Murie In The Bad Lands

Do you know the name Olaus Murie? If not, don’t feel bad. Neither did I ten years ago. Then I underwent a Lillian Crook education, and now I can tell you he is widely acknowledged as the Father of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and an early and long-serving director of the Wilderness Society. He was one of America's leading mammalogists. Prior to joining the Wilderness Society, he served twenty-five years as a field biologist with the U.S. Biological Survey, now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He lived in Moose, Wyoming, near Jackson Hole, where he helped established the National Elk Range. He spent much time in Alaska. He was the author of “The Elk of North America” and many articles on natural history.

So it’s fitting to read some of the best words ever written about North Dakota, written by Murie, right now, as we finally begin the process of reducing the elk herd in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which starts Monday. I’ll give you that connection in a minute.

Murie was almost a native North Dakotan. He grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota, so he knew this part of the country well. To read a short NPS website biography, go here. To learn more about this remarkable man, and his equally remarkable wife Mardy, read her book “Two in the Far North.” Anyway, sometime in the early 1950’s, shortly after the creation of Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park (later to become Theodore Roosevelt National Park), Murie was assigned to come to western North Dakota to study the wildlife of the newly created Park, and to make recommendations on what the wildlife population ought to be that would most resemble the period Roosevelt had spent here 50 years earlier. That was important because this was a memorial park, not a true national park.

A few months ago, when I started putting into this space some of The Best Things Ever Written About North Dakota, Lillian shared with me a copy of an 8-page document – a handwritten account of Murie’s visit to western North Dakota. In Murie’s own hand. It is the draft of a report he wrote as he considered making recommendations about wildlife in the newly created park. It’s a marvelous little bundle of paper, complete with words and lines crossed out, handwritten edits and corrections, and blanks where he was going to check a fact and insert it later in his final report (I've done that for him here). I don’t know this for sure, and Valerie Naylor, the current TRNP superintendent, can correct me if I am wrong, but it is likely upon Murie’s team's recommendation that elk were reintroduced into the park. He was, after all, one of the premier elk experts in America at the time. But it was not without some trepidation that he made this recommendation. Read Murie’s words of caution carefully below. I’ve highlighted them like this, because this is a timely issue. The elk numbers have now gotten way out of hand, and they’re going to start killing those elk next week. Stay out of Theodore Roosevelt National Park for a couple months. There are going to be bullets flying.

So here’s a transcription of Murie’s handwritten essay-like notes. Surely, these are some of the best words ever written about Theodore Roosevelt National Park, western North Dakota, and the entire state of North Dakota. By a truly remarkable man.

Olaus J. Murie

The Little Missouri had been to me a legendary stream. I think I could hardly have described my vicarious impression of the river, so vague can a purely imaginary picture be. Now, here before me, was reality.

It was the 4^th of November, when winter should have settled with snow flurries, somber skies and threat of more to come. But we were enjoying a remarkably pleasant week of clear blue skies.

Allyn had driven us through the badlands of North Dakota, our crude roads leading north from National Park Headquarters. Eventually he had pulled off the road. Nic, Jim and I had followed him as he pushed his way through weeds and rose bushes among the gray cottonwoods, until we assembled at the river bank. Over there, across the river, somewhere back in those cottonwoods, was the site of Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch.

It was hard for me to comprehend all that our guide was telling us, for my thoughts went back to boyhood days, when I had sought adventure in “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman,” and ______________ (likely he later filled in “Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail”—Jim). I recalled the virile writings of our hunter-naturalist President, how they had pictured in the boyhood mind the antelope and bison, the calling of geese, the sage grouse – the appeal of far places – the boyhood yearning for adventure in wilderness. With a sort of wonder at the chain of events, I reviewed more recent sequences. North Dakota now had a national park. Congress had created the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park. I understood it was to commemorate the wilderness life of an outstanding President. And here we were, a group of us, with an assignment to study the wildlife of this new park, its historic and wilderness aspects, and to make recommendations on what might be done to restore the animal life that was part of the scene in Roosevelt’s day.

We looked about us on the river bank. Several cottonwoods had been cut up by beavers years ago, and we looked at the gnawed lengths. There were the tracks of a white-tailed deer in the mud near the water. The muddy river, flowing silently by, was at low stage this time of year, but we could see the high scars in the cottonwoods, where ice in spring flood had cut and bruised them. And over across there was the historic site. What a memorial – the muddy banks and muddy water of a small river and a line of twisted leafless cottonwoods! Behind them rose a low bluff, rising to the upland beyond.

But its very simplicity was eloquent. There at one time had stood a significant log cabin. By recognizing this humble spot on the bank of the Little Missouri we do more than establish a reminder of a prominent national political figure. It pleased me that this was not a mountain spire, a figure carved in a cliff, or some other obtruding picture. By selecting this spot where had once stood a cabin, representative of the bigger scene, a spot no different from the rest of it up and down the river (rather less striking, in fact, than the rest of it), we effectively recognize an adventurous era, a significant experience of mankind, a stretch of country that is capable of instilling in us something that can hardly be named in ordinary prose, but may only be guessed by the poet.

A bald eagle appeared and settled for a moment in a big cottonwood. Then he rose in the air and we ourselves seemed to feel a lift as we watched him soar upward on the air currents near the bluff. He swerved downward again and we watched his shadows moving across the cliff—then up again, and he slanted off behind the hill.

Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park. That is the imposing title bestowed by Congress. I don’t know who drew the boundaries, or why they were drawn as they are. The park is made up of three distinct pieces. The south area, containing park headquarters, abuts on Highway 10 at Medora. It comprises a picturesque section of the badlands, with the Little Missouri running through it, and consists of ____ acres (46,178.57 – Jim). Northward, down the river, is the site of the Elk Horn Ranch, a small acreage dedicated to preserve that historic location. Still farther down river is the north area, another rugged section of the badlands, containing ___ acres (24,070.32 – Jim).

As we looked over the area during these autumn days and contemplated the grasslands, the supply of browse, the thin line of trees, the forage resources contained within the park boundaries, we could have wished the area was a little bigger, that these two areas were somehow connected. We discussed such concepts as biological units. We scrutinized the species of brushes present and judged their palatability for various “big game” species. We gratefully estimated the carrying capacity of some remnants of original grama grass prairie which had been included within the boundary. Bison? Mountain sheep? Elk? What would they do to the limited supply of red ozier dogwood, plum cherry? They would have to be fenced in, and stray cattle fenced out, for farms adjoin the park on all sides and we can’t have bison and elk running loose on the country side.

We were thrilled to find flocks of sharp-tailed grouse, apparently thriving. What would reintroduced grazing and browsing animals (do) to the security for grouse? I was acutely conscious of the small population of such grouse on the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming some years ago, and how they dwindled year by year until they disappeared. Had the intensive winter feeding of elk on this refuge, over a long period of years, affected the food supply of those grouse by destroying the willow growth?

Such are the considerations. Such is the problem in trying to keep some sort of biological balance in a national park of limited area. (Are you finally listening, National Park Service?—Jim) The natural vegetation is also part of the biological assets. These bits of short grass prairie, for instance, in a land that is steadily going under the plow. Where prairie has given way to plowed fields elsewhere, and has become but a memory in the minds of men, how precious then must be these fragments.

I pictured in my mind the future visitor to the badlands, we’ll say the visitor who is attuned to the message (of) wild open country. I pictured him climbing up to a grassy plateau, and sitting there on a knoll to contemplate the scene. There would be the scent of sod at his feet. He would look with interest at the curled heads of the grama grass, the grama grass of Roosevelt’s day, the grama grass of the tumultuous days when this country was formed.

Here is history! Our visitor looks across the badlands—the broken, tumbled badlands—domes and bluffs and color-banded rims. Traces of lignite coal are there, speaking of ages still farther back in time. And the colored ________, (scoria, he would have added later—Jim) the product of native clay baked by burning coal seams. Traces of petrified forest. A landscape of clay and sandstone, persistently, patiently carved by muddy water, through infinite ages, until these rugged land forms took shape. Our visitor will visualize the broad undulating North Dakota plains, here in the west broken open and dissected to reveal the long, long Nature’s history of the state, which is elsewhere hidden beneath plowed fields and dwellings of the state’s homeland.

The first morning we had gone up Munsen Creek, and came to a prairie dog town. At the far edge we saw two coyotes trotting about, and examination of some droppings we found revealed that they had previously fed on prairie dogs and wild plums. A few days later we saw a badger and a coyote in another “dog town,” and they had apparently nearly depopulated this prairie dog village. The badger glared at us before he disappeared down the enlarged burrow he had taken from a prairie dog. In the stream bottom nearby we found the tracks of a bobcat.

A guide in the north area told us of seeing a badger, a coyote and a bobcat in a prairie dog town. The bobcat had a prairie dog in its mouth. The acquisitive coyote made a run at him, but the bobcat ran up a tree a little way and calmly devoured his game. When he came down, the coyote again made a run at him, and they disappeared in the woods. The badger had been nosing about at the far edge of the “town.”

These are the experiences this new park holds for the appreciative visitor who will quietly seek them out. These are the thoughts we had in mind as we went over the country day after day, sizing up range land, seeking proper habitat for mountain sheep in case they should be brought back, trying to anticipate the impact of one animal population on another, the impact of both of them on plant life, and the impact of hordes of people on all of it. We tried to visualize as much of the historic animal life, restored as nearly as practicable, on a sustained basis, all within the boundary of land allowed by the act of Congress.

We were continually intrigued by the prairie dogs. We visualized mountain sheep restored to the area, at home once more on the pinnacles and bluffs overlooking grassy bottom domain of the prairie dogs; bison lazily moving about on the adjacent bits of prairie. In short, our study was a mixture of routine biological study and intense personal enjoyment of what we found. After all, in a national park the end product is the enjoyment of the natural scene by people. Our studies and recommendations should necessarily contribute to those ends.

To me one of the most enjoyable experiences occurred on the last day of our stay. The superintendent had invited a group of people from the state, representatives of various organizations—State Historical Society, Soil Conservation Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and particularly the North Dakota Game and Fish Commission. They were most enthusiastic about the prospects for the National Park. Heartening, indeed, was the assurance from the head of the Game and Fish Commission: “We are all for it. When you need help, just call on us.” (Are you listening, Terry Steinwand?—Jim)

I remembered what I had been told about the dedication on ___ ___ ___ (June 4, 1949 – Jim). The people of North Dakota had turned out 30,000 strong, and the parking problem was something to be concerned about. Evidently North Dakota appreciates its National Park. When a people understands and cherishes a natural treasure, I believe they are in the frame of mind to get the most out of it in historical significance, enjoyment and inspiration.

I like to remember one evening on the rim of the deeply chiseled valley in the north area. We had been looking down on the winding course of the Little Missouri far below us, with its typical line of cottonwoods, and bordered by the typical badlands formations. I had thought of those high school days in Minnesota, when I had borrowed Roosevelt’s books from the library. I remembered Frederic Remington’s drawings, remembered the burning desire to find this western scene. Will the people of today, the people of tomorrow, continue to feel the pull of land that beckons to a sample of our country as it was, a country of space and beauty and a sense of freedom?

The sun went low and dusk was creeping over the valley below us. We watched that poetic quality of light envelop the cliffs and rims about us, and settle over the river bottom where we glimpsed the gleam of water in the bends.

Not a serrated mountain range here, not a mossy forest, nor a lake-studded paradise. Rather an open country; its trees are twisted and storm worn, and grow sparingly along the river banks. A raw country, a country in the making, perhaps. This very fact, this character, the attributes of chiseled buttes and domes, the clay and the prairie grass, the eagle, the prairie dogs, deer, coyote; the flocks of grouse at the heads of the wooded draws—all of these spell one phase of our west—not to be compared with different ones—to be taken and enjoyed for its own singular beauty and character. Ordinary country, but with an aura of the west—something that drew Roosevelt, the adventurous ones.

How about that? Some of the best words ever written about North Dakota? I think so, too. And you can't imagine the intense pleasure I got reading them in Olaus Murie's own handwriting.