ANNIE
Sailing Yellowstone Lake in 1871 | Story by Jett Conner |
The Annie, first boat launched on Yellowstone Lake by Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942, photographer O
ne summer morning two men shoved a small boat off the northern shore of a high mountain lake and rowed
out while members of their party on land cheered them on. Ordinarily, there would be nothing remarkable about this event, hardly worth mentioning, except the body of water was Yellowstone Lake and the year was 1871. As far as is known, nobody before had ever entered its waters in a boat. Certainly not in a sailboat. Te two men, Jim Stevenson and Henry Elliott, were mem-
bers of the Hayden Geological Survey, an official exploration funded by the United States Congress for the purpose of sur- veying the Yellowstone Basin, a place of mystery and rumors. Tey were heading for a prominent island in the distance with the purpose of exploring and bringing back rock and plant specimens. And while everyone celebrated the boat’s successful launch, they also worried about weather. Winds could roil the waters suddenly on that lake, whipping the surface into furious whitecaps with little warning. Te boat, a skin-on-frame affair, 3 ½ feet wide by 12 feet long
by 22 inches in depth, was designed by the expedition’s leader, geologist and surveyor Ferdinand V. Hayden. It had been built by woodworkers in the expedition to his specifications, then disassembled plank by plank and packed up on a mule for the arduous trek from Fort Ellis, Montana Territory to the north- ern edge of Yellowstone Lake. Once there and reassembled with heavy canvas covering the frame, oars that were fashioned from timber on site, a rudder, and a blanket strung between
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two masts serving for a sail, the little boat was ready for the water. Add to scientist Hayden’s list of accomplishments and titles that of “small boat designer.” I first spotted what I thought was a sailboat in a Tomas
Moran painting of Yellowstone Lake while visiting a Moran exhibit at the Denver Art Museum some years ago. Turns out I was wrong about the sailboat (most likely a white triangular rock formation). But I was initially intrigued. How in the world could a sailboat show up on remote Yellowstone Lake in 1871? Recently I learned that, indeed, a sailboat was launched on Yellowstone Lake in that year. Once again, I was captured by the idea. Moran was part of Hayden’s team of over thirty men,
including photographer William Henry Jackson, one other artist, scientists, soldiers, a cook, guides, and several sons of prominent congressmen who had been chosen, not coinci- dently, to join the adventure. In addition to many horses and pack mules, and a two-wheeled cart built as an odometer to measure distance, there was this portable boat. Aſter leaving Fort Ellis in mid-July, the group followed the
Yellowstone River upstream (south) into the basin. Taking their time to explore, survey and collect materials from the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, several members even climbing down the steep walls of the canyon to the river and back to collect specimens, they then proceeded with some difficulty along the western bank of the river through for- ests tangled with standing and fallen lodgepole pines, until
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