Ranger’s slaying intrudes on sacred nature of national parks
On my honeymoon, I slept in a tent at Grand Canyon National Park.
I have dressed a toddler in a rain poncho to hike in Olympic National Park.
In Rocky Mountain National Park, I’ve been short of breath walking near the Alpine Visitor Center, elevation 11,796 feet.
At Grand Teton National Park, I was wowed by a late-night view of stars during a ranger-led astronomy walk. I have been swimming in Glacier National Park’s ice-cold Lake McDonald, and in Yellowstone National Park’s naturally heated Firehole River.
If I had the time and money, I would visit them all. The title of
Wherever it happened, the slaying of Margaret Anderson would have been horrible. Where it did happen makes it all the more unthinkable.
The New Year’s Day shooting death of the 34-year-old ranger at Mount Rainier National Park shattered more than lives. Sunday’s violence was also an assault on an ideal.
From Alaska’s Denali to Dry Tortugas National Park at the end of the Florida Keys, our parks are incomparable places. Their uniqueness is more than a sum of physical beauties and geographic diversities. To enter a national park is to be in a world apart.
And yet, the parks bring people together. Stop during a trek on boardwalks around Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser and listen to all the languages being spoken by other walkers. There will be many. Solo hikers, large families, seniors on tour buses, they come to see and to experience places preserved for all of us, for all time.
Sunday’s shooting raises many troubling issues. Shooting suspect Benjamin Colton Barnes, found dead in the park from what officials believe was exposure, was an Army veteran who had served in Iraq. According to court documents and the Associated Press, a woman who had a child with Barnes had sought a temporary restraining order against him, and had written that he was suicidal and possibly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The shooting will surely spark discussion of a new federal law, which took effect in 2010, allowing visitors to legally take loaded weapons into national parks, as long as state gun laws are followed.
Charles Beall, chief of interpretation and education at North Cascades National Park, said Tuesday that some rangers are armed. “A special group of rangers are commissioned and they are armed. They go through a yearlong training course,” he said. According to the Associated Press, Anderson was tasked with law enforcement and would have been armed.
Beall, who declined to comment on the law allowing loaded guns, said the National Parks Traveler website lists nine rangers murdered in the history of the National Park Service. Five of those killings have occurred since 1990.
“That might lead some to the conclusion it is getting more dangerous,” Beall said. “Is it? I don’t know.”
Even as troubles of the outside world encroach on national parks, they still stand as our very best places.
“National parks are often thought of as refuges, places of escape, places for families to bond together, have fun and create memories,” Beall said. “They are places of discovery and amazement. They are not places associated with fear or violence or threats,” he said. “That’s one of the great draws of national parks. We feel safety and comfort.”
Ranger Anderson served that mission.
“People doing that kind of work believe in the mission of the National Park Service, to preserve our heritage for future generations,” Beall said. “It’s a cheesy phrase, but service is our last name. We’ll move past this tragedy and make sure our rangers have training,”
For my children, national parks were summer homes when they were growing up. I have a new grandson. His father is a baseball fan, but his nursery isn’t done up in Seattle Mariners blue and turquoise.
Painted an earthy green and with posters of Mount Rainier and other national parks, my grandson’s room looks like it belongs in a rustic lodge. My daughter spent a summer working at Yellowstone. It shows in her baby’s room.
It’s a first step into the grand places my grandson will someday see.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Support local journalism
If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.
