Note to tourists and locals

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

By Matthew Irwin

The headline to a 1988 Jackson Hole News column by Todd Wilkinson reads, “What is more dangerous than a tourist?”

The column, titled “From the Parks,” turns out to be about presumably uninformed national park employees giving tourists false information.  I say “presumably uniformed” because I know a few independent guides who don’t mind spinning yarns for tourists.

Wilkinson’s column, however, brings up a still-relevant issue that the impression tourists get of Jackson Hole is from the people who live here. You can’t blame them for filling unauthentic venues and buying bric-a-brac if we tell them, “This is Jackson Hole.” Afterall, we invite them here.

If we provide insincere experiences about the Old West and the Wild West, then tourists will walk away either believing what we’ve told them or swearing never to come back because we’ve treated them like dumb tourists.
Sure, the more initiated seek real experiences, but as custodians of our culture, Jackson Hole residents need to be more engaged with tourists and less derogatory, even if out-of-towners stand in the middle of traffic to take photos and occasionally annoy us at our leisure activities by asking “Whacha fishin’ fer?”

Grand Teton National Park published A Place Called Jackson Hole: The Historic Resource Study of Grand Teton National Park in 1999 as a sort of textbook for park employees. As it turns out, the book not only captures the “making of” Jackson Hole, but also the back-and-forth struggle over identity in the face of image.
A Place Called Jackson Hole should probably be required reading for all Jackson residents – arrive in Jackson Hole and you have 30 days to get your Wyoming license plates, 35 to finish the book.

It opens with a foreword, on letterhead, by then park super Jack Neckels. He writes, “The wild and rugged view we see preserved today does not easily reveal that people have been living in the shadow of the Tetons for almost 11,000 years.”
Note to tourists: This shit has been here a lot longer than you, so be respectful.
Inside author John Daughtery describes “Western frontiersmen, caught up in making a living, [who] failed to appreciate the grandeur of landscape about them.” One visitor who had business in mind said, “Darn the mountains! Look at those beaver dams yonder.”

Note to locals: Dude, remember when you were just blown away by the scenery?
Today, the culture of Jackson Hole is forging a contemporary identity, one built on the same sense of “rugged individualism” and exploration, manifest now in our attitudes toward outdoor recreation as much towards conservation and the arts. If you run into a tourist (or one runs into you) who thinks the West is about being tough, simple and stubborn, then it’s your job to show them what’s really goin’ on. JHW


PERMALINK:
Note to tourists and locals | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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