Shelton Johnson on the NPS culture

Transcript:


Can you share a little about the culture of the Park Service, maybe as a whole but also
at Yosemite?
Well, I mean the culture of the Park Service, the culture here, I think everyone
recognizes that they're pretty lucky to be in this place.
But they also recognize that it's a great responsibility to be in this place.
There are a lot of challenges facing Yosemite.
I think that first and foremost, we're a World Heritage site.
We're known across the planet and so many people from all over the world dream of
being
here. We're on people's bucket list.
This is one of the places where someone wants to see this valley before they die.
That's a very powerful objective, that's a very powerful and poetic ambition.
And so, you don't want to let those people down.
You don't want to be the one standing in front of them, whose job is to tell the story of
Yosemite and somehow you lessen that grandeur.
You mitigate that beauty.
You should be that person who tells them that what you imagine is nothing close to the
reality
of what this place is.
And that expansiveness is what you should be conveying to make something that they
thought, "I can't imagine being here and now I'm here.
And now you're telling me something that I didn't even imagine that's part of this place
that was hidden from view."

NPS Park Ranger Shelton Johnson at Yosemite National Park describes what it’s like to work at the NPS.