“I want this hike to be about wildflowers.” I nodded, my Pleasant Ranger Smile ™ plastered on my face. “I want you to tell me all of the wildflowers,” the woman repeated, a little louder.
It was a muggy August day in Glacier National Park. I stood at a trailhead with a collection of around a dozen visitors, waiting for the advertised start time for my ranger guided hike. This was my fifth summer being a national park ranger for the US National Park Service.
For the last ten minutes one woman had been ordering me and her fellow park guests around, telling us what we should be wearing to hike, how the parents of the children joining us should be parenting their kids, and how I should do my job.
“Excellent,” I told her. “I have just the thing for you.”
I pulled a laminated brochure listing the wildflowers of Glacier from my pack. “You can be in charge of this.”
I handed her the field guide and pointed to the images of flowers. “You can be our wildflower guide. Anytime you see a wildflower, let us know.”
There are few wildflowers in the wooded valleys of Montana in August; most of them bloom in the spring and early summer. She might have found some wildflowers at higher elevations in the park, but this wasn’t the time or place.
I suppose the woman figured out this fact in her search for wildflowers during our two-mile trek through the woods on the west side of Glacier. Or perhaps she didn’t understand that this wasn’t wildflower time and that no matter how much she demanded it this wasn’t going to be a wildflower hike.
I really didn’t care; giving her a task had mostly quieted her. We were able to hike in relative peace, and I did my job as I normally did, pointing out the actual spots of interest along the way–the pond where I was once inundated with frogs the size of my thumbnail, the tree half-chewed through by a beaver’s teeth, and the rushing creek where if lucky we might spot an American dipper flitting through the dark ripples of the water.
One of the reasons people go on a ranger hike is to learn from the ranger. To be guided by someone who knows the place and can reveal its wonders.
If this woman didn’t want my input, then she could have her own private wildflower hike, I guess. Read the field guide, pour over its images, see no flowers. She could take from my info as much or as little as she wanted. That was her right.
I tend to think that this is generally how all national park info should be presented. Here are the resources we protect, and here are facts about them. Here is the accurate historical information or scientific truths. Here is the stuff you can learn, if you wish.
But such information should never be pushed on people. If you don’t want to read the sign at the scenic overlook, you don’t have to. If you don’t want to attend the ranger talk or see the park film, you don’t have to. If you want to come to a national park and only look for out-of-season wildflowers, that is your choice.
Which is why it makes no sense to me to censor the information that national parks share with their visitors. If you don’t want to hear about history, then don’t seek out historical information. If you don’t want to learn about science, then don’t attend a science lecture. If you don’t want to hear about melting glaciers, don’t attend a geology talk at a national park that has a lot of melting glaciers.
Many people live in information bubbles these days. Their news sources are tailored to their viewpoints, and their social media streams are crafted by their particular algorithm.
When people step out of their info bubbles and into the real world, they sometimes become incensed that there are different viewpoints and other information than what they’ve been exposed to.
When people enter a national park, they are sometimes confused to find that the park relates facts without the bias they are used to. And so they call those facts biased. Facts aren’t facts anymore.
Recently the leaders of the American government have been attempting to censor national parks, to strip them of accurate history or science, as they believe those facts are “biased.” But they are incorrect; they are the ones with political and racial biases.
For example, explaining that George Washington was an enslaver who benefitted from forced labor isn’t biased. He did those things. That is a fact.
Explaining that transgendered people played a large role in the early days of the LGBTQ+ rights movement is not a “liberal bias.” It is a fact. They did.
Explaining that climate change is real and pointing to a melting glacier isn’t a biased argument. It is stating a fact and highlighting the evidence.
If you want to live in an information bubble, that is you right. If you only want to consume media that supports your viewpoints, you can. But you do not get to make that choice for the rest of us.
Owing to my professionalism and personal integrity, while a park ranger I chose to share the most accurate historical and scientific information I could. What visitors chose to do with that information was up to them. Whether they listened, chose not to attend my talk, ignored and disputed everything I said–that was up to them.
If you want to visit a national park and learn nothing, you can do that. If you want to look for wildflowers that aren’t there and call the ranger a quack, you can do that.
But you don’t get to come into national parks and tell the people that protect them that they can only talk about wildflowers when none are in bloom. You don’t get to turn national parks into bastions of misinformation and nonsense. You don’t get to make national park rangers into liars and propagandists.
Climate change is real and caused by humans. American slavery was abhorrent and caused by white supremacists. Trans people have existed as long as there have been people and have contributed in countless ways to the betterment of our species. And wildflowers don’t grow in the Montana woods in August, at least not enough to be missing all the other wonderful things there are to see.
You can choose to miss out on all the wonder and beauty and learning and heartbreak and catharsis that a national park can give you. But you can not take all of that from the rest of us. America’s national parks are for the people, and many of us–I would daresay most of us from my experience working in them–want the full range of experience and knowledge these special places can give us.
If you don’t like what a ranger has to say, ignore them. I know from experience how easy that apparently is. But you can not silence them or suppress the truths they relate. They have been tasked with safeguarding America’s history and natural beauty. And sometimes that means protecting the truth from people spreading lies.
By telling the truth about American history, they are doing their jobs–protecting that history for future generations. By teaching accurate science, they are doing their jobs–protecting those natural spaces for future generations.
National park rangers protect more than wildlife and wildflowers and artifacts–they protect our heritage. Who we are as Americans, what we value, what we have sacrificed and fought for. The mistakes we have made and how we are trying to be better.
National park rangers keep the records of our environmental and cultural heritage. To lose their knowledge is to forget who we are and where we have been.
Inspired to support America’s public lands? Here are five ways you can help.