Yellowstone Museum of the National Park Ranger

[Richard Smith]

Good morning--

 

I just finished a two-week assignment as a volunteer host at Yellowstone's Museum of the National Park Ranger.  It is located in a restored soldier station at Norris Junction.  The displays are related to the history of NPS employees with special emphasis on the ranger profession.

 

This was really fun.  We averaged about 250-300 visitors a day.  They didn't all come at once so the host has time to tell stories, talk about NPS history and issues, and answer visitor questions.  I shared the two-week assignment with Frank Klayko, a former seasonal employee at both Yellowstone and Devil's Tower.  The assignments are divided so that each person has 3 days off in a row, leaving time to visit other areas of the park and take hikes.  I spent one evening in Bozeman and had breakfast the following morning with long-time Yellowstone rangers, now retired, Jerry Mernin, Gary Brown, Terry Danforth and Jerry Hammond and his wife, Connie.  We told a lot of old Yellowstone stories.

 

The NPS provides quarters for volunteers, a volunteer uniform shirt and ball cap, and support through permanent interpreter, Jennifer Conrad.  You will remember that Norris has no restaurants, stores, motels, internet, cell service.  In other words, it's a perfect place to be.  There is a 100-site campground.  I attended all the evening programs given by the seasonal interpretive staff that works at the Norris Geyser Basin.  All the programs were pretty good.  Topics included the '88 fires, grizzlies, bison, park history, and other park animals--pika, wolverine, fox, etc.  During my career, I estimate that I attended more than 100 evening programs.  The park history program, though, produced a first.  The interpreter was a concert violinist and at appropriate times, pulled out his violin and played a song consistent with the period that he was explaining.  Needless to say, the crowd loved it.

 

This is a great way to spend a couple weeks.  Yellowstone, despite its problems, is still a magic place.  It's good to be reminded of that.

 

Rick

 

 

Rick Smith

2 Roadrunner Trail

Placitas, NM 87043

Tel: 505-867-0047

Cell: 505-259-7161

Fax: 505-867-4175

rsmit...@earthlink.net

 

[Linda Finn]

Sounds like it would have been good to have a camera rolling at that
meeting with retired Yellowstone rangers. Is an oral history program
part of this museum's mission? Pleased to hear that the interp
programs were occurring and useful.

Have just been re-reading a trip log made by my mother on a family
camping trip out west in 1959. Went to a lot of national parks, some
like Yosemite and Yellowstone were described as dusty and overcrowded
(campgrounds), and the firefall was not a hit. Seemed to me like we
were cramming too much in too little time......maybe typical
tourists! We stayed in a campground near Yellowstone just a few days
before an earthquake caused a landslide to bury some campers there.

Here are photos and a description of the quake.

http://www.westyellowstonenet.com/attractions/hebgen_lake.php

http://www.seis.utah.edu/lqthreat/nehrp_htm/1959hebg/c1959he1.shtml

> rsmith0...@earthlink.net

[Robert Utley]

Although never a ranger, I take some credit for the ranger museum at Norris. In 1967 the superintendent was rushing to tear down all old buildings because he thought when they reached age 50 they had to be kept—a common misunderstanding. The many old soldier stations were prime candidates, and Horace Albright lent encouragement because he wanted no vestiges of the army era left in the park. Norris was the last soldier station. All appeals to spare it went unheeded until I made my case to George Hartzog. He overruled the superintendent, and the result is the huge success Rick describes.  Bob Utley