Student Spotlight: Nils Rinehart
I met Niels a couple of years ago now and am so delighted with the friendship we’ve developed since. I’ve really enjoyed talking with him about interpretation, storytelling, archeology, the power of place-names, and recently - the best local beer when we were both at the NAI Northeast conference in Burlington, Vermont! Niels uses interpretation in his professional role with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, but also in his volunteer work, his writing, and in this month’s student spotlight, Niels shares some of his thoughts on the ‘jazz’ of good interpretation.
Name, org, position
Niels Rinehart
Lands Administration and Historic Resources Coordinator
Division for Lands Administration and Recreation (DLAR)
Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR)
Describe what you do in interpretation
I’ve worked in cultural resource management as an archaeologist for over 25 years but have only recently turned to interpretation and wish I’d discovered it years ago! I worked as an archaeological consultant for many years and now with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR), I manage historic resources at state parks and state forests. However, I spend my weekends as an interpretive guide at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum (EAHM) and enjoy the opportunity to interact with the public and tell stories about the past. EAHM is an historic farmstead on the outskirts of Burlington, Vermont and was an active farm beginning in the 1780s when it was the home for Vermont Founding Father Ethan Allen and his family. And before the Allens, the Abenaki farmed the land for centuries before.
At work I also have opportunities to speak to communities about the historic resources on their public lands, including outreach about land management planning and the occasional newspaper or public radio story. I enjoy the opportunity to populate the landscape with stories and names.
What is your favorite part about your work?
My actual employment with FPR doesn’t include interpretation as a job description but rather management, consultation, and stewardship of historic resources. I enjoy many aspects of my work. I work with so many wonderful people including foresters, biologists, botanists, recreation specialists, etc., who teach me a great deal about the natural world. I gain so much from their energy and commitment to managing and stewarding our public lands. It’s great to be a part of their projects, bringing them through the regulatory process and having an opportunity to contribute to the management of these lands. And as the years go by, it’s gratifying to build up institutional memory and then to find ways to share that information and stories with my colleagues and the public.
Speaking more specifically to interpretation - my original education and training (over 30 years ago!) was in music as a jazz bass player. I played the same songs for years but over those years, how I played the songs changed as I picked up new ideas and new phrases, new approaches from listening to records, as well as watching others and playing with other musicians. Through all these experiences, the vocabulary that I brought to the same medium swing blues in F that I’d been playing for years, became far richer and more varied as I learned more and became more skilled as a player.
I think interpretation can be much the same thing: I basically give the same tour at the Ethan Allen Homestead, walking the same steps, but my tour is always changing. As I read books, listen to other interpreters and reenactors, interact with guests, my vocabulary and the skill with which I’m able to express that vocabulary is always growing. With every tour you respond to different people and the different ways in which they react to the stories you’re telling. It was the same performing jazz; every performance involved different interactions with different musicians and different audiences. Every song has a form and structure, but the more you learn, the more varied your expression within that structure will grow. And with that opportunity comes the challenge to put in the time and effort so that nothing ever becomes routine.
How does the CIG/interpretation help you in your work?
Now that I have more experience as an interpreter, I think I could benefit from revisiting the CIG training. But one lesson that I continue to learn from is the idea of themes. For some reason I had a hard time with this concept in my CIG training, and I remember that Kristin (with great patience!) helped me to better understand how to construct an effective theme. I recently got a copy of Sam Ham’s “Interpretation: Making a Difference on Purpose” which I’m eager to read although it’s sitting in a leaning tower of Pisa of books on my night table so it might be a while! But the idea of themes has impacted how I talk to people, not just in interpretive settings, but in professional exchanges and simple storytelling with friends. In the past I think I expected that people had the same context that I had, and I frequently would start any discussion with a story or metaphor, expecting that everyone would know exactly where I was coming from and where I was going. The idea of the theme has helped me to understand that I need to create context, like a good title or heading in an article, or providing a simple image. A theme can almost be like a great soundtrack in a movie or a key exchange at the beginning of a film, setting the tone and character of what’s to come. A good theme will create the boundaries for both you and the audience, defining the world you’re going to be interacting within.
The lesson of having to prepare an interpretive talk with 10 minutes really taught me a lot about paring down to the essentials of what you’re hoping to get across. I was reminded of a lesson a family friend once told me. He was a Jesuit theologian at Georgetown University, and he said if a priest really knows his stuff, his homily shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. If the priest starts going on for more than that, he probably hasn’t spent enough time preparing and understanding his message. It’s a real challenge, but limiting oneself – creating those structural boundaries – can really help you to focus your message and zone in on something that will stick. I love the history I’m talking about so I could ramble and ramble, but I’ll lose the audience.
Brag a little! Tell us about a recent success
I’m very pleased with an article I wrote entitled “Naming Chickens and Mapping the Sacred Geography of the Mundane” that came out last fall in the Journal of Archaeology and Education. I enjoyed writing this article, applying my experience writing and publishing creative non-fiction, to an academic context. My ambition is to translate the archaeological facts and figures involved in the work I take part it, into a language of stories that will stick. A piece I am working on now is based on a paper I gave this spring that expands on the “Naming Chickens” article to speak specifically about telling stories that stick about the pre-Contact past (pre- AD 1600). Stories can build relationships between people and their public lands, calling back to what Tilden wrote: “through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection.”
What’s next for you?
Given the current political climate, what’s next is hopefully survival. With funding cuts, program cuts, and regulatory cuts, and the potential loss of millions of acres of public land, I’m very worried that the work I’ve been involved in for so many years won’t survive, at least not in a form I’d recognize. The current administration is squandering so much talent, knowledge, and commitment to the public good and it’s heart breaking. However, I was just told that my position with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation will expand to cover the management of historic resources within our entire parent agency, the Agency of Natural Resources. It’ll be a lot of work, which makes me a little nervous, but I’m grateful for the opportunity and the recognition, and I look forward to the chance to expand my work to include other stakeholders across Vermont.
I’ll be presenting in September at the Ethan Allen Homestead, summarizing the results of a long-term project I’ve been involved in, cataloging a large assemblage of 50,000 artifacts from excavations that took place 35 years ago at EAHM. The hope is to then create a new exhibit based on this work at the museum and to publish something for wider public consumption about the history and archaeology of the Homestead.
But as always – I’ve got an abundance of ideas, interests, and ambition, but time is in short supply!
Can people contact you?