Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Keweenaw National Historical Park Superintendent Wyndeth Davis shown at a meeting last week of the Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission. Davis is retiring soon.

CALUMET TOWNSHIP – Wyndeth Davis, superintendent of the Keweenaw National Historical Park for the past 10 years, is retiring. She will retire sometime between the end of February and the middle of March. Davis has been with the National Park Service for 36 years, starting in 1989.

“I’ve been with the NPS since the 1900s,” she said with a laugh.

Davis began her career as an archaeologist in the Alaska region, she said. In the winter she was in the regional office in Anchorage, and during the summers she attended any and all of the 15 national parks in Alaska, wherever an archaeologist was needed.

In Alaska, she shifted from archaeology to to education. “Really, I found what I was doing was explaining how archaeologists get from a handful of artifacts to a big story,” she said, “and that’s something archaeologists don’t really interpret well. So, suddenly I was an interpreter in education.”

At that time there was not a lot of distance learning. The NPS website was just getting started, and Davis was part of its development.

“It was cool to be in the beginning of it,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine a world without websites now.”

The website work and the distance-learning work earned Davis a transfer to the Washington office to work with parks all over the country on their education programs and the distance learning. She then became the education coordinator for the NSP and moved to Washington, working with parks and rangers all over the country to assist them in developing education programs.

Davis was instrumental in the planning and implementation of of the NPS/Student Conservation Association Junior Ranger Ambassador program.

In November, 2011, she was awarded the National Park Service Sequoia Award, which recognizes individuals whose efforts have had a sustained positive impact on the profession of interpretation and whose work has resulted in exceptional and lasting improvements.

“Laura Bush, during her term as First Lady, really wanted to help with the Junior Ranger Program.

“I got to lead a team of rangers from parks all over the place to really create a national identity for the Junior Ranger Program, and to give it that logo that people now identify with the hat in the green circle. Explore, Learn, Protect came out of that team.”

Davis said her work with the Junior Ranger Program was among her greatest accomplishments.

“It was one of the best things that I could have involved in,” she said.

Davis was selected as superintendent of KNHP in July, 2016, moving from the NPS Harpers Ferry Design Center.

Davis said she has no plans on leaving the area when she retires. In fact, for the past seven years, she has been studying to become a pastor while serving at the Christ Episcopal Church in Calumet. She will be ordained sometime this year.

After she retires, she will probably enter volunteerism.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep my fingers out of things,” she said, “because I’m just interested in that continued arc towards doing good. Maybe someday I’ll turn it into a business if there’s enough to do, to do some strategic planning, with nonprofit organizations in the area.”