15 July 2008
Park Rangers and Swiss Guides
In recent decades, the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has lent its expertise to many nations working to develop, expand, and improve their parks and conservation efforts. But this has not been a one-way street -- the National Park Service has also benefited directly from international engagement. Decades ago, for example, the NPS imitated a European practice to develop what has become one of the hallmark attractions of U.S. parks.
In the first few years after the Park Service was established by Congress in 1916, the first director of the agency, Steven Mather, sought some advice on creating nature walks for visitors and providing visitors with explanations and interpretation of park features. He turned to George Goethe, a California philanthropist and conservationist.
Goethe and his wife had traveled to Europe, a journey made by only a few privileged Americans of that era. They had seen groups of schoolchildren being lead up Alpine trails by their teachers, who explained the flowers, the plants, and the vistas along the way. Goethe learned that the excursions were more than merely educational.
The Swiss viewed the lessons about the landscape as a tool to help build unity and an appreciation of place among the diverse ethnic and language groups trying to live next to each other in the small, mountainous country. When children shared the beauty and wonder of their land in these excursions, the Swiss reasoned, they might also develop a common sense of patriotism and pride that would be shared among them despite differences of language and religion in their families.
The Goethes decided that the United States, with its many citizens of diverse backgrounds, also might benefit from the shared sense of wonder that a nature guide might instill. They recruited naturalists and botanists to conduct such excursions at private resorts in Lake Tahoe, a scenic lake nestled in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the border of California and Nevada.
By 1920 the Goethes and their guides had gained enough experience and success in their efforts that they received an invitation from Director Mather to launch a similar program at Yosemite National Park. A Department of the Interior news release from 1960 celebrated decades of success that began with the Goethes’: “Dr. and Mrs. Goethe’s original efforts, enthusiasm, and unstinted financial support of the ‘nature guide’ idea has become the present-day interpretive program, personified by the [Park] Service’s uniformed ranger naturalists, historians, and archeologists who guide visitors in the national parks. This interpretive program, said then NPS Director Conrad Wirth, “has made the park system a fascinating and unique educational institution.”
In the 21st century, the tradition of the Alpine guides lives on in the form of some 5,000 National Park Service employees who work to share the joy and wonder of the parks with more than 275 million park visitors each year.
