"Good ‘car’-ma awaits readers of John Clayton’s The Auto-Biography of Yellowstone—a propulsive, educational, and thought-provoking tour of how experiencing the world’s first national park through a windshield has shaped it, and us."
–Nate Schweber, author of This America of Ours
"I’ve been to Yellowstone many times, but after reading this book I’ll never think of Yellowstone the same again."
–Tom Rea, author of Devil’s Gate
"Combining bears, roads, snowmobiles, even roadside accommodations, this book re-shapes the whole debate about culture and nature in an exciting new way."
–Tim Lehman, author of Up The Trail
The Auto-Biography of Yellowstone: How Cars Continually Transform America’s Natural Treasure
Coming July 1, 2027
The most important date in Yellowstone National Park’s history is July 31, 1915, when the first automobile legally brought tourists into this place that represents everything Americans love about nature.
In The Auto-Biography of Yellowstone, John Clayton shows how automobiles have transformed the park. For example, they’ve encouraged visitors to feed roadside bears, dictated infrastructure at Canyon Village, and, surprisingly, shifted attitudes toward snowmobiles.
Filled with entertaining stories of early automobile adventurers, the book illustrates how automobiles have become central to tourists’ love of Yellowstone. Visitors want to experience nature, and cars simplify yet complicate that relationship. Compared to previous stagecoach tours, cars offer visitors autonomy in experiencing and defining nature, yet cars also insulate people from that nature. A windshield, picture window, or traffic jam muffles the sounds, smells, sights, joys, and fears of being immersed in Yellowstone’s grandeur. Meanwhile, Yellowstone’s vastness poses operational challenges to alternatives such as shuttles.
The Auto-Biography of Yellowstone culminates with the story of Grizzly 399, who chose to live near a road. Her life shows that cars can alter wildlife behavior. As road ecologists are now proving, automobiles continually change not only Yellowstone’s social meaning but the very ecosystem itself.
ISBN: 978-1-4962-4894-7 Published by Bison Books