The wisdom of Jaimie McPheeters

by Doug Crowe
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 2:08 PM MDT

My all-time favorite book is “The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters.” It was written by Robert Lewis Taylor, who, in 1959, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for his efforts.

I first encountered it in a literature of the West class I took at UW in the late 1960s. It was love at first read. I have since worn out two copies and my third is looking pretty dog-eared.

This novel is written from the perspective of a young boy, 13-year-old Jaimie McPheeters, as he and his father travel from Louisville, Ky., to the California goldfields in 1849.

Other than the fact it is a crackin' good tale of adventure laced with wicked wit and raucous humor, I like it because much of the story takes place in Wyoming. For me, it always makes a good read even better if I'm familiar with the country being described.

Mr. Taylor employed an interesting literary device throughout in that he has Jaimie's father, Sardius McPheeters, M.D., keeping a journal. Excerpts from it are frequently intertwined with the first person narrative of young Jaimie.

One of the passages from this journal has haunted me from the first time I read it:

"July 27th, 1849: Buffalo everywhere, as far as the eye can see. The herds number in the tens of thousands. These shaggy creatures, so awkward and lumbering, will provision and clothe America in perpetuity; there is no doubt of it. The most confirmed pessimist could not envision a lessening of these endless black smears from horizon to horizon. The buffalo will be part of our West to the end of its destiny."

Although Taylor's novel is fiction, I believe this fairly well sums up the attitude of most people at that time. Yet Helena Huntington Smith writes in her history, “The War on Powder River,” that by 1884, a scant 35 years later, "the millions (of buffalo) which once blackened the prairie were all wiped out excepting a few forlorn remnants."

I'd like to think we are sophisticated and concerned enough that this scenario could not be repeated. But I have to wonder when I look around at the feeding frenzy that surrounds oil, gas and coal development today and the frantic efforts to grant more leases, bulldoze more roads, import more workers and build more subdivisions.

Perhaps, to paraphrase the Sardius McPheeters quote, we still can say:

"April 22nd, 2007: Wildlife and open space everywhere, as far as the eye can see. The deer and the antelope and the elk number in the tens of thousands. These creatures and the habitats that sustain them will provide recreation and solace for the American soul in perpetuity; there is no doubt of it.

“The most confirmed pessimist could not envision a lessening of this wild bounty and the glorious vistas from horizon to horizon. It will all be part of our Wyoming to the end of its destiny."

The question is, will we be able to say that 35 years from now? There is a verse in an old 1960s Joni Mitchell song, "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got ’til it's gone. They paved paradise and put in a parking lot."

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