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Bob Edwards: This is Morning Edition, I’m Bob Edwards. NPR’s Alex Chadwick set off yesterday on another National Geographic Radio Expedition, this one to Banff National Park in western Canada, in the center of the proposed Yellowstone-to-Yukon conservation zone dubbed Y2Y. The story continues this morning. Chadwick: (SOUND EFFECT: AMBIENT HORSEBACK SOUNDS) In late September I followed a young Canadian field biologist on four days of his epic trek from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to Canada’s Yukon. We traveled by horseback and stayed in warden cabins along our route. They were equipped with the finest of amenities—stoves for heat. (SOUND EFFECT: STOKING THE STOVE) At night I would read through the cabin logbooks, with entries from years past from wardens stopping over on their horseback patrols:
(SOUND EFFECT: TURNING PAGES) They all talked about the weather—the country is remote, and can be dangerous:
(SOUND EFFECT: TURNING PAGES) In many hands the logbooks record the ordinary details of patrolling this landscape—simple, dutiful, daily entries—and still you read in them a sort of dazzled recognition that what exists here really cannot any longer be described as ordinary:
(SOUND EFFECT: PREPARING BREAKFAST) Karsten is the biologist making the Yellowstone-to-Yukon trek. Conservationists propose Y2Y as a network of wildlife corridors connecting the enormous parcels of lands already protected throughout the northern Rocky Mountains. That could prevent groups of animals like grizzly bears [from] becoming isolated; there’s a widely held theory that smaller populations are more vulnerable. The U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada have endorsed Y2Y, and part of Karsten Heuer’s mission is to carry the message throughout the region. The conservationists have adopted grizzly bears as an icon but are wary of them nonetheless. Karsten Heuer: I’ve had to dodge a few valleys that were along my route that I couldn’t go through because there were bear closures, because of maulings and lots of bear activity. (SOUND EFFECT: BOOTED FEET CROSSING FLOOR) Chadwick: (SOUND EFFECT: DOOR OPENING) He pointed to the outside entrance. Heuer: You can see that the parts around the door have been ripped off this year in one piece. You can actually see the bite marks where the bear has tried to break in. It’s been a pretty tough fall for the bears around here because there’s a berry crop failure. Chadwick: (SOUND EFFECTS: GATE SWINGING OPEN, PREPARING HORSES) In the mornings we would gather the horses and pack the two mules. Usually Karsten is on foot, with only his dog, Webster, for company—a dog knows about bears on the trail before a human does. (SOUND EFFECT: MOUNTING THE HORSES) His normal pace is 15 miles [25 kilometers] a day, not hurrying. His pack weighs as much as 60 pounds [30 kilograms]; he’s often 10 days between resupply points. He doesn’t have a radio; he’s armed with nothing more than his experience and good sense. He’s young—just 30—but he seems to know what he’s doing. (SOUND EFFECT: DEPARTING ON HORSEBACK) Heuer: I’m definitely taking a lot of precautions that I wouldn’t normally take if I were traveling with more people, or if it was a shorter trip. You know, everything from my footing—if I’m clambering across a shale slope or above a cliff or something, I’m definitely a lot more cautious and thinking about each individual step than I normally would. Chadwick: (SOUND EFFECT: HORSES ON THE TRAIL) He had company for this section: a couple of friends, a wrangler for the horses—seven of us in all. We rode out in the morning bunched together but soon were strung along the trail for half a mile [one kilometer] or more. Since the first day of sleet and snow, the weather had cleared. There was frost every morning, warm sun by noon, miles of mountain and meadow in between. (SOUND EFFECT: HORSE WHINNY) That afternoon we came to the Dormer Pass, and at one end of it, a field of shale. The loose rock made a steep and dreadful slide down to the edge of a fall 100 yards [90 meters] below us. I couldn’t see over the edge, and didn’t want to. The trail across looked long and narrow and dangerous. I eased gingerly out of the saddle, took the reins in hand and started forward, leading the horse behind. (SOUND EFFECT: CROSSING SHALE) Even the horse was scared enough to pay attention. There were no stumbles, and eventually the steep rock led down to another meadow, and a place to stop. [On location, breathing heavily] We’re coming out of the Dormer River area. I’m not sure if it’s a river or a creek. Anyway, it was flat, but I just walked up this ridge side which I guess is a 20-minute climb up here, and I’ve got some idea what Karsten is going through on this walk [more heavy breathing]. It’s not actually the physical part that’s challenging, Karsten Heuer said. What’s hard is coming from the solitude of the mountains back into normal life. He speaks to community groups, he gives interviews, he visits schools. He is working to spread the word about Y2Y, and saying that for the prospects for Y2Y, the news is unexpectedly good. Heuer: We literally haven’t seen one person for four days on the trail, and no significant development beyond the horse-packing trail or hiking trail. What I’ve noticed from Yellowstone to Yukon so far has been that the area is for the most part similar to the area we’ve been passing through. Very intact, but there are the key areas, like the Bow Valley, like the Bozeman/Livingston area in Montana, like the Rogers Pass area in Montana, the Crow’s Nest Pass area in southern B.C. [British Columbia] and Alberta that are starting to cut across the Rockies and turn it into smaller and smaller parts. (SOUND EFFECT: HORSES ON THE TRAIL) Chadwick: Sometime that afternoon we rode into a ranch just outside the park boundary and got off the horses. We had covered a little more than 50 miles [80 kilometers]. Karsten was going to rest a couple of days and then walk to the town of Jasper, 300 miles [500 kilometers] north. By the time he’s finished next September, he’ll have gone 22 hundred miles [3,500 kilometers]—and a lot of that through some of the wildest country left in North America, places that really haven’t ever been tamed. Heuer: I’m pretty confident, yeah. [Chuckle] I mean, I hope I’m not being brash, but people have done different sections of it. And so if other people have done different sections, and you have the patience and the flexibility, I think, y’know, Just put your mind to it and you can do it. Chadwick: Do you ever read the journals of the old explorers and pioneers and people who were here doing this the first time it was done? Heuer: Definitely, and that’s a big inspiration for me, because, y’know, here I have leather hiking boots, polypropylene underwear that wicks away the moisture and keeps you warm even when it’s wet, Gore-Tex—all these things that these guys never had. They would literally be carrying a wool blanket, a piece of canvas, crawl under a tree when it rained, light a fire, and probably get next to no sleep—and then continue completely soaked for weeks on end. No maps even, y’know? I have maps. So really what I’m doing is much, much less difficult than what they were doing. So when I’m having a tough time I often think of the first explorers that were through these areas, or the natives, and that’s good inspiration for myself. Webster! Chadwick: And your dog. Heuer: Yeah, Webster and the ranch Webster must have escaped….try to keep him in a house, but he won’t stay long. Chadwick: No, he won’t. And neither will his hiking pal, Karsten Heuer. He’s on a winter break now; he’ll continue his journey north from Jasper on skis in February. For Radio Expeditions, this is Alex Chadwick, NPR News, in the Y2Y zone of Alberta, Canada. Bob Edwards: Radio Expeditions is a coproduction of NPR and the National Geographic Society. For more on this expedition, visit nationalgeographic.com. | Top | |