JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) – Rubber tomahawks have played a part in preserving our national parks.
The classic child’s toy souvenir—and countless other manufactured items such as postcards, pennants, teaspoons and coffee mugs offer protection for national parks, a professor said.
“Souvenirs prevent people from collecting natural objects, such as feathers and rocks,” Ken Barrick said.
“It’s a way of taking home a piece of the park,” the University of Alaska-Fairbanks associate professor of geography said.
People also use keepsakes to trigger pleasant memories of long-ago vacations to parks, Barrick said. Doing so makes them lifelong advocates of the park system.
“We remember the park when we’re at home, vicariously, through souvenirs,” Barrick said. “This tradition has allowed people to appreciate parks from a distance their entire lives.”
These treasured possessions often occupy pride of place on a prominent wall, a mantel or in a curio cabinet, and aren’t disposed of during ordinary spring cleaning or downsizing, Barrick tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
“People tend to keep these things in their lives until they die,” Barrick said. “They never edit these things from their lives.”
Barrick is scheduled to talk about national park souvenirs at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center auditorium in Moose, Wyo.
He will show slides of hundreds of park keepsakes dating back to the 19th century.
Antique souvenirs sold in or near the national parks were often quite well-made and “wonderfully artful,” Barrick said.
He will show off porcelain plates fired in the ceramics capital of Limoge, France, silver lapel pins, letter openers and lithographs. For decades, Barrick has built his own collection of national park souvenirs, and he is now writing a book about the topic, set to be released in 2016, the centennial of the National Park Service Organic Act.
About 20 years ago, Barrick met antique shop owners Susan and Jack Davis of Bozeman, Mont. They sold a huge collection of souvenirs in 2001 to the Yellowstone Park Foundation.
The Davises turned Barrick on to William Henry Jackson’s photochrome lithograph prints, produced from 1898 to 1906 by the Detroit Photographic Co. About 65 of the 400-some images featured Yellowstone.
Last winter, Barrick found the last one and purchased it, completing his collection.
“I’m the only one, I think, who has ever done that,” Barrick said. “It took me 20 years. I’m hopeful that eventually that will be in Yellowstone Park’s collection.”
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Information from: Jackson Hole News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
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