Reader Participation Survey: What Was Your Most Fascinating National Park Interpretive Program?

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on November 4, 2009 - 2:39am

What's the best interpretive program in the National Park System? NPT file photo.

Across the National Park System you'll encounter some pretty incredible interpretive programs. In Virgin Islands National Park there are underwater trails. At Mammoth Cave and Sequoia national parks you can go on a "wild cave" tour.

I also recall an outstanding ranger-led tour at Olympic National Park that was remarkable not just for the setting -- the Hoh Rain Forest -- but for the ranger's ability to interact with young and old. He had youngsters giggling while they learned about the ecosystem and broadened the adults' knowledge as well.

So, let fellow travelers know which interpretive programs you've found to be extraordinary in the national parks....and, conversely, which ones were flawed in some way.

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Comments

Submitted by Kevin M (not verified) on November 4, 2009 - 5:59am.

A long time ago, we did a ranger led snowshoe hike in Yosemite. I don't remember anything the ranger said or exactly where we went. I just remember how magical it felt to be able to be out there. No one else was out and about; it was just 4 of us including the ranger. It was the highlight of the trip. That, and stepping outside the cabin in the morning to see chunks of ice flowing in the creek/river just below one of the falls.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 4, 2009 - 6:34am.

We visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield in 2006 and greatly enjoyed a battle talk given by one the seasonal rangers who also teaches at a college in Texas. Very informative and entertaining. My husband and I still talk about it and would like to hear it again.

We visited Glacier on the same trip and took a hike with a ranger (I think his name was Denver) who introduced us to thimbleberries. My kids loved them and I think they will always remember that hike.

Submitted by Rick Smith on November 4, 2009 - 6:58am.

Two summers ago when I was volunteering at the Ranger Museum in Yellowstone, I attended an evening program at the small camground at Norris Junction. The topic for the evening had to do with the history of Yellowstone NP. The seasoal interpretive ranger giving the talk was also a concert violinst and brought his instrument to the campfire circle. At various times throughout his talk, he would say something like this: "During the time the US Army patrolled Yellowstone before the creation of the National Park Service, they always had a fiddler. If you had been a soldier, this is what you might have heard." He then played a fiddle tune on his violin. He did this several times throughout the program, playing music that his audience might have heard when the concession employees put on evening entertainment for visitors or music they might have heard after WWII when parks tried to lure visitors back.

I estimate that I attended 200 or so evening campfire programs during my career with the NPS--even gave some myself. I thought I had seen everything, but this experience proved I hadn't. I had seen guitars at evening programs but never a violin. The audience loved it!! It was a program to remember.

Rick Smith

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on November 4, 2009 - 7:18am.

Rick, I'm sure he had a fiddle, not a violin;-)

Seriously, that does sound like a great program. I fiddle around a bit, but no way I'd take it out in public. Folks would stone me.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on November 4, 2009 - 7:32am.

While visiting Mintue Man in Mass. we went on a tour of the Wayside House. The Ranger (Ed Wilder, I believe) was so passionate about his talk. He made the place come alive. He knew his stuff and shared it with great intensity. If you had not read Alcott and Hawthorne before the tour, you would certainly be reading these authors after the tour. Ed did an absolutely fantastic job.

We also attended a Ranger talk on hiking in the Grand Canyon. The Ranger brought different tents, different water bottles, etc etc all to explain the options of hiking in the canyon. He was extremely informative and interesting to listen to.

Submitted by ams (not verified) on November 4, 2009 - 10:20am.

One of my most interesting programs wasn't given by an NPS employee, instead it was one of the photographers from the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite Valley. She had a great way of not only explaining how to take a great photo but also interpreting the Adams' photo we were trying to duplicate. She really brought the topic to life.

Submitted by y_p_w on November 4, 2009 - 11:36am.

I don't know about fascinating, but I do have some memories that particularly stick out.

I remember an "experienced" ranger leading a cave tour at Timpanagos Cave National Monument. He said something about how he'd been monitoring the growth of a piece of limestone since the 1940s, so I asked him how long he'd been working there. The said that he'd been a seasonal ranger there for every year since 1944 or 1945, and I took the tour in 2006.

Once I went on a walk on the subject of trees in Yosemite. The ranger was talking about mutations, and pointing to his red hair he noted that red hair was a mutation.

Of course talking about bears is always fascinating, especially when it's Shelton Johnson with a bear skill and complete bear skin:

And those Yosemite snowshoe walks are quite fun too:

Submitted by Owen Hoffman on November 4, 2009 - 3:00pm.

Has anyone encountered Stewart Fritts at the Grand Canyon?

I still remember a talk he gave to our group more than 22 years ago. It was a brilliant presentation with rapid transitions of scenic mood slides shown while reciting a long thread of pertinent quotes from the works of Shakespear interspersed with interesting fables, outright lies, and tall tales, entitled "William Shakespear comes to the Grand Canyon." The talk was a sensation. I remember it well to this very day, including the mule-like body language mimicked by Mr. Fritts when describing the uncanny preference of Grand Canyon mules to walk on the outer edge of the switchbacks of the South Kaibab Trail. Mr. Fritts dedicated his talk to improving literacy in the USA.

Then, on New Years Day 2008, I had a chance encounter with Mr. Fritts in front of the Bright Angle Lodge on the South Rim. He was leading a hike on the rim discussing the legend and legacy of the pioneering female architect, Mary Jane Colter. The attendance of his guided walk increased as he walked from structure to structure describing Ms. Colter's influence and attention to architectual detail, including the Bright Angel stone fire place made with rock from each geological formation of the Grand Canyon, and the Bright Angel guest cabins that were intentionally designed as architectual hybrids of wood and stone rustics and New Mexico pueblo. I recall that he mentioned that Mary Colter never married. Supposedly she had extremely very high standards in all aspects of work and life, but no man was interesting nor intelligent enough to be suitable as her soul mate. Stewart Fritts concluded his walk by telling everyone his dream and his wish: To be reincarnated to a former time so that he could ask Ms. Colter out on a date!

Other special interpretive events that come to mind worth mentioning here are:

(a) A campfire program at Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite under the stars with just fire, smoke, song, and stories for entertainment and enlightenment conducted by the duo leadership of legendary NPS park ranger-naturalists Dr. Carl W. Sharsmith and Will Neely.

(b) A 7-day loop hike through the High Sierra Camps with Dr. Sharsmith in the lead.

(c) A geology talk presented by a 25-year veteran interpreter at Bryce Canyon who gave an outdoor presentation early last month about the formation of hoodoos. She used multiple displays with rock samples, maps, graphs, and sugar cubes to demonstrate how the complex ingredients of rock chemistry, faults, uplift, jointing, freezing and thawing have made Bryce unique among all other landscapes in the desert southwest and why it is that Powell Point, although made of the same rock formation, does not have the same density and abundance of hoodoos that exist at Bryce Canyon. She distinguished the hoodoos by age, concluding that the rim of the canyon that we were standing on contained hoodoo fetuses yet to be born!

(d) Listening to the curator of Hubbell Trading Post, Ed Chamberlain, give a special one-time evening campfire presentation to campers at Canyon De Chelly National Monument in 2006. His presentation was on his experience as a park service anglo-American living among the Navajo. During this talk he told many stories, including one joke in the Navajo language. I distinctly remember that as he approached the end of his joke, the Navajo in the audience broke out in laughter, but the rest of us remained silent until he stopped to interpret what he had just said in English.

Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Submitted by DJ (not verified) on November 4, 2009 - 6:13pm.

Early 80s, Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kitty Hawk NC. The ranger gave a talk so animated, so passionate, so personal that he seemed to have been there. We were the first visitors in the bldg that morning, and there were only a few of us, but every eye was riveted on him and every single person was swept up in the drama and passion that this ranger imparted.

I look back and wonder how he made that talk that interesting...in all my visits to National Parks over the decades I've never encountered the chills about any subject like I did that windy morning on the Outer Banks.

Submitted by MRC (not verified) on November 5, 2009 - 8:01am.

My most memorable interpretive program was a campfire talk in Arches NP, many years ago. The same ranger led a hike through the Fiery Furnace the following day. Together they gave an incredible insight into the geology and the ecosystem of on of the most amazing places on earth. And I really liked the guided tours in both cave parks, I've visited so far: Timpanogos and Oregon Caves. Both guides obviously loved their parks.

Curious: When visiting Waterton Lakes NP in Canada, just north of the border and next to Glacier NP, an evening program was done by an exchange ranger from the US and Glacier NP. She was really great in showing the common issues of both parks that form together the "Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park" and the differences in environmental, touristic and (in brief) administrative regards.

Submitted by Ronal Kerbo on November 5, 2009 - 11:03am.

Years ago I stood in silence on the edge of a vertical pit that dropped down into a cave at Lava Beds National Monument and listened to Park Ranger Gary Hathaway talk about the small ceremony he always performed before entering the cave. He explained that he had learned the ceremony from local Modoc Indians, who considered the cave sacred. Gary said that I and our other companion did not have to follow his example, but that he at least, never felt comfortable entering this particular cave without going through this small ritual.
I felt a little uncomfortable with all this mystic preparation, and stood looking mostly at my feet, hoping to avoid Gary's eyes. I was not sure what our other companion, Jim Nieland, cave specialist from Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was thinking. At that time my caving career spanned over a quarter of a century, and never had I been very reverent before entering a cave. I had stood at cave entrances and been in awe, in great good humor, dead on my feet, and a wide variety of other states of mind, but it had never been suggested, or occurred to me, that I should be reverent before entering a cave.
From a small pouch Gary extracted three small sprigs of aromatic sage and passed one each to Jim and me. Holding his own piece of sage at chest level he began to turn until he had faced the four directions. Having completed the circle, Gary simply placed the sprig of sage onto the ground and started down the ladder into the cave. Jim followed his example and was also soon on his way down the ladder into the cave.
This did not seem to be a very difficult or overly long ceremony, so I too held out my little sprig of sage, turned slowly around, and putting my sage into my shirt pocket, quickly climbed down into the cave. Once off the ladder I found myself in a world of magnificent emerald green ferns growing in the sunlit area just below the cave entrance. I also found the cave to be warm, friendly and worth much more than the little effort required to gain access to it.
The walls, stretching away into the darkness, were covered with ancient paintings which seemed to whisper to you to be alone and quiet and pause a while on your headlong journey toward the future and let your soul be taken away by this magic place. You could almost feel the presence of the people who had made the drawings on the cave walls. Feel their spirits, hear their voices and know their great respect for the earth and all of its treasures.
With Gary there to interpret what we were seeing, I became lost once again in the wonder of a cave. Lost in place and time, with no thoughts of the outside world intruding into my mind, lost with all the time in the world before me and nothing to do but feel the softness of the darkness.
Gary told us that he had been in the cave with the Modoc people, and had observed the great reverence they had for the cave. As I looked around I understood that reverence, not in an analytical way, but with my heart, and finally found myself not wanting to leave this place, and only with great reluctance climbed back up into the world of the sun. Gary has since past away and I have now been involved with caving for well over 40 years but I will never forget that one trip with Gary.

Submitted by Tom Wylie (not verified) on November 5, 2009 - 2:39pm.

First the bad. I sympathized with the young seasonal ranger on the stage at Mount Rushmore because like him I suffered from stage fright. It was like sitting in agony in my high school speech class watching a classmate miss-delivering a speech he had tried to memorize verbatim. The only difference was that I knew I wouldn't have to follow the ranger at Mount Rushmore.

Arches National Monument in the early 1970s. Kay Forsythe took a group of us on a full moon hike through the Fiery Furnace. She knew to say as little as was absolutely necessary. The moonlight, rock and shadow did the rest.

Yosemite National Park, late September 2009. David Rose, seasonal ranger, gave the Glacier Point sunset talk. Half Dome and and the mountain peaks played out their part in the changing light of the setting sun, but David Rose gave the best ranger talk I ever heard. He wove into his talk of scenery and Glacier Point history an eloquent and simple presentation of "park purpose and policy", without relying on those words if he used them at all. The stopping of the Fire Fall at Glacier Point, the stopping of dredging to maintain Mirror Lake, the "decision" to not rebuild the Glacier Point Hotel after it burned. (To make no decision, is in itself a decision. I think that is what happened regarding the hotel.) All those decisions were moves toward making Yosemite the park it was intended to be, steps in line with changing law over the years, a park closer to the one Muir and Olmstead envisioned. David Rose sold that vision to his audience. His talk also struck home with me because I was a park ranger in Yosemite at the beginning of my career, and I was there when the events I have highlighted occurred. I have long known that Yosemite is a part of me. In thinking afterward about David's talk, I realized that I am also a part of Yosemite.

Submitted by Owen Hoffman on November 6, 2009 - 7:49am.

Tom, Thanks for commenting. I am proud to have had the chance to work with you during those critical times in the park's history.

I am also proud to have had the chance to have known and worked with Gary Hathaway, who resided in the Mather Ranger Club of Yosemite Valley, along with the rest of us single naturalists and protection rangers. I want to thank Ron Kerbo for mentioning the positive effect that Gary had on his own experience at Lava Beds National Monument. Gary became an inspirational mentor to many individuals who worked seasonally for the NPS in interpretation (some of whom have been active on NPT in the past).

Sunset at Glacier Point is the most ideal spot to hear a great presentation about Yosemite and it's history. I'm now looking forward to meet David Rose. Did anyone set up telescopes that evening for public viewing?

Owen Hoffman
Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Submitted by Tom Wylie (not verified) on November 6, 2009 - 2:06pm.

There were binoculars present, but I don't recall any telescopes that evening at Glacier Point. However, Rose did invite the crowd to stay after the program and watch the International Space Station pass overhead at about 8:00 PM. We stayed. The station came somewhat out of the northwest, passed through the "pan" of the Big Dipper, and raced across the sky---visible for about 3 minutes, traveling at about 17,400 miles per hour. It was brilliant in the sky, reflecting the sun's light. It faded as it moved east because of the changing angle of sunlight reflection. I was able to follow it with my binoculars for a longer period of time than those watching with the naked eye. I heard people saying "It's gone," but it stilled glowed red through the binoculars, fading away to a dull pinpoint of brown light bouncing around in the lenses until it was gone. I once saw the space station and one of the space shuttles traveling together across the sky here in Denver. It was not nearly so bright or spectacular as when I saw it in Yosemite. The clear night sky at Glacier Point made a world of difference.

Submitted by Lee Dalton (not verified) on November 6, 2009 - 7:55pm.

I too, am a former Norris ranger and I too, attended one of seasonal ranger Daniel Perry's evening programs which I think was called something like, "Fiddling in Yellowstone." It was great. In fact I wrote the following in a letter to Superintendent Lewis: "Daniel Perry's evening program was absoultely outstanding. It was certainly one of the very best I've ever enjoyed in any park. His humor, interaction with visitors and creative use of music held everyone in the group spellbound. And while they were laughing and enjoying being entertained, they were learning a bit of Yellowstone's history and picking up some excellent concepts to help preserve our parks. Daniel even faced the challenge of having to enforce a dog regulation at the start of his program, but he did it with such finesse and humor that he gained the complete cooperation of the pet's owner -- who was actually laughing as he led the dog back to his campsite."

Norris seemed to be gifted with gifted seasonal interpreters and I also enjoyed very much my contacts with Ranger Sue Florin. In the same letter I wrote about her: "Sue Florin's walk through the geyser basin was also one of the best I've ever seen. Again, she used humor, a lively personality and lots of interaction with visitors to keep everyone attentive, interested and involved while at the same time imparting all kinds of information about the basin and its features and the importance of conserving our parks and natural heritage. I noticed that no one in the group drifted away -- and that's an unusual tribute to the interest level produced by the ranger leading the way."

Thanks for reminding me of a great stay at Norris, Rick.

Submitted by Lee Dalton (not verified) on November 6, 2009 - 8:10pm.

I'll bet that was Darrell Collins. He is a man who has spent his entire NPS life working at Kitty Hawk as NPS historian. He is recognized as one of the top authorities on the lives of the Wright Brothers. He even grew up nearby.

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the great EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh last summer and had the great privilege of hearing Mr. Collins tell all who stopped to listen the story of the first flights. I just happened to be walking through the EAA Museum when I heard his voice and instantly recognized it as the same one I had heard many years ago when I made my own pilot's pilgrimage to the place where it all happened. Yes, listening to him did indeed bring chills down the spine of this old ranger and pilot. He held a huge crowd of busy AirVenture visitors spellbound -- including a large number of other NPS personnel who were on duty at the gathering.

EAA = Experimental Aircraft Association and AirVenture is the biggest air show in the world.