Enduring Stories Dynamic Landscapes

FIRE: CHANGE ON
THE LAND

As you pass through the grasslands and the rugged, timbered mountain country, you will encounter the effects of climate, fire and timber harvest. Ghostly larch snags rising up from younger forests are specters of the famous fires of the turn of the 20th century.

Fires are facts of nature in this landscape, and fallen fire-killed timber makes walking difficult. After the exhausted Corps ascended Wendover Ridge on September 15th, 1805, Clark noted the “emence quantity of falling timber which had [been] falling from dift. causes i e fire & wind and has deprived the Greater part of the Southerly Sides of this mountain of its green timber.”

Clark had observed the Mandan setting fire to the prairie “for the benefit of their horses,” and concluded that fires were the reason there were so few trees on the prairies, rather than the lack of rain.While many of their conclusions proved astute, this one was not. Similarly, public land managers once misunderstood the role of fire, believing all fires should be put out. Now we know that fire contributes not only to the health of the forests, but also to the prairies by consuming undergrowth and grass litter and releasing fertilizers like nitrogen and phosphorus. Returning fire properly and safely to forests and grasslands is one of the biggest challenges facing the Forest Service today.

"FAROSITY":
THE GRIZZLY BEAR

Clark first saw “Tracks of white bear which was verry large.” on October 7, 1804 at the mouth of the Moreau River in north central South Dakota. From then on, Lewis wrote frequently about seeing signs, encountering and killing brown, cinnamon, and white bears, ranging in size from cubs to big males estimated to weigh 600 pounds! At first, Lewis wasn’t sure if these were the familiar black bear of the East, but he soon decided they were a new species of larger, more aggressive bear that came in a variety of colors.He reported killing some 37 of the bears on the western leg of the journey. Later they were named Ursus Arctos horibilis, or Grizzly bear.

Although the Corps lived among the bears for much of their prairie journey from North Dakota to the Great Falls, the once common grizzly has declined dramatically, and is now found only in the foothills and mountains in the West. The only place on the entire Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail where you may be lucky enough to see a grizzly is at Lewis and Clark Pass on the Helena National Forest.Grizzly bears are listed as a threatened species.The Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and western state wildlife agencies are working together on recovery plans to ensure that grizzly bears will survive.

NATURE'S HARVESTER

On Aug 22, 1805, Clark wrote, “I Saw to day Bird of the wood pecker kind which fed on Pine burs its Bill and tale white the wings black every other part of a light brown, and about the Size of a robin.”

Biologists now know that without a bird, a squirrel, and a tree, the grizzly of the Rocky Mountains could be in trouble. The Clark’s Nutcracker harvests white bark pinecone seeds and stores them in ground caches. These slow-growing trees of the high mountains depend on the nutcracker to establish new seedlings. Red squirrels harvest white bark pine cones from the tops of trees in late summer and stores them in piles for winter. Grizzly bears can’t reach the cones; instead, they dig up the squirrels’ caches and eat seeds that are high in essential fatty oils for pre-hibernation fare.White bark pine trees and Clark’s Nutcrackers can easily be seen along the Lolo Trail on the Clearwater National Forest.