Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Survey party, with pack train, en route upon the trail between the Yellowstone River and East Fork, showing the manner in which all parties traverse these wilds. 1871.U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (Hayden Survey). Photo by Jackson, W.H.


reaching the lake and establishing a base camp. Wary of recent Indian raids in southern Montana, the party experienced no such events during their time in Yellowstone that summer. Annie’s maiden voyage was on July 29. Te craſt was named


aſter the daughter of Henry L. Dawes, a congressman critical for funding the expedition. Dawes’s son Chester was on the expedition. Add more titles to Hayden’s résumé: those of lobbyist and shrewd promoter. Hayden had pressed the Grant administration and the


Reconstruction Era Congress for an expedition to explore Yellowstone. He wanted to prove, once and for all, that reports of an otherworldly landscape full of wonderful geological features—vents spewing nonstop steam, periodic huge geysers, wildly colorful hot springs, mud volcanoes, and even petrified trees—did in fact exist as described by explorers, trappers, miners, hunters and natives. And if what he found lived up to the fantastic descriptions, he wanted Congress to preserve it and not let it fall prey to land speculators and commercializa- tion. (Like most Americans at the time, he gave little thought to the idea that in order to take possession of Yellowstone, Native Americans would have to be dispossessed of still more territory). Stevenson, who was Hayden’s assistant, and Elliott, a sketch


artist, made their way out to the island and back just fine. Te weather cooperated that day. Te island was promptly named for Stevenson upon their successful return to base camp, for he was the first to step ashore on the island. For the duration of the expedition, little Annie assisted in hydrographic, topo- graphical and pictorial surveys of the lake and surrounding peaks, probing and circumnavigating the entire lake in the process. Te boat performed a “most excellent service” accord- ing to one of Hayden’s stories written for Scribner’s Monthly. Hayden and some of his men found their way to the Upper


Basin of Yellowstone’s geyser areas, witnessing, sketching and recording information about Old Faithful and other thermal


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features, before returning to their encampment on the lake. In 1872, less than a year aſter Hayden had completed his


expedition, he returned to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and submitted his report on Yellowstone. Congress passed legislation creating America’s first national park. In 2022, Yellowstone celebrated its 150th birthday, in spite of historic flooding that temporarily closed the park. When founded, Yellowstone was first managed by the De-


partment of the Interior. For the next few years, it remained a wilderness accessible only to intrepid visitors, until 1883 when banker and financier Jay Cooke’s Northern Pacific Railway was completed and brought tourists to within fiſty miles of the park’s northern boundary. Although rules and restrictions were in place, the new national park saw alarming amounts of poaching, to the point that it was put under the authority of the U.S. Army for protection in 1886. Te army established a base at the foot of Mammoth Hot Springs in the northern part of the park to house troops and managed it for the next three decades. Many of the buildings are still in use there. Te portable boat did not return from the shores of Yel-


lowstone Lake at the conclusion of the expedition. It was leſt, disassembled, somewhere on its shores, the men not wishing to pack it back out. Today, only a few sailboats ply the waters of Yellowstone Lake, although it draws plenty of power boats, canoes and kayaks in its short summertime season. A commer- cial boat, the Lake Queen, carries sightseers out to Stevenson Island from Bridge Bay Marina. If Tomas Moran could come back and visit today, he might


be tempted to paint in a small sailboat on the lake. While there is no evidence he sailed it, Moran’s August 4th diary entry records a direct experience he had in the small craſt: “[T]ook the Boat to the springs farther round the lake & had a hard pull to get back as the Lake was rough & the wind against us.” Troughout the late summer of 1871, the Annie repeatedly proved its seaworthiness. •SCA•


SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR


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