Postcards from Alaska - Rebuilding a Whale

One of our SCA writers has been very busy at her current home up in Glacier Bay National Park. Without going into the things she's been doing on and off work (that's for her next entry), we wanted to showcase the project she's been involved in: Rebuilding "Snow", a humpback whale that died in 2001. You can find the details on Glacier Bay NPS's website, along with a brief editorial on the Student Conservation Association's website.

~CBD

A Rookie’s Perspective: Why don’t you love this?!

Editor's note: Alexa is a first-time NPS intern at Devil's Tower National Monument. We hope to have her chronicle her first season as a parallel to the "Postcards from Alaska" series. Her author bio is available at our Contributors page.



As the third full week of my internship comes to a close and my life feels less like a vacation, I’m still struggling to understand the tourist mentality.

“Let’s hit as many of these national parks in a single day as we can! If we leave Yellowstone by 8 a.m., we can hit Devil's Tower and Badlands before the closing ceremony at Rushmore!”

What? Why? Why won’t you stay for sunset? Why not just camp here tonight, watch the sunrise, and then go to Mount Rushmore? Hell, spend a few days here!

Every day, I see families, groups, couples, lone travelers stop for an hour or two to look at the tower before speeding off down the twisting exit road to the interstate.  Park.  Snap a photo.  Walk up to the base.  Retreat.  Leave.  Like clockwork.   How can you love this place if you’re only here for seconds?  How am I supposed to help you understand this place if you can’t even experience these beautiful Wyoming nights?  How will you ever appreciate this place (“in your own way”) if you don’t even know what a full day here feels like?  How will you ever know what the other side of the tower looks like?!

I try so, so hard to encourage people to stay longer. “You know, we have a really cool evening program tonight at the amphitheater.  It’s the perfect vantage point for the sunset!”

“Sorry, we’re trying to get to Rushmore by sunset.”

“Sorry, we’ve got a full day of traveling to Yellowstone ahead of us.”

“Sorry, we can’t.”

During my walks and programs and informal talks with visitors, I try my best to “give them the information so they can learn to appreciate this place in their own way.”  I try to talk about whatever they're interested in so they, too, can see how amazing this place is.  I try to show them all the cool, secret rock ledges to sit on.  I try.  But still, somehow, I encounter those who just can’t enjoy themselves here.

Normally, I would think that’s okay.  The geographer in me knows that everyone will appreciate places in their own way – positive or not.  But I just can’t help but blame the person spewing those horrible accusations (especially after I’ve shown them the cool rock ledges).

You’re never going to love this place if you’re only here for an hour, mid-day.  I know you just want to talk about the tower right in front of you, but turn around!  Look at the view! Look at the plains and the Black Hills!  If you don’t love it, I’m keeping these rock ledges for myself.

Before this internship began, I thought I’d be sharing cool stories with curious visitors.  I thought I would be talking about geology to people who are truly interested in learning.  I thought I would be encouraging people to step off the nicely-paved tower trail to go explore the red beds or Joyner ridge or one of the many wilderness areas that speckle my map with green.  It’s not that I don’t try; I do.  Maybe it’s because I’m at a smaller park/pit stop for those going between Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone.  Maybe it’s because these people have schedules to keep up with or itineraries to follow.  Maybe I just don’t share enough of my enthusiasm (I think if I try to share any more enthusiasm I will be numb).

I guess it just takes patience and practice to make it through the day listening to people rush rush rush when the land is telling you to relax and stay for a while. Or maybe it’s just me, no one else seems as bothered by it. Whatever the case may be, I have an incredible amount of respect for park rangers now after seeing the amount of people they have to interact with on a daily basis, especially those who insult our park.

A Rookie’s Perspective: My Life is Still a Vacation

Editor's note: This is Alexa's first post. She is a first-time NPS intern at Devil's Tower National Monument. We hope to have her chronicle her first season as a parallel to the "Postcards from Alaska" series. Her author bio is available at our Contributors page.

“...so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.”  – Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

I’ve always been an explorer, whether or not I use the term formally.  One year ago, I sat in an environmental history class with a professor and former National Park Ranger who thoughtfully and enthusiastically shared her knowledge of, in part, the history of the National Park Service.  Her enthusiasm matched my interest, and I am now interning at America’s first national monument.

Just a week ago, I arrived in Wyoming after a long, miserable trip from upstate New York.  My roommate picked me up at a small county airport about an hour away from Devils Tower National Monument.  I was exhausted and it was the middle of the night, but I still managed to gasp when I saw the shadow of the tower against the purple-y night sky.  My roommate probably thought my excitement was a little ridiculous, but I couldn’t hide how cool I thought the view was.

I still think the tower at night is better than in the daytime.  During the day, you see what you expect.  It looks just like what you see in the pictures (actually, it’s much better, but the details are the same).  But, when you visit the tower at night, you just see this mass of darkness against the best view of the Milky Way ever.  It’s something you can’t photograph and expect to be the same.

The best part of it all is that you can see the tower at night.   Not just the rangers.  Not just the raccoons that freak me out.  Not just me.  Anyone can see it or any national park because it’s not just my tower or the state of Wyoming’s tower. It’s public land.  I am still getting over the fact that we can all be here whenever we want because it is all ours.

--

I’ve only been here a week, so I kind of am still in vacation mode.  Every morning while I’m opening the Visitor Center, I see the tourists sleepily emerge from their warm cars and gasp at the height of the tower.  If I didn’t walk to work, I would be doing the exact same thing.  I just can’t believe that something so amazing can actually exist.  When I take the trail home from work, I can’t believe the red rocks and winding river are actually there.  The only thing tethering me down to the real world is the massive amount of paperwork I’ve had to do this week.

Which leads me to the actual work part of this: there is a lot of it.  I intern 8-hour days like a real adult and have lots of paperwork.  I have to cook my own food (help, mom and dad!).  I give (and plan) tower walks and short talks and evening programs just like the Rangers. I work in the Visitor Center. I rove the trails. But, still, it doesn’t feel like any job I’m used to.  It may be because it’s the first week, or it may be because I’m in one of America’s amazing parks and monuments.

Whatever the case, I could never have imagined this is what I would be doing for the summer.  I never want to stop exploring the boulder field and the red beds and the prairie grass fields.  I never want to stop the alertness I have while hiking to watch for rattle snakes.  I never want to stop telling people about the geology and history and culture of the Black Hills and the high plains.  It may be the new job high, but I feel like I’m on a vacation, and I never want it to end.

-Alexa.

Postcards from Alaska - Entry #1

Editor’s note: This is the start of a running series from a first time NPS employee chronicling her first Park Service job at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

Jas here!
So, I made it to Glacier Bay Alaska. First things first, it is beautiful and I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world right now. Mountains, REAL Mountains! Not saying that the part of Georgia I come from is flat, but it isn't exactly mountainy either. I wouldn't call Stone Mountain a real mountain; it's more of a hill.

Anyways, where I am situated is pretty much a glacial plain sandwich. The plain being the meat between the majestic mountains and the open sea. Interestingly enough, I haven't seen any glaciers yet, but I'll work on that.

Bear Claw Mountain

Mountain valley road from the plane

The ocean from the plane

Different colors in the ocean water

Post office

The flight to Glacier Bay from Juneau was amazing. The water was so many different shades of blue and green that it was beyond fascinating. On the way over here I was so nervous about all the unknowns about coming to a place I had never been and the fact that I had never met any of the people I would be working for, and interning with, in person yet. Now that I have gotten a lot of it out of the way I realize it wasn't really that hard it was just a matter of facing everything head on and moving forward from there. I feel like a lot of things in the next 6 months are going to be like that. I'm really looking forward to it.

Everyone that I met has been super nice! I'm not so sure about the whole limited Internet thing yet. I met my partner Allisha, the other SCA intern, and she was really nice. We both bonded over complaining about the Internet but I'm sure we'll figure it out, there are several places we can go to get access.

The Fjord Flying service plane I took

So, what we are doing here for the Student Conservation Association right now is working with maintenance. I haven't been told very much, but I do know that for the first week most of what I'm going to be doing is training and paperwork. Our day starts at 7 AM and I'm really looking forward to it.

One of the first things I will be doing is a bear safety class, which I can only imagine has to do with not getting eaten, mauled, or whatever else bears do. From what I have learned in a the brief time I have been here is that you get to see them often. The lovely lady, Allison, that picked me up said she has seen them licking her red Vespa before!* On a related note, when I first met my roommate, he gave me a bottle of bear mace. I would have to say that is the best welcoming gift ever!

Welcoming gift of bear mace

For all of you that are were concerned about mosquitoes, I am happy to say that it had been a dry year and that there won't be very many. Apparently, they don't have ticks in the park. Well, they have ticks but they are more like deer ticks and couldn't care less about humans. I was told, however, that as a trade off the park had lot of biting gnats and horseflies. To be honest, I haven't seen much wildlife yet. I saw some crows in the trees outside my apartment window and what I can only assume are puffins of sorts. Allison told me that I would probably run into some local porcupines sooner or later, as they have trails next to the roads. Since I have arrived in town I have learned quite a few terms. While I can't remember all of them right now, my favorite so far is Swamp Donkey, which is code for moose.**

I also heard from my roommate’s girlfriend that the whales were starting to come into the park. As a result, for the first time ever they were recorded singing around this time of year. Normally, they don't sing until the end of the season when they go back to Hawaii to mate. Another fun tidbit I learned about the whales around here today was that they only eat when they come up here and then when they leave they don't generally eat anything till they get back the next year. I couldn't imagine not eating for almost a year! I got to my new apartment and I have to say it's way nicer than the dorms that I had in college. The one I am in is a 4 person apartment with shared living space, two bathrooms, and separate rooms. We get free laundry, which is awesome and almost too good to be true.  It is fully furnished and even has a mini TV, which I am now convinced has a smaller screen than my laptop. On the flip side, my laptop can't play VHS or DVDs! My room looks out into a cove and the view is stunning I'm looking forward to looking out every day. I asked my roommate what time the sun went down and it isn't till 8:30 and it doesn't get actually dark till 10:30.*** Btw there is snow outside my apartment which isn't exactly exciting for most people but back in Georgia any snow is exciting.****

They even gave us two fridges, though I honestly don't think we will need considering that most of the food can only be bought at two very expensive stores in the town of Gustavus. I have decided that having stuff mailed to me is probably more efficient than buying stuff in town. The only thing with having stuff mailed to me is I haven't yet figured out how many days it takes for it to get here. The post office said three days and I can vouch and say nope that is not correct, I sent a package 3 days ago and it's still not here.

Until next time!
*Note to self: Do not wear red unless you want bear licks. **Note to self: Start compiling a list of random terms you learn at the park. ***Note to reader: I'm pretty sure I just felt an earthquake already, unless it was the fridge, who knows, I'll have to ask* *I asked- no one else felt it. I mean I could have sworn the ground was shaking. I may be going crazy though who knows! ****Note to reader: Except during Snowpocalypse because no one can drive and everyone thinks they are going to die unless they buy milk and bread.