Rangers have a multitude of roles and responsibilities. How does the idea of "wearing many hats" manifest itself in all our lives? Let's find out with interviews from rangers who work on trails and maintenance of Grand Canyon's backcountry!

Jake

The coolest thing about the grand canyon Is that it gives you a chance to participate in a legacy of extraordinary people I think this place really calls people to rise to the occasion it also has been doing things that I never thought I'd be doing in a million years

Austin

Hello, my name is Austin and I’m a Park Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park and this is behind the scenery the canyon cuts. When I first started working for the Park Service, I was also amazed by the extraordinary people doing a wide variety of things as National Park Service employees. While visiting parks when I was younger, I was always under the impression that everyone who worked at a National Park was in fact a Park Ranger. However, as I got to know the park service better, I came to understand that this term was a sort of “blanket term” to cover everyone working in a national park. Though many folks wear the signature “flat hat” of a park ranger and maybe even have those exact words in their job titles, there are a wide variety of jobs underneath this hat, and many more employees that wear completely different hats in their work in National Parks. Especially in a National Park as unique as the Grand Canyon, nobody is just one thing. We all carry a variety of identities or wear a lot of different hats in our work and also our lives.

[Acoustic guitar melody plays briefly]

The idea of wearing many different hats is something we will explore through a series of these episodes. We will talk to rangers across and sometimes even inside the Grand Canyon. Rangers interviewing other rangers in offices, backcountry ranger stations and sometimes even on the sides of the trail they are working on. By listening to their stories, their hats they wear and some of the interesting aspects of their jobs perhaps we will learn a little bit more about the wide variety of jobs in national parks, and the unique roles that some of grand canyon’s employees are called to.

However, National Park Service employees are not unique in this. We all have a variety of roles, a variety of hats we wear. By listening to each other’s stories, we can better understand the complexity of all individuals, and maybe find common ground by looking past our most obvious traits.

[Soft guitar melody plays]

Please join in on our first conversations where one of our inner canyon rangers recorded Jake-Lee and Tristan Blue at a backcountry ranger station as they interview each other about their jobs and the many hats they wear working in the trail’s division at Grand Canyon National Park.

These are the many hats of a park ranger.

Jake

Are you wearing we've got a great show today we're going to be talking about hats how many do you have Boston are you wearing weed I'm Jake Lee and I am a trail maintenance worker here in Grand Canyon National Park and basically what I do on a day to day basis is build structures in the trail to prevent erosion and I guess I should think about a better description of my job title quite laboris commit yourself to a lot of labor's tasks my official job title is a motor vehicle operator and laborer and basically what I do on a day-to-day basis is used various and tools and power tools to build walls check steps and structures like that in trail

Blue

I’m Tristan BLUE, everyone just calls me blue since it’s easier to remember. I work for the compost division on trails, I have the exact same title as Jake. But I have a couple different hats that I wear working on compost. I like to tell people that I’m a janitor with nice calves with the amount I hike through the canyon. Sometimes I tell people I’m an instigator cause I’m always stirring up

(Sound of squirrel chirping in the distance).

It’s kind of weird with compost, when they first put you on it, they tell you you’re going to be doing a lot of different things from the get-go. Sometimes you’ll be expected to do random electrician work like switching out fuses or you can be checking out pumps like a Plummer. Making sure the lines are clear. Even more out of my wheelhouse, they will expect me to, not quite look for SAR’s but make sure people are alright.

Austin: A quick interruption, a SAR or search and rescue is lingo used by park service employees to refer to visitors who might need help or even a rescue down trail. Back to blue.

Blue

Because I will find myself in parts of the canyon where even the rangers won’t be in during those times. We work from 6am to 4:30, and if I’m going down to tipoff/phantom down the Kaibab I’m going to be running into people around 12am to 3pm so that’s something I didn’t quite expect.

Blue

There’s like a weird thing I didn't expect like working on this job. I know where in the middle of nowhere there's a lot of wildlife, but I didn't think I was going to feel like I work on wildlife at times. I had three occasions where I'm cleaning bathrooms and I opened the door and I'm like “oh that's a snake I'm gonna have to deal with the snake now” cause it's not like I got to leave now cause I don't wanna deal with it. So, I've had times where I've ran up from the IG day use bathroom all the way to like where wildlife was working “so what's uh white spots black body” “oh its fine” but then I go back the snakes gone. Yeah that's one thing I always found kind of funny that I’ll have to deal with a lot of different animals, black widows, scorpion, other fun critters that want to hang out.

Jake

I think uh if I were to shorten my job description to the easiest shortest thing it would be backcountry dry stone Mason. if I were to describe what actually happens on a day-to-day basis sometimes, I'm helping you out, Blue, with compost duties doing things like cleaning bathrooms, shoveling poop into barrels, and hooking them up to helicopters things like that. But also, the trail crew often finds themselves very frequently doing medical evacuations on the trail. Because we're the only people down there and sometimes when people get in a tight spot we are the only people around that can help out and sometimes your miles in to where nobody else can get in in a timely manner so you have to rise to the occasion

And I think that is the coolest thing about Grand Canyon is that it gives you a chance to participate in a legacy of extraordinary people. I think this place really calls people to rise to the occasion and it really has the capacity to bring out the best in people. But it also has me doing things that I never thought I'd be doing in a million years!

Blue

Ya, totally I mean like when I started my first season here I was like working as a laborer, like you, I was doing West stone masonry and I thought I was gonna be doing that the whole time around and I ended up working on the South Kaibab when I got put in like structures like a retaining wall that people could sit on and by the end of it like after we did the wall like by Verkramp’s. I came by like a couple weeks later and it was lowered it was like 6 inches at 1st and then we brought it up to 18 inches, so when I went back like I could just see family sitting there taking pictures and I'm like “man this is going to be there like for decades, you know it, could be here for like another century”. People were just getting there like to enjoy it. I just feel, you know, really thankful that like this job as a laborer really afford this the chance to do so many different things you know.

Jake

Another really exceptional Department here in the park is the water utilities division. They are another division that operates a very understaffed rate and they often have to do things like repairing the water pipeline throughout the Canyon that supplies South rim from the North rim. Their expertise is in doing things like welding ,in that super niche stuff and sometimes they'll need our help to come in and dig a hole in dig holes cause that's our expertise, we are really good at digging holes.

Blue But I think that's about all the time we have for today thanks for listening in

[Electric guitar rift plays]

Austin

After listening to the hats and experiences from jake and blue, I’d like you all to think of a time you have had to rise to the occasion and wear a different hat or take on a different role than you’re used to?

Thank you so much to Ceili for making this interview happen, and to Jake-Lee and Tristan blue for their time and their words. Music from this episode courtesy of freemusicarchives.org. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather. As well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today. This has been the many hats of a park ranger.

Jake

Join us on our next episode are bellybuttons canyons?

Produced by Austin Kelley