A Fish Come True celebrates the enduring joys, mysteries, and miseries of fishing through a series of "what-if" stories: What if someone discovered a fly that worked on every cast? What if we could fish anywhere, any time in the distant past? What if we could explore the fishing on a different planet? What if our sport's leading thinkers suddenly decided that an infamous trash fish was really cool and a great sporting trophy after all? A Fish Come True answers these and other engaging questions in stories full of sympathy, surprises, good humor, and-most important of all-hope. In this remarkable array of stories, a tour de force of literary styles ranging from unadorned tale to historical mystery to faux press release to science-fiction adventure, Schullery honors the angler's innate and precious need to hope. And in the midst of this lively storytelling he illuminates the rich rewards and deeply satisfying misadventures that arise from the fulfillment of our angling dreams.

Of all the perils and wonders encountered by Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery, none so perfectly represents the enduring mystique of the western wilderness as does the grizzly bear. In this adventure-filled book, historian-naturalist Paul Schullery celebrates the expedition's rich legacy of grizzly lore in light of modern scientific knowledge and separates the legends from the even more thrilling realities. (6 x 9, 256 pages, b&w photos, illustrations)

A collection of first-hand accounts of the park's famous residents by explorers and hunters, naturalists, and tourists (including one US president T. Roosevelt), from 1880 to 1950. The editor, a Yellowstone bear expert, provides commentary and context. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

In The Bear Doesn't Know, Paul Schullery--honored naturalist, storyteller, and former Yellowstone ranger--has given us a bear-lover's book of wonders. It is rich in the joy, beauty, inspiration, and pure fun to be had during a life well lived in bear country. While exploring the cultural complications of an animal we have long both feared and adored, he chronicles the bumpy course of our coming to terms with the mysteries of bear ecology and behavior. Schullery brings to the matter of bears a long view--of our centuries-long and always-evolving perception of wild bears, of the scientific exploration of bear ecology and behavior, and of the sometimes bitter struggles to protect bear populations for the future. Featuring Schullery's trademark gifts for historical inquiry and scientific translation, as well as for mixing humor with telling insight, Schullery enlivens The Bear Doesn't Know with many of his own quirky tales of life in the wildlands of North America and in the obscure realms of bear folklore and literature. North America's bears have become universally recognized symbols of wild landscapes and the struggles to preserve them. In this collection, Schullery illuminates and celebrates the bears and their world, making plain why they always have and always will matter so much to us.

""Mountain Time," a thoughtful and often moving work, is not only about Yellowstone as a superb sample of American wildness, . . . but also about a man named Paul Schullery and his relationship to it. This fact gives the book much richness and power, for Schullery comes across clearly as a caring, observant, undogmatic person whose reasonable and intelligent opinions are reinforced by plenty of facts. In a certain mood, it is possible to wish (vainly) that people of his civilized caliber were the only ones allowed to open their mouths very widely on any subject that really matters, as Yellowstone definitely does."--John Graves, author of "Goodbye to a River" and "From a Limestone Lodge"

"Paul has pushed outdoor writing to new limits. I pay him the highest compliment I can: I wish I had written "Mountain Time.""--Lionel Atwill, "Sports Afield"

The original edition of Yellowstone Bear Tales, Paul Schullery's classic collection of vintage bear adventures, entertained and educated bear enthusiasts for more than generation, becoming a favorite of park visitors, naturalists, and other lovers of the world of wild bears. Now republished in a greatly expanded and profusely illustrated edition, Yellowstone Bear Tales is an extraordinary chronicle of life with these world-famous carnivores. Whether your tastes are for high adventure or pioneering natural history, slapstick comedy or shocking tragedy, this is the book for you. As Dr. Stephen Herrero, world-renowned bear authority, has put it, "Love bears? Fascinated and delighted by the rich mix of relationships the bears of Yellowstone have with people? Then read Paul Schullery's latest and wide-ranging collection of writings about Yellowstone's bears and people. Smiles, wonder, and delight are guaranteed."

Theodore Roosevelt's extraordinary bear stories, assembled in a book for the first time by naturalist-historian Paul Schullery, are rich in the colorful folklore, remarkable natural history, and unforgettable adventure of exploring the world of North American bears. Though remembered today as a war hero, a trust-busting U.S. President, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Roosevelt was also one of the leading wildlife authorities of his day. His bear writings amounted to the foremost contribution to American bear literature by any writer up to his time.

Yellowstone National Park, a global icon of conservation and natural beauty, was born at the most improbable of times: the American Gilded Age, when altruism seemed extinct and society’s vision seemed focused solely on greed and growth. Perhaps that is why the park’s “creation myth” recounted how a few saintlike pioneer conservationists labored to set aside this unique wilderness against all odds, when in fact, the establishment of Yellowstone was the result of complex social, scientific, economic, and aesthetic forces. Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, both longtime students of Yellowstone’s complex history, present the first full account of how the fairy-tale origins of the park found universal public acceptance, and of the long process by which the myth was reconsidered and replaced with a more realistic and ultimately more satisfying story.

Modern fly-fishing is only the latest chapter in a two-millennia saga of technological creativity and passionate observation of the natural world. In "Fly-Fishing Secrets of the Ancients," historian-naturalist Paul Schullery explores the earlier chapters in that saga and unearths a host of provocative theories, techniques, and insights that helped shape the modern fly-fisher. Schullery demonstrates that whether we're looking for a good fish story, a clearer understanding of why we fish the way we do, or even a way to improve our own sport, we ignore our elders at our peril.
"Fly-Fishing Secrets of the Ancients" offers the beginning fly-fisher an unprecedented opportunity to come to terms with some of the sport's most fundamental theoretical and practical challenges. It offers the expert fly-fisher a chance to test current angling dogma--and his or her own pet theories--against that of the sport's greatest past masters. And it offers all readers a fresh, probing, and often-humorous take on the great endless fish story we perpetuate and enrich every time we cast a fly.

Since it became the world's first national park in 1872, Yellowstone has welcomed tourists from all corners of the globe who returned to their hometowns and countries with reports of this American wonderland. Stories from the park's earliest visitors began to spread so rapidly that by 1897 Yellowstone became solidly established as a successful tourist destination with more than ten thousand tourists passing through its entrances. Travellers in the park's first years faced long, dusty, and tediously slow stagecoach trips and could choose only between rather primitive hotels and tent camps for their overnight accommodations. Devoured by nineteenth-century readers, many of the narratives from this era are long forgotten today and are only gradually being recovered from historical archives. Park historians Lee Whittlesey and Elizabeth Watry have combed thousands of firsthand accounts, selecting nineteen tales that offer unique and engaging perspectives of visitors during Yellowstone's stagecoach era. From an 1873 newspaper serial that represents one of the earliest park's recorded trips to the 1914 "Little Journey" that popular writer Elbert Hubbard took with his wife Alice, the chronicles included here reveal the enduring captivation that Yellowstone held in the popular imagination, as it does today.

Does a beloved institution need its own myths to survive? Can conservationists avoid turning their heroes into legends? Should they try? Yellowstone National Park, a global icon of conservation and natural beauty, was born at the most improbable of times: the American Gilded Age, when altruism seemed extinct and society's vision seemed focused on only greed and growth. Perhaps that is why the park's creation myth portrayed a few saintlike pioneer conservationists labouring to set aside this unique wilderness against all odds. In fact, the establishment of Yellowstone was the result of complex social, scientific, economic, and aesthetic forces. Its creators were not saints but mortal humans with the full range of ideals and impulses known to the species. Authors Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, both longtime students of Yellowstone's complex history, present the first full account of how the fairy tale origins of the park found universal public acceptance and the long, painful process by which the myth was reconsidered and replaced with a more realistic and ultimately more satisfying story. trace the evolution of the legend, its rise to incontrovertible truth, and its revelation as a mysterious and troubling episode that remains part folklore, part wish, and part history. This study demonstrates the passions stirred by any challenge to cherished national memories, just as it honours the ideals and dreams represented by America's national myths.

Drawing on historical perspectives, personal excursions, and decades of professional research and work in the field, Paul Schullery illuminates many of the possible truths embedded within the natural and cultural reality that is Yellowstone National Park. By varying the scale of observation-from a single encounter between a cow elk and a grizzly bear to the sweeping forces of evolution-Schullery celebrates the park's history and future potential as a laboratory of ideas. It is, as he states, a place with "layers of meaning waiting to be explored . . . many possible truths to be weighed." He thus invites us all to participate in the "Yellowstone conversation." According to Schullery, national parks allow for the study of relatively unmanipulated ecological processes, even amidst civilization's increasing influence. They act as reservoirs for water, wildlife, and essential wildness. The uncertainties inherent in wild landscapes and in the unfolding idea of Yellowstone allow scholarly and popular dialogues to advance management practices and public understanding. Through this inquiry, Schullery establishes a framework for approaching conservation and the experience of America'sgreat wildlands. Paul Schullery delivered this lecture on March 26, 2014, at the 19th annual symposium sponsored by the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment at the S. J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.