Find Your Park in August: A Birthday Wish

Miriam in the welcome tent at the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. In this interview series, I'm going to introduce you to park rangers across the United States. Today's post features Miriam Hornstein, a park ranger at Yellowstone National Park. What is your name and job title? My name is Miriam Hornstein and I am an Interpretive Supervisory Park Ranger at Yellowstone National Park. Is this the first National Park you've work at? If not, tell me what other parks/nature centers you've worked at. Nope, this isn't my first National Park; as a matter of fact, this isn't even the first time I've worked at Yellowstone as a Park Ranger! I've worked at Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, Joshua Tree NP, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Big Cypress National Preserve, Colorado National Monument, Yellowstone NP–all as a seasonal ranger. Then I spent four years with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on the island of Kauai at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. I worked at the National Park Service at the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C., for five years, and then moved to Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area for three years. Finally, I returned to the West for my current position as a park ranger at Yellowstone. Where did you grow up? The country, the city or the suburbs?  I grew up in a combination of places. Mostly suburbs/smaller cities in MN, TX and ND. When I graduated high school in ND, I went to college at Oberlin College, near Cleveland, OH. It's a small town with a focus on green, environmental-type living. I also spent a year living in Munich, Germany, when my father was a Fulbright Exchange Teacher. That taught me that I wasn't cut out for the big-city life pretty quickly. Too many people and too loud! What did you love about the outdoors as a child? What I loved about the outdoors as a child was that it was an endless playground filled with adventures. There was always something to see and do to spark my imagination. When did you know you wanted to work in outdoor education?  I didn't consider a career in outdoor education until I graduated with my degree in Geology. I did a three-month-long internship at Arches NP through the NPS's Geo-Scientists-in-the-Parks program. Half of the time, I worked on synthesizing information for an interpretive trail exhibit, and the other half I worked as an interpretive park ranger. My eyes were opened to a whole new world. Interpretive park rangers are the ones who focus on outreach and education. We're the ones visitors meet in the Visitor Centers and give the guided hikes and programs. We work to help visitors form intellectual and emotional connections to the resources that we're charged to protect because people are far more likely to protect what they care about and understand. After I worked in my internship for about a month, I realized that National Parks were a classroom that changed every day, filled with students who wanted to be here and who wanted to learn. And I haven't stopped loving that feeling since. Who encouraged you to pursue a career in outdoor education? I've had multiple mentors in the NPS who took me under their wing to help me learn and grow as a park ranger, but ultimately the strongest mentors would be my parents, specifically my mom. She was a Girl Scout herself and was determined that her daughter would at least have a basic appreciation for the great outdoors if not the basic skills to handle it. My mom enrolled me in Girl Scouts at an early age and even became a troop leader despite her busy working schedule to help keep me involved and to ensure that the experience was about the outdoors. She and my dad always found a way to send me to camps and encouraged me on adventures like canoeing the Missouri River from below the Garrison Dam to the Bismark-Mandan area the summer between 7th and 8th grade with the Girl Scouts. And when I talked with them about becoming a ranger, both of my parents always encouraged me. They admit that they love having an "in" at all these parks and a reason to visit them. What is the most common question you get from park visitors? Without a doubt, the number one question at any park is, "Where's the nearest bathroom?" But for me as a person, visitors are very curious about how I got started as a ranger. And as I've gotten older, they want to know what it's like trying to juggle a personal life with the remote conditions that I live in. I'm always happy to answer their questions about how I got started, but I draw the line at the questions about my personal life. It gets a little irritating to get subjected to questions like, "What does your husband think about you living out here?" when my male coworkers are never asked questions like that. How can parents raise kids to love the outdoors? From what I've observed, the best way for parents to raise their children to enjoy the outdoors is to take them outside with them and have adventures together. We all spend too much time attached to our various devices and too much time indoors these days. Let your time with your children be your time to get out there and have fun. If it's cold, bundle up and enjoy it! Snowshoeing and cross-country skiing are popular wintertime activities for a reason, but even something as simple as sledding can be great fun. I can't tell you how many great memories I have of sledding with friends and family, laughing until we all fell off the sled! One of the best gifts my parents gave my brother and I was a huge sandbox in the backyard. We played for hours in it and most of the neighborhood parents knew that when they couldn't find their kids, they would check our backyard. Hours of imagination and fun!  If it's spring, get out and enjoy what's blooming. There are so many free to low-cost apps for phones that help you identify a plant, flower or bird. And most of them don't require cell service once you have them installed. I use these ID apps a lot and I don't have cell service where I live and work! Anything else you want to share about your job or what you love about nature/being outside? I think what I'd like to share the most is that it doesn't take a big, expensive, once-in-lifetime type trip to a National Park like mine for families to fall in love with the outdoors and nature. No matter where you live, there is nature around you. Take advantage of your city, state and county parks. Get to know your neighborhood and what type of outdoor volunteering opportunities there are available. And take the time to step away from your electronics to experience your world around you. It's such a beautiful, wonderful place. I am so lucky to find my calling and be a park ranger. I hope that if we teach our children to love the outdoors, there will be future park rangers to follow in my footsteps.

In this interview series, I'm going to introduce you to park rangers across the United States. Today's post features Curt Dimmick, chief park ranger at Mt. Rainier National Park. Curt with his oldest son, Eli, at the NPS Centennial on August 25, 2016, at Mt. Rainier. What is your name and job title? Curt Dimmick, Chief Park Ranger, at Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington. Is this the first National Park you've worked at? If not, tell me what other parks/nature centers you've worked at. No, this is actually the ninth. I have worked at Coronado National Memorial (southern Arizona), Grand Canyon National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Big Bend National Park, Everglades National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I have been the Chief Park Ranger at Great Basin National Park (Nevada), Crater Lake National Park (Oregon) and now at Mt. Rainier National Park (Washington). Where did you grow up? In the country, city or suburb? I grew up in Illinois in a very small town called Thomson that has a population of about 550.  I consider it the country as we lived on the edge of town without many close neighbors. What did you love about the outdoors as a child? I loved playing in my parents' large yard (we had over 3 acres).  I loved riding bikes and playing all sorts of games and acting out fantasies. I loved animals (we always had a dog growing up and cats) and became interested in wildlife and nature early on. My mother loves birds and always had bird feeders around the house, and I enjoyed watching and learning to identify birds. I loved spending time along the Mississippi River, which was less than a mile from my parents’ house. When did you know you wanted to work in outdoor education? Unlike a lot of my colleagues, I never thought about being a park ranger while growing up. I did know I wanted a job where I could work outdoors at least some of the time. When I started college, I was interested in being a wildlife biologist. I studied and have several degrees in biology and zoology. As I went further in school, I thought I would be a college professor. I got interested in the park ranger profession after I started graduate school and worked seasonal (temporary) positions for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and then later for the National Park Service as a park ranger. I got hooked and eventually landed a permanent position as a protection or law enforcement park ranger with the National Park Service. I have worked as a ranger ever since. I grew up interested in law enforcement too and it is in my family. Both of my brothers are police officers. So this career as a park ranger has combined my interests in wildlife, nature and biology with my interest in law enforcement. Who encouraged you to pursue a career in outdoor education? My parents always supported me and my siblings in whatever we wanted to do. I had several science teachers along the way who helped stoke my interest in the outdoors and nature. Several college and graduate school courses and professors further fed my interest. In the end, it was probably my own internal desire that most led me to this type of career more than any other person. What is the most common question you get from park visitors? Where are the restrooms?  Actually, that is something of a park service joke, but it does ring true as that is one of the most asked questions at visitor centers. At Mt. Rainier National Park, it is usually, "How high is the mountain?  How many people climb the mountain every year?" The answers are 14, 410 ft. and of about 10,000 people who attempt to climb it each year, about half make it to the top. The others get turned around for various reasons. How can parents raise kids to love the outdoors? Get them outdoors early and often. Don’t let weather stop you. Get them rain clothes for the rainy days, snowsuits for the winter days and get them out in all sorts of weather and in all sorts of places. Take them to local, state and national parks. Take them camping, hiking, fishing, kayaking, whatever you are in to and get them started. Read books and stories about the outdoors, animals, nature. Teach them about what they see around them and if you don’t have a nature background, learn with them and take them places like nature centers, children’s museums and programs in national parks to learn more. Anything else you want to share about your job or what you love about nature/being outside? Being a park ranger for the National Park Service, living in or near and working in national parks, is one of the greatest jobs there is. Being part of the mission to preserve and protect the natural resources in our parks and to serve and protect the visitors who come to enjoy the parks is one of the proudest accomplishments I can think of.