The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1936-01-17

11ASNOAy IA always SpSC0A0sS 80 w
how well the region Of Yellowstone
national park was known to wander
ing bands of traPpers and traders.
The natural display of wonders was
often mentioned by these mountain
men. whose stories, while perhaps
colored by imagination, had a basis
of fact.
James Bridger and the Yellowstone
region have gone down in history as
was n of the early publicists of the
region, for by his yarns of a region
of natural wonders he let it be known
that the west had something worth
Investigating.
Few witnesses there are who really
cared to remember them. Yet by good
fortune, P. w. Norris, a man who knew
Bridger and who became super1nten-
dent of Yellowstone national park,
wrote a paper in 1897 which tells of
what he actually learned from Bridger.
The account of Norris deserves in
! corporation in the early history of the
Judge the value of Bridger's yarns.
Norris, in 1875, had explored a portion
of the park and written a journal
of Rambles in the Far West" which
is not the same as his other account
referred to.
AS one who personally knew Bridger,
the Norris account is worthy of quot
I'm 1874 James Bridger to me per-
] sonally, and as I now know correctly.
| described the canyons of the upper
Snake river but had neither seen nor
obtained a correct conception of the
geysers, deeming them real volcanoes.
His description of Two Ocean pass
south of the park is now admitted to
| hp mainly oNr1ant onS fhoro &c moro
truth than sport Gas per campfire GUS
TOM in his famous story of a foaming
torrent, icy cold at its snowy fountain
head and seething hot half a mile
down the m~ountainside, though not
caused. as he boosted and perhaps be-
lieved. by the velocity of the descent
but by a crag hidden firehole basin
stone.
$50 with his famous legend of a
lake with millions of beaver nearly
impossible to kill because of their SUI
perior acuteness, with haunts and
houses in inaccessible g~rottoes in the
which every mountaineer of party
at once recognized as an exaggeration
of the artificial lake and obsidian
mountain which I discovered, as briefly
stated in my explorations chapter of
this report.
i nave given muCn CreQence
to a well Endorsed campfire legend of
a mountaineer named Smith having,
prior to the days of Bonneville, writ
ten a narrative of his explorations of
the firehole regions and being killed
by Indians before its publication; but
have never found written proof thereof.
Border legends, although often gross
exaggerations, are seldom wholly false,
and scores of them indicate that white
mountaineers did long ago occasion
ally visit portions Of the park for trap
ping or concealment, and perhaps
both.
This is, in fact, proven by ancient
stumps Of large trees cut for breast
works and for .footlogs across the
Crevice, H%ellroaring and other noun
tain torrents, which no experienced
m~ountaineer would fail to recognize as
those of white men, from being round
ed from below in q way never prac-
ticed by any known Indians. Also a cor
ra! near Amethyst mountain and the
ruins OF an ancient blockhouse with
earth roof and portfolios, clearly the
work of unknown white men, near the
grand canyon below Mount Washburn,
and a cache Of martin steel traps of
a peculiar form only used by the Hud-
son Bay trappers some so years ago,
which were recently found along our
road near the Indian arrowhead quarry
at Beaver lake"
Montanans will be interested in his
! statements about naming . few places