Feature Stories Archive

Baseball: Why It Connects to Our American Story

Legacy

Published: March 6, 2010Posted in: Feature Stories, Interpreting SportsTags: Baseball, Blackstone Valley, community, Rhode Island, Snake River Valley

By Chuck Arning

Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming 19th century.

—Mark Twain, Speech in New York City, April 1889

During the spring of 1907, Big Bill Haywood, secretary-treasurer for the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and a leader of the International Workers of the World (IWW), went on trial in Boise, Idaho, for planning the assassination of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, a strong supporter of mine owners. The long and contentious trial brought world-wide recognition to the Snake River Valley. Newspaper reporters streamed into town. The famous Clarence Darrow was the leading defense attorney. The trial was international news—labor against mine owners and big business. Tales of scandal and murder in the American West caught everyone’s attention.

At the time, Idaho’s new Sunday Closing Laws had forced the closing of all forms of entertainment for working men and women, with one lone exception during the late spring and summer—the game of baseball.

Every Sunday and on holidays as well, stands at baseball fields in towns throughout the Snake River Valley were packed with spectators watching their town’s “nine” exert their will over the opposition. When a raw-boned 19-year-old kid from California named Walter Johnson pitched for the Weiser City nine against the Caldwell County seaters, the entire community of Weiser took a train to Caldwell to see the game. To quote one of the reporters covering the Haywood trial, Jim Nolan of the Denver Post, “A baseball game at Caldwell, 20 miles away, almost denuded the town of its male inhabitants….”

The proximity of the mill to the ball field demonstrates the classic relationship between baseball and industrial life. The crowd of “fanatics,” the original term for baseball fans, was an important part of the game, showcasing the energy each mill team could muster to root their players on to victory. Courtesy of Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester, MA

On the other side of this sprawling, contentious, complex nation, situated among the mills of the Blackstone Valley in Rhode Island along the banks of the Blackstone River, was the Berkeley Oval. It was a picture of contrasts; in the midst of this industrial landscape of massive brick, five- and six-story mills was a baseball diamond, the very image of a pastoral, agricultural setting. Historians looking at the mill villages of the Blackstone Valley were surprised to find baseball fields as integral a part of the mill village landscape as the church, the company store, and mill housing.

The story goes that when the Berkeley Mill team took on the Ashton Mill nine, both mills of the Lonesdale Company, delivery men would not deliver goods or produce to the mill villages of Berkeley or Ashton for the simple reason that no one would be home to receive them. They would all be at the Berkeley Oval cheering their village favorites on to victory. Why baseball you ask? The answer, quite simply, was that baseball was America.

While there were flourishing baseball contests prior to the American Civil War, it was the initiation of thousands of soldiers during the endless drudgery of camp life that brought baseball to the forefront of American life. Jacques Barzun, an observer of American life, once said that if you wanted to understand America, you first needed to understand the game of baseball.

From the mill villages in the east to the mining camps of the west, baseball was a part of each community. A town that supported a team that played with competitive drive was a town that was regarded as an up-and-coming place—a place where future investment would be rewarded, a place where community character was seen as strong and hardworking. Through baseball a town could develop its own identity. In the competitive world of America in the 19th century, that was everything.

For a moment, stop and consider the element of work. What was the daily life of a worker like in the late 19th century? The lyrics for one of the most popular labor songs of the late 1800s, “Eight Hours,” provides us with a sense of the worker’s state of mind:

Walter Schuster, owner of several mills and friend of Hall of Fame baseball team owner Connie Mack, added former pro players and up-and-coming stars. Courtesy Worcester Historical Museum & the Douglas Historical Society

We mean to make things over;
We’re tired of toil for naught;
We may have enough to live on,
But never an hour for thought.

We need to feel the sunshine;
We need to smell the flowers;
We are sure that God willed it;
We mean to have eight hours!

Eight hours for work;
Eight hours for rest;
Eight hours for what we will!

The common element was work—how hard it was, how dangerous it was, how long it was; one’s life was defined by work. The metal trade workers in Worcester, Massachusetts, were agitating for a 40-hour work week—eight hours a day for work. But just a few miles down the Blackstone River, an eight-hour day was but a wisp of a dream for the factory worker. Beginning in January 1895, annual reports were made to Rhode Island’s general assembly by the factory inspector in his “Hours of Labor” report:

The Factory Inspector is required by the Act to report the number of hours performed by the help in the establishment inspected. No authority is confirmed upon the Inspector to enforce the law limiting the employment of women and minors to 60 hours per week. I have found the 60 hour law conformed to in nearly all establishments inspected. Exceptional occasions arise where exigencies of business seem to necessitate its temporary violation.

Workers in one part of the Blackstone Valley were pushing for a 40-hour week while those in the other part of the valley were saddled with a 60-hour (or more) work week.

Yes, work was long, but what about the danger of work? In 1894, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed a law mandating inspections and yearly reports from the factory inspector regarding mill conditions with a focus on under-age mill workers. These reports contained narratives of the various mill injuries. Indeed, mill work was dangerous. It was common knowledge that working conditions throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries were appalling.

While rivers, waving fields of grain, and majestic mountains separated the coastal watersheds of the Blackstone Valley of Massachusetts and Rhode Island from the distant Snake River Valley in Idaho, the construct of the mill village was the same. And the owners, whether they spun cotton, built machines, or dug deep in the earth for precious metals, seized upon one common thread that would keep their communities happy and their workers in line. That common thread, baseball, helped develop a keen sense of place and connect workers and communities in such a manner that pride in one’s town became sacred. As various immigrant groups found their way to the mills of the Blackstone Valley, mill owners saw baseball as the key to “civilizing” their newly diverse workforce.

Loyalty, teamwork, pride in one’s skill, and pride in community—all of these were important factors in building an efficient and productive work force on the mill floor. Mill workers working together made for an efficient mill. And where could you practice such teamwork? The baseball oval was the answer. Whether workers were Armenian, Polish, French-Canadian, Irish, or Italian, teamwork was the essential ingredient to success when you were practicing on the ball field, turning double plays, and playing hit and run. Whether it was the Rubber League, the Triangle Industrial League, or the Blackstone Valley League, baseball proved to be an effective way for the mill owner to reduce labor turnover, control his work force, and create a greater sense of community, all the while inculcating basic American values in their workers.

Company newspapers like The Heald Herald were a key part of management’s strategy to build team work and company loyalty among its worker population.

The superintendent of the Central Falls (Rhode Island) General Fabric Company was quoted as saying, “Everything being done here is with the idea of encouraging our people to stay with us. These sports are the best thing we have to bring employees together. They create a spirit of neighborliness and good friendship throughout the plant.”

Another mill owner captured the progressive paternalistic view common to the owner class when he said:

Let the worker get outdoors as a participant or spectator and when the whistle blows he will return refreshed both mentally and physically, adding to the life of the worker and to his period of productivity. Both the worker and the company benefit.

And there were definite reasons for the need to keep workers in the mill, focusing on the job at hand, being productive and reasonably content. As noted earlier, work was hard, long, and dangerous, and the push for worker rights was growing stronger and louder with the advent of various labor organizations.

Consider the contrast in the pace of work versus the pace of the game of baseball. Whether building a railroad, digging for ore, or running a textile machinery, productivity was based on speed. You worked to the speed of the machine. But baseball was different. Each inning consisted of six outs, three per side; however long it took to get those outs was the length of an inning. There was no time limit.

What about working conditions? In the mill, it was a raging din at all times. It was hot, dank, smelly, and incredibly dirty—cold in the winter, impossibly hot in the summer. The flow of work was constant. Out on the baseball oval, it was different. A soft summer breeze blowing in from left field on a late afternoon refreshed your skin. You could hear your teammates giving you encouragement or your sweetheart cheering you on from the stands. The smells were of fresh-cut grass or the blooming flowers of the season. Then there was the smell of leather and the feel of that leather as you pounded it into submission.

Between pitches there was time to soak in this relaxing, yet charged atmosphere, for there was a lot on the line. Winners were rewarded, losers were forgotten. Being on the team of the winning company or the winning town carried weight. It meant you had earned recognition and had a future as a town, company, or as an individual.

The next time you agonize over developing an interpretive talk, think about baseball, think about sports and how you can build a story at your site around that classic American competitive drive. For to understand America, you better understand baseball.

For More Information
Lukas, J. Anthony. Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1997.

Rosenzweig, Roy. Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1983.

Hudson, J. Ellery. 16th Annual Report of Factory Inspections Made to the General Assembly (RI). State of Rhode Island. 1910.

Rockwell, Elisha H., and Palmer, Fanny Purdy. 2nd Annual Report of Factory Inspections Made to the General Assembly. State of Rhode Island. 1896.

Reynolds, Doug. 1991. Hardball Paternalism, Hardball Politics: Blackstone Valley Baseball. Labor’s Heritage: Quarterly of the George Meany Memorial Archives (3)2. p. 32.

Birds of a Feather: Creating a Unique Experience Along the Kansas Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway

Legacy

Published: February 1, 2010Posted in: Community-Based Interpretation, Feature StoriesTags: Cheyenne Bottoms, Great Bend Kansas Convention, Kansas, Kansas Wetlands, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, Wildlife National Scenic Byway

by Cris Collier

In a ritual as old as time: Dawn slips across the horizon along the prairie marshes of south-central Kansas.

Photo by Dan Witt.

And with those first rays of sunlight comes a thundering, primeval sound—deafening, glorious, and almost terrifying as islands made up of thousands of sandhill cranes, geese, and ducks suddenly dissolve in a flutter of wings and haunting calls to rise and fly to the surrounding fields of Barton and Stafford Counties.

Each year, theirs is a 7,000-mile journey that takes them from their summer nesting grounds of Canada, Alaska, and Siberia to winter retreats in New Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico—and then, when the seasons change, back again.

The birds have been coming to the marshes for at least 9 million years. But in the past 20 years, the dynamics of that migration have changed as a growing number of birders from around the world also flock to the land to witness what many consider one of the best wildlife sights in the world.

And as they come, incorporating and interpreting what people see is becoming increasingly important.

There have been many changes in tourism over the past two decades I have worked in the industry. As president of the Great Bend Kansas Convention and Visitors Bureau, I’ve witnessed changes that have been dramatic and rapid. Initially bureau work was only about the marketing aspect of tourism. Now, our bureau work includes three tiers: marketing, political considerations, and product development. In 2005, we became designated as one of the first national scenic byways in Kansas.

Interpretive panels like this one create a consistent experience along the Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway.

The Kansas Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway consists of 77 miles along state and county roads in rural Kansas. This byway showcases the prairie wetlands located in the heart of the central flyway. Working on a national scenic byway presented several challenges. The byway comprises three counties, seven communities, and three wetlands of international importance.

The seven corridor communities for our byway range in size and population from 154 residents living in Hudson to 15,000 in Great Bend. Each of these communities has something to offer as a unique and authentic visitor experience.

We quickly discovered visitors, like the birds who come to the marshlands, don’t see or care about city limits, county lines, or other political boundaries. So the challenge was and still is to develop a seamless experience for the visitor while honoring these political and government boundaries.

This byway exists in rural Kansas. No single byway community, regardless of its size, can offer a unique “visitor package” on its own to attract tourists to the region. But each can and does contribute to the whole visitor experience. I’ve discovered through the years that there’s really not much difference between tourist amenities and “quality of life” factors people consider when making decisions about where to live.

The most important challenge we needed to address was how best to tell our story. Every community had its own ideas about what it needed and how it wanted to tell “the story.” We needed both an umbrella and structure. Attending our first National Association for Interpretation conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2006 was like having a light turned on. It was there we learned about interpreting our area. Interpretation provided the answer.

Visitors enjoy a guided birding field trip at Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area.

The development of an interpretive theme, subthemes, and story lines provided both the umbrella and structure we needed to move toward providing quality visitor experiences. This allows every community, attraction, and resource to consistently tell the story of the byway while still being able to tell their own individual and unique stories as outlined through subthemes and story lines.

Taking the interpretive approach has strengthened the many partnerships involved in the byway experience. It provides an avenue for communities to appropriately tell the story. Each is a significant and unique piece to the overall byway puzzle. This also removes some of the “threat” between communities and allows them to cross market. Since each community works from a different subtheme and set of story lines, they each provide something significantly unique. Our wetlands are wonderful and diverse, starting with their ownership and operation.

Quivira National Wildlife Refuge is a 22,135-acre property owned and operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Research indicates this saltwater marsh experiences approximately 60,000 visitors of a non-consumptive nature, primarily wildlife watching and photography, yearly.

The Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area is a 19,857-acre freshwater marsh owned and operated by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. It receives about 60,000 visits annually, equally split between consumptive and non-consumptive uses.

The Nature Conservancy Preserve at Cheyenne Bottoms consists of 7,694 acres managed exclusively for non-consumptive use.

These three wetlands provide the anchors at either end of this national byway. All three have been designated as wetlands of international importance. Yet, much like the corridor communities involved in the byway, each wetland has its own unique story to tell and management plan to implement and promote.

The lack of amenities present at the wildlife areas hampers visitation. Partnering with corridor communities helps to present those amenities to the visitors to improve the quality of their experience and possibly lengthen their stay in the region.

Our experience has been that interpretation lays the foundation. Working together to develop an interpretive plan built partnerships. All entities were honored in working to develop the overall best visitor experience possible for our region.

Happy and satisfied visitors stay longer, return often, and “spread the word” both about the joys of visiting our region and the importance and significance of the resources found here. This has raised the visibility of the tourism industry at the local, state, and national levels.

But one other change is also emerging—the nature of the experiences sought by visitors. Gone are the days when simply seeing an attraction was enough. Visitors now seek authentic experiences.

That’s what makes interpretation so essential in tourism. In the past, many attractions and museums managed presentations and programs more along the lines of “interpretainment” and “interpretorture.” But no more. Visitors now seek authenticity and connectedness with the resource.

Both staff and volunteers need to address that shift or find themselves experiencing sharp declines in visitation numbers. Marketing research indicates an increase in tourists seeking outdoor experiences ranging from extreme sports to wildlife watching.

Regardless of the type of outdoor experience they are seeking, all will have an enriched experience with the inclusion of interpretation. This is because a large part of what they are seeking is a connection to the resource.

By including interpretation into our product development and marketing, we hope to provide experiences that encourage visitors to stay longer, return often, and provide good word-of-mouth advertising. Additionally, by using the universal concepts of interpretation we can help visitors make that connection and hopefully assist with building a broader and stronger base for the sustainability of the resource through volunteerism and stewardship.

We believe that by providing the proper experiences, it will help visitors consider supporting friends groups, take part in hands-on conservation activities, and become an advocate for both the destination and the resource.

The development of advocates for a resource, a region, and a community is an essential and important aspect of the experience. We will continue to incorporate interpretation in our efforts because we believe it provides quality visitor experiences, builds essential partnerships, and creates sustainability for both our communities and our resources.

Our story is as old as time. Yet it changes every minute of every day.

In the height of the fall migration, visitors know when they visit the marshes at sunset, they are witnesses to rhythms of nature. The skies are filled with wave after wave of birds coming in to rest on our prairie marshes until weather pushes them on. Visitors are just as likely to see a buck strutting across the fields as they are to catch glimpses of whooping cranes feeding in fields and bald eagles soaring overhead.

This is our story.

This is our experience.

Cris Collier is the president/CEO of the Great Bend Convention & Visitors Bureau in Great Bend, Kansas. She can be contacted by email at cvb@visitgreatbend.com. Find the Great Bend CVB at www.visitgreatbend.com. Find the Kansas Wetlands & Wildlife National Scenic Byway at www.KansasWetlandsandWildlifeScenicByway.com.

Developing a Sense of Place in Non-Traditional Spaces

Legacy

Published: January 19, 2010Posted in: Community-Based Interpretation, Feature StoriesTags: Cleveland, Cleveland Metroparks, Cuyahoga County

by Robert D. Hinkle

In today’s atmosphere of broken connections with nature, it has become critical for park districts to create those connections for visitors they serve. Linkages can be physical, such as trails connecting neighborhoods with parks, they can be intellectual, connecting visitors with park districts’ missions and the information deemed important to learn, and they can be emotional, the kind of connections that build constituencies. All three are essential to ensuring the success of parks and the heritage interpretation that makes those linkages work.

Photo by Casey Batule

In a focus group study conducted by Cleveland Metroparks NatureTracks Outreach staff, a group of non-park users answered a simple but important question: “Why don’t you use the parks?” Their answer was simple and pointed: “Because we don’t know what to do when we get there.” It is the role of interpretation to make the emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the visitors and the meanings inherent in the resource.

We have long recognized that good interpretation engages all the senses. I would suggest that our list of senses needs to be expanded. Today’s audience for interpretive experiences comes to us seeking three more senses—a sense of security, a sense of belonging, and a sense of place. These new sensory components of interpretive programming, if properly developed, create new attachments between the visitor and the resource, and build linkages from the heart and mind directly to the conservation, education, and outdoor recreation needs of the surrounding communities.

Cleveland Metroparks is a large regional park agency founded in 1917, currently holding more than 21,000 acres of parkland, over 80 percent of which persists in an undeveloped state. It is not a part of the city of Cleveland; rather, it is a separate political subdivision of the state of Ohio, much like a town or village. It encircles Cuyahoga County in a series of parkways and reservations called “The Emerald Necklace.” Its over 100 miles of parkways traverse more than 50 municipalities, each a partner in upholding the mission of Cleveland Metroparks.

Five of Cleveland Metroparks’s six nature and visitor centers are destination-driven—visitors must drive or walk long distances or negotiate circuitous routes of public transportation to arrive there. Over 80 miles of paved “All Purpose Trail” (APT) largely follow parkways through the reservations and sometimes make connections between reservations. Until the Lake to Lake Trail (L2L) was conceived, no APT trail system within Cleveland Metroparks ventured away from parkways. L2L embodies a new direction in visitor experience and interpretation.

Cuyahoga County is largely “built-out,” with little land still available in natural areas other than existing parklands. Lake Isaac, a well-known regional waterfowl sanctuary, sits in the town of Middleburg Heights, about 13 miles southwest of downtown Cleveland. It is one of only two glacial pothole lakes still remaining in the county, and lies in Big Creek Reservation. Through a series of land donations by nearby Baldwin-Wallace College, the other remaining glacial lake, Lake Abram, became available to Cleveland Metroparks in 1994. Park planners and heritage interpreters conceived a potential trail linkage between the two lakes, but no land was then available for purchase. It took almost 10 years to create a series of partnerships between Cleveland Metroparks and agencies and individuals within and adjoining the proposed trail corridor to create the landmass necessary for L2L.

The “Prehistoric Play Pit,” designed by Cleveland Metroparks’s visual communications division, stands where these extinct animals once roamed. Photo by Casey Batule.

The Lake to Lake Trail makes connections not just through but into the heart of hidden histories and natural places that before the trail’s realization were simply academic fact. Along the L2L corridor lies the largest remaining wetland in the county, formerly hidden to any but adjacent landowners. Just north of the wetland the trail passes within 200 feet of one of the largest regional hospitals in the county, then travels farther north past an extended care facility that was formerly landlocked by roads and inaccessible woodlots. The trail continues winding from the care facility into a second-growth woodlot and on to the shore of the second-largest cattail marsh remaining in the county, on the southern end of Lake Abram. There, an 840-foot boardwalk crosses the marsh and takes visitors west to a second trailhead and parking area, where their journey ends or they turn and retrace their steps southward.

The trail was designed to be more than just a place for wellness walking, however. In keeping with Cleveland Metroparks’s mission of “conservation, education, and recreation,” a series of trail additions and interpretive components was planned to create the senses of security, belonging, and place that visitors seek. Naturalist and Certified Interpretive Planner Debra Shankland acted as interpretive project manager throughout the 18-month development of the trail. Using the 5M model outlined in the book Interpretive Planning by Lisa Brochu, Debra carefully researched potential user groups and their needs, demographics within walking distance of the area, and the cultural and natural histories of the lands through which L2L meanders. Developed as a 2.4-mile walk through time, the interpretive components serve to connect users with a fascinating human history that few would otherwise know, and further develop their sense of belonging to the place where they live. Additionally, the natural history of the lands traversed by their walk was also developed as a story in time, with a few “wow” surprises added for good measure.

Spotting scopes and flipbooks add distance viewing and easy identification to the observation deck. Photo by Sharon Hosko.

The trail begins to the south at Lake Isaac, where waterfowl interpretation answers the questions, “What’s that duck?” and “Where did it come from?” The migration story explains how black ducks nesting from Quebec to Manitoba appear at this one small lake within four days at the same time every year. A short walk northward takes visitors through a new tunnel under an active railroad track, where they discover that both they and the feeder stream for the watershed to the north now weave through the same small passage.

Another few hundred feet takes them past Polaris Career Center to an elevated boardwalk on the shore of Fowles Marsh, the last remaining large cattail marsh in the county. A covered shelter holds two spotting scopes and laser-cut silhouettes of six of the common species of waterfowl likely to be seen there. Additionally, sturdy flipbooks identify and interpret the most common birds, amphibians, reptiles, and marsh plants likely to be visible from the deck.

Walk the trail at noon, and from this spot north many of the hikers will be wearing colorful surgical scrubs, as the trail passes alongside Southwest General Health Center. Wellness walking coupled with fun learning and a safe, peaceful place to commune with nature are provided by the trail. Another quarter mile and the trail crosses a major five-lane road, where visitors learn that the place where they stand was itself a cattail marsh not long ago, and the land was drained to become one of the world’s largest centers of commercial onion farming. Geography is destiny, and the marsh that made the soil brought their ancestors to farm it.

Another quarter mile takes the trail past a well-groomed and well-interpreted cemetery, the final resting place of the first landowners of this area. The dates show the centuries that have passed since they first set foot here, and the interpretive panels tell the story of the land as settlement gave way to suburbs.

Crossing a modest access road takes hikers to an open meadow. A connector from the extended care facility just 75 feet off the trail brings wheelchair-bound residents out into nature and reminds them of their youth, when they played in the fields and forests of this community. Interpretive panels along the way, placed at an easily accessible height, continue the interpretive journey into the forest and back in time when the First People lived here. The forest and marsh and lake beyond provided for them, just as the drained marsh areas provided for the settlers and the agriculture that followed.

Traveling through the forest takes visitors to the edge of an 840-foot boardwalk that crosses over the south edge of Lake Abram and its cattail wetland complex. Traveling the boardwalk, visitors find themselves surrounded by cattails nearly as tall as they, until they reach the elevated platform in the center, which raises them over 10 feet, commanding a panoramic view of the marsh and the open water of the lake beyond. Plans for the platform were vetted with two local birding groups, both now enthusiastic partners. The platform holds yet another viewing scope and benches facing outward, enabling visitors to sit and observe the wetlands surrounding them. Overhead, another set of laser-cut icons accurately portrays several of the common dragonflies of the marsh below. Flipbooks at two locations there offer not just identification, but also a brief natural history of each common plant or creature likely to be seen.

The final hundred feet of the boardwalk spill out on solid ground again, at a place with more surprises. Post-Ice Age mammals once roamed this very place, and mastodon remains are not an infrequent find in similar pothole lakes and bogs in northeastern Ohio. Here, the “Prehistoric Play Pit” holds a life-sized replica of a mastodon skeleton emerging from the ground for children (and adults, we’ve found) to play on. The size of the creature is inspiring enough, but nearby interpretive panels elaborate on the life and times of these creatures, which once could be found here on this very spot. Only 50 feet away, a dragonfly dipping pond and circling boardwalk offer opportunities to explore, play, or “just mess around” with the water. A short walk west takes visitors to a picnic rest area and ultimately to a parking lot and trailhead kiosk, at the trail’s northern terminus.

In addition to the kinesthetic, verbal, and visual components of the interpretive process, a podcast offers a downloadable trail overview. Other vod- and podcasts to enhance trail exploration through each season are under development.

Local studies show us that visitors seek more recreational components as part of their interpretive experience. While each of the six centers of Cleveland Metroparks has already shifted some types of programming to meet that need, L2L is the first Cleveland Metroparks APT trail that achieves the goal of connecting communities off parkway roads through a self-paced recreational experience that connects a sense of self to a sense of place through direct, community-driven interpretive elements.

Robert D. Hinkle, Ph.D., CIP, CIT, is the chief of Cleveland Metroparks’s division of outdoor education. Reach him at rdh@clevelandmetroparks.com.

Why Tourism Needs the Public

Legacy

Published: January 7, 2010Posted in: Community-Based Interpretation, Feature StoriesTags: agritourism, Civic Tourism, cultural tourism, ecotourism, geotourism, heritage tourism

by Dan Shilling

I often say civic tourism begins with the story of your place. Of course, more than a few other travel and tourism programs say something similar, among them cultural tourism, heritage tourism, agritourism, ecotourism, geotourism, and a handful of other approaches to place-based hospitality that have recently emerged. Don’t get me wrong—people have always traveled to experience scenery and culture, but it’s only been within the last few years that we’ve seen books, university courses, consultants, and hospitality bureaus advocating one or another form of place-based tourism. The granddaddy of them all, “ecotourism,” was only coined in 1983, so this is still new stuff. We’re still learning how to do it, and we shouldn’t be disillusioned by the occasional setback.

Renovation of the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona, which began in 1997, has spurred tourism and economic development. La Posada closed in 1957 and sat unused for 40 years, vulnerable to the wrecking ball. Today the popular hotel also serves as an art gallery and museum, reflecting Winslow’s heritage.

In the early 1990s, when I was director of the Arizona Humanities Council, we began to dabble in cultural heritage tourism, and all of the research seemed to bolster our belief that it was a good idea in a state whose tourism was largely defined by our magnificent natural and cultural landscapes. Years of studies clearly showed that if we invested in Arizona’s cultural infrastructure, this new breed of traveler—often Boomers looking for unique experiences—would stay longer and spend more. It seemed like a win-win idea that served both the cultural and business sectors, and I was among its loudest cheerleaders.

So, what happened? What went wrong?

By “wrong” I don’t mean there aren’t fantastic place-based tourism projects across the nation. There are—from heritage tours in Harlem to heritage trails in Arizona. However, most of these are isolated and episodic projects dependent on the hard work and vision of a few dedicated individuals, rather than a cog in the wheel of an ongoing state or regional initiative, which is the possibility some of us imagined.

The historic streetscape in Baraboo, Wisconsin, provides a unique and attractive setting upon which to design a tourism program. Situated near the International Crane Foundation and the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center, the Baraboo experience demonstrates how the built environment and natural environment work together to create a distinctive sense of place.

By “wrong” I mean: If place-based tourism is so commonsense and potentially beneficial—if, as economic guru Richard Florida says, “Place is becoming the central organizing unit of our economy and society”—then why is “place” disappearing from so many communities? Anyone who has studied Tourism 101 knows that differentiation is the key, so why are many tourism towns starting to resemble James Howard Kunstler’s “geography of nowhere,” where standardization has replaced uniqueness? And why are tourism bureaus often managed by the same growth machines responsible for the standardization, such as chambers of commerce? If your town’s tourism product is its historic downtown streetscape, why isn’t the tourism program directed by the historical society or preservation association? (Just askin’.)

By “wrong” I also mean: If sense of place is so important to tourism specifically, and economic development in general, why are the organizations that identify, preserve, and enhance place so under-funded—or even being abolished? Across the country, arts agencies, preservation groups, historical societies, heritage centers, and similar guardians of place have seen their budgets slashed and their political standing undercut. Sure, there are wonderful exceptions, but one wishes they were the norm; for the most part, federal and state budget crises have been used as excuses to purge too many cultural, educational, and environmental agencies. Tourism budgets have not fared much better.

In my own state, the governor’s proposed budget for 2010 phased out the Arizona Historical Society over five years, an agency that has existed since 1864, nearly a half century older than the state itself. Like many other regions, Arizona’s tourism is dependent on its history and heritage; just look at any magazine ad or website: cowboys, Native Americans, Hispanic culture. And while the governor’s plans were thankfully thwarted, at least for now, it’s distressing to think that the one statewide institution responsible for archiving and telling our stories was nearly eliminated two years before Arizona celebrates its centennial in 2012. One wonders where or how that celebration would take place. Sadly, our story is not unique.

Many historic towns like Medora, North Dakota, near Theodore Roosevelt National Park, offer walking tours. The tours not only help visitors understand regional history; they often involve local citizens, who share their homes, businesses, and stories. An added benefit is that tours tend to keep visitors in town longer, meaning they spend more money.

So what went wrong, or at least not remarkably right, given the potential? If place is so important why is it disappearing, along with the organizations responsible for its preservation? One reason, I’d argue, is that we’ve done a good job with the research but not with the implementation. That’s why we refer to civic tourism as “the poetry and politics of place.” Most of us know what the poetry is: our place’s history, its environment, its heritage, the things that make our story special. Politically, however, we’ve dropped the ball, in part because place-based tourism advocates have limited the conversation to the two most likely audiences: the tourism industry and the cultural sector. We’ve not successfully engaged the people who often know more about, and care more about, their place than any other group: the general public. Simply put, we need to become better grassroots activists, which should not be difficult, given that we’re talking about the places where people live, not an abstract political equation.

In 2004, when we began the research that resulted in civic tourism, we asked residents what they knew about the tourism industry in their town. Not surprisingly, very few people know who is responsible for product development, funding, marketing, and other roles. If they have impressions at all, most citizens consider tourism a low-wage industry run by the chamber of commerce. Tourism means motels, gift shops, and fast-food outlets—all aimed at satisfying strangers. When I asked tourism bureau directors how this situation benefits them, suggesting they might want to reach out to residents, I was surprised that some said they didn’t want locals anywhere near the tourism conversation, because all they would do is gripe.

Well, maybe they have reason. Visit your nearest “tourism trap” and ask anyone who’s lived there 10 years what they think of the hospitality industry—and step back, because you’ll get an earful! How can it be healthy for tourism agencies, which usually depend on public funds, to alienate and keep at arm’s length their neighbors—the people who are often the most affected by the industry’s decisions? Civic tourism flips the frame, privileging the needs of residents, not visitors, asking how we can use the industry to enhance the things people love about their place, rather than how we can use place to increase the industry’s bottom line.

Admittedly, other approaches to place-based tourism advocate community involvement. Open any book about cultural tourism or ecotourism, for example, and you’ll probably read something like: “No tourism product should be developed or marketed without the involvement and support of the local residents” (David Edgell, Managing Sustainable Tourism). Great, it’s good to see that sentiment making inroads. But it’s one thing to say “involve the public” and quite another to do it, which we discovered during many community forums.

Predictably at these meetings, pro-tourism cheerleaders explain that the industry provides jobs, generates taxes that pay for much-needed services, and attracts restaurants and other amenities, which residents would otherwise not have. On the other side of the room, the anti-tourism voices complain that tourism ruined their town, causes crime and congestion, and, besides, you can keep your fancy restaurants—we never eat there anyway!

That’s the missing part: How do we have a dialogue about tourism and not a debate? How do we identify common ground toward agreed-upon ends, rather than short-term political victories? How do we embrace residents’ knowledge of their community, so they become ambassadors of place? Unfortunately, when local tourism offices do undertake a “public engagement” program, it generally means a speakers bureau of hotel managers and other usual suspects who meet with civic groups to tell residents what a wonderful industry tourism is. I did it too, and we all had the “for every $1 invested $8 is returned” speech memorized. And then one day a legislator asked me, “Dan, everybody makes the economic argument. What else you got?”

Well, we “got” something pretty special—an industry that, if we care for it correctly, will continue to provide jobs and generate taxes; I certainly don’t dismiss the economic argument. Beyond that, tourism can help us protect historic structures, save our cultural heritage, preserve the natural environment, and serve and engage residents. Rather than an industry that divides communities, tourism can be a congealing force.

With civic tourism, then, we’re focused on developing the skills and tactics that produce constructive involvement. We have years of research on designing and implementing community forums on explosive social and political issues—everything from immigration in the Southwest to logging in Montana. Organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council, for example, bring together environmentalists, the timber industry, and citizens to design plans that provide for both sustainable forests and sustainable lumber economies.

Given that travel and tourism is also about “working the landscape,” the same techniques can and should be applied to tourism—the largest industry in many states, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and an industry that has tremendous potential to change our natural, cultural, and built environments. With the public’s involvement, it’s more likely that change will be for the better.

Dan Shilling was a keynote speaker at the 2008 NAI National Workshop in Portland. He worked at the Arizona Humanities Council from 1984 until 2003, the last 14 years as director. He guided Arizona’s early research on heritage tourism, editing three publications and earning several awards, including the Arizona Office of Tourism “Person of the Year Award” and the Museum Association of Arizona “Distinguished Service Award.” Dan recently directed a three-year project on place-based tourism, resulting in the book Civic Tourism. He recently received an Arizona State University fellowship to research the connections between Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and sustainability.

A Fork in the River: Experiencing the Change from First- to Third-Person Interpretation at Historic Fort Snelling

Legacy

Published: November 19, 2009Posted in: Costumed Interpretation, Feature StoriesTags: first-person interpretation, Fort Snelling, Fort Snelling State Park, Half Moon Battery, Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Minnesota, Minnesota River, Reenactors, The Old Guard

by Rick Magee

“A sight never to be forgotten was when on turning a point in the river there suddenly appeared, a mile or so before us, the imposing and beautiful white walls of Fort Snelling, holding, as though by main force, its position on a high precipitous bluff, and proudly floating the stripes and stars.”

— John H. Bliss, Reminiscences of Fort Snelling, 1894

A laundress demonstrates the process of washing clothes in the 19th century.

Fort Snelling was established at the fork of the Mississippi and St. Peter’s (now Minnesota) Rivers in 1819 on land acquired by treaty in 1805 by Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike. Its limestone walls and batteries commanded the rivers below and it was a symbol of the United States’ sovereignty and power in the Old Northwest, an “American Gibraltar.” John H. Bliss first saw the fort from the steamboat Warrior as a young boy when he accompanied his father, Major John Bliss, who took command of the post in 1832.

From the fort’s original mission to protect the American fur trade to its service as a World War II recruitment and training post, the roles of Fort Snelling changed as American policy changed. Troops garrisoned at Fort Snelling kept the peace on the prairies, originally by excluding European-American settlement. Doctor Emerson, the military doctor assigned to the fort in the 1830s, had two slaves—Dred and Harriet Scott. Later the Scotts sued for their freedom since this was free territory—one of the contributing factors to the Civil War. During the Civil War, regiments from the new state of Minnesota were raised and saw action in many battles, including having a pivotal role at Gettysburg. In the late 19th century, the old fort became a supply depot for posts further to the west and home to a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers, the 25th infantry. From 1888 until World War II, Fort Snelling was the headquarters of the Third Infantry, known as “The Old Guard.” Soldiers reported and were trained for duty for the Spanish-American War and both World Wars of the 20th century.

Fort Snelling was decommissioned in October 1946, and most of its extensive lands were transferred to the state of Minnesota. Today it is occupied by an international airport, Fort Snelling State Park, municipal recreation fields, Fort Snelling National Cemetery, and various state and federal buildings. Many of the old buildings built after the Civil War that were part of the once-active post are slowly deteriorating.

By 1957, there were plans to demolish what remained of the Old Fort to make way for a new highway interchange. Public outcry managed to force a change in the alignment of the road, sparing the original, remaining buildings. In the 1970s, Historic Fort Snelling was rebuilt based upon extensive archaeology and historical research. The facility was opened as a historic site managed by the Minnesota Historical Society on the property owned by the state.

First-Person Interpretation at Historic Fort Snelling

Soldiers salute the birth of the country with a Fourth of July cannon firing.

Originally interpretation at Fort Snelling was all done in first person. Staff used “I” or “we” when talking about the people and events of a given year in the past. The uniforms, civilian attire, military drill, and other details were those of the year 1827. Staff took the part of people who were known to have been at the fort in 1827 and endeavored to create an experience of immersion into that time. By the 1980s, the method employed was known as “modified first person,” where the year was 1827, but interpreters might answer questions with the preface, “In your time….” This was similar to “ghost interpretation” sometimes used at other sites.

First-person interpretation was the heart and soul of the program at Historic Fort Snelling. If well done, first-person interpretation can be an effective way to communicate the stories of the fort from the chosen period. Vignettes were employed to further create a picture of the era. Events included Independence Day orations, courts-marshal, weddings, and funerals. These successfully elicited an emotional connection by staff and visitors to the story and to the history presented by the fort.

The success of interactions with visitors depended upon the talents of the interpreter. Much of the success relied upon the willingness of the visitor to set aside their reality and play along. Good interpreters can read the visitor and go where the visitor wants to go. Nevertheless, veteran interpreters reported that they had maybe one successful first-person interaction with a visitor in a month.

The downside of the program is that it created confrontational situations. For example, some staff offended the modern sensibilities of female visitors who visited the soldiers’ barracks. Some visitors would take it as a challenge to break the character of the interpreter.

Successful first-person interpretation demands many resources. There must be extensive original documentation of the lives of the people who lived at the site during the period. And there must be resources to train modern people to integrate that information into their program. Many necessary resources did not exist at Historic Fort Snelling.

The Fork in Interpretive Method
By the turn of the 21st century, the management at Historic Fort Snelling faced a fork in the interpretive technique being used. Finally, in 2006 the decision was made that third-person interpretation would be the primary method used. First-person is still used by “History Players” portraying Colonel and Mrs. Snelling in the Commander’s House. Elsewhere in the fort, staff talk about the past from the perspective of our current day.

There were several reasons for the change:

The program was perceived to be stagnant.
There was declining attendance over time.
The program was stuck in 1827; it needed to be open to interpreting other periods and stories.
Reviewers from the American Association of Museums strongly urged that first-person methods be replaced by third-person interpretation.

Upper management made the decision that Historic Fort Snelling would abandon the modified first-person technique. Since 2007, costumed interpreters have used the third person to communicate the many stories represented by the old fort.

There was some turbulence when this fork was turned. Approximately 10 percent of the staff did not return. Some of the returning staff had difficulty not taking on a different persona when talking to the public. Site supervisors and staff were concerned that first person had been the heart and soul of the program. How could they successfully continue to communicate the historic importance of their site?

Smooth Sailing on the New Fork
Today Historic Fort Snelling employs costumed interpreters who demonstrate military life at an Army post beyond the western frontier of the United States as it would have been experienced in the late 1820s. A few interpreters wear modern clothing to interpret the experience of Dred and Harriet Scott, their subsequent lives in St. Louis, and the important court case that made Dred Scott famous and the Civil War inevitable. On special weekends the fort is transformed with staff and volunteers in Civil War or World War II uniforms demonstrating life in Minnesota and in the Army during those crucial times of our history.

The change to using third-person interpretation has had many benefits. Now interpreters can answer visitors’ questions directly. Interpreters can admit they do not know the answer to questions about life in 1827. The staff has been freed to interpret slavery, the U.S.-Dakota War, the World Wars, and many other stories. Third-person interpretation has proven to be more flexible, more visitor friendly, and more intellectually honest.

Visitor reaction has been mostly positive. Reenactors and some visiting staff from other historic sites have expressed disappointment that modified first person was largely abandoned at Historic Fort Snelling. But other visitors have said, “It’s about time.” Many returning visitors, when asked, reported not noticing a change in method. Staff members who also work at schools have reported that students from their schools did not go on field trips to Historic Fort Snelling because the parents and teachers were afraid of the first-person interpreters and did not know how to react to the dialogue from 1827. Now they are returning. A large and growing number of home schoolers are coming to Historic Fort Snelling.

A surgeon dispenses medical theory of the period and shows some of his surgical tools to a young visitor.

Successful new program additions at Historic Fort Snelling are “camps” for children. These four-day sessions during the summer have been great hits. Participants get hands-on experiences in the fort, enhancing their knowledge of and appreciation for history. They usually fill quickly in the spring when registration opens. The camps were a Nickelodeon Parents Pick winner and have been rated by local media as the best camps for children in the Twin Cities. These programs are only possible in a third-person interpretive setting.

Perhaps the most significant evidence of the success of the change in method is that visitor numbers have increased over the past four years, bucking trends for historic sites elsewhere in North America. Despite the bad economy, visitation is expected to increase by four to five percent in 2009.

Historic Fort Snelling still is an imposing sight at the fork of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Costumed interpreters still fire the cannons and demonstrate the infantry drill. Women in 1820s dress still show how clothing was washed and food prepared when the fort was new. Interpreters in the hospital still discuss the changes in medical procedures throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. But now interpreters can honestly answer questions about what is beyond those walls, what happened after 1827. The stripes and stars still proudly float above the fort.

Costumed interpretation at Historic Fort Snelling has successfully navigated its fork in the river. Visitors will continue to look down from the Half Moon Battery at the confluence of the Mississippi with the Minnesota River.

Rick Magee is a volunteer interpreter at Historic Fort Snelling in Minnesota. All photos are courtesy of Historic Fort Snelling.

Costumed Interpretation: What We Are Is Because of What We Were

Legacy

Published: November 7, 2009Posted in: Costumed Interpretation, Feature StoriesTags: American Civil War, American Revolution, Battle of Gettysburg, Colonial Williamsburg, Conner Prairie, Fort Ticonderoga, Fortress of Louisbourg, James Towne, living history, National Park Service, North-South Skirmish Association, Plimoth Plantation, re-creation, Sutter’s Fort

by John C.F. Luzader

“History may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly, and what appears to not move at all.”

—Fernand Braudel, French historian (1902–1985)

luzader-1 American costumed historic interpretation is far from being a new field. Since immediately after the American Revolution, living history events have been a regular aspect of special anniversaries and commemorations, entertaining millions with their presentations.

By the end of the 19th century, the American public was familiar with enthusiastic bands of amateur historians who regularly presented re-creations of our American history.

These interests continued into the 20th century with re-creations of Revolutionary and American Civil War battles. New themes based on Western expansion included programs devoted to the centennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, 60th commemorations of the Oregon Trail, the Gold Rush, various statehoods celebrations, founders’ day activities, and an assortment of local interests and regional topics. With interpreters dressed in period-like costumes, these activities usually involved the same basic elements: a battle re-creation, craft and lifestyle demonstrations, house tours with period-like costumes, docents, and costumed balls. Rarely did these activities include on-field, first-person campaigns, minorities, or women other than in a subsidiary aspect to a male-dominated presentation. From 1900 to the 1940s, these types of programs rarely changed or progressed at numerous sites across the United States.

Cade family members prepare for a Civil War reenactment in Richmond, Virginia, in 1923.

However, during this slow-moving period of the field, we also saw the development of Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg as premier cultural and historic sites in the United States. It was these sites that soon became the standard for other groups and sites to equal in quality and accuracy and whose historic film presentations were seen in school rooms across the nation.

With the advent of the commemorations of the American Civil War centennial, the nation began to take on new dimensions in living history.

Beginning in the mid-1950s, more and more groups, primarily centered around men’s muzzle-loading organizations, began to expand in numbers. Far from the sporadic peppering of groups found in regional locales, the nation began to see formations of groups of military reenactors organizing and training to participate in the planned centennial celebrations scheduled for 1961–1965 in Civil War battlefield sites nationwide. Towns and cities across the nation were participating in a national celebration of this momentous period in American history. This movement created a number of significant contributions to the American living history scene.

First and foremost were the numbers. Battle re-creations during this period were not limited to a few dozen men or members of the National Guard representing major battles and conflicts. Suddenly, hundreds of men were making themselves available for these living history events.

Second, this period saw the beginnings of new and better material resources for historical interpreters. The field saw the move from rayon and nylon military uniforms and handmade equipment to a discipline that could find numerous suppliers of re-created clothing, equipment, patterns, documents, monies, and firearms. This new and improved equipment was augmented by magazines devoted to the history of the Civil War with quality articles on battles, leaders, and resources for the general public and the enthusiast, as well as numerous reprints of Civil War regulations, literature, and logistical paperwork.

Next was the beginning of a new aspect of living history; the families of the men involved were taking a larger interest in the field and were accompanying the men to events and participating in historic activities. Small in number at first, families became a common sight at most living history events by 1965.

National agencies such as the National Park Service and local museums and historic sites began utilizing costumed interpreters as a regular feature in their presentations.

Finally, the interest generated by the activities of the centennial of the Civil War created large groups of people who wanted to continue doing reenactments beyond the Civil War centennial and in a variety of different fields and themes.

From the late 1960s, the field of costumed interpretation grew quickly. National organizations that had started in the 1960s, such as the North-South Skirmish Association, were being joined by other groups that specialized in numerous historic subject matters. Interest in the period of the American fur trade, which had had a small following from the 1920s, suddenly blossomed. Large national groups featured their own publications and regular gatherings (rendezvous) across the nation. By the mid-1970s these groups where recruiting large numbers of followers and their families.

Increasing the interest in living history was the advent of the American Bicentennial. Organizations like the Brigade of the American Revolution generated profuse numbers of like-minded and enthusiastic “history buffs” who immersed themselves in re-creating not only the battles of the conflict, but also the daily life styles, crafts, and cultures that were common to the time period they were depicting. Towns and cities across the nation began sponsoring historic events and activities to illustrate not only the nation’s history, but also the heritage of their own locales. Nationwide groups flourished with a common interest—the passion of our past.

The 1970s saw the National Park Service, which had been involved in on-site living history costumed events from the 1950s through the Civil War re-creations of the 1960s, make major commitments and contributions to the field through training, research materials, interpretive manuals, publications, and improvements in firearm training standards.

Colonial Williamsburg and Plimoth Plantation moved from third-person interpretive formats to first-person interpretive formats, giving each site a more believable presentation to the public. Other large national sites followed suit. Fortress of Louisbourg in Canada, Conner Prairie in Indiana, Sutter’s Fort in California, James Towne in Virginia, and Fort Ticonderoga in New York became some of the premier living history sites in North America, setting standards that many others emulated.

However, even as this interest grew, many sites and organizations became stuck in many of the same activities that had originated in the early years of the 1910s and 1920s—a heavy reliance on craft demonstrations, firearm demonstrations, parades, balls, and other activities that did not necessarily reflect an accurate or authentic illustration of the periods that were being represented. Professional historians criticized the unprofessional and inaccurate presentations that were abounding throughout the country, labeling many of the activities as faddish and more suited for the stage or movies than for historic sites. This stigma would plague the field for over three decades.

The late 1970s through 2000 saw an even more fervent growth in the field of living history costumed interpretation. The Civil War was re-created every five years with thousands and thousands of people participating in events all through the country. The passion of representing this conflict brought more and more people of all ethnic backgrounds into its folds. So much had it grown that by 1998, the 135th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg had more than 37,000 participants from all around the world. For the first time since the actual event, the re-creation of Pickett’s Charge had nearly the number of participants who had taken part in the actual battle.

Guards man the gate at Fort Du Bois, Illinois, during the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial in 2006.

This growth was not limited to just Civil War activities. Sites, museums, and individuals illustrated the historic lives and conditions of the Americas from tribal activities; first contact; the colonization of the United States by the Spanish, French, and English; the French and Indian War; Trekking; the American Revolution; the War of 1812; the Mexican-American War; Indian Wars; the Spanish-American War; both World Wars; the settlement of the West from the 1840s through the 1890s; the cowboy era; the fur trade; the birth of women’s rights; Afro-American progression; Exodusters; and the list goes on and on. From the famous to the unknown, there are few aspects of the American past that are not represented in some shape or form in a historic costumed venue.

This does not cover the groups from coast to coast that represent the Renaissance through fairs. Others portray characterizations that are not limited to the histories of the contiguous Unites States; World War I and World War II German troops fight regularly at battle re-creations in the United States. Vikings, Romans, and English Civil War soldiers and ladies can be seen at living history activities and schools. There is no limit to what can be presented by enthusiasts in the field.

From the 1970s through today, the resources for interpreters have grown by leaps and bounds. No longer do costumed interpreters need to use original materials for accurate portrayals. There are now available historic patterns, reproductions, research information, articles, reprints, labels, cans, food stuffs, live stock, manuals, blacksmith items, clothing, camp gear, arms and armor, reproduction music and instruments, reprinted period books, tapes to learn language and song, and again, the list goes on and on.

Internet sites (both good and bad) have created resource bases at a touch of the keypad and offer new media for the exchange of ideas, discussions, and publications that no other period of historic interpretation has ever had.

This is also the period when new organizations such as the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) and the Midwest Open Air Coordinating Council (MOACC) began holding regular regional and national conferences to exchange ideas, papers, research, and resources.

This period also saw the evolution of many organizations and sites from hobbyist to “para-professional” status with such an emphasis on accuracy that they became major contributors to and resources for historic films and documentaries.

By the year 2000, new interests were initiated with the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, the Pike Bicentennial, and the forthcoming bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. Each has created new interests and new groups of enthusiastic interpreters.

Where is the field today?
Per Fernand Braudel’s quote at the beginning of this article, the field is an amalgamation of three movements. Some costumed interpretation is static, seeming to be non-moving. Those programs have not grown or evolved beyond the rudimentary aspects of putting on “olde timey” clothing and doing demonstrations. Their programming and events rarely change and the same themes can be seen from site to site. Many do not even know the term interpretation or its meaning.

Others have moved slowly, not wanting to give up traditional programs and events, yet still enthusiastic about new material and historic resources. Fresh and better materials and costumes have been put into place, but the programming maintains the same formats that have been used for decades.

4H Heritage member Bre Villard interprets at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site. Photo by Barb Engles.

Yet many are on fire, moving rapidly, training and retraining and wanting to set new standards and improve their presentations. Regular conferences and professional publications provide new perceptions in the field. From “interpretainment” to historic interpretation, quality living history creates a believability factor for its audiences while entertaining them. New concepts are being developed to better meet the needs of an ever-changing audience—living heritage staged presentations, more intermedium resources to give a better picture of the whole of the story, better and more accurate depictions of multiple perspectives of a historic event, and breaking from the box of a white Eurocentric vision to include the voices of all the people involved in a historical account.

Finally, and importantly, our audience has changed. Today’s studies demonstrate that our visitors want accuracy and authenticity over entertainment in programming. Their visit to a historic site, museum, or special presentation is not just for amusement. They come to learn, and to learn accurate material from living history interpreters that they can rely upon to provide authentic representations of the past with a “human face.” Visitors want believability and someone to talk to from an earlier period. They look for education and the human story.

Costumed interpretation has gone through many evolutions—some great, some terribly bad—but it continues to provide a source of interest to the public and opportunities to bring the past to life.

Soon we will see more changes, new themes, and new ideas. Already there are groups portraying the 1960s and the Vietnam War. All too soon someone will talk about “reenacting” the events of September 11, 2001, and how those really weird people of 2009 lived in the “olden days.”

For More Information
Anderson, J. (1984). Time Machines: The World of Living History. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History.

Ecroyd, D. (1990). Living History. Eastern National Park Foundation.

Falk, J. & Dierkling, L. (2000). Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press.

Krugler, J. (1991). Behind the public presentations: research and scholarship at living history museums of early America. William and Mary Quarterly, 3(48), 347-386.

Kuegler, D. (2005). Living History im amerikanischen Westen, Verlag fuer Amerikanistik. Germany.

Leon, W. & Piatt, M. (1989). Living history museums. In W. Leon and R. Rozenweig (Eds.), History Museums in the United States, A Critical Assessment (pp. 64-97). Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Moscardo, G. & Pearce, P. (1986). Historic theme parks: an Australian experience in authenticity. Annals of Tourism Research, 13, 467-479.

Saxe, D. (2009). Living heritage: an experimental model mixing heritage and entertainment. Journal of Interpretation Research, 14(1).

Stover, K. (1989). Is it REAL history yet? An update on living history museums. Journal of American Culture, 12(2), 13-17.

Sussman, V. (1989). From Williamsburg to Conner Prairie: living history museums bring bygone days to life but not always accurately. U.S. News and World Report, 107(4), 58-62.

Wilkening, S. & Donnis, E. (2008). Authenticity? It means everything. AASLH History News, Autumn, 18-23.

Living Museums of the West’s John C.F. Luzader has been involved in living history programs since 1961 throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. John is the 1997 NAI Master of Interpretation, a member of ALHFAM, N-SSA, and MOMCC, and the director of the Cultural Interpretation and Living History section of NAI. Unless otherwise noted all photographs are the property of and in the collections of the author.

Providing Life-Affirming Experiences—Not Just Facts

Legacy

Published: October 26, 2009Posted in: Children, Feature StoriesTags: A Natural Sense of Wonder, Steven Van Matre, Stony Tribe, The Sense of Wonder

by Bob Flasher

Isn’t experiencing life through personal discovery, cooperative challenges, and self-directed learning more enjoyable and exciting than listening to a recitation of facts, no matter how interesting those facts are? Since the unfortunate advent of No Child Left Unscathed—or is that No Child Left Behind?—many nature and history interpretive programs have begun to teach to state standards.

Experiencing the lake instead of drowning in factoids.

This switch to teaching standardized facts instead of interpreting, discovering, and encouraging children to experience life firsthand often helps teachers justify the class field trip. In this manner, the current neurotic concern for teaching to standards is not only negatively impacting schools, but our interpretive efforts as well.

Freeman Tilden, the father of interpretation, defines this art as “an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by firsthand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply by communicating factual information.” Three of his six principles of effective interpretation remind us that:

information alone is not interpretation; interpretation is revelation based upon information.
the chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.
interpretation addressed to children should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should follow a fundamentally different approach.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are simply intending to impart information and dry facts or whether we seek to create ecological and historic awareness and appreciation, transform lives, and possibly even save the Earth.

Tilden reminds us that “perhaps it is truer to say that interpretation is a program of re-education. We have let ourselves forget our need for direct experience and appreciation of beauty. It is the duty of the interpreter to jog our memories.” To have real historic sites and natural areas at our disposal and not use them to provide firsthand experience and opportunities for discovery is a tragic waste.

Resisting Imparting Factoids
We must resist the focus on memorizing factoids and take the braver course of action. We can be inspired by others who have pointed the way toward more holistic and powerful ways of learning. Tatanga Mani, a Native American of the Stony Tribe, spoke to Americans in the 19th century:

I learned to read from school books, newspapers, and the Bible. But in time I found these were not enough. Civilized people depend too much on…printed pages. You know, if you take all your books, lay them out under the sun, and let the snow and rain and insects work on them for a while, there will be nothing left. But the Great Spirit has provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature’s university—the forests, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals which include us.

Steven Van Matre describes the problem similarly in his landmark book Acclimatization:

It appeared logical to teach nature study by asking the student to commit to memory the name of everything within reach. Thirty leaves, 30 insects, and 30 wildflowers became the hallmarks of the outdoor educated child. To say this bordered on idiocy would be kind. What do we care if a student fails to remember the name of a wildflower? Does he remember its fragrance, the texture of its leaves—does he know where to find it and what lives in its community? And does he know not because someone told him he should know, but because for him it is a thing of enjoyment and beauty?”

Van Matre then gives us a prescription for the cure:

There is an alternative to these time-honored methods which have fallen just short of being disastrous. We can help students acclimate themselves to the environment, to understand it on its own terms and merits. Let’s subject each student to the most sensory experiences imaginable, with all of our senses in total operation.”

Rachel Carson points out in The Sense of Wonder that “children need a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years.” And what better place to promote a sense of wonder than in the constantly changing, evolving, and stimulating outdoors? All we need to do is to make sure that we don’t put too many words between students and firsthand experience.

Creative fun outdoors—the antidote to nature-deficit disorder.

As Rick Van Noy reminds us in A Natural Sense of Wonder, “Outside lie stories to unfold, miracles to witness, hardships to overcome, fears to stare down, people and animals to meet—life in its full range of experience.” I believe that we need to keep asking ourselves whether listening to our words is as valuable as providing a direct experience. If we are being honest, I think our answer is “No.”

Techniques or True Experience?
What techniques would be more effective than simply imparting information verbally? This question presupposes that a technique is the solution. But what if Parker Palmer is correct in The Courage to Teach?

In the training of therapists, there is a saying: “Technique is what you use until the therapist arrives.” Good methods, in other words, can help a therapist understand a client’s dilemma, but good therapy does not begin until the real-life therapist connects with the real life of the client. [Similarly], technique is what teachers use until the real teacher arrives.

This implies that we not only need to know our subject matter, understand visitor interests and learning abilities, and have some techniques up our sleeve, but that we also must take a close look inside ourselves to see what makes us tick, what we enjoy the most about life, and how we can best share that with others. Who we are, what we truly care about, and whether we are willing to communicate that are as important as what visitors learn about nature or history.

Parker Palmer puts it like this: “The most practical thing we can achieve in any kind of work is insight into what is happening inside us as we do it. The more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more sure-footed our teaching—and living—becomes.” Palmer encourages us to share our love of nature or history by immersing ourselves in it and encouraging students to jump right in as well. We must find ways to share our enthusiasm and interests with visitors to help them learn and enjoy doing it.

An important part of this is to re-familiarize ourselves with what we enjoyed about learning the most. Our most exciting times were probably not when we were listening to someone talk for 45 minutes. Many of us enjoyed lunchtime and recess more than class time. We enjoyed our physical abilities and the exhilaration of running wildly about, or simply talking animatedly with friends. We discovered where we fit into life socially. Don’t current students and adult visitors enjoy learning similarly?

The Options
I’m sure we are creative enough to devise more interactive ways to interpret. Using as many of the five senses as possible is a good start. Playing simulation games that illustrate environmental principles is another exciting way to involve visitors. Forming small groups in which participants discuss issues among themselves, help each other explore, or solve a riddle can transform what might otherwise be a lecture format. Providing a living history experience involves students more fully than simply looking at historic artifacts. Active participation can inject life and energy into learning.

In Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv shows how far we still have to go:

Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. Nature-deficit disorder can be reversed: We can become more aware of how blessed our children can be—biologically, cognitively, and spiritually—through positive physical connection to nature.

Let’s make connections that are more powerful than standardized, memorizeable, testable curricula.

Bob is a ranger-naturalist and teaches ecology and park resource classes at San Francisco State University.

Unplugging Minnesota’s Children

Legacy

Published: October 16, 2009Posted in: Children, Feature StoriesTags: a camp out, bird watching, fishing, Forestville State Park in Minnesota, fossil collecting, gardening, hiking, Inc., Minnesota, Project Get Outdoors, service projects, snow shoeing

by Sara Grover

grover1 It’s been popping up in most newspapers and parenting magazines for years—the warning to get our kids outdoors before they become completely sucked into the world of technology and video games and we lose all hope of them ever becoming healthy, active young adults. Never mind that they will not be able to appreciate our natural resources if all they’ve ever done is sit on the couch.

Since the release of Richard Louv’s 2005 book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, research has been growing to back up the argument that children who don’t play outside regularly are likely to suffer serious health consequences later in life. This message did not sit well with one particular group of Minnesota residents who formed a nonprofit organization to help communities design and implement their own unique programs that connect children to nature through outdoor exploration. I am proud to say that I am one of many involved in the organization, known as Project Get Outdoors, Inc.

In 2005, I was working as a seasonal interpretive naturalist at Forestville State Park in Minnesota. I was disappointed after I read Louv’s book and searched the Internet for programs that provide accessible opportunities for children, especially at-risk and low-income populations, to experience nature and outdoor activities near their communities. My search turned up empty, so I consulted with several acquaintances about an idea to start a program that would meet weekly throughout the year to introduce kids in elementary and middle school to nature by allowing them to try new outdoor recreation activities. I was fortunate to have off-season employment at a local youth center, which provided a great opportunity to try out this new program idea.

The program attracted kids and parents almost immediately, as it reduced participation barriers that often prevent kids from being able to get involved with after-school programs. We made sure the program would be offered free of charge and that transportation home afterward would be provided if a child did not have a ride. We worked closely with the local migrant council to make sure information was translated for Spanish-speaking families in the community and that there was someone present to assist with the program who spoke Spanish and could address fears or concerns that parents had.

Gavin Updike explores the cracks of the school playground as he searches for insects during the St. Charles Project Get Outdoors program.

During fall 2005, around 30 youths participated in the Project Get Outdoors program. Activities that first year included fishing, hiking, fossil collecting, snow shoeing, bird watching, gardening, a camp out, service projects in the local parks, and much more. We collaborated closely with other nature organizations in the area, including Whitewater State Park and the National Eagle Center, making sure to communicate that Project Get Outdoors is a partner and ally working to introduce children to nearby green spaces where they may experience nature throughout life. Today, the Project Get Outdoors program proudly serves around 30 participants during the school year and close to 100 during the summer.

Expanding the Project
Project Get Outdoors, Inc., received nonprofit status this past February. The organization is overseen by a board of directors and now serves nine communities in southeast Minnesota. The organization is working to complete a toolkit that will be made available for free to all Minnesota communities that are interested in developing these programs. The toolkit is expected to be completed and available by the end of 2010.

The toolkits are designed to guide local communities through the processes of developing, implementing, and sustaining their own unique Get Outdoors programs. The programs must be community-driven rather than led by Project Get Outdoors staff. The plan is to have Project Get Outdoors regional coordinators work with local communities so community members can run their own programs utilizing the local green spaces and other assets, including volunteers, they have identified with the help of our toolkit.

FFA advisor Steve Hinrichs volunteers to introduce kids like Dalton Urban to archery basics. Collaborating with local organizations such as FFA, Scouts, and 4-H allows for the sharing of equipment, volunteers, and other resources.

A handbook, CD-Rom, DVD, and activity trunk will be included in the toolkits, which are being funded through grants like the one awarded this past winter by the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnership for Southeast Minnesota. Grant proposals to help cover the costs of developing the Project Get Outdoors toolkits have also been submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Legislative-Citizens Commission on Minnesota’s Resources and are currently pending.

Looking Ahead
The organization is seeing results as more and more Project Get Outdoors participants and their families are going back to those green spaces to re-create the experiences the kids have witnessed during their program activities. Parent and teacher testimonials, as well as feedback from participants themselves, testify to the big impact this program is making in local communities. People are becoming more aware of the positive effects nature and outdoor exploration can have on a child—and on anyone, for that matter. Program volunteers are hearing a lot of positive things about how our programs have opened people’s eyes to the unlimited opportunities to experience nature in and near their communities.

Project Get Outdoors board members are confident this growing movement to connect Minnesota children to nature will foster healthier kids and increased environmental stewardship among our state’s citizens.

For more information about Project Get Outdoors, visit the website at www.mnprojectgetoutdoors.org or email Sara Grover at sara.grover@yahoo.com.

Soft Walking to Natural Awareness

Legacy

Published: September 16, 2009Posted in: Children, Feature StoriesTags: adventure, Buddhists, Christians, Quiet Walks, Soft Walk, Steven Van Matre

by Wren Smith

The Soft Walk and sharing ceremony offer gifts to delight the senses. Photo by Harold Johnson.

Thirty second graders, some with arms outstretched for balance, take large steps, tiptoeing behind me. They carefully select each footfall so that it alights like a butterfly on a flower. Glancing over their shoulders, their eyes widen. Some fashion their hands beside their heads, make a sign for deer, and point at the full-grown doe who trails our little “Soft Walking” adventure. I carry a large, lidded basket full of treasures from the Earth, gifts representing this place I love.

In a few moments we will share these gifts in respectful silence. First, however, we walk softy, employing techniques popularized as “Quiet Walks” by Steven Van Matre in the 1960s, but also echoing teachings from many of the great traditions that have been handed down through the centuries—spiritual practices that acknowledge the limits of the spoken word and aim to cultivate what some Christians refer to as contemplative receptivity and Buddhists call mindfulness. But these were second graders, and my initial intention in developing a ceremony that focuses attention was not as lofty.

I explained to the children before we began our Soft Walk how we will move and why we will walk so softly. Their teachers seem surprised by their children’s eager response. I feel like the pied piper with my enthusiastic entourage. When I reach an elevated portion of the wooden bridge spanning a pond lined with cattails, I point toward a red-winged blackbird perched on a cattail seed head. Gesturing to my shoulders and back to the bird, I direct their attention to the red and yellow epaulettes on his wings. This handsome fellow announces his territorial reign with a loud “okcaree” and I cup my hand beside my ear, encouraging the children to listen.

I motion for the group to stay put, while I hop down from the bridge to pull a cattail blade, and then resume my perch in clear view of the entire group. Quickly splitting the length of this blade into three equal strips, I tie a knot in one end. Holding the knotted end in my mouth, I hastily make a headband and place it on a student who has joined me on this platform overlooking the pond. The others smile and nod approvingly. Dragonflies darting nearby capture our attention and I hold my arms outstretched like wings. When a damselfly alights on another cattail, I clasp my hands behind my back, creating a tent with my arms that mimics the damselfly’s wings at rest. The children notice and nod and help others see.

Continuing past the pond, we find wild peppermint and I pinch off a lush sprig, rolling it between my hands to release the menthol before taking a deep whiff. The children directly behind take turns inhaling the minty delight before passing it down the line to the others. We enter the meadow where several larger clearings allow visibility to the entire group. This meadow offers daisies, butterflies, orange and black milkweed bugs, and the song of grasshoppers. I show some of the children spittlebugs hiding in a fortress of foam and these children become spittlebug guides for their classmates.

We make our way through the sundrenched field and move toward a stand of white pine trees, known to thousands of schoolchildren as the “enchanted forest.” As we gather in a clearing near the woods a red-tailed hawk cries overhead and circles once; some of the children open their arms imitating its impressive glide. Young sassafras trees offer us fresh lemon-lime scented leaves and three different leaf shapes to investigate. I macerate a few of these leaves and pour a small amount of water from a canteen over them. Rubbing the leaves and water together reveals the mucilaginous quality of sassafras leaves. I pass the slippery green poultice to a little ruddy faced boy (I suspect the class clown) who gestures with his hands to his nose and grimaces before grinning broadly. We share a quiet chuckle before he passes the wet glob back to his classmates; soft laughter follows the limp mass down the line.

Holding up three fingers, I warn about the perils of poison ivy, which I spot growing near the path. Feigning stretching and itching I point out the vine before signaling to stay away.

I motion for the children to stretch out their arms, and many automatically close their eyes. The sun warms us and a breeze ruffles our hair. I feel like a leaf gathering the energy of the sun this day. Insects buzz and trill, a field sparrow provides its classic rendition of a “ping pong ball dropping on a table” song. A flock of goldfinch announces its presence overhead with “per-chicory” twittering chatter. Weaving my hand in a roller coaster motion and pointing up, I hope to share the hiccupping flight pattern of these aerobatic charmers.

Approaching the “doorway” of the enchanted forest, I pause, peer in, and motion for the group to follow. We step into the cool darkness of the pine forest and our quiet group grows even quieter. The needles of the white pine create a soft carpet and add an air of elegancy to our Soft Walk. Each step into the forest seems a step back in time, leading us closer to something primal. The smell is earthy and clean. The branches of white pine trees grow in a wagon wheel arrangement that casts lovely shadows on the reddish brown needles on the forest floor. Some of these children have never been in a forest before; none of them has been quiet in the forest with classmates. Teachers and parents are amazed at the children’s quiet attentiveness.

Items found in nature help Soft Walkers make connections. Photo by Chris Knopf.

There is just enough open space in this forest for our Soft Walk basket ceremony. Setting my basket beside me on the carpet of pine needles, I silently enlist help from teachers and parents as we form a large circle in the middle of the enchanted forest. We’ve carried a blanket into the woods and the children help as we spread it out on the forest floor. I pause and look around at the circle of eager faces. The children’s eyes gleam. Everything is as it should be. I nod approvingly and motion for the group to sit down cross-legged on the pine needles. I’ve learned that this cross-legged position seems to act as a stabilizer for young children, especially if followed by a signal to rest chin on clasped hands.

All eyes watch as I slowly lift the lid of the sharing basket in front of me. Inside are various gifts of the Earth; I’ve wrapped many of them like presents with large leaves (water lotus, big leaf magnolia, and burdock) secured with cattail or yucca cordage. Instead of colorful ribbons and bows, I’ve attached flowers, pinecones, and such. The gift packages brim with mystery. Slowly I reach into the sharing basket and unpack this treasure trove, placing the packages near me on the blanket. I bring out a pear-shaped gourd with a cork in one end. Giving it a shake, I reveal its watery content.

Opening the first package (it’s wrapped in a large water lotus leaf), the entire circle leans forward in anticipation. The quiet is settling in, working powerful magic. The lotus leaf opens to reveal a large freshwater mussel shell. I lift the top shell of this bivalve to reveal its rosy opalescent sheen. It encloses a smaller mussel shell, one punctured with button-sized holes. This smaller shell holds yet another surprise—an even smaller shell containing buttons made from mussel shells. Bringing my hands towards my mouth, I show that mussels can be food, or perhaps a serving dish. I feign using the shell as a digging tool. I lay the shell on the blanket nearby, although I will soon pass it around the group. I’ve learned to wait until after I’ve silently communicated most of the information before passing around objects so participants aren’t distracted by the objects being passed.

Another leaf package contains a small, warty gourd. This one is shaped like an avocado, with a nickel-sized hole near the end. I hold my hands over the hole and shake, producing a rhythmic rattle. The kids bob their heads and shoulders to the beat before I pour its contents of powdered dry red clay into the cup of the now empty large mussel shell. Pouring from the water gourd I mix the clay with my fingers to make a red paint. Holding up an index finger, I look mischievously at the dimple-faced little girl on my right. Her eyes widen for a moment, then she nods her head yes and leans her face toward me. I paint a stripe on her nose and a daisy on her cheek. I stand up, with a turtle shell in one hand and the index finger on my right hand extended, ready to paint the face of any child that nods his or her permission, as I walk around the circle. Sometimes a child will initially decline but then decide they want to be painted too. Occasionally a child will decline. I never push.

Returning to my seat in the circle, I indicate by pointing my finger at all the painted faces that I need my face painted too. All heads nod affirmatively. I offer the paint shell and my face to a little boy on my left. The children know that I have made my face a vulnerable canvas and seem to appreciate my bravery. While I’ve led hundreds of Soft Walks, I’ve never gotten my face slathered in mud.

Unwrapping the last leaf package, I unveil a box turtle shell with the plastron hinge ligament still intact. Opening the “box” with enough pause to build suspense, I begin pulling out the contents like a magician pulling scarves from a bottomless sleeve. Petals of pink, purple, and blue from blossoms and buds of iris and spiderwort, green leaves of dock and yellow dandelion heads, even pieces of burnt wood tumble out and onto a silk scarf.

I hold up a dandelion head and a drawing tablet that I’ve pulled from my basket, and quickly rub the dandelion directly onto the canvas to paint the sun. The children gasp in delight, and do so repeatedly each time another color from my “paint box” appears vividly on the landscape scene I paint before them. I’ve been painting with plants and mud from as far back as I can recall, but was surprised at the children’s level of delight the first time I added the paint box to my sharing basket. We lose so many things, including the simple joys of discovery, when we lose our direct contact with the natural world.

After their journey around the circle, my Earth treasures are back home near my basket. The blanket, now festooned with shells, leaves, herbs, antlers, and flowers, provides a feast for the eyes, and the silence is a feast for the ears. Cupping my left hand to my ear while I slowly wave my right hand over my eyes, I invite the group to close their eyes and listen for a few moments. The wind whispers in the tops of the white pine to the vireos, robins, and wrens, and in the distant woods, I hear the flute-like song of the wood thrush (a delightful surprise for that time of day). A wood pecker drums, someone cracks a twig, a blue jay squawks, and a helicopter from Fort Knox flies overhead. People are breathing slowly and easily. I think I could sprout roots here.

When it is time for me to break the silence, I take an African thumb-piano hidden in my basket. A gourd forms the resonating chamber and I love how the metal tines sound soothing regardless of how I play. It’s a sound reminiscent of water flowing over rocks or wind in the trees. Children and adults open their eyes and I begin to speak softly. I explain that it is always difficult to be the one to start talking, the one that must break the silence. I ask them to name, one at a time, some of the sounds they heard during our quiet time.

“Birds,” says one.

Music or noise? I ask.

“Music.”

“I heard the wind,” whispers another.

Music or noise? I ask again.

“Oh, music. It’s so peaceful!” she adds again in a whisper.

The Soft Walkers take turns sharing their sounds and classifying them as music or noise. We realize that some of the sounds can be both music and noise depending on their volume and our musical preference. We also discover that we name most of the natural sounds as music and most of the manmade sounds as noise. One little boy suggests that the manmade sounds seem loud and harsh while the natural sounds are soft and gentle. After complimenting this child’s astute observation, I suggest that when people come together in stillness, we become part of the music of nature.

When I ask these listeners if they heard this music during our quiet time, they affirm with enthusiastic nods. I explain that this music is full of stories and how these stories have been waiting for just the right time and place to be told. Inviting the children to ask questions about plants, animals, and other treasures they encountered during our time together indicates a new attunement to their surroundings. These children who just an hour earlier rapidly fired questions without waiting for answers now seem to know what they really want to know. Their questions reveal an attentiveness that pulls forth the stories of the freshwater mussels; water lotus leaves and pods; spittlebugs; pigments in nature, trees, peppermint, and goldfinch; and so much more. These stories unfold to their receptive ears like treasured gifts offered directly from the Earth.

Wren Smith, interpretive programs manager for Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest in Kentucky, has been sharing her Soft Walk program for more than 25 years. Reach her at 502-955-8512, x227 or Wren@bernheim.org.

Urban Wild: Showing L.A.’s youth the wild side of America’s most sprawling city

Legacy

Published: September 6, 2009Posted in: Children, Feature StoriesTags: air quality, education, habitat, Los Angeles, Malibu Creek State Park, outdoor, public parkland

by Lauren Buchholz

M.R.C.A. naturalist Lauren Tingco helps students cross a stream in Malibu Creek State Park.

A city made infamous by its air quality struggles, traffic jams, and teeming populace, Los Angeles isn’t one of the first places most people would expect to find a flourishing outdoor education program. Looming skyscrapers and ever-expanding freeways define what would seem to be a stark antithesis to the natural world, trademarks of a city that coined the term “urban sprawl.”

Yet on a sunny spring Wednesday, just over 30 miles from the heart of the downtown metropolis, a class of fifth graders is seeing a very different side of L.A. Under a clear blue sky on the grounds of Malibu Creek State Park (made famous as the filming location for M.A.S.H.), a small group is participating in a guided hike that winds its way through several miles of native grasslands dotted with coastal live oak and sycamore trees, their path overshadowed by steep mountain faces that provide homes for rattlesnakes, mule deer, and one or two mountain lions. Earlier in the week, the curious 10- and 11-year-olds learned about the importance of this wild habitat by identifying local plants firsthand and seeing how native animals have adapted to the environment by examining skulls and fur samples. Their excitement is palpable as they begin to apply what they have learned to the natural settings all around them, pointing out signs of deer and coyotes, taking photos of blue herons wading beneath a bridge crossing, and warning one another to avoid clusters of poison oak. For the week, they are no longer confined to catching glimpses of nature in the second-most-populated city in the country. Instead, they are experiencing its heart.

The fifth graders out hiking on this particular day are joining a growing number of city youth who have experienced the natural side of Los Angeles under the guidance of the outdoor education program for the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, or M.R.C.A. Established by the state of California in 1985 as a joint powers entity between the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Conejo Recreation and Park District, and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, the M.R.C.A. dedicates itself to the management and preservation of over 60,000 acres of public parkland throughout the county. The organization has been furthering this work for over 10 years by providing outdoor education school programs for the Los Angeles, Glendale, and most recently Las Virgenes Unified School Districts, giving kids the opportunity to camp at and learn about parks and conservation regions throughout the city. The programs are staffed by experienced M.R.C.A. naturalists, whose professional attire (similar to that worn by National Park Service rangers) is usually one of the only ways to distinguish them from excited campers as they share the wonders of the wild side of L.A. with each new school group.

M.R.C.A. naturalist Emily Hope holds a Coast Range Newt in her hands on an outdoor education camp hike through Temescal Gateway Park.

This excursion is no exception. As the naturalist leading the group calls a halt along the trail to introduce her group to the concept and importance of the local watershed, an excited squeal goes up from one of the girls. “There’s a lizard on your backpack!” she exclaims. Within half a second, the group is clamoring for a closer look, cameras in hand, awe written across many of their faces. The pack-bound interloper—a blue-bellied western fence lizard—is found commonly throughout the park, but rarely allows humans such a close encounter for as long as this one. Holding the pack out for the group, the naturalist explains how the native reptile has adapted to avoid predation by severing its tail from its body as a distraction when threatened—an effective but very energy-intensive process that cannot be repeated until a new one has grown several months later. “It’s very important to respect these lizards so that they have a chance to survive,” she explains. “That way, you can come back and show them off for your family and friends.” The lizard is gently teased off the backpack as the group continues on, but the firsthand encounter with this wild creature remains a highlight for the trip: a rare experience that only a trip into nature itself can provide.

Unfortunately, for many youth across the United States, these trips have become more the exception than the norm. The importance of getting America’s children more engaged with the natural world has become a pressing issue throughout the country over the past two generations. More kids are spending more time away from truly experiencing the great outdoors due to the advent of vehicle-friendly suburban developments, strictly relegated schedules, and heightened legal red tape surrounding outside activities. Such are the findings highlighted by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, the 2005 book that sparked mainstream discussion of the benefits of unplugging modern electronics and encouraging today’s youth to go for wilderness romps.

M.R.C.A. naturalist Michelle Renner discusses the characteristics of herbivores for an outdoor education group while holding a model of a mule deer skull.

Being out in nature can provide more than just a chance to get some fresh air, Louv argues. Weaving anecdotal evidence with research studies, the author discusses how outdoor excursions can heal children and their families from what he coins “nature-deficit disorder,” the effect of withdrawing nature from personal experiences that leads to increased feelings of stress, wandering and limited attention spans, and general feelings of not being rooted to any one place or thing—symptoms of many people across the U.S. today. Throughout his book and in subsequent interviews, Louv highlights university studies showing how reintroducing nature has significantly reduced attention-deficit disorder (ADD) in young children, and discusses how individual families struggling with disconnected sons and daughters have successfully relied on nature instead of therapy or medication to address the issue. Exposing children to nature also benefits more than just people. As Louv explains in his 2007 article “Leave No Child Inside” (for Orion magazine), “[T]he outdoor experiences of children are essential for the survival of conservation…the truth is that the human child in nature may be the most important indicator species of future sustainability.”

The recognition of benefits such as these have helped to turn the tide towards getting kids back into the outdoors, a tide that the M.R.C.A. is striving to define for the Los Angeles region. As a big city, connectedness with nature is an inherent problem. Yet even in comparison to other large cities in the U.S., Los Angeles residents lack many opportunities to directly access natural areas. Only 33 percent of residents in the county live within a quarter-mile of a park, according to L.A. Assemblyman Kevin de Leon. This is in comparison to 97 percent of Bostonians and 91 percent of New Yorkers—cities that were designed to accommodate green spaces instead of highways (Source: The Los Angeles Times 2008).

The M.R.C.A. has been addressing this problem by opening outdoor education opportunities to students of all ethnic and economic backgrounds throughout the county, meaning its naturalists often see the extremes of youth interaction with nature. For many of the children hiking in Malibu Creek State Park, the thought of being without a cell phone or access to video games and iPods was the most foreign aspect of their weeklong camp experience. For kids living much closer to the heart of downtown Los Angeles, the strangest part of the camp for many was being able to walk freely outside at night and see the stars. Yet despite the differences in their backgrounds, the youth proved indistinguishable in their excitement at exploring the great outdoors—an excitement that M.R.C.A. naturalists often highlight as one of the greatest benefits of their job.

“I remember teaching a group of fifth graders,” says Lauren Tingco, an energetic naturalist who has been with the organization since 2008. “We were discussing some of the ways animals hide from predators, [when] behind in the scrub oak there was a loud swoosh! Several California quails ran and flew from behind me and towards the students, just as a red-tailed hawk flew close to the ground trying to catch the quails.” Tingco shared in the excitement of her students, who later turned the incident into their camp skit for the school group, incorporating the adaptations they had learned about the birds.

Opportunities like this one illustrate the power of firsthand encounters with the natural world to educate and shape a child’s mind. Tingco emphasizes the importance of these experiences for the students she has taught, who often spend classroom time learning about the natural world in their region preceding their outdoor education trips.

“[They] really have a chance to connect the ideas they learned indoors with the outdoors,” she says. Furthermore, the camp environment also encourages students to “come out of their shells,” growing not only in knowledge but as people through their experiences at camp.

“Many times I hear from classroom teachers that the students act like completely different people in the outdoor setting,” says Tingco. “Some students really…embrace the outdoor activities that we provide.”

Perhaps the greatest asset of the M.R.C.A.’s outdoor education program, however, is that it not only offers Los Angeles youth and their families opportunities to see the natural world—it does so from within their own city. In coming to understand the vitality of nature close at hand, the students who attend outdoor education camps with the program can connect the importance of preserving the world’s environment with that of caring for nature on a local level.

Tingco echoes this sentiment: “Outdoor education is great for the children of Los Angeles because it shows them that they don’t have to travel far to hike at a park or see wildlife. The great outdoors is in their backyards…the M.R.C.A. helps them get to [and appreciate] these locations.” This appreciation, nurtured by the organization’s education of the planet’s future caretakers, will undoubtedly benefit the environment in L.A. and around the world in years to come.

Lauren Buchholz is an environmental writing student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and has worked as an interpretive naturalist for Sequoia National Park and the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, California.

Feature Stories Archive

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Developing a Sense of Place in Non-Traditional Spaces

Why Tourism Needs the Public

A Fork in the River: Experiencing the Change from First- to Third-Person Interpretation at Historic Fort Snelling

Costumed Interpretation: What We Are Is Because of What We Were

Providing Life-Affirming Experiences—Not Just Facts

Unplugging Minnesota’s Children

Soft Walking to Natural Awareness

Urban Wild: Showing L.A.’s youth the wild side of America’s most sprawling city

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