A Woman in the Great Outdoors: Adventures in the National Park Service

Rating:
Summary: Role Model for Young Women
Review: Melody Webb's book offers two messages: one, we are loving our national parks to death, and two, women have a role in managing them. She tells about her experiences as a public historian and as supervisor in several national parks with the purpose of elevating awareness of how management practices and use by visitors threaten these national treasures. While involved in work previously assigned to men, she never wavers from a feminine introspection and awareness of the impact of her personality and temperament on her professional life. She proves that a woman can succeed in roles traditionally assigned to men. This book is a must-read for young women who dream of entering professions once thought of as being open only to men.

Rating:
Summary: The real story
Review: Melody Webb's stunningly candid account of life in the National Park Service is by far the best memoir in the recent history of the agency. She tells it like it is, with candor and frankness, showing both the ideals that make the Park Service wonderful and the political murkiness that makes management nigh on impossible. Webb's picture makes sense; she is a close observer who is fair in her depictions of how the agency operates and of how those in power use their cachet. Shed tells a cogent and understandable story, free from the biases of casual observers and the axe-grinding of other participants. Well-written and well told, this is best memoir about the National Park Service that I have ever read - and I've read them all! This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how the national parks are run.

Hal Rothman
Henderson NV

Rating:
Summary: She Had a Nice Run
Review: Melody Webb's years in the National Park Service certainly was an adventure. Imagine spending your summer canoeing down Alaska's Yukon River in search of abandoned gold rush camps with a virtual stranger as your guide or backpacking alone up the steep and treacherous Chilkoot Trail, battling hypothermia in the icy winds of the summit. As a park superintendent, how would you handle politicians, irate ranchers, active environmental groups, diseased elk and buffalo, re-introduction of the wolf to Yellowstone National Park, or a grizzly bear attack on a popular hiking trail? Melody Webb has experienced all that and more in her twenty-five-year career in the National Park Service and presents an articulate, informative, and well-paced account of her adventures in the great outdoors.