Since the establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, there have been two times in the park’s history that it has seen major closures. The first time was in September of 1988 when wildfires closed the park to all non-emergency personnel. The second time was in 2020, when Yellowstone National Park and neighboring Grand Teton National Park opened only partially and in stages, due to health and safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic. This work documents various impacts of COVID-19 on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem - a region that covers over 3,000 square miles, with Yellowstone National Park at its core. The project was made possible by the Larsh Bristol Photojournalism Fellowship at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

Crowds & Closures: While Jackson Lake Lodge, Old Faithful Inn, and several more NPS locations remained closed for the 2020 season, other areas in Yellowstone and Grand Teton saw as many and sometimes more visitors than usual. Officials at Yellowstone reported its most-ever visitors for the month of September in 2020. The influx was noticeable with lodging, campgrounds, dining and other amenities in the parks being limited. Communities surrounding the parks also experienced varying levels of traffic, business, and visitation, while fearing impacts to public health and local economies amidst the pandemic.

Visible & Invisible Impacts: Masks and signage served as obvious indicators of the pandemic’s presence in the national parks in 2020. But the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem expands well past the park boundaries, forming biological, cultural, political, and economic relationships with communities in the region that are less visible than more touristed locations. The Shoshone Rose Casino Hotel, on the Wind River Indian Reservation remained closed for the year starting in March, increasing rates of unemployment and adding to other socioeconomic challenges there. These factors, considered alongside the reservation’s disproportionate number of health disparities, placed the community at even higher risk in 2020.

In some ways, the nation saw more division and more interdependence than ever through COVID-19. But what does it say about our needs as a society that millions of Americans sought out the national parks and spent more time outside in 2020? The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the largest nearly intact ecosystems on Earth and home to an incredibly diverse community of organisms. What can we learn from a place like this with its diversity, history, and living systems - both before and after the parks were colonized and established? The parks attract people from all over the world, which might indicate that we can find some answers to the question there.