Photos

Park Ranger is a person in lead of protecting and preserving parklands - national, state or provincial parks. The profession has often been characterized as "protecting the people from the resource, and the resource from the people."
The duties of the modern park ranger are as varied and diverse as the parks where they serve and in recent years have become more highly specialized. Regardless of the regular duties of any one discipline, the goal of all rangers remains to protect the park resources for future generations and to protect park visitors. This goal is accomplished by the professionalism and sometimes overlapping of the different divisions. For example, an interpretive ranger may perform a law enforcement role by explaining special park regulations to visitors and encouraging them to be proper stewards of natural and cultural history. Law enforcement rangers and other park employees may contribute to the mission of the interpretive ranger by providing information to park visitors about park resources and facilities. The spirit of teamwork in accomplishing the mission of protecting the parks and people is underscored by the fact that in many cases, the US National Park Rangers in particular, park rangers share a common uniform regardless of work assignment.
Interpretation and education: Park Rangers provide a wide range of informational services to visitors. Some Rangers provide practical information—such as driving directions, train timetables, weather forecasts, trip planning resources, and beyond. Rangers may provide interpretive programs to visitors intended to foster stewardship of the resources by the visitor. Interpretation in this sense includes (but is not limited to): guided tours about the park's history, ecology or both; slideshows, talks, demonstrations; informal contacts, and historical re-enactments. Rangers may also engage in leading more formalized curriculum-based educational programs, meant to support and complement instruction received by visiting students in traditional academic settings and often designed to help educators meet specific national and/or local standards of instruction. All uniformed rangers, regardless of their primary duties, are often expected to be experts on the resources in their care, whether they are natural or cultural.
Emergency response: Rangers are often trained in wilderness first aid and participate in search and rescue to locate lost persons in the wilderness. Many National Parks require law enforcement rangers to maintain certification as Emergency Medical Technicians or Paramedics. Depending on the needs of the park where assigned, rangers may participate in high-angle rescue, swift-water rescue, may be certified scuba divers, and can become specially trained as helicopter pilots or crewmembers.
Firefighting: Rangers are often the first to spot forest fires and are often trained to engage in wild land firefighting and in some cases structural fire fighting. Rangers also enforce laws and regulations regarding campfires and other fires on park lands. In the face of a fire outside their control, rangers will call for help and evacuate persons from the area pending the arrival of additional firefighters.


In my American journey I visited 18 National Parks and of course I met many park rangers. They are wonderful people, this is my tribute to all of them.