"Trunk of the 'Grizzley Giant' 90 Feet in Circumference"

albumine print on cardboard

annotated in ink on mount

Carleton Watkins was the consummate photographer of the American West. Born in Oneonta, New York, he moved to California in 1849, taught himself the new medium of photography, and established his reputation in 1861 with an astonishing series of views of Yosemite Valley. It was partly due to the artistry and rugged beauty of these photographs that President Lincoln signed a bill on June 30, 1864, declaring the valley inviolate and initiating the blueprint for the nation's National Park System. In the middle of the brutal Civil War and its destruction of man and land, Lincoln saw the preservation of a small but extraordinary piece of America's wilderness as a progressive goal to share with the republic.
Watkins was a virtuoso practitioner of the difficult wet-collodion process, and the remarkable clarity of his "mammoth" prints (18 by 22 inches) was unmatched. He rendered with exquisite finesse the vastness and grandeur of Yosemite's glacial valleys, dramatic waterfalls, massive rock faces, and majestic trees. Watkins produced this work wrangling a dozen or more mules carrying roughly two thousand pounds of equipment, including his oversize camera, large glass plates, and flammable chemicals. It is in itself a miracle that any photographs survived these travails.
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

The photograph shows Galen Clark in front of the "Grizzley Giant" in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park. The "Grizzley Giant" is one of the largest giant sequoias and thus one of the largest trees on earth. Galen Clark (1814-1910) came to California's Yosemite Valley as a gold miner and was fascinated by the beauty of the valley and the surrounding mountains. In 1857, he built himself a log cabin at the entrance to Yosemite Valley. His log cabin, soon known as "Clark's Station," provided visitors with meals, shelter, and a place to graze their horses. Clark entertained his guests with a variety of topics ranging from fauna and flora to Native American history and the geology of the park. From here he also explored the surrounding forests and in this way discovered the "Mariposa Grove of Big Trees". A short time later, in 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a law transferring Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to the ownership of the State of California. The terms of the act provided, "That the State shall receive the land upon the express condition that the site shall be indispensably available for the use of the public as a resort and for recreation for all time." To protect the area, the State of California appointed an 8-member commission that included Clark. In 1867, Galen Clark was appointed the first park "guardian of the grant" (later Ranger).
However, this print is not the one from the well-known portfolio taken in 1861 during his first visit to Mariposa Grove. The position of the branches in the foreground as well as the hand position of Galen Clark's shotgun are somewhat different. Probably it is a picture from the years 1865-1866 during another tour through the Valley of Watkins (compare the picture from the collection of the Getty Museum in Los Angelas).
The "Grizzley Giant" (also Grizzly Giant) is a giant sequoia in Yosemite National Park's Mariposa Grove. It has been measured many times; in 1990 Wendell Flint calculated its volume at 34,005 cubic feet (962.9 m³), making it the 26^th-largest living giant sequoia (seeList of largest giant sequoias).
The Grizzly Giant is the oldest sequoia in the Mariposa Grove, the largest giant sequoia grove in Yosemite National Park, with several hundred mature specimens. At one time, the Grizzly Giant was considered the oldest and largest tree in the world. In 2019, refined scientific dating methods resulted in a new age estimate for the Grizzly Giant: 2,995 years old (+/- 250 years). (see wikipedia). On July 16, 2022, the Washburn Fire threatened Grizzly Giant and other trees in Mariposa Grove. The National Park Service used sprinklers to protect the famous tree.
(Christoph Fuchs)