Do you have a place that had a profound impact on your life or your sense of identity, a place that is special and gives meaning to you and your family? Interpreting American Indian/Native  sites can be challenging. Discussions have led to disputes between American Indians who consider the sites sacred and other Americans who wish to use the sites for recreation and commercial enterprises. Some disputes have led to legal clashes over the management of these sites.

These disputes raise questions regarding the environment, religious freedom, the relationship of citizens to federally owned land, the lasting impact of historical inequities, and how our society mediates between groups whose vastly differing experiences have produced competing needs and belief systems.

Interpreters can relate the reverence of the sacred sites and the issues surrounding the sites by asking their audience, “What do you value most? How is what you revere the same or different from what other people in your community value?”

Sacred places give meaning and identity to communities and individuals. We as interpreters continue to provide opportunities for our audience to make their own intellectual and emotional connections with not only the past but also contemporary Native cultures. This includes valuing relationships to landscapes, their spiritual integration with all of nature, and human arrangements, aspirations, and rewards. Our audiences may grasp the irony that a nation founded on religious freedom would ban the religious practices of its native peoples. We hope they will come to see how long, historic connections to place and deep spiritual roots that sink into land could be nurtured by indigenous people for generations but ignored by newcomers from Europe. Some sacred structures—churches, synagogues, mosques—are built where it’s convenient for people. Conversely, many American Indians believe that sacred places define themselves and that it’s up to humans to find them and care for them, not create or own them. What leads one culture to name a place Devils Tower—and want to climb to the top of it—while Native people revere it, keep their distance, and perform pipe ceremonies?

Mato Tipila, the Lodge of the Bear, also known as Devils Tower, is one of the premier climbing challenges in the world. For the Lakota and 16 other tribes of the northern plains who perform sun dances and vision quests nearby, the monolith is sacred. In the 1990s, the National Park Service considered a ban on climbing the tower. Opponents argued that the government was taking sides—promoting Indian religion—and denying climbers their right of access. In court, the National Park Service argued it was a matter of respect and accommodation of cultural traditions. Eventually, the National Park Service adopted a compromise, asking climbers not to climb during June, when Indian ceremonies are at their height. Today, 85 percent of climbers have voluntarily stopped climbing in June. The Lakota observe with some irony that climbing is banned entirely at sites that others consider “sacred,” including Mt. Rushmore.

Mining at important archaeological and sacred sites is practiced on Hopi traditional homelands in Arizona. The Hopi have a spiritual covenant to care for their desert environment. Throughout the Colorado Plateau, mining companies extract pumice, gravel, coal, and water for profit. Private property rights won out over religious concerns at Woodruff Butte, and Hopi shrines were bulldozed. The government bought out a pumice mine on public land at the sacred San Francisco Peaks. A coal mining lease on reservation land at Black Mesa has led to the depletion of vital Hopi village springs as coal is mixed with water and slurried to a distant power plant.

The Wintu tribe, the U.S. Forest Service, and new age religion practitioners want to use the same sacred place but in different, mutually exclusive ways. For 1,000 years, the Winnemem band of the Wintu has conducted healing ceremonies on Bulyum Puyuik, “Great Mountain,” also known as Mt. Shasta. When a proposed ski resort threatened a sacred spring, the Wintu and other tribes fought and defeated the ski resort. Ironically, the publicity from the battle drew growing crowds of New Age spiritual seekers to Mt. Shasta. The Winnemem Wintu believe that some new age practices offend the mountain and mock their traditional ceremony. They are attempting to influence what is permitted. The Forest Service superintendent denied the permit for the ski resort, citing the Winnemem’s concerns for the spiritual integrity of the mountain.

Before November 29, 1864, a valley along a creek bed in southeastern Colorado was considered a temporary home for the Cheyenne and Arapahoe. Since that day, when more than 150 women, children, and elderly were murdered by Colorado militia, this is a site where descendants of those killed can pay homage and remember the event. Today the sacred site, known as the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, is threatened by Euro-Americans who question history by creating uncertainty over the exact location and others suggesting that the event never happened. Interpreters at Sand Creek Massacre NHS relate the events leading up to that tragic day, as well as preserve history through interactive communication with descendants of the massacre victims and survivors.

Healing the Land
Attempts to preserve ecosystems or protect endangered species may conflict with grazing, logging, mining, or recreational interests. Native people save spiritual practices tied to the land that reach back in history and require solitude, silence, and access to plants or minerals. These cultural traditions may conflict with the definition of national parks or private property boundaries and create challenges for land managers.

Presenting these issues in an interpretive format for the visitor can be taxing for the interpreter yet very rewarding. The interpretive technique of asking questions to the audience can be helpful to emphasize universal concepts such as sacred, home, death, a sense of place, spiritual connection, etc. The interpreter may ask, what is sacred to me? Where are my sacred places? What was sacred to my ancestors? Is what was sacred the same for them as for me?

Has your special place changed over the years, been threatened or destroyed? Imagine physical and spiritual connections to place as practiced by an entire community, town, or country. What evidence is needed to declare something a sacred site? What happens when one tradition marks sacred sites by leaving them undisturbed and another marks sacred sites by altering them with buildings or other structures?

For More Information
Rogow, Faith, and Christopher McLeod. Edited by Marjorie Beggs and designed by Patricia Koren. In the Light of Reverence. (2001). Sacred Land Film Project of Earth Island Institute.

Charmichael, David L., Jane Hubert, Brian Reeves, and Audhild Schanche, editors. Sacred Sites, Sacred Places. (1994). London and New York: Routledge.

Theodoratus, Dorothea J., and Frank LaPeña. “Wintu Sacred Geography.” (1992). In California Indian Shamanism, edited by Lowell John Bean. Menlo Park, California: Ballena Press, Anthropological Papers n. 39.

Strapp, Darby C., and Michael S. Burney. Tribal Cultural Resource Management: The Full Circle to Stewardship. (2002). Lanhan, Maryland: Altamira Press, Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group.

Page, Jake (editor). Sacred Lands and Indian America. (2002). New York: Harry Abrams.

Nancy Stimson is chief of interpretation, education, and visitor services at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Eads, Colorado. Contact her at nancy_stimson@nps.gov.

It started several years ago. The first time might have been a dark and stormy night, but my recollection is dim on that fact. Pictures of a giant sturgeon started showing up in my email box. “You gotta see this” was the usual tag. I opened them because they were from legitimate friends and I could think of no way that the word “sturgeon” could be code for something bad. Each time, the picture was exactly the same. It showed a gang of ten guys standing in the water supporting a monstrous sturgeon. The ancient beast was obviously well over 10 feet long—11 feet, one inch according to the text—and “over 1,000 pounds.”

The image didn’t appear to be Photoshopped or altered in any way. If it were, the work was uninspired. I mean, why make the creature only 11 feet long when you can make it 25 feet long for crying out loud. Remember the San Francisco Bay shot of the great white shark leaping out of the water at a helicopter? That altered picture made the rounds a few years back before it was revealed as a hoax. How about those 1950s postcards showing a guy riding the back of a giant walleye?

No, the photo was real, but the problem with this sturgeon picture was that it was variously reported as a fish taken in Lake Michigan; near Biloxi, Mississippi; and in Willamette, Oregon, depending on the source. Either this fish was especially widely travelled and stupid, or something was fishy. It was the latter.

Long story short, the fish was a Pacific white sturgeon captured off the coast of British Columbia. It was still alive when photographed and was released right after the shot was taken. The problem here concerned the location attributions of the photo. If taken in the Gulf of Mexico, it would have been a really big Atlantic sturgeon. Attributing it to the Great Lakes would have made it the biggest lake sturgeon ever known. Lake sturgeons top out at a very respectable eight feet and some 300 pounds, but nowhere near the half-ton, dozen-foot mark of the Pacific variety. A detailed look at the pictured sturgeon would have revealed its true identity from the get-go, but that takes time and effort on the part of the viewer.

I can say with some certainty that this picture made it to the public as a real lake sturgeon picture because of its impact value. I know this because I almost used it as a lake sturgeon example myself (due to the Lake Michigan reference) before giving it the second look it deserved. Unfortunately, a real picture of even a humongous lake sturgeon pales in comparison to one depicting one of its gargantuan oceanic cousins! As educators we have the potential to either stop or perpetuate this type of misinformation by placing reality over imagery.

The old adage about not believing everything you hear or read has a direct counterpart in the cyber world. Don’t get me wrong—I am not pulling the old fogey tact here. The Internet is a pretty doggone okay thing. As an interpreter who is, like most of you out there, constantly researching program topics and seeking obscure photo sources, I am truly grateful—pretty much. I can’t come out and give it a full blown “wonderful,” however, because I have seen the shady edge to this otherwise finely tuned tool. Yes, it’s a tool and not a means to an end. But even the finest of tools can wreak havoc when employed in a thoughtless manner. This has a direct relationship on the field of interpretation and the veracity of our product.

I’m not sure why such photo hoaxes are perpetuated. Perhaps they are momentary jokes played on a friend that end up going viral. In fact, the word hoax is probably inappropriate, since in a majority of these cases the labeling is just plain mistaken. In the Internet world, one might come upon a page posted by a fifth grader who mistakenly labeled a June bug as a cicada. Such mislabeled pictures have the potential, when pinned up on Internet boards, to end up on millions of computer screens worldwide. Many end up in our own exhibits and flyers!

There are many actual online cases of nutria pictures being labeled as muskrats, for instance. I’ll be the first to admit that muskrats are notoriously hard to portray because they are essentially blunt, hairy footballs that slouch. Nutrias, on the other hand, are much bigger and more photogenic. Some of the best muskrat pictures on the Internet are actually nutrias!

The ultimate level of trickery, and perhaps the most insidious one, is where the subject is properly labeled but the location is not. The sturgeon photo was a mild example of this, but there are more dramatic cases involving cougar (aka mountain lion, panther, painter, catamount) sightings. Apparently mountain lions are “everywhere.” Like the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland fame, this feline appears and disappears at will and there are plenty of real pictures to “prove” it.

We easterners are constantly presented with a barrage of ghost panther stories. The bulk of the eastern cougar population faded into legend as settlers cleared the forest land for agriculture and out-competed the creature for big game. Unfortunately the true stories about lingering populations are being diluted by the overwhelming background noise created by Internet fakeries. We can easily ignore those farm cat pictures, but it’s harder to turn away from the real big cat photos.

As director of a Michigan interpretive center at the western end of Lake Erie, the subject of panthers is a topical one, believe it or not. The flatlands of the western Erie basin once hosted cougars up to the mid-1700s and the lake itself was indirectly named after the cougar. The Erie people, who once lived along the southern shore, were known as the “People of the Long-tailed Cat” or the “Nation du Chat”—possibly due to their habit of wearing panther robes with intact tails. The “Cat Nation” was extinguished by the Iroquois in the early 1600s, but their name remained affixed to this great body of water. Secondly, although there are now confirmed sightings of wild cougars in the upper peninsula of the state, there are continual unverified reports of these critters roaming throughout the lower peninsula.

Earlier in the year, a visitor brought in a blurry Xerox copy of an incredible trail cam picture showing a cougar dragging a white-tailed buck by the throat. According to his source, the image was captured by somebody in Escanaba—a location in Michigan’s upper peninsula. It was forwarded to him by a friend, of course. Since the cat was reportedly a Michigan critter, I was anxious to make use of the shot for future predator programs and went online to see if a clearer shot was available. Sho ’nuff, quite a few examples came up when “Mountain Lion Dragging Buck” was typed into the search engine. Remarkably, each copy of that dramatic photo was tagged with a different location!

Yes, this enterprising cat had apparently dragged his prey past trail cams near Alex City, Artemas, Ava, Batavia, Coshocton, Dinwidde, Warren, and “Chet’s Backyard.” According to this impressive list and my personal contact, the beast covered the states of Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, New Jersey, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. I believe that Chet lives in North Carolina, so you can add that one to the list as well. The complete list covered nearly every state in the eastern U.S. If you are to believe this online record, the skeletal remains of this exhausted panther will soon be found somewhere outside of Poughkeepsie lying next to those of a whitetail deer. His cause of death will be starvation and exhaustion.

As it turns out, the photograph was very real. It was taken on a ranch in southern Texas—a fact confirmed by the sagebrush in the background and by the original trail cam owner. Unfortunately, the location fakery that followed it has muddied the distribution record of the species and tarnished the credibility of every viable trail cam image on record.

In another incidence of misplaced cougary, three mountain lions are shown wandering about a snowy driveway. The digital images that landed in my email box were attributed to a location only an hour away from my home in southeast Michigan. Fortunately, it only took a short time to track these digital cats back to their original location in a Colorado yard. One of the keys in making that determination involved a car visible in one of the images. This vehicle had a blue and white front license plate of a design combination seen in both Colorado and Michigan, but the clarity wasn’t sufficient to read it. The fact that the state of Michigan does not require a front license plate while Colorado does provided an initial opportunity to plant a red flag on this one.

The message here is one of renewed vigilance to match a new era. There is a whole new generation of interpreters out there who are under the figurative gun to produce programs, exhibits, and flyers. The image gallery provided by the World Wide Web is increasingly becoming the main source for such material. We all—seasonal and seasoned interpreters—are potentially guilty of giving short shrift to the likes of muskrats, sturgeon, cougars, and eventually to our public. So much of the natural world is full of the kind of incredible stuff you can’t make up—even if you wanted to. Beware, then, the Internet stuff that is “made up” because it dilutes reality. If an Internet photo reference seems doubtful, there is a very good chance that it is. Check all sources and verify when possible.

By the way, thanks to that Internet, I found out that there really were panthers in Poughkeepsie, New York, as recently as 2003–’04. These particular Poughkeepsie Panthers wore skates and performed as a short-lived semi-pro hockey team. But, admittedly, I could be mistaken about that.

Gerald Wykes is the curator/supervising interpreter at the Lake Erie Marshlands Museum and Nature Center in Brownstown, Michigan. He can be contacted at 734-242-8149 or wykes@juno.com.

The reconstructed Römerkastell Saalburg, a historic fort at the frontier of the ancient Roman Empire, offers a wealth of interesting and educational programs for school groups and pre-booked groups.

It was exactly the kind of interpretive moment Freeman Tilden was talking about. I was in the Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt, face-to-face with a movable-type printing press for the first time. A friendly interpreter there showed me how to arrange type into a brass holder, clamp it together, ink it, and roll it through the press onto paper. Suddenly movable type was no longer some mysterious, obsolete technology to me. It became the rumbling of clunky gears and rollers behind the pull lever, an inky mess on my fingers, a practice of creation. Type became not just shapes and symbols, but fistfuls of glistening black metal cubes, crunching like gravel in my hand, the tiny soldiers of a thousand bloody and bloodless revolutions.

I didn’t learn much that day—not if learning means picking up facts and names. Instead I learned to love something. And passing on such love is, after all, our first goal as interpreters. That interpretive experience opened up what will be a lifetime of learning to me. Now I can’t see a book bound in old-fashioned folios without studying it in detail. I later decided to take a trip to Mainz to see the Gutenberg Museum and wonder at Gutenberg’s strange new books. And goodness only knows how many of my friends had to listen to stories about my exciting new experiences with printing presses—and perhaps caught some of my excitement as well.

That’s the power of interpretation—to open up new experiences, not simply to teach, but to create learners, to awaken enthusiasm for new knowledge. For better or for worse, though, this project commits us to a never-ending search for new ideas. To interpret effectively, we need to reach our audiences where they are, offering them experiences that are fresh and surprising. An exhibit or tour that could have captured visitors’ imaginations years ago can easily be stale today.

An eye-catching display case in the Historisches-Museum Frankfurt.

This seems unpleasant, of course, but it is also what makes our work a matter requiring creativity—and thus what makes it fun. We are continuously looking at our sites, our parks, our tours, our interpretive centers, and so forth and asking ourselves how we can make them even more effective and interesting for our visitors. But no new ideas come without inspiration. Even the greatest thinkers didn’t just think up their new ideas all at once. They built upon and adapted earlier ones. That’s one of the reasons the National Association for Interpretation is so important to us—it provides an opportunity for us to exchange and build upon our ideas, both allowing us to improve our interpretation in everyday practice and to improve the art of interpretation as a whole.

And where better to look for new and fresh ideas than in other countries? Studying as an American in Germany for the last couple of years has shown me that even in the 21st century, many ideas still rarely cross national borders. People in every country have a habit of communicating with those who share the same culture and language. Reaching out across borders requires deliberate effort, but the results are rewarding.

The National Association for Interpretation has indeed been making strides towards increasing our international activities. The main efforts so far are the annual international conference, the ecotour program, the international volunteer program, and international partnerships with interpretive organizations in China and Korea.

However, NAI, while being enthusiastic about the benefits these activities will bring both to the association and to our contacts abroad, is also rather apologetic for them, as one can read on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page of the association website. There it is emphasized that the association avoids investing any money in our international activities. I’d like to contribute to a conversation about becoming more involved internationally and argue that everyone stands to benefit from such an undertaking.

Of course, if we look specifically for American-style heritage interpreters at nature reserves and historic sites abroad, we’ll find comparatively few. The idea of heritage interpretation today is mostly limited to the English-speaking world, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. But if we consider anyone connecting resources and visitors in meaningful, educational, and enriching ways to be interpreting, then there are thousands of people the world over creatively seeking new and better ways to do just that. There’s a rich variety of ideas out there, and countless of them result in visitor experiences that are not only interesting and effective, but also unintentionally interpretive in the best sense of the world—like the printing press I encountered in Frankfurt.

The Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt effectively uses masses of telephones, mailboxes, radios, and so forth to command visitors’ attention and invite them to study individual objects that interest them in detail.

I can offer Germany as just one example of a country where we might learn new ideas. The main forces for interpretation in Germany are museums, city tours, tour groups, and interpretive signage. Interpretation in the classic American sense at natural and historic sites is comparatively minimal but growing. However, if we look to museums, we’ll find a thriving wealth of new ideas—fundamentally interpretive ideas that bring natural or cultural resources and visitors together. Just a few decades ago, museums in Germany were assumed to be research institutions for scholars and experts. They weren’t really for the general public, and certainly not for kids. But you’d hardly know it now. Since then German museums have been striving with a vengeance to offer creative, attention-getting exhibits for audiences of all kinds.

One standout difference at these interpretive locations is an emphasis on local people. We who interpret in the United States often try so hard to attract tourists that we neglect people in the local area. Many German museums, on the other hand, see no reason why local enthusiasts shouldn’t visit their favorite museum as often as their favorite restaurant. There just has to be a reason to keep them coming back. Thus many German museums offer both special events and weekly classes to tempt in local fans on a regular basis. For example, a museum that interprets another culture might offer a weekly cooking class lasting several months to introduce participants to that culture’s traditional dishes. This slightly different emphasis makes sense, because local people are those we need most to thrive. One of the foremost buzzwords in German museum development today is Zielgruppen, or target groups. Such groups might be young children, teenagers, elders, or disabled people. Some museums, for example, have created tours specifically for blind visitors. To be effective, of course, these tours require an interpreter with considerable knowledge of how people with various kinds of vision impairments perceive and understand their surroundings, but they create an incredibly rewarding experience for visitors who might otherwise feel cut off from the world of interpretive sites. Dr. Sojna Schierle, director of pedagogy for the Linden Museum of Ethnology in Stuttgart, has described to me her new idea of recognizing families as a target group. She wanted to offer interactive activities that would bring parents and their children together. In one event, each family formed a team and competed against the other families to complete projects and answer questions about the exhibit. Since the resource was a collection of artifacts about Japanese Noh theater, the final project was for each family to organize a Noh-inspired puppet show.

Many of the ideas being developed are hidden behind the scenes. One of the main topics of discussion among German museum interpreters today is ethics. How does one balance bringing the resource to the public with preserving it? What should museums do with resources that came to their collections through questionable means, such as artifacts taken from colonies in earlier centuries? Is it respectful to interpret the religions of other cultures, and if so, how?

Although this Melanesian men’s house is an antique original, visitors to the Ethnologisches Museum Dahlem in Berlin are welcomed to climb inside.

Naturally, new ideas gleaned from abroad may need to be translated before we use them at home. What works well in one country might need adjustments before it works in another. For example, most interpreters in the United States cannot invest quite as many resources into seeking local visitation as German sites do, where the denser population makes for a larger pool of potentially interested locals.

Of course, people abroad would also like to learn our ideas. The ideas that NAI, the National Park Service, and each of us have been developing are valuable concepts that many interpreters in other countries would be very interested to hear about. I once spoke with a German professor who specializes in museum pedagogy about my interest in studying the subject. She encouraged me not to go into it, because all I’d find is that museums are constantly forced to compromise between educating and entertaining. Therefore I told her a little about heritage interpretation—neither exactly entertaining nor educating, but awakening visitors to a newfound interest in and enthusiasm about the resource. She was quite excited about the idea.

Sites the world over stand to benefit from the wisdom the NAI has been gathering and developing over the years, while NAI similarly stands to reap incredible new ideas from other countries. Think of a café mocha—one of the most delicious ideas in history. It took the contributions of people from Ethiopia, Yemen, the Mayan Empire, and Italy to produce it. I hope the future of heritage interpretation will be similar, with people from all over the world contributing and combining ideas into rich new interpretive experiences we can’t even imagine now.

Robert Hanna is a masters student in history at Philipps-Universität Marburg in Marburg, Germany, and a seasonal interpreter at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park near Bismarck, North Dakota.

As I perused the latest issue of Legacy, I read, yet again, the mantra of Tilden’s Principles. Yet again, they were hauled out as a sort of non-violable Truth—“Thou shalt be relevant.” It sounded like a religion, not a profession. Are we working solely on our faith in the proclamations of Tilden? Have we blinkered ourselves to relevant work and ideas in other fields? Has there been no advancement in our professional thinking since 1957?

Is Tilden the only answer?

Freeman Tilden: Overused? Courtesy National Park Service.

Now, don’t get me wrong; Tilden published some great ideas and his insight is still relevant today. But as professionals, I believe we have a duty to critically evaluate the theoretical basis of our work. We need to seek out alternative ideas and test our ideas in objective ways.

So, at the risk of being labeled a heretic, I would like to provoke a healthy skepticism and discussion about Tilden’s principles, and I would like to encourage interpreters to cast their intellectual nets farther afield to benefit from the thoughts and research of others.

Evaluating Tilden
Let’s start by evaluating Tilden’s principles. If we are going to use them as the basis for interpretation, let’s make sure they are well supported by research and are relevant to interpreters. I’ll pick on two of Tilden’s principles.

Principle 3: “Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts, whether the materials presented are scientific, historical or architectural. Any art is in some degree teachable.”

This is a nice observation, but is this worthy of being hailed as a “principle” of interpretation? Has an understanding of this idea ever led to a better interpretive program or panel? I doubt it. Yet because Tilden said it was a principle, it is part of every interpretive training. We all learn it, then file it in the “need to know for the test” file, where it gathers dust once the test is over.

Principle 5: “Interpretation should aim to present a whole rather than a part, and must address itself to the whole man rather than any phase.”

This is two distinct ideas masquerading as one principle. The first idea is “aim to present a whole rather than a part.” When this idea is fleshed out in Interpreting Our Heritage, it is essentially the same idea as thematic interpretation (as explained by Sam Ham in Environmental Interpretation). The practice of thematic interpretation is well supported by research and has been more fully developed and described since Tilden. Let’s quote the current understanding of this “principle” instead.

The second idea in the fifth principle is that interpretation should “address itself to the whole man.” In other words, know your audience and their needs and interests. Engage them fully using a variety of techniques. This is worth an entire principle of its own and we can draw on extensive research in education and psychology to inform and support this principle. Let’s let go of our faith in Tilden here and look at what others can tell us.

Casting Our Nets Wider
Where can we turn for theoretical underpinning and good, practical advice? Here are just a few alternatives that I have found useful and (dare I say?) provocative:

Alternative Voices in Interpretation
For a more modern perspective on the principles of interpretation, have a look at Interpretation for the 21st Century by Ted Cable and Larry Beck. Cable and Beck have reworked Tilden’s principles and added other important principles, along with concrete thoughts on how to put them into practice. Their ideas are relevant and well considered. If I had to choose the six most important principles of interpretation, I’d leave out some of Tilden’s and add a few of Cable and Beck’s.

Science Literature
One of the best communicators in the scientific community is Edward Tufte, professor emeritus at Yale, statistician, and sculptor. Tufte’s books include Beautiful Evidence, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, and Visual Explanations (all published by Graphics Press). Anyone who displays data on panels, brochures, reports to the board, or any other printed medium should read at least one of these. He provides real examples of how to (and how not to) present information in a visual way so that readers can easily and accurately decipher the data and the message you are trying to communicate.

Education Literature
Our audience may be non-captive and there will be no test at the end of our programs, but we can still learn a great deal from research in education. How do people transfer knowledge and skills from our programs to their home environment? A good educational psychology book can give us research-based ideas for making this happen. How do we make that unruly school group focus and pay attention? Educational research can provide us tools to do so. A few of my favorite resources from education are:

Primary Science…Taking the Plunge. Ed. Wynne Harlan. Heinemann Educational Publishers. Oxford. 1985. (This edition is out of print, but a second edition was published in 2001.)

This text is a delightful read, and worthwhile for any interpreter who falls into the trap of talking for the entirety of his or her program. It is written for elementary school science teachers, but has excellent information on how to ask the right questions, how to encourage students (visitors) to observe and ask questions, and how to guide people to an understanding of something by interacting with it.

Educational Psychology, Fourth Edition. N.L. Gage and D.C. Berliner. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston. 1988.

My version is quite dated, but I still refer to it when I find myself having difficulty with a particular program or audience. Pick up a recent edition that incorporates the recent research.

Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. D. Lemov. (To be published in April 2010. Information and excerpts available at http://uncommonschools.org/usi/aboutUs/taxonomy.php.)

My new favorite—I can’t wait until the whole book is out. Though the techniques are aimed at school teachers, many of them are excellent pointers for interpreters, too. Where they differ, Lemov’s explanation of how and why teachers should do something has provoked me to think more carefully about why I don’t do it.

Environmental Education
I know there are interpreters who divide the world into environmental education (EE) and interpretation, highlighting the differences between the two professions, but they share a great deal of common ground. Most interpretation has a purpose. We hope that, after experiencing our interpretation, visitors will value the resource, want to learn more, or do something to help protect the resource. Environmental education has many of the same purposes. There is good research going on in EE and there are good (and often different) approaches to achieving goals in EE. Interpreters could learn a lot from environmental education’s focus on issues-based education, and the development of empowerment and ownership to effect behavior change. Some good EE reading includes:

Essential Readings in Environmental Education. Ed. H. Hungerford, W. Bluhm, T. Volk and J. Ramsey. Stipes Publishing L.L.C. Champaign, Illinois. 1998.

This text is slightly dated, but includes some of the foundational works in EE. There are many lessons for interpreters here.

Earth Education: A New Beginning. S. Van Matre. Institute for Earth Education, Greenville, West Virginia. 1990.

This book is provocative and contentious, and not research-based, but contains some great insights into sharing passion for a resource. Even if you disagree with what Van Matre has to say, I guarantee he will provoke you to think more carefully about what you do as an interpreter.

A Challenge to Interpreters
I have highlighted just a few of the resources interpreters can draw on for both theoretical and practical insights to improve our interpretation. There are many more, from fields as far flung as philosophy, public speaking, and television broadcasting. I challenge you to seek out new ways of thinking about interpretation, new theories and research to guide your work, and new insights into how to deliver your interpretive message. Then share your new discoveries with the rest of us. Write an article for Legacy that does not mention Tilden, but draws insight and inspiration from some of the other great writers and thinkers around us.

Robinne Weiss is an interpreter and consultant based in Leeston, New Zealand. She can be reached at Robinne@InterpTech.com. The author thanks her husband, Ian Dickie, a scientist who provokes her to question interpretive theory and practice.

Photo by Joan Kocur.

You know your competition has reached critical mass when it’s big enough to be mocked by Steve Carell on an episode of “The Daily Show.” Because, like the National Spelling Bee, it’s only a few short steps from a head-to-head geek smackdown to being the subject of an award-winning documentary to going live on ESPN. If Jon Stewart and Comedy Central love you, you’re on your way.

That’s the case with the World Series of Birding. It’s the Super Bowl of “pssshing,” the World Cup of binocular-toting nerds, the Olympics of clapper rail calling. And if the mere concept of competitive birdwatching has you doubled over with laughter, then you need to pick up your Nikons and head to Cape May, New Jersey, for this rite of spring.

Organized by the New Jersey Audubon Society, the WSB enters its 27th year in 2010. At its core, the concept is simple: During a designated 24-hour, midnight-to-midnight period in May, teams of birders scour New Jersey in an effort to see and hear the most species of birds. Teams compete in several categories (adult, youth, corporate sponsored, etc.) and various geographic regions (whole state, Cape May County only, Cape Island only, etc.). A system of checks and balances keeps teams from cheating. Teams rush to the finish line at the West Cape May firehouse to turn in their final tallies before midnight, and it usually takes between 220 and 250 species for a team to raise the coveted Urner Stone Cup.

And it would all be just that easy, if this weren’t an event based in serious enviro-geek bird-nerd culture. First, you have to pick a killer name for your team—like the Lagerhead Shrikes, the Marshketeers, Mighty Mighy Turnstones, the Limping Limpkins, Wacky Willets, Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck Brant!, and Nine Inch Rails. Printing up team shirts doesn’t hurt, and tastefully decorating your team vehicle isn’t frowned upon either.

Second, the top teams are sponsored. Nikon, Swarovski, Zeiss, and Steiner Optics all have teams, as do WildBird Magazine and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. My own team of fourth graders was happy with the 49 species they logged, but they weren’t even close to the 117 birds tallied by a team of “professional” fourth graders sponsored by Steiner Optics. After the competition, you’ll find ads in birding magazines touting the binoculars and spotting scopes used by the winners. Bragging rights are on the line.

Third, while this is only a one-day event, it really isn’t. Top teams send scouts a week in advance to poke through forests and marshes, mapping out where birds will be. Using rare bird hotlines and computer forums, teams spend days figuring out where to spend valuable minutes. Every team is going to see the common birds; winners are those who find red-footed falcons that have blown in from Siberia. Road maps are covered in red ink, laying out the shortest route between short-eared owls and northern gannets. And somebody has to stock up on everything from snacks to toilet paper. Planning is everything.

Fourth, practice your bird calls. Winners usually identify about two-thirds of their birds by song, not sight. The competition begins at midnight, so expect to spend the first six hours before daylight listening for owls, rails, and anything else that goes chirp in the night. Mark Garland of the Cape May Bird Observatory has built his career around being able to hear birds that nobody else can.

Finally, just for kicks, you can use your birding to make a statement. Some teams now compete only on foot, running from birding hotspot to hotspot, reducing their carbon footprint (and there’s a special trophy for these crazed, scope-toting marathoners). Others specialize in water birds, limiting their competition to what they can see from boats. Still others practice digiscoping, taking digital photos of every bird they see. One team of senior citizens counts only the birds that fly by the park bench on which they sit all day. It never hurts to have a gimmick.

To say that the competition is cutthroat doesn’t convey the bloodlust that competitive birding engenders. It’s not unheard of for teams to practice dirty tricks like parking in the middle of a road leading to a popular birding area, blocking everyone else’s access. Giving out misinformation is fairly common, although recent advances in iPhones now allow every team to get up-to-the-minute bird sightings sent directly to them. GPS has put an end to teams doling out phony directions.

So, what’s the result of all these avifauna obsessives spending a spring day chasing warblers? The event’s founder, Pete Dunne, realized the moneymaking potential of the World Series. Teams raise pledges (25 cents per bird sounds like a bargain, if you aren’t aware that last year’s winners had 229 species), which can go toward the conservation group of their choice, or to New Jersey Audubon. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised this way. There’s also a great deal of scientific data being collected, as the World Series amounts to a Christmas Bird Count during the May nesting season. And 18 youth teams competed last year, which presents a great opportunity for education. The winners, a Nikon-backed high school squad, had 211 species (and probably get beaten up by the football team on a regular basis).

In Cape May County, considered to be one of the world’s best birding spots, ecotourism (mostly birdwatching) brings in upwards of $32 million annually. If any other TV shows want to make fun of the World Series of Birding, the chamber of commerce would welcome them to town. Competitive birding may be the ne plus ultra of geek chic, but as long as money talks, this sort of nerdiness is just fine.

Phil Broder is the director of education with the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. For more info about the WSB, visit www.birdcapemay.org. To find the July 18, 2000, “Daily Show” video about the World Series, just Google “World Series of Birding.” Or buy a copy of the film “Opposable Chums: Guts and Glory at the World Series of Birding” at www.opposablechums.com.

In November, I attended the annual 2009 NAI National Workshop in Hartford, Connecticut, along with nearly 700 other U.S. and international attendees.

The author (right) with workshop keynote speaker and Environmental Interpretation author Sam Ham.

There were over 110 concurrent educational sessions in 13 different educational tracks offered during the five-day workshop. The sessions covered aspects of frontline interpretation, planning and research, non-personal interpretation, and interpretive management, among other topics.

I attended a variety of sessions to improve my skills, to learn about issues affecting programs, to learn skills that help improve visitor experiences, and to help motivate me to be better. I saw rangers at sessions about zoos, interpreters at sessions about writing, and management staff at sessions for emerging technologies. I even saw Elvis (more on that later). The variety of sessions offered and who attended which session was quite diversified.

I was able to gain valuable information to enhance my skills as a tour guide and interpreter at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. The training sessions really do help with the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are needed to be a good frontline interpreter. I am always striving to make my interpretive product better, and the training provided at NAI Workshops assists with that goal. It also adds to the necessary tools to perform my job duties and be a better representative of California State Parks. I will be better prepared to enhance the visitor’s experience and, I hope, inspire, inform, and educate them, too.

At NAI 2009, I presented a two-hour session on creating themes for presentations, tours, signage, printed materials, exhibits, etc. It was a hands-on learning session designed to provide information and inspiration for others to take back to their locations and in future training of other staff members. It was a learning experience for me as a presenter, and I hope a valuable learning experience for all of those who attended. Presenting sessions is also a great way to become involved at conferences and workshops, and I thank the participants who attended my session.

I want to share a couple of memorable personal experiences from the week. One was at the Excellence in Interpretation awards ceremony. It provided a place for NAI and federal agencies to present and honor the winners of their respective national awards. The organizations were NAI, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service. The highest interpretive honor one can win from the National Park Service is the Freeman Tilden Award. This year the winner was Ranger Shelton Johnson. Many of you know of him and may have been fortunate enough to see his portrayal of Sgt. Elizy Boman, a Buffalo Soldier in Yosemite in the early 1900s. He was also in the recent PBS series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. It was an honor for me to be there when he received this national recognition and also to have a chance to chat with him. Ranger Johnson has inspired me to be the best frontline interpreter that I can be.

The second story I want to share happened one day when I and a few other participants went to the Museum of Connecticut History, located in the Supreme Court Building in downtown Hartford. While we were there, there was also a large school tour group. They had been given worksheets from their teachers and were on a scavenger hunt through the museum. We overheard them looking for a typewriter and other things. I heard a few of them saying they were looking for the most powerful item in the museum—one that you had to be 18 years old to use. There was an old mechanical voting machine in the first room, and I knew that is what the teacher wanted them to find. It was quite discouraging to hear and see as they congregated around a Colt Firearms exhibit (Colt is based in Hartford) and decided that a gun was the item they were seeking. It made me realize how important the words I say on my tours may be, and to always choose them carefully.

So eventually the week came to an end. All I can say is “Wow!” It was a fantastic workshop and great learning experience. The NAI Workshop provides the opportunity to meet and network with the best and brightest in our field. It brings us together from around the globe. We have the opportunity to share our most current ideas, our experiences, our thoughts. We learn, we tell stories, we sometimes play musical instruments. We laugh, we cry, we bond. We realize what a special group of people we are.

I have been to many conventions, conferences, and workshops over the years. I have never been to one like an NAI Workshop, where every person you meet loves their job and loves what they do. They want to share all they can with you over a few short days. I hated for the week to end, and to say my good-byes until next year’s workshop.

It was during a promotional skit for the 2010 NAI National Workshop in Las Vegas where I saw Elvis. I hope to see Elvis again in November, but more than that, I hope you will consider attending this outstanding event in Las Vegas.

Jeff Miller is a tour guide and interpreter at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Contact him at HearstCastleJeff@aol.com.

Four statues in a park forever changed my life.

Statues are everywhere. In cities around the world, public squares and buildings are filled with monumental sculptures honoring individuals or representing historic moments. How many times do we walk right past, paying them little or no attention?

One day last summer, though, four statues spoke to me. I’m not talking about those mime-like performance artists who paint their faces and pretend to be sculptures, delighting tourists with unexpected interaction. No, I’m actually referring to bronze-cast, life-sized human replicas, whose placement and message overwhelmed me in a way I did not anticipate.

It was my first visit to New York City, and I had one free day to spend with my best buddy who lives there. Micah crammed our schedule full of essential experiences: We did the fun stuff—Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge—and also toured more solemn historic sites like Ground Zero and Battery Park.

If this were your day, what do you think would be most memorable? For me, every place on the itinerary was more surreal and moving than I could have imagined, but an unplanned venture produced the most powerful moments: When we happened upon tiny Christopher Park, in the heart of the Greenwich Village Historic District, I walked in with no expectation of the interpretive experience I was about to have.

The moment I realized where we stood, and saw the four statues, I was instantly lost in a memory from a decade ago:

“Mom, Dad, there’s something I want you to know…”

These words have been the start of countless conversations in homes everywhere. Chances are that you’ve said them, for any number of reasons, perhaps to announce a pregnancy, share news of a job offer, or ask for help in facing addiction.

For me, the words that followed that opening statement…eventually…after a long, awkward silence and deep, courage-gathering breath, were, “I’m gay.”

It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done.

I sat tense, flinching almost. Heart thumping. Mind racing. Already I was exhausted. Months of mental rehearsal had left me spent. It took tremendous energy to prepare for this evening. There was no question of my identity—of that I was sure—but everything else about this dialogue was left to uncertainty. On sleepless nights, I’d stand out under the stars, praying for guidance and wondering about possible outcomes.

Mostly I prepared for anger and rejection. Sitting at my parents’ kitchen table, I awaited their censure. I was ready for words like “regret” and “disappointment.” I expected yelling—or worse, silence—or perhaps even an invitation to leave.

I worried too much. Mom and Dad fumbled for words, but generally made an effort to communicate a loving response. They didn’t understand it, but they were willing to try. I wish all my coming out stories had gone this well.

I chose to come out to my parents. It was a purposeful act of audacity. I would tell them myself, on my own terms, in my own time.

Avoiding the topic, I reasoned, would create an uncomfortable, ever-growing “elephant in the room.” Worse, I feared they might get the news as hearsay from others. Either situation might force them into confronting me about it, putting me on the defensive and likely sending a message that I felt guilt or shame for being who I am.

Initiating the conversation, then, was a proactive move, allowing me to share my identity in a positive light, to literally say, “This is who I am, I’m comfortable in my skin, I am not ashamed, and I have found love.”

***

“A penny for your thoughts.” Micah’s quiet voice brought me back to the present. We tended to explore places separately, each wandering at our own pace. When he looked across the park, though, and saw me crumpled on a park bench with tears streaming down my face, it was time to talk.

“I’m a professional interpreter.” I replied, “The work I do is about real people and real places and real purpose. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve seen thousands of interpretive exhibits and commemorative sculptures.

“But this,” I lightly laid my palm over two statues’ hands, “is the only time I’ve encountered public interpretation of this story.”

You see, Christopher Park is adjacent to the Stonewall Inn, where an uprising in 1969 is credited with igniting the gay civil rights movement. According to the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation:

On June 28, 1969, there was rioting on Christopher Street when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay establishment, in order to curb liquor law violations. Over the next few days, in what is known as the Stonewall Rebellion, several thousand rioters filled the streets to protest the police action. Thereafter, Christopher Park became a symbol of the gay liberation movement.”

Thirty years later, the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and the surrounding neighborhood streets were placed on the New York State Register of Historic Places and added to the National Register. Among the 70,000 listings in the National Register, Stonewall was “the first such historic site recognizing the national significance and contributions of lesbians and gay men,” said M. John Berry, assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior. “Let it forever be remembered,” Berry declared, “That here–on this spot–men and women stood proud, they stood fast, so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose and love whom our hearts desire.”

In 1992, sculptor George Segal witnessed the public installation of his work, four statues collectively titled “Gay Liberation Monument.” Set in Christopher Park, the piece features two standing males and two seated females. Their positions seem comfortable, suggesting deep discussion and revealing the most simple, yet poignant displays of affection—a touch on the shoulder, a brush of two hands. Segal’s style was noted to be “specific, evocative, and understated, showing the public comfort and freedom to which the gay liberation movement aspired.”

Persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered (commonly referred to as LGBT) are often referred to as a “community,” but does such a thing even exist? There are no unifying interests, values, or politics among all LGBT people. Some suggest that having a minority gender identity or sexual orientation are the common threads, but even those concepts exist on a spectrum, making them tough to define in the broadest terms of “community.”

Despite significant cultural changes following Stonewall, many LGBT people in America still live in isolation, in fear of trusting others, and in conflict about how to find—let alone exist in—anything they can call a community. Others completely eschew an LGBT community, preferring to live completely assimilated lives in their larger circles of citizenship. They see this as a more effective strategy for being perceived and accepted as normal. Collectively, we seek a wide range of ideals in advocating for civil rights, finding companionship, forming families, and establishing homes.

What makes a community, anyway? Certainly it exists when people live in geographic areas like neighborhoods and towns. It is built around common interests, such as sports, vocations, or hobbies. It surely occurs where values are a foundation for fellowship, like in churches, charities, and political groups. Community even forms in the face of shared experiences or adversity, as with medical or mental health support groups.

This last category lends the strongest evidence that community exists when people actively recognize a shared life experience. Of course I can’t speak for all LGBT persons, but I believe that there is just a single salient event—encountering the moment of revelation about our identities—that gives us any semblance of belonging in community with each other. “What we perhaps have at the core,” writes poet Judy Grahn, “is an uncanny ability to identify with what we are not, to die as one form and return as another.”

Following this deeply personal revelation, LGBT persons face the challenge of navigating life, but no two courses chart the same. We must decide, a thousand times every day, whether to hide or be real. It’s a complicated, often weary, journey of measuring others’ attitudes and anticipating their reactions. Will we speak truth, or is it easier, smarter, safer to just acquiesce to the majority?

Is it any wonder, then, that so many universal, yet conflicting emotions—pride, hope, fear, frustration, anger—are tied to the LGBT community? Is it any wonder that America hears so little of this community story through interpretation at museums, historical sites, and other interpretive places?

Is it any wonder that I was overwhelmed at seeing myself reflected for the first time in those Christopher Park statues?

It’s obvious why this resource held inherent meaning for me: Freeman Tilden’s first principle of interpretation was in effect. “The visitor’s chief interest is in whatever touches his personality, his experience and his ideals.” When I found a place telling an oft-overlooked part of my story, guess what? I was intrigued. My life is not solely defined by my sexual orientation, but it is constantly tempered by it.

In fact, my experience at Christopher Park is a model for Tilden’s exact definition of interpretation, which “aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by firsthand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information.”

The original object was the actual park, and me standing there was firsthand experience. I met “the Thing Itself,” according to Tilden. “Whether it be a wonder of Nature’s work, or the act or work of Man…To pay a personal visit to a historic shrine is to receive a concept such as no book can supply.”

Then there was illustrative media, both textual and artistic. The signage, well written and placed, forged intellectual connections by going beyond dates and data. Instead, the panels told a story, helping me understand the site’s context in history and culture. “Interpretation is the revelation of a larger truth,” wrote Tilden, “that lies behind any statement of fact.”

It was the statues, though, that forged the strongest interpretive connection and elicited my overwhelming emotional reaction. Tilden said good interpretation is about “exposing the soul” of a place, revealing “those truths that lie beyond” what physically exists before our eyes. In their comfortable, easygoing poses, the statues represented a way of life that I have long sought: to be authentic. When I stood among them, I felt a strong sense of belonging. These people would understand my angst in coming out to my parents and dealing with life every day since then. For a moment, through interpretation, I found community.

Tilden suggests that the final measure of success is when interpretation “aims not to do something to the listener, but to provoke the listener to do something to himself.” Right then, I resolved to keep living like those statues, who so quietly, yet candidly, sent such a strong message. I shy from being flashy or loud, but sincerely am myself—present, open, honest, and loving. I do wear a ring symbolizing commitment to my partner of 14 years. I do share my story when it can help set the tone for positive communication. My aim is not that others think or feel the same as me, but I do answer Tilden’s challenge, encouraging anyone in my company “to do some thinking about [things] himself…. His horizon cannot fail to be widened.”

In my career as an interpreter, I have long believed that when we do our work well, we create opportunities for visitors to move from understanding, to appreciation, to protection of cultural and natural resources. Now, because of outstanding interpretive design in Christopher Park, I am more motivated than ever to be effective. I’ve found I work harder at fostering a sense of belonging for visitors. I am more conscious about relating to their lives, helping them to have firsthand experiences, and using effective illustrative media that connects with their minds and hearts.

I was serious when I said those statues spoke to me. An encounter with community-based interpretation changed my life when I least expected it. Will it change yours?

Kelly Farrell is an NAI Certified Heritage Interpreter and Trainer based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Reach her at kelly.c.farrell@gmail.com.

About five years ago, our facility was in turmoil: staffing issues, a renovation looming, a little bit of flooding, you name it. My own solution to weathering the storm was employing “offstage” what I’d been unconsciously using during costumed interpretation the previous five years: The Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the Serenity
to Accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

I am not a particularly religious man, but I know wise words and I know what works. The offstage “storm” passed and I am now in my ninth year doing first-person and third-person history at Isle a la Cache Museum in northern Illinois.

“Andre the River” negotiates the price of an otter pelt with a young trader.

Beyond the outward authentic clothing we’ll take as a “given,” first-person credibility is influenced by the things I must accept—audience, environment, and experience. How I react to them is where the courage and wisdom appear.

Audience
When I started as an interpreter-voyageur, I had 45 to 60 minutes alone each day with up to 50 elementary-age students. Monday could be second graders and Tuesday 10-year-olds.  I had (have) no control over who I saw—accepted.

Obviously, I could change how I approached each group. Seven-year-olds need to feel safe with the strange-talking, strangely dressed stranger. Guided imagery for time-travel, slower rate of speech, basic information on the fur trade (or just trading), and occasional participation empowered them.

Fifth graders are a smart audience, not cynical but realistic in seeing “the guy in costume.”  Immediate immersion in the time period and persona means immersing them in a situation—doing something—not giving them a chance to be detached/cynical/distracted. That succeeds for me.

Adults can be playful or wallflowers when it comes to interacting at a rendezvous or living history weekend. My voyageur’s persona is sometimes known as “Andre the River”: big mouth, always running.  So I have an excuse to talk to everyone as potential trading partner, potential dinner cook, or potential romance.

After initial introductions, I accept what I’m given. Have they responded with a period-correct question? With humor? With a grunt? I continue with all three to their taste. Don’t expect your audience to change. Change your delivery, your topic, or your audience-participation level to make connections. You cannot have credibility without a relationship with the visitor.

For example: In a session with fifth graders, I had a few kids “buy in” to my storytelling. The non-responsive majority still received my attention, my eye contact, and the occasional individual comment to keep them involved in some capacity. After the program, the students created original pictograph stories, and about 10 of 30 were brave enough to share them aloud.

I later found out one of the brave girls had lost two close relatives recently and basically closed herself up until that field trip. Her pictograph tale finally expressed those lost relationships with respect and beauty. That brave girl was one of the “unresponsive” kids.

If I pushed her, tried to make her participate, or change her behavior, would her response have been the same?

Environment
I envy the folks at Conner Prairie (Indiana) and Williamsburg (Virginia), among others, because the interpreters and visitors are immersed in the historic place itself. Parking lots are out of sight, power lines don’t intrude, and signage is discreet.

I accept the fact Isle a la Cache staff must greet students in character yet still within sight of the parking lot, within earshot of a four-lane highway, and amid smells of a nearby coal-burning plant. I accept those circumstances and ignore them at the same time.

My voyageur’s focus is on the “newcomers,” and that attention is reciprocated. If someone’s focus wanders, I don’t dismiss them or berate them, I explain it as best I can in terms of our “world” (for example, a noisy plane is “a goose with gas”) and resume our flow.

By saying it’s not there, you are not accepting the addition to your teaching environment; you’re ignoring the obvious. That’s the surest way to lose respect and credibility.

Granted, you can only explain so much. Changing your perception of the modern item and diverting audience attention are nice alternatives, but at some point you have to address the vocal realist: “You are visiting me in my world. If you respect me, I will respect you. I hope you make the right choice.”

You’ve given them an opportunity to change: Be courageous and join the group mentality (and fun) or accept the literal/modern and get less out of your day.

Obviously, your facility has to make best efforts to create legitimate historic structures, include the natural “wild” landscape, and acknowledge environment is necessary to sustain your credibility.

However, we must also accept varied modern environments when we visit schools as voyageur or native.  The best approach I’ve found is “stranger in a strange land.”

Use your wisdom: accept the fact that you’re out of your element. Seek comfort in finding common language, mutual likes and dislikes, etc., between you and your students. Share what you would be doing or were doing in your time before you arrived in their place. By keeping the conversation personal, you avoid “dead air” and the chance for them to try and teach you everything modern in 45 minutes or less.

There may be no good way to explain how you got from your time to theirs (sleeping, conked on the head, canoe through a dark fog).  Have the courage to pick one, sell it well, and move on.

Experience
Sorry to say so, but you’re stuck with your past and your personality. If you’re wise, though, you know your experiences are the bulk of your interpretive “toolbox.”  Who you are fuels your historic persona.

Portraying a voyageur is serene for me in two ways: 1) I am a professional actor and storyteller, so my confidence as a character/persona is strong, and (2) I memorize lots of information very quickly.

However, if someone asks “Andre” if he ever got burnt in a campfire, Mike cannot draw on that specifically but he remembers he seared the heel of his hand in an oven once. “Andre” can relate that sensation, along with the French profanities, if you like.

Every time I meet a new class, I learn where to pitch my tone and content. Experience should not generate preconceptions. This week’s fourth-grade class may be an unruly “blank slate” on the fur trade, while next week’s fourth graders may know the Chicago Portage site like their backyard. Accept their experience level and change your approach to forge or strengthen their connections to the trade in all its glory.

The catch to first-person historical interpretation is the audience presumption that you’ve experienced your 18th-century New France world from North Pole to South Pole.

It’s accepted that research with primary and secondary sources will give you sufficient information to talk about the period and the region, and to add relevant context for your persona. It’s hoped that interpreter and reenactor peers will help you shop, add to your skill set, and provide moral support. It’s true that personal experiences will give flavor to all of the above.

However, that impressive mental arsenal can be disarmed by one visitor’s innocent question—if you don’t know the answer. Accept your present limitation: An 18th-century voyageur has finite knowledge of his world. No Internet, telephones, or jet planes are there to speed or spread communication. Wisdom is saying, “I don’t know” when you should.

Serenity?
If we want to honor the past, the decisions you make in the future about audience, environment, and experience can gain you relationships, respect, and ultimately the credibility you seek.

Hopefully, I’ve shared something to add to your wisdom. I welcome hearing from peers to gain more wits myself.

Bonne chance and serenity now!

Mike Speller is an interpretive specialist for the Forest Preserve District of Will County at Isle a la Cache Museum in Romeoville, Illinois.

Leita Spears (c.1880) and Collin Smith (c.1944), Fall Festival, Van Buren’s Historic District.

My first encounter with costumed interpretation occurred at Disneyland in southern California. No, it was not Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, or Donald Duck, though my sons did enjoy meeting them. For me, the inspirational moment came from hearing President Abraham Lincoln speak. “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” is an oratory given by a mechanical Lincoln. In a darkened theater, I was transported to the 1860s as the seated Lincoln began speaking. He then rose to stand, telling the meaning of liberty. The theater was packed with those who came to see and hear an experience that had been the hit of the 1964 World’s Fair.

For a few minutes, I was able to do more than read the words of Abraham Lincoln from a book. The unlikely man who became president was speaking to me, and I could feel the passion and conviction that drew people to him. The exhibition conveyed insight into a time and person in the past. It provided meaning without a live person being involved. Decades later, when the opportunity to become involved in living history presented itself, I understood the potential of this medium to provide an opportunity for the members of the audience to make a meaningful connection.

Costumed interpretation can range from playing dress-up as a tour guide to excellent first-person presentations. Many historic sites discuss the pros and cons of adding people in period clothing. Visitors as a whole enjoy the experience but want to retain the ability to choose the amount of contact and type of interaction with participants. If interpretation impedes the visitor’s experience, then it has failed. Some ways to help the visitor gain the most from period reenactments are to have good research and well-prepared interpreters, have a way to communicate outside of character, and remember that even the best costumed interpretation is pretend. No one will value a poor or inaccurate program, which means quality research must be a priority—and never underestimate the value of practice. People are often frustrated when there is no communication with the character or it is limited to the period conversation. People are more comfortable when there is someone available to answer their questions, whether it is an interpretive guide mediating between the reenactor and the audience or the interpreter stepping out of character for questions at the end of a presentation. After all, interpretation’s aim is to provoke opportunities, and unanswered questions will frustrate the audience. Finally, no matter how good or accurate a portrayal of another person and time is, it is never the real thing. The goal is not to fool people but give them a glimpse into the past and create an opportunity for the audience to take more from the event than they came with.

In 2006, Fairview Cemetery, a historic cemetery listed in the National Register of Historic Places, needed to find a way to help the community value its existence and see the need to fund preservation and restoration. A plan for a living history production using costumed, first-person interpretation by students grew from collaboration with the cemetery committee and the historical interpretation program at University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Students under the direction of Professor Tom Wing began to research and develop dialogue for each person chosen by the cemetery committee to be portrayed. Appropriate period clothing and accessories were acquired. Hairstyles were researched and tour guides trained from among the researchers. Weeks of development turned into the moment of truth. Would the public pay to peek into the lives of former citizens at their graves? The response was overwhelming, with more than 300 visitors in two hours at the small cemetery. Van Buren’s “Tales of the Crypt” program at Fairview cemetery is beginning its fourth year with hundreds of repeat visitors valuing the opportunity stewardship affords them while reconnecting to the resource each year. Many damaged monuments have been restored and missing grave markers erected.

“Tales of the Crypt,” Fairview Cemetery, Van Buren, Arkansas.

When I joined the staff of the Clayton House Museum in Fort Smith, Arkansas, I became acquainted with the Chautauqua program. It is a revival of early public lectures by notable persons for the edification of the general public. Director Martha Siler made it historic by re-creating characters from the past. A United States Marshal, the wife of a prominent pioneer businessman, the first woman to run for president of the United States, a Union chaplain, and Belle Starr were among those presented for audiences. During the first year of the Chautauqua program, visitorship to the museum increased by 64 percent and continued to increase the second year. Living history began to be added to other events, resulting in greater interaction between visitors and interpreters. The costumed interpreters gained confidence due to the research and the reception by the public. Visitor time in the museum increased significantly during events with period activities with first- and third-person interactions.

The opportunity came to share the success of these programs with others in NAI Region 6. A favorable response and discussion with Dr. David Knotts of Lindenwood University in Missouri led to quarterly Chautauqua presentations at the Boone Home and Boonesfield Village. This was an expansion of candlelight tours presented at Christmas time by costumed volunteers and staff. In the program, visitors are taken into historic buildings to watch scenes of times long past. More than a dozen buildings are decorated in 19th-century fashion and are illuminated with thousands of candles, lanterns, bonfires, and starlight. Period music completes the experience. Additionally, throughout the year, school groups and Scout troops have the opportunity to dress in period clothing and participate in pioneer activities. These programs and the number of participants are increasing at the Boone Home.

On-site presentations have an advantage of controlling the amount of modern intrusions into the program. Does this mean the value of costumed interpretation is seriously diminished in a modern setting? Not necessarily, as the programs presented by the living history group HIstorytellers (the capital “HI” stands for Historical Interpretation) have shown. Interpreters have used historic clothing and props in public school settings with excellent results. Children from kindergarten through sixth grade participated in interactive demonstrations on clothing, school, and household items of the Victorian era with much enthusiasm. Teachers and administrators request repeat performances because of the positive feedback. Interpretive programs involving music and sing-alongs from the period being covered are overwhelmingly popular. The setting is completely modern, but the presentation gives a glimpse of the past. Children are engaged by question and answer games, hands on opportunities, and being included in demonstrations. When the interpreters of HIstorytellers leave, we know from the expressions of the children and their reluctance for our time to end that this extension of education is engaging and successful. Often, the teachers will comment on some piece of information learned themselves.

See it, hear it, say it, touch it, and smell it to increase the value of any learning experience. The more of these included in programs without being intrusive or overbearing, the better the opportunities for audiences to connect. If something is missing, such as the smell of unwashed bodies in the hot 19th-century kitchen, acknowledge it. Then, ask visitors to imagine the heat and lack of deodorant. It will be easy to see by the wrinkled noses that the connection was made. By engaging the audience and gauging their reactions, we can use costumed interpretation judiciously in a variety of settings to enhance visitor connections and stewardship. If a mechanical Mr. Lincoln can do it, then trained interpreters will bring it to life. The measure of success is best summed up in the words of one audience member at a “Tales of the Crypt” presentation. After watching the life portrayal of a deceased citizen, she went to the costumed interpreter after the presentation and said, “I knew you when you were alive.” What a connection!

Leita Spears is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and a graduate student at Lindenwood University. In addition to being a certified interpretive guide in NAI Region 6, she is a co-founder of HIstorytellers, and a member of the editorial board for the Journal of the Fort Smith Historical Society.

Often, I leave the electronic world to reminisce about my childhood—a childhood filled with days chasing butterflies through a nearby field, hours spent catching creek crawdads, and time just playing outside with no particular goal in mind. I remember my father, a single parent raising his only child, asking me what I was doing as I looked under rocks along the river. My answer was simple and that of a youngster: “I plan to leave no stone unturned.” Quietly, my dad began to look under rocks with me as if to help me reach my goal, and as we turned over stones and gently replaced them, he taught me about the animals living beneath.

The author’s son leaves no stone unturned.

Working as an interpreter, perhaps the one thing I hope for my visitors the most is that each generation will pass on the importance of our natural and cultural heritage to the next generation, and that the next generation will be ready and willing to receive this important message. I hope that each child of today can say to their grandchildren tomorrow, “I belonged to a generation in which no stone was left unturned; we explored it all and stood in awe of it all.”

Richard Louv’s work, Last Child in the Woods, published in 2005, actually caused me to shudder to think that there were children that desired not to explore creeks, woodlands, and grassy knolls, but instead stay indoors with all the electrical outlets. I felt as though my hope had been dashed and that the next generation may not be ready or willing to receive messages about our outdoor heritage. It seemed so strange to me, for I strongly believe that the outside world is not only fascinating, but necessary to one’s overall well-being—physically and otherwise. Staying indoors has always been a source of cabin fever for me. Cabin fever is called fever for a reason, and having fever almost always signals illness.

Is it any wonder that children today have vitamin D deficiencies (an easily obtainable nutrient from the sun in just a few minutes per week) or that more seem to be turning up with cases of severe allergies, obesity, diabetes, and attention disorders? Would the next generation be able to realize that what may help them cope with the stress of the electronic age was absolutely free and waiting just outside their very door?

What would happen if, like so many of our cultural traditions (oral and hands-on), physicians and teachers simply ceased to pass on real medical and educational knowledge to new ranks of professionals? Would the human race survive without this accumulated wisdom?

I pondered this question, but had no answers until I became a parent. Surely, parents wouldn’t let their children fall through the cracks of industrialized sidewalks without noticing the succession of crabgrass growing there. Or would they?

Media articles regarding topics such as teaching your child to garden the natural way, new stress-busting facts about children and the great outdoors, and what getting outside can do for your attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) child had caught my attention. So my big question of, “What would happen to the human race?” was replaced with the following: Where are the parents? Even more so, where are the interpretive parents?

Children cannot learn about our natural heritage in a vacuum or by simply staying inside where the electrical outlets are located. Nature shows on TV are not your everyday walk in the park.

Nature author Rachel Carson wrote, “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” However, just how involved do today’s parents want to become after hours at work in front of a computer screen, text-messaged about deadlines, or frustrated because the home microwave went on the blink just when another mad rush meal was needed?

One would think that after such a harried day it would be worth the effort to stop and smell the roses or at least take notice of the lone dandelion poking its yellow head above that asphalt crack. Going outside just to relax seems like something that would be desired if not acted upon. As my father used to say, “Go outside and breath some new air.”

Louv emphasizes the important role of parents in forging an understanding of nature. He also points out that outdoor exposure does not have to be elaborate, and I totally agree. Just going outside is the answer. Turning off one 30-minute TV show and taking a leisurely walk once a day or at least once a week with your children is a tremendous step.

Yes, it is true that thousands of families live in the middle of bustling cities, but at some point there is downtime. Why not use that time to get back to our natural and cultural heritage?

Depending on whom you ask, one may say that a person who spent his or her early years skipping creek stones or building forts led either a glorious or boring childhood. However, children who have never done these things know not if it is a glorious or a boring childhood. They know only of their four walls and the gadgets plugged into outlets.

Parents today have many options. They can take their children to the park, creek, or zoo if it is nearby. They can go to an orchard or berry farm and enjoy the fruit they may pick there as an added nutritional bonus. Even many rooftops in cities are “green” with living plants these days. The key is to appreciate what nature you do have, and teach your children to appreciate it. Every child, from a 14-month old to a 14-year old, can have a good time outside doing something.

In my opinion, Last Child in the Woods beautifully articulates that parents do not need specialized training to give their kids a dose of nature interpretation; but parents do need to maintain a sense of wonder and a desire to turn over a stone or two with their children.

For More Information
Carson, Rachel. The Sense of Wonder. (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1965).
Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. (North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005).

Gladys J. Richter is an interpretive freelance writer.