[Music]
A map is really a model of the world
or any piece of land that you're trying to depict.
It's not reality, it's a model,
so it shows some of the things that are there,
it tries to depict them
as accurately as possible to that scale,
but it's really just a picture of a section of the world.
Ever since I was a kid I had maps
and everywhere I'd go I'd gather new maps.
I'm not sure what the attraction is,
I just like to be able to see the land depicted this way.
I've always been very curious about where things are
and why they're named what they are
and how to get from place to place,
so I have a lifelong fascination with maps.
Hi, I am a person who can take an atlas,
a Rand McNally Atlas, road map of the United States
and spend hours reading.
And I'll be in one state,
then I'll think of something else and go to that state
and go over, and yeah, I love maps.
I think they're just fantastic.
I like to hold a physical map
and then I like to just feel my way through things,
and I've got a pretty good internal compass,
so rarely get lost.
I have bins of maps;
in fact, just three days ago I threw away an entire bin of maps
because I was collecting state and city highway maps
all across the U.S.,
and I realized that, that wasn't necessary.
I like to know exactly how to get places,
I like to know the path,
and I usually draw maps in my head
when I'm not given one.
Well, the first year I was here
the Superintendent gave me the assignment
of managing the Yosemite,
you know, backcountry areas,
and I made a particular map of where I had gone that year.
So starting in 1971,
I had a mark on the map,
and then each year I would indicate in a different color
or with a different pattern the trail that I had hiked.
I finally gave up marking on it in 1994,
because I didn't have anymore colors
and the trails were starting to obscure the other areas,
and that's the point
I decided to transfer the information to the computer.
This is the same map in digital form
but I linked it to a database,
so that all the information that was on the original map
can be brought up in different themes.
So the area that I was pointing out to before,
I guess this orange color,
which indicates that the trails have been hiked
between 33 and 51 times in the 36 years I've been here,
but there is something like this could be used for,
you know, when was this trail last maintained,
how many time has it been logged in the last 30 years,
which trails has the Superintendent gone
on for his inspections.
If you enter the park as a visitor,
then the things you're concerned about will probably be,
where are the bathrooms, where are the campsites,
where is the Visitor Center,
and where are the key attractions.
But if you're a land manager,
the maps that you would need,
the information that's important,
could be entirely different.
If you're in charge of managing vegetation,
you'll want to know what types of vegetation
are located in what parts of the park.
If you have a fire, well,
what did the fire burn,
what was there before there was a fire?
So you have a region that is your fire region
and you can overlay it on a region that was vegetation,
and you find out,
well, the fire was 45% conifer forest
and 25% an endangered species that we're very concerned about.
When Joseph Walker came through here in 1833,
there were no maps,
if he was lucky he was following an Indian trail,
otherwise he was following the terrain.
He just read the landscape directly with his eyeballs
and let his feet make their own maps.
Then in the late 1800s or mid 1800s,
the geology surveys were very important
in mapping parts of the Sierra Nevada,
both the U.S. Geological Survey
and the California Geological Survey,
and people like Clarence King
and Josiah Whitney were actually commissioned
to make maps of various parts of the Sierra Nevada
and those are some of the earliest detailed maps.
It is really a treat to get a look at these old maps
and just the artwork that went into it and the technology,
it's really phenomenal,
how hard they had to work to make a map
that we take for granted today,
that we can buy a map for $3
that shows us really intimate detail,
but it started a long time ago
with some hardworking ground pounding surveyors.
They put together these really highly technical works of art.
So in 1864, the President of United States
signed an Act of Congress that created this boundary
around the Canyon of Yosemite Valley,
and that President was Abraham Lincoln,
who established the Yosemite Grant, giving this land,
unpatented federal land, to the State of California
to manage as a preserve for the purpose of public use,
resort and recreation for all time.
When that Bill was passed
and signed by President Abraham Lincoln,
we were in the midst, the depths,
the worst year of the American Civil War,
where causalities numbering 2,000 a day,
were coming back to Washington D.C.,
and the same day he also signed a new law,
an increase in income tax to help pay for the war
that he hoped would save his country.
What it meant is that we began to sense
that in the West was our destiny,
that's where the American future lay.
So we're out here in the forest,
up the back of the rim of Yosemite Valley
looking for one of the old historic corner points
on the original 1864 Yosemite Grant boundary.
Well, so far it's been challenging,
I've actually been to this point about ten years ago
with a park historian at the time,
but it's hard to find this,
and how the surveyors located this point to begin with
is a little confusing.
We're not sure why they picked a spot
that today is hidden in deep woods
and not of prominence,
not obviously visible from a distance,
but it is here somewhere, and that's our quest.
Oh yeah!
Oh my!
Old Yosemite Grant,
this nail here marks the point that we're at
and we see lines heading off east-west
and north-south more or less.
This corner here is our current location out here in the woods,
the old boundary of the 1864 Yosemite Grant.
Every line that is a river or a trail is a real line.
Every line that is a border is an arbitrary,
and in many cases utterly political line,
and I think we have to be aware of that,
and as caretakers of the park
understand that they ought to be therefore fluid lines;
never shrinking,
but always possibly having the ability to enlarge.
Well, that was part of what led John Muir
to propose a larger park,
because he felt that,
you know, what went on in areas outside of the Valley
had an effect on the Valley itself.
So if the watershed up here were being logged or overgrazed,
that, that would affect Yosemite Creek
and would affect Yosemite Falls and the Valley.
Well, this map shows the boundaries of the park
as they were established in 1890
and then as they were changed
in the period between 1905 and 1906.
You can see the original 1890 boundary
being the yellow boundary on the outside.
There was a large park at that time,
the Yosemite Valley Grant
and the Mariposa Grove
were not part of the National Park at that time,
because they still were part of the state grant,
but in the late 1800, early 1900s,
a Major from the army
was assigned the task of surveying the land
around Yosemite National Park
to see which lands had mineral values, logging valleys,
were difficult to manage.
So based on his report,
much of the minarets was removed from the park,
because it had minerals.
There are also minerals on the west edge of the park.
Ecosystem don't follow right angles
and they don't follow straight lines,
and so if we're trying to conserve
this bit of land, if we're trying to keep it protected,
what kind of boundary could we draw that's more natural,
that follows the same patterns as these natural resources
that we're trying to conserve.
To see the contrast
between the eastern boundary and the western boundary
especially really tells a story.
The western boundary are these hard right angles
that are arbitrary against the landscape,
they don't match up with rivers
or hills or slopes or peaks whatsoever,
whereas the eastern boundary of the park
is this chaotic sinuous thing,
which is the crest of the Sierra Nevada,
it is the prefect depiction of the watershed divide;
a snowflake on one side of that red line
will flow into Mono Lake,
a snowflake on the other side
will get to come down through Yosemite Valley.
So that map of Yosemite National Park
shows some real wisdom in the thinking of the people
who laid out that park boundary of
incorporating the entire watershed
within the park boundary.