Cobbler, sanitation worker, language interpreter, Sheriff of the Junior Rangers – which of these are real duties performed by Grand Canyon Law Enforcement Rangers? To find out, join in the conversation with three backcountry rangers at Phantom Ranch while they talk about the many hats they wear, and the work they’re most proud to do.

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Jesse: Hey, this is Jesse. We’re five years in to the Behind the Scenery podcast, now, and every now and then we unearth some audio files from the early days. This episode was recorded almost exactly five years ago in the summer of 2020, the first year of the podcast. It’s a conversation between Brendan, an interpretive ranger whose main job is to give talks and answer visitor questions, and two backcountry law enforcement rangers, Kate, and Jacob. You’ll hear Brendan speak first. The episode was recorded at the Phantom Ranger Station at the bottom of Grand Canyon, so you’ll hear some radio chatter in the background. Enjoy the episode. Brendan: All right, go. What different jobs do you have that people may not be aware of?

Kate: Helicopter crew member.

Jacob: Leave no trace trainer.

Kate: Climbing Ranger.

Jacob: Swift Water rescue technician.

Kate: Victim Witness services coordinator.

Jacob: Wildland firefighter.

Kate: Shoe repairer, backpack repairer.

Brendan: Cobbler?

Kate: Cobbler, that’s it!

[laughing]

Jacob: Um, we didn’t cover this, but informal interpreter.

Brendan: Yeah, I would say, yeah, I would say it's a huge part of your job.

Jacob: Or actually along those lines I'm also a language interpreter.

Brendan: Yeah, you are a language interpreter. For Mandarin?

Jacob: For Mandarin, yeah.

Kate: Sanitation worker.

Brendan: Yes, didn't you? Weren't you nominated for an award for cleaning toilets?

Kate: I got a fake award.

Brendan: Oh yeah.

Kate: Decorated with gilded toilet paper. Yeah.

Jacob: Oh, that's pretty official. That's amazing. OK.

Kate: Yeah, it’s in my file.

[laughing]

Kate: Yeah, my employee file.

Kate: Oh. Emergency medical technician, yeah.

Jacob: I would say also trail worker. Trail maintenance, if you will.

Kate: Acting search and rescue coordinator.

Jacob: What are we missing? Oh, high angle rescue technician.

Brendan: I would say you're also cooks. I've seen both of you cook a lot of food for a lot of people.

Kate: Lot of ramen, yeah.

Brendan: A lot of ramen.

Jacob: Yeah, this is true.

Kate: Um, emotional caregiver.

Brendan: I think that's probably the biggest thing. I would say, cheerleader for you too.

Jacob: Yeah, for sure.

Brendan: You can get out. You can do it!

Kate: We would, I would say I'm a resource technician. I try to do like archaeological monitoring or report paleontology or yup.

Brendan: I bet there's more, but I, oh you got one more?

Jacob: I got one more. I'm trying to think how you would word this a, swearer in of Junior Rangers?

Kate: Yeah

Jacob: How would you say that?

Brendan: Are you deputizing them?

Jacob: Yeah. So maybe like, sheriff of the Junior Rangers.

Brendan: Or a master of ceremonies? Well, I think I've seen both of you like you just were out doing like emergency medical technician stuff or like, had a law enforcement contact and you walk into the station without missing a beat. There's Junior Rangers and you're like, boom, swearing in. I'm like, how do they do that? It’s like two different parts of your brain.

[laughing]

Brendan: All right. So, what is an example of when something funny happened from wearing too many hats?

Jacob: So yeah, so this actually refers back to my previous park, which was Death Valley. Hottest place on the planet. And yeah, it's really hot. So, one of the things that goes on there is that, you know, because the valley that would imply that it's walled in by mountains on either side so, in terms of fires that occur in that park, with it being Death Valley and not a lot of vegetation and burn, it's usually cars or vehicles that burn either coming into the valley because they're burning up their brakes or coming out of the valley because they're burning up their engines. So, all the Rangers there are in addition to law enforcement, EMS and such, there are also structure firefighters. And structure firefighting obviously involves a lot of training to keep up your skills. So, there's one day where all of us were gathered together and we were training with the fire engines. You know, flowing water from the hydrants and just practicing evolutions which is, you know, pulling the hose off and charging them with water and then spraying on a fake fire and all that. So, if you picture the entire on duty staff of Death Valley National Park, so that would be something on the order of like 10 or 12 Rangers, all in their firefighter turnouts, which you never get unless you're in training or on a real fire, and then suddenly out of the blue dispatch calls and says, hey, there's a car burning about 12 miles away, and we all just look at each other and we're like, hey, we’re ready to go. And there's a there's a in unison: “Yay!” And we all just.

[laughing]

Jacob: Just jumped in the fire engine and of course you know you couldn't all fit in the fire engine, but yeah, we all jumped in the appropriate number of vehicles and our response time to that fire was probably the fastest you'd ever get at Death Valley because everyone was already ready to go. And then of course immediately afterwards we all switched back into our regular Park ranger uniforms and go about our business. That was one fun instance where, you know you're a Park ranger. You actually dressed in the perform your, you’re a park ranger, but you're actually for an hour or two during this day, dressed as a firefighter, and that just so happened to be exactly what was needed at the right time.

Kate: Lucky hat. You had the lucky hat on. Yeah.

[laughing]

Jacob: Yeah, we had the lucky hats on.

Brendan: Are you? I do want to hear from you as well, Kate. But are you two like me, where you forget you're in uniform sometimes? And then I well, in my role, I go up to someone like start telling them about lizards and they’re like who is this weird person?

Jacob: Oh, like when you’re not in uniform?

Brendan: Yeah, because I forget I'm not, I'm not in uniform. I'm not identifiable. But you know.

Kate: I'm acutely aware of the ten pounds of defensive equipment on my waist when I'm not wearing my duty gear, I'm like not working.

Jacob: Yeah, I would. I would second that. I think it's not just the weight, but you know, it's just. I think when I take the uniform off. It's I can relax a bit and that just extends into whatever I'm doing when I’m not at work.

Kate: Yeah. Well, I think one thing too that I realized is that I see all of the things that I as a professional should be concerned about. But you know, we see them all the time. And so, on my days off, when I'm not in the place that I work or. Not it's. I still see all of the safety issues that need addressed and you have to really stop and think about like, what is the right thing to do? Like, will I be safe if I interject myself into something? Do I need to call somebody else who's ready to respond to this safety thing here? And as a Park ranger, we have to know a lot about the things that we need to do to take good care of this place and ourselves in it. And I think it's really important to not be that you know citizen out at the climbing area who is just in everybody's business about everything that they're doing wrong in in the minutiae. Like I, you know, it's you just have to let some things go and really weigh what it's worth. Like there's been a fire ban, and I found multiple fires out on the National Forest and you know it's. You have to think you have to really weigh the risk. Like what? What's the benefit of taking action when you're not working?

Jacob: And that actually goes towards a tendency, at least among visitor and resource protection rangers, that can be kind of dangerous in terms of our mental and emotional health in that, at the end of the day, we need to recognize that this is still, it's just a job. It's not our identity. And it's not, it doesn't define us. So, I've seen I was a victim of this when I was a lot younger too. Rangers, for whom this job becomes their identity and defines them, and it takes over their life, both while they're working technically on the clock, but also whether or not working. So, it's good to consciously create that separation between work and not work in that instance because we, I think for most Park rangers a lot of us do a lot of the same things while we're not working.

Brendan: Like, you still you still hike, you still climb and you're still out here? Yeah.

Jacob: We still spend time out in the outdoors. Yeah, even if it's not in our own park. But we still, by virtue of being Park rangers, recognize what's allowed and what's not allowed in terms of regulations, wherever we may be. And so yeah, it's like Kate said, you have to be cognizant of that and balance the balance, the benefits versus the disadvantages of speaking up or acting, and I think as time has passed, I recognize more and more the value of non-acting while I'm not in uniform in order to preserve or sustain my mental emotional health.

Kate: Absolutely:

Jacob: And that's something that I’ll just say, like, that's something one of my, my actually, my very first supervisor in this job kept stressing and I never figured it out till, well, after she retired, so I figured out eventually. But yeah, it's something that younger rangers I think definitely need to watch out for or at least be coached by more experienced Rangers to be cognizant o...