Confessions of a National Park Worker/Adventurer

By Tim Voigt

Your author would work in national parks for over 20 years.  I would compile many stories of adventures, experiences, ups and downs, joys and sorrows.  Collected here I talk about my collected stories of working in many exotic places in the USA.  Enjoy.  If you work in a national park, I hope you gain from reading my ebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Voigt
• Release date: Apr 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215713471

Book preview

To all who enjoy living and working in America's national parks.

Epigraph page:

"The national park is a modern creation of nations.  It is not your typical city park by any means.  It is a vast area of wilderness preserving and protecting something vital to the national identity, the national soul.  It is meant for the enjoyment of the people, a national treasure unique in its scope, vastness, national significance, and national meaning.  It can be anything like a monument to a vast wilderness.  It is set aside by the national leadership for the nation's benefit, a slice of national territory where citizens can experience something of the national soul.' -talk on national parks

'A park is a place set aside by a community.  It is allowed to be natural, pleasant, quiet, and a place where the people can find a place to be calm with oneself.  It can be found in a city, a town, a county, a state, and also in a nation.  It is a place for Nature, people, and peace.'  -talk on parks

Preface:  America's national parks

In the 19th century, pioneers would be expanding across western North America.

They would stumble into regions of desert, mountain, and forest.  In their travels they would behold places like epical canyons, fabulous mountains, geyser regions, and magnificent wildernesses.

They would be awed by what they had seen, spreading the news of such places back east towards an expanding USA.

As America expanded westward, absorbing land after land into its immensity, national leaders of the time would lobby to declare such epic places as national treasures.  They would in some sense create the notion of a national park.  This would culminate in President Ulysses Grant declaring the Yellowstone region as the nations' first national park.

Since then, many such regions would be set aside as protected lands.  It would see the creation of epical national parks with names like:

-Yellowstone -Glacier -Grand Canyon -Zion -Bryce Canyon -Mt Rushmore -Shenandoah -Isle Royale -Crater Lake -Glacier Bay -Congaree -Everglades -Biscayne Bay -Grand Teton -Mt Rainier -Hawaii Volcanoes -Haleakala -Death Valley -Great Smoky Mountains -Denali, and many others.

National parks would become American national treasures.

An agency of government would appear called the National Park Service.  It would be made a sub-agency of the Department of Interior tasked with overseeing American natural resources.  This agency would be staffed by an administrator and have a professional staff of supervisors, rangers, and park staff.  They would collectively oversee all American national parks.  This agency would supervise a park, enforce laws, deal with concessionaires, handle tourism, and conserve park resources.  It continues to this day overseeing national parks.

Other kinds of possession would be made in America analogous to national parks.  There would be:

-national monuments -national battlefields -national seashores -presidential libraries -national museums -national zoo -national botanical gardens

-national historic sites -national marine reserves -national grasslands, and much more.  They are organized similar to national parks conserving resources of the national interest and for the American people.

Whole tourist industries would arise to preserve and to profit off of them.

Millions of tourists would take to visiting national parks, mainly citizens and also foreigners.  National parks would be tourist meccas for countless inspiring with wildlife, scenery, epic lodges, and outstanding guest service.

People would come to national parks for many reasons like:

-experiencing wildlife -seeing epical natural sights -to hike -to camp -to shop -to travel about -to sample the local life, and much more.  Vacation trips to national parks can be exciting, interesting, and fascinating for the legions of tourists who do this.

Today national parks drive an immense tourist industry.

They are fabulous places inspiring America and much of the world.

Around the world, many nations have copied America creating their own national parks.

It is a trend to preserve and protect wondrous places for citizens of any nation on Earth, a fabulous trend in the world.

National parks of America are fanciful treasures, unique locales somehow inspiring  America to preserve and protect something vital of its history and land.

They are epical creations, unique products of America's legacy and reality.

'The national park would grow out of the idea of a city park.  It instead would become an epical idea becoming something greater and more wondrous than anyone could imagine and even understand.'              -talk on parks

Introductory statements.

America's national parks are epical domains, born of a national pride.

As America grew from the 13 colonies, people would lobby the national government of the USA to create national parks.  They would go on to be epical preserves celebrating American history, reality, and culture.

Such places now number into the hundreds in the form of:

-national parks -national monuments -national seashores -national volcanic monuments, and much more.  They would be governed by a state organization called the National Park Service.

Such places would go on to generate a tourist industry.  It would see millions of tourists journey to experience these places, all the while buying souvenirs, sampling the local life, and enjoying the grandeur in their midst.

One such person these places would influence immensely is your author.

My name is Tim Voigt.

A little information on me.  I was born in Neenah, Wisconsin in the USA.  I would take a degree in physics and math from the local college system.  From 1995 onwards, I would embark on a career as a hospitality employee, a national park seasonal employee living and working in many of America's national parks and monuments.

Over the years, I would accumulate over 20 years experience of living, loving, working, and playing in many of these epical places.

Revealed in this book for the first time, I am sharing with you my recollections, episodes, colorful dramas, and epical moments of living and working in national parks.  They are stories collected from a 20 year career in doing this kind of work.

Working in national parks is not easy.  You endure long shifts, boring work, poor pay, and often suspicious living arrangements in working in parks.  It is not for everyone and everyone is not cut out for this way of life.

Despite this, it is an adventure living and working in American national parks.  There have been highs and lows, exhilaration and depression, wows and dulls.  Living and working in national parks has it all.

In this book, I will share with you my epical stories.  I hope you enjoy my storytelling.  They are episodes I want to share with  you and the world.

Thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoy all the stories I am going to tell.

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——————Preliminary Discussions:

Before we begin with discussions on my adventures in national parks, I want to share with you preliminary discussions.  They are  meant to inform and educate on what it is like to live in national parks.  They are given to help prepare to better understand the adventure of living and working in parks.

————What is a National Park??

Yellowstone would be set aside as the first national park of any nation on Earth.  It is now a trend by nations to imitate what the USA did.  Originally a national park was meant to be a large swath of land set aside protected for the citizens of a nation.  It is not meant to be a city park, state park, or any other kind of park as it is known.  It is meant to be all manner of thing like:

-a wildlife reserve -a monument to a nation -a preservation ground of something historic or naturally fantastic -a place where people may experience Nature

-a place where people can retreat to or an attraction they can go visit -a place to take kids -a place to preserve wilderness, and more.

Yellowstone would satisfy all these things.  It has attractions like bison and elk, wolf and bear, geysers, hot springs, waterfalls, mountains, epic forests, and much more.  Each generation that passed through it felt similarly and thus protected it as well.  The US Congress would take a recommendation of explorers and set aside this large area of land.  They would do so in an era where hunting was runaway, land was best thought used for farming or logging, and wilderness should be exploited for economics.  Just setting aside land so that it can lay natural was original and against the thinking of the day.  However politics would prevail and thus this land was set aside.  Preserving Yellowstone would prove successful and it would see other places set aside as national parks.  Now today conservation is firmly rooted in politics and setting aside land for national parks is no longer doubted nor opposed.  It would prove a great idea that in time would inspire its own economic reality and more.  Nations would seek to protect natural wonders and make parks of them, a trend that continues.

————The Outdoors

For many people there is life inside a house and outside of a house (indoors and outdoors).  This refers to people and their style of life.  For people into the indoors, they like to work on a computer, read, watch TV, sleep, play games, listen to music, and more.  For others they like to be in the outdoors.  The outdoors includes all kinds of environment like:

-the sea -beaches -forests -grasslands -the mountains -deserts -swamps -icy regions -canyon lands -islands -underneath the sea, and more.

Here people flock to these environments to do all manner of thing like:

-raft -camp -hike -hunt -fish -trek -explore -relax -visit -photograph wildlife -do art based on natural scenes -bike -be survivalist, and more.  People into the outdoors like the adventure, the travel, and the drama of getting out and experiencing the land and its wonders.  Many people live the outdoors life and it can be fun and invigorating, something to make interesting and compelling to make part of life.

————Something to do with life

For many people they are guideless not knowing what to do with life.  They may take careers in restaurants, housekeeping, or wherever.  They may have wanderlust and take to doing something else in life.  For many a career in national parks can fill a void.

————History

There is a book chronicling the story of the USA, the history book.

It discusses various eras of history that would shape the USA.

Episodes found in this book include:

-Jamestown -Plymouth Rock -the Mayflower -the Salem witch trials -the American Revolution -the US Civil War -the war of 1812 -Benedict Arnold

-presidents -the civil rights marches -Vietnam -world wars -murderer trials -the Constitutional Convention -Supreme Court decisions

-Mexican Cession -Gold Rush -annexation of Hawaii -Spanish American War -Korea -Vietnam -Iraq -Lebanon -Grenada -scandals -Monica Lewinsky

-impeachment trials -OJ trial -Scopes trials -inventions -Einstein -Tesla -roaring 20s -automobile -airplane -atom bomb -beatniks -rock music

-Red Scare -Victorian era -presidential assassinations -slavery -abolition -Indian wars -Gadsden Purchase -Alaska -territories

-assassinations -battles -pirates -the Boston Tea Party -Iraq -Afghanistan -Obama -Hillary Clinton -elections -Trump, and more.

History would affect the nation in places like monuments, battlesites, and historic acts.  Many such sites would be commemorated and protected as national monuments, parks, and historic sites.

————National Possessions

For many nations they maintain control of a territory that consists of a nation.  Here a national government rules a large swath of territory comprising land, airspace, coastal regions, and offshore land underneath the sea if it has a coastline.  Here a nation possesses all manner of thing under its control.  Such things it can possess are:

-government buildings -parks -cities -roads -a national zoo -a national botanical park -national museums -a capital district -national castles

-national monuments -national historic sites -birthplaces -places of national interest -military districts, and more.

National possessions tend to be run by government agencies and their agents.  Among national possessions are national parks.

————The Hospitality Industry

The hospitality industry collectively refers to all manner of businesses that cater to guests and tourists.  It is an industry that seeks to please guests through services of some kind.  Its about smiles, taking care of guests, luxury, pleasantness, pleasing the customer, and guest service.  A wide range of businesses of this type include:

-hotel -motel -concessionaire company -beach resort -ski resort -dude ranch -mountain resort -island getaway resort -restaurants -amusement parks

-water park -national park lodge -destination resort -casino -spa ranch -hostel -camp -rafting outfit -horseback riding outfit -bus and jeep tour, etc.

Each kind of business has its reality, mission, type of service, management, and expectations.  Some companies specialize in pleasing kids, while others are for campers or adventurers of some kind.  Each business tries to please the guest in some way.  It can mean providing meals, giving information, going on trips, selling curio, providing a thrill experience, or what.  Jobs available in the hospitality industry include:

-cook/chef -dishwasher -housekeeper -tour guide -card dealer -ski instructor -massage therapist -manager -general manager -caretaker -maintenance

-driver -security -front desk -reservations agent -cashier -horseback wrangler -rafting guide -guide -accounting worker -gift shop attendant, and more.

Pay generally is not very good, about like minimum wage.  Housing may be available and benefits may be hardly at all.  Opportunities for advancement can appear at any time or a person can work in some position for years.  For some jobs, training from a college or technical college may be required.  Working in it people can see interesting places, meet people, go places, and explore life more than anyone else who is sedentary.  Its industry employs millions and is found worldwide.  It is a major source of jobs in many nations and around the world.

————Getting hired...

In order to work for a national park company, a person should have experience in some occupation gained from school, previous work, or some other way.  A person should have references from those jobs or stints and use them to justify an application for work.  A person should be relatively fit, able to adapt to the new and varied, be able to withstand jobs of low pay and long hours, and a love of life living in exotic places.  If a person has all the tools, then one can apply to a position.  Jobs should be entry level and be useful to gain higher position.  A person can apply via paper application, online, send an electronic resume, or in some other form.  Apply to as many as possible as it is a lottery to gain a job.  Generally applying to a place that needs many employees is best as chances are very good.  Be prepared for interest in the form of an email or a phone call.  Interviews generally are by phone as an inperson interview is prohibitive.  If contacted for an interview, talk nicely and professionally.  Avoid above all slang, juvenile speech, street speak, goofy comments, sexist, or discriminatory comments.  Do not use drugs as a drug test will be given if hired.  If hired, you will receive an electronic acceptance letter or paper version.  Fill it out and send it back dutifully and on time.  Have identification that you have the right to work in the USA.  If all goes well, you should get hired and enjoy living in and working in a national park.

————Concessionaire Companies

In many national parks, various private companies operate the 'concessions' of a park.

These companies operate all manner of facility like:

-gift shops -campgrounds -restaurants -private laundries -cabins -hotels -motels -mule and horse riding outfits -souvenir stands -T shirt stands

-general stores -bus tours -hiking tours -bicycle tours -cruises -guided camping trips -raft trips -copter and plane rides, and much more.

They will have departments like:

-housekeeping -laundry -management -food and beverage -gift shop -maintenance -fire and security -medical -human resources -wranglers

-housing -recreation -bus tours, and more.

Each department handles its particular domain of the business operation.  Examples are:

Rooms handles housekeeping and laundry.

Housing handles employee dorms.

Human resources handles employee paperwork, identification, files, and more.

Accounting handles payroll, ledgers, contracts, bills, and the like.

Food and beverage handles food, kitchen, dining room, snacks, and any food business.

Fire and security patrols the dorms, handles safety issues, and more.

Wranglers handle horse back riding and horse care.

Gift shop sells merchandise like T shirts, souvenirs, and more.

Maintenance handles all fixit problems on property.

A concessions business is a complex reality to understand, manage, and run.  Senior management like the general manager oversees all departments and has authority over all departments.  The general manager works to make the operation run harmoniously and profitably for the sake of his own bosses, his own job, and the people he manages.

Many companies operate through a contract with the National Park Service.  Such companies pay the NPS a portion of their profits for the right to operate the concessions of a park, often eliminating competitor companies from operating in a park.

Such companies can be multi-national corporations, a local corporation, or a small company.

Such companies need employees to operate their concessions.  Employees often live in company housing, eat in an employee dining room (EDR), and receive compensation