Accidental Ranger: Tales from Forty-Three Years as a National Park Ranger - Softcover

Meikle, Lyndel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0878427007 ISBN 13: 9780878427000

Publisher: Mountain Press, 2021

Synopsis

Lyndel Meikle, a Montana native, spent thirty-nine years at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in an ever-evolving job which included giving tours of the historic mansion, reaching into a cow to straighten out the leg of its emerging calf (hint: take your ring off first), and doing road patrol in Yellowstone National Park during the infamous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Perhaps her most important discovery was that you don't have to be just one thing in life. At work or out of it-climbing up a granite wall; working in Montana, Georgia, Vietnam, and Texas; teaching a high school blacksmithing class; poring over documents in an historical archive; or learning the prison art of horsehair hitching-she found a great world to explore. And it's still out there.

Accidental Ranger leads the reader through a sometimes bewildering tale of forty-three years as a national park ranger. And along the way, an improbable cast of characters emerges.

About this title

About the Author

Lyndel was born in Helena, in the first half of the last century, as she tells the high school students to whom she teaches basic blacksmithing at Powell County High School. She finds it's worth the price of divulging her antiquity as she watches the students work this out, their eyes widening in alarm. Charmingly, they then offer to lift heavy coal sacks for her until the horror fades and all returns to normal.

Over the years, Lyndel had three main ambitions: to be a cowgirl, a ranger, and go back to Montana. The circuitous path she followed to achieve all three of those goals is described in this book. But, as she explains, it is really the story of hands, hooves, claws, and paws. Her teachers ranged from several ants and caterpillars to university professors, curious children, and liars.

Her career took her from Vietnam in 1957 to Yosemite National Park, Fort Point, Alcatraz in San Francisco, and finally Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge, Montana. Along the way, she discovered that a job could have many dimensions, and there was always something new to learn and challenge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mountain Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0878427007
• ISBN 13: 9780878427000
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 152