By: Nevada Silsby-Inman

What even is a Ranger?

What do you think of when someone says Historian? Most likely, a room full of books and endless stacks of papers detailing whatever subject the institute has hired a historian for. Public Historian? Maybe a museum curator or a docent, giving tours and trying to inspire the public. What about Park Ranger? You’re probably envisioning the green slacks and flat hats leading a hike, talking all about the forest and the animals scurrying past as you draw nearer. Although ideal, that image of a Ranger could not be farther from the truth. Being a ranger is much, much more than hikes and flowers.

For the last two months, I have had the honor and privilege of serving as a Park Ranger Intern at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota. I had the same perception of Rangers when I decided on this career years ago. Still, as a Public History Major and Anthropology Minor, I struggled to find a niche and almost gave up on the idea entirely—that is, until I heard about an Interpretive Ranger. Interpretation is a cornerstone of Public History, essentially how to make history accessible and enjoyable for the general public.

A park ranger stands behind a counter inside a visitor center, raising one hand as if leading an oath or giving instructions. Several children and adults face the ranger, gathered around a large map spread across the counter. A mounted bison head hangs on the wall behind the ranger.

Figure 1: Nevada Silsby-Inman swears in Junior Rangers at Theodore Roosevelt NP South Visitor Center. Photo by Ranger Macy Elfring, 2026.   

Over 332 million people flock to these pristine landscapes every year, and in my interactions with them, many are interested in the parks and their origins. They have an urge to explore and learn, and the Parks represent a tangible throughline to the people who came before them, as well as a gift to the generations of Americans who will come after us. Oftentimes, the history of conservation and natural resource management is rooted in racism, corporate greed, and a lack of understanding. Parks try to teach that history to visitors by relating these tangible resources, like plants, rock formations, and animals, to that murky history, inspiring guests to dig deeper. Animals, trees, and flowers have an inherent story and history formed by the people around them, like Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and even you and me. That is the job of an interpretive ranger.

The Jobs and Projects of an Interpretive Ranger

Every morning when you put on your crisp button-down shirt and pin the gold badge to your chest, you are signing up to do a plethora of jobs. The vast daily duties of an Interp Park ranger range from guest services, tour guiding, search and rescue (SAR), research, art, ecology, and archeology, to name a few.

Most mornings are filled with endless research, hunkered down in a dusty library, surrounded by books used by rangers all across the country, from different times. You spend time in the cool, dark, damp room filtering through book after book, trying to find resources to base a program on. There are four main types of programs at Theodore Roosevelt National Park: the 1883 Maltese Cabin Talk and Tour, Guided Hikes, Night Programming, and Pop-up Programs. Each one is based on a story peppered with bits of natural history, and the best way to weave a story is to tell its history.

I have mostly been in charge of Cabin Talks and Guided Hikes for the summer. My programs center on a story, whether the tumultuous early life of Theodore Roosevelt or how we, as humans, played a role in the extinction of bison. In most cases within the National Park Service, or NPS for short, our visitors are tourists on vacation looking for adventure with a side of knowledge. They are often more interested in just looking at wildlife rather than listening to facts about it, and that is where the art of storytelling comes in. One must walk a thin line of discomfort, entertainment, and factual correctness. How do you make something that may be boring or sad compelling to the general adult-aged public? That is the question Interp Rangers seek to answer.

A lone bison stands in an open prairie filled with yellow‑green grass and scattered wildflowers. Above it, a bright blue sky with white clouds stretches across the horizon.

Figure 2: Bison grazing in prairie clover field on Petrified Loop Trail, Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Photo by Nevada Silsby-Inman, 2026.

Combining the life of a Naturalist and a Historian

When I am leading hikes, particularly my bison hike, titled Westward Expansion and Bison Ranchin’, A Glimpse of how westward expansion affected the American Bison, I am often forced to take on the role of a naturalist. I must make mention of otherwise dry factssuch as bison behavior, migration patterns, speed, and physical attributes. This is a little out of my depth, but my background in research as a historian made it easy to comb through documents and retain information about bison behavior. However easy the research was, I would once again have to find a way to make these facts compelling. You need to be silly to be a Ranger; it is a fact of the job. I spend time on my hike acting as a bison’s tail or trying to get my guests to think like a bison, parading around, and making a fool of myself while presenting this information.

A person stands in a locker‑room‑style office holding a cardboard box decorated with a detailed hand‑drawn owl. Behind them are gray lockers with stickers and papers, shelves with binders, hanging clothes, and various office items.

Figure 3: Nevada Silsby-Inman poses with hand-drawn Burrowing Owl project case for “Predators of the Night” program. Photo By Sadie Childs, 2026.

You must be confident and brave; not every joke will land, and some guests just don’t really care. A fact of the job is that some people just don’t care, and won’t care; it doesn’t matter how much time you spend or how excited you are. Your job is to inspire those who are even slightly interested and nurture their sense of curiosity. This reality shapes every career tied to interpretation– like teachers, public speakers, historians, and others– because it reminds us not to take curiosity, or the lack of it, so personally.

I think about this silly exterior as a mask, something I can take on and off to separate myself from that anxiety or embarrassment that I sometimes experience. Imposter syndrome can run rampant, especially as a historian in an ecologist’s dream job, but I have confidence that my ability to research and communicate makes me a valued team member and a fan-favorite storyteller for my guests.

How do we combine a dark past, plants, and the present

In my Bison guided hike program, titled “Bison Rachin’ and Westward Expansion”, I go to great lengths to humanize the bison and tell their story by comparing them to, and highlighting their relationships with, Native American cultures. Bison extermination was a tool of starvation leveraged against the Indigenous groups of the West, but that is something the average American has no background in. It is not taught in school explicitly, as most History outside of a collegiate level is one-sided. As federal agents, we must still avoid the risk of offending the public or taking a partisan stance, no matter how frustrating that can be.

You can talk about the fact that the US government has done atrocious things to these gentle beasts who are the stars of the park, but you must balance that with a positive. When talking about railroad companies’ greed in the 1800’s and their role in extinction, I also make sure to mention how pivotal railroads were in the ability for newly freed slaves to have access to land and opportunity, or how they were a way for poor immigrants living in deplorable tenement housing to have space and the opportunity to pass down a legacy to their children.

A group of people sit outdoors on wooden stumps while a park ranger or guide gives a presentation. The guide gestures toward a historic log cabin surrounded by grass, trees, and a wooden fence under a partly cloudy sky.

Figure 4: Nevada Silsby-Inman gives a Maltese Cross Cabin guided ranger program. Photo by Cameron Bores

At the end of the day, most visitors want to just hear a story; so our job is to go and make that story interesting. We must challenge guests, but provide a space to communicate and nurture afterward. We must be specific and clear, but still leave room for guests to grow into their interest. When trying to finish a story, have a good ending. We should leave our visitors hopeful and boost their self-esteem in terms of what they can do, big or small, to help assist in conservation efforts.

Finally, Walk the Line

For every action, there is often an opposite action or a perception of what happened. We seek to emphasize a path to change and understanding between the two, so guests feel comfortable digging deeper and engaging further with us. As a Public Historian, I know that no learning will be done if your audience shuts down and tunes you out, and the same goes for a Park Ranger.

Oftentimes, history is murky, gritty, and blood-soaked, leading to division. Our goal and job is to bridge those gaps to make the learning experience less scary and divisive, to inspire guests, and to continue the legacy of all the conservationists who came before us. Every day is a different challenge, or a different adventure,e depending on how you look at it. I am a Historian first and foremost, but also a storyteller, a communicator, and a naturalist. All of these facets of my career need to work together to succeed as a Park Ranger.

This diverse set of skills opens so many doors, and I wish I had met someone doing something like what I do before. I am the only historian at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but that doesn’t make me less valued. I wish I had known that sooner. We must all combine our skills and degrees to create a good visitor experience. We all rely on each other and learn from each other’s research and professional degrees. A Public History degree has set me up for a tremendous career that I am excited to continue throughout the NPS.