Guide to the Natural World. Amy Grisak (Yellowstone, Waterton, Glacier National Parks and more)

We've lost touch a lot with the natural world and where we fit and how we fit.

Nature for me is my perfect place to be at any time.

The sounds are peaceful.

They're tranquil.

I love the sound of water, the rivers, the streams, even the lakes and the little ripples.

I love the birds, the sites, the wildlife.

It's just gorgeous.

My parents raised my siblings and me pretty much in the wilderness.

And that's where my husband and my dog spend our time.

Well today's guest lives life in nature.

Amy Grisak is an author for guided books, guided hikes, and other books for the Yellowstone, Waterton Lakes and Glacier National Parks areas.

Her upbringing did not include hiking or camping.

I wasn't raised by a nature loving family so much, but I still gravitated naturally.

I grew up in Northeastern, Ohio.

Which is was, decreasing a bit, was farmland.

And so we had some space to roam.

And so growing up, I was always finding myself back in the woods and playing in the Crick and looking for nuts and berries and wild foods and, and always playing back there.

Amy frequented the local library to read about the flowers, the birds and the wildlife.

The pictures and words, mesmerized her.

And she knew she wanted to live as close to nature as possible.

Mother nature was indeed calling Amy.

Sometimes you're just not born in the right place.

And so as soon as I could, after high school did a short stint at Ohio state university and then moved out to Montana.

I knew I needed to be out west where there were more cows than people.

We are in the west and not quite to the Pacific Northwest.

So you have Washington on the west coast, a little bit of sliver of Idaho, and then we have Montana and we border the Canadian border too.

In Great Falls, Montana, we are about an hour and a half from the Canadian border.

I want to go into nature and a fabulous quote from Edward Abbey.

Basically he says "the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach.

It is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, which bore us and sustains us."

Let's start from there about the hunger for what is always beyond reach.

Yeah.

When I read that, it just, it struck a chord of course with me, because it's true.

When you are out in nature, at least I find myself that you follow these trails and

it's hard to stop sometimes because you just want to keep going.

A couple of weeks ago, we did a trail up to what's called Headquarters Pass and just a short three and a half miles one way, moderate elevation gain mountain goats along the way.

But you get to the top of the past and the others with me, they're like, well, where does this go?

It goes anywhere

you want.

There's a

million and a half acres of the Bob Marshall wilderness in front of us.

And you could just follow the trail and go.

It's a calling.

It's tough.

When I first came over headquarters pass.

Gosh, about 20 years ago, I had spent over a week in the Bob with an outfitter.

I was photographing the whole trip for him..

And we started on the west end corner side of the Bob Marshall and rode over a hundred miles during the time back there.

And we came out over Headquarters Pass.

And I just remember, you know, even after all that time, back in the wilderness and no bath outside of jumping in the white river and going down the ripples, roughing it, even though it wasn't roughing it at all.

Standing on the top of the pass and going, I don't want to leave I didn't want to go.

Beautiful.

It's

wilderness.

It is wilderness.

It can be treacherous, but ever so tranquil in, in mother nature's own way.

You author books on hiking trails in Montana.

I did actually a nature guide to the different plants and animals in Glacier National Park and Waterton national park.

Falcon is the one who published it.

There's so many people who hike the trails and they love the splendor of Glacier, but they really don't understand what they're looking at.

Why is that rock red?

Or, what is that little, squirrel, is it a chipmunk or the score?

You know, they don't know what it is.

And I firmly believe that when people understand what they're looking at, whether it's a butterfly or a flower that they love it that much more.

It was so much fun to photograph.

I did most of the photos, we didn't do everything cause we only had about 11 months to pull the book together, but to photograph it and research everything, it was a blast.

I agree with you with the understanding of mother nature.

That understanding might even include preservation and conservation.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

So let's talk about the kinds of information people need to have when they enter glacier national park or Waterton lakes, national park, or really.

Any wilderness or natural environment.

I

think an appreciation for what the environment is.

One thing we always like to stress is no matter how beautiful it is, you have to respect it.

Because, whether it's the weather that can change, it can start out a beautiful, 80 degree day and snow by the end of it.

You have to be prepared there and then to understand the wild residents.

To understand the wildlife and the behavior.

in this book, you talk a lot about the wildlife, of course.

And you talk a lot about the flowers.

What kind of values do people have to have when they're out enjoying the wild flowers and the vegetation in these parks or wherever they're at in nature?

Well, I

totally understand people going Gaga over the wild flowers.

I mean, they are just absolutely spectacular in the park in Glacier and Wateron..

And there's so many areas where it's just, it seems endless where you'll have entire Meadows filled with flowers, but I always want to stress to people that we need to leave them there.

Don't pick the wild flowers as tempting as it might be.

We have so many people visiting glacier in particular now.

It's well over 3 million and just increasing every year that if even a fraction of those people picked wild flowers, that is , fewer flowers that will go

And of course the insects feed the birds and the birds help pollinate and spread Pines and the whole chain there.

So picking one flower can really have an impact that that we don't want to have.

So we want to remember to leave positive imprints and footprints and nothing else.

That's a good point and very important.

And people also need to keep in mind that, you know, so many people who visit glacier they're out for maybe a week or two, and they don't understand how short our season is.

So everything is basically trying to make their living in a very short amount of time.

And so every flower really is a precious resource.

you have to respect it.

Everything is connected.

Of course people are terrified and fascinated with Grizzlies all at the same time.

So many people want to see a grizzly.

They want to of course see a grizzly at a distance type thing, but it helps

I think when they understand how I don't want to say how bears think, but kind of, kind of how bears think, you know, what, what is their motivation and that type of thing so

Because if we screw up the bears often suffer

from it.

One of those policies that the national parks and national forest have with regard to wildlife.

If wildlife attacks a human, even though it's the human's fault, like leaving food in the tent or, or whatever the case might be.

Traumatizing an animal by, by throwing things at it or, or teasing it and provoking it.

So I'm always saddened when animals are removed from mother nature, from their home and euthanized.

, I used to work for national geographic television.

The very first program we did was on bear attacks and it was looking at different scenarios and basically what the people did wrong.

I mean, truthfully, and so it was eye opening because for the most part, the bears are incredibly tolerant.

People don't read these books, they think that they are infallible.

How do you instill this?

Because people aren't going to generally go pick up a book to read before they go out.

How can we get the information to them?

Because we do have bear attacks because people don't understand, they don't have the knowledge.

They don't have the background to protect themselves, to protect the bear in the right way so that the bear doesn't attack.

So how do you instill that before someone goes hiking?

It's tough.

And the one thing that I'm finding in Glacier is having those one-on-one conversations, which is a very small drop in bucket

but I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people on the trail who are starting a trail and letting them know you are not prepared for this.

Even last weekend, a friend and I were hiking up to a lookout in Glacier and a beautiful fall day.

I mean, but it was Chile and this is a 12 mile round trip hike.

And when we were coming out, so, oh, a mile or so from the beginning, there was an older couple.

And they were hiking up and she asked, well, how far is it?

We tried to explain to them, you have five miles and they had no pack, no water.

And we told them that.

You have nothing don't hike up there because you can get, and it's, you don't have to go far sometimes to really get into trouble.

And so, telling people you are not prepared for this, do not do that.

And I've even had people who, we struck up a conversation on the trail and they had bear spray, but they didn't know how to use it.

And they still had on the little safety.

Oh no.

And I said, well, we need to cut this off first.

And cut it off and then try to explain to them the situation when you would use it and how they would use it.

I never want to come across as some know-it-all but it seems like when you strike up these conversations with people who do want to know, because nobody wants to get hurt,

nobody wants to helicopter ride out of the park.

And so I think genuinely, a lot of people are concerned.

I mean, with that said working on those national geographic programs, and a lot of times it was a situation where it is human animal conflict.

You would approach somebody and say, you're too close.

This is the behavior I'm seeing with the jaws popping and just that body language that you really get to know.

They don't care.

So it's like, okay, we're just going to set the cameras for the money shot.

We were in the Grand Tetons one year.

There was a fellow who wanted to get pictures of a calf elk.

Yes.

And we know how moose and elk can be when they have their young, they can be, uh, quite more dangerous than, than having a bear that might be across the river.

So.

My dad, we were there and we were in the, in the truck and this fellow walked down to where the elk were and he started yelling at the mother to get rid of her so he could get his picture of this calf.

And of course the mother started charging.

We did flag down the ranger because luckily he just happened to be driving by and we flagged him down.

That guy.

He would not, he would not come.

I don't know if he fined him, but.

I just was shocked that somebody would, would do that.

Oh my gosh.

And I used to work in Alaska.

I used to live in Alaska.

I was on Kodiak island and I was with the Alaska state parks.

And we did, I was part of wildlife management, but anyway, there was another island where

this fellow who came from the east Eastern United States to pick blueberries and you are supposed to get a permit from our office and he did not.

He apparently he never would get a permit.

He would go pick his blueberries.

And there was a grizzly bear.

The mother had two Cubs and the man was picking in the same blueberry area and he got upset at one of the Cubs.

So he bonked the cub on the head with his bucket.

You don't want to do that.

You can already guess what happened?

And luckily, there were so many witnesses on the boat that brought him there.

They saw everything.

He was killed.

The mother to not, fight for her Cub.

We did not euthanize the bear, but we did have to go retrieve the body of the gentleman.

I know it's and it's sad.

We've lost touch a lot with the natural world and where we fit and how we fit.

The

natural world is very fragile.

And we have caused that fragility through ignorance.

So now with this book you have pictures of birds.

You have the flowers, you have the wildlife and people can read it.

So can you Amy, talk a little bit more about the positive imprints and the inspiration of the two books, one of them is on the Found Photos of Yellowstone.

And what is that?

So that is the brain child of a friend of mine.

Mike Francis.

Who's a phenomenal photographer.

I've known Mike for 30 years now, at least.

He has a long history with Yellowstone.

He worked there for quite a while, back in the seventies and, and even before then.

When he visited, he started collecting postcards and photos.

And over 50 years, he is collected photo albums from families who visited or employees.

He approached me several years

and said, can we put together a historical book?

So using these photos that nobody has ever seen, because they've been in family photo albums.

Wow.

I would do my research and write up captions for each.

And, you know, trying to put as many details as possible in each of those captions and then worked with Lee Whittlesey, who was the Yellowstone park historian for, I think about 40 years.

And Lee's a walking encyclopedia of all things, Yellowstone.

And so he would correct me, when I was wrong because what's interesting is even some of the written literature that's kind of the standard national park service

wasn't correct.

But through all of his research, he knows and goes to those primary sources.

So really made sure that everything was accurate.

And, but it was interesting because also looked at even the fashions of the time.

When you're trying to pinpoint the year on something, you're looking at the different dress styles and cameras and things like that to try to figure out what year it was or as close as we could.

And when this book was written and the pictures were out, did the national park service correct their literature with some, with the incorrect information that they had?

No,

that's, that's such a huge machine, but no, it was, it was interesting.

So that just came out in September.

And actually I have not seen a hard copy yet.

Oh, really?

Well, I believe it's available on Amazon.

found photos of Yellowstone.

Look at this front picture,

. So where are these two gentlemen?

And, and of course their outfits definitely demonstrate that it is in a different era.

For sure.

They're at the

Fishing Cone, thermal features.

It was renowned that you could catch a fish in the lake, standing out on that structure and then take your pull- over and put it in the thermal feature and cook the fish

oh.

My gosh.

So then people would kill the fish and then cook it that way.

And then eventually the park service no, no, no more cooking fish in the fishing.

cone.

I would think that because of the fact that it is a thermal cone, that that would just be a dangerous place

exactly.

To discourage that.

Yes,

definitely.

And, and we know that Yellowstone is sitting on an extreme volcanic...

the volcanic activity and, well, it's fascinating.

The other one that really caught my attention doing the research.

It was a feature called the devil's kitchen in the mammoth area.

And that's, you know, off limits now and they don't advertise it.

But from the early, early days, they had a ladder that would go down.

They said you would feel queer sensations, which is basically, poisonous gases down that you felt like you were in the underworld.

So they called it devil's kitchen and there was a little concession stand, I think, in the twenties or thirties where you could buy ice cream, you know?

Gosh.

Yeah.

It's off limits now

. Catherine: Wow.

That is, that is very interesting.

So science has allowed the parks to also understand the world what mother nature has within the park with regard to the thermal that exists and also the volcanic lava

that is beneath and cooking and ready to blow.

If we ever have that explosion, which would be truly the end of the west,

it'd be bad.

That would be very bad.

It would be very bad.

Seismologists keep a very close eye on that area

yeah.

It's, it's fascinating.

And how things have changed.

You know, and we've liked, there was another one called the beehive that was in the old faithful area.

They go through stages where they'll be real active and then they won't for sometimes decades and then bubble back to life and new ones form and, and roads melt.

Sometimes the asphalt roads melt up around mammoth area that's happened and, you know, fire hole.

So it's, it's interesting.

And what was also fun with that book is researching structures that no longer exist in the fire hole region.

There was one called the fountain hotel.

It was 300 rooms.

Or canyon hotel, which was, I would, I would've loved to have seen it.

It was, I believe a mile the whole way around.

It was just massive and gorgeous, but the foundation was faulty and they were going to tear it down.

And just shortly before they were going to tear it down, it burned and they have no idea why.

They say the Grand Lady couldn't basically, wouldn't take that insult of being demolished and she burned.

Wow.

Do you also talk about the dangers of the thermal.

Just mentioning sometimes in some of the photos, because there's one in particular that I can think of where a lady is bending over and looking into old faithful.

So wow.

Your hat to the side, you know, and they all wore hats back then.

She's holding her hat.

So it doesn't fall in.

But so in that respect it's illegal to get this close now and letting people know.

There was another one called Handkerchief Pool

which was as popular as old faithful as anything, because you would put a handkerchief or something and it would float and then it would be sucked underneath for a few minutes and then pop out perfectly clean.

Whoa.

I mean, presidents would go play there.

Yeah.

Until people kept throwing more things in it and it eventually clogged the system.

So does it still exist?

It's still there, but it's not functioning like it once did, but

because of the, all of the things that have been put inside of it, I think

mostly that, you know, and sometimes, like I said, it is cyclical where things don't, the plumbing doesn't work as well.

So not to say that it won't ever come back, but right.

Cause I think they did try to pull a lot of the debris out of it, but I don't think it is functioning anymore.

It was all very tourist oriented type thing.

It was hugely, hugely popular.

I hope that, people will go out and enjoy nature, but also keeping in mind that nature does have her own mind and maybe not mind, but has her own agenda.

Amy, why is it important for us to preserve and conserve nature?

And also why is it so important and imperative for us to enjoy nature?

I

think it's

important for us to enjoy nature and to be, to protect it for the future, because it is us.

I think that's something that a lot of people have lost sight of maybe on a day to day basis.

But when you are out, when you're experiencing nature, it really resonates.

And I think when more people get out and, and sit quietly or go on the trail and are soaking in those sights and sounds, it's like coming home.

And I think once people realize that, then it's going to be preserved for the generations.

And I firmly believe that that's something we have to think about.

It's we have to think about in generations to go that not just us, not even just our children and grandchildren, but those generations.

They need to come home to.

It's important for people to be able to get out in nature.

One of the things that I love the most here in Great Falls, we homeschool our kids.

Our boys are ages 12 and 14.

And so years ago we developed a nature club for the homeschool kids, because a lot of times it's probably primarily moms who are doing the homeschooling

And so we want to try to be able to get groups together and do little hikes.

Sometimes we go over to glacier national park.

We've done that, but the whole goal is to give people the confidence, to be able to go out on their own and to know how to take care of themselves and their kids, because that's the thing, anytime you're taking

kids into a situation you want to be extra careful because it's not always their choice where they're going.

So as a parent, you have to be very safety conscious.

Instilling that confidence in both the moms and the kids, so they can get out and enjoy it and then hopefully take care of it.

Cause I think if kids learn to love nature, when they're young, that's going to carry through their entire lives.

And I think that's important.

I do too.

I think the exposure makes a big difference when it comes to preservation and conservation for the future.

And it's great when you're with kids because they see things that a lot of times we miss.

You know, cause when I'm hiking, you know, depending where I'm hiking, I might be looking for rattlesnakes.

I might be looking for bears, you know, you're scanning, but the kids are going to notice the frog or they're going to notice the spider and you're something cool.

And so a lot of times during our hikes, you know, they're very, very slow, but you see, you see some cool stuff.

And now that we're learning more about mushrooms.

Oh, we're never going to get anywhere.

Oh, that's one thing that I never did, did really learn was, was the mushrooms.

It's amazing.

You get that little piece of knowledge and you just start building on it.

It's fun too, when you see like squirrel teeth marks on 'em, you know, because the squirrels can eat even deadly mushrooms.

Like the amanitas doesn't hurt them at all.

A couple of them will kill us and there's no way to prevent it, but squirrels are fine.

So, yeah, it's, it's neat.

And it's neat to see the connection.

That's another thing with the kids that, we really try to strive is how the birds and the plants and the mammals, everything's connected.

So that's, that's important too.

I think

that is a great reminder that everything is connected.

Amy.

This has been so enlightening and I so much enjoy hearing about your time in nature, but especially the fact that you are building confidence and instilling the understanding of

So I thank you so much for that.

And in ending this segment, this part, one segment on nature what are your closing inspiring words that you'd like to share?

I think just to encourage everybody to get outside and if they are hesitant at all, start with those baby steps, you know, walking the trail, that beckons is just one step after another.

That's the best way to look at it.

You don't have to look at the entire trail or the entire journey.

You just look at putting one foot in front

of

the other

and just going and seeing what you see along the way.

So many times when we're hiking or we're out, it's always, you're thinking about what's at the end.

Where the reality is the best part is what's in between that beginning.

And when you're going to turn around or when you're going to stop.

So that's what you remember.

You don't always remember the end point.

You remember the journey in- between.

Amy, I just love that.

That's what it is.

It's it's the journey in between.

The journey in between Amy Grisack, thank you so much for sharing your positive imprints and everything nature.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Join us next week for part two with Amy Grisack, as she talks about how to do a raised garden.

Sustainability.

Your positive imprint.