Confessions of a Former Park Ranger ~ Video

Ever wonder what it's like to be a park ranger? What type of crazy adventures do rangers get into? What are some of the most challenging questions they get?

Check out Sean Smith's latest YouTube video Confessions of a Former Park Ranger to find out. It's a fun and witty exploration of some of Sean's most memorable experiences wearing the flat hat.

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.  All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

America's Giant Sequoias teeter on Extinction. A real life what and whodunnit?

Fire Fighters among Giant Sequoias: Credit USDA

Giant Sequoias are the planet’s largest living things and have been on the North American continent since at least the last ice age some 12 thousand years ago. Some individual trees alive today have stood in what is now the United States for more than three thousand years. Or put another way, today's Giant Sequoias were seedlings at about the same time humans were first building their civilizations in Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, China, and Egypt.

We are told that trees are a renewable resource and many are. But a three thousand year old Sequoia is not renewable, at least not for another 120 human generations.

Today we are losing Sequoia trees at rates and by means unseen in the past. More than 40 recently burned in California's Windy Fire. These trees stood in the same spot for millennia. They bear the scars of past fires, drought, floods, climate change, blizzards, lightning strikes, insect infestations, animal burrowing, and more. Yet, they survived all these threats.

How? What could be the critical difference that now endangers the very existence of trees that stood for a million sunrises and sunsets? What does it say about us if these mighty leviathans go extinct during our watch? And what will future generations say if we let it happen?

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.  All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

The National Parks 105th Birthday: Let's Celebrate

Happy Birthday Park Service ~ NPS

The National Park Service and the National Park System turns 105 today.  The Park System as others have written is one of the greatest gifts Americans have given to world culture. For me, national parks are incredibly special because for they are the site of countless family vacations and cherished memories, but also the places where I had to honor to live and work as a park ranger.

But parks are more than this, I've realized parks are one of the last best hopes from our country and planet.  I spent many a summer in the national parks talking with tens of thousands of visitors.  Inevitably those conversations would to turn to me asking where the visitor was from.  While working in Yellowstone if I asked a local where they are from, they would say Jackson Hole or Bozeman.  Meanwhile, someone from out of state might say Washington, Idaho or Oregon. People from further away might claim the Northeast or the South.  While visitor from other countries identified with their entire homelands like Japan, Germany, or Australia. I found that the further one is away from home the more people one identifies with and relates too.

I imagine someday there will be similar parks on the moon and park rangers will ask those tourist where they are from, and if my hypothesis holds, those visitors will point to the earth and say that's where I'm from.  

National Parks have a magic power to breakdown boundaries. Not just political ones, but also psychological and social boundaries as well.  I witnessed countless times, visitors who likely were introverts or avoided contact with strangers striking up conversations with others they just met when they found out they shared something in common as simple as they both were visiting from the same city, state or region.  

This magic the National Parks have to create common ground is needed more than ever.  We need more places where people see each other as part of the same human race and with just a little prodding can find common ground upon which to start conversations.

What makes National Parks special to you?  Tells in the comments below.

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.  All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

National Parks' Ultimate Purpose? Creating Common Ground

U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently visited Yellowstone to talk about park
funding and the impact record visitation is having on resources and experiences.

Administration after administration is to be commended for continued support of national park funding, however its time to seize the opportunity to think bigger and begin nationwide conversations about both the national parks’ and the country’s future.

Safe places for conversations about our national purpose are needed now more than ever. These conversations could focus on where and what type of new parks should be established (including large natural parks), how national parks can help mitigate impacts from issues such as climate change, forest fires, drought, species loss, etc. They can also identify ways the parks can help tell a more inclusive story of our country. But perhaps most important, these conversations can identify opportunities where parks provide Americans with places to find common ground, share common experiences, and work toward common goals.

It's understandable administrations and members of congress advocate for funding for new trails, visitor centers, and campgrounds. It's a tried and true way to show the public one cares about parks. Supporting funding for national parks is as American as apple pie, baseball, and Chevrolet.

But advocating for more funding isn’t inspiring. It doesn’t touch upon those deep mythic themes of purpose that run through the hearts of many Americans and why many people go to the parks in the first place.

In my many years as a ranger, I met tens of thousands of visitors. I found that many come to the parks for that iconic once in a lifetime vacation, the chance to escape the stress and strain of everyday life. Yet many also come for the opportunity to connect and be part of something bigger than themselves. Americans come to parks for example to see the nation’s last free ranging bison herd, or the desk where Gen. Grant accepted Gen. Lee’s surrender, or the opportunity to stand for a day in the shadow of a tree that has stood in the same spot for a million days, or visit the camps where Japanese Americans were forcibly interned during World War II. The sites, ideas, values, and resources protected in our national parks allow all Americans to contemplate and be part of the larger experience that is the American experiment.

America needs agencies like the Park Service to not only provide shinny new visitors centers, but also start these conversations if for no other reason so that future Americans also have parks to enjoy, as well as the opportunity to be part of something bigger too.

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.  All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith