to Welcome to Welcome
Wilderness rangers help people learn about the natural world, according
to the husband and wife team who have contracted with the Forest Service
for the past 12 years to manage the 74,000-acre Mission Mountains Wilderness
Area west of Condon. Joe Flood and Kari Gunderson encourage people to take
care of the land as if they owned it-because they DO own it, Flood said
during a recent interview.
"One of our goals is to encourage the American people to feel like
wilderness is their land, not the government's. People should take care
of it," he said.
Wilderness should receive minimal impact from humans, Flood explained. Ironically,
people must work in the wilderness in order to keep it looking like few
humans have ever been there. During the busy summer season, rangers work
full-time packing out garbage and educating users about "leave no trace"
camping. "We see ourselves as temporary caretakers of a real valuable
resource," Kari Gunderson said.
Joe and Kari each hike over 1,000 miles every summer in the Mission Mountains.
They open most of the 45 miles of trails and contact some 2,000 visitors
apiece each season between May and November.
Eight years ago, the rangers were packing out up to 800 pounds of garbage
a season. It's not uncommon, they say, to find food in the fire rings at
unoccupied campsites. They have found T-bone steaks, bacon packages, and
half-eaten cans of beans. Food scraps attract bears, so Joe and Kari clean
campsites, hoping to prevent bear-human conflicts. Most users, they say,
abide by the 'pack it in, pack it out' rule, but some people just don't
know any better. That's why wilderness advocates feel that it's important
to have "ranger presence" at popular backcountry areas. Some visitors
hear about appropriate camping for the first time from wilderness rangers.
Among the people who Kari talks to during the summer, the most frequently
asked questions-"Where's the bathroom?" and "Where's the
bears?"-may seem ridiculous to veteran hikers. But newcomers need honest
answers.
"You need to have a liaison between the woods, the wilderness and the
user public. A ranger needs to be an interpreter of the natural world, an
interpreter of natural resource policy, and an interpreter of the Wilderness
Act," Kari explained recently.
Many people just don't understand how "wild" wilderness really
is. They think it's just another public camping area.
"I have run into people at Glacier Lake who want to know where the
lodge is," Gunderson laughed. "Or they ask at the trailhead if
they can drive their RV to Turquoise Lake."
Glacier Lake is one of the most popular lakes in the Mission Mountains Wilderness.
But there is no lodge there. Nor is there a road to Turquoise Lake some
six miles above Glacier.
"People don't distinguish between Glacier National Park and wilderness
areas on national forests," she said. "We try to help them understand
the differences between national parks, national forests, and wilderness."
Although Joe and Kari are passionate about wilderness, they are not purists.
Ropes and pulleys are used to hoist food and camping gear out of reach of
bears and enable campers to comply with food containment rules in wilderness.
Some "man-made" things are allowed at campsites to reduce impacts
from stock. With help from stock users, rangers have installed high lines
at suitable campsites as an educational tool to minimize impacts to soil,
vegetation and trees. These lines are left in place so campers don't have
to tie horses to trees.
Joe and Kari freely share what they have learned about wilderness over the
past twenty years. Kari's experience in wilderness education started when
she went to work seasonally for the Forest Service as the outdoor recreation
leader for the YCC (Youth Conservation Corps) crews at Condon in the late
1970s. She helped with trail work in the Bob Marshall and the Mission Mountains.
"The program had a good, strong conservation and environmental education
component," she said. After a couple of years with the YCC crews, the
Forest Service offered Kari the job of hiking "all over the mountains"
doing environmental education. "There was only one catch," Kari
laughed. "It was a volunteer position!"
She took the job, and considers the experience better than a college education.
Her volunteerism paid off, and the Forest Service later began paying her
as a seasonal employee.
Kari worked a few months each summer for the Forest Service, and spent the
rest of the year working as a teacher. She finished her college education
at the University of Montana with degrees in elementary education, special
ed and environmental studies.
She first came to the Swan Valley in 1978 to teach at Salmon Prairie. One
of her fondest memories is taking a group of five-year olds on a hike to
Glacier Lake. "They loved it," she said, adding that the students
probably each have lasting memories of climbing on the big rocks at that
lake.
While teaching in the Swan, she met Joe, who was working as a log-home builder
at the time. They were later married.
Joe had moved to Montana from Michigan, where he had worked as a park ranger.
He also finished his college education at the University of Montana, with
degrees in counseling and recreation management. Joe grew up the youngest
of nine children on a dairy farm in Michigan.
Kari grew up on a wheat ranch at Power, Montana, along the Rocky Mountain
Front. They both love being close to the land. They have a particular passion
for wild lands, and both wanted to settle in the Swan Valley, because of
its close proximity to wilderness, even though their work has led them out
of the valley at times.
In the 1980s, Kari and Joe worked for a school district in Alaska, where
Kari taught at remote native villages. They enjoyed the subsistence lifestyle.
Kari traveled by bush plane to and from work every day, and Joe worked as
a maintenance supervisor. He also took up marathon running, often jogging
20 or 30 miles a day along snowmobile trails and jeep roads between villages.
After two years the young couple decided to return to Montana.
At about that time, a major change in recreation management in the Mission
Mountains opened the door for them to bid on the local wilderness ranger
contract.
As is the case today, a decade ago the Forest Service lacked money for trail
work. In the constant search for an economical way to manage wilderness,
Cal Tassinari, the wilderness ranger in the Missions at that time, had proposed
that the Forest Service contract with private individuals to accomplish
trail work, garbage disposal and visitor contacts in the wilderness.
Tassinari felt that contracting with the private sector would save money
and insure that the work on the ground would get done. The only problem
for Kari: the contract arrangement would eliminate her job as a seasonal
worker. After careful consideration, she and Joe decided to submit a bid
for the wilderness ranger contract. They formed a new business, Gunderson
Flood Wilderness Partnership.
Eighteen businesses bid on the contract, and Joe and Kari were not the Forest
Service's first choice. But their bid was lower, by far, than others who
submitted proposals. (They could charge less, Joe explained, because they
lived in the Swan Valley, vehicle expenses were lower and they had easier
access to the wilderness.)
The Forest Service awarded them that first contract, the only one of its
kind in the United States, and for the past 12 years continued to award
the contract to Gunderson Flood Wilderness Partnership. The contract was
terminated in April of this year, due to agency budget cuts. However, Joe
and Kari are still working as rangers in the Missions. Their efforts will
be compensated, thanks to a cost-share agreement between the Forest Service
and the Friends of the Missions/Wilderness Watch advocacy groups.
These ambitious educators keep themselves busy during their "off"
season by teaching college students about wilderness at the University of
Montana and through the wildlands studies department at the University of
San Francisco. They have also worked with the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness
Training Center near Missoula to develop national curriculum which establishes
standards for wilderness restoration work. The curriculum is also used to
train agency managers how to restore trails and campsites in areas that
have been damaged by erosion or overuse.
"Lack of hands-on experience is a problem among newcomers," Joe
said, referring to young people who work in recreation. Joe and Kari help
people learn how to use traditional tools and minimum impact techniques
appropriately in wilderness. The Mission Mountains Wilderness serves as
their living laboratory. Their students include local residents and volunteers.
Education has led to several success stories.
"The restoration area at Cedar Lake in July is just filled with wildflowers,"
Kari explained. "I can remember when that was just a dust bowl. It
took at least 10 years of restoration work to bring that back." There
are currently 18 restoration sites in the wilderness.
In 1992, Kari also began work on a wilderness and land ethics curriculum
for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. She is currently helping
to develop similar curriculum for high school students. "One way or
another, I'm a teacher or a student all my life," she said.
And if these local outdoor education leaders have their way, all wilderness
users will either be teachers or students someday. Their philosophy insures
that wilderness education will continue, long after their work in the Missions
has ended.