A public speaker can tell us a story about being in a seemingly dangerous place. But a heritage interpreter can actually take us there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on December 19, 2010 I blogged about Heritage interpretation and public speaking. Interpreters are people who explain natural or cultural resources to visitors at places like parks, nature centers, museums, zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums, and tour companies.

 

Interpretation Canada (IC) has an eighty-page 2015 book titled The Interpreter’s Big Book of Disasters. Their IC blog has a post by Munju Ravindra on June 12, 2019 titled IC Blog: Lessons from the Interpreter’s Book of Disasters: Intertidal Stranding. She tells about taking visitors to Fundy National Park on the Bay of Fundy (which has the world’s highest and lowest tides) on a tide walk. At low tide they went out to a reef which was normally underwater when it was higher:

 

“....We eagerly set off with a group of about thirty visitors (including five or six young children). After walking across slurpy mud and a few damp barnacle-clad rocks, we arrived at the designated spot – a rocky outcrop with small pools fringed with rockweed. We got right into it: exploring, exclaiming, puzzling, and looking up all this wonderful stuff we encountered in my field guides. There was beauty everywhere: clumps of blue mussels clinging to the edge of the outcrop, saffron-coloured sea stars, prickly sea urchins, endlessly bizarre worms, unidentifiable clumps of egg-seeming goop, and our big prize – a silver spotted sea anemone.  

  

We were all seriously into it. So into it, in fact, that I didn’t lift my head up even once to look around at our surroundings, until my mother materialized at my side, tugging at my shirt and whispering, ‘Um, I think you should look at the tide.’ Oops! We were stranded on a rapidly shrinking rock that had gone from outcrop to island during the hours we’d been delightedly ogling sea creatures. Trying to sound as if this was entirely part of the plan, I told the group to gather up the field guides and magnifiers, and to get their backpacks on their backs and ready to go. As they looked goggle-eyed at the rising water, I realized it was time to act. As in theatre. ‘We’ll need to wade!’ I said cheerfully, trying to keep the question mark out of my voice. ‘I think we should carry the kids. The water might be a little deep. Ish.’

 

And, off we set, children precariously balanced on various sets of shoulders, my field-guide-laden backpack held high above my head. We waded slowly through rising tide with water up to our thighs. Everyone stayed very focused; there was no talking, no laughing, and we made it back to dry land without mishap. No one slipped, no one drowned, but everyone got thoroughly soaked. I was horrified. I said goodbye to my now-shivering visitors and staggered back to the office, chagrined, to explain to my supervisor that I had almost drowned an entire group of visitors. Under the circumstances, she was gentle: she gave me a talking-to, warned me to prepare myself for some negative comment cards, and we put the matter to bed.

 

But, the negative comment cards never came. Instead, we got card after card of positive comments about the visitors’ wonderful experience, how their children were inspired to study marine biology, how valuable of a place this Bay of Fundy was, and how ‘wow!’ A week later, the park superintendent received a letter raving about the extraordinary experience that this family had with me (Me! Clueless, disastrously dangerous, un-knowledgeable me!) In particular, they enthused, their children had loved how we had to get off the island at high tide. It was an adventure, it was exciting, and they loved the creatures they had seen.

 

I learned that a sense of danger (perceived danger, not real danger) can create a very compelling experience, allowing people to feel as if they have achieved something special. This sensation can be created by leading your group across a rushing brook, taking them outside without flashlights in the dark, or challenging them to hike to the top of a certain peak. Essentially, we are providing them an opportunity to transform themselves in the environment we are interpreting. I also learned that as the guides, we are the ones responsible for the situation, and we have to find ways to keep part of our attention on the logistics.”  

 

The image of the Bay of Fundy came from Wikimedia Commons.