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The easiest way to explore RV-friendly National Park campgrounds.
Here’s the definitive guide to National Park System campgrounds where RVers can park their rigs.
Our app is packed with RVing- specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 national parks.
You’ll also find stories about RVing in the parks, tips helpful if you’ve just recently become an RVer, and useful planning suggestions.
Comments
Well...I like dogs...and...um...I like to travel and...and...that's about it. Somehow, at 60 with thyroid disease and arthritis, I don't think they'll put me at the top of the list. Especially since I spent five years in North Idaho and like to froze to death.
"they don’t run out of gas or have mechanical parts that freeze up,"
Nice to know someone in the HR department has a sense of humor...
Sandy Kogel held this job for many years. She is an amazingly accomplished outdoors person and dog musher. The person who is qualified and lucky enough to get this job will have big snowshoes to fill.
Why did Sandy leave the job? It is my dream job and I was just wondering why anyone would leave it.
I think that this might be the most unique "extreme, hardship conditions" job, but when I was with Harpers Ferry Center, I was the only scientist in the NPS who ran a research and analytical support laboratory for NPS cultural resources. When I left, they didn't fill my position, but had they recruited, they would have had the choice of only 80 people globally truly qualified to do the work. The musher position is without question unique, but I bet you'd find other postions in the NPS with equal uniqueness. Interesting article and definitely interesting KSA's.
There are definately some NPS jobs with unique qualifications and job duties. How many folks get paid to decorate the Vanderbilt Mansion for Christmas or to scuba dive in Crater Lake? Oh yes, it furthers the visitor experience or increases our scientific knowledge of a unique resource, but it can also be fun.
Many older NPS employees look back on the early days of their careers as some of their best years in the Park Service when they were field rangers, interpreters, maintenance helpers, naturalists, etc.. In my case, the most unique job I had was when I first went to work for the Park Service as an Environmental Planner assisting a park planner named John Kauffmann in the planning for the then proposed Gates of the Arctic National Park. My job, in part, was to travel through the proposed area by light aircraft, boat, hiking and dog team while evaluating natural and cultural resources. The summer months were spent backpacking and doing float trips through areas rarely visited by non-Natives. Once winter set in I would explore via dog team, sometimes flying my dogs and equipment to distant sites to begin a trip. Occasionally, John or another Park Service person would accompany me. Sometimes my wife went along to assist. Actually, I wrote my own job description.
Ray, your definitely a man of all seasons...weather beaten and enjoying every minute of it. A life worth writing about.
According to a story in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Sandy Kogl held the job from 1974 until 1989, Gary Koy ran the kennels 1989-1999, and Karen Fortier has held the position for the past 10 years. That news story says she is leaving the job after the birth of her second child to devote time to her family.
As the story noted, although this is a very rewarding job for the right person, it's also extremely demanding, even by NPS standards.
Karen Fortier was quoted in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story: "“What an incredible job for someone,” she said. “To be one of the only paid people in the world to mush dogs for the federal government. And what an incredible group of dogs. They don’t get any better than those guys as far as personalities go. I admire the person going in there,” she said. “They are going to have an incredible time.”