WONDERLAND WITHOUT THE WONDER: LIVING WITH SHUTDOWN

Lately, I’ve been getting caught up on a lot of tv episodes I’ve been missing. Yellowstone and Southern Montana are so amazing it seems such a waste to spend time indoors. But a few days ago, my government couldn’t agree on whether the government would be given the authority to keep paying its bills.  It’s called shutdown. And it has shut down my Park. As of tomorrow I will officially be working for a hospitality company that has no guests to whom to be hospitable.

Yesterday, at the Park's North Entrance, I witnessed a bus of Asian tourists being turned away. They had just arrived in the US for a tour of the best of the Western Parks. Their first stop was Yellowstone, then Grand Teton, then Zion and lastly Arches. They wandered around the area near the gate, no doubt waiting for their tour guide to consult with his company to decide the next step of their aborted journey. The night before I had met an interesting professional wildlife photographer from San Jose California at the bar who was visiting the Park for the first time, waiting to see if, and when, he would need to leave. All too soon it turns out. Outside of Yellowstone, a group of veterans stormed the barriers at the WWII memorial on the National Mall. It, too, is run by the National Park Service and is shut down.

For those of us left behind to serve the very few remaining guests here at Yellowstone, a feeling of uncertainty but resignation follows us around.  We know there is nothing our employers can do to stop the shutdown; only politicians who have completely other agendas can do that. We constantly speculate the timing of the end of shutdown and whether it will occur the next day or during the next major football Sunday afternoon. With millions tuned in to the games, that just might be a good time for politicians to make announcements that they believe might cause a lack of faith in their party or the process – like we don’t already have a lack of faith in the process.

For us personally, though, living in Wonderland without guests is a two-edged sword.  On one hand, we get to share Wonderland with very few people so opportunities are abundant. No lines of cars driving slowly past the sleeping bison. No completely full parking lots. No lines at the restaurants. The wildlife seem to recognize the difference and are already acting more wild. They seem to be taking back the streets.

Seems almost like a dream.  A whole 2.2 million acres for just a couple hundred people. With the visitors gone as of tomorrow morning, there will only be a few hundred NPS, Xanterra and other concessionaire employees left in this giant wilderness playground.  We will be like carnies with a whole empty carnival to play in.

On the other hand, the Park Service has made it clear that although all current employees in the Park don’t have to leave, we are restricted from enjoying our private adventureland.  We are not to use any of the facilities, like parking lots or trails or even toilets – if we could find a parking lot that didn’t have barriers up at the entrance or a toilet that hasn’t been locked for the shutdown. At Mammoth we can’t even walk over near the historic block and the lawns.  We are restricted to recreating at the employee pub or the employee rec hall. We have even been told we can leave the Park for doctors visits, groceries and so forth but not to recreate. We can’t recreate in or out of the Park. That is our penance for being here during shutdown.

In reality, the Rangers that are left are stretched too thin to provide adequate oversight of and security for this incredible wilderness that is larger than some states.  We might get caught driving over to Lamar Valley to enjoy the abundant wildlife there – if a Ranger just happened to be in the neighborhood. We might lose our privilege of living in the Park. But for some of us, the risk if worth it. We know many of the Rangers are tasked with turning people away at the gates – and checking the credentials of those of us with valid reason to be here when we reenter the Park.

Quite a few of us have only days or weeks left in Wonderland. Some seasonals are scheduled to leave this week, some next and then the last of us leave mid-October. So if we bend the rules, forgive us for it is our love for our Park and our need to fill every moment of time left watching the bison at Lamar; walking around Mammoth to catch the morning light glinting off the Terraces; following the continuing saga of Thunderbolt, the reigning bull elk in his mating quest; or flyfishing the world-class rivers and streams that send us outdoors.

This morning I met a guest walking up from the cabins in back of the hotel. I told him I was sorry he was unable to stay in the Park.  He was European and confused about whether our Congress had been able to sort out its differences so he could bring in his tour group in for their scheduled visit.  I informed him that our leaders hadn’t done that and that I understood his bewilderment and anger. I told him that us employees wanted to work, we wanted the visitors to be here because without the visitors we couldn’t be here. He asked what he should tell his guests who have been planning for so long to see Yellowstone. I told him I did not have that answer and that we could do nothing for him.

 

What I should have said told him is to tell his guests that American democracy can get very, very messy and this shutdown is a fight among several factions of our government for control over our often contradictory values. I should have told him that our fights are often very public and can cause a lot of collateral damage. I could have told him that in the end our democracy works because it has to work; our Constitution gave us guidelines and pathways to compromise but we sometimes forget that we have chosen to be a nation whose leaders are at their best when factions bring their various views to the table for compromise.

 

Our leaders are duking it out and they need to hear what is really important to us. There is so much at stake here. I realize that I want my Park back but others need their jobs back. Perhaps the only thing we can do is to let our leaders know how we feel. I encourage you to email or call your Representative and Senators. Write to Speaker Boehner.  Tell them how shutdown is affecting your life. Democracy works best if all of its citizens participate.

 

In the end, perhaps what I should have told that European tour guide is that our democracy works not in spite of our differences but because of our differences. I could have shared our faith that the heart of our democracy continues to beat all the while petty politicians toss unproductive salvos at the opposing factions. I should have reminded him that our faulty democracy was the first one on this Planet Earth to preserve our legacy in the land and call it a National Park. I could have told him that it was only by action by the people that an act was passed to protect all the natural resources, including the wildlife. I could have reminded him that had it not been for our faulty democracy, the very Park he so much wanted to visit might not have been created.

 

Of course, I didn’t say those things. As experiences of the shutdown arise, my feelings about the shutdown continue to evolve. My conversation with that man was just one of the incidences that caused me to ponder how the shutdown affects me personally.  I just hope I don’t have to have those experiences or my thoughts and feelings about shutdown continue to evolve much longer. I have had a long day and am tired. But sleep will not be easy. Thunderbolt is bugling under my window.