Wild about their calling
Posted on Monday, July 7, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/230714/
James Mullins, a park interpreter for 21 years at Pinnacle Mountain State Park, gets this question often: “Interpreter ? Well, what language do you speak ?”
Julie Lovett, interpreter at Woolly Hollow State Park, and Jason Parrie, interpreter at DeGray Lake Resort State Park, have heard that, too.
People are usually trying to be cute, but Mullins says it’s not a bad way to explain the job.
“You’re interpreting the language of the natural environment. You’re talking the language of the plants and the trees,” he says. “You’re kind of the intermediary between whatever the resource is and what people are there to learn about.”
In a sense, the park’s resources, such as the trees on a recent “Tree-rific Tour” in the Arkansas Arboretum, speak through Mullins. The facts — the differences between red and white oaks, how to identify poison ivy, that cypress trees are among the oldest living species in Arkansas — are important, but Mullins says he must make the forest come alive a little for people to make a connection to it.
During the tour, he has a story for nearly every tree:
There’s the devil’s walking stick, a tall shrub with a skinny trunk, covered with tiny thorns. “If you squeeze really hard, you’ll notice blood. Your blood. A long time ago someone must have done that and said, ‘Only a devil would use this as a walking stick, ’” he tells the Boy Scouts on the tour.
There’s the redbud tree, and Mullins plucks some of its heart-shaped leaves. “When you’re older, give one of these leaves to your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day,” he says. “They’ll love that romance stuff.”
There’s the sweet gum tree, and Mullins tells the Scouts that before there was Wrigley’s, his grandfather used to chew the gumlike sap.
While trees are the focus, Mullins doesn’t mind meandering, sometimes literally, off topic. As he points out a creek and its wide bed, he says it offers a good opportunity for the boys to learn a new word:
“You all want to meander ?”
Soon the three boys are following him, like ducks in a line, as he weaves from one side of the path to the other. Throughout the tour, they stop to compare different kinds of spider webs, feel the forest’s carpet-like moss and examine lizards, tiny toads and carpenter ants.
Howard Dunn, who brought his son, Matthew, on the tour, was impressed with Mullins’ ability to hold the boys’ attention. “These kids are 10 and 11, so especially in the forest, they usually just want to run and play,” he says.
Mullins says he certainly wants the Scouts — and anyone in his park programs — to learn something about the forest. But he also wants them to have fun, or they likely won’t want to come back. “It’s a combination of being an educator and, to a limited degree, you can certainly be an entertainer because they’re not out here to take a big written test or anything,” he says. “So oftentimes we’ll do things to help them make an emotional connection to the resource and to relate their own life to it.”
JOB FOCUS Lovett says park interpretation aims to foster a connection between people and the environment so that people want to explore and enjoy the outdoors on their own. “Our job is to inspire them to feel the same way about the environment and their surroundings and have that passion,” she says. “It’s kind of teaching an intangible, a feeling.” Underneath the education and inspiration, the goal of park interpretation is conservation, Parrie says.
“If you dig deep into the philosophy of interpretation, the nuts and bolts are that it is a conservation-based profession and our plan is to help preserve what we’ve got,” he says. “Really we do that by getting people to understand and appreciate what we have, and when you do that, you want to take care of it.”
Mullins, Lovett and Parrie are three of 42 full-time interpreters working in Arkansas state parks. There are also 30 seasonal interpreters and 40 additional staff, some of whom also do interpretation work under other job titles, says Jay Miller, the chief of interpretation for the state Department of Parks and Tourism.
Park interpretation is an important part of the parks system, Miller says, because interpreters pass on the stories and values of the park to visitors.
The position requires a bachelor’s degree, preferably in a field related to the park’s resource, Miller says. Archaeology and prehistory degrees are ideal for Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park, while wildlife management and plant ecology are better for the nature parks such as Pinnacle and Petit Jean State Park. Almost half of Arkansas state parks are historic, too, so history degrees can be applicable. More and more, Miller says, he’s also hiring people with communications degrees.
But in learning so much about the park and the outdoors in general for their programs, park interpreters often expand or shift their original focus. Mullins, for example, studied archaeology and worked for 11 years at Toltec, where he says he preferred more academic programs aimed at adults. But at Pinnacle he has been able to tap into his ample knowledge of the forest — some of which he learned as a child from his parents and grandparents — to reach a broader audience. Now most of his programs are geared to children.
A PASSION FOR SHARING Sarah Keating, an interpreter turned assistant park superintendent at Lake Dardanelle State Park, says she had a lifelong dream of becoming a veterinarian, until, as she puts it, she encountered chemistry. She switched to the parks and recreation program and later took a job as a seasonal interpreter at Lake Dardanelle while still in college. She says because of her love of the wilderness and a background in public speaking, she knew instantly that the job was ideal for her. “I love the outdoors and I love getting to share my knowledge with people,” she says. “I like learning the information, but my passion is in sharing it with the people and seeing their faces light up when you tell them a new and exciting thing.” Parrie says he found interpretation by accident. He wanted to put his biology degree to use and already coached swimming, so he planned to get a teaching certificate. That’s when he happened upon the state parks booth at a job fair in Baton Rouge. He says he didn’t even know what park interpreters did. He took a job at Tickfaw State Park near Baton Rouge and later worked at Pinnacle before moving to DeGray in 2004. Now he calls park interpretation a dream job. “You get to be kind of like a teacher, which I really like, and also out in the woods, which is really where I want to be,” he says. “This is what I was supposed to be doing all along.” Lovett came to interpretation as a second career. She was volunteering at Parkin Archeological State Park when she decided to take a seasonal position at Lake Poinsett State Park on Crowley’s Ridge. That led to the full-time position at Woolly Hollow four years ago. “I had ended a career in the distribution business and it was always kind of a dream job of mine and I thought, ‘Why not do it ?’” she says. “I was a lifelong outdoorswoman. I was like, ‘ where can I go and get a job where I can be outside and share my enthusiasm and passion for the outdoors ?’ And I think this was the best place to do it.”
PLENTY OF SUNSETS It’s important to love the job, Mullins says, because while the salary is certainly livable, there’s no prospect of becoming rich.
Full-time interpreters earn $ 28, 000 a year in starting salary. There is a cost-of-living increase almost every year, Miller says, but no actual raises except for promotions. Interpreters receive the state employee benefit package including health and life insurance and at some parks, a cafeteria plan.
“The way I think about it, I truly love to get up every morning and come to work,” Keating says. “And how many people can say that ? When I spend a whole day at work — eight hours — kayaking with a group of gifted and talented kids from Russellville fifth grade, I call that work. It’s those benefits that really kind of make up for any kind of lack of salary.”
Intangibles count, too, Parrie says.
“In the interpretive world, we get paid in sunsets,” he says. “That’s great, though that doesn’t put food on the table, so the salary and the housing help.”
Most park interpreters are also provided housing in the park, which offsets the cost of living. Housing varies by park, but all housing has electricity and running water.
At DeGray, Parrie lives in a neighborhood with the other interpreter, the park’s two superintendents, two rangers and the lodge manager. Lovett lives in a two-bedroom cabin about 50 feet from the hiking trail at Woolly Hollow. Keating lives in an old park house on the Dardanelle side on the park. Mullins lived at Pinnacle until two years ago, when he bought his own house less than a quarter mile from the park.
Interpreters, along with other uniformed staff — superintendents and rangers — live in the park so they’ll be around to oversee safety and keep the park running smoothly, Miller says.
“Most of our parks are like small cities,” he says. “All of our uniformed staff are part of our security team, and if something happens in that park, from a fire, to a law-enforcement incident to somebody being lost, we want our staff there to protect those people and be able to get out and help rather than them having to be called from 20 miles away in town.”
While security is the main reason for park housing, interpreters can also develop a stronger connection to the park when living there.
“I’ll find myself some weeks, two weeks will go by and I don’t leave the park,” Lovett says. “It makes me care so much more about what we’re really here for, which is... we are really stewards to protect it, to preserve it forever. If I see a tree that’s not looking healthy or dying, I look at it just like if it were my own yard.”
Mullins says he has come up with ideas for programs while spending free time in the park. Stargazing in a sailboat one night, he decided the public should be able to see the sky at night from Lake Maumelle, too. Stargazing barge cruises and moonlight canoeing programs were born.
It’s satisfying to develop such a deep knowledge of the park, Keating says.
“You know every tree and flower and snake and bug,” she says. “You get engrossed in your site and you learn everything about it, you see it through every season. You know about when the dogwoods are going to bloom and you know about when you’re going to see scissortail flycatchers. You’re kind of like a walking field guide of your site.”