The backbone of the West, the Great Divide, stretches
some 1,100 rugged miles from Montana to New Mexico. It’s been
the home of Native Americans, artists, miners, mountain men,
preachers and charlatans, back-to-the-landers and trust funders.
Each group has defined the landscape for its own purpose, leading
author Gary Ferguson to conclude, “Hardly a story is told of this
region in which the land isn’t cast as a major character.”
Ferguson profiles many of the West’s familiar
figures, such as the hunter, guide and soldier Kit Carson, who once
employed a public relations flack to shape his image. But Ferguson
covers unexplored ground as well. Readers learn, for example, how a
rich canon of Native American literature dating back to 1772 was
violently swept away: “More than 6,700 pieces of English-language
work were published by two thousand Native American writers, few of
which have even been recognized, let alone discussed by popular
historians.” Ferguson agrees with other scholars that the omission
occurred because our nation’s sense of Manifest Destiny was
in direct opposition to the survival of native tribes.
Ferguson leans heavily throughout the book on the history of
Colorado, locating the delightful chapter “Season of the Freaks” in
Crested Butte. Here and in other mountain towns in the 1960s and
1970s, baby boomers blew in from lower altitudes with their VW
microbuses and acid tabs, forever changing the personality of
traditional logging and mining communities. Their idealism led to a
new style of community called “bioregionalism,” which held that
“those who actually live in a particular system … are the
people in the best position to figure out what uses are
appropriate.”
Although there wasn’t always peace
between the longhairs and the working-class locals, a bond evolved
as a common enemy emerged: wealthy real estate developers. Money
always seems to trump idealism, and in the Rockies, like just about
every other place on Earth, whoever has the most of it gets the
best views.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A natural and cultural history of the Rocky Mountains.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
