Behind the Scenery

Kevin Schindler has a career in astronomy spanning nearly thirty years in the Northern Arizona area. Listen in on this episode of Behind the Scenery, where Kevin divulges his atypical career journey, some of his favorite moments and biggest inspirations, debunks misconceptions about accessing the night sky, and offers advice for success in night sky viewing. Just look up! Learn more about Kevin's work at lowell.edu.

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Dave: Hey, this is Dave. Elle: And this is Elle. Dave: We sat down with Kevin Schindler, the Public Information Officer and historian at Lowell Observatory, to chat about his time as an astronomer residence and to learn more about the night sky. Elle: While Dave had the chance to sit down with him in person. I phoned in from the North Rim. Please forgive our audio quality. We tried. Dave: In this episode, we'll be taking Kevin’s advice and looking up at the night sky. To learn more about it. Kevin: My name is Kevin Schindler, and I'm the historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, and I've been at Lowell for 28 years. Early on in my career, I was in the public program at Lowell, so I started as a tour guide, then ended up managing the program for a dozen years or something like that. And now I I'm the historian, and so I try to document the history, which is not just back then, but now, it's kind of for me it's not history and current, it's the heritage that we've been doing for a long time. So, the heritage of research. So, I do with that I write articles and some books, and give talks, and kind of help with planning exhibits and that sort of thing. And then for the Public Information Officer, PIO, that's the other half of what I do and that's promoting the observatory. So that's largely the media relations, and so if we have a science story or we're doing something special for our public program, or there's an unusual or interesting astronomical event, like we have eclipses coming up so and so I'll do press releases and media alerts, set up interviews with our staff, host tours with media personnel so that people from around the world coming like to check out Northern Arizona, they'll go to the Grand Canyon, to here in Flagstaff, and so we'll facilitate tours up here at the observatory promoting everything so they'll write about it and let people know. We were talking earlier and mentioned crisis management. We don't have that much here. We do have some things you would call, I don't know, emergencies in a different way or things that you know when we closed for COVID for instance we had to gather and get some information together quickly. I mean there's certainly some of that. My title is Public Information Officer, but it really focuses on the media relations and everyday activities going on that are interesting and people want to know about. Dave: For most of our visitors that come to Grand Canyon when we're giving night sky programs, I find that most people have never looked at, looked up. What's your approach for starting to teach people just the beginning steps about the night sky? Kevin: I think the first thing is just to go outside and look up. It’s as simple as that it. You know, it's so cool to look through telescopes, and you know it's a whole universe revealed when you do that, but most of us don't have access to telescopes. Or maybe you can go and visit an observatory or an astronomy club, but just looking up to me is stunning because there's so much you can see with the unaided eye or with a pair of binoculars you can see more, but there's so much you can see if you just look. I'm reminded of a Yogi Berra. “You can observe a lot by just looking,” and it's really true. And I think part of that is, that you can really notice a lot of things like the moon rising and look at that really bright dot. Go back in a couple of nights to see where it is, how it's changed position. But I think another thing for me that I'd like to tell people just starting to stargaze is, you know, go out and look up, but also, you know, think a little bit about the sky and how important it has been to human culture. Because it's so ingrained with our everyday life. And we think about time, like AM and PM are based on astronomy. The length of the day, the length of the month, the length of the year, that's based on astronomy. Finding your cardinal direction if you're lost, use astronomy, you know whether it's the sun during the day or the North Star or other stars. It is so inspiring to look up and to see a shooting star, or to see a meteor shower, or an eclipse, but also just in our everyday life. How you know from the beginning, people looked up and its astronomy, they called the oldest science, originally called astrology, before it was really a science. Just looking up at the sky and it how much it impacts our everyday life. So just going out and looking up to me is the big first step. Dave: You talked about your background earlier, so I...

“It makes me want to work harder to protect it, just seeing both how alternatively resilient and fragile it is. I think the more I am connected, the more I want to work towards helping preserve it.”

How do you protect the places you care about? In this episode, Amy Martin explores how photography became her medium for telling stories and helping to protect the places she loves. See her work at amysmartinphotography.com.

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Hannah: It was one of my chaotic questions too. Amy: Oh yeah right, So wait what was the question so I can think about it for one second? Hannah: Yeah. Hannah: Welcome back to another fun conversation with Amy Martin. I'm Ranger Hannah, and if you haven't listened to the episode where Amy and I discuss her personal connection to the Canyon, I highly suggest you give that a listen, then listen to this. In this episode, Amy and I talked about her photography activism in the work she's done with Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. And at the time of recording this episode, it was not yet a national monument and became one, just about a week after recording this. So let's jump into the episode and learn more about Amy Martin's photography activism. Hannah: So I’m sitting here with Amy Martin and so excited because I love her work and I first learned about her last year when she talked here at Grand Canyon. And her work is specifically in photography. And I'm curious what drew you to photography? Amy: A few things I think did. I always was a very visual person growing up, and I thought everyone was, you know, as we do. When we’re you we think everyone thinks the same way we do. And so I would just stare at scenes and, you know, take in detail, and look at the light, and stare at people. laughter But so I did a lot of different visual art growing up, but my mom was an amateur photographer, and so she documented our life growing up. And I kind of took, you know, after her, I inherited her a little camera. Hannah: Yes! Amy: And just with my kind of fast paced life drawing kind of went to drawing and painting, went to the side. And it was amazing that there was this device that we were able to capture a moment of time in, you know, a millisecond. So yeah, that's really what started what drew me to photography. Hannah: I love it. So, when you got drawn into photography from when you initially started and the different projects you've worked at, how has your photography style changed? Amy: I feel like, that is a very good question, I feel like for the different projects that I do, my photography style changes kind of to meet the story. To either, I work a lot with different organizations, both environmental and social organizations, and so I feel like this style of photography, I try to kind of match what story these organizations want or the mood. Yeah. Over time, it's definitely got, I've gotten a lot more into documentary style photography. Hannah: So when taking a photo, what is the goal? Are you trying to tell a story? Catch a glimpse of many moments, or is there something else? Amy: Yeah, I think with the goals really, it's kind of twofold. And one is to really be true to this story. I think there's a lot of ethics involved in, you know, in good photography. And so I really try to be true to the story that's being told. And the second is I'm really trying to make a really compelling photo and compelling photos I think can have so much power. You know, for the good or the worse, but hopefully for the good. So, with these photos, we can you know, now we can share on so many different types of platforms and it far reaches, you know, to the end of the world. But if we take Grand Canyon as an example, if we have a really compelling photo of Grand Canyon that can create a connection for somebody, somebody who maybe has never even been to Grand Canyon, you know, and they can experience that beauty. And for me, if they can experience that, they have that connection. And then, you know, because I do so much advocacy work, then they can potentially become advocates, even if they have never walked the edge of Grand Canyon or seen it, you know, in person. They can they can connect with it. Hannah: Yeah Amy: I think that really is my goal. Hannah: So with connections, would you say that's how your work initially started as you were trying to form connections? Or when do you think you finally made the realization that you were helping connect people? Amy: Yeah, I think when the photographs are used in advocacy work, and that's what I do a lot with both social organizations and with environmental organizations, is, you know, if they are used for, you know, advocacy work, fundraising and volunteer recruitment, all of these different things, when those are successful, like I know that those photographs have connected with other people with a greater audience then could connect with them without, you know, a...

Explore the parallels of time between the stars and rock formations at Grand Canyon with May 2023 Astronomer-In-Residence, Kevin Schindler. Kevin is the Historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, where he’s worked for 28 years. Tune into this where Kevin shares about his time as Grand Canyon’s Astronomer-In-Residence, his insights on the night sky, and his experience retracing the steps of the Apollo 11 astronauts who trained at Grand Canyon. Learn more about Kevin's work at lowell.edu

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Dave: Hey, this is Dave. Elle: And this is Elle. Dave: We sat down with Kevin Schindler, the Public Information Officer and Historian at Lowell Observatory, to chat about his time as an Astronomer-In-Residence, and to learn more about the night sky. Elle: While Dave had the chance to sit down with him in person, I phoned in from the North Rim. Please forgive our audio quality, we tried. Oh, that was the most awkward little laugh. *laughing* Elle: In this episode, we'll be looking down on Kevin's experiences as an Astronomer-In-Residence within the Canyon. Kevin: My name is Kevin Schindler, and I'm the Historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, and I've been at Lowell for 28 years. Early on in my career, I was in the public program at Lowell, so I started as a tour guide, then ended up managing the program for a dozen years or something like that. And now I'm the Historian, and so I try to document the history, which is not just back then, but now, it's kind of for me it's not history and current, it's the heritage that we've been doing for a long time. So, the heritage of research. So, I do with that I write articles and some books, and give talks, and kind of help with planning exhibits and that sort of thing. And then for the Public Information Officer, PIO, that's the other half of what I do and that's promoting the observatory. So that's largely the media relations, and so if we have a science story or we're doing something special for our public program, or there's an unusual or interesting astronomical event, like we have eclipses coming up so and so I'll do press releases and media alerts, set up interviews with our staff, host tours with media personnel so that people from around the world coming like to check out Northern Arizona, they'll go to the Grand Canyon, to here in Flagstaff, and so we'll facilitate tours up here at the observatory promoting everything so they'll write about it and let people know. Dave: You were a former Astronomer-In-Residence as well. Kevin: Right, I served as Astronomer-In-Residence in May of 2023, and that was just a spectacular experience. Dave: What drew you into the program and why did you apply for the program? Kevin: Well, I've worked with uh Raider Lane, the Dark Sky Ranger and other folks at Grand Canyon over the past - gosh, it's been years now - doing some research, retracing where the Apollo astronauts trained in 1960s, but also other things like, I mean like Bucky O'Neill has always been an interest of mine, Theodore Roosevelt’s role in Grand Canyon National Park, which is a really interesting, politically charged sometimes, topic. And so those were besides, just the dark skies, and I I've been to star parties for years, the Grand Canyon Star Party. So, it's kind of a combination of, you know, working with folks up there, and working on some projects here and there. But the reason I applied was the opportunity to be up there for a full month and really zoom in on this, you know, rephotographing where the astronauts trained because we have a lot of photographs from NASA and the US Geological Survey, they trained to pinpoint where those pictures were taken. It's a lot of fun and it can be frustrating, but it's fun and it means hiking into the Canyon and you know, at one point I was walking back and forth, I think about a half a mile, and just below O'Neil Butte, going back and forth about a half a mile, trying to line up this one rock that was split along the trail and I could see a little bit of the background that wasn't changing much. So, it's just a really fun project, but that's the reason I applied was to try to really spend more time with that. Dave: It sounds like a really interesting project, yeah. Kevin: And then also you know it was kind of a combination of that was the main project, it was rephotographing, but also giving daytime programs on some non-astronomy history and then doing you know star parties at night. I mean what a cool place. And so, when I was there, I did something like 30 programs for the month. Which were a combination of like from a walking tour of the cemetery, a history tour, to talking about Bucky O'Neill and Brighty the Burrow, which is a really fascinating story. And then, of course, the astronauts and the night sky, there's so many different things to do. I mean, you could spend the rest of your life working on so many projects there. Dave: Yeah, I think...

"I know that there are some people who think that if you tell particular stories, like LGBT stories, that that is divisive, but I think given the nature of the culture of the United States and how we have come to be, that each of those strands of narrative are threads in the fabric that make this country strong.”

Join us for a conversation with Superintendent Ed Keable to hear about why the NPS celebrates Pride, how Grand Canyon is becoming more inclusive, and which side of the Canyon is his favorite!

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Ed: First thing I’ll say is being Gay is part of who I am, it’s not who I am... Julia: Hello there! I’m Ranger Julia, and for the last two years, I have been working as a seasonal interpretive ranger on the North Rim at Grand Canyon National Park. In that time, I’ve written a few social media posts in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month, which takes place each June. This year, the post featured myself wrapped in a pride flag, with a short caption highlighting diversity and inclusion in the parks. While the post received widespread support from other parks, visitors, and our park partners, it was also met with vitriol, ignorance, and hate. People were confused about the post’s relevance to the Grand Canyon, and to the National Park Service in general. In response to these comments, I sat down with Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, Ed Keable, to discuss his thoughts on diversity and inclusion in terms of the NPS mission. To explain Superintendent Keable, I need to explain the role of a Superintendent. The National Park Service is a part of the Department of the Interior, and is spearheaded by one director, currently Chuck Sams. Under the director there are deputy directors, each with their own staff and area of expertise. Next down the list are the regional directors, who oversee many parks. Each park in the region then has its own superintendent. For Grand Canyon, that Superintendent is Ed Keable. You can think of him as the person in charge of Grand Canyon; Superintendents are essentially the chief executive officers of individual parks and can be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. By the time I sat down with Superintendent Keable, he had been hard at work at Grand Canyon for about three years.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Welcome to the North rim. First, can you introduce yourself? Ed: Sure! I'm Ed Keable, I’m the Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. Julia: Can you briefly tell me about your path to becoming Superintendent of Grand Canyon? Ed: Sure. So first, this is my first National Park Service job. So my path here is unusual. I spent the previous 23 years as a lawyer in the Department's office of the Solicitor, which is their legal office. And spent seventeen of those years in different executive level jobs, basically in various jobs, and managing the solicitor’s office, and had an area of practice that included administrative also, the nuts and bolts and how to manage federal organizations and then of course I manage the Solicitors Office. So I had that background. The superintendency at the Grand Canyon had been vacant for almost 2 years before I got here. The Department of Parks Service had advertised the job twice- weren't satisfied with the applicants they got, most of which were outside of the National Park Service. I think in either both -- one or both of them, nobody in the Park Service applied because it's a really hard job for lots of different reasons. So the secretary of the Interior has the authority to reassign executives in the department to any jobs they’re qualified to do, and the Secretary of the Interior is - what at the time was David Bernhardt and I've known him for almost 20 years. He was my boss when he was the solicitor of the Department of the Interior and I gave him legal advice when he was the Deputy Secretary and the Secretary. So he knew me really well, and as he thought about the challenges of the Grand Canyon, he thought, after failing to recruit anybody, who could he reassign into the job? And he told me that he kept thinking of my name as somebody who could do this job. So, 24 hours before he called me into his office, I got a call from my boss, my political boss in the solicitor’s office telling me "Hey, I think the Secretary is gonna ask you to be the superior of the Grand Canyon. And he's gonna ask you tomorrow.” So I had 24 hours to think about it and so the secretary did call me into his office on what turned out to be my birthday. And told me, “Hey, I really am having a hard time filling the Superintendency of the Grand Canyon, as I think about it, I think you'd be really good at it. So I'm going to ask you a question and you can say no” because the deal is with the senior executives in the federal government is, if the Secretary of the Interior asks you to take a job, to reassign you to a new job, you either have to say yes or you have to resign. Julia: Wow. Ed: That's par...

"The Canyon can be incredibly harsh and cruel... It will strip away all of your arrogance, all of your preconceived ideas about who you are, and what you think you have, and how much you think you know. And it will leave you staring at what's left, which in my case was not a lot." In 2015 Kevin Fedarko and Pete McBride set out to hike the length of Grand Canyon. Find out what Kevin learned about himself, the Canyon, and the people who have lived here since time immemorial. Learn more at kevinfedarko.com

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Kevin Fedarko: The Canyon is, can be incredibly harsh and cruel and it's very difficult place to move through and it will strip away all of your, all of your arrogance, all of your preconceived ideas about who you are and what you think you have and how much you think you know. And it will leave you staring at what's left, which in my case was not a lot.

Jo Baird: Hi, I'm Jo. And today we have the honor of speaking with Kevin Fedarko. A renowned writer and adventurer whose work has captivated audiences with its vivid descriptions and immersive storytelling. Kevin is perhaps best known for his critically acclaimed book “The Emerald Mile,” which chronicles the daring journey of a small group of river runners through the Grand Canyon during a historic flood. Drawing on his background as a journalist and his deep connection to the region, Kevin's latest endeavor promises to take readers on another unforgettable journey. Set to be released in May, 2024. Kevin's new book, “A Walk in the Park” promises to be a captivating exploration of the natural world and human experience. Well, thank you so much for being here today, Kevin. Can you just briefly introduce yourself for us? Kevin: Sure. My name is Kevin Fedarko, and I make my living writing books, mostly about the Grand Canyon. Jo: OK. Thank you. And just to start off here, can you provide us with an overview of a walk in the park, your newest book and what inspired you to write it? Kevin: So this book chronicles a journey that I undertook. Back in 2015, so almost 10 years ago, with one of my best friends and also a kind of professional collaborator, a National Geographic photographer by the name of Pete McBride. And I latched onto this project when Pete came to me with an idea. The year before we launched, the idea was that it might be fun to set out, to walk the length of Grand Canyon National Park from Lee's Ferry in the East to the Grand Wash cliffs in the West. A journey that the Colorado River, it takes the Colorado River about 277 miles to travel, but the catch on this particular journey is that there is no trail in Grand Canyon National Park that will take you along the length of the park. And that in order to cover that distance, you need to wind into and back out of so many tributary canyons, and you need to climb up and down vertically between so many different layers of rock that that 277 mile journey that the river takes gets stretched to something between 600 and 750 miles, depending on the route that you are traveling. So Pete came to me with this idea, and Pete and I have a history of kind of collaborating on magazine projects that have taken us to some rather exotic parts of the world over the years. And what all of these stories have in common is that they're incredibly bad ideas concocted by Pete, which get us into an enormous amount of trouble. And you know, despite the trouble that we got into in a whole variety of places, from the Horn of Africa to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the Caucasus Mountains over the years. And even Everest Base Camp, nothing compared to the amount of, the difficulties that we encountered, the suffering that we endured and the embarrassment that was inflicted on us by the Grand Canyon over the course of this journey. So this book is a chronicle of that experience, the good, the bad and the ugly, all wrapped between two different covers. Jo: Yeah, and you've collaborated obviously with Pete McBride on a host of past projects. Can you share a little bit more about your dynamic and how your relationship evolved over the course of this traverse through the canyon? Kevin: As I alluded to a moment ago, it's a pretty dysfunctional relationship. If any of your listeners out there, happen to have a friendship that forms a part of their lives, and at the center of that friendship is the knowledge harbored by at least one of those people that maybe the friendship itself is not very good for them. That that characterizes what Pete and I have shared over the last 20 years. We have, I think it's probably, it's fair to say that all of the trouble that we've gotten into over the years in the course of doing these magazine assignments and then later the Grand Canyon really boils down to a kind of a hubris and an arrogance that we both, well, particularly Pete suffers from, to a lesser extent myself, in thinking that we have more ability and prowess and physical strength...