National Parks Traveler

A photo from the North Cascades National Park historic photo collection/WNPF

Access For All: Archiving The Wilderness Of The North Cascades

By Alex Day, WNPF Director of Marketing/Communications

Did you know that the North Cascades National Park Service Complex features over 300 glaciers, making it the most heavily glaciated area in the United States outside of Alaska? For visitors who have experienced the seemingly endless panorama of breathtaking mountains in this part of northern Washington state, you likely understand why the North Cascades are referred to as the “American Alps.”

The national park that protects this rugged wilderness is relatively new, having been established by Congress in October of 1968. State Highway 20, the first and only east-west road to cross the daunting country north of Stevens Pass, was only opened in 1972, and to this day access to the backcountry remains limited. The complex is home to Stehekin, a small community located on the remote banks of Lake Chelan that is to this day unreachable by car.

The Photos That Led To The Park’s Creation

Samantha Richert at North Cascades National Park has been curating historic photos that led to the park's establishment.

The park’s mountainous geography means its wilderness has been, and still is, some of the country’s best preserved. Thanks to the members of the 1963 North Cascades Study Commission, it is now protected as a national park site. Their survey of the wilderness helped make the case for preserving unimpaired its natural and cultural resources, and the historical photographs they collected document the historical conditions of locations in the park – from sweeping panoramas of glaciers to high alpine lakes.

North Cascades National Park Service Complex Museum Curator Samantha Richert oversees the Study Commission photograph collection, along with a diverse collection of park records, historical objects, and scientific specimens. A dedicated archivist, she is tasked with managing and preserving a historical record of the wilderness of the North Cascades, showing how it has changed over time.

According to Richert, the Study Commission photographs are historically significant not only for the beauty of the landscapes they capture, but because of the role they played in contributing to the park’s establishment.

“To understand the importance of these photographs, you have to put yourself back in time to 1968. There was no Google Earth, and there was no social media," she says. "Back then, they sent people out to see what was there. These pictures are the photographic historical record of the information they took back to Congress to convince them that this was a place worth setting aside.”

Your Gifts In Action

This year, with support from Washington’s National Park Fund, Richert was able to bring on an archival intern from the National Council for Preservation Education to help catalogue and digitize 1,000 historical photographs from the collection, including metadata image descriptions that are machine-readable.

An important park priority, the digitization project ultimately aims to make the treasured archive of photographs that led to the park’s creation available to the public, preserving them for generations to come. “The funding that we're receiving from Washington’s National Park Fund is going to allow us to get this beautiful photo collection out and available to people,” says Richert.

With help from this year’s intern, Richert is working hard to make these collections available to the public, and anticipates the full collection will be publicly available on the National Park Service’s public digital archive in early 2023.

Her hope? That the viewers of the collection will be inspired to take care of the park and the resources it protects, for both today and for tomorrow.

Work is underway to digitalize photos that helped lead to establishment of North Cascades National Park

Inspiring Future Generations

The value of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex’s digitization project – made possible with funding provided by Washington’s National Park Fund supporters – lies not only in preserving records of the past. It also educates and inspires future resource stewards, leaving a legacy for the future.

According to Richert, a key aspect of the project is providing an opportunity for field experience for a young museum or archives professional. Many go on to seek careers in resource stewardship, and some are inspired to pursue a career with the National Park Service.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Richert says in the course of her work, she’s often especially moved by the number of photographs taken and collected by people who worked in the park. Through this project, the hope is that the next generation of land stewards will be moved, too.

“They thought it was beautiful, and it really inspired them. I always hope that if somebody can see that, if it's made public for them, they will also be inspired to take care of this place.”

Washington's National Park Fund is a supporter of the National Parks Traveler.