I step carefully to the shore of the lake, avoiding the muddy seeps in the tall grasses. It looks as if the sky has fallen into the water, clouds floating like lily pads on the surface. Behind me, the rumble of cars crossing the bridge over Pelican Creek in Yellowstone is an ever-present reminder of the summer crowds. I raise my camera to my eye and frame the reeds growing through reflections of pines.

A car stops behind me. “What do you got? Bears?” shouts the driver. Clouds cover the sun, extinguishing the the sparkles that had danced across the water’s surface. “No, not bears. Reflections,” I answer, pointing with my camera. The driver turns to his passengers, “It’s just reflections!” and ducks back into the shell of his car, spraying gravel in their retreat.

I feel water soaking my shoes as I sink into the soft bank. Stepping back, a tiny frog leaps from beneath my foot, splashing the water and sending a cascade of ripples across the surface. The reflections refract into a kaleidoscope of color, settle and the clouds suddenly come to life–four white pelicans swim into view and I gasp.

Ignoring the mucky smell that rises with every step, I make my way a bit closer. A fallen log provides the perfect bench to sit and watch the great white birds that swim in unison like a water ballet team. What if I hadn’t stopped to take pictures? I ask myself. What else have I missed, like that car full of tourists, in my rush through the park?

The camera lies idle in my hands as I sit and watch the pelicans feed, diving beneath the surface and rising, water streaming from the great ladles of their beaks.

I think about the connections between the bears and the pelicans. How, after lake trout appeared 30 years ago, the cutthroat began to disappear. Both bears and pelicans as well as eagles, ospreys, and numerous other species depended on the cutthroat and they too began to disappear from the lake. Now, after decades of work, the lake trout numbers have been reduced significantly, the cutthroat have rebounded and so too, the pelicans and bears.

Pull one small thread and whole fabric unravels. But I whisper gratitude to all those who worked so long to darn this small piece of the world back together.

***

June was a time of travel for me. I spent one week based in Yellowstone visiting the places that I can’t get to in winter–over Beartooth Pass, out the Northeast entrance to the Cody museum, a tour of the Heritage Center in Gardiner and a trip to Dubois in Wyoming where I went to learn about the Sheepeater Shoshone who lived in Yellowstone before the park was established.

Following that, I went to the Centennial Valley to attend a Full Ecology writing workshop put on by Gary Ferguson and Mary Clare. There I reignited my writing practice which had fallen by the wayside these last few years.

It was easy to become cynical after my time in Yellowstone in the summer. Bear jams miles long, people crowding the boardwalks, barely looking at the scenery that was nothing more than a backdrop for their selfies and overcrowded campgrounds with TV’s blaring. So the Full Ecology workshop was a wonderful antidote to all that.

Not only was the Centennial Valley peaceful and unpeopled, but Gary and Mary reminded me that “There’s more truth and energy to be found in awe than in cynicism. In our culture, being cynical is often associated with being cool; but it’s really the intellect playing separation games, finding cheap ways to reassure you that you’re the clever one, that you’re ‘above all that.’ Cynicism pushes aside wonder, and with great bluster demands to lead. But it has no vision, no humility, no curiosity. And so over and over, it lands us in the same dark corner of the same small room.” from Full Ecology

My first thought after encountering the carload of tourists looking to see a bear and ignoring all else, was cynicism–something I’ve been more and more guilty of these last few years with the way the culture wars are dividing us. But I have to believe that carload of tourists had come all the way to Yellowstone to reconnect in some way with the wild. To experience that wonder and awe that has been lost to so many. That is what I hope to achieve in some small way with this book–to reignite my reader’s curiosity and wonder.

(The prose piece above was written to the Building a Scene prompt from Craig Child’s workshop at Fishtrap Summer Conference this year.)