Rediscovering Wonderland

Indiebound / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books A Million / Rowman & Littlefield.

My next book is the story of the Washburn Expedition of 1870, a group of Montana officials and businessmen whose credibility could not be doubted like that of mountain men whose earlier descriptions were dismissed at “tall tales.” The expedition searched for all the wonders they had heard about — towering waterfalls, deep canyons, a giant lake and spouting geysers — and were awed when they found them. Their return is delayed by a summer snow storm and a search for a missing man. Truman Everts was lost alone in the wilderness for 37 days.

Encounters in Yellowstone

Indiebound / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-A-Million / Rowman & Littlefield /

In 1877  Nez Perce Indians refused to go onto a tiny reservation and left their homelands in Idaho and Washington hoping to make a new life in the Montana buffalo country When the Army attacked their sleeping village on Big Hole River, the Nez Perce repulsed their enemies and fled leaving 83 dead.. To avoid white settlements they made their way through the wilderness of Yellowstone Park. The chiefs tried to avoid contact with whites, but hot headed young warriors shot a man in the head and captured two young women. Later they killed a music teacher while he stood in the doorway of a remote cabin. Based on first-person accounts by people who lived those terrifying experiences, Encounters in Yellowstone, tells of the Nez Perce’ doomed flight through America’s most beloved national park.

Sidesaddles and Geysers

Indiebound / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books A Million / Rowman & Littlefield /

This anthology of first person-accounts by women who toured Yellowstone Park more than a century ago includes tales of high adventure, raucous humor, and glorious sights. Including a wide range of stories by women who visited from all over the world and at all ages, these accounts reveal their wonder at the interior of the park, the weeks they traveled on horseback through the roadless wilderness, and the later luxuries of well-maintained roads, comfortable carriages, and fancy hotels.

Macon’s Perfect Shot

Indiebound / Amazon / Books-A-Million /

Fourteen-year-old Macon Josey must earn enough money so his widowed mother won’t have to give up his baby sister for adoption. He sees a chance when Uncle Bird Calfee offers him a job caring for art equipment on a trip to the brand new Yellowstone Park. Macon’s mother fears marauding Indians, boiling geysers and ferocious bears, but Uncle Bird promises her he’ll stay on safe routes, and he’ll teach Macon to shoot his father’s rifle. Macon becomes a sharpshooter while he and Uncle Bird travel seeing hot springs, waterfalls, and canyons. This new skill becomes crucial after Uncle Bird falls into a geyser and Macon has to figure out how to get his scalded friend home. The only way leads straight to a band of murderous horse thieves.

The Stories of Yellowstone

Indiebound / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-A-Million / Roman & Littlefield /

The stories in the book span the period from 1807, when John Colter first discovered the wonders of the Yellowstone plateau to the 1920s when tourists sped between luxury hotels in their automobiles. The earliest stories recount mountain men’s awe at geysers hurling boiling water hundreds of feet into the air and their gun battles with hostile Indians. The latest stories are set in a time when matrons felt comfortable taking children to the park without an adult male accompanying them.

Adventures in Yellowstone

Indiebound / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Books-A-Million / Rowman & Littlefield /

After its establishment in 1872, Yellowstone National Park was sufficiently famous that a surprising number of people risked bear maulings, Indian attacks, and geyser burns just to glimpse its wonders. Many of those who survived wrote about their adventures. The best of those stories are collected here, in Adventures in Yellowstone.

From Osborne Russell’s colorful early accounts of the daily lives of mountain men in the 1840s to a story by Eleanor Corthell, who in 1903 took her seven children on a two-month, 1,200-mile tour of the park by wagon, each story opens a new window on a long-overlooked aspect of our nation’s history