Ranger Juanita Welcomes Friends to Lawetlat'la

Hola, Amigas! Mi nombre es Juanita y soy prima de Ranger Rita. I used to work for the National Park Service, but now I’m an interpretive ranger at Lawetlat’la, the ancestral homelands of the Cowlitz. Some of you might know our mountain by the name of “Mount Saint Helens.” She has many other names, as well. I was sharing more about the cultural heritage and geomorphology with a very interested audience. You can see how captivated they were by my stories…

Since I’d just finished my “Interpretation 101: How to effectively talk to people and have a good time” course, I knew to read my audience. I could see I was losing them, so I brought them over to explore the “Rock Hard” activity cart that the Mount St Helens Institute uses with visiting groups. Now I had their attention.

While two of my new friends were fascinated by the crystal structure and porous nature of some rocks, another friend was more interested in shiny, possibly valuable things.

I explained that although obsidian has many unique and amazing properties, it doesn’t have a lot of commercial value. Which led me to another conversation with a friend nearby.

I explained to Yeti that she couldn’t remove the ash from the site, let alone try to sell it from an online auction for, and I quote, “a trazillion dollars.” She was disappointed for a quick second, but then she spied something else of interest nearby. I thought she was headed to the display about the timeline of the 1980 eruption. Instead….

It was at this point that I decided our best plan was to head outside and look at our mountain. It was a glorious day for it, as you can see! I was sharing more about the signs of volcanic unrest and the drastic changes to this valley. Sorry to say that certain friends just wanted to know if there was any “gold in those hills” and if there was a possibility of finding pirate treasure in the lake below.

So I asked if I could take their picture in front of our mountain and then sell copies of it in the gift shop and send them the profits. (Quick note: thank you, Alysa for teaching me to be a flexible interpreter!)

That seemed to make them (well, one of them in particular) very happy.

If you’d like to know more about Lawetlat’la or MSHI, please reach out. I’d be happy to answer any of your questions! Also, you’ll be glad to know that our friends had a lot of helpful feedback for me. As you can see here:

Well, you can’t win them all. Signing off from the mountain for now…

-Ranger Juanita