Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, West Yellowstone

We stayed in the small town of West Yellowstone. It is less than one mile outside of the park. We had a full day to explore the town. After breakfast, we decided to walk around town and see what all it had to offer. As we were walking around we noticed “bear prints” on the walkways in some areas and soon realized there’s a self guided walking tour that provides the history of the city and several of the buildings. Our hotel was also across the street from the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, so we knew we wanted to check that out, but had to wait for it to open.

Once the Discovery Center opened it was clear that it was possible to spend a lot of time there. They have a small museum as you go through the entrance but the best part is the animals. They always had an employee out with a microphone telling about the animals, specifically the bears. They would invite questions and were overall very knowledgable about the bears, wolves, and other animals in their care. It seemed to me that they were very passionate about their jobs and enjoyed working with the creatures as well as teaching others about them. They had a schedule posted of when certain bears would come out and they rotated them out quite often. The wolves were out most of the time, but at one point they had workers in their area cleaning it. They also had raptors, otters, trout, and ground squirrels. The stars were the bears. Each had a unique story of how it ended up at the center. Usually it was because at some point they got too close to humans, because they smelled food nearby. If not for the center, the bears would have to be euthanized. Sadly, a fed bear is a dead bear. These bears are not pets or zoo animals. In my opinion, they are treated very humanely and left to live as wild as possible. They are fed a diet of what they would find in the wild and workers and children have the opportunity to “hide” their food which is used as enrichment for the bears.

Once you buy your ticket are allowed in and out for up to two days. So we would leave for a meal or snack and then return when another bear was about to be let out that we wanted to see.

One thing about me that I haven’t yet shared. I’m a bit of a nerd. I love learning new things and unique things thrill me. As I was studying about the National Parks, I saw that they have a passport stamp program. Basically, you buy a little book and as you go to the various national parks, they have different stamps (and sometimes special edition) for each park! Of course, I bought my book and got as many stamps as possible in Grand Teton National Park as well as Yellowstone. But, in West Yellowstone they had an original ranger station, and I just knew I would get a special edition stamp there. We headed in and to our surprise and delight, it was a photography shop! We chatted for a while with the photographer, asked about some of his pictures, met his wife, and bought a print and book.

David William Peterson, photographer and author

Oh, and I got a special edition “Junior Smokejumper” stamp. We were able to view a video and talk to a retired pilot that worked with smokejumpers, very fascinating. It’s honestly a great program for kids, or 36 year olds.

There were several meals we wanted to try on our trip. We definitely wanted bison, bison burger in particular. We also wanted to try local trout and huckleberry, as well as huckleberry ice cream.

For dinner we found a local restaurant that offered fresh trout. Bill drank a huckleberry lemonade, and we ended the day with a huckleberry ice cream for dessert. We took the ice cream back to our hotel and ate in their outside seating area that had a fire pit, it was a great atmosphere.