A New Path

This story was originally shared with us during our Story Contest by ​Brenna McBride, who won first place in the contest and is currently serving as a ​Community Volunteer Ambassador in ​Zion National Park. The contest has ended, but you can still share your stories with us for possible publication on The Field Guide! Please email your stories (and any accompanying photos) to communications@conservationlegacy.org. 

It’s not an understatement to say Conservation Legacy changed the trajectory of my life.

I’ve never known what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be. But I do know what I like. I know I like being outside, being active, teaching, understanding why the natural world is the way it is, and helping others to do the same – to value and exist in awe of the beauty around us.

Graduating in June of 2020, nothing seemed possible. For me, graduating college meant moving back in with my parents and unemployment that stretched on for months, seemingly without end. The same day passed again and again, so repetitive and unfulfilling as to be virtually indistinguishable from the next.

As the weeks wore into months, I got desperate. I got a contracting position with a geospatial company I knew well but didn’t really want to work for. GIS (geographic information systems) wasn’t my passion. But it was a job. Until it wasn’t – about 2 months into the position, I was laid off again as companies avoided taking on contractors due to uncertainties around COVID-19. Back to unemployment. Eventually, I started up a few things to make myself more marketable to the kind of work I wanted: a first aid certification, a geology science communication Instagram account. And I applied for a program a friend had offhandedly mentioned in a Zoom hangout: the Scientists in Parks program.

I was rejected from all 5 positions I originally applied to with Scientists in Parks. But then one day, after reapplying in the winter circuit, and after assuming I’d been rejected once more, I got an email. An interest check for an Education Assistant position at the Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve. I emailed back immediately saying yes, yes, yes, I’m still interested! One interview later (hastily scheduled during the lunch break of my jury duty service and with the blessing of my fellow jurors), I got that coveted email: come work at the Oregon Caves.

That was the beginning of something new. I think I felt it in the air the day I pulled my car up to the snow-covered, Port Orford Cedar-sided lodges in the forests of the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon – this was something new and something wonderful. And it was.

I will never be able to speak highly enough of my time at the Oregon Caves. I relished each and every time I ventured into those gloomy limestone caverns, hearing that heavy gate swing shut behind me but knowing I’d just passed through a door to a world of strange geology and strange animals and strange history. Having the opportunity to talk about the geologic wonders of my home state brought out a new person in me. I used to joke with my tours that they were trapped with me, forced to listen to me talk about geology – my personal specialty – and that if my supervisors let me, my tour would be three hours long! As the other guides started to get worn down by the repetitive nature of giving the same 90-minute tour, three times a day, I was more invested each day. After struggling for so long to find a way to channel my passions into an actual paid job, I wasn’t taking anything for granted.

And the cave wasn’t the only gift I received from my internship. Other opportunities for growth kept coming. I was interviewed by the Oregon Secretary of State’s office for the Oregon Blue Book! I co-led a workshop for teachers from all over the nation about climate change and its impacts on the caves. I got to shadow researchers from the Klamath Bird Observatory as they banded songbirds in the forests above the cave. I surveyed bats with the Resource Management staff. I prepared an astronomy program to give to visitors during a night sky event we had planned to view a meteor shower. And for my final project for my internship, I rewrote and streamlined the geology trainings – helping to explain how our caves work to future guides and secretly hoping they would find it all as fascinating as I did.

Even outside of work, I was a new person. The five months I spent at the Oregon Caves are among the happiest of my life. Despite our historic (read: old) living space filled with mice, scorpions, faulty plumbing, and windows that fell out seemingly at random, I, in turn, was filled with true contentment. My fellow cave guides brought out the best in me: throwing parties, taking weekend trips and hikes, hosting movie and game nights, and dragging me to evenings on the town, even if it was just a little 2000-person town with the same people we saw last week. Never had I experienced such a sense of camaraderie and belonging. I knew I was searching for that but hadn’t realized what it would feel to find it. I hadn’t realized how rich and full every day can feel when you are surrounded by work and people that you love.

My Scientists in Parks term at the Oregon Caves put me on a new path. I hadn’t considered the National Park Service as a career, at all. I was never the kid who went on National Parks road trips as a kid or collected Junior Ranger badges. But when I realized that some people get to do the kind of work I was doing at the caves full-time, I recognized that there was potential for me in the NPS. Because of my Scientists in Parks internship, I am now the Community Volunteer Ambassador at Zion National Park in Utah, another Conservation Legacy position. I get to work with volunteers who are passionate about our public lands and the beauty they hold. I get to welcome people to our park and teach them how to protect it. And I get to submerge myself in nature’s beauties, which remind me that even on the hard days, I do want to be here.

I hope to continue my NPS career after this position as a green-and-grey official ranger. But Conservation Legacy and its programs put me on a new path and opened up a new world – one where I can feel pride and joy in the work I’m doing.

Click here to view current Scientists in Parks positions and start your conservation journey today!