Becoming a Junior Ranger: Our Journey to Explore the National Park System

Already well traveled across the United States and Caribbean by age 8, Leif picked up a National Parks Junior Ranger Passport book at his visit to Big Cypress Oasis Visitor Center while visiting with family in Southern Florida at Christmas time in 2018.

Once back home in Maryland from Christmas break, his second grade teacher asked each student to make a new year’s “goal” – not a resolution to change something, but rather, a learning goal to accomplish.

Leif immediately decided he wanted to get 10 new stamps in his passport book from National Park units. At our first stop (our favorite hometown NPS unit, Hampton National Historic Site), he discovered the Junior Ranger program.

What was at first just a desire to see new places turned into a desire to truly learn and immerse himself in our nation’s rich history, culture, wildlife preservation, and environmental conservation.

Each Junior Ranger challenges the little learner not just to stop on by the park, but rather to develop a deeper understanding of each NPS unit; its purpose and how or why it needs to be protected and preserved.

After Leif accomplished his first year’s goal of 10 Junior Rangers in 2019, he didn’t stop there. In 2020, he renewed his goal and added to his challenge – this year he wanted to complete 20 Junior Rangers!

It seemed like a challenging, yet still doable task. Between the months of January and February, we began the year strong with two National Battlefields – Monocacy and Gettysburg – and President Eisenhower’s home, which is located in Gettysburg and is preserved as a National Historic Site. Leif shares a birthday with President Lincoln and therefore has always had a heightened interest in learning about him.

Then the unthinkable happened … the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world and the country. Yet despite this new obstacle, Leif was not thwarted from his goal!

During the spring months, we printed the Junior Ranger pdf booklets off the National Parks website and went to nearby Great Falls Park and the C&O Canal National Historic Park. These local NPS units could be visited fully outside without physical contact with others.

Later in the summer, as NPS units began to reopen with limited capacity and provide more outdoor activities, we ventured a little farther to some of our larger East Coast parks like Shenandoah and Acadia.

Leif reached his goal of completing 20 Junior Rangers on my birthday, October 18th, with a visit to Assateague Island National Seashore.

All but two of his 20 parks in 2020 were completed physically in-person at the park, and those two that were completed virtually (Manhattan Project Los Alamos and Manhattan Project Hanford) were done in conjunction with their third sister site (Manhattan Project Oak Ridge) which was an in-person visit for in July as we traveled through the greater Smoky mountain region.

But Leif didn’t stop there! Because many of the East Coast NPS units that we had easy access to are Civil War battlefields, we concluded the year with a 21st “reward” site that tied into our Civil War era theme – a trip to the remote Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas off the coast of the Florida Keys and Cuba. It was here that Dr. Mudd was sent for imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Lincoln.

And as the country begins to slowly open back up to safe, outdoors adventure, Leif has set a new goal to achieve 40 Junior Ranger badges this year in 2021! Most of these will be completed during our 5 week long, epic “Every Kid Outdoors” summer road trip to the Northern MidWest and Rocky Mountain region. Stay tuned for a new blog post from each location, and enjoy learning about the parks we have completed.