Spring 2022

Left: Powers speaks with a Lecture Series attendee. Photograph by William Campbell.

Below: Historian Dr. Megan Kate Nelson presents at the May 19, 2022 event, Commemorating Yellowstone’s 150th, at the Shane Center. Photograph by Ethan Confer.

Richard Powers is the author of thirteen novels, including The Overstory and Orfeo, and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award. He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Powers’ work draws on his extraordinary facility with science and technology, producing very human stories entangled with very specialized topics—genetics, artificial intelligence, musical composition, botany, and more. In his latest novel, Bewilderment, Powers delves into astrobiology and neuroscience.

“With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel.” Kirkus Reviews called Bewilderment a “[A] taut ecological parable…. A touching novel that offers a vital message with uncommon sympathy and intelligence.” 

The Los Angeles Times described Powers as “an essential member of the pantheon of writers who are using fiction to address climate change.”

Power’ visit is made possible by the very generous support of the Park County Community Foundation. During his time in Livingston, Powers will visit a Creating Writing class at Park High School. The free public lecture, which will take place at the Elks Lodge, will include a book signing.

Critically-acclaimed writer and historian Megan Kate Nelson will speak about her new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America. Saving Yellowstone puts the history of the world’s first national park in a wider historical context that includes national division, racial violence, railroad expansion, and Indigenous resistance. Booklist calls Saving Yellowstone “A fresh, provocative study of the origins of Yellowstone National Park.” Nelson’s 2020 book The Three-Cornered War was a Pulitzer finalist.

Apsáalooke educator and advocate Shane Doyle will speak about Yellowstone from an Indigenous perspective. Doyle has been a leader on various local Native and environmental initiatives, including the All Nations Teepee Village installation that will be part of official YNP 150th Anniversary events this summer. Doyle told Essential West Magazine, “What we’re hoping to accomplish with a teepee village is a presence for Native historians and tour guides so that they can speak to the tourists about their tribe’s history [in Yellowstone] and their continued presence.”

Please join us in learning more about our next door neighbor and the ongoing efforts to grapple with YNP’s history. The event will take place at the Shane Center’s Dulcie Theater with the generous support of the Park County Community Foundation.

If you’re interested in donating to the All-Nations Teepee Village Fund, visit this page: https://pcec.salsalabs.org/teepeevillage/index.html

Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer, with a BA in History and Literature from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. Her previous book, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020) was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History. She writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American landscapes for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and TIME. Scribner published her most recent book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America, on March 1, 2022 – the 150th anniversary of the Yellowstone Act.

The Allens are the world experts on Huffman’s work, and have produced two books about it: The Collotypes of L. A. Huffman: Montana Frontier Photographer and The Postcards of L. A. Huffman.

Huffman’s work chronicled the rapid changes taking place in the Montana territory from the late 1800s to the early part of the 20^th century:

They write, “Hostilities between early settlers and Native Americans were drawing to a close and reservation life was beginning. The demise of the great buffalo herds was near, clearing the way for large scale cattle ranching. The railroad arrived in Miles City in 1881 and changed everything. … During all of this, Huffman was there taking photographs — landscapes, animals, early ranches, street scenes and, especially, people doing their work.

“His photos of buffalo hunting taken between 1880-83 are some of the few that exist and are among the most historically significant images he produced.

“Huffman approached his work with the eye of an artist and the perspective of an historian, a rare combination. Western historian J. Evetts Haley perhaps said it best “For sheer versatility of significant and historic subject matter close to the range of the grass, (Huffman’s collection) surpasses them all.” In 1976 Huffman was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

“He remains the only photographer to have received that honor.”

The lecture is free and open to the public, and co-sponsored by the Park County Community Foundation.