Switching back to summer, what were some of your evening programs?
I had two in the five years that I was there. The first year we had a big chalkboard with suggested topics. It suggested that someone should do a evening program on the geology, that someone should do a program on the trees, et cetera. The folks who were accustomed to this kink of straw drawing, drew very quickly and I was left with trees.
I thought I could probably do a good program on trees, but how do you organize a tree program? I organized mine by elevation. As you drive into the park at the South Entrance there are aspen and then you see the whitebark pine way up on the rim. I had about seven different tree species that I went through. I discussed their ecology, cones, leaves, and bark types. The nice thing about the program was visitors frequently told me afterwood that they had learned something. They could go out the next day and identify some trees. The program ended after my first year because I personally didn’t enjoy it all that much.
I think it was in the winter of 1978-79 that I skied around the lake with friends of mine. Hank gave me about seven rolls of film, so I took pictures and I still have them. I took the best of those, about eighty slides in a carousel, and I gave them to Hank. I asked him to look through them and see if there was anything he would like for the permanent file. I found the carousel later the next summer untouched, so I took it back home. I realized he didn’t have time to look at it. Those slides are still there, and in the end they will come to the park, I suppose. There were many, many pictures of skiing around the lake. I put together a winter program that I did for the next couple of years. It started off with, “How would you like to move your camper out of this campground parking lot in twelve feet of snow?” Then I showed pictures that a visitor could connect with, like the amphitheater in twelve feet of snow. It had a big pile of snow on top of the screen. The bathroom has these big blocks of ice and snow on top. They could really get a feeling for what its like when we have snow in the park. I focused on weather in my winter talk.
I didn’t do a snow shoe walk in summer, but I talked about the animals and the plants, and the snow blowers. I ended with, “You should enjoy your ability to move around the park today because Crater Lake isn’t like this typically.” I would scold people who would come up in the two months when there was no snow, instead of the ten months when the place is buried. This is not something you think about as you drive up in the summer, when it is warm, the sun is out and the sky is blue. I think the title was “The Winter Scene.” I was trying to get across the point that Crater Lake is typically under snow. That’s what I did for four years.
Your last season was 1982.
Yes, five years—1978, ’79, ’80, ’81, and ’82 –I guess that is right. I switched over to resource management in 1983. I worked in that three summers, then in 1985 I graduated. I didn’t get my master’s degree but I finished graduate school at that point and started teaching at Rogue Community College.
