Heritage interpretation with objects, images and text at the Idaho State Museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interpreters are people who explain natural or cultural resources for visitors at places like parks, nature centers, museums, zoos, botanical gardens, aquariums, and tour companies. Interpretation also includes writing and graphic design of exhibits and signs. The Idaho State Museum in Boise has excellent examples of exhibits. I visited it on November 16th.

 

The Origins exhibit on the ground floor introduces the state’s five federally recognized tribes. Permanent exhibits on the second floor include Idaho: The Land & Its People, divided into three regions as follows:

 

“Lakes and Forests: North Idaho

 

Learn the rich history of mining, forestry, and transportation and how some of Idaho’s natural resources are used around the world today. Watch a spark turn into the blaze that became the Big Burn of 1910, and how this historic fire continues to influence forest management today.

 

Mountains and Rivers: Central Idaho

 

Central Idaho’s mountains are a recreational paradise. Experience what it’s like to ride a chairlift up Mt. Baldy, or sit around a campfire where you’ll learn about the first group to urge protections for our wilderness areas.   

 

Deserts and Canyons: South Idaho

 

Discover the hard road travelers faced on the Oregon Trail, the challenges of developing agriculture in the desert, and Idaho’s atomic past and high-tech future. Take a virtual bike ride through historic Pocatello or downtown Boise.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entrances for those three regions are shown above, as is the next sign explaining North Idaho. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In north Idaho there is an explanatory sign and display about Logging Camp Life as shown above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A display case about mining with an ore cart is shown above, as is another display in an alcove.

 

 

 

 

Signs on the left and right sides of the alcove are shown above.These organized displays and accompanying signs should inspire carefully organized speechwriting.

 

Being a tour guide can make you a better speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In her The Master Communicator Blog on July 15, 2024 Rosemary Ravinal has a post titled How tour guiding can make you a better speaker. She says to do a half-dozen things:

 

Tell unforgettable stories

Delight diverse audiences

Build confidence

Improve non-verbal communication

Find your unique style

Handle questions with grace

 

An article by Karen Friedman on January 3, 2024 titled What business communicators can learn from tour guides discussed the topics of having a connection, being memorable, being engaging, using differentiation and creating trust.

 

There also is another article about tour guides by Barnaby Davies on pages 22 to 24 in the December 2018 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled Entertaining Travelers Around the World.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do these three items have in common? They all ignore the broader jargon for describing a tour guide. 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. As shown above via a Venn diagram, a tour guide is at the intersection of public speaking and heritage interpretation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you search under heritage interpretation, you will find there are organizations with much useful information. In the U.S. there is the National Association for Interpretation (NAI), which publishes two magazines, Legacy and the Journal of Interpretation Research. Most articles and issues are at their web site and for members only. There is a long article by Marc J. Stern and Robert B. Powell in the Journal of Interpretation Research for 2013 (Volume 18, number 2 pages 9 to 44) titled What leads to better visitor outcomes in live interpretation? For it they surveyed 3,603 visitors from 312 live interpretive programs at U. S. National Parks. As shown above, Figure 1 describes fifteen best practices.

 

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. On July 3, 2024 I blogged about how A public speaker can tell us a story about being in a seemingly dangerous place. But a heritage interpreter can actually take us there.

 

Interpret Europe has a forty-page ebook by Thorsten Ludwig titled The Interpretive Guide – Sharing Heritage with People (2nd edition, 2015).

 

An image showing a tour guide and wall painting came from 3DeyeNET at Wikimedia Commons.

 

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.

 

 

Visiting Buchart Gardens near Victoria, British Columbia on September 28, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From September 22 through 29 my wife Elaine and I went on an ocean cruise from Seattle to Alaska on the Royal Caribbean ship Ovation of the Seas. We arrived in Victoria, British Columbia on September 28 at 11:00 AM. Then we rode a double-decker shuttle bus twenty miles north to the famous, 55-acre Buchart Gardens for a three-hour overdose of beautiful flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on July 16, 2021 I blogged about Heritage Interpretation – telling historical stories to people. Often that is done via plaques. The Buchart Gardens have outstanding green-bordered ones, usually with before pictures. (Click on an image for a larger view). It was adapted from a rock quarry beginning nearly twelve decades ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First there is the lovely Sunken Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there is the spectacular Ross Fountain.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there also is a dragon fountain. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a Japanese Garden and a Rose Garden. Both roses and dahlias were blooming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a shady forest with topiaries (arrow).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everywhere you look there are beautiful trees and shrubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other attractions include totem poles, a carousel, and sculptures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near the entrance there is a waterwheel and harvest displays.

 

On the way back to the ship we passed though Chinatown and downtown. We departed at 10:00 PM. Sometime in the future we plan on driving from Boise to Vancouver, and then taking a ferry over to Victoria for a day or two.

 

Heritage interpretation at the Evergreen Air & Space Museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday, October 4, 2021 I visited the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum over in McMinnville, Oregon. Its centerpiece is the one and only wooden Hughes Flying Boat, popularly known as the Spruce Goose. That eight-engine monster has a wingspan of 320 feet, a length of 219 feet, and a height of 79 feet. The nose faces the end of the museum shown above.

 

In a blog post on July 16, 2021titled Heritage Interpretation – telling historical stories to people, I quoted Freeman Tilden’s definition for interpretation, which is:

 

“An educational activity which aims to reveal meaning and relationships through the use of original objects, by first-hand experience, and by illustrative media, rather than simply to communicate factual information.”

 

Telling those historical stories in a museum involves letting people see the objects and explanatory placards (which should not have more detail than can be read in three minutes). They also can ask guides for even more details. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For example, a Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat and its placard are shown above. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another example is the 2,000 hp. Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine. The placard provides context reminding us it had powered two famous WWII fighter planes, the Vought F4U Corsair and the Republic P47 Thunderbolt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another aircraft on display is a Piper L-4H Grasshopper (the military version of the Piper J-3  Cub). To further add interest, it is displayed along with an anti-tank bazooka rocket launching tube. The placard mentions Major Charles Carpenter, who was known as ‘Bazooka Charlie’ for his tank busting feats. His WWII exploits were described briefly on page 84 of the February 1945 issue of Popular Science magazine:

 

“PIPER CUB TANK BUSTER

 

Maj. Charlie Carpenter of the Armored Command got tired of seeing enemy tanks scurrying around below while he spotted artillery hits from his ‘grasshopper’ plane. So, with the assistance of the Ninth Air force Service Command and an associate in Ordnance, he equipped the Cub with bazookas, and went to work on the Germans. Under each wing he mounted a battery of three of the weapons, loaded and ready for firing by means of a cord pulled by the pilot. The prey was sized up from high altitude, and, since the enemy believed that the pilot was concerned only with artillery spotting, they did not notice the bazookas inconspicuously located under his wings. When he had picked his target, he spiraled down and swooped in just above the treetops for the kill.

 

The first day Carpenter knocked out one Tiger tank with each battery, and the latest available report shows his total to be 14. The photograph at the left is a muzzle-end view showing how three of the rocket hurlers are mounted on the struts of a Piper Cub. All three bazookas on one side are fired by a jerk on a lanyard, shaking the little ship like a fever chill.”     

 

In the April 2020 issue of Air & Space Smithsonian there is another article by Jim Busha titled Bazooka Charlie and the Grasshopper: A tale of World War II.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For variety some of the aircraft are displayed hanging from wires rather than just sitting on their landing gear. As shown above, an aerobatic Russian YAK-50 is almost sideways, and a Pitts Special aerobatic biplane is upside down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some high-speed aircraft also are displayed in the Space Museum building. A North American X-15 rocket plane is displayed with its nose pointed skyward. The placard says:

 

“TO THE EDGE OF SPACE

In 1963, the X-15 took pilot Joe Walker to the edge of space twice! (An altitude greater than 100 km or 328,000 feet – approximately 62 miles – is considered space. Walker flew to 354,200 feet, more than 67 miles high). Walker was formally designated an astronaut for his achievement, preceding Gus Grissom by more than a year and a half as the first man to enter space twice. [X-a5 pilot Neil Armstrong, later becoming the first man to walk on the moon, and X-15 pilot Joe Engle went on to fly the space shuttle.] The X-15 flew 199 flights. The last was in October 1968. This is an engineering model of the X-15. IT was used for wind tunnel testing.”  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There also is a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (shown with the outboard end of its left wing raised to reveal the engine). To its left is the accompanying D-21 drone it sometimes would carry.