Kurt Repanshek asked me to read the comments and write a response. I don’t want to get involved in an on-going discussion. I’m not an expert on this. I’m just an outdoor guy who made some observations and commented on those observations. Regarding empirical data versus hard science: Many have had the same observations as I. On August 3rd, 2005, Fran Mainella, past Director of the National Park Service wrote a memo to all “Employees, Stakeholders, and Partners” recognizing the lack of both employee and visitor diversity within National Parks. Bob Stanton, NPS Director immediately prior to Ms. Mainella was vocal and committed to the Park Service reflecting the “Face of America.” In the spring of 2006 Director Mainella’s office released a study highlighting the poor performance of the Park Service in hiring and promoting ethnically diverse staff. The National Parks and Conservation Association, http://www.npca.org/, a non-profit Park Service partner and watchdog so greatly recognizes this lack of diversity among staff and visitors to National Parks that the organization has a director of diversification, Iantha Gantt-Wright. Frank and Audrey Peterman, after an extensive recreational tour of National Parks in all corners of the country were so struck by the lack of diversity started Earthwise Productions, http://www.earthwiseproductionsinc.com/index.html, a successful environmental education and travel company to introduce a more diverse audience to our National Parks. Earthwise has become an official partner with the Park Service. When I was kayaking the White Salmon River in south central Washington state about 18 years ago, an Asian boater approached me with a smile and a handshake, saying, “It’s great to see another boater of color out here.” So, many people and organizations seem to have been able to observe this situation without the benefit of studies. The need and ability to ignore what one sees and rely on studies always amazes me. When I was young and single, I observed, as all single young outdoorsmen have, that a lot more men participate in outdoor recreation than woman. None of us needed the validation of a study. However, for those who do need the validation of studies, I have sent a list of some 47 relevant studies to this web site in the hope that National Park Traveler will make it available to its readers. Doctor Nina Roberts, a professor at San Francisco State University, has partially made a career out of passionately studying the issue, and I’ll certainly ask Doctor Roberts to respond to this site with more scholarly information than I have. So if you really need a study to validate what is easy to see, there you go.

The studies themselves are diverse and include blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. The studies include not only the Park Service, but the BLM, the Forest Service and the Army Corps of Engineers as well and includes large national parks as well as small state parks in such places as southern Illinois and Northern Ohio.

I’ve talked to hundreds of individuals and maybe a dozen or so groups - both as a private citizen and as a representative of different organizations - about diversity in the outdoors, and I’ve noticed a couple of things. People have an extraordinarily difficult time talking about race, and almost always need to alter the focus and talk about kids, or socio-economic status, or something other than pure race. It’s just a bad subject with uncomfortable connotations. I’ve noticed that it is difficult for people to not feel somehow blamed – if they’re white. To not go to what they might have to give up if more diversity were to exist in the outdoors. I’ve noticed that people immediately assume the discussion is about some kind of entitlement program, such as affirmative action. I’ve observed that people want to know whose fault it is that more people of color aren’t out in the backcountry. People often need to bring in diversity other than ethnic – to include religion, or Europeans, or financial diversity – as though that’s what we’re talking about and to prove that diversity in the backcountry certainly exist. (hey, I saw a GERMAN out there!!) And I guess if that’s what you’re talking about, than yes, diversity in the backcountry exist. So…I want to be as clear as I can be: Yes, the discussion is about ethnic diversity…the kind that comes with dark skin color. No, it’s not a secret code word. Yes, more kids should get outdoors. But when I go into the backcountry, I am happy to see quite a few children and I am gratified that their parents are exposing them to something they can healthfully enjoy their entire lives. But those kids that I see are almost always white. Somebody else can focus a discussion on urban youth not being in the outdoors, because that’s an issue as well. Yes, National Park issues of climate change, invasive species, environmental degradation, and excessive development are more important than the issue of ethnic diversity – but within our lifetime, as that pendulum swings and the majority of people in this country are people of color who may not have a positive attachment to nor any involvement with the land, ethnic diversity/ethnic affinity for the backcountry will take on a whole new and important meaning.

I’m not blaming anybody. I don’t buy into “white male disease.” Lack of diversity in the outdoors is not the intentional fault of any living person. And if a discussion of anything to do with race is a difficult discussion to have – well – I asked the question, “What can diversity do for all of us?” And I did have a short answer having to do with the difficulty of garnering support for our wild places and public lands when the majority population is comprised of people of color.

But how about…the great outdoors serving as a classroom of people just getting along without race being a factor at all? What better classroom? After all, if it rains we get wet, and when the temperature dips we get cold. If we flip our kayak in a class 4 rapid, we swim like heck and think about drowning. Nature doesn’t care what race you are, and for the most part, the folks that I’ve met out there don’t care either.

Race - how about…if we used the great outdoors to just get over it? Is it always going to be an uncomfortable topic? People don’t always have to feel blamed, to figure out who’s at fault, to rebel against a perceived entitlement program, to pretend that they lost their job because of somebody else’s need to hire a diverse staff.

How about…if we used the naturally occurring egalitarian nature of nature to just get over it, and in so doing began to truly live up to the national potential that our forefathers envisioned by using and involving all of our citizens? Nobody looses. Nobody gives anything up. Nobody gets blamed. Well, a person might have to give up their excuse for loosing their job.

People like to invoke, “It’s culture, not color.” I hear that all the time. But we’ve been together over six hundred years! Do we really have different cultures? Or is that a myth? When famed cowboy singer/songwriter Michael Martin Murphey played a concert in Moab, Utah a few months ago he lamented that if he’d been holding that concert a hundred years ago, 25% of his audience would have been people of color. He knows. Grant-Kohrs National Historic Ranch in Montana, a National Park Service site, right on their web site at http://www.npca.org/nps.gov/grko, exposes the lie that in the days of the old west, all cowboys were white. Grant-Kohrs knows.

As far as financial: Ahhh, myths die just sooo hard. I don’t know what the overall financial status of black Americans is. I’ve been to quite a few wealthy black suburban neighborhoods. I ski patrolled in Aspen for 6 years. The largest ski club in the country is the Brotherhood of Skiers. Skiing ain't cheap. I patrolled at Aspen for 6 years. A day pass for one person cost $78 dollars (more now), skis, bindings, and boots, with my deep ski patrol discount, cost me maybe $1,400.00 a crack. Meals at Aspen - where the Brotherhood likes to convene every few years and where the club was founded, are easily $75.00 per person, and quickly and easily go up from there. Rooms can go for $1,000's a night, but several hundred per night is standard. Plane fare to get to Aspen? And when the Brotherhood is in town, they party hearty and dress to be noticed!

What can diversity do for all of us of? It’s a real question. And it has real answers. Backed up by real studies. We can stop squandering so much time, energy, goodwill, and money on the myth of race.

I’m glad folks are in this discussion. Thanks.