The Park Naturalist position in Yosemite National Park has been held by Ansel F. Hall, 1922-1923; Carl P. Russell, 1923-1929; C. A. Harwell, 1929-1940; C. Frank Brockman, 1941-1946; and now, Donald Edward McHenry. These men and their assistants have supervised the naturalist activities including the Yosemite Museum program, directed the Yosemite School of Field Natural History, and the activities of the Yosemite Natural History Association, including the editing and publishing of Yosemite Nature Notes. This last-named organization has existed since 1924 as a society coöperating with the National Park Service in advancing the work of the Yosemite Naturalist Department. It is the successor of the Yosemite Museum Association formed by Ansel F. Hall in 1920. On April 24, 1925, members of its advisory council and board of trustees defined these purposes of the Association:

1. To gather and disseminate information regarding birds, mammals, flowers, trees, Indians, history, geology, trails, scenic features, and other subjects so well exemplified by Nature in Yosemite National Park and elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada.

2. To develop and enlarge the Yosemite Museum (in coöperation with the National Park Service) and to establish subsidiary units, such as the Glacier Point Lookout and branches of similar nature.

3. To contribute in every way possible to the development of the educational activities of the Yosemite Nature Guide Service.

4. To publish (in coöperation with the National Park Service) Yosemite Nature Notes, a periodical containing articles of scientific interest concerning the matters referred to in this statement of purposes.

5. To promote scientific investigation along the lines of greatest popular interest and to publish from time to time bulletins or circulars of a nontechnical nature.

6. To maintain in Yosemite Valley a library containing works of historical, scientific, and popular interest.

7. To study the living conditions, past and present, of the remaining Indians of the Yosemite region, for the purpose of preserving their arts, customs, and legends.

8. To strictly limit the operations, business, property, and assets of the association to purposes which shall be scientific and educational, in order that the association shall not be organized, constituted, or operated for profit, and so that no part of the net income of the association shall inure to the benefit of any member or other party thereto.

These objectives in almost every particular are also the objectives of the Naturalist Department of Yosemite National Park. In 1937 the Congress authorized park naturalists and other government employees to devote their regular working hours to the program of the Yosemite Natural History Association and similar “coöperating societies” in national parks which might be designated by the Secretary of the Interior. In effect, the Yosemite Natural History Association is an auxiliary of the naturalist department. For nearly twenty-five years it has adhered to its defined purposes, and the support it has given to the interpretive program has furthered research in the park, enriched the collections of the Yosemite Museum, and promoted the dissemination of the Yosemite story.

The function of the interpreters has been, and their purpose must be, to enrich the mountain experience of the Yosemite traveler and thereby demonstrate that a national park is far more than a tourist’s way station. Upon today’s visitor and his full awareness of national-park values the future of the national-park concept must depend. A public which, in its enjoyment of the parks, comprehends the importance of “the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein” will insist that they remain unimpaired.

CHAPTER XI
GUARDIANS OF THE SCENE

In the body of Indian fighters who first entered Yosemite Valley, there appears to have been but one man who sensed the possibilities of public good to be derived from the amazing place just discovered. A year prior to the entry of the Mariposa Battalion, L. H. Bunnell, in climbing the trail from Ridley’s Ferry (Bagby) to Bear Valley, had descried in the eastern mountains an immense cliff which, apparently, loomed, column-like, to the very summit of the range. He looked upon the “awe-inspiring sight with wonder and admiration, and turned from it with reluctance to resume the search for coveted gold.”

When, on March 25, 1851, Bunnell stood at Inspiration Point with other members of Savage’s command and gazed upon the extravagance of natural wonders, he recognized “the immensity of rock” which had, the previous year, astonished him from afar. He writes:

Haze hung over the valley—light as gossamer—and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and mountains. This obscurity of vision but increased the awe with which I beheld it, and as I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being, and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.

He withdrew from the trail and stationed himself on a projecting rock, where he might contemplate all that was spread before him. Major Savage, bringing up the rear of the column, brought him out of his soliloquy in time to join the battalion in its descent to the floor of the valley.

The party that night discussed the business of naming the valley as they sat about their first campfire, near the foot of Bridalveil Fall. Bunnell comments: