Keegan and Steve, AMC Coos County Trail Stewardship Interns 2012
Hello AMC staff and volunteers, I'm Keegan and I am one of three interns
from Coos County that has taken on the challenge of fully immersing myself in
the inner working of the AMC. Through shadowing the coordinators at Camp
Dodge our other trail stewardship intern Steven Martin and I are attempting
to get our feet wet in the world of the employment in outdoor
recreation. To give you a little bit of background on myself I hail
originally from Central New York, but relocated to Gorham, New Hampshire
and fell in love with the area and especially the wilderness of the
White Mountains. I will be attending the University of Maine Orono
with a major in Philosophy in hopes of one day attending law school to pursue a
career in environmental law. I have taken on this internship both because I
love the outdoors and because I want to learn more about the land I one
day hope to defend. There are so many parts to this internship, but I'll try to
give you the basic low down on what exactly it is that we do everyday at
Camp Dodge.
Every day is just a bit different for Steve and me, with our activities
ranging from scouting out trails in search of work for Camp Dodge's various
volunteer trail crews with Zack, to manning the office
chair alongside Alison at the AMC's Pinkham Notch office. In addition to
these aspects of our internship we also manage to help our amazing support
staff maintain Camp Dodge by doing everything from weeding the garden
to sharpening tools. Also as part of our internship's many
facets we work in partnership with the National Forest Service
to gain an understanding of what it takes for the Forest Rangers to maintain
the multitude of forest and Wilderness that engulfs Coos and Caroll Counties.
Perhaps the most crucial part of our internship is joining up with the leaders
of the Teen Spike crews at Camp Dodge and camping in the backcountry alongside
the crews while they work on various trail work projects.
From the Maine Woods to the White and Mahoosuc Mountains, we help to preserve
hundreds of miles of National Forest for the thousands of people who use the
trails every year. In this fast paced, high pressure world it has become
difficult to experience nature in a way that is conducive to promoting a life
long love of the outdoors. Hopefully through internships such as this one we
will be able to pass on a love of nature to teenagers for generations to come!
