"Horace Albright's reply to applicants for park ranger jobs in Yellowstone in 1926."

 U.S. Army"Buffalo Soldiers" - pre-NPS park protectors

Today is the centennial anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service (NPS). We've evolved a lot this past century. Here is a reply from Horace Albright (1st NPS Superintendent of Yellowstone, and 2nd Director of the NPS) to Park Ranger applicants to Yellowstone 90-years ago:

 

early Ranger uniform

“Qualifications of a Ranger

Applicants for a ranger’s position must be 21 years of age or must attain that age by June 15th. If you are not 21, or will not be by June 15th, don’t apply. If you have the reputation of appearing unusually youthful or immature for a man of 21, don’t apply. We want men who are mature in appearance. We prefer men of 25 to 30 years of age.

The ranger is primarily a policeman, therefore he should be big in frame, tall, and of average weight for his age and height. We always prefer big men to small men, other conditions being equal. If you are small of stature, better not apply.

Clare Marie Hodges - Yosemite, 1917

The ranger comes more closely in contact with the visiting public than any other park officer, and he is the representative of the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the National Park Service and the Superintendent of the Park in dealing with the public. Naturally, therefore, the ranger must have a pleasing personality; he must be tactful, diplomatic, and courteous; he must be patient. If you are not possessed of such characteristics, please don’t apply. Without them you would become, if selected, a failure from the beginning of your service.

Ranger talk

The ranger is charged with the protection of the natural features of the Park, especially the forests. Applicants should present evidence of their having had experience in camping out in the woods. Forestry students who have had training in forestry work and forest fire fighting are given preference to other applicants if they possess the qualifications as to age, size, and personality.

Me at Tonto Nat'l Mon.

The ranger must know how to cook ordinary foods and must have experience in kitchen police. If you cannot cook and care for a ranger station, don’t apply. You would be an unpopular burden on your fellow rangers and the butt of all station jokes should you be selected without this essential qualification.

We want big mature men with fine personalities and experience in the out-of-doors in riding, camping, woodcraft, fighting fires, and similar activities.

Duties of A Ranger

The ranger force is the park police force, and is on duty night and day in the protection of the park. Protection work primarily relates to the care of the forests, the fish and game, the geyser and hot spring formations and the campgrounds. Of equal importance is the detection of violations of the speed rules. The ranger force is the information-supplying organization. The issuance of publications, answering of questions, lecturing, and guiding are all accomplished by rangers.”

Per George Robinson, Chief of NPS Education & Visitor Services (Retired).

Then

Now

“Don’t Bury Me On The Lone Prairie; I’d Rather Play There Live…” Cosmic Cowboy

19 AUG 2016: As I sit at the Old Santa Fe Trail building’s information desk, doing a volunteer-in-parks (VIP) gig, I’m reflecting on the 100-years that the National Park Service (NPS) has been attempting to protect park areas via their legislated mandate "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Considering present expectations of a high-octane special-effects world, that’s often tough to achieve, for so many lessons from NPS areas are subtle in nature. Many take years, decades or even generations to appreciate and understand.

Emily Erickson

It has been many new moons since I’ve posted anything, even though I’ve thought about various semi-worthy topics: old resource protection cases, archeological observations, or other non-polarizing topics  (abortion, same-sex marriage, climate change, income guarantees, gun control, etc. - NOT). So, I’ll just compose a few updates of some trips here in the southwestern part of the U.S.A. (its been fairly mundane- no dive trips or exotic destinations):

In May, I flew over to central Arizona: our goddaughter, Emily Erickson, graduated from the Gilbert Classic Academy (high school) and soon starts in the nursing program at Grand Canyon University (under scholarship: way-to-go Emily!). She and her younger brother Andrew were also preparing for a trip to London, which they did in June I believe (I bet that was blog worthy). 

I spent much of June in Arizona at two wildfires as a Safety Officer. The initial dispatch was to the Juniper Fire on the Payson/Pleasant Valley Ranger District of the Tonto National Forest (NF). The Incident Command Post was in Young, AZ, and as some of you might remember Meme & I used to own some acres in Young that we bought while working in Tonto Basin (myself at Tonto National Monument & Meme w/ the Forest Service). It was an interesting assignment, seeing the changes and/or places that looked pretty much like they had in 1978 (or probably 1938). The fire grew to about 30,000 acres and achieved many of what are termed “management objectives.” In other words… it did good. Plus there were no major incidents or injuries: well maybe one. There was a “Lesson Learned” by a UTV operator (a Division Supervisor) re: the value of wearing a DOT approved helmet. He was wearing one (instead of a fire helmet) when his ride flipped. May have saved his life or great bodily harm. We went through several transitions there, as the Incident Management Team (IMT) went from a 3 to a 2 back to a 3 during my tenure. Transitions are always a heads-up/watch-out time (more than usual), too many tragedies occur during them.

My second “roll” in June was to the Cedar Fire on the White Mountain/Fort Apache Agency. The fire was threatening the towns of Show Low, Lakeside-Pinetop and the casino at Hondah. So, this was a Type I (IMT) fire with many complex issues that come with a wildland-urban interface incident. I was assigned to work with the two structural protection groups (north & south), which made for some long days. It still feels gratifying that I can contribute in some small way, realizing that any fire could be my last. I used to be a young firefighter/Park Ranger, now I’m usually “the old guy” (but that in itself can be a walking safety message). I got to “tie-in” with Mark Harvey, a retired NPS Park Ranger that lives close to us in Eldorado: he was playing “Mr. Demob” for the incident. While there we experienced some minor issues, but while we were headed home (another transition period) there was a crew that had multiple fire shelter deployments.

July found me waiting for another assignment: I’ve been asked on numerous occasions “why aren’t you in California?” Good question, and I can only re-state there seems little rhyme-or-reason to when the phone rings from “Santa Fe Zone” (our local interagency dispatcher). So instead, I had to decide between attending my yoga class at SFCC, or trying to qualify for the Olympic Fantasy Team in “butterfly walking” followed by a pint of porter for a cool-down period. I selected both-of-the-above. I also enjoyed a day on the upper Pecos River with a fly fishing guide. Our catch-n-release adventure landed about 2-dozen rainbow & brown trout, with the largest being ca. 20” and 3-lbs. No pictures, as I was busy… The month had much hotter temps than normal, but brought on the cooling monsoonal moisture in time for our “just about annual” trip to Pacific Beach. As usual, dispatch called me 2-days before the system showed me as “not available” for a fire assignment (previous years it has been the day before we left for the coast). Tough choice, but the Pacific was calling (besides, we had Meme’s retirement from the Office of the State Engineer. Her last day in the office was the end of July, with August being an annual leave month). Besides we wanted to catch up with Meme’s brother Mark & stepbrother Charlie (still flying for Alaska Airlines), which we were able to do while enjoying the warm sand & surf.

We knew at the end of last year that the Dept. of Interior’s International Technical Assistance Program involving our work & efforts in Petra were being shut down. It became final recently when I was asked to sign a closeout contract document. I’ll miss our many friends and adventures there, and of course working with retired NPS Rangers Bill Wade & Bruce McKeeman. My biggest surprise of the summer was at our locale market (The Agora): at the frozen foods I ran into Nancy Wizner. We’d worked together at Santa Monica Mountains and she resides in western Colorado. We are going to stay-in-touch.

The second week of August we finally got up to Red River, NM (aka “Little Texas”) for a concert by Michael Martin Murphey (MMM). The town is ca. 8600’ and we stayed in a nice historic room above Texas Reds steakhouse (same Texas Red as of “Big Iron” fame). The chuck wagon dinner & concert was held in an amphitheater at an old ranch a couple miles from town (at about 10,000’ – glad we had our hoodies). It was a very casual scene with MMM talking to some of us pre-concert. Meme made a couple of requests, one of which (“Southwestern Pilgrimage”) he started off the show singing, after leading in with the backstory of how it’d been requested by a Lady from Santa Fe and he’d written it years ago when leaving Austin and its music scene in his rearview mirror for the wide open spaces and Rocky Mountains. Later in the concert, he made some conservation comments: noting that the reason they didn’t have a campfire blazing was the amount of pines around the lake & hillside that had suffered bug-kill. There were some stringers you could see during daylight. Anyway, he mentioned the Beaver Creek fire in northern Colorado (Routt NF), close to his ranch, and even though it was wet, the diseased trees were burning – over 35,000 acres. "Cosmic Cowboy" went down well all around.

Last night a bunch of Meme’s rock climbing amigos y amigas held a really nice potluck at Wolf’s hacienda off upper Canyon Road, using her retirement from the State of NM as an excuse. I think some road trips are in the works. Anyway, that is about it for now, take care and “be careful out there”…