Ranger Rebecca (Huh?)

 "Zoe is leaving in two weeks. Is there anyway you could fill in?"

I wasn't completely blindsided. I'd suspected this was coming. I was already helping Zoe by working the visitor center occasionally, helping with storytime, writing posts for the refuge Facebook, and had lead an interp walk. She also helped with biology surveys and maintenance projects when we needed it. That's just what you do with a small refuge staff and 20,000 acres to take care of.

The federal government is slow. Zoe was a top-notch AmeriCorps ranger and they wanted her to stay, so they made it an official federal position-- but they hadn't started the hiring process in time. By the time it got certified and the application was out, she'd already applied and been accepted elsewhere because they couldn't promise her the position in time. Girl had bills to pay.

It would be months before they could hire someone new to the system, so they asked me. My term ended mid-February, and my next job didn't start until May. Could I fill in as long as I could? Just hold down the fort?

I'm not a people person or a good public speaker and I give shit directions. But if I couldn't do it, the visitor center and programs they'd worked so hard to improve since 2020 would shut down; storytime and the local wild school program that brought kids in my community close to nature wouldn't happen; the bookstore wouldn't bring in any money to pay for next year's AmeriCorps interns. It would be nice to have a steady paycheck for three more months, and I wasn't in any hurry to move back in with my parents.

And thus I became a Park Ranger for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. (The interpretive kind, not the law enforcement kind.)

No, I didn't get to wear the hat. It was just me and my ACE shirt and cargo pants, like always.

Zoe trained me before she left. We went on long drives together stocking all the trailhead kiosks with maps and putting up flyers she designed to advertise interpretive walks around the little neighboring towns. It was deep midwinter in ski country, and we passed rich tourists from DC and camouflage-clad locals alike on the dirty, snow-piled streets to the post offices, coffee shops, and visitor information centers. We trundled down the icy gravel roads in our little government Jeep, checking off to-do lists as fast as we could before her last day.

I led storytime with the kindergarteners under her watch. I drafted emails and scheduled wild school visits. She made sure I knew where all the supplies were and who to contact about what and what was in all her files left behind on the P-drive. She introduced me to the Environmental Education volunteers (a much less rugged group than the biology volunteers.) One was a retired National Park Service employee who would teach me so much about the field that winter.

And then Zoe was gone, and I stepped into her big ranger boots until May.

I wrangled and corralled volunteers, pulled off a whole wild school program with six school visits and a field trip, researched and wrote a repertoire of new interpretive walks, managed the visitor center every day, kept the website and Facebook up-to-date, and wrote down as much as I could to help the future ranger who wouldn't have Zoe to train them.

And of course, I still made time to help with biology surveys.

For those three months, my family was correct in telling everyone I was a park ranger. (They already had been and would continue to tell people that's what I do.)