The Redwood National and State Parks are all dispersed around a 50-mile-long stretch of land in Northern California, extending from just south of Orick to Crescent City, near the border with Oregon. The coastal ‘Redwood Highway’ 101 was shrouded with fog every morning as I drove from my campsite in Mill Creek to the various parks around the area. It was July, yet temperatures rarely reached 70 degrees. It reminded me of the temperature of Tucson in December.
Humboldt Redwood State Park, the southernmost park of the five in the area, was the first I visited. The visitor center rests in a grove of redwoods and as I walked in, I noticed there was a young woman with brown curly hair giving a tour around the area to a group of kids. She was stopping frequently and would tell them about everything she could see, the fronds on the pines, the little bugs on the bark of a tree and even about the dew that sat on everything in the mornings. I was transfixed, following the group of children along with the parents, taking in all of the information.
Natalia Sojka, the Interpretive Ranger giving the tour, was hired as a part of the Save the Redwoods League to work her summer doing interpretation for the park. She is one of four students from the area chosen to work in the redwood parks and hopes to explore more opportunities with the organization in the future. Sojka, 24 and from Bolivia, is currently studying nature conservancy biology at Humboldt State University. Coming from Bolivia it was one of her two options, the other was close to Yellowstone, but she fell in love with the area and opted for studying near the redwoods and the sea.
She has lived in the U.S. for four years and came here to pursue her education. Bolivia didn’t offer her degree of choice, so she found a place that did, nestled in the redwoods of Northern California. Every year the Save the Redwoods League partners with HSU and College of the Redwoods to get around eight students to work for the park during the summer months.
“I did not think I was gonna get in, so I was really happy,” Sojka said. “They chose me for my background and because I’m perfectly bilingual, which is something that the parks need.”
Diversity in the parks and in nature is something that Sojka is passionate about. She believes that a lot of what she studies and does in wildlife conservancy stays within the scientific community. The papers written use terms not known to the general public and she wants to find a way to talk about nature in a way that gets through to everyone.
“At the university we just use these big words, but that’s not how you can connect people to nature, so that’s why I’m here,” she said.
When she first started at the park in the beginning for the summer, she felt a bit out of place. As one of the only people of color and having all of her bosses be white males, she sometimes felt as if she was not being taken seriously and wished the parks would diversify their employees to make it a comfortable space for all workers and visitors.
“We come from nature, and when we live in cities we forget that, and we feel disconnected to ourselves and to nature, so coming here is really important,” Sojka said.
The parks have been slowly starting to promote more and more programs in different languages and according to Sojka there is now a Spanish version of the junior ranger booklets called “diario del guardabosque”.
“I love talking to Latinx folk,” Sojka said. “When they come in, they don’t think there will be someone they can speak to, but when they know I can speak Spanish they get so excited. I give them walk-throughs and talk to them about nature and they’re so fascinated and thankful, it makes me really happy as well.”