May 23rd- 4:00pm

Hello All!

We visited the town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. On our first day, we learned that the town lies in a valley between two mountains. One mountain contains ski slopes and many trees while the other contains more open spaces. Our group was sent to explore the town starting at the end of Broadway Street and walking west towards the center of town. As we walked along the sidewalks, we noticed that this part of the town was more residential, with homes, medical centers, daycares, and small office buildings. We passed the medical center along with multiple private residences that led to neighborhoods. We noticed that these buildings were spaced out, further from the street, and had front yards and porches. The land was flat as we walked towards the center of town. We passed an organic Juicery and a Fine Rugs store that seemed to mark the shift from residential to commercial.

As we were walking, a statue of two wolves caught our eye in between an art gallery and a kids clothing store. This was interesting to us because there wasn’t much information about wolves anywhere else. Earlier, when we visited the front desk of the Elk Country Inn, there were no informational packets about wolves, but there were many packets of information about other species like elk, moose, bears, and bison. Later, when we interviewed a retailer/photographer at Alaskan Fur Gallery he said that for most the wolf is a “mascot” around Jackson, even though the “wolves are a nuisance” and they kill livestock and overpower elk. He believes that soon people will be able to hunt the wolves and that this is a good thing for the area.

We visited the Wild West Designs shop that was full of elk antler furniture and designs. Here, we interviewed two workers of the store, one man and one woman, about the elk antler festival that occurred a few weeks ago and their opinion on wolves. Both workers live in Jackson and felt that there were “too many” wolves in the area and that they are not native to the area and they endanger native species like elk. The man said that he felt wolves were “killing machines” and that “people like to hunt wolves” so they should be allowed to.

The commercial part of Broadway Street is different compared to the residential side. The buildings are mostly attached to one another in the commercial area, with lots of shops, restaurants, bars, and attractions for tourists. A lot of the stores in the more commercial area were a similar height and many had an upstairs that allowed for more shopping above. There were numerous tourist shops containing merchandise appealing to visitors. There were numerous galleries full of artwork of Yellowstone and its wildlife. In the center of town, across from Wyoming Outfitters, there is a town square. On each corner of the square, there are elk antler arches that provide entrance into the area. In the center of the square, there is a statue of a cowboy commemorating veterans. The cowboy was a common theme throughout the town because it was on license plates and numerous tourist t-shirts. We noticed that the people in and around town were not a largely diverse population, but there were many tourists from all over the US according to license plates, and there appeared to be many tourists from Asia.

Overall, we felt that Jackson was different from what we were originally expecting but we were able to learn new information about the town and get insight into the issue of wolves from locals in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We are excited to learn more about this ecosystem! Feel free to comment below with your thoughts about the town of Jackson Hole or use our hashtag: #accessYNP

Click the link to view the photos of our Jackson exploration!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AvG7_Y1eIw8U0GPMlQ2cRKT-VftLx7ckwi-eKPMf1AY/edit?usp=sharing