Charles F. Sams will become the first Native Amer­i­can to serve as direc­tor of the Nation­al Park Ser­vice, serv­ing under U.S. Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Deb Haa­land, her­self the first Native Amer­i­can to head the fed­er­al government’s largest land man­age­ment agency, if con­firmed by the Unit­ed States Senate.

Sams, an Ore­gon­ian, was nom­i­nat­ed Wednes­day by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, one of the few Pacif­ic North­west­ern­ers to be tapped so far for posi­tions requir­ing the Sen­ate’s con­sent in the admin­is­tra­tion. He is the for­mer deputy exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Con­fed­er­at­ed Tribes of the Umatil­la Indi­an Reser­va­tion and present­ly a mem­ber of the North­west Pow­er and Con­ser­va­tion Council.

Por­trait of NPS nom­i­nee Chuck Sams (Cour­tesy of Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown’s office)

Wash­ing­ton has three nation­al parks (Olympic, Mount Rainier, North Cas­cades), Ore­gon one (Crater Lake) as well as such prop­er­ties as Lake Roo­sevelt Nation­al Recre­ation Area and the Whit­man Mis­sion Nation­al His­toric Site near Wal­la Wal­la. Ida­ho shares a few NPS units with Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon and has a few of its own, like Craters of the Moon Nation­al Monument.

Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown, who named Sams to the Con­ser­va­tion Coun­cil, cheered the nom­i­na­tion, say­ing in a statement:

“I have worked close­ly with Chuck for many years and have wit­nessed first­hand his unpar­al­leled devo­tion and ser­vice to his tribe, our state and our nation. Per­haps most impor­tant­ly, Chuck is a pas­sion­ate stu­dent and teacher of the his­to­ry and cul­ture of our lands and people.”

As a trib­al offi­cial, Sams has been in the mid­dle of debate over that his­to­ry – name­ly the cen­tu­ry-old demo­niza­tion of tribes for the 1847 killings of mis­sion­ar­ies Mar­cus and Nar­cis­sa Whit­man. The Umatil­la Tribes have con­struct­ed a 45,000 square foot Tamast­slii Cul­tur­al Insti­tute that explains how white set­tle­ment robbed local tribes of their land and cir­cum­stances that led to the killings.

in In words of author Blaine Hard­en in his new book Mur­der at the Mis­sion: “A plac­ard inside the muse­um tells vis­i­tors why the Cayus­es decid­ed that Mar­cus Whit­man need­ed to die: ‘The head­men met in a coun­cil and made an agree­ment that the Doc­tor should be killed because two hun­dred of the peo­ple had died after tak­ing his medicine.”

After years of deifi­ca­tion of the Whit­mans, the Nation­al His­toric Site, in Harden’s words, “now offers vis­i­tors a nuanced and his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate account of the mur­ders at the mission.”

Wash­ing­ton’s Leg­is­la­ture recent­ly vot­ed to replace a stat­ue of Mar­cus Whit­man as the U.S. Capi­tol with a like­ness of Native Amer­i­can leader Bil­ly Frank, Jr.

“I think there’s already a deal in progress to give tribes co-con­trol of the Whit­man site,” Hard­en said Wednes­day night.

The Nation­al Park Sys­tem is America’s gift to the world, start­ing with cre­ation of Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park in 1872.

The crown jew­els of our nation’s pub­lic lands have nev­er been the pri­vate hunt­ing pre­serves of roy­al­ty, aris­toc­ra­cy or par­ty boss­es. Indeed, the Rock­e­feller fam­i­ly played a major role in cre­ation of Grand Teton and Aca­cia Nation­al Parks.

The Northwest’s nation­al parks are tak­ing on new recog­ni­tion and draw­ing new crowds. A nation­al sur­vey recent­ly ranked Olympic Nation­al Park as pre­mier unit in the sys­tem for its com­bi­na­tion of moun­tains, rain forests and wild ocean beach­es. The result: lines at the back­coun­try per­mit desk at the Port Ange­les vis­i­tor cen­ter. Reser­va­tions and per­mits are required at such fabled des­ti­na­tions as High Divide-Sev­en Lakes Basin.

Cli­mate dam­age is also tak­ing a toll.

Glac­i­ers are melt­ing at the epony­mous Glac­i­er Nation­al Park in Mon­tana, with the near dis­ap­pear­ance of such attrac­tions as Grin­nell Glac­i­er. Pop­u­lar Ander­son Glac­i­er in Olympic Nation­al Park has dis­ap­peared in the last quarter-century.

Vis­i­tors to Denali Nation­al Park in Alas­ka wit­ness “drunk­en forests” where the melt­ing of per­mafrost has caused trees to lean in dif­fer­ent directions.

The parks have been fierce­ly defend­ed. Gone are the days when Floyd E. Dominy, direc­tor of the U.S. Bureau of Recla­ma­tion, want­ed to build two dams in the Grand Canyon, one of which would have inun­dat­ed Lava Falls, the canyon’s great­est rapid. The Sier­ra Club ran a famous news­pa­per ad head­lined: “Would you flood the Sis­tine Chapel so tourists could get clos­er to the ceiling?”

Still, Sams will con­front devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion pres­sures, along with crowd­ing that has led to Full-Up signs at the entrances to nation­al parks in the South­west. The Nation­al Park Ser­vice has a big back­log of need­ed main­te­nance, which each suc­ces­sive admin­is­tra­tion in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. promis­es to address. Can­di­date George W. Bush used Mon­roe, Wash­ing­ton, in 2000 as site for a speech promis­ing more mon­ey for nation­al parks. Didn’t happen.

Some good projects have gone ahead since the turn of the cen­tu­ry, such as removal of two aged dams on the Elwha Riv­er, the Olympic Peninsula’s mas­ter stream, which blocked upstream fish migra­tion. Chi­nook salmon are now mak­ing their way past the site of the once two hun­dred and ten foot-high Glines Canyon Dam, and into sev­en­ty miles of reclaimed salmon spawn­ing habitat.

On the oth­er side of the Sal­ish Sea, wolves have migrat­ed south from Cana­da and repop­u­lat­ed the North Cas­cades Nation­al Park com­plex and sur­round­ing lands of the Pasayten and Chelan-Saw­tooth Wilder­ness Areas.

Griz­zly bears have staged a dra­mat­ic recov­ery in the Greater Yel­low­stone Ecosys­tem. The Trump regime nixed a griz­zly bear recov­ery project in the North Cas­cades, which ought to be back on the table.

Our nation­al parks have even wit­nessed nomen­cla­ture debates.

Mount Rainier is named after a British admi­ral who fought “the colonies” in the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War. Many would like to see a restora­tion of the moun­tain’s native name of Tahoma. After decades of resis­tance by the Ohio con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma act­ed to restore the native name “Denali” (the high one) to what had been Mount McKinley.

Active in a vari­ety of con­ser­va­tion caus­es, Charles Sams will have an over­rid­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty in his new job – stew­ard­ship. It is laid out in trib­al tra­di­tion, but also in mem­o­rable words spo­ken by Pres­i­dent Theodore Roo­sevelt, who would go on to des­ig­nate the Grand Canyon a nation­al monument:

“Leave it as it is. You can­not improve it. Not a bit. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your chil­dren and your children’s chil­dren, and all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every Amer­i­can, if he is able, can see.”