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Marjane Ambler, author
The faces behind Yellowstone Has Teeth
This book is dedicated to Cindy Mernin and Ranger Jerry Mernin. When they met in 1971, little did the East Coast gal know she would spend the next 25 years in Yellowstone.
Parents had to prepare their children well for 50-mile snowmobile rides, providing ear and eye protection, warm clothing, and straps to keep them from flying off the machine. Photo of Karen and Sean Andrascik
The East Gate Range for 12 years, Bob Mahn was a bear of a man who served as the guardian of travelers over Sylvan Pass. He is pictured with his wife, Grace Nutting. Photo by Donnella Pease
Lorie Rippley shoveled roofs in the winter and was a Bear Forage Control Technician in the summer. She became the defacto activities director for the Lake community.
Winterkeepers must remove snow all winter to keep roofs from caving in. Jeff Henry, a winterkeeper in Yellowstone and a professional photographer, is shown on the Hamilton Store dorm at Old Faithful in 1997 when the snow on the ground was 22-feet deep. ©Jeff Henry/Roche Jaune Pictures, Inc.
Ranger Alice Siebecker prepares to snowshoe to a Lake Snow Course site to take snow core samples of snow depth and moisture content. Most snow courses in the country – including this one – later relied on automated weather stations. 1992 photo by Mike McClure
Several districts utilized a DMC with a 14-foot-wide plow blade on the front and a barrel-shaped, grooved drum on the back. The tractor crawled on tracks, pushing the snowplow blades out in front. The blades contoured the snow while the tracks and drum packed it. NPS file photo by Jim Peaco
A favorite part of Terry’s job was using the seventy-five millimeter recoilless artillery to shoot avalanches down on Sylvan Pass. Lake District Ranger John Lounsbury also served on the team. AP file photo
Baby Emma was only 10 weeks old when she made her first snowmobile ride into Yellowstone with her parents. Pictured are Karen Reinhart, Marjane, and Karen's dog Ebony.
Alice Bigelow and Bob Murphy met in 1943. Nothing made her happier than accompanying Bob on trail-clearing trips into the Yellowstone backcountry on horseback, where she was responsible for catching, cleaning, and cooking the fish. Photo taken in 1949 at Gibbon Meadows and courtesy of Bob Murphy
When a California museum wanted a grizzly for its collection in 1943, Yellowstone administrators instructed Bob Murphy to shoot one. It was the second largest ever taken in Wyoming. The skull measured 14 1/4 inches by 19 inches, and the bear’s shoulders were 4 ½ feet tall. Photo courtesy of Bob Murphy
Hank Rahn took this snapshot of grizzlies at the Otter Creek feeding ground eating garbage in 1939. Rahn (The Man who Fed the Bears) often saw 40 or 50 grizzlies there. Before the park service reversed this policy, it resulted in many fatalities for both humans and bears. Photo courtesy of Hank Rahn
Hank Rahn attended the reunion at Yellowstone to regain his fame as The Man who Fed the Bears. It served as a respite from years caring for his late wife, Mildred, pictured with him in 1981. Photo courtesy of Hank Rahn
On September 1, 1988, nine fires still raged in or near Yellowstone National Park. By September 5, more than 9,600 people were fighting fires in Yellowstone, but it took snow on September 11 to stop the fires’ spread. Map produced by the Yellowstone Spatial Analysis Center
On September 5, 1988, the roads to the north, west, and east of Lake were closed because of fire: The rangers put duct tape over all destinations on the sign at Fishing Bridge junction.
Before 1988, Ranger Dave Phillips and his wife, Kathleen O’Leary, spent many idyllic summers at the Thorofare Ranger Station with Dave’s children, Tyson and Linnea. They lived in one of the most isolated places in Yellowstone, 30 miles from the nearest road.
When snowmobilers first encounter bison blocking the road, it is difficult to remember they are herbivores. Photo courtesy of Yellowstone National Park
Residents of Lake during the 1980s sometimes waited several weeks for mail, but this Christmas Santa brought the holiday mail. Santa was Ranger John Edwards, and the dog investigating the packages was Mack.
Scotty and Louise Chapmans’ dog, Wolf, helped pull their baby, Bill, for 14 miles when they left their home at the Bechler Ranger Station in 1933 for their only outing in six months. Photo courtesy of Scotty Chapman
Performing with the USO in Europe and on the WLS radio program, National Barn Dance, Thelma Bateson was surrounded by people before she married a Yellowstone winterkeeper and moved to Wyoming. At Lake, she and her husband were surrounded by winter for six or seven months a year.
Yellowstone forged Terry’s and Marjane’s relationship. She is pictured wearing Terry’s Air Force winter flight suit as her snowmobiling attire. Photo by Joan Earl
Family and friends braved treacherous roads on snowmobiles when they visited. Pictured are Scott Wehrman, Jason Wilkes, Marjane, Terry, and Ed Ambler.
Marjane's sister, Rebecca Strouse, and her family came to Yellowstone from New Caledonia in 1992, trading their tank tops for snowmobile suits. Pictured are Gary and Rebecca, their three girls, and Terry on top of Sylvan Pass.
The Lake Hospital was only open during the summer, but as the hospital administrator, Lois Lounsbury had to snowmobile out to meetings during the winter regardless of conditions. Photo by Mike McClure
Many books about the park focus on rangers and Man in Nature. In contrast, Yellowstone Has Teeth focuses on maintenance workers, women inhabitants of the park, and the hidden community near the north shore of Yellowstone Lake. 

In the 1980s and 1990s when Marjane Ambler and her husband lived there, Lake Village included a dozen disparate people – single men and women, married couples, families with small children – flung together by their jobs. The people in the book rode their horses through walls of flame during the 1988 fires, fed grizzly bears at garbage dumps in the 1930s, and fended off bears that broke into their homes. Special thanks to Amy McClure for the use of Mike McClure photos and to Jeff Henry for his photos. Click images to enlarge and see captions.