Tash Mahnokaren

Staff Writer

Idaho State University faculty and students have worked together to create a new digital application to cover all things related to Yellowstone Park, aimed to benefit anyone looking for more information on the site.

Digital Wonderland is the name of the application developed by Dr. Yolonda Youngs and her team at ISU.

“We wanted to bring that history of the wonderland and put it into a digital format,” said Youngs, an assistant professor in the history department.

The application embodies the historical, cultural and environmental history of the park and offers users place-based and locational information about the park through site stories, narratives, maps and historic photos.

Scholars from ISU, including students who have conducted research, write site stories and information contained within the application.

Youngs, who obtained her undergraduate degree in anthropology and archeology at Florida State University, gained experience from all over the globe between pursuing her undergraduate and graduate degrees.

“I was a field archeologist for a number of years and worked on digs in Florida, Italy and lived in Europe for a bit,” said Youngs. “But it was missing a visual and spatial element that I needed.”

Youngs then worked as a commercial white water river and kayak guide while living in the greater Yellowstone area, working on rivers in the southwest and Yellowstone Lake among others.

“I realized that I really loved talking to the public,” said Youngs. “You are connecting with a broader group of people as opposed to just your friends.”

As a guide she realized that there were many remnants and undiscovered facts about Yellowstone National Park.

“A lot of the information is available through pamphlets, books and very helpful places but there is just not enough of that in digital outlets,” said Youngs about her motivation behind wanting to create the application.

Fun features are another large component of the project.

“We want to develop a couple of interactive games to go along with it,” Youngs said. “We are going to develop big social media outlets and specifically through Flickr to encourage people through learning about this history to upload their own vacation pictures of the park.”

“We want to release it in a several years after it is fully developed,” she added.

Youngs’ knowledge in the field of history in the digital age has also helped her in developing the application.

“This whole subfield deals with making websites that show historical images, information about Google earth, making applications, podcasts and writing blogs,” she said. “Part of my team involves a digital application developer who is purely the technological side of it.”

Youngs is also currently working on a book about the Grand Canyon.

In 1872 Yellowstone National Park became the first of its kind in the United States.

This was the same time that Lewis Carroll’s book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was published, gaining much adoration from readers.

“They had advertising campaigns to really draw people,” said Youngs. “They would advertise in newspapers and magazines saying ‘come out to the new wonderland.’ The railroads, park and the people thus began referring to Yellowstone National Park as ‘wonderland.’”

As railroads were the only form of transportation at this time, people from all parts of the United States traveled over periods of days to visit the park. The Northern Pacific Railroads at the time supported the building of the park as they saw the opportunity to earn profits through taking tourists back and forth.

Individuals had to be wealthy to go on one of these visits and the whole trip generally took weeks to complete.

Information similar to this and much more will be featured in the new Yellowstone National Park application developed by Youngs and her team.