National Public Lands Day 2013: Valley Forge NHP

Followers,

Working to remove a sheet of plastic 

On September 28, 2013,ProRanger Philadelphia participated in National Public Lands Day at Valley Forge National Historical Park. ProRangers Jordan Keiffer, Tia Solomon, Renee Benson. and Jay Copper attended the event, which gathered volunteers from around the area and put them to work in the park. After arriving at the park, the ProRangers and approximately 15 other volunteers were assigned to the Catfish Island clean-up crew. Catfish Island is a small island located on the Schuylkill River, which is only accessible via boat. After receiving a morning briefing from group leader Ranger Bungard, we headed out to the boat launch, and began to shuttle volunteers to the island.

ProRanger Copper and a volunteer working to remove a metal drum.

Upon arrival at Catfish Island, we assisted in cleaning up the debris and garbage that finds its way onto the small strip of land. Over the course of two hours, we were able to find everything from fishing poles to car tires. Many of these items were buried beneath years of soil deposits, and some items were even tangled in tree roots. With the help of the volunteers (and some critical thinking), the majority of the buried garbage was able to be removed. Although we had limited resources, we were able to use the ideas of other group members and the items found on the island, to extricate the garbage. All of the garbage that was found on the island was deposited into bags, which will be picked up by park employees in the coming days. For larger items, we created multiple piles that will also be removed.

ProRanger Benson collecting tires!

At the conclusion of the day, we all gathered around the island's access point and assisted as volunteers were shuttled back to the parking area. Once all of the volunteers were accounted for, we began to pack up for the day. Under the instruction of Ranger Bungard, we were able to help in bringing the boat out of the water, and reloading it onto the parks boat trailer. This was a great experience, as only one of the ProRangers had previously been involved in boat operations.

National Public Lands Day is an awesome event that allows park visitors to get involved in the maintenance of the park, and volunteer for the day. It is amazing how much work can be accomplished when several groups work together. Thank you to Valley Forge National Historical Park, and all of the Rangers and volunteers that made National Public Lands Day a success!

One more bag!

You never know what you'll find!

ProRanger Solomon greeting volunteers!

 

At home on the water!

Thank you for reading!

Jay Copper

Sleeping Bear, Final Week

8/9-8/10: These two days I worked the Port Oneida Fair in the Leelanau section of the park. The fair is a great chance for visitors and locals to come out and tour some of the historic farmsteads within the park that are not always open throughout the year. The Fair also brings in several different vendors that sell a variety of food and period influenced goods, from furniture to clothing and much more. It is also an opportunity for volunteer groups within the park, such as Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, to showcase the projects that they have been working on, recruit more members, and raise funds. All in all, the Fair is a great weekend for everyone involved.

On the first day, I arrived not knowing exactly what my tasks for the weekend would be. I went to one of the main farms in the fair, the Olson farm, and offered my services to the Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear coordinator. We set up the majority of the tables, chairs, banners and information for the day, and started to receive visitors around 10am. I stayed at Olson farm until about 2pm, answering all sorts of questions about the farms and the park in general. There were several games for kids that I supervised, and I got to enjoy a show put on by the “Great Lakes Schooner”, a man who educated the public about boating on Lake Michigan in the early 1900s. At one point, one of the cooks in the house, who was displaying how to cook period specific food, set off the sensitive fire alarms, and I worked with a maintenance worker to deactivate the alarms. After 2pm, I headed over to the Burfiend farm where other vendors and games were set up. I participated in a game of cricket with a volunteer who was showing the visitors how the game was played in the early 1900s. We had a group of about 20 visitors play a couple innings in a formal game. Afterwards, I ran into a group of volunteers who I had gotten very close with on South Manitou Island this summer and did not expect to see again before I left, so that was a real treat.

Great Lakes Schooner giving his presentation.

Band setting up for an evening performance.

Fair at the Olson Farm.

Playing cricket.

Period music.

On the second day, I again had the freedom to help out wherever was needed. I had heard that largest parking area at the Dechow farm had been difficult to manage the day before, and only had two volunteers working the lot. I decided that some flat hat presence was in need, so I headed over there first thing in the morning. For about 4 hours, myself and the other two volunteers guided in around 1,000 cars into the grass parking area that did not have painted lines. The two volunteers directed the cars to where I was currently standing in the lot, and I had the responsibility of making sure that they were properly lined up in as best of a row as we could make them. By 1pm, the lot was nearly full and the designated parking areas were made obvious to new coming visitors. One of the supervisors for the Interp. Division asked me to relieve one of the volunteers who was running the barn tours at the Dechow farm around 1:30pm. I met with the volunteer, who showed me the highlights of the barn and then I took over. Once I’m showed a tour once, I feel very comfortable with conducting the tour myself, and the rest of the day went very well in the barn. The oldest section of the barn was built in the late 1800s, with the new, and more intricate, dairy section of the barn built in 1939. Twelve areas were built for cows to feed at while they were being milked. I explained to visitors the process of bringing in the cow, milking it, and selling the product to the local milk man. I also showed them how the silo worked and explained what types of foods the cows preferred. It was a great chance for me to polish up on some interpretation skills and talk to visitors. At the end of the day, I helped take down some tables and chairs and called it a night.

Some of the food served at the fair... yum!

One of the many livestock animals for the public to see.

The parking lot that I managed. There were six rows of cars total.

The dairy barn that I gave tours in.

8/11- Today I worked with SLBE dispatcher, Tom Davison. I reported to headquarters at 8:00am and we jumped right into the day. We collected all of the information needed for the morning report, such as campground availability, weather information, fire danger, and Lake Michigan wave info. Tom did the morning report, and then we got to work on filing fee warnings. Tom is responsible for filing all of the Law Enforcement tickets and warnings, and he has a very organized system. We taped all the warning onto normal sized sheets of paper for proper filing and got around 700 warnings into that cabinet, all while taking radio calls from all of the divisions within the park and answering all types of visitor questions on the phones. Tom has a very complex job that demands him to multitask quite often. It was fun trying to keep up with everything that he was doing.

Filed all of these fee warnings.

Throughout the day, Tom showed me more on the websites that he gets his weather information, NPS information, and local news from. He also showed me other programs, like IMARS, which I have seen before. We also entered a few tickets that had been written the previous day into a document to be sent to the Central Violations Bureau. At 3:15, Tom let me take over the dispatch calls. It was a little nerve wracking at first, but I began to feel a little more comfortable after a few calls. Around 3:45, we got a call from the Dune Climb about an “unconscious 18 year old female who passed out on the top of the dune”. Tom took over because of the seriousness of the call, and it was exciting to watch his process; talk about multitasking! Everything turned out OK with the medical and I got ready to do the afternoon report at 4:15pm. Again, it was exciting but a little nerve wracking to give the afternoon report to the entire park, but I am happy to say that I did a good job, only making one mistake throughout the whole speech. I am confident that I would get the hang of that after a couple times. We finished out the day getting schedule information to the Indiana Dunes dispatchers, who take over for Tom at nights on during his two days off every week.

Working the desk at dispatch.

Tom is our only dispatcher in the park, and he does quite a bit to keep all of us afloat. I wish that I had gotten a little more time working in the dispatch office, because it can truly be a complex working environment that takes many years to master. I am very thankful for all that Tom does for the park on a regular basis and am glad that I got to spend this time working with him. Today, I learned to be a little more patient and understanding for when a dispatcher is taking longer to get information out. It is not an easy job, and it is something that I think all Rangers should experience so that they can appreciate the help when they are in the field.

8/12- Today I worked with the interpretive division here at SLBE. At 10:00am, I shadowed Ranger Fredericks through her tour of one of the farms in the historic Port Oneida section of the park. We started at the school house, explaining its importance and talking about regular daily life on the farms in the area. We then got in our vehicles and led the visitors to one specific farm to show them a typical barn and talk about working in the fields. We had a good group of visitors during that tour, so we decided to extent the tour a little further and take the group up to the area where the family originally built their log cabin. We hiked to the top of a dune that overlooked Lake Michigan and the Manitou Islands, and saw a cleared out area where the house once stood; it would have been an amazing view. The family had to move the house down the hill because of a property dispute, but it was a great chance to explain to the visitors what the entire shoreline might look like if the park was never created. Houses would be running all up and down the coast. After the tour, Ranger Fredericks and I did a “rove” through the Dune Climb and the Scenic Drive. The interp rangers do these roves to increase their visitor contacts and check on the key areas of the park. We got out at one of the overlooks on the Scenic Drive to talk with visitors, and it was a great chance to see how amazing interp rangers really are when it comes to educating visitors and getting them excited about the park.

Ranger Fredericks giving a tour.

At 2:15pm, we started setting up at the Maritime Museum (which is one of the three old Life Saving Service Stations in the park that is now a museum) for a program called “The Heroes of the Storm”, which covered the daily life and duties of the men in the US Life Saving Service. Ranger Fredericks ran the program, which got the kids of the audience involved, playing the roles of the actual men of the LSS and the sailors who were in distress. I played the role of the boat captain whose ship was sinking in Lake Michigan. Ranger Fredericks showed the audience how the LSS would set up the Lyle Gun, which would shoot a projectile attached to a rope towards the ship in distress, and allowed the LSS to pull the sailors back to the beach with the aid of the breeches buoy. It is actually a very complex system and took a lot of practice and preparation to complete properly. She then told the kids playing as the LSS crew members that the buoy could not support the weight of us three crew members, so they pretended to get out the surf boat and row out to our aid. Alas, we were rescued and brought safely back to shore! The program took a lot of imagination of the children and audience’s part, but was a great chance to show the importance of the Life Saving Service.

At 4:00pm I met Ranger Peg at the #9 overlook at the Scenic Drive for another program that took visitors on a guided hike from the #9 to the #10 overlooks. We only had a group of 5 visitors, but Ranger Peg talked about the geological formation of the sand dunes, what the visitors could actually see when standing at the overlooks, and the Legend of the Sleeping Bear (where the park got its name). I don’t believe that I have told you all the old Native American legend, so here it goes:

There once was a mother bear and two cubs who lived on the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan. One day, the mother bear decided to take her two cubs and swim across the lake to the  Michigan side in search of more food and a better place to live. She swam for nearly 50 miles, constantly trying to keep her cubs by her side. Finally, she arrived in Michigan, but her cubs were nowhere to be found. She climbed on top of a large bluff to search for her two cubs, but they had drowned in the Lake. The great god, Manitou, saw how upset the mother bear was, and surfaced the two cubs and made them into the two Manitou Islands, North and South. The mother bear still rests on top of that bluff (now the 450 foot tall Sleeping Bear Dunes) watching over her two cubs.

The story is, indeed, a sad one, but it was a way for the original people of this area to explain why the dunes and the islands were here. The story has several variations, some claiming that the bears left Wisconsin because of a fire, not hunger, but that sort of thing tends to happen with oral legends.  From the #9 overlook, you can see one area of the dune that sticks out a bit and has more vegetation on it than the surrounding area. Apparently, that area once had a group of very healthy trees growing on it, and it would have been hard to explain why it was there a few hundred years ago. The legend, and the Rangers, still say that that area is where the mother bear lays.

At the end of her program, Ranger Peg allowed me to talk with the visitors about the Manitou Islands, since I knew a bit more than she did from spending my whole summer out there. I told them about the once thriving farming and logging industries, and why the island was so important as a safe harbor. I answered some questions about taking the ferry out there and camping on the island, so maybe I encouraged the group to take a trip. The islands receive fewer visitors than the mainland, so it’s great to advertise how special of a place they really are. We took a few pictures with the group and then headed back to headquarters to drop off our vehicle and called it a day. I wish I had a little more time to spend with interp, but I got a lot of interp time on my own being the only Ranger on SMI and conducting the Lighthouse tours. Every Ranger needs to have interpretive skills, and today was a great chance for me to polish mine.

One of my favorite parts about Sleeping Bear- finding back-road corners of the park that stun you with their beauty. This lake caught me off guard when we casually drove by it.

8/13- Today may have been my last official ride-along for the season. I started at 2:30pm (which was great because that gave me time in the morning to run errands and get my car ready for my big trip home) and hopped in a vehicle with Ranger Chalup. It was a colder day, so we decided to hit some of the less popular spots in the park that we do not get around to patrolling too often. We drove through the campground to scout out any problem sites for later that night, but everything looked OK. Ranger Chalup finished his shift at 4:30pm, so I went back to the station and watched Ranger Mazurek complete some evidence collection from a previous case involving possession of marijuana, mushrooms and ecstasy. Ranger Mazurek ended up taking the individual to jail, and had a lot of evidence to process. I wish that I was on the original case, but it was a great chance to see the evidence collection process again. He told me about the importance of an officer’s chain of possession and how to be very detailed with your report, in case the violation goes to trial. I watched as Ranger Mazurek painstakingly cataloged and bagged every piece of individual evidence and did a write up. We locked everything away until it would be needed again, and then headed out for patrol.

It was a cold night for the middle of August (it felt like fall) so there weren’t too many people out and about. We drove past a vehicle that was parked on the Crystal River, and observed a family of four fishing. We went out to check their licenses, which the two who were older than 16 were unable to produce. Ranger Mazurek could have written them a ticket on the spot for not having their license on their person while fishing, but decided to see if he could pull up their fishing license through their driver’s license, since they claimed to have a valid fishing license. It came back that the mother’s last license was purchased in 2008, and that the one son never had one on file. We wrote both individuals a ticket for fishing without a license.

The rest of the night was pretty quiet. At one point, we heard a call on the county dispatch of a blue truck that had tried to steal a sign in one of the local towns. We were near the road and the direction that the vehicle was last seen heading, so we decided to set up at a close intersection and watch for the vehicle. It would have been great to catch them, but we never saw the truck nor heard any further report from any county officer. We checked some of the beach access roads, which were almost all empty, and then headed to the campground for a quick check. All was quiet, and we went back to the station to finish off our night. Tonight was a great chance to me to do a night time ride-along, which I have not seen too many of. It is a whole different world once the sun goes down, and it was exciting to be out there, despite the slow evening.

8/14- In the morning, I had the option of doing whatever I wanted. I had plans to hike a trail that I have not had the chance to try out yet, but decided to use the time to work on my final presentation for our ProRanger summer class that I will be giving when we return to Temple next week. The presentation talks about Sleeping Bear a little, and then goes into my duties and responsibilities throughout my time here. I’m excited to share my experience with my fellow ProRangers and NPS staff.

Since two of our officers are out of the park for training reasons, we were a little short staffed today on the mainland. My District Ranger put me on the schedule to go up to Leland and cover the North Manitou camper registration and orientation. I did not work on North Manitou, and only went to the dock twice this summer, so my knowledge of the island is limited. Since we do not send out a Ranger to North during a few weekdays, we have to register and orient the campers at the dock in Leland before they take the ferry out. Most of the registration was similar to what I did all summer on South, and the orientation also had a few similarities. I oriented around 30 campers, and stayed around to help unload and load the ferry. To be honest, I was a little nervous about giving an orientation for a place I have never been to, but I think I did a great job. I headed back to the office to finish up my presentation and update my blog.

8/15- This morning I started with finishing up some projects in the office and making a list of things I need to do before my departure date. Before I headed up to Leland for orientation, I decided to check out the historic blacksmith shop in Glen Haven, something I had not really explored before. Maintenance worker Chris was manning the shop on one of his days off, and he showed me around the shop a bit. It was interesting to learn about the process of making literally anything you needed, and how much skill is involved. Chris asked me if I wanted anything to bring home, and I told him it was my stepmother’s birthday on the day that I return home. Together, we made a flower pot hook and it turned out very well! My time in the blacksmith shop was a great look into how difficult even the simplest of things were back around the turn of the century. We surely take a lot for granted when it comes to modern machinery and construction.

Ranger Seybert and I headed up to Leland to catch the North Manitou campers before they took the ferry out. We ran them through registration and orientation, which also went smoothly. I will be doing my check out later this evening, handing in all of my gear and start packing for my trip home..

8/16- Today I spent the majority of my day packing up my things and getting the car ready for the long trip back home. My Chief Ranger and I grabbed lunch in Empire and said our goodbyes. He presented me with a 2013 Ranger Coin, which was a great honor and something I would hold onto for the rest of my life. I made sure that all of my checkout paperwork was completed, and went down to the beach to enjoy one last sunset. What a great way to finish my internship, with a sunset over Lake Michigan!

My Ranger Coin.

8/17, 8/18- It’s been an amazing summer at Sleeping Bear, and I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who has made special. To all of the Law Enforcement Rangers in the Leelanau and Platte Districts, the maintenance workers, administrative personnel, interpretive and fee staff, dispatchers and everyone else at SLBE that I met along the way, thank you for doing everything you could to make me feel welcome and help me along the way. I enjoyed working with each and every one of you. I knew that this internship would go quickly, but I didn’t think it would come and go as quickly as it did. It’s amazing what you can learn and the relationships that you can build in three months, and I am truly lucky to have had the opportunity to do both at Sleeping Bear.

And it ends with a sunset over Lake Michigan.

I started my long drive home on the 17^th, stopping in Youngstown, Ohio for the night. I will make the rest of the drive back to Philadelphia on the 18th, and it will be great to be home for a week before school starts again.

To all of my readers who have followed throughout the summer, thank you. ProRangers, it has been great reading your blogs as well, and I am looking forward to seeing you all at the academy graduation and the AAR. As always, thanks for reading!

Pit stop at the University of Michigan on the way home. What an amazing state!

Sleeping Bear, Week 11

Stopped on my beach run to take a picture of the tide's affect on the sand.

This will be a quick post, only because I worked three days in between my weekends off.

8/4- Today was the start of my time switching between the divisions on the mainland. Today I had the chance to work with the fees division. I started my day at 7:30AM at DH Day campground, the large and very popular campground in the northern section of the park. I met with the Ranger who was working the morning shift and one of the campground volunteers and discussed their morning activities. They not only are in charge of handling the campground fees, but also opening and closing the campground information station, and make regular patrols through the sites. We checked over the campground availability and then opened up the office to the large line of incoming campers. Since DH Day is a walk-in campground, you cannot reserve sites ahead of time. In the summer months, the campground is always near full, so the line for hopeful campers is very long and they arrive very early in the morning to be first in line. Luckily, we had room for everyone who came that day and did not have to turn anyone down. I watched as the Ranger gave camper orientation (which was very similar to my orientation on South Manitou Island) and registered all of the campers, which was also a similar process that I had done.

After the morning rush at the campground, one of the fee supervisors, Dennis Hauck, picked me up from the campground and took me along for his regular rounds through the park. One of his main jobs is making sure that all of the payment slips for park passes are stocked at the different trail heads and beach accesses throughout the park. Since we have many roads that lead into the park, it would be impossible to have one entry gate where visitors can pay their park fee. Park passes are mandatory if you recreate in the park, and passes are available at many locations throughout the park, including these areas that we checked today.

Once we knew the boxes were full of payment slips, we headed over to the Dune Climb so Dennis could cover the shift of one of his fee collectors who called out sick. This was a great chance for me to see how the fee collectors interact with the public, answer questions, and handle the issuing of park passes. At one point, Dennis had to leave the Dune Climb, so we closed the second entry lane to individuals who did not already have park passes, and only let those who did have park passes enter through that lane. While he was gone, Dennis sent me out to walk along the cars, asking if the visitors had park passes or not, and if they did, I would let them through the closed lane to shorten the line of waiting cars. All others had to pay their fee at the open lane. This was a great chance for me to answer visitor questions and handle a large amount of vehicles coming into one location. Once Dennis returned, we finished out our day in the booth collecting fees. Dennis allowed me to operate the computers that keep track of how much money is coming into the booth and the register. Today was a great experience and gave me a further understanding of the fees operation. My last park, UPDE, did not have fees, so this was all new to me.

Working the fee booth at the Dune Climb.

8/5- I started out my day at 8:00AM with administration, speaking with Daniel Krieber, Sleeping Bear Administrative Officer, about the administrative team. He told me all about the individuals who work at SLBE and their roles and responsibilities within the park. It was nice to finally put faces to names! He discussed his daily responsibilities and his many roles at the park. Daniel is a major contributor to handling the park’s budget, and he manages the vehicle fleet and all of the Park Service housing within the park. We talked about the recent budget cuts and the cuts that the park is also planning for in the next fiscal year. Daniel was a wealth of knowledge about the parks administrative operation, and it was great to speak with him; I learned quite a bit within only a couple hours.

I stayed with admin for only a few hours and then took a few hours off before going back into work to finish out my day with a ride-along. Ranger Seybert and I went out on an evening shift. Within an hour of being on duty, we received a dispatch call from the Dune Climb about a little girl who could not find her family. This type of call is very common at the Dune Climb because it is a very large hill with many people concentrated in one area. The climb is also fun for kids, and they are hard to keep track of. This particular case, however, was a bit more serious. We arrived thinking that we only had to find the parents of this one girl (which is a lot better than having to find the kid) but it turned into much more than that. After getting as much information as we could out of the 4 year old girl and the reporting party, we realized that we were also looking for the girl’s two brothers. Since the girl was technically under Ranger Seybert’s custody, I had to go climb up to the top of the Dune to look out for the two boys who had climbed to the top, while Ranger Seybert and Ranger Hauck (who arrived on scene to help out) checked vehicles in the parking lot that fit the description that we got from the little girl. About a half hour into the search, they located the mother in her vehicle and got more information from her. After speaking to her, the Rangers realized that we were now not only looking for the two boys, but another sibling and their cousin, all of whom were on the dune somewhere. The Rangers radioed a description of the boys to me and I kept an eye out at the top of the dune. Thankfully, one of the visitors that I had spoken to previously about the two boys had also stayed on top of the dune further away from me, and located three of the children. He dialed 911, who contacted the park and told me where to find the visitor. I met up with the group at the top and got more information on the last child who was still out there. They told me that the boy probably took the trail towards Lake Michigan and was on his own. I instructed them to head down to the bottom of the dune where Rangers and their family would meet them while I went looking for the last child. As I was hiking along the trail, I spoke with several different groups about a young boy who had been picked up by two women further down the trail. Thankfully, I did not have to go far and located the two women and the boy, who were heading back to the parking lot. I thanked the two women for helping the boy out, and brought him back down to the parking lot, telling him about the importance of staying with your group and what to do if you get lost.  Ranger Seybert spoke with the mother and got testimonies from all of the reporting parties so he could do a quick write-up for the incident. Thankfully, everyone was accounted for and it was a successful SAR.

We finished out the day doing our regular patrols through the northern section of the park, checking out the beach and lake accesses and trail head parking lots. It had rained for a little before our shift began, so there weren’t too many people out enjoying the park, causing a somewhat slow day. At one of the trail head parking lots, we found a car that had a heavy odor of marijuana and decided to hike the trail to see if we could locate the party, hopefully catching them in the act. We found the group, but they did not show any signs of abusing and we could not prove that they had it. There was nothing in plain view in the car nor on their persons, so we let the group go on their way.

Today was another one of those days where you don’t know what you will be getting into for the day. I woke up thinking that I would be spending my entire day with administration, but got to be a part of a SAR at the Dune Climb and got some ride-along time in as well. Just one of the reasons why I love this job!

8/6- Today I worked with the maintenance division. I did not know what I would be doing at the start of the day, but met the maintenance supervisor, Bob Bertschy at the Empire Maintenance shop. After setting me up with some PPE, he told me to head over to the maritime museum, where a crew who was working on the roof of one of the bathrooms was waiting for me. I headed over and spent my whole day helping the crew install the new roof, which used treated red cedar shingles from Canada. Within a few minutes, I was over my partial fear of heights and was climbing all over that roof, constantly keeping the crew stocked with new shingles so they would not have to come down to get them. The biggest challenge to installing the new shingles was their placement. The roof had a water seal under the shingles and the shingles were really only used for a cosmetic purpose. Because the shingles were cut from wood and were all different shapes and sizes, we had to hand pick the proper shingle to use for each one we laid down. If the edge of the shingle above the previous row met the edge of the one bellow it, it was not OK to use. We wanted to make sure that no two rows had edges that lined up, for draining purposes and for the overall look of the roof. With my extra help, the crew and I put down close to 30 rows of shingles, nearly completing the project in one day, which was much more than they expected. The crew will be returning tomorrow to put the final touches on the roof and then it will be operational for many years to come! Today was a great chance to meet with some of the maintenance crew and speak with them about their daily routines, views on park issues, and their experiences within the Park Service.

The roof we were working on. We started the day with only two rows completed.

How it looked at the end of the day. Those roof clamps and 2x4's are there for extra foot support, and will be removed at the end of the project.

8/7-8/8- These two days will be my last days off before heading back home. On the 7^th, Don Hamilton, the Chief Resource Management at the Upper Delaware S&RR (where I worked last summer), was taking vacation in the area and came to the park for a quick visit. SLBE was Don’s first park, so it was nice for him to come back to his old stomping grounds. We took a hike through the Cottonwood Trail on the dunes and talked about my summer experience here and how things are going at UPDE. Don also spent a few seasons working on South Manitou and stayed in the same station that I did, so it was fun to compare stories and hear about how much the island has changed since his time out there. It was great to see Don and have a visitor!

Starting on the 9^th, I will be working the weekend at the Port Oneida Festival, which opens up the historic farms within the park to the public for a short weekend. I’ll be finishing out my last week working a day with dispatch and doing some LE ride-alongs, so stay tuned for my last post. As always, thanks for reading!   

Sleeping Bear, Week 10 and Last Trip to SMI

7/26- This morning I left for my last trip out to South Manitou Island for the summer; I will be finishing up my last couple weeks on the mainland. Ranger Chalup was planning on taking me out on the LE Ranger’s boat so I could drive a little and freshen up on my MOCC training that I completed last year. The waves were too big though, so I took the park maintenance boat out with the rest of the crew. It was a bumpy ride, with some of the biggest waves I’ve seen on Lake Michigan since my time started here. When we got to the island, I unloaded my things and got ready for registration and orientation. Last night, all of the Rangers on both islands and the mainland gathered for a get together/bon fire at Glen Haven. Because of this, there were no Rangers on the island to meet the second boat of campers, which turned out to be quite full. This meant that today, Abbegale and I had to go around to the campsites and account for every person and site that was taken on the island. She headed out to Bay Campground, and I went to Weather Station. It’s a good thing we went, because there were a bunch of unaccounted for visitors and they had several questions about the island. We both got back in time to meet the second ferry and then called it a night afterward.

How we organize the camper's permits

Old Life Saving Service rescue boat in the boathouse.

7/27- Today was a typical day on the island, without much variation from the normal schedule. We updated the information boards in the morning and met the first ferry, then did registration and orientation. A storm was coming through all day, and the temperature was low, causing our day trip visitation numbers to be low. I went over to Weather Station Campground to check on things and wrote one note to a site that needed to move one of their tents, and another note about only using firewood that fits in the designated fire rings. I got back in time to meet the second ferry, which had another decent amount of campers. Despite the cold temp and rainy weekend weather, this weekend was actually our busiest yet. Both the Weather Station Campground and the Bay Campground were close to full and we had three groups go to the far end of the island, to Popple Campground (which isn’t as popular because of its distance from the ferry and there are no fires or water offered there).

Our campground sheet to keep track of how many sites are taken.

7/28- We had a high turnover today since it was a Sunday and most of the weekend campers were leaving the island. The dock and boathouse in the morning were packed full of people waiting to board the ferry off. We met the ferry and loaded up all of the campers, and then greeted the very few day visitors and campers that came off. I did orientation for a small group of campers and then decided to go and check on the Weather Station and Bay Campgrounds to see if any of the sites were left in poor condition. Most of the sites looked OK in each campground, with only a few that left a little trash and firewood all scattered around (but not enough to write a ticket for the mess). When I finished up at Weather Station, I was going to gather exact GPS points for my proposed trail, but after a weather report from dispatch, I decided it wasn’t a good idea. On my way back to the village, it started to rain and I waited with the rest of the campers and day trippers that were taking the second ferry off. The ferry ran a little late because of the weather, but we got everyone on the boat as quickly as we could so their stuff wouldn’t get wet. I did this past week’s squad notes and then called it a night. We ate dinner with the weekend maintenance worker, Dave Chew, and his wife and another group of volunteers. Since Dave is leaving tomorrow and I will not be seeing him again, it was a great chance to say goodbye!

Dave's wife, Joni, who volunteers her summers at the park. Here she was sanding down old directional signs so they looked brand new!

Wild grapes growing on SMI

7/29- Another typical day on the island. I met the two boats today, being the only Ranger on the island. I gave two separate registrations and orientations for the campers coming on and did 3 lighthouse tours for 23 people. After the second boat left, I decided to check on the Bay and Weather Station campgrounds again because we still had a good number of people on the island, despite it being a Monday. I talked to a couple campers about firewood that was too large for their fire ring, another about moving his tent to the designated tent area, and dispersed a makeshift fire ring that a previous camper had made the night before in their campground. All in all, it was a busy, but good day on South Manitou.

The Polaris that I often use for patrols.

Coyote tracks on the beach.

7/30- Today was one of the busiest days I have seen. We didn’t have too many day trippers (61) but there were a lot of campers coming off the island. There must have been 60 people on the dock in the morning trying to take the first ferry off, and then I had a large group of campers to register and orientate. After lunch, I did 4 lighthouse tours for 78 people (which is well above our average 9-10 person tour group size). Tours took me right up to 4:00pm and I got everyone back on the dock just in time to load up the second ferry. Between the day trippers and the other campers coming off, the ferry was nearly full when it left, and not to mention I had another group of 40 or so campers come onto the island. I registered them all, did orientation and stuck around to answer some questions. I put in the day statistics on the computer and then called it a night. What a busy day it was!

7/31- Ranger Chalup returned to the island today and decided to give me a bit of a break on my last full day on the island. We had talked about how I hadn’t had the chance to explore some parts of the island, so after the first ferry in the morning, he let me do some exploring with two of the maintenance workers who’s days had already ended. We drove out to the dune trailhead and hiked up to the top of the dunes, and what an amazing site it was! I feel bad knowing that I didn’t make it out there until my last day on the island, but the daily routine and patrols don’t leave enough time to make trips like this. From the “highpoint” on the dune, which is the highest point on the island, you can basically see a 360 degree view of South Manitou. This is a popular hike for many visitors, despite its distance. We then hiked out of the dune area along the “Bone Boat” Trail, named for the farmers who used to slaughter livestock near the abandoned boat and leave the bones inside. We got back to the village a little later than expected, mainly because we didn’t want to leave the beautiful dunes, and had a fantastic last dinner of the island. I will surely miss the good friends I’ve made on South Manitou.

View from the high point of the island.

One of the dune blowouts.

Hiking along.

The "Ghost Cedars" that have been covered by changing sand dunes.

Ghost Cedar up close.

On the dunes.

SMI Dunes and Lake Michigan.

The "Bone Boat".

8/1- August started with a boat ride off of South Manitou Island for my last trip. This was no ordinary boat ride though. Ranger Chalup agreed to take me off on the Law Enforcement boat because of the amount of stuff I was moving off of the island, and he also let me drive! Last summer, I completed my MOCC to drive the government boats, but have not had any chances this summer to drive one, despite being on a large lake. In the past, boat patrols were more common, but because of budget cuts, we really only use the boats to get from point A to point B. It was great to get behind the wheel again and polish my skills on a new kind of water than what I am used to. Lake Michigan and its waves are strikingly different from the Delaware River and its many hazards. Ranger Chalup showed me the different ways to ride into waves, and then how to use them at your back to your advantage. I drove the majority of the way back to Leland on the mainland, through 2-3 foot waves, and it was a great trip!

Shipwreck Fransisco Morazan from the boat.

Driving the boat back to Leland.

Since I returned to the mainland early in the morning and had several hours left to work, I unloaded my things at home and then met Ranger Dianne Johnson for a ride along for the rest of the day. It was a Thursday and the weather was nice, so the mainland was pretty busy. We first got a call from the Dune Climb fee staff who said that they had a large camp group unload a bus outside of the parking lot and did not pay the park fee to get in. We found the camp group, and Ranger Johnson and the reporting Ranger went to go talk to the camp leader. They figured out the issue while I stayed with the vehicle and answered an assortment of questions and concerns from the many visitors. We cleared the contact, and then not to long after got called to the Scenic Drive for a medical. A woman had been stung by a bee and needed medical assistance. By the time we arrived, Glen Lake Fire Department was already on scene with several paramedics and was handling the case. We made sure they had what they needed and cleared the parking lot, then we headed out since another Ranger planned on staying. Again, not too long afterward, we were called back to the Dune Climb for a family who reported a missing child. The 12 year old boy had last been seen on the top of the dune an hour and a half before they reported the incident. We arrived on scene and got out our binoculars to see if we could spot the child, who was wearing a tie-die shirt (easily seen). I went to check the Dune Climb Center and the men’s bathroom and there was no sign of the boy. Since it had not been to long since the boy was seen and this type of report is common at the Dune Climb, we decided to wait a bit longer to see if the boy showed up. I talked to hikers that had taken the trail all the way to the Lake (a 3 mile hike) and asked if they had seen a boy matching his description. The father and I decided to head up to the top of the dune for a better view, and sure enough when we got to the top we spotted the boy, who was coming from the direction of the Lake. He had left his group without telling anyone and hiked all the way to the Lake on his own. I took the time to explain to the boy why what he had done was extremely dangerous (he didn’t have much water and it was a hot day) and how in the future he needs to use the buddy system and always let someone know where he is heading. We weren’t too concerned when we got the call, but realistically, the boy could have been anywhere on the 3 mile trail of pure sand dunes. It was a busy day and I’m glad I got to spend the time working the mainland shift

"Leave only your footprints"

I have been off for the past two days and starting tomorrow I will be using the rest of my time on the mainland working in the different divisions. As always, thanks for reading!

I wish that was me on the board, but this is how I spend my days off, relaxing with a sunset over Lake Michigan.

Sleeping Bear, Weeks 8 and 9

Beach on South Manitou

7/11- Today I left for South Manitou for another long work schedule. Instead of taking the park boat out, I took the first ferry in the morning. This was a great experience because I got to see how the ferry operates in the morning. Usually, I only see their operation once they get to the island, so it was nice to see what they need to do in the morning to get everyone on the boat in time. I watched as they directed visitors to the parking lot, ran the shuttle to the harbor, and helped to load passengers. I spent time talking with visitors and the boat Captain on the way to the island. Once I got there, I had to unload my gear quickly and get back to the boathouse to do camper orientation. After lunch, I decided that it was time to start work on a proposed trail that the Superintendent wants put in on the island. This new trail will run for about 2-2 ½ miles from the Weather Station Campground to the South Manitou Lodge and connect with the trail that runs down to the shipwreck overlook. The purpose of the trail is to keep hikers off of the main road that the motor tours use. Some hikers don’t want to see vehicles during their hike, so this new hiking only trail could stop that. I started out at just north of the Lodge looking for an old road that could barely be seen on Google Earth. After hiking through some dense woods, I found the old road and it was almost too good to be true. The road was about 7 feet wide and only had a few downed trees in the way. It ran from the Lodge to about halfway to the shipwreck trail, so this old road could potentially be useful for our new trail. I took videos of my hike to remind myself of what the road looked like and started using the GPS to find coordinates for my proposal. I returned to the village in time to conduct the second camper registration and orientation. After that, I got a call from the campground on the mainland saying that a camper in a private boat was heading to the island. I waited for this boat to show up and ran him through orientation as well. It was a busy day.

Freighter I saw on the way to the island. 

Remnants of the old road. Notice the definable treeline along the road.

7/12- In the morning I worked on some homework for my ProRanger summer class, which is going very well! I met the first ferry and did camper orientation. At 1:30, I met up with some of the volunteers on the island who were running an unofficial chainsaw training. One of the volunteers, Brent, is an experienced firefighter and along with maintenance worker, Dave Chew, they taught the course. We went over the proper safety for using a chainsaw and how to take them apart, clean and change out the parts. We also went over how to sharpen the blades and put the chain back on the saw. Afterward, we went into the field and looked at some examples of dangerous situations when using a chainsaw. We talked about poor weather conditions and escape routes if a tree starts falling the wrong way. I didn’t get to operate a saw because I had to leave to meet the second ferry at the dock, but I learned quite a bit from the course about safety and use of chainsaws. I hope one day I will be able to go through the official NPS chainsaw course; it will be beneficial for wildland firefighting. After the second ferry, I worked on a witness form for Ranger Chalup relating to a trashed campsite case that we had a week or so ago. I took the write-up I did for the case and put it onto the form, which will held in the file for further questioning or court proceedings if need be.

7/13- Again, I met the ferry in the morning, which had a low number of visitors for a Saturday. As she has been doing all weekend, Abbegail has been running the lighthouse tours, which has allowed me to work on other projects. After planning out a route online and with my GPS, I decided to head back out to work on our new trail. I started out at the Weather Station Campground, quickly checking sites before starting my trail work. All was OK in the campground, and I started out hiking through the dense woods near the campground entrance, heading for the Lodge to connect to my previous work a few days ago. At the start, there were some great views of the mainland sand dunes that could be incorporated in the trail. During my hike, I got stuck in some heavy thorns and juniper. I will have to find a new route around this section for the trail. After getting through that, I started looking for an old farm field line that was somewhat visible on Google Earth. I had trouble finding the old field line, and continued to walk through the woods heading towards the Lodge. Eventually, I got to the Lodge but the hike did not go as I had planned. I will have to look at the old maps again and try to find another route. This project will be an ongoing one for the next week or so.

One of the overlooks on the potential trail. You can see Sleeping Bear Dune in the distance.

An example of the vastness of the Poison Ivy growing on South Manitou. This stuff is literally everywhere. Since there are no deer on the island to eat the Ivy, it grows uncontrollably. You will see Poison Ivy along many trails.

7/14- This morning I spent my time in the office, working on a few different things. Ranger Chalup is not on the island right now, so I had to complete this week’s Squad Notes, which is basically a weekly summary for our District Ranger back on the mainland about what we have been doing. It includes visitation numbers, number of lighthouse tours, weekly accomplishments and projects, upcoming events and projects, and how many cases we had. I have watched Ranger Chalup complete this document several times before, so it was great to be able to do it on my own and submit it to my District Ranger. Since today was a Sunday, the amount of people coming off the island was high. The morning ferry was full of campers when it left the island and I ran orientation for a small group of campers coming on. The large group of volunteers, who have been on the island for the past two weeks, left this morning and I am sad to see them go. I formed great relationships with the group and they did some amazing work mowing, painting and fixing buildings. I will surely miss the nightly dinners with them and working together. Hopefully, one of the volunteers will be emailing me some photos of their work and of all of us to put on the blog!

Chainsaw training.

Saying goodbye to one of my favorite volunteers, Pat Kelly.

7/15- In the morning I met the ferry which had a good amount of campers on it. I ran orientation and then decided to patrol through some parts of the island that I don’t see much. I took out the Polaris UTV and drove up through the historic farm loop on the island. I checked to see if there was any problems around the farm areas, and they all looked great thanks to the mowing that the volunteers had done. Mowing these fields is something that maintenance doesn’t always have to do, so it was great to see them in good shape. I took the UTV over to the Weather Station Campground and checked the few sites that were taken. Afterward, I went down to the beach to see if there was any sign of litter after a weekend of visitation. Everything was OK, and I returned to the village to meet the second ferry and conduct another orientation. After work, I have been trying to keep up with my fitness, taking runs to the old schoolhouse on the island which is exactly 1 and ½ miles from the village (the same distance as our PEB run). I’ll get in a three mile run and then jump in the cold Lake Michigan to cool off (being hot and sweaty is just about the only time I will jump in that water, unless I have to. The water is still in the 60’s).

Inside of the old school house.

The Beck Farm on the historic farm loop.

7/16- Starting this morning, after the other intern left, I was the only Ranger on the island. I will be alone until the morning of the 20^th, when Ranger Chalup returns and I head off the island. Ranger Chalup and I have seem to gotten into a schedule where I am on the island for a period of time alone and then he comes back to replace me when I head off. When I return after my 4 days off, there’s a few days when we work together and then he heads off for his break. The park has really trusted me with running the island operation on my own, partly due to budget cuts, and it has been a great opportunity. I met a large group coming off the boat this morning, with 82 day trippers and a handful of campers. I ran through registration and orientation and then headed over to the lighthouse for tours early since I had a lot of visitors. I ran tours from 12:30 to 4:00, doing 6 tours (at 117 steps each tour!) and brought up 51 visitors. I got everyone all of the day visitors back on the dock in time for the second boat, which was also dropping off a second load of campers, this time with about 35 visitors. I registered and oriented them all. I stuck around for a while to answer questions about the sites and trails, and then heading into the station to complete the spreadsheet for today’s visitation statistics. It surely was a busy day.

One of the fields on the farm loop.

7/17- Today was a bit slower than yesterday, with half as many day visitors and campers. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is with island visitation. It was a normal day, with two camper registrations and orientations. I did 5 lighthouse tours with 51 people. The park maintenance boat came in today with a load of gasoline for the island (yes, we have to bring everything we need, there’s no stores on the island for anything). I kept working on the trail after the second boat came and have been putting together a presentation for it. Hopefully, I will have something together by the end of the week.

A little lighthouse history. These are grave markers for Aaron and Julia Sheridan. Aaron was the first lighthouse keeper of the tower on South Manitou. Him, his wife, and their youngest baby tragically drowned in Lake Michigan when they got caught in a storm through the Manitou Passage, and their bodies were never recovered. I tell a ghost story relating to the Sheridans on my tour.

Grave marker for a skeleton that was found on the Dunes on South Manitou Island. We believe the individual passed away on the Dunes, and was covered by the sand until found. The islanders buried him in the cemetery without identification.

7/18- Today marks one more month left in my internship. This time, come August, I will be driving home from a night’s stay in Pittsburg. I am very much looking forward to my last month at Sleeping Bear and providing the park my services. This morning I on updating my blog and completing some homework for my ProRanger summer course (only one more assignment until the final!). At 10:00 a.m. I called the ferry to see how many people to expect for the day. Usually, they are able to tell me exactly how many day visitors to expect, but it is hard to get a count on the number of campers because most come on the second ferry, meaning that they haven’t checked in yet. I ran 4 tours today for 34 people. After I saw the second ferry off and ran camper registration/orientation, I took my last hour in the office putting together a PowerPoint presentation for our proposed trail. Hopefully, the work I do will inspire the park to do a serious mapping of the new trail with GPS coordinates and an environmental impact study. I most likely will not see any further work on the trail before I leave SLBE for the summer, but maybe it will be there one day when I visit down the road!

An example of some of the food that visitors leave in our Stranded Camper box. We use this food for people who get suck on the island for a day or two and need some help.

7/19- This Friday was one of those days when you wake up thinking you know how the day is going to go, but then it turns out totally different. I guess the ferry had worse weather than we did here on South Manitou, so they decided to run the afternoon ferry only, both dropping off campers for the weekend and taking off campers from the island. Usually, if they are only going to run one boat, they will run the morning boat, so them running the afternoon one was a bit different. Only one camp group was upset about the delay, so it wasn’t too much of an issue. This freed up my morning, so I took the Polaris out to the farm loop and the cemetery to check on things. Afterward, I headed over to the Weather Station Campground and checked on the sites. Everything was OK.  I did the lighthouse tours at 2:00pm and only took two groups  up, since there were no day trips. Since the ferry was waiting on the weather to clear up, they didn’t arrive on the island until 6:00pm, much later than usual. Around 85 campers unloaded and I ran them through registration and orientation, still being the only Ranger on the island. Everything was going well until a fourth group came up and told me that they had a group site reservation for the Bay Campground. There had to be an error, because the Bay Campground only has 3 group sites and all three had been taken by other groups that arrived on the same boat. After orientation, I got all 4 of the permit holders together and asked to see all of their confirmation emails one more time. Two of the groups produced their confirmations right away and I sent them to their sites. That left two groups for one site, and both were taking a while to find their confirmations. As they were looking, we all came to a verbal agreement that the one group, who was staying 5 nights, would take the Bay group site and the other one would head out to a group site at Weather Station Campground. I felt bad for the group who had to go to Weather Station, because they brought a lot of gear thinking they wouldn’t be going too far from the village (Bay is about ½ a mile away and Weather Station is about 1 and ½ miles away) so I fired up the Polaris, loaded all their gear and drove it as far as I could into Weather Station so they wouldn’t have to carry it all and could enjoy the hike out. This, I thought, was a fair compromise. I later saw the fourth groups confirmation and it appears that the registration website had somehow double booked one of the group sites at the Bay Campground, so all four groups were correct when they thought they should be heading to Bay. This was the first time I had to deal with a campsite issue like this, and I think that it went well. I returned home, completed the days statistics, and called it a day sometime around 8:00pm.

Waves like this look harmless on the shores of the safe South Manitou bay, but are a good indication that the waves out on the Lake are much, much larger and dangerous. This is probably similar to what the ferry saw in the morning.

7/20- Today is my last day on the island for this trip. Tomorrow I will be doing a ride along on the mainland in the Platte River section of the park with Ranger Lachowski. That will be my 10^th day and I will then have 4 days off. Ranger Chalup returned to the island today, despite some 4 foot waves on the Lake, and I updated him on what I’ve been doing throughout the week. We put together this week’s squad notes to send to our supervisor, and I packed up my stuff to head off the island. We both met the ferry and I did camper registration, while Ranger Chalup did the orientation, since he will be the only face they will see for the rest of the weekend. I showed him the PowerPoint for the new trail that I put together this week and he was pleased. He showed me how to work the GPS so I can go out on my next trip and find exact coordinates for the trail. Before, I was using the GPS on my iPhone and just put together a rough estimate of GPS points for the trail (enough to put together a proposal). I did 4 lighthouse tours and then took the afternoon ferry off the island and called it a day once I returned to the mainland.

Til next time, South Manitou.

7/21- Ride-alongs are the best, and today was no exception. Ranger Lachowski provided an informative and interesting ride-along. We talked about his career in the NPS, problems facing the Park Service and SLBE, going through the Academies, and much more. Despite it being a Sunday, things were a little slow in the morning (we started at 10:00). Around noon we heard a call on the Benzie County dispatch of a senior who had fallen in his home and needed medical attention. It was a non-emergency call, but after hearing the second call from dispatch and no response, Ranger Lachowski offered for us to respond. After some confusion on the address of the home, which was down a dirt road, we were the first on scene. The family was unsure of exactly how long ago the man had fallen, but it was clear that he was not himself. The man was also vomiting, which created some concern. Ranger Lachowski seemed to be running through a checklist with his care, and was totally under control, telling me what to do and keeping the family calm. We put the man on oxygen and checked for any signs of bleeding from the fall, and there were none. We then checked his reflexes, and this is where we found what may have caused the fall. Ranger Lachowski asked the man to squeeze his hands around his fingers, and then push down on Ranger Lachowski’s hands with his feet. On both tests, the man was weaker on his left side, which is a common warning sign of a stroke. The ambulance arrived about 15 minutes after us as well as the Benzie County Fire Chief. We let the paramedics take over the situation from there, answering their questions on the tests that we ran and helping them with whatever they needed. We all loaded the man into the ambulance (which was a first for me, I have never even been in an ambulance) and they took him to the local hospital. I drove back the Fire Chiefs vehicle to the Ranger Station where he picked it up later. Hopefully, the man will be Ok, but it was a great experience for me.

Later in the day, we wrote one speeding ticket for a woman who was driving 73 in a 55 and also gave out a written warning for blowing through a stop sign. It was great to see traffic stops like these because I did not get much traffic experience in my park last year (we had no road jurisdiction) and do not get any traffic experience on the island. All in all, I am very glad with the way that this ride along went, and am excited to do some more on the mainland towards the end of my internship.

7/22-7/25: I now have 4 days off to relax and replenish my food stock for what might be my last ten day trip out to the island. Today is the 23^rd and I am at headquarters, working on a few projects, homework, timesheets and talking with coworkers. At 3:00pm, I will be joining Ranger Dianne Johnson on a quick ride-along until 5:30 to get some more road experience.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.