Moran participated in an 1871 survey, led by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, which explored the area that would become Yellowstone National Park.

[1][2] Hayden's extensive report on the expedition, which included sketches and paintings by Moran, as well as photographs by William Henry Jackson, was instrumental in persuading Congress to preserve the area as a national park.

Though the painting suggests a primordial environment untouched by civilization, four figures--including a Native American--witnesses to the majesty of nature, can be seen in the foreground.

He would subsequently travel the American West and create many more works of art, including a second painting titled The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1893–1901), which displays a more mature treatment of the same landscape.

The poet and editor Richard Watson Gilder called it the "most remarkable work of art which has been exhibited in this country for a long time.