Interps

Last year, over 3.6 million people visited Yellowstone National Park, a new visitation record.  Most here expect this year’s visitation to be higher than that.  That’s a lot of folks, and it takes a large staff to ensure the park can accommodate that many people and the vehicles that bring them in.  During the summer, the park’s NPS staff hovers at just over 800 people, almost three-fifths of whom are “seasonals,” or people who only work from mid May to early October at the latest.  That doesn’t include the more than 4,000 employees who work for Xanterra, Delaware North, Medcor, YPSS, the Yellowstone Association, and the many other employers who operate the park’s various concessions.  And like any sizable organization, the park’s personnel are divided into different components that reflect how the work throughout the park gets done.

The Interpretive Division is one of the five major subdivisions of Yellowstone’s operational hierarchy, the others being Visitor and Resource Protection, Maintenance, Resource Management, and Administration.  The vast majority of people who visit the park each year don’t really have any concept of how the park is organized and how it goes about accomplishing its mission to provide “a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”  But as you move through the park much of what you come to know and understand about it is the direct result of the Interpretive Division’s work.

The Interpretive Division is responsible for developing the interpretive and educational materials you see throughout the park – the signs, the informative kiosks and display boards, the displays and exhibits at the Visitor Centers and museums, and material found via a variety of other venues through which information about the park is conveyed to its visitors (including several informative features on the park’s web site).   They manage the Junior Ranger and Junior Scientist programs for the kids, and perform several other functions as well.  The park’s photographer works there, and there’s a representative who accompanies people doing commercial photography/videography throughout the park, for example. The Division’s budget is roughly $4 million, plus another $720,000.00 or so contributed by the Yellowstone Association.

Speaking of which, everything we sell in the Yellowstone Association bookstores in the park is approved by the park’s Interpretive Division.  They want to ensure the material contributes to the visitor’s educational experience and that it accurately reflects current understanding of the park’s resources and issues facing it on a daily basis.  They also approve every course YA offers through the Yellowstone Institute, its educational arm.  YA is a non-profit organization, and the money it raises through sales and its membership program goes directly to support education and preservation programs within the park.  Not surprisingly, then, the Interpretive Division is the largest beneficiary of YA’s mission.

Perhaps the most visible presence of the Interpretive Division, however, is the Interpretive Ranger, or “Interp,” as they’re known within the park community.  They’re one of the two basic types of rangers most folks see on their trip, the other being the park’s police force.  You can tell an Interp from a Law Enforcement Ranger by the simple fact that the L.E.’s carry weapons, by the way.  The Interp’s job, in a nutshell, is to help the visitor interpret what they’re seeing and experiencing as they interact with Yellowstone.  Given how large and diverse this place is, that is a rather tall order.

Interps deliver the daily ranger programs throughout the park.  These are almost always well-attended.  Each ranger is given a topic and responsible for developing the presentation and delivering it to a crowd that may range from one or two people to a room full of 200 or more.  Some lead guided walks, some give informational overviews of a specific subject or theme, some lead day-long hikes off the beaten path. Others walk through the thermal areas answering questions from people they encounter.

The New Old Faithful Visitor Education Center

They also manage and staff the park’s five primary visitor centers (Canyon, Fishing Bridge, Grant Village, Mammoth, and Old Faithful), four information stations (the Madison Museum, Museum of the National Park Ranger, Norris Geyser Basin Museum, and the West Entrance Visitor Information Center) and, during winter, four warming huts (Canyon, Fishing Bridge, Madison, and West Thumb).  The Visitor Center is where the vast majority of people come into direct contact with NPS employees in Yellowstone on a daily basis, so the Interps are often the one NPS person the average visitor encounters aside from the person who takes their money when they enter the park.  It is, therefore, one of the most important jobs in the park.

Yellowstone has about 90 interpretive rangers assigned to the field this season.  For some, this is their first summer in the park.  Others have been here for as long as 45 years.  Can you imagine being new to the park and having to learn the basics about Yellowstone, its wildlife, its flora, its lakes, rivers, and streams, its geology, its ecology, its geography, its hydrothermal features, its fires, its trails, its historic buildings, its 139 year+ history, etc., to be able to answer the wide range of questions asked by visitors on a daily basis?  Each ranger goes through two weeks of intensive, information-overload training when they arrive in May to be able to speak intelligently about all that is Yellowstone National Park.  Almost all of them have degrees in subjects such as geology, history, archaeology, fire science, or even education, and many have advanced degrees.  Starting pay for a seasonal Interp is around $15 an hour, and many live in NPS-provided housing that, quite frankly, should have long ago been condemned (for which they pay a monthly rent).

One thing that stands out with every single one of these rangers, though, is their passion for what they do.

A couple of years ago K and I decided to take the evening walking tour of Fort Yellowstone while we were in the Mammoth area.  The ranger who was to guide the tour was a tiny young lady fresh out of college; I doubt she stood a full five feet tall.  She was a fireball, though, full of spunk and she knew her stuff.  She spoke of it with all the conviction of someone who’d lived during the time when the Army was in Yellowstone.  When I first saw her come out of the Albright Visitor Center, I distinctly recall thinking to myself that there’s no way this girl was going to be able to talk convincingly about the history of the military in Yellowstone.  I also have the vivid recollection of her proving me wrong.  I walked away impressed.  In fact, I’ve never been less than impressed with any of the the Interpretive Rangers I’ve encountered in this park.

Working in the bookstore, we get to interact with the Interps at the brand new Old Faithful Visitor Education Center on a daily basis, both “on duty” and off.  I watch them ply their trade with the endless stream of visitors who approach the desk or stop them as they’re walking from one place to another to ask question after question.  The rangers answer each interrogative as if it were the first time they’ve heard it (“How often does Old Faithful erupt…?”).  When you get one of them wound up talking in depth about some particular aspect of the park, you can easily see their passion for what they do.  To a person, they’re a great group of people.

We get to do that as well – people treat those of us in the bookstore pretty much as if we know all things about the park. Many visitors mistakenly believe we’re rangers, in fact.  I guess they make that assumption because we work in the same building, even though we don’t wear the “green and gray.”  And while we’re not NPS employees, we do our best to convey what we know.  If we don’t know an answer, we refer them to the ranger desk.  Most of us working the stores have been in the park for years ourselves, and it’s fun (and fulfilling) to be able to impart information to someone here for their first visit – something to make their trip just that much more enjoyable and educational.  I’ve gained a reputation as the “historian” of the YA staff at Old Faithful, and it’s an awesome feeling to be able to explain something to someone and to put it into a historical context for them. “Well, yes, West Thumb is just a short 17 miles south of here.  When you get there, try to imagine a development almost as large as what we have here at Old Faithful.  Up until the early-1970s, that was the case…”

Thus far I’ve had the chance to meet and talk at length with people who worked at the old Canyon Hotel, the old West Thumb when it had all of its cabins, stores, and other facilities, and who were in the park at the height of the 1988 firestorm.  One visitor was a seven year old child in September of that year, and the single thing he can recall from that visit is his family driving through fire on their way out of the park.  Another gentleman has similar recollections, but also vividly recalls the tension and uncertainty in the air while they awaited an eruption of Old Faithful as the fires approached the complex, watching the firefighters lay lines and prepare to protect the Old Faithful Inn from Mother Nature’s fury.  So it’s been an educational experience for me as well.  In my mind, that’s the perfect kind of job to have.

So if you get the chance to stop and talk with one of the interpretive rangers, or one of us in the bookstores around the park, feel free to ask about any subject you care to discuss about Yellowstone.  One thing all of us have in common is a deep fondness for talking about this incredible place and helping people understand how and why it works the way it does.  And if you have the opportunity to attend one of the ranger programs while you’re here, by all means make the effort to do so.  You’ll almost always find them informative, and you’ll have the chance to see your tax dollars at work.  I can assure you, you won’t be disappointed.