforts of the U.S. Park Service.536 Geographical placement dramatically influenced the probability of a space coming into existence. Up to that point, most Mexican parks had been established near population centers or for clear cases of forestry or watershed protection. The entire Big Bend region was remote from Mexican cities, and national parks in such remote locations that had not been fully vetted and bypassed by commercial interests made it all the more difficult to receive the mantle
535 “It is probably too early to expect any considerable demand within Mexico for national parks, as the bulk of the Mexican people is neither equipped nor habituated to travel widely. Outdoor camping as we know it is indulged in by very, very few.” 5/28/1936 Memorandum Report on Mexican Trip in May, 1936 of a National Park Committee headed by Director Cammerer, Box 1808 (Administrative Files, 1949-71), NARA (College Park, MD). 536 Simonian, 85-94.
259 of wilderness. Of all the case studies, in relative terms, the Maderas del Carmen had the least human impacts. Yet unless the area had been thoroughly vetted and other economic uses excluded as a possibility, the permanency of national park status could not be conferred, especially when the offsetting economic value of tourism was unproven. As already observed in Waterton Lakes, Glacier, and Big Bend, parks were clearly not “worthless” lands, but the economic calculus of displacing private ranching interests in favor of a park did not add up. With these economic and practical considerations in mind, Mexican Forestry Official Daniel Galicia carefully considered the limited contours of what he believed constituted a viable Mexican park in a September 1936 trip to the region. Over three days, Galicia tried to follow his instructions to set boundaries as closely as possible to forested zones because of a limited budget for land acquisition. J.T. Roberts, a U.S. Park Service Landscape Architect who accompanied him, tried to convince Galicia to expand the areas to be acquired. Yet Galicia confided that he anticipated more problems from American than Mexican landholders in the region.537 Efforts continued on parallel tracks to create a Mexican park and find a way to cobble together enough parcels in Texas for
537 “No consideration was given to the wild life or scenic values. With some difficulty in conversation I presented these points as we traveled along, and it was finally determined that the park should include all the mountain area and such adjacent land necessary for the protection of wild life…To accomplish this, Sr. Galicia will recommend that the entire area within the original proposed boundaries be established as a game preserve, eliminating at once the value of the land for hunting. Sr. Galicia will then suggest that those owners within the boundaries of this area exchange their holdings for other excess forested areas now held by the Government. The greatest trouble experienced by the department is not with the native owners but with those owning ‘The Club’, all of whom are citizens of the United States.” 9/3/1936[?] Special Report on Investigation of Proposed Mexican Big Bend National Park by J.T. Roberts (Associate Landscape Architect), Box 821 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). To underscore the importance of preserving a suitable large tract, Assistant Park Service Director G.A. Moskey sent Galicia a copy of Administrative Laws and Regulations for U.S. National Parks, documentation Galicia was happy to receive but which did not address the conditions he faced on the ground. “I [Galicia] am very pleased to acknowledge from you the receipt of the collection of Laws and Regulations Governing the Administration of National Parks, which I have found very useful, and which I expect will be of service in our work with the National Parks which we are establishing.” 1/12/1937 Letter to Assistant Director G.A. Moskey from Chief of the National Parks Daniel F. Galicia, Box 151 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
260 the U.S. space. It is important to remember, as described in Chapter 1, “Making National Parks,” that the State of Texas did not appropriate funds to acquire land for Big Bend until 1941. While the state made purchases between 1941 and 1942, the park was not officially open to the public until early 1945. Mexican officials were in no rush to designate a Mexican park while these parcels in Texas were still being acquired. Up to this point, U.S. officials pushed for the institution of a Mexican park that closely paralleled the American model. Correspondence from another U.S. Park superintendent provided a more realistic assessment of what a combined space might look like. In August 1939, Glacier National Park Superintendent D.S. Libbey wrote to the U.S. Park Service Southwestern Regional Director to summarize problems with Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park that might have analogs with the formation of an international park in the Big Bend. Since Waterton-Glacier blazed the peace park trail in 1932, Libbey provided a long list of advice on the practicalities of managing such an international space. First, he counseled the Regional Director to be mindful of the boundary line itself since the International Boundary Commission regulated the border, and its permission had to be secured before building structures of any kind near it. Unlike Glacier, the geography of the Big Bend provided feasible alternatives to directly connect the spaces via roads and bridges within the shared border. Libbey also lamented the widely different standards in place in Canada’s Waterton Lakes Park, including permission for local ranchers to graze stock in the park and the policy of killing predatory animals.538 In his view, the Mexican space would clearly follow this example. Overall, Libbey counseled these differences were less important than the positive contribution that Waterton Lakes made to the preservation of Glacier. Indeed, the presence of a readily
538 8/24/1939 Memo to Acting Regional Director Maier from Superintendent D.S. Libbey, Box 951 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
261 discernable borderline at the Rio Grande provided clarity, albeit in a more natural form than the border swath cut between Waterton-Glacier.539 Any notable differences could therefore be easily explained by pointing to the line. Yet, Libbey cautioned against unnatural intrusions outside of the scope of national parks, specifically golf courses and reservoirs. This was an unusual warning given the presence of water development projects at both Sherburne and Two Medicine Lakes and a golf course on the property owned by the Great Northern Railroad and located just outside the park in the Blackfeet Reservation. Libbey closed by speculating on a wholly different problem: race. Although Canadian parks might be managed a bit differently, he viewed Canadian tourists positively as being of “a very high type of citizenship and their ethnic derivation causes them to be thoroughly in accord with the standards and social customs of our people.” Mexican tourists, however, represented an unknown category. While the parks would bring Mexican and U.S. citizens into close proximity, it was unclear to Libbey and his counterparts in the U.S. Park Service how race might be reflected in Mexican tourists’ interactions with others and with the protected space itself. Libbey’s suspicions of the types of interactions between the residents of the United States and Mexico overlooked the fact that both parties already interacted with one another and the physical environment. Mexican nationals as well as U.S. citizens lived on both sides of the river.540 Indeed, the cross-border interests and ownership ultimately defined the contours of the transboundary space.
539 For more details on the borderlines, refer to chapter 5, “Dividing Lines.” 540 For more information about the changing national identities along the border and race relations, refer to: Andres Resendez, Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
262 As quoted in the Introduction of this dissertation, Libbey closed by hoping that “comparable wildlife, forestry, etc. standards and objectives be established. You have a marvelous opportunity to promulgate and perpetuate a singular contribution to International comity and perpetuate on the southern boundary our National Park Service standards and objectives.” Park Service officials hoped to export specific American ideas about wildlife management, including the removal of domestic animals so that the previously grazed sections of the Big Bend could continue to recover and to provide an unimpeded inflow of wildlife from Mexico that had been extirpated within the Big Bend – in essence, a natural restocking program. These hopes intersected with the hard reality on the ground and diming prospects of achieving an exact duplicate of a U.S. park, but Libbey’s view informed a more pragmatic U.S. approach that evolved in the 1940s. While momentum to establish a sister park in Mexico to a U.S. park that was also yet to be achieved had slowed by the end of the 1930s, a new decade tested how models of land use would be deployed and changed on both sides of the river that divided Mexico from the United States.
SORTING OUT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INTERESTS: MAURICE MINCHEN, CANANEA CATTLE, AND MIGUEL GONZALEZ
Historians’ accounts of the formation of an international park in Big Bend usually focus on the period of intense activity between 1935 and 1939, yet initiatives continued long after this short stretch. Beginning in the 1940s, these efforts grew beyond U.S. notions of a national park in Mexico to include earnest attempts to reconcile a new public space with the variety of private interests already in place on both sides of the border. Focusing on the period of the 1940s recreates the sense of possibility that surrounded the
263 establishment of a joint space rather than simply making elusive attempts to parcel out responsibility for its failure. In her 2009 article in Environmental History entitled “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” historian Emily Wakild argued that the reasons the Mexican government failed to establish a companion park had to do with different conservation priorities and the fact that the proposed park was far too inaccessible to merit inclusion in the then burgeoning panoply of Mexican parks.541 Her analysis is correct, but this chapter section places more emphasis on the inertia created by existing regional land uses, primarily cattle ranching, that had been proven economically viable and, in the end, could not be offset by the hypothetical opportunity associated with nature tourism. After the 1930s, U.S. Park Service officials continued to correspond with and seek assistance from their Mexican counterparts in the public sector but also maintained an ongoing relationship with a number of individuals in the private sector. By looking at park proposals through the eyes of Mexican landholders, notably Maurice Minchen, Miguel Gonzales, and even the Cananea Cattle Company of Sonora, it is possible to see the contours of a viable Mexican park. The correspondence between Minchen and U.S. Park Service officials highlights the political ebb and flow of U.S./Mexican conservation policies and, over time, the reluctant pragmatism that shifted the U.S. approach to achieving a Mexican park along the Big Bend.
541 Emily Wakild, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009), 453.
264
1949 Texas Ranches “West of the Pecos”: Note Minchen’s substantial holdings northwest of the park542
In the early 1940s, Maurice Minchen, a well-connected lawyer in Mexico City, began buying small parcels in West Texas. At the exact same time the Texas Legislature provided $1.5 million in funds to the Big Bend Land Department to cobble together property for a national park, Minchen acquired the bulk of the Brewster County lands he ultimately reassembled into the Terlingua Ranch in the Christmas Mountains, including the old ghost town of Terlingua.543 Rather than buying land to engage in cattle or sheep ranching, although he leased portions of his property to locals who did, Minchen had much grander and, he hoped, more lucrative ideas in mind for the space. His vision of a vibrant Terlingua, remade in the architectural style of the villages of borderlands Mexico but also providing the modern amenities tourists had come to expect, complemented U.S.
542 J.W. Williams, The Big Ranch Country (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1954), 239. 543 Carolyn Ohl, “Terlingua Ranch: A History of Land Development in Southern Brewster County, Texas,” Journal of Big Bend Studies, vol. 19, 2007, 144.
265 Park Service efforts to recast the space in broader, international terms that accommodated a variety of public and private uses. Since the land for the Big Bend Park was finally in place, Minchen worked to resuscitate the establishment of an adjoining Mexican space. In February 1945, he wrote to H.W. Morelock, notable Big Bend park booster and President of Sul Ross Teacher’s College in Alpine, to advertise the efforts of Señor Galvez, a member of the Mexican Congress and personal friend of President Manuel Ávila Camacho.544 “Mexico can expropriate the area needed on this side of the River at slightly more than tax value … [not more] than the equivalent of $0.10 per acre U.S.,” Minchen confided. This price was an order of magnitude cheaper than the average of $2 per acre paid to landholders in the Texas Big Bend. Morelock forwarded this letter along with an explanatory note to U.S. Park Service Director Newton Drury. In the cover note, he described Minchen as a wealthy law partner of Señor Galvez and as broadly interested in the border region, including plans to develop a free trade corridor.545 Responding to Morelock on behalf of the Park Service, Conrad Wirth, an original member of the 1936 International Parks Commission that toured the Mexican space, worried that “little will be accomplished unless and until the Mexican people and their officials in the States principally concerned organize themselves, just as the people of
544 “I know of three Federal Parks near Mexico City: the Volcanoes, Ajusco, and Desierto de Leones. They are administered by the Forestry Department of the Government, and are really forest reserves. The Mexican side of the Big Bend Park would come under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Department. When Lic. Galvez calls at the office again, and before he leaves for the States, I shall have him call at the Foreign Office and the Forestry Department to talk with the Government officials who have this matter in hand and get their attitude. I am afraid they are not favorably inclined to the project, and if they are not prodded into action they will let the matter pend indefinitely.” 2/11/1945 Letter to H.W. Morelock from Maurice Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 545 Minchen envisioned these border factories employing the “needy young people both of Mexico and of the United States could be trained for a trade and at the same time earn enough money to secure a college education.” 2/16/1945 Letter to Director Newton Drury from H.W. Morelock, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
266 Texas worked together in an organized manner for Big Bend.”546 Suspicious of political machinations on the Mexican side without such a groundswell of public support, he overlooked the complex maneuvering in Texas that had led to Big Bend National Park. After all, in the midst of the Depression that was also wracking Mexico, Texans had failed to create the subscription pools needed to buy property with personal donations. On the contrary, it took a narrowly sanctioned action by the state legislature to allocate funds to acquire land for the park. Writing in March to Mae Ament, an acquaintance in Alpine, Minchen was more sanguine about possibilities for the space: “The [Mexican Park] file is dead asleep … no American park officials or U.S. diplomatic authorities have been able to ‘wake’ it up and have Mexico issue the executive decree.” Nevertheless, he claimed that a thorough examination of the area by Mexican engineers proved it definitively as a “section of little or no economical value, with impassible canyons, but with no obstacle for expropriating an area equal in size to the U.S. side.”547 He hoped to be the person to reactivate interest and bring such a park to fruition. Minchen’s inadvertent nod to Runte’s “worthless lands” thesis demonstrated how essential it was to discount the economic viability of existing uses in favor of the potential for tourism in recasting the space as a national park. A clandestine inspection of these same engineering reports showed a much different assessment of what constituted the best use of the land. In November 1945, William Vogt, Chief of the Conservation Section of the Pan American Union passed along translations of confidential Mexican reports on the proposed international park to
546 3/5/1945 Letter to H.W. Morelock from Conrad Wirth, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 547 3/18/1945 Letter to Mae Ament from Maurice Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
267 U.S. Park Service Director Newton Drury.548 The reports cited studies of the rural economy of northern Coahuila by General Miguel Gonzalez, himself a landholder in the area. Gonzalez argued that the region’s cattle industry should not be eliminated, as the park threatened to do, but expanded, and valuable pastures should be protected rather than removed from the productive domain for a park in which “the Mexican people will benefit in no way whatsoever.”549 With this in mind, the report concluded that any resulting park should allow for the absolute retention of existing uses as “the forest and cattle resources carry a special importance, and it would not be advisable thus to segregate something that contributes to the strengthening of national economy.”550 This Mexican conservation philosophy espoused by Gonzalez’s report was at odds with the U.S. Park Service, but hewed more closely to the “wise use” concepts espoused by Gifford Pinchot’s Forest Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In a confidential memo to the Park Service Director, Southwest Regional Director M.R. Tillotson outlined the key differences between the U.S. and Mexican models of park management based on a June 1944 trip to Chihuahua and Coahuila. “Every park area there of any classification is officially designated as a Parque Nacional even though the type of the area is such that we might list it as a national monument, national historic site or under some similar category,” intoned Tillotson, finding the Mexican approach “radically different from ours.”551 He noted the widespread and officially sanctioned policy of timber cutting within the parks. Rather than attempt to dictate Mexican policy,
548 11/20/1945 Letter to William Vogt (Chief, Conservation Section, Pan American Union) from Director Newton Drury, Box 3 (Records of Newton Drury, 1940-51), NARA (College Park, MD). 549 6/12/1945 Memo to Director General, Directorate General of Forestry and Hunting, Box 3 (Records of Newton Drury, 1940-51), NARA (College Park, MD). 550 [undated 1945] Report on the Study Made in La Sierra del Carmen, Coahuila, for the Creation of an International Park between the United States and Mexico, Box 3 (Records of Newton Drury, 1940-51), NARA (College Park, MD). 551 12/14/1945 Memo to Director from Regional Director M.R. Tillotson, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
268 Tillotson proposed a series of educational exchanges in line with the official U.S. “Good Neighbor” policy where Mexican officials could tour representative examples of American parks and come to their own, presumably American, conclusions.552 Again, as in the 1930s, U.S. officials clung to the desire to perfectly replicate an American-style national park adjacent to the Big Bend. Minchen wrote to Morelock two years later in January 1947 to provide an international park update and urge the personal engagement of the U.S. Park Service.553 Still believing the Mexican Government could be prodded to set aside a park, Minchen also wrote to Big Bend Superintendent Ross Maxwell offering to serve as an intermediary.554 Harry Mallen, Minchen’s friend with business ties to the Mexican
552 Just as Stephen Mather and Charles Kraebel noted the distinctions between Canadian and U.S. Park models in the 1920s, Tillotson in 1945 also lamented the ubiquity of the label “national park” in Mexico that failed to encapsulate the sense of natural protection that the same term inspired in the American lexicon. This assessment, of course, overlooked the high degree of variability found among U.S. national parks, even in the one that was directly adjacent to it. If Mexico proceeded with a park across from the Big Bend, differences in park management underscored that while these spaces might be important representations of transboundary conservation in one sense, the clarity of a defined border was equally essential so that any demonstrable lack of protections on one side of the political line might be more easily compartmentalized and explained. While the ecosystem might flow across jurisdictions, adjacent Canadian and Mexican spaces were perhaps more often viewed as buffers to help maintain the highest standards of protection on the American side of the line. With outreach and education, over time, American standards of management might insinuate themselves and improve the state of these natural companions, but, for American Park officials, the U.S. parks represented the kernels of wilderness that would be preserved by the decidedly lesser layers of protection that surrounded them. 553 Minchen reported no forward progress due to the remote, inaccessible nature of the area as well as a lack of funds available for purchasing property, but he remained hopeful that a new administration in Mexico City and, along with it, a new Secretary of Agriculture would produce forward momentum. 1/21/1947 Letter to H.W. Morelock from M. Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 554 Minchen argued “the Government of Mexico is now in a mood to decree the establishment of the Park and to cooperate with the Americans in the matter…In order to inform the Mexican officials what the attitude of the American Park men or U.S. Government is I suggest that you write me briefly, since if there is no further interest in the matter we can drop it.” 1/18/1947 Letter to Superintendent Maxwell from M. Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. He continued to correspond with Maxwell in an attempt to change the hands-off approach the U.S. Park Service had adopted, chiding that “had you come to Mexico before this I am sure that the Mexican Big Bend Park would now have been an established fact.” 3/4/1947 Letter to Superintendent Maxwell from M. Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
269 mining and timber industries, had favored access to the new Secretary of Agriculture. Minchen informed Park Service Regional Director M.R. Tillotson that Mallen, for his efforts to promote the international park, was promised the international bridge concession between the two parks and wanted to secure a similar concession from the U.S. Government.555 Responding to Tillotson, Acting Director Hillory Tolson noted that while the Park Service Director had expressed some willingness to arrange for an in- person trip to Mexico City, he was a concerned about awarding a bridge concession between the international parks before the Mexican park was even created.556 It took Park Service officials almost three months to make arrangements for a Mexican trip. In June 1947, Minchen, perturbed by the delay, wrote to Tillotson with a very detailed, but, as it turned out, inaccurate description of the way the trip was supposed to go.
Fortunately, the situation has not changed in Mexico. The same Mexican officials continue in office … Immediately upon your arrival in Mexico City I shall put you in touch with Ingenerio Frederico Sanchez, business manager of the Secretary of Agriculture of Mexico. You will meet the Secretary and then be put in contact with the Chief of the Forestry Department and other officials connected with the Mexican Park Service. They will have instructions from above to give you practically everything you want. The Decree and Order of Expropriation creating the International Big Bend Park and any other Mexican-American Parks you want, will be taken by the Secretary of Agriculture to the President of Mexico for
555 3/10/1947 Letter to Regional Director M.R. Tillotson from Maurice Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 556 Since the Park Service was not the final arbiter of border development, Tolson was apprehensive about making such a unilateral commitment. The bridge would cross the Rio Grande, and treaties mandated approval by the International Boundary and Water Commission for any new construction. With the successful negotiation of a Water Treaty with Mexico in 1944, the International Boundary Commission became the International Boundary and Water Commission. Moreover, he worried about the impact of a bridge on the U.S. park. “Such a bridge might seriously effect the desert and wilderness character of those areas,” Tolson intoned. While the bridge could facilitate travel and exploration between the two spaces, this open access might also lead to unintended consequences for the natural environments each space was meant to protect. By serving as a rare crossing point along the border, a bridge might amplify impacts beyond mere nature tourism and open up the parks to other more intensive uses, including commercial transportation. 3/20/1947 Memo to Regional Director from Acting Director Hillory Tolson, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
270 signature and publication in the Diario Oficial immediately. The Secretary of Agriculture and his business manager are from the State of Coahuila. They think the Park will help their State.557
Minchen alerted Mallen that U.S. Interior Department officials planned to arrive in Mexico City around July 14th. In turn, Mallen instructed Frederico Sanchez to arrange for visits with the proper officials. “It is very important to take up with them the concession regarding the bridge across the Rio Grande. Would also like for you to make arrangements for hotel site on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande close to where the bridge will be located,” Mallen underscored to Sanchez. “With the bridge and hotel site, I assure you that it will be most profitable to us.”558 It appears obvious that Mallen was not merely referring to potential financial benefits of the park to Coahuila and Mexico, but had a more personal financial stake in mind, perhaps revenue from the bridge or exclusivity of control over visitor facilities within the Mexican park. Operating without any pretense as to the propriety of this approach, Minchen forwarded this correspondence in its entirety to Superintendent Maxwell with the clear instruction that “it would be helpful if you would have some ideas when you come here of the best location for the bridge over the Rio Grande, also the hotel in Mexico.”559 Although it is unclear if Minchen himself had any direct financial interest or property holdings within the proposed Mexican park, he was already a close neighbor with his ranch to the northwest of the park. More tourists translated into more revenues for businesses on both sides of the border.
557 6/6/1947 Letter to Regional Director M.R. Tillotson from Maurice Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 558 6/16/1947 Letter to Frederico Sanchez from Harry Mallen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 559 Indeed, he clearly laid out his personal business interests, asking for Maxwell’s opinion on his intentions to reconstruct Terlingua “into a model or typical Mexican village, with a park-plaza, red tile roofs, arches, and with many of the best characteristics of an old Mexican pueblo, re-opening the store and tourist camp.” 6/19/1947 Letter to Superintendent Maxwell from Maurice Minchen, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
271 Tolson, in a confidential memo delivered before the trip to Mexico City, warned Tillotson about Minchen and Mallen’s designs to shape the nascent contours of park development and specifically prohibited Tillotson from entering into any agreement that included the award and placement of an international bridge.560 Just before the trip, Mallen was, in essence, removed from the process. Mallen received some bad press in the Chicago Daily News for selling the stock in a Mexican priest’s gold mine to Chicago residents and then pocketing the proceeds. The judge in the case gave Mallen two years probation and forbade him reentry into Mexico.561 From July 15 through 21, 1947, Tillotson, Maxwell, and Tolson finally met face to face with Mexican officials in the Department of Agriculture and agreed to establish a new International Park Commission and draw up a decree for a companion park to Big Bend tentatively named Parque Nacional de la Gran Comba.562 This indeterminate conclusion was a far cry from Minchen’s carefully polished script ending with the Mexican President reflexively signing any decrees the Americans desired. After returning, Maxwell authored a “Memo for the Files,” providing a fuller account of the Mexico City trip, including a meeting with Maurice Minchen: “Sr. Minchen was very emphatic and domineering in his demands that we dictate to the Mexican Government and tell them definitely that we must have at least a million acres in Mexico as a counterpart for Big Bend and that the Park must be established immediately and that a
560 “It would appear that Mr. Minchen is endeavoring to guide the destinies of the commissions in their deliberations about the establishment of this park. We must, of course, work through channels, and while we appreciate the efforts of Mr. Minchen and his friends to facilitate the groups getting all essential information we must steer away from any commitment in regard to the construction of roads in Mexico and the construction of a bridge between the two national park areas.” 6/25/1947 Memo to Regional Director from Acting Director Hillory Tolson, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 561 6/27/1947 Memo to Regional Director from Acting Director Hillory Tolson, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 562 [undated 1953] Proposed Big Bend International Park by Superintendent Lemuel Garrison, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
272 bridge was essential,” remembered Maxwell. “He said to tell the Mexican Government that President Truman had ordered it.”563 This approach led to a rather serious argument between Minchen and Tolson, with the latter dressing down the former. Minchen, obviously without sufficient leverage on his own, needed the heavy hand of the U.S. officials in order to realize the creation of a park and his own personal ambitions for the adjoining spaces. Unwilling to engage in this sort of power play, U.S. Park Service officials continued to work through channels. At the same time, U.S. public and private sectors were at odds now that the likelihood of a Mexican park was again on the rise. Specific American interests ran counter to its establishment, notably American landowners in Coahuila.564 In late summer and early fall 1947, the U.S. State Department and in turn the American Embassy in Mexico City asked consular offices throughout northern Mexico to gauge the potential economic impact on American citizens who held property or had other interests in the region. This was much more of a consideration given the intervening expropriation of American-owned oil resources by the Mexican Government in 1938.565 The State Department finally consented to a park in Coahuila as long as the eventual Mexican decrees establishing these parks did not contain restrictions that would interfere with the normal cattle grazing, agricultural, or other pursuits of American citizens owning or
563 8/6/1947 Memo for the files, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives. 564 The Carmen Mountain Club, a group that had a hunting preserve of nearly 100,000 acres along the southeastern slope of the Sierra del Carmen mountains about 22 miles from Boquillas. “We have been operating as a hunting club for about twenty-five years. We have always worked in full cooperation with the Mexican Department of Hunting … So you can understand the concern that club members, most of whom are prominent Americans, feel about their hunting preserve,” described a representative of the Club in a July 1947 letter to the Park Service. 7/28/1947 Letter to Hillory Tolson from John Loomis, Box 2923 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 565 Alicia Chavez. Mexico: A Brief History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 261.
273 controlling land.566 The U.S. Government was willing to offer more support to American landholders in Mexico than in the Big Bend in order to secure some form of Mexican protected space, but, in the end, even this concession was too limited and late. In August 1947, Carlos Perez, special commissioner of Mexico’s Department of Agriculture alerted the U.S. Park Service to a lost opportunity. “The decrees were shaping up when General Miguel Gonzalez, owner of a large extension on the Mexican side proposed for expropriation for inclusion in Big Bend, visited this City,” reported Perez. “This gentleman informed us that it would not be possible for the Government to accept the expropriation of his property because the extension is dedicated to cattle raising,”567 Perez reported that Gonzalez’s compelling in-person testimony effectively halted forward progress on the decree.568 Gonzalez also authored a memo outlining his arguments that not only defended using the land for cattle ranching but also made the case for a wholly different style of park that, in his view, better fit the needs and realities of the rural economy of northern Mexico. Gonzalez did not completely rule out a park but instead proposed a novel public/private option. In clear prose, he described the combination of a smaller reserve,
566 The American Consul in Coahuila wrote to the Ambassador to provide a list of properties owned by Americans within the proposed Mexican national park, including cattle and horse ranches operated by Amor Bales Whitehead, a former American citizen, George Miers, J.R. Sanford, H.L. Magnum, Max Michaelis, and Dolph and Mason Briscoe, owners of the “Las Margaritas” cattle property. 9/19/1947 Letter to American Ambassador Walter Thurston from American Consul Harold Wood, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 567 Gonzalez explained that U.S. officials, most likely including Clifford Presnall of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, toured his operation and pronounced it as a model for cattle pasturage, especially in such an arid region. Historians Jameson and Wakild invoke Gonzalez’s defense of Mexican ranching, but neither mention his ideas about a compromise park model that included ranching and protected space. John R. Jameson, Big Bend on the Rio Grande: Biography of a National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 115-6; Emily Wakild, “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009), 466. 568 8/28/1947 Letter to Hillory Tolson from Carlos Villas Perez, Box 2923 (Central Classified Files, 1933- 49), NARA (College Park, MD).
274 dedicated ranchlands, and the institution of reasonable grazing restrictions that would allow both types of uses to coexist.
A reservation area for ecological purpose in the Mexican side and of moderate size (about 400,000 acres) will no doubt suffice to complement the Big Bend National Park reciprocating plan for the protection of the wildlife of its own. In addition to the above land reservation idea, I believe that a convenient plan could be worked out as to the utilization of Sierra del Carmen country, on private basis and permanent control, same to conform to the Big Bend National Park cooperating requirements across the Rio Grande, and to those concerning the development of stock raising in northern Mexico which are of primary interest to its rural economy. This suggestion is only founded on the well known circumstances that Sierra del Carmen offers a valuable contribution to the attractiveness of the Big Bend National Park owing to its excellent summer climate, water, scenery, etcetera. I must emphasize that any restrictions to the use of land should be compatible to the proper subsistence of the ranch’s cattle industry, though reduced to allow for the second form of utilization.569 This “second form of utilization” now held primacy in the Big Bend Park, but Gonzalez disagreed with the premise that ranching and tourism were wholly incompatible. He adopted the same perspective as many of the large landholders in the Big Bend region of Texas, removed just five years before, that conservation should be placed within the context of other clearly viable economic uses of the space. In his view, while lands worthy of national park status were present in the mountains of the Sierra del Carmen, this designation should not be all encompassing, and the space could be shared to enable both conservation and ranching to prosper. More than that, in taking a broader view of
569 A memo authored by General Gonzales a month after Perez’s letter appears in the Big Bend National Park Archives, but it is unclear how the U.S. Park Service obtained it – perhaps from Perez. Perhaps even Gonzalez himself forwarded it, as he was acquainted with Superintendent Maxwell. While a publicly-held national park on the model of Big Bend was unlikely due, among other factors, to the economic pressures of the cattle industry Gonzalez was a part of, he also pointed out more practical considerations, such as the area’s complete lack of transportation infrastructure and much closer recreational alternatives for the region’s key cities. 9/22/1947 Memo by General Miguel S. Gonzales, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives.
275 the ecosystem, Gonzalez saw the two processes as mutually supporting and believed ranchers, like him, to be good stewards of the land.570 Although Gonzalez’s idea appeared to be a non-starter, in a novel experiment, U.S. Park Service officials finally relented and modified their long-held approach of how to institute a Mexican park. They attempted to bundle together the creation of a memorial to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in Sonora and Arizona with a sister park for Big Bend. The U.S. Park Service first created a memorial in Arizona on the international border in August 1941 to mark the four hundredth anniversary of Coronado’s elusive quest to find the golden Seven Cities of Cibola in the then Spanish Northwest. In 1947, Park Service officials hoped that designating a mere 2,880 acres for a bi-national memorial would be a relatively straightforward exercise and, in turn, would create momentum for the much larger project in the Big Bend. Ultimately, both projects were doomed for a similar set of reasons. C.E. Wiswall, President of the Cananea Cattle Company in Sonora, wrote to the American Consul to explain the company’s position on ceding land for the memorial. Shrewdly, he first criticized the very placement of the memorial, arguing that it was five to ten miles west of the actual spot where Coronado crossed and in such a remote location that no tourists would ever have access to it. He then launched into a comparison of uses for the parcel reminiscent of the case Gonzalez made in Coahuila: “We are putting every
570 Just three days after the date on the memo, Gonzalez paid a visit to Superintendent Maxwell in Big Bend. “General Gonzalez was quite friendly and assured me that he wanted to cooperate in every way that he could; that he is really in favor of the park, but the thing that he objects to is that he had been advised that they would ex-appropriate his land,” Maxwell reported to the Park Service Regional Director. In that process, Gonzalez feared he would lose his significant investments in land, improvements, and even livestock. Gonzalez feared “he would not get nearly as much money as he had paid for the land and would lose all of his improvements which he values at several hundred thousand pesos.” The experience of his Texas neighbors who went through the same process just six years prior was still fresh in his memory.9/25/1947 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent Maxwell, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives.
276 acre of land which we own to beneficial use and have done so for many years past,” Wiswall admonished. “If we thought this park would serve any useful purpose, we[‘d] cooperate in every way but, located where it is now intended, we believe it will be seldom visited as there is absolutely nothing there to attract people, and it will certainly be a serious loss to us.” He closed his correspondence with an argument against a joint park that played on existing prejudices and concerns about border cattle operations. Given the high degree of anxiety along the border about the spread of cattle diseases, he warned that while encouraging tourists to gain free access to the borderlands, the American government should be concerned that these same visitors “might, theoretically, carry through dung adhering to their shoes, the foot-and-mouth disease virus into the United States.”571 Unperturbed by the possibility of a shoe-borne entry vector, Assistant Park Service Director Tolson looked for any way to gain momentum for the memorial and, in turn, Big Bend. Tolson wrote back to Mexican Agriculture Commissioner Perez in December 1947 acknowledging that landowners had objected to the park decrees. Tolson even admitted that private lands sometimes remained in U.S. parks until funds could be found to buy out the owners. As a solution, Tolson advised granting leases for grazing or other purposes, “which you consider would not interfere too greatly with the preservation of the park area.”572 The U.S. Park Service agreed to the concept of granting leases for grazing but only on the Mexican side.573
571 “The loss of any acreage at this time is a very serious matter.” Moreover, Wiswall related that he learned from the Assistant Supervisor of the Coronado National Forest that American cattle operations continued in the adjacent Forest Reserve in Arizona. 9/23/1947 Letter to American Consul Clark Vyse from C.E. Wiswall, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 572 “It may be that you can work out some such plan as this in connection with the establishment of the national park opposite the Big Bend National Park in Texas,” he helpfully suggested. “Some privately owned land sometimes remains in a park. This is usually only a few hundred acres, and it remains until we can obtain the necessary funds to purchase it or until it is donated to the Federal Government for national
277 Tolson and others in the Park Service finally recognized that conservation might be deployed in Mexico in ways quite different from the U.S. model, just as the Waterton- Glacier experience exhibited differences between U.S. and Canadian approaches. Tolson wrote to Perez again in April 1948 to inquire whether the decree for a Coronado International Memorial could be issued soon so that work on the transboundary project could begin. Tolson again sought to find a workable compromise between public and private uses. He proposed ceding pasturage rights to the Cananea Cattle Company for the entire memorial save a fenced section of only 200 acres.574 Yet, in attempting to carefully accommodate private grazing interests by designating a small space on either side of the border to commemorate the crossing point of Coronado, the U.S. Park Service and Mexican Agriculture Department could not overcome the objections of local landowners in order to achieve even this limited objective. The reality of competing uses so often overlooked, bought out, or accommodated in U.S. parks shaped the destiny of a Mexican companion for the Coronado Memorial and Big Bend. By January 1949, Tolson seemed resigned to the status quo. He advised the Interior Department Assistant Secretary that “There seems to be little hope of getting the Mexican Government to establish a national park opposite Big Bend National Park in
park purposes.” 12/18/1947 Letter to Carlos Villas Perez from Assistant Director Hillory Tolson, Box 2923 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD). 573 Historian John Jameson characterized this exchange as focused solely on the American landholders in the Sierra del Carmen, but there is no indication that it was only limited to this small subset of the population as the sizable landholdings and influence of Miguel Gonzalez would suggest. John Jameson. The Story of Big Bend National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 117. 574 Tolson advised Perez that “this would give you sufficient land, I believe, to establish a cactus arboretum; require a much less extensive fencing job; and allow the rest of the land to be used for grazing.” “It is probable that more difficulty might be experienced in getting the decree issued to establish a national park opposite Big Bend National Park then there would be having the decree issued to establish the Coronado International Memorial in Sonora. Perhaps a plan could be worked out to have the Memorial decree issued soon so that project can be gotten under way?” 4/1/1948 Letter to Carlos Villas Perez from Assistant Director Hillory Tolson, Box 151 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
278 Texas for some time to come.”575 Local interests, both Mexican and American, certainly shaped national ones in deciding the best long term uses of the political corridor that ran the length of the border. In the end, regardless of whether national parks were established on either side of the line, local interests would continue to play a decidedly strong role in arbitrating how far preservation could go. Acknowledging this reality, in 1954, Lemuel Garrison, the new Big Bend Superintendent, wrote to Luis Duplan, the Mexican Consul General, hoping to reframe the discussion and gain the designation of a companion park. Garrison suggested that:
[Y]our government investigate the policies followed in the national parks of Canada, for example, where administration generally follows along lines similar to those of the United States Forest Service. Certain areas are set aside to remain inviolate because of their usefulness for tourist purposes or for their outstanding scenic or scientific interest, but in the rest of the park areas such interests as mining, logging and grazing might be permitted under government control and strict supervision.576
Giving up on crafting a national park in the U.S. mold, Garrison invoked Canadian and Forest Service examples in a vain attempt to get something in place. In the 1950s, U.S. officials changed tactics and largely kept the push for a Mexican companion space at arm’s length, focusing instead on cultivating better ties with Mexican state and local officials in order to build a groundswell of support rather than rely on top-down imposition. Mexican Park Service authorities, in turn, pursued better opportunities to institute their vision for parks that were more accessible and usable to their citizenry.577 So, for a combination of reasons, a companion park in Coahuila and Chihuahua remained undesignated, but at the same time, the idea never really died. It lay
575 1/12/1949 Memo to Assistant Secretary Davidson from Assistant Director Tolson, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 576 3/22/1954 Report for Luis Duplan, Consul General of Mexico by Superintendent Lemuel Garrison, Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives. 577 Emily Wakild, Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico’s National Parks, 1910-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2011).
279 fallow, renewing itself from time to time, until the Mexican Government was finally ready to take action in the 1990s. In the interim, management officials at Waterton- Glacier began to more fully flesh out what it meant to integrate national parks across borders.
AN INTEGRATED WATERTON-GLACIER
Although transboundary spaces remained divided by a mix of public and private lines and operated under separate management regimes, it was apparent even to the most casual observer that the larger ecosystems cut across these lines and that wildlife ranged from country to country. In Waterton-Glacier, the spaces became more closely stitched together. Starting with the rather trivial step of a legislatively mandated name change in 1932, over the next few decades, officials in each park began to work more closely together. Yet cooperation and coordination were often difficult because management and funding still conformed to the political lines drawn over these spaces. Gradually, over time, the parks became more integrated, engaging first in information sharing and eventually more complex activities such as scientific research, fire management, restoration, and search and rescue, and, in the 1970s and 1980s, even instituted formal agreements and personnel exchanges. In 1947, the Superintendent of Waterton Lakes wrote to thank his counterpart at Glacier for accepting Canadian dollars as payment for entrance fees into the American park.578 That same year, Waterton officials worked to institute a ranger naturalist program
578 10/24/1947 Letter to Superintendent H.A. deVeber from Superintendent J.W. Emmert, Box 250, WLNPA.
280 similar to Glacier so that visitors would have a comparable experience in both parks.579 Superintendents and their staffs exchanged annual visits, and the feeling of camaraderie between parks was evident, as they even shared resources during significant events like fires.580 Given the fact that crossing over into Waterton meant leaving one country and going to another, Waterton became a key attraction for American tourists. A 1967 Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan with results from visitor gate surveys showed that slightly more than half (54.3%) of all visitation came from the United States, and within Canada, Alberta alone counted for 28%. The park’s mix of local and international visitors persisted and impacted not only the ways the parks were viewed, but also managed.581 To play up the international aspect of the space, the Waterton Master Plan also called for establishing a campground in Boundary Bay on Upper Waterton Lake, just north of the international border and approximately halfway between the Townsite and Goathaunt Ranger Station.582 The resulting campground allowed visitors to camp and explore the shared spaces between the parks along the international line. Visitors
579 “A park naturalist service would serve a most useful purpose, particularly in this park where we have so many United States visitors, who are accustomed to calling on the park naturalists in their own National Parks when in need of information on wildlife, flora, geological features, etc. In Glacier park on the opposite side of the International Boundary from this park, there were twelve naturalists during the past season. One or two of these men were permanent employees and the remainder teachers or science undergraduates, engaged for the summer months.” 9/12/1947 Memorandum to Director, Lands, Parks and Forests Branch from Superintendent H.A. deVeber , Microfilm T10434, Canadian NA (Ottawa, Ontario). 580 “The co-operation received from the Glacier National Parks officials of the United States was as usual to a very high standard, and is one of the high lights of the operation of the park in that we, in our small way, by our contacts with them contribute to the friendly feeling which exists, and has existed for many years between our two Departments. It should be remembered also that by this co-operative procedure, we avail ourselves, not only of their good will, but also become possessed of resources in machinery and man power, which, in the event of a fire, could mean the difference between failure and success.” Waterton Lakes National Park Forty-Third Annual Report (Period from 4/1/1956 to 12/31/1956), Box 207, WLNPA. 581 April 1967 Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan, Box 124, WLNPA. 582 “In addition to the ten wilderness campsites in the park, the Boundary Bay area on the Upper Waterton Lake is proposed for a wilderness campsite for public and small organized groups. Strategically located on the Canada-U.S. boundary, being approximately half way between Waterton Townsite and the new Goathaunt Activity Centre in the U.S., and with boat and trail access the site is ideal for a primitive campground catering to hikers and boaters alike.” April 1967 Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan, Box 124, WLNPA.
281 embraced the artificial “national” border in order to embrace the continuity of nature between the two spaces. The consistency of observable nature on either of the line provided a safe ground to explore and take in the dissimilarities of culture. However, when efforts to expressly delineate that border had adverse impacts on nature, the parks sought to further strengthen their ties. With the negative publicity stemming from the International Boundary Commission’s use of chemicals to clear the border swath, it seems the 1968 border clearing operations described in Chapter 5, “Dividing Lines,” prompted a flurry of activity to better integrate the parks and de-emphasize the international boundary. In October 1969, Waterton officials authored a comprehensive set of proposals, including sending a joint letter to the International Boundary Commission to encourage it to stop the periodic clearing of a swath between the parks.583 In addition, the proposal outlined simple changes to park brochures, maps, jointly published schedules, and the more labor intensive sharing of interpretive staff, especially between Goathaunt and Waterton Townsite.584 The next year, Glacier and Waterton Lakes Superintendents prepared a Draft Agreement covering joint fire protection and search and rescue operations.585 Each park also tried to respect the zoning in place at the other. The 1975 Waterton Lakes Master
583 “It seems contradictory to stress mutual lasting friendship and the international aspect of the parks landscape, then clear a 20 foot swath through the forest between the two parks. A mutual letter from the parks should be sent to the International Boundary Commission, requesting them, if legally possible, to mark the boundary between the parks with cairns at logical topographic sites in lieu of the boundary swath.” October 1969 Proposals and Comments for An Integration of Interpretive-Informational Services: Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park by E. Manning, Box 144, WLNPA. 584 Although the initial combination in 1932 focused on the parks’ name, Waterton Superintendent T.L. Ross pointed out as late as 1970 that Canadian publications and signage had not been updated to this end. “This designation [Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park] appears on all American produced publications and signs referring to Glacier National Park. The same situation does not prevail in Canada.” 2/19/1970 Memo to Regional Director from Superintendent T.L. Ross, Box 144, WLNPA. 585 Each party will, when possible, alert the other of fires or of the need for a mountain rescue, but the discovering party will take immediate action to suppress the fire or begin the rescue. 1971 Draft Reciprocal Agreement, Box 19, GNP Archives.
282 Plan prohibited motorboats on Cameron Lake out of respect for the fact that the south end of the lake, wholly within the United States, fell within a proposed Glacier wilderness area.586 In April 1980, the Glacier Superintendent sought permission to grant Canadian visitors who had already paid to enter Waterton free admission to Glacier, at an estimated annual cost of $78,780 in lost entrance fees.587 Political divisions separating the parks precluded this level of integration. However, the 1982 Glacier Superintendent’s Report noted the first formal personnel sharing between the two parks: an exchange of interpreters between Waterton Townsite and St. Mary Ranger Station.588 While Canada and the United States attempted to develop a truly international park management framework, Waterton-Glacier officials leveraged a variety of transnational cultural attractions and, further south in the Chihuahuan Desert, Big Bend park officials worked to create a de facto transboundary space by engaging the surrounding small Mexican communities to become an integral part of the tourist experience.
586 1975 Waterton Lakes National Park Planning Proposals (Master Plan) by Mike Murtha, Box 124, WLNPA. 587 Although reciprocal admission represented a minor portion of overall revenue for Glacier, without some mechanism for revenue sharing, it would have made a significant impact on Waterton Lakes, assuming visitor statistics from the 1960s held with about half of visitation coming from the United States. “If Canadian visitors were granted reciprocal or free admission to Glacier National Park we would estimate the loss of revenue to be about $78,780. However, if one evaluated this proposal entirely on the financial consequences, the United States gets a real bargain on the foreign balance of payments, because of Canadian money spent for other purchases in the United States…Our justification for this proposal is that this is one International Peace Park. It is a contradiction to that concept, that separate entrance fees should be charged on each side of the international border.” 4/29/1980 Memo to Director from Superintendent, Glacier NP, Box 19, GNP Archives. 588 “1982 saw the first formal personnel trade between Waterton Lakes National Park and Glacier National Park. A Canadian interpreter wearing a Parks Canada uniform worked at St. Mary in Glacier, and an American interpreter wearing a National Park Service uniform worked in Waterton. Both put special emphasis on interpreting the international peace park aspect of the parks in their programs and informal contacts with visitors.” 1982 Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park, Superintendent’s Annual Report Box, GNP Archives.
283 TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL ATTRACTIONS: THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE, WATERTON TOWNSITE, GILBERTO LUNA, AND BOQUILLAS
In Waterton-Glacier and Big Bend, tourists were offered a variety of activities and attractions that did not always fall within the strict confines of the wilderness narrative. It was not unusual for parks to include so-called unnatural attractions – golf courses, bars, etc. While not atypical in other park developments, these two park zones included transboundary cultural attractions that were tied to the global nature of each space. More so than other national parks, transboundary parks focused on transnational cultural as well as natural history. This is not to say that dispossession did not take place in these venues; however, examining who was removed and who was put or kept in place provides a key to understanding how each Park Service attempted to combine the elements of transnational culture with the natural world. To this end, this section considers the unique cultural expression of the Northwest Passage in Glacier, Waterton’s Townsite, the retention of Gilberto Luna in the Big Bend while other ranchers were excluded, and the small towns of northern Coahuila and Chihuahua. Even before a connection with Waterton Lakes, Glacier was billed as an international space. Long before the creation of either park or the nations that established them, explorers searched for a water passage across the North American continent to the Pacific and, beyond that, the markets of Asia. The Great Northern Railroad finally created a Northwest Passage by bridging the continental divide with steel rails. As a visible manifestation of the realization of this long sought after linkage, the Great Northern employed Japanese attendants in their signature hotel at the eastern gateway to the park. In 1915, even with pressure to cut expenses and payroll, W.P. Kenney wrote Louis Hill that “we are going ahead with the same special features as last year, such as the two Japanese attendants who assist in the Grill Room, serve tea in the Sun Parlor and
284 after dinner coffee at the camp fire.”589 The Great Northern provided a unique cross- cultural experience with the introduction of this Japanese tea service, Swiss-garbed waiters in the Alpine-themed setting of the Many Glacier Hotel, and Blackfeet Indians encamped on the hotel lawn acting as official park greeters and escorts for detraining tourists.590 These cultural proxies reminded visitors of the truly global nature of conservation that extended far beyond the commingling of two national territories to a broader view of possibilities the area represented for trade, tourism, and colonialism. In the Canadian space, Waterton Townsite offered a small village full of activities so that tourists could consume a bit of Canadian culture as well as the natural setting that surrounded it. In the late 1920s, with the construction of the Prince of Wales Hotel, the Great Northern added a beer parlor to the mix of swimming pools, tennis courts, and movie theaters that vied with natural attractions for the tourists’ time and dollars. Beyond simply taking a vacation from Prohibition, with a common natural backdrop, tourists could safely enter into and experience a new culture. Moving south to the border zone between Mexico and the United States, the Big Bend was also integrated long before parks were in place. In the early 1930s, Patricia Clothier recounted the story of an infrequent, but seemingly innocuous family dinner trip to Chata’s, a Mexican restaurant in Boquillas, Texas on the northern bank of the Rio Grande just across from Boquillas, Coahuila. Clothier’s father, Homer Wilson, owned a large sheep ranch southwest of the Chisos Mountains. When the owner, Mrs. Sada,
589 6/9/1915 Letter to L.W. Hill from W.P. Kenney, Box 22.E.3.10F (Great Northern Railway Company Papers), Minnesota Historical Society Archives. 590 Unlike the Swiss immigrant heritage tourism that historian Steven Hoelscher recounted in New Glarus, Wisconsin, the same style of construction and Swiss uniformed waitstaff in Glacier was based on grafting familiarity with the mountainscapes of Switzerland onto Glacier and recreating a scenic portion of the tour of Europe much closer to home. Steven Hoelscher, Heritage on Stage: The Invention of Ethnic Place in America’s Little Switzerland (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). For a more detailed account of the Blackfeet interaction with Glacier tourists, refer to: Marguerite Shaffer, See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
285 inquired how many for dinner, Wilson responded, “Ocho,” even though only four were in their party. After returning to the ranch, Clothier finally understood after seeing four Mexican ranch workers climb out from under the tarp in the bed of the pickup truck.591 Arriving in 1906, long before the establishment of Big Bend, Maria S. de G. Sada or “Chata” ran a store, restaurant, and, it seems, served as a labor agent at Boquillas.592 Yet Park Service Regional Director Tillotson looked for an opportunity to bring Mrs. Sada and her restaurant fare back to the park.593 Sada represented the international element of the park, and Tillotson hoped the new park concessioner at Big Bend could be induced to bring her back as most, but not all, local residents were dispossessed of their land as a consequence of the creation of Big Bend Park. Without the designation of a comparable national space in Mexico, the U.S. Park Service looked for ways to put an international stamp on the Big Bend. One possibility they considered was the retention of a small subset of the Mexican population living in the park. E.E. Townsend, responding to a newspaper article concerning removal of the Mexican American population by the National Park Service when it assumed administrative control of the park claimed “the Mexican population – or mostly so – as well as some Americans should be allowed to stay.”594 By Americans, Townsend
591 Patricia Wilson Clothier, Beneath the Window: Early Ranch Life in the Big Bend Country (Marathon, TX: Iron Mountain Press, 2003), 53-4. 592 She left in 1936 after the death of her husband, and the town of Boquillas, Texas was eventually bulldozed to the ground to make way for constructing a campground and other visitor facilities for the new park. Martin Donell Kohout, "BOQUILLAS, TX," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvb82), accessed October 11, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. 593 “Mrs. Sada is really a very fine old-country type of native Mexican. She gets up a most excellent Mexican dinner which would appeal greatly to park visitors. I have always felt that in keeping with the Mexican atmosphere, it would be desirable to retain some of the old timers like her.” 11/21/1946 Memo to Mr. Demaray from Regional Director M.R. Tillotson, Mike Welsh Box (Administrative History), BBNP Archives. 594 “This meant, of course, under the rules and regulation of the NPS. It was the consensus opinion among all of them that such action would add greatly to the many other attractions to be found in the Park.”
286 presumably meant Anglo ranchers, who were bought out and offered grace periods of up to a couple of years to vacate their ranch properties but were not allowed to stay on beyond that time frame. Mexican residents lent an interesting duality to the experience of displacement. While the majority of Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals were pushed out of the space, there were notable exceptions – one hoped for, the other realized. Although Mrs. Sada did not agree to return to Boquillas, now rebranded as the Rio Grande Village, the 1948 Superintendent’s Report identified one continuous resident, Gilberto Luna, who was willing to enact and conform to the Park Service vision of a hardscrabble wilderness. According to Superintendent Maxwell, Luna lived in a dugout or jacal near Santa Elena Canyon and continued “to graze his goats in the field and in adjacent hills on the outer edges of the park area.”595 Cornelio Ramirez, a Park Service maintenance employee who was born in Castolon, remembered Luna. “He had a lot of goats, and did farming there, next to the Alamo Creek … I guess it was a two bedroom building – and a ramada. And he used to sit out there under the ramada, and everybody that went by there stopped and chatted with him,” Ramirez recounted in a 1994 Park Oral History Interview.596 Situated along the road to Santa Elena Canyon, Luna, albeit briefly, was part of the atmospherics of the newly created park. Visitors talked with him and observed his way of life en route to one of the main natural attractions in the space, the dramatic opening of the canyon as the Rio Grande emerged from the Mesa de Anguila and combined with the waters of Terlingua Creek.
4/16/1942 Letter to Hans Hagelstein from E.E. Townsend, 2002/131-41, Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas State Library and Archives Commission. 595 1948 Superintendent’s Annual Report, Box 1 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 596 The Comones and Gomez families also lived nearby and did farming, but according to Ramirez, these families were forced out when the park took over, as they didn’t have title to their property. 2/26/1994 Cornelio Ramirez Interview, Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives.
287 Waddy Burnham and his wife, local ranchers whose property was acquired by the Park Service in 1941 sought an extension from having to relocate out of the park, arguing “some Mexicans have been given permission to stay for a time, and we know of one [presumably Luna] who has been given the right to stay for his life time. He has done nothing in the line of production, bonds, or service for the country during the war. [We] [b]elieve he is to stay to lend ‘local color’, while people who have done everything are forced to move under the most impossible conditions,” Mrs. Burnham wrote to President Roosevelt on one of at least three occasions to plead their case.597 Presumably, Luna was allowed to stay not only because of his advanced age and, as Mrs. Burnham put it, to provide “local color”, but also because his presence underscored for tourists the great difficulty of carving out an existence on the margins of the Chihuahuan Desert. Allowing too many ranchers to stay would have seriously undercut the natural narrative with which the Park Service sought to label the land and revealed the massive scale of ranching that had long dominated the space. Ultimately, Luna elected to leave the park as well, moving in with his grandchildren in Fort Stockton, Texas, but Big Bend officials preserved his dwelling rather than level it as they had done with a number of former ranch homes.598 Even in his absence, his dwelling continued to reinforce the Park Service’s natural
597 2/2/1945 Letter to Franklin Roosevelt from Mrs. W.T. Burnham, Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935- 95), BBNP Archives. Having already given a number of extensions, the Park Service gave a final date of September 1, 1945 for the Burnhams to vacate their ranch. “You were given the privilege of remaining in the Park until December 31, 1944. Certainly, extensions of time totaling 8 months should be ample to enable you to establish yourself in a new location in spite of adverse conditions. Other ranchers have complied with their agreements to move from the Park.” 8/8/1945 Letter to W.T. Burnham from Director Newton Drury, Big Bend. Box 10 (Administrative Files, 1935-95). BBNP Archives. 598 A December 1968 Park Historic Resources Management Plan called for the Luna residence to “retain its authenticity and remain uncluttered.” “An interpretive marker should be placed in front of the structure (alongside the roadside pull-off) yet be far enough away from the structure so that the visitor may either include or leave out the sign in photographs. The text should be brief and point out that here Gilberto Luna raised a large family, farmed the area across the roadway, and lived to the age of 109.” 12/1968 Historic Resources Management Plan for BBNP, Box 5 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives.
288 narrative. After Luna’s departure, rather than replacing him, the Park Service instead directed tourists into northern Mexico so they could integrate a transboundary cultural experience into their travels. In the Big Bend, even without an officially designated park in Mexico, the spaces began to mesh more closely together. The absence of a companion park did not dissuade Americans or Mexicans from travelling back and forth. As discussed in chapter 5, “Dividing Lines,” while Mexican nationals regularly crossed the river to buy food and supplies or pick up mail, for years in the Big Bend, the Park Service’s own border crossing brochures highlighted excursions to the small Mexican communities of Boquillas and San Carlos, Coahuila and Santa Elena, Chihuahua. Using the river line as an observable marker to clearly place the natural wilderness within the Big Bend, the Park Service pointed visitors outside the park as a way to explore another culture and time. In creating an appeal to “human” nature, by crossing the river on a ferry, burro, or by foot, tourists could also experience by proxy the human condition of the former residents of Big Bend. The villages of northern Mexico served as transboundary cultural attractions for aspiring visitors.599 Mexicans could stand in for the park’s former inhabitants who had been displaced, some to these very same border communities. The appeal of cross-border excursions was recognized by park planners and finally encouraged by brochures, guidebooks, and personal stories.600 Dorr Yeager’s 1947
599 “[Natural] features, combined with the few quaint Mexican villages along the Rio Grande, lend an atmosphere from which the visitor gets the feeling that he is actually ‘south of the Border, down Mexico way’,” claimed the very first park brochure from June 1944. 6/1944 Big Bend National Park brochure, Box 1 (Horace Morelock Papers), BBNP Archives. 600 In the 1944 Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park, a section on “Things to Do and See,” suggested park visitors make trips to the San Vicente Mission and Boquillas. 6/1944 Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park, Box 1 (NPS Western Region Central Classified Files, 1923-65), NARA (San Bruno, CA). “The removal of the small Mexican population from the American side of the land will make a trip into old Mexico of greater interest than ever,” claimed Glenn Burgess, Manager of the Alpine Chamber of Commerce writing in August to Walter Taylor, one of the Fish and Wildlife Service researchers, about an excursion into Mexico to investigate
289 Guidebook to western parks highlighted the atmosphere of the Mexican Big Bend: “The ranches, the country, and the people, especially the picturesque goat herders whom you encounter, impress you with the fact that you are ‘down Mexico way’ – and it is, by the way, a nice feeling. There is no pretense, no play for the tourist such as you experience at Tia Juana or Nogales or Juarez. Here you encounter the real Mexican, and you find him a simple, friendly and peace-loving individual.”601 This notion is reminiscent of the romantic ideas branded by George Catlin in the 1830s to showcase Native Americans living lightly on the land.602 Just like the Plains Indians, as long as the Mexican existence was a simple one and an obvious struggle, the prevailing natural narrative was reinforced rather than diminished by their continuing presence on the land.603 Like Luna’s presence in the Big Bend, the individuals who lived in the small set of Mexican villages on the park’s periphery testified to the predominance of nature and the great difficulty of anything but small scale settlements to carve out sustainable interactions with the land. This was rough country. Sophisticated tourists could visit, but only hearty locals could survive, and even then, after Luna’s departure, only across the border. National borders are by nature artificially imposed on the landscape to divide populations. While the Rio Grande as opposed to the border swath cutting through
biological conditions and certain other factors of interest. 8/17/1944 Letter to Walter P. Taylor from Glenn Burgess, Box 1 (NPS Western Region Central Classified Files, 1923-65), NARA (San Bruno, CA). 601 Dorr Yeager. Your Western National Parks: A Guide (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1947). GNP Library. 602 Catlin, fearing the imminent demise of American Indians, called for the preservation of at least a portion of the environment and peoples of the Great Plains: “What a beautiful and thrilling specimen for America to preserve and hold up to the view of her refined citizens and the world in future ages! A Nation’s Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty!” George Catlin, Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians (London: H. G. Bohn, 1851), 261-262, accessed April 15, 2012, http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/32970/0412?id=9b9893af42176d74. 603 This represented a similar approach to Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad in promoting tours to Navajoland as a way to have an exotic, but controlled experience. Erika Bsumek, Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1868-1940 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 30-33.
290 Waterton-Glacier was a readily identifiable geographical feature, its dual use as a park and international boundary required explanation for tourists. Park brochures encouraged visitors to explore the small assembly of Mexican villages immediately adjacent to the park. While experiencing natural wilderness within the context of Big Bend, the Park Service pointed out a way to investigate what was portrayed as a cultural wilderness of sorts. Simply by crossing the river on a ferry boat, tourists could experience the human condition as it was before the advent of modern conveniences such as electricity. A 1978 brochure for the Castolon area of Big Bend highlighted the opportunity to cross over into the town of Santa Elena: “The man with a row boat will ferry you across. Unlike most well-known border towns, this village is unspoiled by commercialization, and here you can become aware of real frontier atmosphere. Such conveniences as electricity and plumbing, which we take for granted, are considered the utmost in luxury to the dwellers of this Mexican village.”604 Aside from these recommended excursions to local villages, Mexican officials and the U.S. Park Service made other attempts to bring the two spaces closer together. Numerous abortive attempts to reignite the momentum for an international park in the Big Bend cropped up periodically, but no concrete steps were taken until the mid- 1990s. For example, Roberto Garduno Garcia, Mexican Director of Forestry and National Parks, on hand to celebrate the 1963 dedication of a new visitor’s center in Big Bend told attendees that his bureau “has been ordered by the Mexican government to start work on a project for the establishment of an international park in Mexico that will be an extension of the Big Bend National Park.”605 This surprise announcement again stoked hopes, but no further action was taken. However, the U.S. Park Service looked for
604 1978 Brochure on “Castolon,” Box 1 (BIBE-01602), BBNP Archives. 605 11/6/1963 “International Park to Make a Dream True” (San Angelo Standard-Times), Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives.
291 opportunities beyond simple cross-border tourism to unite the two areas to a broader common purpose.
INTEGRATION AND DIVISION IN THE BIG BEND
In the 1980s, U.S. Park Service officials engaged in local outreach to recreate interest in developing a Mexican park. Park Superintendent Gilbert Lusk instituted regular exchanges with border towns and tried to maintain a more continuous presence.606 Three park rangers were assigned to be “goodwill ambassadors” in Santa Elena, San Vicente, and Boquillas.607 In addition, the park sponsored annual goodwill fiestas beginning in the fall of 1981.608 Superintendent Lusk sought to build support for Big Bend and perhaps a larger space in Mexico from the ground up.609 Lusk hoped a new strategy to promote local, personal engagement, focusing on the villages and states of Coahuila and Chihuahua, would pave the way for more cooperation and perhaps even the long-desired companion park to Big Bend. By 1984, a number of outreach programs with
606 Gilbert Lusk was superintendent at Big Bend from 1981 to 1986. 607 “Their task was to go to the villages on a regular basis and talk, sit down, visit, offer any thing in terms of if you have a medical emergency this is how can we help you with it … The intention was that we were going to go to Mexico, that was one of guiding principles,” recalled Lusk in a 1996 Park Oral History interview. 5/31/1996 Gilbert Lusk Interview,. Oral History Files Box,. BBNP Archives. 608 The Park newsletter offered poetic praise for the 1986 “International Good Neighbor Day Fiesta”: “The breeze carried friendly sounds of Mariachis, western music, children singing, and people laughing and talking in a gentle blend of English and Spanish … It was a warm, gentle breeze that carried the smells and sounds of friendship; a breeze that helped to blow away the cultural differences that sometimes cloud our view.” [undated 1986] “Big Bend celebrates friendship with neighbors” by Robert Huggins, Box 5 (BIBE Administrative Files, 1935-95), BBNP Archives. 609 Before 1981, there was no forward momentum to develop a southern peace park, and according to Lusk, a “consistent pattern of dealing with officials from Mexico City, an occasional Governor and no recorded contact at the village, local or ejido level.” Overall, any focus on the border was overwhelmingly negative and cast Mexican communities as dishonest brokers on disputes ranging from immigration to drugs and wax smuggling. 7/9/1991 Strategy Paper on Mexican Relations and Big Bend National Park by Gilbert Lusk (former Superintendent, Big Bend), Box 1 (Manuscript Collection), BBNP Archives.
292 Mexico were already in place.610 Reflecting in his 1996 interview, Lusk recognized that a Mexican park would not look exactly like the counterpart he managed across the river.611 The economics of tourism needed to be proven first in order to make the case for a national park in the space, and Big Bend officials hoped these local initiatives would prove more successful than earlier high level government to government strategies to lay the groundwork for the creation of a Mexican park. In January 1989, Big Bend Superintendent Jim Carrico described meeting with individuals from the Governor’s Office in Coahuila to discuss a newly declared protected area for flora, fauna, and aquatic life of approximately 490,000 acres in the Maderas del Carmen.612 To spur cross-border tourism, a park trail brochure from the same year encouraged Big Bend visitors to “look across the river to the small village of Boquillas at the base of the Sierra del Carmen. … Although it now has only about 200 inhabitants, Boquillas was once a bustling mining town in the early 1900’s. The Puerto Rico Mine, which produced lead, silver, and zinc, provided the livelihood for close to 1,000
610 Outreach included the Good Neighbor Day Festival or Fiesta, Goodwill Ambassadors, Twelfth Night gift exchanges, annual visits to Chihuahua and Coahuila, cross-training in land management, and continued efforts to establish low-scale tourism in the Sierra del Carmen. Each of these attempted to mitigate outside influences on Big Bend: “The solution has already been initiated through work with villages, state and Federal Government authorities. It consists of development of a ‘mind set’ of advantages of a tourist economy as an alternative to capital intensive industry.” 1/26/1984 NPS U.S.-Mexico Border Activities, Box 13 (BIBE Administrative Files), BBNP Archives. 611 “You have the ejidos and you have villagers who are having a hard time making ends meet,” Lusk opined. “If we could set something up over there in the mountains and make it relatively easy for the large population of Texas and elsewhere to get to, you have an economic incentive. And that economic incentive can ultimately help drive conservation and preservation issues.” 5/31/1996 Gilbert Lusk Interview, Oral History Files Box, BBNP Archives. 612 “They shared their architectural designs for the construction of a small pueblo style motel to be located near the village of Boquillas. The motel will include overnight accommodations with modern conveniences and a swimming pool. Construction of the motel will coincide with completion of the paved road between Musquiz and Boquillas,” reported Carrico. “They emphasized that undesirable activities (i.e. prostitution, saloons, etc.) typical of other border towns, would be strictly prohibited. … Plans are underway to give the village of Boquillas a new face lift. All the buildings in town will be repainted, the main street will be remodeled to give it a more attractive appearance typical of small Mexican towns in other more developed parts of the country.” 1/25/1989 Letter to Regional Director from Superintendent James Carrico. Box 13 (BIBE Administrative Files), BBNP Archives.
293 inhabitants.” In sharp contrast, “today, Boquillas remains as one of the few classic border towns, and a visit to it can give you a taste of traditional border living.”613 Again, the U.S. Park Service played up transboundary cultural elements in profiling the space. In 1990, the Park Service initiated “Project Diablos” to train Mexican nationals in Boquillas as a fire crew and first responders in Big Bend. With funding by the U.S. Park Service for training and equipment, Mexican officials and Boquillas residents were outfitted as a crew of twenty-three.614 Perhaps the activities begun in the 1980s by the U.S. Park Service brought the communities around the Rio Grande closer together and smoothed opposition to actions taken by the Mexican Federal Government in the 1990s to formally and finally designate protected spaces in Coahuila and Chihuahua. As discussed in the first chapter, “Making National Parks,” Mexican President Carlos Salinas signed decrees establishing the Maderas del Carmen and Canon de Santa Elena as protected areas on November 7, 1994.615 In the early 2000s, CEMEX became involved in acquiring land within the preserve, and in June 2006, Big Bend Superintendent Bruce Noble wrote to congratulate CEMEX USA President Gilberto Perez for purchasing the Adams Ranch, a strip of private land located between the park and the Black Gap State Wildlife Management Area.616 With this transaction, the first transnational protected space along the southern border was finally realized, but in the form of a privately held parcel acquired by a
613 1989 Brochure on “Rio Grande Village,” Box 1 (BIBE-01602), BBNP Archives. 614 In the summer of 1992, this training was put to its first test. The “Diablos” successfully suppressed three fires covering 2,000 acres of the Big Bend. April 1994 “Working with Mexico: The Development and Status of the Mexican Affairs Program at Big Bend National Park,” Box 1 (Chief Ranger Office Files), BBNP Archives. 615 7/14/1995 Memo to Big Bend Division Chiefs and Staff from Superintendent Jose Cisneros, Box 1 (Chief Ranger Office Files), BBNP Archives. 616 “It is worthy of recognition that CEMEX is playing a pivotal role in realizing the 70-year-old vision of creating an international protected landscape that is a global model for international and cooperative conservation.” 6/27/2006 Letter to Gilberto Perez (President, CEMEX USA) from Acting Superintendent Bruce Noble, CENT 2006 Box, BBNP Archives.
294 Mexican multi-national corporation. CEMEX already managed a sizable portion of the Maderas del Carmen preserve and, with this acquisition, added the former Adams Ranch to their other holdings. Oddly, even though the La Linda Bridge over the river provided access between the two parcels, CEMEX managers were prevented from crossing by the same post-9/11 border crackdown experienced by tourists and locals in the park. Instead, they were forced to drive over eight hours to an official border crossing in Del Rio, Texas and then all the way back to their Adams Ranch acquisition. Boquillas, Coahuila experienced a significant economic downturn as a result of this crackdown on border crossings in 2002. A 1996 brochure on Mexican Border Towns identified tourism in Boquillas as the village’s primary economic activity followed by wax production, ranching, and farming.617 A note on the park’s archival file folders indicated this brochure was retired in 2002 due to the post 9/11 border closure. Rather than encouraging sightseeing tips, the Park Service now actively dissuades tourists from entering Mexico. A 1997 study of the area between Santa Elena and Boquillas examined, in part, the importance of tourism to the border economy. The study observed the prevalence of craftwork in all the border communities adjacent to Big Bend, but it was difficult for the study to quantify the annual impact due to the lack of reliable visitation statistics.618 Researchers estimated sales of bracelets and other crafts benefitted eighty
617 Visitor services included Falcon’s restaurant, a cantina, and shopping. “Boquillas is the most accessible Mexican village bordering Big Bend National Park – accessible from the north side of the Rio Grande, that is … There is no bridge and the crossing is not considered an official port of entry. A ferry boat operates for visitors and residents alike during daylight hours. The village is approximately one mile from the boat landing.” 1996 Brochure on “Border Towns: Santa Elena and Boquillas,” Box 1 (BIBE-01602), BBNP Archives. 618 The study, trying to measure the contribution to families in Boquillas, determined that “a child that sells 3 bracelets per week is providing his home the equivalent of one day of minimum wage. This is a constant stimulus for them to practice this activity – even if they must miss school.” [undated 1997] Alternatives for the use of the natural resources of the region between Santa Elena and Boquillas, Mexico (Cooperative Agreement between BBNP, Sul Ross State University, and Profauna A.C.), Supt. Secy. Office Box, BBNP Archives.
295 percent of the families in Boquillas. After the 2002 closure, the Park Service Intermountain Regional Director claimed visitation to Mexico from Big Bend topped 30,000 people per year.619 That meant approximately ten percent of all park visitors included an international excursion as part of their park experience, surely a big multiplier for the families noted in the 1997 study. Yet, in 2002, this visitation abruptly ended at the river’s edge. In August 2002, Big Bend Superintendent Frank Deckert wrote a memo to his park management team instructing them to explore options for working around the border closure. Concerned about disruptions to the regular crossings and the upcoming annual Fiesta, he reached out to Glacier National Park to determine if their Memorandum of Understanding with U.S. Customs could be duplicated in the Big Bend.620 Unfortunately, Glacier officials were trying to navigate the same dilemma and experienced similar border disruptions. Unable to find a solution, Deckert reluctantly elected to cancel what would have been the 22nd Fiesta celebration rather than continue without the presence of villagers from northern Mexico.621 The 2003 Superintendent’s Annual Report soberly laid out the resulting impact of the closures on the border community the park shared. The Report concluded that the small village economies had grown dependent on border trade and would most likely disappear unless the crossing was reopened.622 Moreover, the
619 These visitors “have enjoyed crossing to these villages, experiencing another culture, and buying a meal and/or souvenir.” 9/30/2002 Letter to Senator Phil Gramm from Director, Intermountain Region, Box 3 (CENT Files), BBNP Archives. 620 8/7/2002 Memo to Management Team Members from Secretary, Office of the Superintendent, Box 3 (CENT Files), BBNP Archives. 621 9/10/2002 Press Release, Box 3 (CENT Files), BBNP Archives. 622 “The most severe impacts continue to be in the Mexican border villages of Santa Elena and Boquillas due to the border closure. They depended upon tourism as the most important element of their economies. Isolated from the rest of Mexico due to the rugged terrain and very poor roads, they have traditionally relied upon being able to come to the United States for such basic items as food, medicine, fuel and mail… If there are not legal opportunities to make a living, desperate people will turn to other ways and the park experienced increases in illegal activities including the seizure of 17,548 pounds of processed marijuana and the apprehension of over 1,000 undocumented aliens in the park and immediate area.” Interestingly, at
296 closures deprived visitors of a cross-border experience for the first time in fifty-eight years.
Craft Sale Display in Boquillas Canyon Overlook Parking Lot (2010) – Author’s Photo623
With the closure, the park’s Natural History Association tried to provide some economic continuity for locals by importing craft products for sale in the visitor center bookstores. Sales along the river, now deemed contraband, were actively discouraged by the placement of sternly worded warning signs directed toward visitors. Nonetheless, these transactions continued, usually by invoking the honor system, where small displays, such as that pictured above, of Sotol walking sticks, hand painted rocks, and copper wire figurines were set along the U.S. side of the river near frequented tourist locations, like the hot springs or Boquillas Canyon overlook, and handwritten signs listed prices and instructed visitors to place money in a coffee can for any items they took. In 2003, Myriam Segovia submitted a comment card to Park Management expressing alarm after the same time, the “Diablos” unit of firefighters based in Boquillas traveled throughout the American West to work on five different wildfires, impressing the importance of developing a solution to the crisis. 2003 Superintendent’s Annual Narrative Report, Box 3 (CENT Files), BBNP Archives. 623 Author also observed the presumed display owner cross the river on horseback to collect money from the “honor system” coffee can.
2 97 purchases made by her family and friends were taken.624 The border closure prevented the easy restocking of the visitor center with handcrafted items from Mexico. Just like CEMEX managers, representatives of the Big Bend Natural History Association were forced to make the long journey through Del Rio to resupply. Even riverside sales were illegal for all parties involved, and Mexicans, if caught, faced the added burden of deportation hundreds of miles from home through Presidio, Texas. Despite these risks, residents of Boquillas and tourists like the Segovia family created and perpetuated a black market for tourists to maintain at least a semblance of the income upon which these Mexican communities had come to rely. A U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Big Bend was scheduled to re-open in April 2012, once again linking the Rio Grande Village area to the town of Boquillas del Carmen, but as of this writing, it remains closed. The unmanned port of entry kiosk will be virtually monitored by immigration officials hundreds of miles away. U.S. citizens will scan their passports and the identity of Mexican Nationals will be biometrically confirmed. This approach harkens back to the earliest U.S. Park Service reports on the value of the international element to the then contemplated tourist experience. Writing in January 1935, H.C. Bumpus, a Park Service official, described the potential appeal of Boquillas as follows: “May the burros, that provide the scant international transportation across the river at this point, never be succeeded by ferry or bridge. The beauty of the river, the enclosing walls, the vegetation and the primitive human habitations all conspire against modernity.”625 When the kiosk finally opens, a thoroughly modern technology
624 “We (5 families) bought walking sticks on one of the walking trails (actually we bought sticks and some beaded bracelets – about 18 in total). On returning to our cars 2 park rangers confiscated all of our walking sticks and bracelets (plastic beaded). They said that there was a notice about buying things like this – (of the 5 families, no one had seen it!).” [undated 2003] Visitor Comment Card from Myriam Segovia, Box 4 (CENT Files), BBNP Archives. 625 1/26/1935 Letter to Assistant Director Conrad Wirth from H.C. Bumpus, Box 821 (Central Classified Files, 1933-49), NARA (College Park, MD).
298 will facilitate this crossing, but visitors will continue to have an experience bounded by the same decidedly turn-of-the-century ethos Bumpus evoked. Oddly, it will take 21st century tools and technology to re-enable a 19th century river crossing by flatbottom boat and burro.
CONCLUSION
In the end, international parks recombined transboundary culture with wilderness, and were as susceptible to local influence as unpaired national parks. These spaces centered on expanding the tourist enterprise from a national to a global constituency as much as protecting the elements of nature. Nature protection was only highlighted where the ranging of fauna across international lines necessitated the institution of special protections. Even then, while the essential raw materials of nature might flow back and forth, the U.S. spaces were placed clearly above the Canadian and Mexican parks with which they shared a common border. The wild spaces within Glacier and Big Bend were ensured, in no small part, by what the U.S. Park Service viewed as the essential, but imperfect buffers that surrounded them. With individual parks, the most fundamental question revolved around how to set the proper balance between use and preservation. In transboundary parks, answering this question was even more perplexing as each park contributed a novel mix of wilderness spaces and historical uses that often put the parks and the people that managed them in conflict. While individual parks may have skewed toward national approaches to preservation and the agendas of each Park Service, the creation of transboundary spaces brought these philosophies in conversation, melding something new in the process of determining how to cooperate in jointly managing shared natural resources.
299 John Muir, sampling journals from his first encounter with the Sierra Nevada in the summer of 1869, observed, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”626 As much as national parks tend to be viewed as discrete, even self-contained entities, these international parks, located on the very borders meant to underscore this point, clearly demonstrate the myriad sets of connections that bind spaces together. All parks are bordered by and, in some cases, even contain lands that each Park Service does not directly control. This dilemma was magnified along international borders where parks often found different uses and land tenure regimes immediately adjacent. International geography forced those who managed, visited, and lived in these parks to look much more broadly at their placement within larger ecosystems and how they were inextricably linked to the spaces around them.
626 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 110.
300 Epilogue: “Troubled Wilderness”
National parks on the borderlands developed and continue to evolve amidst the difficulties and opportunities derived from competing interests in multiple jurisdictions and across a range of public and private property owners. Situated on the borders of Canada, Mexico and the United States, the case studies of Waterton Lakes, Glacier, Big Bend, and the Maderas del Carmen reviewed in this dissertation provide an assessment of the on-going efforts of these interests over the twentieth century to develop as well as protect natural spaces in these countries. With their establishment, these individual parks first conformed to the national borders, but later, through their combination, challenged them. In 1932, Waterton-Glacier became the world’s first transboundary protected area. Another transboundary park planned between the Big Bend and a Mexican protected space, while pursued since the mid-1930s, was only recently attained. The creation of the Maderas del Carmen, along with the two other protected spaces in Coahuila and Chihuahua in the mid-1990s, placed protected areas on both sides of the Rio Grande. To date, the U.S. and Mexican governments have not acted to rebrand this area as a transboundary park, like Waterton-Glacier. Yet, with the 2006 acquisition of the former Adams Ranch in Texas by CEMEX, the entity that managed the Maderas del Carmen, another de facto international space, albeit a private one, was realized. Centering on these transboundary areas, this dissertation chronicled the creation of parks, examined the ways land uses and labels changed over time, depicted the role private enterprise played in park development, charted the continuing maintenance of borderlines, and, finally, revealed how a blurring of those borders occurred as parks were joined together. The first chapter provided a unique perspective on the observation that
301 national parks were never pristine or even uninhabited from the time of their establishment. The dispossession of people and their traditional uses, while persistent and devastating for the individuals and groups so impacted, was never complete. The persistence of private parcels within and adjoining parks ensured the continuing influence of locals over a wide range of park management decisions including which parcels were reframed as wilderness. Moreover, park managers continued and, in some cases, expanded developments and uses, like agriculture and timber cutting, in parks that had been previously used to justify displacing locals. The second and third chapters explored how the term “wilderness” and corresponding management practices changed in response to conditions on the ground. The ever-changing and arbitrary lines drawn around and within each park made clear that wilderness included more aesthetically mundane elements as well as the sublime in order to mirror the larger ecosystems from which the parks were carved. Rather than being solely viewed as a fixed geography, the functioning wilderness areas of the national parks discussed in this dissertation revealed how the concept of wilderness needed to be flexible enough to address the mobility of flora and fauna. Park managers struggled with natural flows that they realized parks were simply too small to contain. A transboundary framework provided a novel set of side-by-side comparisons of the deployment of wilderness. In a number of U.S. parks, including Big Bend and Glacier, formal wilderness was not yet achieved, but both their cross-border companions, Waterton and the Maderas del Carmen, had officially sanctioned wilderness that differed markedly from what was codified in the 1964 U.S. Wilderness Act. The fourth chapter demonstrated how intractable and essential private enterprise was to the creation and development of parks. The capital and project management expertise of businesses, like the Great Northern Railroad in Glacier and Waterton Lakes,
302 facilitated the construction of vital infrastructure, inside and outside parks, to enable the maturation of industrial tourism. The viability of tourism, in turn, created incentives for states, like Texas, to aggregate land parcels into new parks. These spaces created an economic multiplier for the communities and commercial entities on their periphery. Over time, this commercial embrace of nature produced a ready-made brand association that businesses from the railroads to CEMEX and a profusion of smaller entities co-opted for their own purposes. Businesses benefitted from tying their brands to nature, but whether natural areas also benefitted from these associations remains less clear. However, in the Maderas del Carmen, CEMEX’s corporate interest in being seen as a sustainable enterprise led to the most stringent protections for the environment found in all of the parks profiled. The fifth chapter argued that even though borderlands scholarship emphasizes the blurring and penetrability of political boundaries and subdivisions, examining the shared dividing lines between nations and parks showed how the constant tending of these boundaries complicated each construction. Although representing a small percentage of the total boundaries between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, the parks located along the Rio Grande and the 49th Parallel changed the way the larger borders were maintained. In the 1960s, environmental damage linked to efforts by the International Boundary Commission to demarcate the 49th Parallel in between Waterton-Glacier with herbicides altered border clearing operations for the entire boundary. The potential for floodwaters in the Rio Grande to remake the international boundary led to the contemplation of dams in the canyons of the Big Bend. Moreover, even park managers leveraged the clarity of the borderline to claim the mantle of wilderness for their parks while casting aspersions on the different management practices of their neighbors just across the line.
303 The sixth and final chapter detailed the early lineage of international parks, beginning with the combination of Waterton Lakes and Glacier. At its inception, this laudable project was more of a publicity stunt, but evolved to embrace more extensive means of cooperation and stewardship of shared resources. Efforts to pair Big Bend with a sister park in Mexican Coahuila were unrealized in the short run, but, by focusing on the historiographically-neglected decade of the 1940s, a public/private model proposed by Mexican rancher and former general Miguel Gonzalez lent prescient credibility to a broader model of parks that encompassed a more diverse array of elements and uses. Indeed, this view found expression in the three Mexican protected spaces formed in the mid-1990s along the Rio Bravo del Norte that parallel the Big Bend. These examples inspired and informed the creation of additional international parks around the globe, numbering over 227 to date. The stories of Waterton-Glacier, the Big Bend, and the Maderas del Carmen reveal the true mutability of nature. Historian Richard White, in a 2010 contribution to A Companion to American Environmental History, puts in perspective what he views as recent trends in environmental history and in particular the focus on “hybrid landscapes.”627 This dissertation similarly considered “hybrid nature” as found in international parks – the intersection between concepts of pristine nature and various cultural constructions of wilderness. In an era of intense concern and focus on global climate change and debates over solutions to humans’ impact on the natural world, the environments of national parks are undergoing wholesale and, most likely, permanent transformation. Conceptions of wilderness may have to change as well. New frameworks and management models, like “ecological integrity,” adopted in Canada and Mexico
627 Richard White, “From Wilderness to Hybrid Landscapes: The Cultural Turn in Environmental History” in A Companion to American Environmental History, Douglas Sackman, ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 183-90.
304 provide one potential solution to ensure natural flows are self-replicating and stable in the face of such momentous ecological changes. Perhaps the best roadmap forward lies in places like borderlands parks where a mosaic of owners and land uses continue to find new ways to cooperate in an ever-evolving landscape.
305 Bibliography
ARCHIVAL SOURCES
The Bancroft Library: Berkeley, CA Manuscript Collections: Charles Kraebel Papers
Big Bend National Park Archives and Library (BBNP): Panther Junction, TX Manuscript Collections: Horace Morelock Papers National Park Service
Bureau of Reclamation Library (BOR): Billings, MT Manuscript Collections: Bureau of Reclamation Milk River Project
Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University: Ft. Worth, TX Manuscript Collections: Amon Carter Papers
Canadian National Archives: Ottawa, Ontario Microfilm Collections: Parks Canada
Center for American History Collection: The University of Texas at Austin Manuscript Collections: Department of the Interior
Denver Public Library: Denver, CO Manuscript Collections: The Wilderness Society
Glacier National Park Archives and Library (GNP): West Glacier, MT Manuscript Collections: National Park Service
International Boundary Commission Library (IBC): Washington, DC Manuscript Collections: International Boundary Commission
306
International Boundary and Water Commission Library (IBWC): El Paso, TX Manuscript Collections: International Boundary and Water Commission
Minnesota Historical Society Archives: Minneapolis, MN Manuscript Collections: Great Northern Railway Company Papers Louis W. Hill Papers
Montana Historical Society Archives: Helena, MT Manuscript Collections: Horace A. Scott Papers
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): College Park, MD Manuscript Collections: National Park Service
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): Denver, CO Manuscript Collections: Bureau of Reclamation National Park Service
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): Ft. Worth, TX Manuscript Collections: National Park Service
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): San Bruno, CA Manuscript Collections: National Park Service Wildlife Office
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Austin, TX Manuscript Collections: Big Bend Collection, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
K. Ross Toole Archives, The University of Montana: Missoula, MT Manuscript Collections: Morton J. Elrod Papers
Waterton Lakes National Park Archives and Library (WLNPA): Waterton, Alberta Manuscript Collections: Parks Canada
307 Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library, Archives of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University: Alpine, Texas Manuscript Collections: Big Bend National Park W.J. Newell Papers
308 PRINTED AND SECONDARY SOURCES
“A Week in Glacier National Park.” The Hotel Monthly (8/1915). “History of Texas Land,” General Land Office of The State of Texas (Austin, TX, 1958). “International Park to Make a Dream True.” San Angelo Standard-Times (11/6/1963). “Robbing School Children to Create National Park,” Dallas News (5/15/1939). Adelman, Jeremy and Stephen Aron, "From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation- States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History," The American Historical Review, Vol. 104, No. 3 (June 1999). Albright, Horace M., and Robert Cahn. The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33 (Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1985). Ali, Saleem H., ed., Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007). Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company (1890), Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies. Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company (1912), Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies. Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company (1914), Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies. Annual Report of the Great Northern Railway Company (1916), Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies. Annual Report of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway Company (1888), Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway Companies. Autobee, Robert. Rio Grande Project History (Bureau of Reclamation, 1994). Big Bend Gazette (August 1, 2004). Big Bend Paisano (Summer/Fall 2008). Big Bend Superintendent’s Annual Report (1950). Big Bend Superintendent’s Annual Report (1952). Bolton, Herbert E. The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest (1st ed., 1921; Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996). Brands, H.W. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Anchor Books, 2008). Bray, Frank Chapin. “Play Bridges National Frontiers” The Rotarian (July 1934).
309 Bsumek, Erika. Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1868-1940 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008). Buchanan, D.W. A Complete Guide to Waterton Lakes National Park (Lethbridge: D.W. Buchanan Publisher, 1928). Burnham, Philip Indian Country, God’s Country: Native Americans and the National Parks (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000) Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990) Catlin, George. Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians (London: H. G. Bohn, 1851). CEMEX Sustainable Development Report (2006). Chavez, Alicia. Mexico: A Brief History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 261. Clothier, Patricia Wilson. Beneath the Window: Early Ranch Life in the Big Bend Country (Marathon, TX: Iron Mountain Press, 2003). Conroy, Michael E. Branded!: How the ‘Certification Revolution’ is Transforming Global Corporations (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2007). Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995). Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991). Cruikshank, Julie. Do glaciers listen?: local knowledge, colonial encounters, and social imagination (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). Dean, David James. “A River Transformed: Historic Geomorphic Changes Of The Lower Rio Grande In The Big Bend Region Of Texas, Chihuahua, And Coahuila” (Master’s Thesis, Utah State University, 2009). Dearden, Philip and Rick Rollins, eds., Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning and Management (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993), 28. DeSanto, Jerry. “Cooperation helped establish Canadian boundary,” Hungry Horse News, June 24, 1987, WLNPA. Dilsaver, Lary M. ed., America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 1994). Dixon, Joseph. “Joint Playground for America and Canada” U.S. Daily (June 29, 1932). DOI U.S. Reclamation Service St. Mary’s Storage Feature of Milk River Project Feature History (1912).
310 Fairfax, Sally K., et al. Buying Nature: The Limits of Land Acquisition as a Conservation Strategy, 1780-2004 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005). Fiege, Mark. Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999). Final Master Plan for Glacier NP (5/1977). First Joint Report of the International Boundary Commissioners of the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada for the Period 7/17/1925 to 12/31/1926. Fox, Stephen R. The American conservation movement: John Muir and his legacy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). Gallagher, Susan. “National Parks Contain Private Land: Conservationists Worry That Private Land Within National Parks Will Fall Prey To Development,” The Associated Press, November 21, 2007. Gallagher, Susan. “National Parks Contain Private Land: Conservationists Worry That Private Land Within National Parks Will Fall Prey To Development,” The Associated Press, November 21, 2007. Getty, I.A. History of the Human Settlement at Waterton Lakes National Park, 1800-1937 (1970). Gil, Patricio R. “El Carmen: The First Wilderness Designation in Latin America,” International Journal of Wilderness Vol. 12, Number 2 (August 2006). Glacial Drift (9/1933). Glacier Superintendent’s Annual Report (1999). Gomez, Arthur R. A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1990). Grinnell, G.B. “The Beginnings of Glacier National Park,” in Madison Grant, Hunting and Conservation: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1925). Harkin and Lewis, eds. Native Americans and the Environment: Perspectives on the Ecological Indian (2007) Harris, S.L. “Conservation Easements on Mexican Ejidos: An Alternative Model for Indigenous. Peoples.” Masters Thesis, Evergreen State College (2008). Harvey, Mark. Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health and Permanence: environmental politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
311 Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). Herring, Hal “How to make your own Yellowstone, Mexican style: A corporate behemoth races to restore a Coahuilan gem,” High Country News (November 11, 2002). Hoelscher, Steven. Heritage on Stage: The Invention of Ethnic Place in America’s Little Switzerland (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). Ise, John. Our National Park Policy: A Critical History (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1961). Jacobs, Frank “A Not-So-Straight Story,” New York Times (November 28, 2011). Jacoby, Karl. Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Jameson, John R. Big Bend on the Rio Grande: Biography of a National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). Johnson, Benjamin H. and Andrew R. Graybill, eds., Bridging National Borders in North America: Transnational and Comparative Histories, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). Johnson, Benjamin. “Wilderness Parks and Their Discontents” in Michael Lewis, ed., American Wilderness: A New History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Kinkela, David. DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011). Krech, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999). Langford, Nathaniel Pitt. The Discovery of Yellowstone Park (The Haynes Foundation, 1905). Leopold, Aldo. “Origin and Ideals of Wilderness Areas” The Living Wilderness (July 1940). Lewis, Michael, ed. American Wilderness: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Limerick, Patricia N. Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1987). Limerick, Patricia N., Clyde A. Milner II, Charles E. Rankin, eds. Trails: toward a new western history (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991).
312 Lothian, W.F. A Brief History of Canada's National Parks (Ottawa, Ontario: Environment Canada, 1987). Marchand, Roland Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). Master Plan for Big Bend National Park (1980). McClelland, Linda F. Building the National Parks: Historic Landscape Design and Construction (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1998). McKiernan-Gonzalez, John. Fevered Measures: Public Health and Race at the Texas- Mexico Border, 1848–1942 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012). McKinney, Bonnie Reynolds "Room To Roam: The El Carmen initiative aims to preserve a one-of-a-kind ecosystem in Mexico and enhance wildlife corridors on both sides of the border," Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, November 2006. McNamee, Kevin. “From Wild Places to Endangered Spaces: A History of Canada’s National Parks” in Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning and Management, Philip Dearden and Rick Rollins, eds. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993). McNeill, J. R. Something new under the sun: an environmental history of the twentieth- century world (New York: Norton, 2000). McWilliams, James E. American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Merrill, Karen. Public Lands and Political Meaning: Ranchers, the Government, and the Property between Them (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002). Miles, John C. Wilderness in National Parks: Playground or Preserve (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009). Miller, Char and Hal Rothman, eds. Out of the woods: essays in environmental history (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, c1997). Miller, Char. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Washington: Island Press, 2001). Misuraca, Karen and Maxine Cass. Insiders' Guide to Yosemite (Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press, 1996). Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona. “The Geology Recognizes No Boundaries” in The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests: Essays on Regional History of the Forty-ninth Parallel, Sterling Evans, ed. (University of Nebraska Press, 2006). Muir, John. “The Hetch-Hetchy Valley: A National Question,” American Forestry Vol. 16 (May 1910).
313 Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911). Muir, John. Our National Parks (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1901). Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). Ohl, Carolyn. “Terlingua Ranch: A History of Land Development in Southern Brewster County, Texas,” Journal of Big Bend Studies, vol. 19, 2007. Orsi, Richard. Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). Our Park – Vision for the 21st Century, Report of the Minister of Environment’s Task Force on Park Establishment (1987). Parks Canada Guiding Principles and Operational Policies (1994). Pomeroy, Earl. In Search of the Golden West: The Tourist in Western America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1957). Preliminary Report of an Ecological Survey of Big Bend National Park (6/1944). Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (New York: Penguin Books, 1993). Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1932. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1956. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1962. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1963. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1964. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1965. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1967. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1968. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1969.
314 Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1970. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1971. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1986. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/2001. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1955. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1937. Report of the International Boundary Commission United States, Alaska, and Canada for the Year Ending 12/31/1957. Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park (1911). Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park (1924). Report of the Superintendent of the Glacier National Park (1993). Reports upon the Survey of the Boundary between the Territory of the United States and the Possessions of Great Britain for the Lake of the Woods to the Summit of the Rocky Mountains (Washington, DC: GPO, 1878). Resource Management Plan for Glacier National Park (3/1980). Righter, Robert W. The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Rollins, Rick. “Managing the National Parks” in Parks and Protected Areas in Canada: Planning and Management, Philip Dearden and Rick Rollins, eds. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993). Rome, Adam Ward. The bulldozer in the countryside : suburban sprawl and the rise of American environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Rothman, Hal K. Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998). Rothman, Hal. Preserving Different Pasts: the American National Monuments (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989). Rothman, Hal. The Greening of a Nation: Environmentalism in the U.S. Since 1945 (1997).
315 Runte, Alfred. National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987). Schrepfer, Susan R. The fight to save the redwoods: a history of environmental reform, 1917-1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983). Schullery, Paul and Lee Whittlesey. Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Scott, James. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). Sellars, Richard West. Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). Shaffer, Marguerite S. See American First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001). Simonian, Lane. Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995). Spence, Mark David. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). St. John, Rachel. Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). Steely, James W. Parks for Texas: Enduring Landscapes of the New Deal (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999), 200. Thorsell, J.W. “Waterton Lakes National Park Visitor Use Survey: 1966 Wilderness Recreational Use” (January 1967). Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1920). Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1894). Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (1924) (Washington DC: GPO, 1924). Twenty-third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (1925) (Washington DC: GPO, 1925). Tyler, Ronnie C. The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1996). U.S. Reclamation Service St. Mary Storage Unit Milk River Project Sherburne Lakes Reservoir Dam Feature History (1914). Vacation Guide for Glacier National Park (Summer 2008).
316 Wakild, Emily “Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935–1945,” Environmental History 14 (July 2009). Wakild, Emily Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico’s National Parks, 1910-1940 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2011). Wakild, Emily. “’It is to Preserve Life, to Work for the Trees’: The Steward of Mexico's Forests, Miguel Angel de Quevedo, 1862-1948” Forest History Today (2006). Warren, Louis. The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth- Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). Waterton Lakes National Park Forty-Third Annual Report (Period from 4/1/1956 to 12/31/1956). Waterton Lakes National Park of Canada Management Plan (May 2000). Waterton Lakes National Park Park Management Plan (May 1978). Waterton Lakes National Park Park Management Plan (November 1992). Waterton Lakes National Park Provisional Master Plan (1967). Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan (April 1967). Waterton Lakes Provisional Master Plan (April 1967). Welsh, Michael Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park (National Park Service Administrative History, 2003). White, Richard The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995). White, Richard. "It's your misfortune and none of my own": a history of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York.: W. W. Norton, 2011). Wilderness Study Big Bend National Park (8/1971). Williams, J.W. The Big Ranch Country (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1954). Woodley, Stephen. "Ecological Integrity: A Framework for Ecosystem-Based Management" in Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change, David Cole and Laurie Yung, eds. (Washington: Island Press, 2010). Worster, Donald Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Pantheon, 1985). Yeager, Dorr. Your Western National Parks: A Guide (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1947).
317 Yetman, David. “Ejidos, Land Sales, and Free Trade in Northwest Mexico: Will Globalization Affect the Commons?,” 41 American Studies (2000). Zahniser, Howard. “The Need for Wilderness Areas.” National Parks Magazine (October-December 1955).
318