Last year, I read The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams and I absolutely loved it. (Thanks for the recommendation, Dr. H!)  

In this memoir, Williams uses National Parks as a backdrop to explore, relate, and interact with the land, wildlife, history, and culture preserved in them. As a career park ranger and avid user of our public lands, this book was right up my alley.

The theme that threads The Hour of Land together is each chapter focuses on a different National Park.  What I love most about it is that each chapter is not just a highlight reel of a vacation that Williams took in the big well-known National Parks. While some of the big, well-known parks, like Grand Teton and Acadia, are the subjects of chapters, so are lesser-known ones like Gates of the Artic and Big Bend, as are cultural and historical sites like Cesar Chavez and Gettysburg.  

All of these protected places are given equal merit by Williams and her prose weaves together a collective of unique meditations and stories about them and the variety of relationships she and others have with them.  She recognizes that public lands are, in addition to being important places that protect natural beauty, wildlife, history, and culture, important for the people that visit them. To their visitors, they become a canvas in which they find meaning and connections to their own lives and experiences.

As I was reading The Hour of Land, I decided to read as much of it as possible outside and on public lands. And I was reading it in one of these places, an idea struck me: Why not write my own personal topography of the public lands I read A Personal Topography at?

Though I worried that this project could become and be received as pure imitation, the idea festered in my head. The desire to tell stories of my relationships with public lands. Public lands that, though not National Parks, have had an indelible impact on my life.      

So here is my personal topography of each of the public lands that I read The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks at.

Irish Grove (A Maryland Ornithological Society Sanctuary)

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, public lands have seen a massive surge in visitation. People have flocked to the outdoors like never before.

In many ways this has been a great thing. More people getting out in nature is always something to be celebrated.

In the agency I work for, the Maryland Park Service, we’re fond of saying, “When everyone shuttered the doors, we opened our gates.” It is a thing of pride to know that we were able to provide safe and somewhat normal outdoor recreational experiences for so many people during such a challenging time.

But this massive up-surge in visitation has brought with it challenges.

Many parks and other public lands were already exceeding their capacity for visitors before the Covid-19 pandemic. Many often don’t have enough parking spaces or bathroom facilities and existing facilities are often thirty to fifty plus years old. The phrase “Our parks are being loved to death” is brandied about often. Trails and vegetation are eroded due to overuse. Trash is everywhere. The best way to go about achieving the dual mandate of preservation and public access is debated endlessly.   

As a ranger, I am lucky in that the current park I work at is a smaller one and doesn’t really have these overcrowding problems. Sure, on summer weekends our campground can be quite full and every now and again we have to direct traffic in our day-use area. But, in the five years that I have worked at Janes Island State Park, we have only ever closed to capacity once due to a boat parade that went by the park.   

As a regular public land user though, this overcrowding has made me, and many others, get strategic when planning a visit to certain parks. When I visited Yosemite National Park this past summer, my friends and I made sure to get there before 7am to find a parking spot.

To try and avoid this, many parks are going to a timed-reservation entry system, meaning you must make a reservation a certain time prior to your visit to be able to get in the park. I experienced this during my visit to Rocky Mountain National Park and it worked well enough. The day prior to our visit at 7 pm, we simply purchased a $1 reservation pass and presented it at the entrance gate to the park the next day.  While the park was busy that day, didn’t seem overcrowded and we were able to find parking in the busy Bear Lake area.

However, I have mixed feelings about reservation systems like this. As a ranger, I applaud these style systems that seem to be working somewhat effectively. But I bemoan the fact that in some places like Rocky Mountain National Park, it seems gone are the days of just waking up, seeing that the weather is nice, and deciding to go to the park.

Thankfully, Irish Grove is not one of these places. Irish Grove is a nature preserve owned by the Maryland Ornithological Society that very few people know about.  Emphasis on very few people.

I lived only fifteen minutes from Irish Grove for two years and never heard about it. Everyone who I have told about it since discovering it hasn’t heard about it. Even people who have lived their entire lives five to ten minutes from it haven’t heard about it.

I was only by random chance that discovered Irish Grove. In the fall of 2021, I helped to install barn owl nesting boxes in the marshes on Janes Island. The next spring, I got an email from a colleague who help us initiate and install the barn owl nesting boxes, saying that they would be installing more at Irish Grove and asked if we wanted to help them.

In saying yes to this, I was given a GPS coordinate and somewhat vague sense of a rendezvous point.

Irish Grove is located at the end of a road that dead ends into the Pocomoke Sound of the Chesapeake Bay. So, when you are out amongst its 2,326 acres of Eastern Shore saltmarsh it feels like you are at the end of the world.  Had there not been vehicles at the house that denotes the entrance to the preserve, I would have never guessed that it was open to the public.

Upon arrival, I was greeted by two of my colleagues from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Paul Bystrak, caretaker extraordinar of Irish Grove. Paul has been volunteering at Irish Grove since the Maryland Ornithological Society purchased the property in the 1960’s. Because of this, he is quick to tell you how much the land has changed since then. Areas that were once forests are now marshes and areas that were once farm fields are now forests. All are threatened by climate change and sea level rise, with Paul being a living witness to it. We spent a good amount of that day just listening to Paul and being oriented by him to the sanctuary. The job of discovering the uniqueness of Irish Grove was equally as important to the task of installing barn owl nesting boxes.  

Barn Owl nesting boxes, or BOBs as I like to call them, are approximately 3 ft by 2 ft bird houses that rest on two 2 by 4 posts. They mimic the traditional hollow, dead tree hole that the owls would normally live in. As they are a threatened species in Maryland, installing BOBs throughout marshes has been shown as an effective way to provide habitat for and increase Barn Owl populations. They are used by the female Barn Owl to lay her eggs and then raise her chicks in the first few weeks of their life before they fledge.   

While we planned on installing three BOBs that day, by the end of the day only one was in the ground. For the two BOB’s that remained, I came back to help Paul and others install them, experiencing more of the uniqueness of the sanctuary each time. And once those three BOBs were up, I kept coming back still, helping out as much as I can with their annual spring and fall volunteer workdays. Plus, for the past three years, I’ve been able to use the sanctuary as a location for a First Day Hike.  Though these hikes for whatever reason haven’t been that well attended, it’s been a joy sharing Irish Grove with a lucky few.

And, on days when I need joy myself, I come to Irish Grove for it to serve as a backdrop for reading. There is one spot in particular that I like, where when you sit at it, you feel completely alone in the world. The marsh seems to extend forever here and there is no sign of any human impact save for one of the BOBs I helped install.

When I came to this spot with The Hour of Land in my hand, it was a perfect February day. Despite a light breeze, the sun is out and there is no chill in the air. 2,326 acres and not another person among them.

Now, I wouldn’t make a habit of coming here during the summer. 2,326 acres of Eastern Shore saltmarsh also means seemingly 2,326 biting flies per foot of those acres.

But on this day, I am alone at Irish Grove. And while it is warm for winter, there isn’t even a fly to keep me company.  A piece of public land all to myself.

Eastern Shore of Virginia Wildlife National Wildlife Refuge

I used to live directly across the road from the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge when I worked and lived at Kiptopeke State Park. They are just separated from each other by Route 13 and a little over a mile. You can drive between the two in less than a minute or bike between the two if you want to.

When I worked and lived at Kiptopeke State Park, I went to the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge exactly once. I went the day before I moved away just so I could say I visited it.

I’ve noticed I tend to say that I’m going explore cool places near me but never actually do so. I often take trips to far-flung parks and preserves, yet at the time of writing this, I have a two-page list of local places I want to visit but still haven’t despite having lived four years in my current area.

Yet, as fate would have it, now that I no longer live in the vicinity of the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge, I actually visit it quite often.

From where I live currently on the lower part of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, my parents live, give or take, at the same line of latitude as me, on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay. Yet a journey to visit them takes me approximately four hours as there are only two bridges to cross it. I don’t usually take the northern route across the Bay Bridge in Annapolis because of lots of traffic. Instead, I go southern route across the Bay Bridge and Tunnel in Norfolk, which makes the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge an almost perfect halfway point on my journey.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge is situated at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The land on which it rests was once an Army base protecting the mouth of the bay from invasion. There is an artillery bunker that still attests to this, complete with a gun barrel and a 2,100 lb artillery shell.   If you want to, not saying that I have, you can hop on this artillery shell and pretend to ride it like you are Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.

The top of this bunker has been turned into a wonderful lookout, as it is one hundred or so feet above the flat Eastern Shore landscape. On it, you can see miles of marshes and barrier islands, all of which are all uninhabited and only accessible via boat.  A sign on the lookout informs you as they are all protected and conserved by either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, or the Nature Conservancy.

These islands provide a chain of food and habitat for a stunning variety and density of wildlife. In the fall, as migrating birds make their way down the Delmarva Peninsula, these islands are vital rest stops, with the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge being the last stop before they must fly across the Chesapeake Bay.

Because of this, the refuge is managed with the goal “to provide different age classes of habitat to benefit a wide range of species from grassland species to those that need mature fruit and insect-laden vegetation.” Controlled burns maintain open fields of wildflowers for pollinators. Aggressive invasive species, like privet and wisteria, which have also made their home in the refuge, are targeted for removal.

While all of this is great for plants and wildlife, at first glance The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge does not seem like much. It is not a place you would plan vacation to. At only 1,127 acres, you can hike all the trails and paddle the marshes in an afternoon.

But, for me, as a place to stretch my legs after two hours driving, it is paradise.  The short trails provide for thirty minutes or so of leisurely walking and a variety of sights and sounds. They are just long enough to be a refreshing break, but not long enough to be a time suck in the middle of a long trip.

Seth, the lone Ranger at the refuge, who I occasionally run into, told me that I am not the only one who does this. He has talked to many a long haul trucker who do the same thing, mirroring the birds on their way up and down the east coast.

Whenever the Visitor Center is open, I always make a point to stop in. Every time I do so, I am always delighted to find volunteer Bob Toner manning the front desk. Bob’s enthusiasm for the refuge is something beautiful to behold. A lifelong resident of Virginia’s Eastern Shore, he is quick to tell you about the human history of the area while also excitingly recounting what bird species have been spotted recently. Every time I see him, he is always eager to tell me of the things going on at the refuge. On my last trip, he was quick to direct my attention to the new bird pond that had just been put in front of the Visitor Center’s birding observation area.

“So far today,” Bob tells me, “We’ve seen lots of Blue Jays, Cape May Warblers, a Red-eyed Vireo and a Red-Shouldered Hawk hanging around the bushes.”

Bob told me his exact age at once, but I’ve since forgotten it.  At this point, I would guess he’s at least 97 years old. So, I cherish every conversation I have with him and hope for many more for years to come.  

In addition to Bob and lots of cool exhibits, the Visitor Center also has another great feature, immaculate bathrooms.  And unlike a gas station or rest stop, there is never a line for them.

All this, plus one of the best reading spots in the world, is to be found in the 1,127 acres of the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge. It is small in a geographic area but abounds in things to offer for all species of visitors.  

My heart belongs to places like this. (The roots of my love affair with public lands can be traced back to a small tract of the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge in my hometown.) They are not Yellowstone or Yosemite, but they are no less special.  

Janes Island State Park

I’ve been making more of an effort to read on my lunch break lately.  I used to do this all the time, and I still always bring a book with me each day. But at some point, years ago, I stopped.

Instead, I usually doomscroll.

I have been a Park Ranger at Janes Island State Park for five years now.

There are many pros and cons when it comes to working at a park for years.

The main pro is that you really get know a park and all it’s in and outs. Time allows you to develop a relationship with the land that you don’t get from being just a visitor. 

Visitors, by definition, are just visiting. Whether they are coming for the day or camping over the weekend, their stay is brief. In The Hour of Land, Williams states the average amount of time a visitor spends in a national park is just fifty-seven hours or 2.4 days. In my experience, this is probably similar for state parks, with the average camper coming just for a weekend getaway.  At most, a visitor is only staying for the maximum camping period that most parks now define. In Maryland State Parks this is 14 days in a 21-day period. Even regular visitors, who come back to the park year after year, are only experiencing a park for a short window of time. That short window of time may be the same or different in terms of hours spent in the park each year. But each visit will never be the same.    

When you work at a park, you get to experience it long term, in all its many multitudes.  And when I say multitudes, I mean it in the truest sense of the word.   

You get to experience the seasonal rhythms of the park. I love when the loblolly pine pollen covers the entirety of Janes Island State Park in an inch of yellow dust during the middle of April. I treasure experiencing what can only be described super blooms of dragonflies on a hot July night. I no longer get freaked out by the random October, king tide floods. And I cherish cold January nights when the sky is clear, the stars of the milky way beaming, with the park empty save for a fox cub or two. The foxes howl like a woman screaming, which on more than one occasion led me to scan the woods with a flashlight, looking for someone being murdered, before I learned the true nature of their calls.

And though Janes Island State Park may rhyme from season to season, I am constantly stunned by the new things I notice and experience. Just this past year, I have seen the northern lights for the first time on a random day in October, finally gotten decent at birding, and have been to places on Janes Island I hadn’t set foot on before.  

By working at a park for years, you also get to experience everything in the park in a non-natural sense. I know where pretty much every tool, piece of equipment, key, office supply, brochure, handout, or for sale item, is located. I’ve seen what’s behind all but one locked door. I’ve given the same educational programs repeatedly and gotten pretty good at doing them. I’ve seen everything fail and break. I’ve seen stuff that I’ve made or fixed get broken two or three times by park visitors. And each time this happens, I swallow my frustration and make or fix the thing again trying to ensure that no one except me and my coworkers will know that it was ever broken. I know where each of the water shut off valves are in case a water main or hydrant busts from someone driving over it. I know how to troubleshoot where the failure is when a campsite’s electric fails and then repair it. I know that if there is a sewage backup, then we need to call this one phone number and then close all the park bathhouses because, if we don’t then raw sewage is going to start coming out of the floor drains in our office building.

And being at a park which is on the water and at sea level, as previously mentioned, I’ve experienced many floods and learned the unique but kind of routine way a flood occurs. You would think the park would flood from the canal that separates Janes Island from the mainland portion. However, the area right next to the canal is actually the highest ground and has never received any flood water.  Rather, when the park floods, it’s going to flood from the tidal drainage ditches, first flooding the day-use parking lot, then the marina parking lot, then the trailer storage parking lot, then A-Loop, then the entrance road, and if it’s bad enough, our park office.

These are all the good things about working at a park for years.

At the same time, when you’ve worked at the same park for years, there is a con: You can start to become complacent.  Now, there are many ways that complacency can develop and fester. It is quite persistent and can be insidious.  In order to continue growing you have to commit to fighting it. Yet, in spite of my best efforts, some level of complacency is inevitable.

Here is a minor way is I have become complacent. Janes Island State Park is located on the Delmarva peninsula. The Delmarva peninsula, which comprises Delaware and the Eastern Shores of Maryland and Virginia, is the body of land that separates the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Janes Island State Park falls on the Western Shore of the Delmarva peninsula. From the park, you can gaze out over the Chesapeake Bay which seems as vast as the ocean.  

So, I like to say that Janes Island State Park is one of the few places on the east coast where you can view a west coast sunset.

Every evening when the campground is open, you can watch people migrating to the water to watch these spectacular sunsets. Many of them have their cameras out recording the last bits of light silhouette the Chesapeake Bay, Janes Island, and Daugherty Creek Canal.

A lot of the time I ignore these spectacular sunsets.

Instead, I focus on the tasks at hand. Sunset to me means a variety of closing duties, from making sure everyone is out of the day-use area of the park, to closing the camp store and making sure all the doors are locked, to cleaning bathrooms.

This is just one way I’ve gotten complacent. There are other ways that I’ve gotten complacent at times, from maybe not giving the best response to a question from a visitor that strikes me as dumb, to thinking a new hire will know how to do some exactly the way I want them to.

However, when I recognize myself being complacent, I try to think back to a lesson I learned from Ranger School.  

Ranger School for the Maryland Park Service is an academy like training that all newly hired full-time Rangers must complete. It is traditionally a month where new rangers spend both time in the classroom and field training on various skills. At the same time each day, everyone is assigned a team and responsibilities. Together, with your classmates, you are thrown through a gauntlet of scenarios which represent anything and everything you may encounter as a Ranger in the Maryland Park Service, from angry customers, clueless campers, and broken facilities to missing persons, medical emergencies, and crimes. Your job is to respond effectively and efficiently to these scenarios according to everything you learn in class on Maryland Park Service policy and procedures.  

During these scenarios, you are graded and afterwards guided by your dean staff. The whole point is that if you make a mistake, you can learn from it, rather than making the same mistake in your park, where it could have real life consequences.

However, despite knowing this, Ranger School is stressful. The days are long, starting with roll call and uniform inspections at 7 AM, class all morning and afternoon, and then scenarios going as late as 10 PM at night.  It has a reputation for being tough to get through and some rangers experiencing breakdowns.    

On Day One, as my sixteen classmates took our seats next to each other, though we were all somewhat excited, we were all very nervous about what was ahead. It was in this nervous atmosphere that after a standard introduction, my head dean gave a speech that went something like this.

“The upcoming weeks are going to be hard. You are going to face challenging situations. So, before we get started,” he said taking a pause, “take a moment. Remember the reason you’re here.”

My mind went to a variety of reasons from being outside to helping people to just liking that no day is the same.

“You all deserve to be here.” My dean continued. “You all have years of experience, a variety of experience levels at a variety of places. You were all chosen for a reason. So, take a moment.” With this he paused before stating “Just look out the window.”

Our physical classroom was the lake house at New Germany State Park. This is not what one would call a typical, normal classroom, that is a dull, windowless room with just chairs and desks.  This building, which is normally the hub of all park activities, has A-Frame window, in classic parkchitecture still which you can stare out at New Germany Lake, nestled in the mountains of Western Maryland.  

“That’s one reason,” continued my dean pointing at the lake. “Just look at where we get to be.”

With one more dramatic pause, he finished, “So, take a moment. Remember the reason you’re here. You all deserve to be here.” he repeated before finishing with “And as you go forward with the rest of your careers, when you need it, make sure to take a moment and remember and remember why you are here. Why we do what we do. Because that is it”    

Over my career, at times of high stress, the reason I’m a Park Ranger has vanished at times. It’s pretty hard to remember why you are doing a job when you spend an hour cleaning piles of trash, from bottles to little bits of confetti, off the ground from a group who came to party and couldn’t care less about their impact on the environment. Or when someone is cursing you out because you told them their dog had to be on a leash. Or when it’s 10:30 PM on a Friday night and you just want a camper to adhere to quiet hours so that you can go home, but they want to argue with you instead.

It’s also hard to remember at times when your friends and or family are doing something fun on a weekend and you are stuck working. Or when a romantic relationship ends due to your schedules not lining up since she works a 9-5 Monday through Friday job and you don’t. Or when it’s absolutely miserable weather wise and you still have to go out and work in it.

Yet, at same time, over the course of my five years at Janes Island, I’ve grown and learned in ways I would have never thought imaginable.

I’ve developed and then led so many educational programs and field trips, that I would actually say I’m comfortable speaking to the public. At the same time, I’ve also learned how to train and supervise others to led these same programs, as well as a wide variety of other tasks cleaning bathrooms, getting visitors to comply with park rules, and how to drive boats.

I’ve recruited volunteers and then grown relationships with them. And then together with volunteers, I’ve accomplished much from writing and designing a variety of interpretive exhibits, routing wooden directional signs, and even a board game about pollination.

I’ve made, fixed, or replaced, so many things, from lantern post benches to light fixtures, that whenever someone I know comes to Janes Island, I worry I will bore them by pointing at things I am responsible for.

I’ve become a proficient sawyer, growing quite comfortable with a chainsaw to remove hazardous trees. I’ve even managed to overcome my crippling, childhood fear of heights by going up in a bucket truck and pruning trees when it’s nearly all the way extended to fifty-five feet in the air.  

And during all this time, without knowing it, I was developing what Aldo Leopold defines as a land ethic.  A land ethic he states “reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects an individual responsibility for the health of the land.” He goes on to add that, “the evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual as well as emotional process.”

I’m a little ashamed to admit that for the first six months or so, I didn’t like Janes Island State Park. When I interviewed for the position of Park Ranger, I interviewed not just for the position of Park Ranger at Janes Island State Park. Instead, I interviewed for the position of Park Ranger at every park that had the position open in the State of Maryland and was given a list to rank my preferences for which parks I wanted to go to. Janes Island State Park was not on this list.

When I got the call with the offer, my response was, “Ok, I accept, but where is Janes Island State Park?” The HR person that I spoke with didn’t know.

My first day on the job was May 6^th, 2020, aka peak COVID-19 pandemic. During that first summer at Janes Island State Park, in addition to having to learn a new park operation, I also had to learn the new normal of pandemic operations. The park remained open and packed to the gills with people.  But since our buildings were closed, educational programs were cancelled, and we were limiting our interactions with the public to basically only when visitors were breaking the rules, many of the joys of working in a park were limited.  Add in moving to a new place in the middle of nowhere knowing absolutely no one with not a lot going on.

 So, you can imagine it was a hard time.

But, as I got adjusted to Janes Island State Park over the course of that first year, I began to realize magic of the place I was working at and the opportunity that I had to further that magic through my job as a Ranger. And from there I got to work, learning the park and my role at it, all the while developing a relationship with it.

Leopold writes, “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, love, or otherwise have faith in,” 

Though I may not always watch the sunset, I can see the beauty of Janes Island State Park.

Though it doesn’t always seem like it, I feel that whatever work I am doing in Janes Island State Park matters. From just cleaning the bathrooms, to giving instructions on where the dumpsters are, to helping someone get a campfire going, it all matters.  

Though it is at times tested by a small, minority of visitors, I have faith in the value of Janes Island State Park. The connections that it has forged both for me and everyone who has visited matter.

And because of this, I can say that I truly love Janes Island State Park. It has been the forger of my land ethic, and I will take this ethic with me not only to every bit of public land that I visit, but to any piece of land that I visit.

My ultimate hope is, along with Leopold’s, that I can share this land ethic with as many people as I can, both in my job as a Ranger and outside of it. This entails providing for safe, fun, and responsible experiences in nature.

This is my reason for doing what I do. So, I’m going to try to get better about following my Ranger School dean’s instructions and remembering this reason.

And I’m going to make sure I pause and cherish the sunset when I can.