Open Book Club presents author John Taliaferro reading from his book "Grinnell, America's Environmental Pioneer and His Restless Drive to Save The West," a biography of George Bird Grinnell, 7pm Oct. 5 at the Grizzly Claw Trading Co.
Remember your first glimpse of Glacier National Park or your initial trip to Yellowstone National Park? Livingston author John Taliaferro's encompassing biography of George Bird Grinnell enables the reader to relive those moments as he thoroughly documents the life of one of our country's greatest conservationists, George Bird Grinnell titled "Grinnell: America's Environmental Pioneer and His Restless Drive to Save the West." Taliaferro will be reading and signing his book at the Open Book Club at the Grizzly Claw Trading Company, Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. Seeley-Swan High School poet Crystal Lopez will read her work as well. Everyone is welcome. The event is free and refreshments will be served.
In the late 1800's, Grinnell traveled first by wagon and then by train, summer after summer, acquainting himself with the marvels of the St. Mary's Lake and Swiftcurrent regions, spending months at a time with the Blackfeet, even attaining the honor of chief. Grinnell's advocacy can be credited with the establishment of Glacier National Park, within which he named Grinnell Glacier, Grinnell Mountain and Grinnell Lake. His interest and astute observation of the Cheyenne tribes of southeast Montana led, after several decades of continuous editing and reworking, to the two-volume "Cheyenne Indians" (1923).
Grinnell's embrace of conservationist philosophy got off to an early start. He was fortunate to grow up in an area of northern Manhattan titled Audubon Park, living next door to the family of John James Audubon and forming a close relationship with Audubon's widow Lucy. Although he initially worked for his father's securities firm, his interest in fossils let him to the West – to Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.
Yale-educated from an eastern blue-blood background, the lure of the west drew him year after year to hunt fossils in Nebraska, bison with the Pawnee and to form strong friendships with John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt and the members of the Blackfeet and Cheyenne nations. His strong conservationist ethic led Grinnell to found the Boone and Crocket Club, whose mission it was to preserve large game, and founding and editing the periodical "Forest and Stream," the precursor to today's "Field and Stream."
A former Newsweek senior editor, Taliaferro credits the digital records library at the University of Montana's Mansfield Library with giving him access to over 40,000 pages of Grinnell's correspondence, newly digitized from originals acquired by the Yale Library. Thankfully, Grinnell himself was a man of words, writing copious journals as he documented the natural wonders and peoples of the West he experienced over 130 years ago. And credit goes to Taliaferro to distill this rich history into this wonderful account.
Please join us Saturday, Oct. 5 to enjoy a fascinating presentation from a leading Western historian.
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