The Women Rangers of Isle Royale

An all-women team forges a path at the remote National Park

By Ren Brabenec | June 22, 2024

John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt. Everett Townsend and Walter Fry. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Richard Proenneke, and Ansel Adams. Since the inception of the national parks in the late 1800s, the men who carried the banner of wilderness preservation also wrote the history of their movement, often missing the crucial role women played in protecting America’s wilderness from the Industrial Revolution and the raw material extraction that revolution demanded.

At Isle Royale National Park, the lower 48’s least visited but most revisited national park, an all-women team of park rangers reminds us that all it takes to work in nature is a passion for conservation and a love for the outdoors.

“It wasn’t intentional at all,” says Katie Keller, lead ranger at Isle Royale, when we inquired about how the team came to be. “Hiring for the parks is different every year. So we were just as surprised as the visitors when we had all-women rangers two years in a row.”

Meet Katie Keller

The summer of 2022 was Keller’s ninth season on the island and her first with an all-women ranger complement. After fielding multiple reactions from visitors, Keller’s team launched the “Listening to Women in Wilderness” media series, the first of many programs designed to highlight how women have always played an integral role in park preservation, from Yellowstone botanist Herma Albertson, who authored numerous books; to Margaret Murie’s work to establish Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; to the all-women Save the Redwoods League that halted the rampant clearcutting of California’s coast redwoods.

Keller refers to herself as the “unlikeliest ranger” when asked how she arrived at the park. An Illinois native, she didn’t realize she’d be working on a remote island in Lake Superior until the park’s call-back caught her attention while she was searching for summer internships.

Fifteen years later, Keller couldn’t imagine doing anything else. “I’m really fortunate to be here,” Keller says. “It’s not common for a park ranger to stay at one park for a long period. We usually jump from park to park, but I fell in love with Isle Royale and became the lead ranger with a focus on park interpretation.”

Keller defined “park interpreters” for us, emphasizing their connection to park sustainability. The unofficial definition: “We’re the flat hat rangers who talk about nature and history,” she says with a smile.

More officially: “Instead of interpreting one language to another, we’re connecting people to park stories,” she continues, “whether that’s the island’s billion-year geologic history, wolf and moose population, fishing history, mining legacy, or significance to Indigenous peoples. Park rangers help connect people to the island which leads to appreciation and action on the part of visitors, whether that’s visitors practicing Leave No Trace or something as simple as not making illegal fires. It’s all about educating people and empowering them to participate in park preservation.”

That’s a tall order, so we asked Keller how much training rangers get. “Because the island is only open in the late spring, summer, and early autumn, most of the rangers are seasonal workers,” she says. “We give them a three-week training regimen with background about the park, our operations, permitting, entrance fees, campsite locations, and ranger-led events.”

The training isn’t one-sided. Because most rangers come from diverse backgrounds with experience at other parks, permanent staff like Keller act as both teacher and student when interacting with seasonal rangers, which leads to new conservation strategies, better programming, more efficient operations, and more effective emergency responses.

Yet despite the rangers’ diverse backgrounds, all who work there agree two factors make the island a one-of-a-kind place to work. Even the rangers who come to the island from far-off western parks remark that Isle Royale is extremely isolated, a location that is both humbling and awe-inspiring.

“It takes some adjusting, working on the island,” remarks Keller. “But the other factor we hear from rangers is how incredible the community on the island is. Our professional and personal lives become interwoven as our small complement of rangers interacts with the support staff, volunteers, lodge custodians, and ferry and sea plane concessionaires. We all come together to make Isle Royale visits possible.”

Meet Mary Hanson

As a park interpreter for the past two years, Mary Hanson assists visitors in learning about the island and developing a deeper connection to it. In doing so, she’s also felt herself become closer to the island, to the point where it feels like a second home.

“Isle Royale is the reason why I am who I am,” Hanson says simply. “It forces me to be flexible, teaches me to be patient, and gives me an appreciation for the little things.”

Hanson’s time on the remote archipelago began with an entire summer doing trail work on the island through the Wisconsin Conservation Corps. What started as a simple volunteer activity became a lifetime career. “That experience sparked a passion for national park conservation, and more specifically, Isle Royale,” she says.

When she’s not hosting ranger-led events or helping visitors find their way, Hanson’s favorite activity is hiking to the top of Feldtmann Fire Tower, where she says the expansive views make one truly understand how isolated the island is.

Meet Bridget Byrne

An eight-year park ranger with the past two-and-a-half years spent as a visual information specialist on Isle Royale, Bridget Byrne understands the dramatic variety on full display in America’s national parks.

“My park story began in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in North Dakota, which is about as different from Isle Royale as you can get,” says Byrne.

As with Keller, Hanson, and other visitors and Park Service employees, what makes Isle Royale special to Byrne is intangible, even ethereal.

“The island provides me with a sense of calm, safety, peace, growth, and healing in ways that no other place could,” Byrne tells us. “I think the isolation of the place is what makes it a haven for me and countless others.”

Byrne spends her days on and off the island creating multimedia projects to assist in park interpretation. But as with all the rangers stationed on the island, she goes where she’s needed. For example, during the island’s 2022 Mount Franklin Fire, Byrne joined other rangers and support staff to respond to the fire and prevent its spread.

Life at the Park

Isle Royale’s park rangers take their jobs seriously. The occasional emergencies like wildland fires, severe weather, and visitor injury demand a tempered mind and quick-to-act reflexes. Beyond those tasks, a significant part of a ranger’s job involves protecting the park so it can be a safe, healthy place.

“People go to the island and they get the feeling that it’s disconnected from the world,” Keller says. “And while it is remote, it’s not untouchable. Some of the threats are from the people there, say in the form of wildland fire threats. Sometimes, it’s things that come from far away, like pollution and invasive species. Then there’s algae blooms cropping up in inland lakes that make it challenging for visitors to source clean drinking water. And given that we are so isolated, organizing resources to address each of these issues can be extremely challenging.”

But in reality, most days are not like that, and for those who truly love the work they do, their lives do not feel like work.

“After my shift, I like to row out to the barrier islands in Rock Harbor Channel,” Byrne says. “The geography and ecology of these islands never cease to amaze me. I feel like a kid again when playing on the rock cliffs and gazing into tide pools.”

For those planning their own visit this summer, Keller offers some advice.

“Preparation is key, be ready for any weather, and give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to visit the places you want to see,” she says. “We also created the ‘Stay Wild’ principles to ensure visitors have a great experience. Know before you go, play it safe, protect your park, and share the space. These principles are geared towards having a good time and leaving the park in a good condition for others. If we can inspire visitors to follow these principles, we’re doing our job as rangers.”

Photo courtesy of the National Park Service