Listening to Yellowstone: Day 2, "Ominous Intonations from Beneath"

Castle Geyser, Yellowstone National Park.

"There is also a number of places where the pure suphor is sent forth in abundance one of our men Visited one of those wilst taking his recreation there at an instan the earth began a tremendous trembling and he with dificulty made his escape when an explosion took place resembling that of thunder. During our stay in that quarter I heard it every day."

Daniel Potts, July 8, 1827 

When I think of my first visit to Yellowstone, I remember being overwhelmed – like most are -- by its grandeur, by its abundant wildlife and, perhaps most of all, by the vastness of the country. While my parents were content to visit the major attractions, I spent hours seeking solitary refuge from the crowds in order to sit and simply listen to the environment and enjoy the absence of others.

Sound has always been an integral feature for understanding Yellowstone's allure. Perhaps no story better demonstrates this than when Henry Washburn, Nathaniel Langford, and Gustavus Doane ascended what would later be called Mount Washburn during the 1870 expedition. Upon reaching the summit and viewing the Yellowstone valley in all its splendor, the three were able to make out plumes of smoke rising from trees just beyond the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. At first mistaking the smoke for a forest fire, the party realized upon hearing a low, dull roar that they were seeing and hearing some of Yellowstone's geysers.

But Yellowstone's noises haven't always sounded so serene to travelers making their way through this environment. For Daniel Potts, a fur trapper writing to his brother Robert back in Philadelphia, the land sounded threatening. The thunder of a geyser's eruptions inspired not simply wonder but awe, the feeling of both fear and reverence in the face of poorly understood geothermal activity. (Potts's letters to Robert were later printed in the Philadelphia Gazette and are considered by many to be the first published account of Yellowstone's geysers.)

"OMINOUS INTONATIONS FROM BENEATH"

Nathaniel Langford. Source: Wikipedia

The idea of Yellowstone as being somehow sounding otherworldly, or even demonic, was an accepted truth by many who had ventured to the area. Even the name of one of Yellowstone's creeks, Hellroaring (named by gold prospector A.H. Hubble in 1867), implies an acoustic origin from within the nether world. Likewise Nathaniel Langford, in his preface to David Folsom's account of Yellowstone in 1869, referred to the area's geothermal activity as "so unnaturally natural and…at war with all experiences elsewhere." Langford described his own encounter with a "mud volcano" during the Washburn Expedition of 1870 by noting how "the ominous intonations from beneath, were those of mingled dread and wonder."

Folsom also propagated the myth that the area's indigenous peoples -- the Shoshone, the Crow, the Blackfoot, among others -- had avoided Yellowstone because they "believed that region to be the abode of evil spirits." We know now, of course, that native populations had lived in the present-day park for roughly 11,000 years prior to its first visits by white settlers, prospectors, and explorers. Yet this myth persisted and was used by the park's superintendents to justify removing the native peoples from their ancestral lands.

The sound of Yellowstone's indigenous populations are sprinkled and distorted throughout the early travel literature; Langford notes that the camas roots is known by the Nez Perce as "cowse" and by the Shoshone as "thoig." More frequently, early white explorers heard the sounds of native populations as aggressive (Langord uses the word "hostile" no less than ten times when describing the local peoples). Daniel Potts, in relating an encounter with the Blackfoot, describes how "[t]he Indians raised a temendious Yell and showered down from the Mountain top." [Note: Yellowstone's soundscape as heard by the area's indigenous peoples is area of inquiry I desperately want to pursue. My readings thus far have provided no evidence of such accounts other than those related by Langford and others, which are certainly not to be trusted.]

I've found surprisingly few comments on wildlife sounds in the literature, except for "shrill scream" of the mountain lion, which travelers often mistook for a human cry. I'll write more about this on Thursday when discussing Truman Everts's story. For now, be sure to check out Yellowstone's Sound Library, which I mentioned in yesterday's post, for recordings of the park.