Travel season is upon us, and if your itinerary includes the world’s first national park, the Land Library strongly recommends the University of California Press’ massive new Atlas of Yellowstone. With over 250 pages of maps, graphs, and supportive text, this atlas covers a wide range of topics, including Native American history, rivers, wildlife, settlement history, geothermal activity, fire — and, last but not least, the supervolcano that underlies it all:
The Path of the Yellowstone Hot Spot: one of many well-executed cartographic images from the Atlas of Yellowstone.
Wherever you may travel, remember this: travel light, but always bring books! Here’s a few more excellent travel companions from the Land Library’s shelves:
Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country by Marc S. Hendrix — from geysers and volcanics to glacier-sculpted peaks, this is an excellent guide to one of our most geologically important national parks. And for an excellent introduction to Yellowstone’s history, George Black has written a massive new book, Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone.
And there’s plenty of fun books you can add to any young adventurer’s bulging backpack:
The Wolves are Back by Jean Craighead George, with paintings by Wendell Minor, a beautifully done picture book on the wolf’s reintroduction to Yellowstone — an excellent lesson on how the presence of one animal can profoundly effect an entire ecosystem. Also pictured above: Yellowstone Moran: Painting the American West by Lita Judge. Artist Thomas Moran was a member of the 1871 Hayden Survey. His paintings helped persuade Congress to declare Yellowstone a National Park the very next year.
Yellowstone’s ability to inspire remains strong. Park Ranger Shelton Johnson was featured in one of our past posts, and his words still move us deeply:
