When a young park ranger was asked by his supervisor to clean out an old barn at Grand Teton National Park in the early 1970s, he discovered a dusty and stained blue, grey, and green poster inviting folks to “Meet the Ranger Naturalist at Jenny Lake Museum". This young ranger, Doug Leen, soon discovered that it was one in a series of posters created by the Works Progress Administration to put artists to work and promote visitation to the national parks during the late 1930s.
This week the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick sits down with Doug to discuss his newly released book documenting his life-long journey to find the original WPA posters and protect them.
By Jess Repanshek - November 5th, 2023
0:02 National Parks Traveler introduction
0:12 Episode Intro with Kurt Repanshek
0:43 Escalante - Tim Heintz - The Sounds of Peaks, Plateaus and Canyons
1:03 Xplorer Maps
1:24 Washington’s National Park Fund
1:56 Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation
2:21 The Search for WPA Park Posters
15:51 Almost Home - Randy Peteresen - The Sounds of the Great Smoky Mountains
16:01 NPT Promo
16:13 Great Smoky Mountains Association
16:34 Friends of Acadia
17:00 Potrero Group
17:31 The Search for WPA Park Posters Continues
33:30 Whispering Winds - Grant Geissman - Sounds of the Caribbean
33:42 Interior Federal Credit Union
34:18 Grand Teton National Park Foundation
34:46 The Everglades Foundation
34:58 Yosemite Conservancy
35:23 The Search for WPA Park Posters Continues
43:40 Wabanaki - Nature’s Symphony - The Sounds of Acadia
44:34 Episode Closing
44:55 Orange Tree Productions
45:27 Splitbeard Productions
45:38 National Parks Traveler footer
Have you ever closely inspected the landscape when you’re touring the National Park System, particularly in the West? You never know what you might find.
Back in 2010 a 7-year-old attending a Junior Ranger program at Badlands National Park spied a partially exposed fossil that turned out to be the skull of a 32-million-year-old saber-toothed cat.
If you’ve ever visited Petrified Forest National Park you’ve no doubt marveled over the colorful fossilized tree trunks. There are also fossilized trees on the northern range of Yellowstone National Park, but nowhere near as colorful.
Wolverines, the largest land-dwelling members of the weasel family, once roamed across the northern tier of the United States, and as far south as New Mexico in the Rockies and southern California in the Sierra Nevada range. But after more than a century of trapping and habitat loss, wolverines in the lower 48 today exist only as small, fragmented populations in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, and northeast Oregon.
Spur a discussion about traveling to a national park for a vacation and odds are that it will revolve around getting out into nature, looking for wildlife, perhaps honing your photography skills, or marveling at incredible vistas.
Will the discussion include destinations that portray aspects of the country’s history, or cultural melting pot?
Tens of millions of people in the United States will be able to witness a Total Solar Eclipse on Monday as the rare astronomical event cuts a path from Texas to Maine, up to 122 miles wide in some spots. This is a great opportunity to see the exact moment when the moon fully blocks the sun, creating a blazing corona visible to those observing from the center line of totality.
With March madness down to the Sweet 16, and Opening Day of Major League Baseball having arrived, we’re going to take a break this week and dive into our podcast archives for this week’s show.
This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at the National Parks Traveler. My NCAA bracket was busted the very first day, and while the Yankees won their opening day game against the Houston Astros, I don’t think they’ll go undefeated this year.
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The Essential RVing Guide
The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.
This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.
You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.
So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.
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