Once I finished The Correspondent, I was reminded of another epistolary novel which I once started but never finished. So, I unearthed Letters from Yellowstone and finished it over the next two evenings.
In the spring of 1898, A. E. (Alexandria) Bartram—a spirited young woman with a love for botany—is invited to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park. The study’s leader, a mild-mannered professor from Montana, is less than pleased to discover that A.E. is actually a woman.
Once he and the other scientists overcome their shock, they forge ahead on a summer of research and adventure. They move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the back country. They struggle with weather, rugged terrain and each other. As they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone’s beauty, the group is conflicted by differing views on science, nature, and economics.
This compelling story of a woman botanist and the assorted characters she meets during her Yellowstone summer drew me in from the beginning. And while some of the letters do slow down the pace, Ms. Smith does an admirable job with the epistolary format, language and manners of that time period,
Letters from Yellowstone contains bits of humor and much excitement, but most interestingly, it’s also a love letter to the joys of botanical discovery, as well as a thoughtful reflection on environmentalism, Native American displacement, and feminism at the dawn of a new century.
N.B.: The book does a wonderful job introducing non scientific readers to the wild flowers, plants, trees and wildlife of Yellowstone ~~ which can be viewed online at the National Parks Service websites.