Page 46 - Southern Oregon Magazine Winter 2020

neck of the woods | prof ile

In the park’s panhandle, we’ve proposed removing a couple point of interest is usually preserved as a monument. A national park
million board feet of timber to recreate natural conditions for is generally considered to be a collection of resources that are out-
the ponderosa pine forests there. That area was added from the standing and of national importance. Crater Lake definitely qualifies
Forest Service specifically to protect those ponderosa pine for- as a national park. My regional National Park supervisor had some of
ests. We will have to mechanically remove some of the firs to the most pristine parks in her region; Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings
restore the ponderosa pine forest. It’s a spectacular part of the Canyon. Driving around West Rim Drive, she looked at me and said,
park, but people will have to temporarily adapt their concept of what “There’s not another national park in the whole system that has your
managing and visiting a national park is like. scenery beat.” The lake is unique in its formation, the water clarity is
unsurpassed. But there’s a lot more to the park than just the lake. We
have spectacular flora and old-growth forests and unique geological
Q – WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO BE A NATIONAL PARK RANGER? formations. We’ve got streams and waterfalls and The Pinnacles. We’ve
got wildlife. We have all of the elements that combine to make it a park
CRAIG – It’s the classic story. My family liked to do outdoor activi- with national and international significance.
ties. During World War II, my father came from West Virginia to Fort
Vancouver and Camp Adair before he shipped out to Africa. My earli-
est memories were listening to him talk about Oregon, how wonderful Q – CAN YOU OUTLINE A COUPLE OF PROJECTS THAT ARE
it was and how he wanted to go back. He wanted to be a forest ranger, UNDERWAY IN THE PARK?
but he ended up not doing that and staying in West Virginia. When
we went camping, we went to national parks. I remember Theodore CRAIG – Well, we have both big projects and small projects. The
Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. A geology professor gave a biggest project is a new visitor information center. Crater Lake is cur-
great evening ranger program. From age eight on, all I wanted to be rently the fifth oldest park in the system—117 years old—and we’ve
was a park ranger. never had a “real” visitor center, a building that was designed and dedi-
cated to the purpose of providing visitor information and orientation.
I’m talking about a facility that’s designed to orient visitors how to best
Q – HOW DID YOU END UP IN OREGON AND use the Park, how to protect park resources, and how to be safe. The
SPECIFICALLY SOUTHERN OREGON? displays will tell the story of the lake, its discovery, the Klamath people,
and current science discoveries in an engaging and informational way.
CRAIG – Right out of college, I started working for the state park Some people say, “You’re trying to design a grand palace.” I say, “That’s
system in West Virginia. I was a state park superintendent and man-
aged four parks in my early 20’s. One of them was the largest park in
the state. I also had a Civil War battlefield, a recreational state forest,
and a botanical area. I worked in West Virginia for seven years, but I
kept looking for National Park Service jobs. An opening came up for
Oregon Caves National Monument, and though I had never heard of
Oregon Caves, everything I read about Southern Oregon was pretty
spectacular. You are an hour and a half from the Pacific Ocean, an hour
from the snowcapped Cascades, a little farther and you can get to the
desert. “What more could I want?” Based on my state park experience,
I was hired by the superintendent, Bob Benton, and came to Oregon
Caves in 1990. There was a lot going on and many changes and chal-
lenges to be undertaken. We worked through a general management
plan, an expansion plan, a new contract that would see “flat hat” park
rangers presenting interpretive tours in the cave. That took over 15
years. Then the crown jewel of the Cascades, Crater Lake National
Park, came open. I thought, how could I do better than Crater Lake;
I get to remain in the area and continue relationships in Southern
Oregon that I’d developed over the past 15 years? That’s how I ended
up at Crater Lake.

not true, but if you had to design a grand palace, why wouldn’t you put
Q – WHAT DO YOU WANT VISITORS TO REMEMBER FROM it in one of the most spectacular places on earth?”
THEIR VISIT TO CRATER LAKE?
We will be undertaking a major renovation project on the Cleetwood
CRAIG – I want visitors to remember that the park is more than Cove Trail to the lake. The trail needs to be stabilized, and we’re work-
a lake. If it were only the lake we were preserving, it would be a ing on a comprehensive trail management plan. We’re contemplating
national monument like Devil’s Tower. A single scientific feature or building some shorter out-and-back trails to points of interest like

44 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | winter 2020