His wife and mother died on the same day, February 14, 1884. Burdened by grief, he struck out for the Dakota territories, where he lived as a rancher and worked as a sheriff for two years. When not engrossed in raising cattle or acting as the local lawman, he found time to indulge his passion for reading and writing history.
Ranching hardened the Harvard graduate and son of wealthy New Yorkers. Later, when President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt stated that his years in the Dakotas made it possible for him to become President.
In 1903, Roosevelt visited naturalist John Muir in Yosemite. Guided into the Yosemite wilderness by naturalist John Muir, the president went on a three-day wilderness trip. The President's staff was much disturbed about Roosevelt dropping his speaking schedule to go off camping. Muir seized the opportunity "to do some forest good in talking freely around the campfire," and the President, referring to John Muir, is quoted as saying "Of course of all the people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite."
John Muir
Roosevelt listened closely to the words of Muir and from his "bully pulpit" became the greatest conservationist America has known. He set aside some 150 million acres in the form of National Parks, National Monuments, forests, and more.
As you read these quotes, note that Roosevelt was concerned about squandering our American resources long before it was popular.
“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”
“There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”
“Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so.”
The people of America did not forget his efforts to preserve our natural resources:
So, it was appropriate that we concluded our 2-week road trip with a visit to Teddy Roosevelt National Park at Medora, North Dakota.
The badlands of North Dakota shaped Teddy Roosevelt. Today, you can see the buffalo roam, wild horses dot the plains, and elk grazing in the park.
Wild flowers are in bloom:
Buffalo lay low in the hot afternoon sun:
We enjoyed the overlooks.
Here are a few thoughts on our 3,300 mile road trip. I tend to view the landscape with an eye to American history.
We set out across the Great Plains where 30 million buffalo once roamed. Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore this territory along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. As late as 1790, Jefferson said "not in a thousand years will the country be thoroughly settled as far west as the Mississippi". It would take less than 30 years.
Of course, that part of the country was already settled. It was the land of the Sioux, Crow, Shoshone, and more Native American tribes. As we passed through the Black Hills, the Bighorn Mountains, and into the Absaroka Mountains, we saw evidence everywhere of the conflict between the settlers and the Native Americans. There was the spot on the Little Bighorn River where Custer made his last stand. There were the old army forts, preserved for tourists to view.
The buffalo herds, numbering 30 million head, dwindled down to 300 head with most of them in Yellowstone National Park. Today, their numbers are up and they are located in the national and state parks out west, as well as in a number of Native American reservations, such as at Fort Peck.
There are monuments to the main characters of this era, names like Crazy Horse, George Armstrong Custer, Buffalo Bill Cody, Lewis & Clark, and others. There is much to see in the American West.
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