Fish Culture in Yellowstone National Park: The Early Years: 1901-1930 | book review by Sherry Galetka, The US Review of Books

An avid angler, knowing that not all the waters in Yellowstone National Park were teaming with fish, contacted the U.S. Fish Commission with a request to begin stocking those that were fishless. The request was approved, and the first planting took place in 1889. A sport fishery study was completed, and in the 1890s, a flurry of fish stocking began, often without consideration for the native species. The author has included historical maps that depict the true fish culture at that time within the park. The U.S. Fish Commission determined that a fish hatchery would be viable and productive. While the journey begun would not likely be permitted in today’s fish culture management, the exciting tales that the author shares explore the passion for this work in the face of nature’s adversity.

Tainter provides a unique perspective in this work as his father, grandfather, and uncles worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. He inherited the photographs and memories that support a pictorial account of their careers. Reaching out to one of the seasonal workers, Bill Tanner, the author explores detailed accounts, sharing classic black-and-white historical photography from Tanner’s archive. Their stories and pictures create an amazing collection. The seasonal workers were brought together from different areas of the United States to collect the spawn from trout. They worked in hazardous places and conditions. The 1927 Tainter Collection of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and accounts from many others who lived this history have created a special story that enhances the historical perspective of the park.

The author has readers feeling the pain of a pinched annual budget that is made up of itemized grocery, freight, and labor for the busy seasonal spawning. The funding came directly from Washington, D.C. The daily labor included building their own lodging by cutting the logs and carrying them long distances through the brush to their destination. Disasters varied from losing the day’s spawn to wind and waves during a storm, hungry bears and wild animals, and, at times, poachers. The stories of interactions between bears wanting domestication because the tourists fed them sweets are especially engaging as readers will feel just how dangerous the interactions with bears could become. But a sweet romanticism comes across in the narrative also as workers check in on mother bears and their young cubs to ensure their routines remain constant.

Archival stories are shared of how the route from the Twin Cities of Minnesota to Yellowstone, called the Yellowstone Trail, was conceived and created. Interestingly, back then, it was identified not with road signs but with orange circles painted on objects along the way. Within Yellowstone Park itself, the roads were often impassable due to washouts, mud, and snow accumulation. The author brings the reader vicariously to the edge of the mountain as trucks filled with supplies or spawn are stranded there in the mud and snow. It took ingenuity and brawn to get vehicles moving on the treacherous road to the place where they could unload. Tainter imbues each line with an idea of how much energy it took to get through a working day.

This vivid recollection of fish culture in Yellowstone National Park really belongs to those seasonal workers who used their imagination and hard labor to make it happen. Tainter has taken their words and images, turning them into a thrilling journey, adding them to a story that is an integral part of Yellowstone’s history. Readers do not need to be anglers to appreciate the accounts of men and women who loved the natural world enough to work within this often hazardous but very picturesque environment.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review