“Wonderland: A Yellowstone Story” with author Jeff Groff

On Thursday, Aug. 20, at 7:00 pm, the NCTC Conservation Lecture Series will present “Wonderland: A Yellowstone Story” with author Jeff Groff, at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV.

Reserve Your Spot for Upcoming Public Programs:

To register for the upcoming program, please email: NCTC-Lecture-Series@fws.gov. Be sure to include the program date in the subject or memo line, and list ALL the names of all attending adults in the body of your message, as well as any questions you may have. Children’s names are not required.

Yellowstone is a place of boiling mud, shooting water, and thundering bison—a landscape so extraordinary that nineteenth-century visitors simply called it Wonderland. In Jeff Groff’s new book, two professors and a group of college students spend six nights exploring that landscape aboard a well-worn van named Rocinante.

Join them as they uncover the super volcano beneath the geysers, trace the ecology of wildfires, and grapple with our complicated relationship with wolves—and with the tragic history of the Indigenous peoples who have called this place home for millennia.

Along the way, the book follows the arc of the national park idea itself: from the expeditions that first captured the public imagination to the ongoing struggles for preservation and restoration that define Yellowstone today. Part travel narrative, part natural history, part philosophical reflection—the Yellowstone story like you’ve never heard it before.

Jeff Groff is a professor of physics and environmental science at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. He developed the interdisciplinary Yellowstone National Park field course on which this book is based and has led students into the field there for years. He holds a PhD in applied science from the College of William & Mary. As founder of Starlight Studio, Jeff is committed to making experiential, place-based education accessible to students who might not otherwise have the opportunity.

This public lecture will be held in the Byrd Auditorium at the National Conservation Training Center, 698 Conservation Way, Shepherdstown, WV 25443. 

Doors open at 6:30 PM.

Program begins at 7:00 PM.

This event is free and open to the public. All are welcome!

Reserve Your Spot for Upcoming Public Programs:

To register for the upcoming program, please email: NCTC-Lecture-Series@fws.gov. Be sure to include the program date in the subject or memo line, and list ALL the names of all attending adults in the body of your message, as well as any questions you may have. Children’s names are not required.

For more information, please contact NCTC-Lecture-Series@fws.gov.

Please donate. The Friends of the National Conservation Training Center is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization and your donations are tax deductible.