Journal articles on the topic 'National Historic Parks and Sites Branch'

Changing sociocultural and historiographic contexts require new approaches to interpretation and presentation at National Park Service–administered sites. Through the study of two NPS parks in Washington State (San Juan Island National Historical Park and Whitman Mission National Historic Site), this article explores the agency’s interpretive programs and practices in relation to founding mandates and contemporary relevance. As demonstrated by these case studies, efforts to expand programming and presentations within the NPS system are ongoing but at present insufficient in light of current changes in demographics and visitation. Ultimately, for the NPS to remain relevant in the twenty-first century it must respect founding mandates but diversify interpretation of its parks’ contested histories, thereby enhancing its contemporary relevance and better engaging today’s audiences.

National park sites draw tourism all across the United States. Although large natural parks see much attention, most national park units are actually designed to protect and interpret unique cultural and historic resources. As an example of this, the National Park Service administers numerous presidential historic sites. However, we know very little about the people who visit them. Understanding visitor motivations to presidential historic sites can help to provide for better visitor experiences of presidential resources. This research uses intercept surveys at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, Georgia, to gain an understanding of visitor motivations. From the results, seven motivation types are identified. The information in this article can be used to better understand public values related to presidential resources, and to help the managers of these resources to improve on-site experiences by addressing visitor motivations.

In the latter half of the 1980s, Muriel (Miki) Crespi, Chief Ethnographer for the National Park Service, gave voice to the concept in the National Park Service of "ethnographic resources" and a systematic effort to survey and inventory national parks for their presence. Within the National Park Service at the time, "cultural resources" were archeology sites, buildings, structures, museum objects, and landscapes that were mostly historic (or prehistoric) in nature. These types of cultural resources were considered tangible objects or "properties" that had some element of historical value and could be identified, counted, and subsequently "managed." In most cases, the identification and evaluation of these cultural resources was based on whether they fit into the criteria of significance developed for the National Register of Historic Places.

Abstract Burns's documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea offers compelling portraits of “American originals,” including John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, Stephen Mather, and Horace Albright. It offers breathtaking “god's-eye” views of national park landscapes. It offers fascinating biographies of Yellowstone and Yosemite, in particular the enduring tension between processes of preservation and commercialization. However, there were missed opportunities to focus on so-called historic sites, to inform viewers of the many enduring threats to the “park idea,” and to help viewers appreciate the creative potential of this idea in a new century.

Abstract Since the 1972 National Museums Policy announced its goals of “democratization and decentralization,” national historic sites have been marked by a trend toward regionalization. While scholars have focused on the nationalizing impetus of twentieth-century historiography before 1970, subsequently there have been consistent efforts to incorporate local environmental and cultural diversity into the “family” of national sites. This paper demonstrates this system-wide trend by comparing historic sites in the Bay of Fundy and the Alberta foothills. In both places, designation has evolved from the two-nations narrative of French-English rivalry, in seventeenth-century forts or fur trade posts which could integrate far-flung localities, thereby claiming transcontinental space as national territory. Interpretation now credits local ecological factors with shaping the course of historical events, and acknowledges in situ resources. In addition, Parks Canada has involved groups such as the Acadians or the Blackfoot, whose claims of “homeland” jostle the naturalized Canadian boundaries affirmed by the older national narrative. There are other complications, raised by revisions in public history; notably, these sites continue to play a role in the marketing of place – in a long tradition of using the landscape as an entrée to tourism – and they are not yet conceived in regional groupings.

This article explores the challenges and opportunities that accompany efforts on the ground to nurture innovation as we promote stewardship, preserve valued places, advance education, and facilitate citizens’ connection to their parks and historic sites in the second century of the National Park Service. Using the first nationally designated historic site, Salem Maritime, as a case study, we examine efforts to grapple with bureaucratic inertias, entrenched patterns of insularity, and reliance on top-down authority. Support from leadership is necessary to allow education and interpretation staff on the ground to invite scholars, teachers, school districts, community educators, park neighbors, and others to participate in developing more engaged, complex, multivocal, and democratic histories and a broader vision for the new century in the NPS.

North American elk (Cervus elaphus L., 1758) are an important component of Canada’s natural ecosystems. Overhunting and habitat decline in the 19th century led to the near eradication of Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni Bailey, 1935) and Manitoban elk (Cervus elaphus manitobensis Millais, 1915) within Alberta. Though elk populations have been restored within provincial and national parks, it is unknown to what degree historic population declines affected overall genetic diversity and population structuring of the two subspecies. This study targeted 551 bp of mitochondrial D-loop DNA from 50 elk remains recovered from 16 archaeological sites (2260 BCE (before common era) to 1920 CE (common era)) to examine the former genetic diversity and population structure of Alberta’s historic elk populations. Comparisons of ancient and modern haplotype and nucleotide diversity suggest that historic population declines reduced the mitochondrial diversity of Manitoban elk, while translocation of animals from Yellowstone National Park in the early 20th century served to maintain the diversity of Rocky Mountain populations. Gene flow between the two subspecies was significantly higher in the past than today, suggesting that the two subspecies previously formed a continuous population. These data on precontact genetic diversity and gene flow in Alberta elk provide essential baseline data integral for elk management and conservation in the province.

Forlorn, uncared-for cultural or natural objects and sites fail to be included into lists of touristic attractions due to their obscurity, poor condition and communication and are usually visited by certain social groups (extreme adventure travellers, members of various subcultures and etc.). The analysis revealed a wide array of such objects and sites, which are unknown and not in very good condition, can be very different starting with manor houses, historic parks and gardens and finishing with airfields, open courses or dumping grounds. The goal of a pilot research project carried out at the National Centre of Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics “GIS-Centras” was to collect information on diverse objects and sites that are typically not included into official information sources and fall outside the tourist infrastructure network. The collected information will be published as a map service. The inventory of such undiscovered objects and sites and visualisation is one of the ways to encourage the interest of visitors, especially in regions that lack famous tourist attraction objects or beautiful landscapes. The paper describes solutions for the structure of the database, object acquisition technology, cartographic visualisation and publication of collected data as an online map at www.nemasinis.lt ...

Abstract This special issue of the Public Historian explores issues relating to the management of public history programs in New York State. State history is something that continues to be worthy of preservation, management, study, and analysis because of the distinctive historical development and traits of each state and the role of state history as a portal to national history. New York's history is complex because of its size, ethnic diversity, cosmopolitan character, and the rapid pace of its historical development. What might be termed its “historical infrastructure”—the totality of programs to manage its history—is also complex. State government history programs include the State Archives, State Museum, and Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. There are large organizations with statewide programs and influence such as the New York State Historical Association, dozens of state historic sites, and several hundred local historical societies and historical museums. Issues include lack of funding, inadequate public support, fragmentation of effort and need for better coordination, and need for more robust use of information technology. Each of the seven essays represents its author's insights and perspectives on accomplishments, issues, and needs.

The title and contents of this article have emerged after trying to summarize international scientific knowledge and theory, regulations by relevant international organizations, as well as several national legislative provisions issued in the area of development of historical landscapes, environment and sites. Various definitions related to the subject, changing and newly introduced terminology have originally caused some embarrassment and provoked a series of questions, such as: who is who and what is the difference? In this respect, a historical garden or park as a significant area is defined as a ‘Living Monument’, ‘Tangible Heritage’ or even ‘Intangible Heritage’, because there is no doubt that the garden is a dynamic and ever changing environment. The applied terminology and definitions on historical gardens and parks are also undoubtedly related to the issues of heritage awareness. Differences in the national legislations are significant too, whereas historical gardens and parks are classified both, as architecture and natural monuments and heritage immovable property. An analysis at the theoretical level of the legislation and scientific statements provided in conclusion gives a certain insight into the significance of each projective aspect in the planning development of the historical gardens and parks and forms the base for further relevant issue researches. Santrauka Straipsnio pavadinimas ir turinys susiformavo apibendrinant mokslines žinias ir teoriją tarptautiniu mastu, tarptautinių organizacijų teisinį reglamentavimą, taip pat kelis nacionalinius teisės aktus, reguliuojančius istorinio kraštovaizdžio, aplinkos ar vietovės kaitą. Įvairūs susiję apibrėžimai, besikeičianti ir atnaujinama terminologija iš pradžių kelia sumišimą ir nemažai klausimų: kas yra kas ir kokie skirtumai? Šiuo atžvilgiu istorinis sodas ar parkas, kaip reikšminga teritorija, apibrėžiama kaip gyvas paminklas, materialusis paveldas ar net kaip nematerialusis paveldas, nes nėra abejonių, kad sodas yra dinamiška ir nuolat kintanti aplinka. Probleminė yra istoriniams sodams ir parkams taikoma terminija ir paveldo sampratos apibrėžimai. Akivaizdžių skirtumų esama valstybių teisės aktuose, kur istoriniai sodai ir parkai klasifikuojami kaip architektūros ar gamtos paminklai ar nekilnojama kultūros vertybė, atitinkamai skirtingai reglamentuojant. Teorinio teisės aktų ir mokslinės minties tyrimo apibendrinimas leidžia suvokti kiekvieno projektavimo aspekto svarbą istorinių sodų ir parkų plėtrai ir yra tolesnių aktualių tyrimų atspirtis.

The Prince of Wales Fort, in Churchill Manitoba, was constructed in the early 18th century by the Hudson Bay Trading Company (HBC) in an effort to secure the fur trade in northern Canada. The fort is a Vauban style rubble masonry construction, and is the most northerly fortification of this kind. In the 1920’s the fort received recognition as a National Historic Site by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, at which time monitoring and repairs began under the leadership of Parks Canada. As a result of the fort’s northern latitude it has been subjected to extreme temperatures and freeze thaw cycles causing a gradual break down of the mortar within the escarp walls. Recently, climate change has led to an increase in the average local temperature shifting the thermal gradient within the earth rampart. During spring and summer, high volumes of ground water have drained through the walls washing out much of the degraded mortar. The result is a partially grouted rubble wall, encased with ashlar face stones. These deteriorating core conditions have caused significant lateral deflections in several areas and failure in others. The core wall material will be analyzed by modeling it as an irregular granular material. Using this approach, different levels of cohesion can be used to determine the in-situ mortar conditions and the strength of the structure.

The paper discusses urgent problems of urban heritage assesment and treatment in Lithuania today. Contradictions in the system of listing, lack of fundamental investigations, indeterminate responsibility of authorities, inadequate role of local communities are revealed as the basic factors of low efficiency of urban heritage preservation. The most efficient means of urban heritage preservation are revealed in protected national and regional parks. Historic towns and villages of these areas remain more authentic than registered urban heritage sites in the other territories of Lithuania. The initiative of local administrations could also be considered as one of the most important factors in urban heritage preservation. Scandinavian experience in the protection of urban heritage reveals the importance of local inhabitants in the processes of historic town preservation. Recent international documents on cultural heritage protection and changes in the Lithuanian urban planning system enable perfection of urban heritage preservation. The launched reimbursement of expenses for restoration works in Lithuania shows positive changes in this field. Santrauka Nagrinėjamos dabarties Lietuvoje susiklosčiusios teisinės paskatos ir kliūtys išsaugoti urbanistikos paveldą. Analizuojami Lietuvos įstatymai ir įstatymų įgyvendinamieji dokumentai, reglamentuojantys urbanistikos paveldo vietovių apsaugą kultūros paveldo apskaitos bei teritorijų planavimo lygmenyse. Siekiama atskleisti urbanistinių darinių vertingųjų savybių išsaugojimo teisinių nuostatų veiksmingumą. Atskleidžiami teisiniai trukdžiai ir paskatos gyventojams dalyvauti istorinių miestų ir miestelių kultūrinės vertės išsaugojimo procesuose.

ABSTRACTCastles are some of Japan's most iconic structures and popular tourist destinations. They are prominent symbols of local, regional and national identity recognised both at home and abroad. Castles occupy large areas of land at the centre of most Japanese cities, shaping the urban space. Many castles have their roots in the period of civil war that ended in the early seventeenth century, and now house museums, parks and reconstructions of historic buildings. The current heritage status of Japan's castles obscures their troubled modern history. During the imperial period (1868–1945), the vast majority of pre-modern castles were abandoned, dismantled or destroyed before being rediscovered and reinvented as physical links to an idealised martial past. Japan's most important castles were converted to host military garrisons that dominated city centres and caused conflict with civilian groups. Various interests competed for control and access, and castles became sites of convergence between civilian and military agendas in the 1920s and 1930s. This paper argues that castles contributed both symbolically and physically to the militarisation of Japanese society in the imperial period. The study of these unique urban spaces provides new approaches to understanding militarism, continuity and change in modern Japan.

The Djerdap National park, which comprises the river, the lake, the gorge, and mountainous surrounding and has a potential in water and land traffic, influences several economic possibilities in rural and urban settlements. That influence would result in additional funds for spatial planning, which is one of the priorities when development of tourism in Serbia is in question. In our country, which is continental area of the Balkans, Djerdap lake, as a part of the Djerdap National park, is not only of local and regional value, but also of national, European, tourism, energetic, traffic, cultural, historic, and civilization value. It seems that tourism, as an industrial branch, which connects the area, people and activities in an improved way, has to be design and developed with special attention. In the Djerdap National Park there are excellent conditions for the development of many types of tourism, that are to be developed in concordance with other industrial branches and thus broadening the base for economy and valorization of natural and obtained wealth. Natural features of the Djerdap National Park stand as a renewing part for its polyvalence and multification and being combined in various ways the frequently compose unfavorable complexes. Those features are relief, hydrographic objects, climate, flora and fauna. The Djerdap National Park comprises cultural historical monuments from the Neolithic Period to modern times. Cultural heritage shows that the Danube riparian area was inhabited in the Neolithic Period and since than it has preserved the continuity of living. The development of the living in this area may be traced at archeological sites of back to Roman, Turkish and modern buildings.

In 1922, there were thirty-five state health resorts in the Soviet Union. This article introduces the historic role of health resorts as sites of nature conservation in the Soviet Union, comparable to national parks and nature reserves (zapovedniki), and highlights the role of physicians and medical ideas in the formulation and promotion of conservation policies in the Soviet Union. It analyzes conservation laws and regulations that covered health resorts, prohibiting a range of activities throughout their territories to protect natural healing resources such as mineral waters, muds, and beaches. In the 1930s, Soviet health resorts became influential centers of conservation when the science of ecology lost state support and ecological study centers in the nature reserves were dismantled. The idea that the natural environment should be protected to serve human health gained influence with official patrons in the Soviet state because physicians explicitly aligned the health resorts with the anthropocentric ideology of the state and its goal of industrialization, opening up health resort medicine to the industrial workforce. Health and nature's curative ideas also formed the foundation for nature protection during Stalinism. State patronage of health resort conservation increased in the Stalinist period, culminating in 1940, when the reach of conservation was extended to local health resorts. The article concludes with an examination of conservation work in the Sochi health resort.

The information about the process and the main results of the second stage of the process of nomination of Ukrainian sites of beech virgin and old-growth forests of Ukraine to the pan-European site of UNESCO World Natural Heritage "Beech forests and ancient forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe" are provided. Despite the individual comments of IUCN experts on the pan-European nomination, on July 7, 2017, at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's 41 session (Krakow, Poland), a historic decision was made to extend the existing UNESCO World Heritage Site by 63 areas of beech forests and ancient forests from 10 European countries and its renaming to "Beech forests and ancient forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe". The World Heritage Committee has recognized the forests of Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine as being a testament to the exceptional evolution and impact of beech ecosystems in Europe since the last ice age. In this new list Ukraine is represented by 9 sites, which are protected in the National Nature Parks "Synevyr", "Zacharovanyi Krai" and "Podilsky Tovtry" and Nature Reserves "Gorgany" and "Roztochia" with a total area of 5473,47 ha and an area of buffer zones 8161,55 ha. These parts are located on the territory of two beech forest regions, like Carpathian and Polonic-Podolic-Moldovan. As a result of the expansion, at present the Ukrainian component of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Beech forests and ancient forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe" consists of 15 components with a total area of 28 985,97 hectares and an area of buffer zones 43035,85 hectares. The share of Ukraine in the territory of transnational serial heritage consists of 31.5%, and the share of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve - 22.8%. A new European dimension to nature protection cooperation (12 countries) has been created to improve the management and research of beech stands within the continent, to stimulate the creation of new nature conservation areas, as well as to create models of public approximation to UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The fundamental principle of sustainable coastal tourism lays on the crystal clear water, healthy eco-system and well maintained coastal environment. Coastal tourism has drawn international attention and become highly competitive as everyone tries to increase their market share in terms of beach visitors, both domestic and international. The result of the studies in U.S proved that beaches are leading tourist destination followed by national parks and historic sites (Houston& James R, 1996). Normally, any development plan at coastal area is always looked from a commercial perspective, whereas environmental aspect is concerned, it is being described as ―trying to minimize environmental effects‖. This attitude leads to unsustainable coastal tourism development which has a multiple negative implications not only on the environment and society but also it leads to economic leakage as it destroys the physical structures such as landscape, the bio-diversity and the eco-system- in the sea and on the land which makes the foundation for tourism activities at coastal area. India too has a coastline of 7525 Kms. Spread across nine states, in which Karnataka also has a part. Coastal Karnataka consists of three districts - Uttara Kannada, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada. It has a coastal area of 300 Kms that comprises a handful of potential virgin beaches. With a systematic and careful development approach towards these potential beaches, the State's beach area can be turned into attractive destinations that can vie with the best that her two nearest coastal neighbours (Kerala and Goa) have to offer. This study is confined to five beaches of Dakshina Kannada (Ullal, Someshwar, Thannir Bhavi, Panambur and Surathkal) with a view to evaluate certain sustainable practices (community participation and benefits, environment protection, socio-cultural preservation and enrichment etc.) expected to be there on the study area. The researchers have used questionnaire method in order to collect the responses from the tourism related firms and local community.

Abstract In post-communist Romania, regional self-identification has undergone significant change. Particularly, a paradigm shift occurred in relation to 20th century Romanian historiography (I have in mind the national communist as well as inter-war historic narratives). The literature and the promotional films of Suceava County Council (i.e., the local government branch) are a case in point. They are designed to advertise tourism products in travel marts and various media outlets. Next to the story of a multi-faith/ethnic community, particular images and symbols are employed in order to craft the public identity of the county. A regional iconography gradually emerges on screen as more video content about Suceava is being produced. Capturing the essence of Romanian Bucovina on camera is a challenge steeped both in the history of the Habsburg Duchy and in that of the Moldavian principality (whose northernmost part was incorporated into the Habsburg Empire in 1775). Next comes the attempt to ‘touristify’ natural sites of environmental interest. History and nature are narrative tropes that amount to a coherent story delivered to natives and visitors alike. Despite the industrial scarring of the landscape well known to the natives, areas of woodland and countryside are on display. City life is largely ignored for the sake of a multicultural history of Bukovina mainly located in a rural setting. Screening Suceava has everything to do with identity-building. The rhetoric of regional self-designation seems to rank high on the local political agenda. The cosmopolitan Austro-Hungarian Bukovinian identity is obviously at odds with the ethno-national legacy celebrated in the so-called ‘Northern monasteries’ of Moldavia or in the Suceava fortress of Stephen the Great (who was built into an icon of Romanian historiography). The recreational opportunities of Suceava County are marketed to tourist boards, hotel chains, etc. as the retention of a Mitteleuropean distinctiveness. Explicitly, it is ‘something’ that has stayed with the indigenous population ever since the Austrian state set out to instruct the natives in the arts of life. There is a video side effect to the story. The mountainous countryside of Suceava is sold to the public as being peopled by men and women in national dress, a community dramatically different from all other surrounding areas of 21st century Romania.

Topicality. The article covers the issues of implementation of marketing tools for the development of the ecological direction of rural tourism. Tourism development can become a "catalyst" for economic growth in rural areas: tourism activity is attractive to small start-up investments, because for peasants who have very limited funds, this is a practically crucial moment; tourism is a profitable branch of economy with a high level of profitability, with a minimum payback period, which is very important for the quick income generation. Aim and tasks. The only way to solve systemic problems in the field of tourism is a strategically oriented state policy, the main task of which is to define tourism as one of the main priorities of the state, the introduction of economic and legal mechanisms for the successful conduct of tourism business, investment mechanisms for the development of tourism infrastructure, information and marketing activities with formation of tourist image of Ukraine. Research results. Results For the successful development of rural tourism and tourism in general in Ukraine, it is necessary to ensure the integrated development of territories, in particular the creation of favorable conditions for attracting investment in the development of tourism infrastructure by: monitoring investment proposals for the development of tourism infrastructure in the regions; preparation of a cathlass of investment projects in the field of tourism and resorts to represent potential domestic and foreign investors; the involvement of investment projects in the field of tourism and resorts in international fairs of investment projects. �wner village (guest) houses can not independently provide a wide range of leisure activities for their guests. Therefore, they need to cooperate with other structures that serve the guests of the village. Usually such partners are: � objects of community food (taverns, bars, roadside cafes); � owners of means of transport (traditional, retro options); � centers of folk crafts and crafts production; � artistic and ethno-folk groups; � municipal and private museums; � the administration of natural parks. Supporting the region in resource support: - cartographic and advertising-cartographic support, as a rule, is necessary at the level of the region (the only tourist area); - Information and advertising resources of the region (TV and other mass media, regional specialized sites, etc.); - training for tourism industry: effective coordination at the regional level; - Information and advisory support: effective organization at the regional level (including, with the involvement of external expertise, including international). Conclusions. In order to achieve the goals within the specified priority areas, it is necessary to ensure effective interaction of legal, organizational, economic and financial mechanisms of state regulation of tourism and resorts development. Prospects for rural tourism development in Ukraine appear to be potentially favorable given the presence of significant natural resources. �he flowering of rural recreation should take place under active cooperation with nature conservation institutions of a certain region (according to Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine", subject to compliance with the environmental protection regime established by this Law and other acts of Ukrainian legislation, provides use them for recreational and other recreational purposes). Ukraine has powerful natural and recreational opportunities, for example, five biosphere reserves, national natural parks: Carpathian, Hutsulshchyna, Vyzhnytsky, Yavorivsky.

Abstract. Alba is a town of over 30 000 inhabitants located along the Tanaro River (Piedmont, northwestern Italy) and is famous for its wine and white truffles. Many important industries and companies are based in Alba, including the famous confectionery group Ferrero. The town suffered considerably from a flood that occurred on 5–6 November 1994. Forty-eight percent of the urban area was inundated, causing severe damage and killing nine people. After the flood, the Alba area was analysed in detail to determine the reasons for its vulnerability. Information on serious floods in this area since 1800 was gathered from official records, state technical office reports, unpublished documents in the municipal archives, and articles published in local and national newspapers. Maps, plans and aerial photographs (since 1954) were examined to reconstruct Alba's urban development over the last two centuries and the planform changes of the Tanaro River. The results were compared with the effects of the November 1994 flood, which was mapped from aerial photographs taken immediately after the flood, field surveys and eyewitness reports. The territory of Alba was subdivided into six categories: residential; public service; industrial, commercial and hotels; sports areas, utilities and standards (public gardens, parks, athletics grounds, private and public sport clubs); aggregate plants and dumps; and agriculture and riverine strip. The six categories were then grouped into three classes with different flooding-vulnerability levels according to various parameters. Using GIS, the three river corridors along the Tanaro identified by the Autorità di Bacino del Fiume Po were overlaid on the three classes to produce a final map of the risk areas. This study shows that the historic floods and their dynamics have not been duly considered in the land-use planning of Alba. The zones that were most heavily damaged in the 1994 flood were those that were frequently affected in the past and sites of more recent urbanisation. Despite recurrent severe flooding of the Tanaro River and its tributaries, areas along the riverbed and its paleochannels have been increasingly used for infrastructure and building (e.g., roads, a municipal dump, a prison, natural aggregate plants, a nomad camp), which has often interfered with the natural spread of the floodwaters. Since the 1994 flood, many remedial projects have been completed along the Tanaro and its tributaries, including levees, bank protection, concrete walls and floodway channels. In spite of these costly projects, some areas remain at high risk for flooding. The method used, which considered historical data, river corridors identified by hydraulic calculations, geomorphological aspects and land-use planning, can indicate with good accuracy flood-prone areas and in consequence to be an useful tool for the coherent planning of urban expansion and the mitigation of flood risk.

Abstract Many of the national parks in East Africa are equally as famous for their iconic landforms as they are for their diversity and concentrations of fauna and flora. The newly formed Ngorongoro-Lengai Geopark in northern Tanzania is the first geopark to be established in the region, but there is remarkable potential for geotourism in the majority of the national parks. The most spectacular landforms have been shaped by the East African Rift System. Formation of the two major rifts in the region, the Albertine Rift (or western branch) and the Gregory Rift (or eastern branch), was accompanied, or in some cases preceded, by extensive alkaline volcanism. The rifting and volcanism are primarily Late Cenozoic phenomenon that dissected and overprinted the older regional plateaus. Rifting impacted the regional drainage and captured major rivers, including the Victoria Nile. Chains of ribbon lakes formed in the rift valleys. The Albertine Rift consists of a sequence of sedimentary basins with deep freshwater lakes, but the shallow soda lakes of the Gregory Rift are associated with mostly volcanic terrains. Plateau-style volcanic outpourings smoothed out the older land surfaces, created near-lunar landscapes in parts of the rift valley, and built up rift shoulders to tremendous elevations. Magma erupted from central conduits formed giant stratovolcanoes which reveal evidence of explosive, Plinian-style volcanic activity. East Africa includes some of the largest and best preserved calderas on Earth. The Ngorongoro Caldera is a world heritage site. The ice-capped peaks of the two largest volcanoes in the region, Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, are among the highest free-standing mountains on Earth. The region includes active volcanoes, several of which are potentially hazardous as they are located near urban centres. Examples include Longonot-Hells Gate (Kenya), Mount Meru (Tanzania) and Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of Congo). East Africa is renowned for the unusual rapidity of Darwinian evolution during the past thirty million years, including evolution of primates and hominins, and it is not a coincidence that significant palaeoanthropological discoveries have been unearthed from the Oldupai Gorge and Laetoli sites in northern Tanzania. The evolutionary period coincides with the onset and persistence of rifting and volcanism. Speciation is following an island-style pattern in East Africa, despite the continental setting, as regional plateaus are being dissected by the ongoing rifting and volcanism into smaller and smaller geological terrains. This is illustrated by restriction of the endangered Mountain gorilla to regions where afromontane forests developed in rift-related uplands isolated by extensive savannah grasslands.

This document constitutes the final report of work done by Prewitt and Associates, Inc. (PAI), under a contract from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to provide archeological services in seven TxDOT districts—Abilene, Austin, Brownwood, Bryan, Fort Worth, Waco, and Yoakum. Under this contract, PAI completed Impact Evaluations and Surveys to assist TxDOT in meeting the requirements of their Memorandum of Understanding with the Texas Historical Commission and a Programmatic Agreement among the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Federal Highway Administration, the Texas Historical Commission, and TxDOT. The contract began on 21 September 2001, and the last work authorization was issued on 15 September 2003. During those two years, fieldwork was done under 96 work authorizations. The 97 work authorizations consisted of 94 Impact Evaluations, 74 Surveys, and 14 Surveys with Geoarcheological Evaluation. Combined, these work authorizations entailed efforts at 128 bridge replacements, 40 road realignments or widening projects (many also involving bridge replacements), 5 new road construction projects, 4 hike-and-bike trail construction projects, 4 rest area construction projects, 3 projects involving upgrades to 9 existing bridges or culverts, 2 projects where new borrow pits are planned, 2 projects involving relocation of historic bridges to public parks, 1 project involving construction of 2 new bridges, 1 project involving replacement of an interstate highway interchange, and 1 project involving establishment of a wetland mitigation area. During completion of these work authorizations, 43 newly discovered or previously recorded archeological sites were investigated, although in the case of 14 previously recorded sites, no archeological remains were observed in the areas that will be affected by the proposed Transportation Activities. Twenty-three of the Impact Evaluations led to recommendations that survey could be needed before construction, in some cases depending on whether new right of way would be required. Based on the limited potential for sites with good integrity, the other 71 Impact Evaluations resulted in recommendations that no survey be required before construction. Twenty-two of the Surveys investigated a total of 17 newly recorded and 9 previously recorded sites. Of these 26 sites, 6 were recommended for testing to assess eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and designation as State Archeological Landmarks. The other 82 Surveys either did not find any archeological sites or investigated sites that could be assessed as ineligible for National Register listing and State Archeological Landmark designation using the survey data. All artifacts collected and records generated by projects done under this contract are curated at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL), The University of Texas at Austin. Artifacts were collected from four sites. Those from 41GM3 are from state-owned lands and thus are curated in a held-in-trust status at TARL. The artifacts from 41BU51, 41BU54, and 41LE325 are from private lands and are curated in a non-held-in-trust status.

AbstractEast Kazakhstan is physiographically a diverse region of north-central Asia encompassing a broad array of geomorphic zones and geo-ecosystems from the western open steppes to the interior arid basins with wind-sculptured surfaces of the surrounding rocky highlands aligned by the high alpine mountain ranges. The complex regional geological history gave rise to a mosaic of impressive landforms located within a relatively small area. The extraordinary relief with many unique geo-sites was generated by dynamic processes associated with the late Cainozoic orogenesis in conjunction with the past climatic variations. The cyclicity of bedrock weathering and mass sediment transfer are manifested by Mesozoic fossiliferous formations, large sand dune fields, and loess-palaeosol-cryogenic series providing archives of the Quaternary evolution. Pleistocene glaciations followed by cataclysmic floods from the released ice-dammed lakes during the recessional glacier stages have produced an exceptional imprint in the mountain areas. Many archaeological localities and historic monuments, some being a part of the UNESCO World Natural and Cultural Heritage, are associated with the most prominent topographic places. Geo-tourism focusing on the most exquisite landscapes and spectacular geological settings is the new trend in the country with still minor activities that take advantage of the region’s supreme geoheritage potential. The great geo-diversity accentuates the touristic value of this still marginally explored geographic area. Reconnaissance, documentation, and publicity of the most unique geo-sites and geo-parks provide an impetus for their registration in the national and international nature heritage protection programs under proper geo-environmental conservation policies.

Gray & Pape, Inc., of Houston, Texas, under contract with BIO-WEST, Inc., has prepared the following report on cultural resources management activities in Fort Bend County, Texas. The project includes an archaeological survey of a total of approximately 0.93 kilometers (0.58 miles) along Buffalo Bayou between Katy-Flewellen Road and Kingsland Boulevard in Katy, Texas. The archaeological Area of Potential Effects is defined as the maintenance corridor, 30 to 60 meters (98 to 196 feet) long. The goal of this study was to assist Fort Bend County, the Texas Historical Commission, and the lead federal agency in determining whether or not intact cultural resources are present within areas for construction, and if so to provide management recommendations for these resources. All activities described herein were subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and issuance of an Antiquities Permit for Archeology (Permit 9319) applied for by Gray & Pape, Inc. on February 13, 2020, and issued by the Texas Historical Commission. No diagnostic or non-diagnostic artifacts were collected in the course of the current survey. As a project permitted through the Texas Historical Commission; however, Gray & Pape, Inc. submitted project records to the Center of Archaeological Studies at Texas State University. The Natural Resource Conservation Service is the lead federal agency for the project. Fieldwork was conducted between March 12 and March 16, 2020 and required approximately 40person hours to complete. Subsurface testing included a combination of systematic shovel testing and judgement sample auger probing. The site file research revealed two previously recorded archaeological sites (41FB101 and 41FB102) are located within the project area. At the beginning of the survey, an initial attempt was made to relocate previously recorded Sites 41FB101 and 41FB102 through surface inspection and limited shovel testing across the Area of Potential Effects along both sides of Buffalo Bayou. Recent disturbances from mechanical excavation along the channel slopes, the dumping of spoil across the surface of the two-track right-of-way along the bayou, and the active installation of sheet piling were photographed and mapped. Sites 41FB101 and 41FB102 could not be relocated within the Area of Potential Effects during the surface inspection, shovel testing or auger probing. No other historic or prehistoric artifacts or cultural features were identified as a result of this survey. During the initial reconnaissance, Rangia shells (n=8), including whole (closed) specimens and half shell, were observed on the surface in an area recently disturbed by heavy machinery. The shells were located east of Site 41FB101 along the two-track right-of-way and slope of the east bank of Buffalo Bayou. The majority of them were smaller than 3 centimeters (1.2 inches), with one whole specimen measuring approximately 6 centimeters (2.4 inches). Surface and subsurface inspection in the immediate area of these specimens failed to find evidence of associated cultural features or artifacts on the surface or in a buried context. A variety of modern bricks and brick fragments were also observed along the inner slopes of the east bank near the shell scatter. These same materials were later observed among the variety of riprap materials along the west bank of the bayou west of Site 41FB102 near a residential property immediately adjacent to the Area of Potential Effects. No additional cultural materials were observed on the surface with the exception of modern debris including plastics and aluminum cans. Gray & Pape, Inc. is not recommending a site designation for the Rangia shell or brick scatter observed during the survey for the foregoing reasons:1) there were no intact, buried deposits or features found; 2) there was no material that could be positively identified as artifacts; 3) the bricks observed were modern and likely deposited by landowners in attempts to prevent erosion; 4) the size, quantity, and inclusion of whole Rangia identified on the surface appear to be natural occurrences as opposed to the remains of an archaeological deposit or feature; and 5) it is impossible to determine the original location of the shell specimens at this time. Based on the results of this investigation, Sites 41FB101 and 41FB102 do not appear to extend into the existing easement belonging to the Fort Bend County Drainage District. Instead, both sites appear to be located on private property outside of the project Area of Potential Effects. As such, these sites have not been evaluated for National Register eligibility, but Gray & Pape, Inc. recommends that there will be no direct impact to these sites. It is also recommended that because the majority of project impacts will occur within sediments that have been repeatedly impacted by past channelization activities, the potential to identify intact, significant cultural resources is low. Gray & Pape, Inc. recommends the project be allowed to proceed as currently planned. As a protective measure during construction, high-visibility temporary fencing should be installed against the edge of the Area of Potential Effects in the vicinity of the two known sites. No additional cultural resources activities are recommended unless project plans change.

IntroductionIn regional Australia and New Zealand, museums and art galleries are increasingly becoming primary sites of cultural engagement. They are one of the key tourist attractions for regional towns and expected to generate much needed tourism revenue. In 2017 in New South Wales alone, there were three million visitors to regional galleries and museums (MGNSW 13). However, apart from those (partially) funded by local councils, they are often run on donations, good will, and the enthusiasm of volunteers. Regional museums and galleries provide some paid, and more unpaid, employment for ageing populations. While two-thirds of Australia’s population lives in capital cities, the remainder who live in regional towns are likely to be in the 60+ age cohort because people are choosing to retire away from the bustling, growing cities (ABS). At last count, there were about 3000 museums and galleries in Australia with about 80% of them located in regional areas (Scott). Over the last 40 years, this figure has tripled from the 1000 regional and provincial museums estimated by Peter Piggott in his 1975 report (24). According to a 2014 survey (Shaw and Davidson), New Zealand has about 470 museums and galleries and about 70% are located outside capital cities. The vast majority, 85%, have less than five, full-time paid staff, and more than half of these were run entirely by ageing volunteers. They are entrusted with managing the vast majority of the history and heritage collections of Australia and New Zealand. These ageing volunteers need a diverse range of skills and experience to care for and interpret collections. How do you find the time and budget for professional development for both paid staff and volunteers? Many professional development events are held in capital cities, which are often a significant distance from the regional museum—this adds substantially to the costs of attending and the time commitment required to get there. In addition, it is not uncommon for people working in regional museums to be responsible for everything—from security, collection management, conservation, research, interpretation and public programs to changing the light bulbs. While there are a large number of resources available online, following a manual is often more difficult than learning from other colleagues or learning in a more formal educational or vocational environment where you can receive timely feedback on your work. Further, a foundational level of prior knowledge and experience is often required to follow written instructions. This article will suggest some strategies for low cost professional development and networking. It involves planning, thinking strategically and forming partnerships with others in the region. It is time to harness the power of modern communications technology and use it as a tool for professional development. Some models of professional development in regional areas that have been implemented in the past will also be reviewed. The focus for this article is on training and professional development for workers in regional museums, heritage sites and keeping places. Regional art galleries have not been included because they tend to have separate regional networks and training opportunities. For example, there are professional development opportunities provided through the Art Galleries Association of Australia and their state branches. Regional galleries are also far more likely to have one or more paid staff members (Winkworth, “Fixing the Slums” 2). Regional Museums, Volunteers, and Social CapitalIt is widely accepted that regional museums and galleries enhance social capital and reduce social isolation (Kelly 32; Burton and Griffin 328). However, while working in a regional museum or gallery can help to build friendship networks, it can also be professionally isolating. How do you benchmark what you do against other places if you are two or more hours drive from those places? How do you learn from other colleagues if all your colleagues are also isolated by the ‘tyranny of distance’ and struggling with the same lack of access to training? In 2017 in New South Wales alone, there were 8,629 active volunteers working in regional museums and galleries giving almost five million hours, which Museums and Galleries NSW calculated was worth over $150 million per annum in unpaid labour (MGNSW 1). Providing training and professional development to this group is an investment in Australia’s social and cultural capital.Unlike other community-run groups, the museums and heritage places which have emerged in regional Australia and New Zealand are not part of a national or state branch network. Volunteers who work for the Red Cross, Scouts or Landcare benefit from being part of a national organisation which provides funding, support workers, a website, governance structure, marketing, political advocacy and training (Winkworth, “Let a Thousand Flowers” 11). In Australia and New Zealand, this role is undertaken by the Australian Museums and Galleries Association AMaGA (formerly Museums Australia) and Museums Aotearoa respectively. However, both of these groups operate at the macro policy level, for example organising annual conferences, publishing a journal and developing Indigenous policy frameworks, rather than the local, practical level. In 1995, due to their advocacy work, Landcare Australia received $500 million over five years from the federal government to fund 5000 Landcare groups, which are run by 120,000 volunteers (Oppenheimer 177). They argued successfully that the sustainable development of land resources started at the local level. What do we need to do to convince government of the need for sustainable development of our local and regional museum and heritage resources?Training for Volunteers Working in Regional Museums: The Current SituationAnother barrier to training for regional museum workers is the assumption that the 70:20:10 model of professional development should apply. That is, 70% of one’s professional development is done ‘on the job’ by completing tasks and problem-solving; 20% is achieved by learning from mentors, coaches and role models and 10% is learnt from attending conferences and symposia and enrolling in formal courses of study. However, this model pre-supposes that there are people in your workplace whom you can learn from and who can show you how to complete a task, and that you are not destroying or damaging a precious, unique object if you happen to make a mistake.Some museum volunteers come with skills in research, marketing, administration, customer service or photography, but very few come with specific museum skills like writing exhibition text, registering an acquisition or conserving artefacts. These skills need to be taught. As Kylie Winkworth has written, museum management now requires a [...] skills set, which is not so readily found in small communities, and which in many ways is less rewarding for the available volunteers, who may have left school at 15. We do not expect volunteer librarians to catalogue books, which are in any case of low intrinsic value, but we still expect volunteers in their 70s and 80s to catalogue irreplaceable heritage collections and meet ever more onerous museum standards. That so many volunteers manage to do this is extraordinary. (“Let a Thousand Flowers” 13)Workers in regional museums are constantly required to step outside their comfort zones and learn new skills with minimal professional support. While these challenging experiences can be very rewarding, they are also potentially damaging for our irreplaceable material cultural heritage.Training for museum professionals has been on the agenda of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) since 1947 (Boylan 62). However, until 1996, their work focused on recommending curricula for new museum professionals and did not include life-long learning and on-going professional development. ICOM’s International Committee for the Training of Personnel (ICTOP) and the ICOM Executive has responded to this in their new curricula—ICOM Curricula Guidelines for Professional Museum Development, but this does not address the difficulties staff or volunteers working in regional areas face in accessing training.In some parts of Australia, there are regional support and professional development programs in place. For example, in Queensland, there is the Museum Development Officer (MDO) network. However, because of the geographic size of the state and the spread of the museums, these five regionally based staff often have 60-80 museums or keeping places in their region needing support and so their time and expertise is spread very thinly. It is also predominantly a fee-for-service arrangement. That is, the museums have to pay for the MDO to come and deliver training. Usually this is done by the MDO working with a local museum to apply for a Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) grant. In Victoria there is a roving curator program where eligible regional museums can apply to have a professional curator come and work with them for a few days to help the volunteers curate exhibitions. The roving curator can also provide advice on “develop[ing] high quality exhibitions for diverse audiences” via email, telephone and networking events. Tasmania operates a similar scheme but their two roving curators are available for up to 25 days of work each year with eligible museums, provided the local council makes a financial contribution. The New South Wales government supports the museum advisor program through which a museum professional will come to your museum for up to 20 days/year to give advice and hands-on training—provided your local council pays $7000, an amount that is matched by the state government—for this service. In 2010, in response to recommendations in the Dunn Report (2007), the Collections Council of Australia (CCA) established a pilot project with the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia and $120,000 in funding from the Myer Foundation to trial the provision of a paid Collections Care Coordinator who would provide free training, expertise and support to local museums in the region. Tragically, CCA was de-funded by the Cultural Ministers Council the same year and the roll-out of a hub and spoke regional model was not supported by government due to the lack of an evidence base (Winkworth, “Let a Thousand Flowers” 18). An evaluation of the trial project would have tested a different model of regional training and added to the evidence base.All these state-based models (except the aborted Collections Care hub in Western Australia) require small regional museums to compete with each other for access to a museum professional and to successfully apply for funding, usually from their local council or state government. If they are successful, the training that is delivered is a one-off, as they are unlikely to get a second slice of the regional pie.An alternative to this competitive, fly-in fly-out, one-off model of professional development is to harness the technology and resources of local libraries and other cultural facilities in regional areas. This is what the Sydney Opera House Trust did in March 2019 to deliver their All about Women program of speakers via live streaming to 37 satellite sites throughout Australia and New Zealand.Harnessing Technology and Using Regional Library Infrastructure to Provide Training: ScenarioImagine the following scenario. It is a Monday morning in a regional library in Dubbo, New South Wales. Dubbo is 391 km or five hours drive by car from the nearest capital city (Sydney) and there are 50 regional museums within a 100 km radius. Ten people are gathered in a meeting room at the library watching a live stream of the keynote speakers who are presenting at their national museums conference. They are from five regional museums where they work as volunteers or part-time paid staff. They cannot afford to pay $2000, or more, to attend the conference, but they are happy to self-fund to drive for an hour or two to link up with other colleagues to listen to the presentations. They make notes and tweet in their questions using the conference twitter handle and hashtag. They have not been exposed to international speakers in the industry before and the ideas presented are fresh and stimulating. When the conference breaks for morning tea, they take a break too and get to know each other over a cuppa (provided free of charge by the library). Just as the networking sessions at conferences are vitally important for the delegates, they are even more important to address social isolation amongst this group. When they reconvene, they discuss their questions and agree to email the presenters with the questions that are unresolved. After the conference keynote sessions finish, the main conference (in the capital city) disperses into parallel sessions, which are no longer available via live stream.To make the two-hour drive more worthwhile and continue their professional development, they have arranged to hold a significance assessment workshop as well. Each museum worker has brought along photographs of one item in their collection that they want to do more research on. Some of them have also brought the object, if it is small and robust enough to travel. They have downloaded copies of Significance 2.0 and read it before they arrived. They started to write significance reports but could not fully understand how to apply some of the criteria. They cannot afford to pay for professional workshop facilitators, but they have arranged for the local studies librarian to give them an hour of free training on using the library’s resources (online and onsite) to do research on the local area and local families. They learn more about Trove, Papers Past and other research tools which are available online. This is hands-on and computer-based skills training using their own laptops/tablets or the ones provided by the library. After the training with the librarian, they break into two groups and read each other’s significance reports and make suggestions. The day finishes with a cuppa at 2.30pm giving them time to drive home before the sun sets. They agree to exchange email addresses so they can keep in touch. All the volunteers and staff who attended these sessions in regional areas feel energised after these meetings. They no longer feel so isolated and like they are working in the dark. They feel supported just knowing that there are other people who are struggling with the same issues and constraints as they are. They are sick of talking about the lack of budget, expertise, training and resources and want to do something with what they have.Bert (fictional name) decides that it is worth capitalising on this success. He emails the people who came to the session in Dubbo to ask them if they would like to do it again but focus on some different training needs. He asks them to choose two of the following three professional development options. First, they can choose to watch and discuss a recording of the keynote presentations from day two of the recent national conference. The conference organisers have uploaded digital recordings of the speakers’ presentations and the question time to the AMaGA website. This is an option for local libraries that do not have sufficient bandwidth to live stream video. The local library technician will help them cast the videos to a large screen. Second, they can each bring an object from their museum collection that they think needs conservation work. If the item is too fragile or big to move, they will bring digital photographs of it instead. Bert consulted their state-based museum and found some specialist conservators who have agreed to Skype or Facetime them in Dubbo free of charge, to give them expert advice about how to care for their objects, and most importantly, what not to do. The IT technician at Dubbo Library can set up their meeting room so that they can cast the Skype session onto a large smart screen TV. One week before the event, they will send a list of their objects and photographs of them to the conservator so that she can prepare, and they can make best use of her time. After this session, they will feel more confident about undertaking small cleaning and flattening treatments and know when they should not attempt a treatment themselves and need to call on the experts. Third, they could choose to have a training session with the council’s grants officer on writing grant applications. As he assesses grant applications, he can tell them what local councils look for in a successful grant application. He can also inform them about some of the grants that might be relevant to them. After the formal training, there will be an opportunity for them to exchange information about the grants they have applied for in the past—sometimes finding out what’s available can be difficult—and work in small groups to critique each other’s grant applications.The group chooses options two and three, as they want more practical skills development. They take a break in the middle of the day for lunch, which gives them the opportunity to exchange anecdotes from their volunteer work and listen to and support each other. They feel validated and affirmed. They have gained new skills and don’t feel so isolated. Before they leave, Alice agrees to get in touch with everyone to organise their next regional training day.Harnessing Technology and Using Regional Library Infrastructure to Provide Training: BenefitsThese scenarios need not be futuristic. The training needs are real, as is the desire to learn and the capacity of libraries to support regional groups. While funding for regional museums has stagnated or declined in recent years, libraries have been surging ahead. In August 2018, the New South Wales Government announced an “historic investment” of $60 million into all 370 public libraries that would “transform the way NSW’s public libraries deliver much-needed services, especially in regional areas” (Smith). Libraries are equipped and charged with the responsibility of enabling local community groups to make best use of their resources. Most state and national museum workers are keen to share their expertise with their regional colleagues: funding and distance are often the only barriers. These scenarios allow national conference keynote speakers to reach a much larger audience than the conference attendees. While this strategy might reduce the number of workers from regional areas who pay to attend conferences, the reality is that due to distance, other volunteer commitments, expense and family responsibilities, they probably would not attend anyway. Most regional museums and galleries and their staff might be asset-rich, but they are cash-poor, and the only way their workers get to attend conferences is if they win a bursary or grant. In 2005, Winkworth said: “the future for community museums is to locate them within local government as an integral part of the cultural, educational and economic infrastructure of the community, just like libraries and galleries” (“Fixing the Slums” 7). Fourteen years on, very little progress has been made in this direction. Those museums which have been integrated into the local council infrastructure, such as at Orange and Wagga Wagga in western New South Wales, are doing much better than those that are still stuck in ‘cultural poverty’ and trying to operate independently.However, the co-location and convergence of museums, libraries and archives is only successful if it is well managed. Helena Robinson has examined the impact on museum collection management and interpretation of five local government funded, converged collecting institutions in Australia and New Zealand and found that the process is complex and does not necessarily result in “optimal” cross-disciplinary expertise or best practice outcomes (14158).ConclusionRobinson’s research, however, did not consider community-based collecting institutions using regional libraries as sites for training and networking. By harnessing local library resources and making better use of existing communications technology it is possible to create regional hubs for professional development and collegiate support, which are not reliant on grants. If the current competitive, fly-in fly-out, self-funded model of providing professional development and support to regional museums continues, then the future for our cultural heritage collections and the dedicated volunteers who care for them is bleak. Alternatively, the scenarios I have described give regional museum workers agency to address their own professional development needs. This in no way removes the need for leadership, advocacy and coordination by national representative bodies such as AMaGA and Museums Aotearoa. If AMaGA partnered with the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) to stream their conference keynote sessions to strategically located regional libraries and used some of their annual funding from the Department of Communication and the Arts to pay for museum professionals to travel to some of those sites to deliver training, they would be investing in the nation’s social and cultural capital and addressing the professional development needs of regional museum workers. This would also increase the sustainability of our cultural heritage collections, which are valuable economic assets.ReferencesAustralian Bureau of Statistics. “2071.0—Census of Population and Housing: Reflecting Australia—Snapshot of Australia, 2016”. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20Features~Snapshot%20of%20Australia,%202016~2>.Boylan, Patrick. “The Intangible Heritage: A Challenge and an Opportunity for Museums and Museum Professional Training.” International Journal of Intangible Heritage 1 (2006): 53–65.Burton, Christine, and Jane Griffin. “More than a Museum? Understanding How Small Museums Contribute to Social Capital in Regional Communities.” Asia Pacific Journal of Arts & Cultural Management 5.1 (2008): 314–32. 17 Mar. 2019 <http://apjacm.arts.unimelb.edu.au/article/view/32>.Dunn, Anne. The Dunn Report: A Report on the Concept of Regional Collections Jobs. Adelaide: Collections Council of Australia, 2007.ICOM Curricula Guidelines for Professional Museum Development. 2000. <http://museumstudies.si.edu/ICOM-ICTOP/comp.htm>.Kelly, Lynda. “Measuring the Impact of Museums on Their Communities: The Role of the 21st Century Museum.” New Roles and Issues of Museums INTERCOM Symposium (2006): 25–34. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://media.australianmuseum.net.au/media/dd/Uploads/Documents/9355/impact+paper+INTERCOM+2006.bb50ba1.pdf>.Museums and Galleries New South Wales (MGNSW). 2018 NSW Museums and Galleries Sector Census. Museums and Galleries of New South Wales. Data and Insights—Culture Counts. Sydney: MGNSW, 2019. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://mgnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2018-NSW-Museum-Gallery-Sector-Census.pdf>Oppenheimer, Melanie. Volunteering: Why We Can’t Survive without It. Sydney: U of New South Wales P, 2008.Pigott, Peter. Museums in Australia 1975. Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections Including the Report of the Planning Committee on the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Printing Service, 1975. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://apo.org.au/node/35268>.Public Sector Commission, Western Australia. 70:20:10 Framework Learning Philosophy. Perth: Government of Western Australia, 2018. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://publicsector.wa.gov.au/centre-public-sector-excellence/about-centre/702010-framework>.Robinson, Helena. “‘A Lot of People Going That Extra Mile’: Professional Collaboration and Cross-Disciplinarity in Converged Collecting Institutions.” Museum Management and Curatorship 31 (2016): 141–58.Scott, Lee. National Operations Manager, Museums Australia, Personal Communication. 22 Oct. 2018.Shaw, Iain, and Lee Davidson, Museums Aotearoa 2014 Sector Survey Report. Wellington: Victoria U, 2014. 17 Mar. 2019 <http://www.museumsaotearoa.org.nz/sites/default/files/documents/museums_aotearoa_sector_survey_2014_report_-_final_draft_oct_2015.pdf>.Smith, Alexandra. “NSW Libraries to Benefit from $60 Million Boost.” Sydney Morning Herald 24 Aug. 2018. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-libraries-to-benefit-from-60-million-boost-20180823-p4zzdj.html>. Winkworth, Kylie. “Fixing the Slums of Australian Museums; or Sustaining Heritage Collections in Regional Australia.” Museums Australia Conference Paper. Canberra: Museums Australia, 2005. ———. “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom: Museums in Regional Australia.” Understanding Museums—Australian Museums and Museology. Eds. Des Griffin and Leon Paroissien. Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2011. 17 Mar. 2019 <https://nma.gov.au/research/understanding-museums/KWinkworth_2011.html>.

When the National Trust was established in 1895 its founders, Canon Rawnsley, Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill, were, as Cannadine notes, “primarily concerned with preserving open spaces of outstanding natural beauty which were threatened with development or spoliation.” This was because, like Ruskin, Morris and “many of their contemporaries, they believed that the essence of Englishness was to be found in the fields and hedgerows, not in the suburbs and slums” (Cannadine 227). It was important to protect these sites of beauty and historical interest from development not only for what they were but for what they purportedly represented—an irreplaceable repository of the nation’s “spiritual values”, and thus a vital antidote to the “base materialism” of the day. G.M. Trevelyan, who I am quoting here, noted in two pieces written on behalf of the Trust in the 1920s and 30s, that the “inexorable rise of bricks and mortar” and the “full development of motor traffic” were laying waste to the English countryside. In the face of this assault on England’s heartland, the National Trust provided “an ark of refuge” safeguarding the nation’s cherished physical heritage and preserving its human cargo from the rising waters of materialism and despair (qtd. in Cannadine 231-2).Despite the extension of the road network and increasing private ownership of cars (up from 200,000 registrations in 1918 to “well over one million” in 1930), physical distance and economic hardship denied the majority of the urban population access to the countryside (Taylor 217). For the urban working classes recently or distantly displaced from the land, the dream of a return to rural roots was never more than a fantasy. Ford Madox Ford observed that “the poor and working classes of the towns never really go back” (Ford 58).Through the later nineteenth century the rural nostalgia once most prevalent among the working classes was increasingly noted as a feature of middle class sensibility. Better educated, with more leisure time and money at their disposal, these sentimental ruralists furnished a ready market for a new consumer phenomenon—the commodification of the English countryside and the packaging of the values it notionally embodied. As Valentine Cunningham observes, this was not always an edifying spectacle. By the late 1920s, “the terrible sounds of ‘Ye Olde England’ can already be heard, just off-stage, knocking together its thatched wayside stall where plastic pixies, reproduction beer-mugs, relics of Shakespeare and corn-dollies would soon be on sale” (Cunningham 229). Alongside the standard tourist tat, and the fiction and poetry that romanticised the rural world, a new kind of travel writing emerged around the turn of the century. Through an analysis of early-twentieth century notions of Englishness, this paper considers how the north struggled to find a place in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England (1927).In Haunts of Ancient Peace (1901), the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, described a journey through “Old England” as a cultural pilgrimage in quest of surviving vestiges of the nation’s essential identity, “or so much of it as is left” (Austin 18). Austin’s was an early example of what had, by the 1920s and 30s become a “boom market … in books about the national character, traditions and antiquities, usually to be found in the country” (Wiener 73). Longmans began its “English Heritage” series in 1929, introduced by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, with volumes on “English humour, folk song and dance, the public school, the parish church, [and] wild life”. A year later Batsford launched its series of books on “English Life” with volumes featuring “the countryside, Old English household life, inns, villages, and cottages” (Wiener 73). There was an outpouring of books with an overtly conservationist agenda celebrating journeys through or periods of residence in the countryside, many of them written by “soldiers like Henry Williamson and Edmund Blunden, who returned from the First War determined to preserve the rural England they’d known” (Cunningham 229; Blunden, Face, England; Roberts, Pilgrim, Gone ; Williamson). In turn, these books engendered an efflorescence of critical analyses of the construction of England (Hamilton; Haddow; Keith; Cavaliero; Gervais; Giles and Middleton; Westall and Gardiner).By the 1920s it was clear that a great many people thought they knew what England was, where it might be found, and if threatened, which parts of it needed to be rescued in order to safeguard the survival of its essential identity. By the same point, there were large numbers who felt, in Patrick Wright’s words, that “Some areas of the nation had been lost forever and in these no one should expect to find the traditional nation at all” (Wright 87).A key guide to the nation’s sacred sites in this period, an inventory of their relics, and an illustration of how its lost regions might be rescued for or erased from its cultural map, was provided in H.V. Morton’s In Search of England (1927). Initially published as a series of articles in the Daily Express in 1926, In Search of England went through nine editions in the two and a half years after its appearance in book form in 1927. With sales in excess of a million copies, as John Brannigan notes, the book went through a further twenty editions by 1943, and has remained continuously in print since (Brannigan).In his introduction Morton proposes In Search of England is simply “the record of a motor-car journey round England … written without deliberation by the roadside, on farmyard walls, in cathedrals, in little churchyards, on the washstands of country inns, and in many another inconvenient place” (Morton vii). As C.R. Perry notes, “This is a happy image, but also a misleading one” (Perry 434) for there was nothing arbitrary about Morton’s progress. Even a cursory glance at the map of his journey confirms, the England that Morton went in search of was overwhelmingly rural or coastal, and embodied in the historic villages and ancient towns of the Midlands or South.Morton’s biographer, Michael Bartholomew suggests that the “nodal points” of Morton’s journey are the “cathedral cities” (Bartholomew 105).Despite claims to the contrary, his book was written with deliberation and according to a specific cultural objective. Morton’s purpose was not to discover his homeland but to confirm a vision that he and millions of others cherished. He was not in search of England so much as reassuring himself and his readers that in spite of the depredations of the factory and the motor vehicle, it was still out there. These aims determined Morton’s journey; how long he spent in differing parts, what he recorded, and how he presented landscapes, buildings, people and material culture.Morton’s determination to celebrate England as rural and ancient needed to negotiate the journey north into an industrial landscape better known for its manufacturing cities, mining and mill towns, and the densely packed streets of the poor and working classes. Unable to either avoid or ignore this north, Morton needed to settle upon a strategy of passing through it without disturbing his vision of the rural idyll. Narratively, Morton’s touring through the south and west of the country is conducted at a gentle pace. In my 1930 edition of the text, it takes 185 of the book’s 280 pages to bring him from London via the South Coast, Cornwall, the Cotswolds and the Welsh marches, to Chester. The instant Morton crosses the Lancashire border, his bull-nosed Morris accelerates through the extensive northern counties in a mere thirty pages: Warrington to Carlisle (with a side trip to Gretna Green), Carlisle to Durham, and Durham to Lincoln. The final sixty-five pages return to the more leisurely pace of the south and west through Norfolk and the East Midlands, before the journey is completed in an unnamed village somewhere between Stratford upon Avon and Warwick. Morton spends 89 per cent of the text in the South and Midlands (66 per cent and 23 per cent respectively) with only 11 per cent given over to his time in the north.If, as Genette has pointed out, narrative deceleration results in the descriptive pause, it is no coincidence that this is the recurring set piece of Morton’s treatment of the south and west as opposed to the north. His explorations take dwelling moments on river banks and hill tops, in cathedral closes and castle ruins to honour the genius loci and imagine earlier times. On Plymouth Hoe he sees, in his mind’s eye, Sir Walter Raleigh’s fleet set sail to take on the Armada; at Tintagel it is Arthur, wild and Celtic, scaling the cliffs, spear in hand; at Buckler’s Hard amid the rotting slipways he imagines the “stout oak-built ships which helped to found the British Empire”, setting out on their journeys of conquest (Morton 39). At the other extreme, Genette observes, that narrative acceleration produces ellipsis, where details are omitted in order to render a more compact and striking expression. It is the principle of ellipsis, of selective omission, which compresses the geography of Morton’s journey through the north with the effect of shaping reader experiences. Morton hurries past the north’s industrial areas—shuddering at the sight of smoke or chimneys and averting his gaze from factory and slum.As he crosses the border from Cheshire into Lancashire, Morton reflects that “the traveller enters Industrial England”—not that you would know it from his account (Morton 185). Heading north towards the Lake District, he steers a determined path between “red smoke stacks” rising on one side and an “ominous grey haze” on the other, holding to a narrow corridor of rural land where, to his relief, he observes men “raking hay in a field within gunshot of factory chimneys” (Morton 185-6). These redolent, though isolated, farmhands are of greater cultural moment than the citadels of industry towering on either side of them. While the chimneys might symbolise the nation’s economic potency, the farmhands embody the survival of its essential cultural and moral qualities. In an allusion to the Israelites’ passage through the Red Sea from the Book of Exodus, the land that the workers tend holds back the polluted tide of industry, furnishing relief from the factory and the slum, granting Morton safe passage through the perils of modernity and into the Promised Land–or at least the Lake District. In Morton’s view this green belt is not only more essentially English than trade and industry, it is also expresses a nobler and more authentic Englishness.The “great industrial new-rich cities of northern England—vast and mighty as they are,” Morton observes, “fall into perspective as mere black specks against the mighty background of history and the great green expanse of fine country which is the real North of England” (Morton 208). Thus, the rural land between Manchester and Liverpool expands into a sea of green as the great cities shrink on the horizon, and the north is returned to its origins.What Morton cannot speed past or ignore, what he is compelled or chooses to confront, he transforms, through the agency of history, into something that he and England can bear to own. Tempted into Wigan by its reputation as a comic nowhere-land, a place whose name conjured a thousand music hall gags, Morton confesses that he had expected to find there another kind of cliché, “the apex of the world’s pyramid of gloom … dreary streets and stagnant canals and white-faced Wigonians dragging their weary steps along dull streets haunted by the horror of the place in which they are condemned to live” (Morton 187).In the process of naming what he dreads, Morton does not describe Wigan: he exorcises his deepest fears about what it might hold and offers an incantation intended to hold them at bay. He “discovers” Wigan is not the industrial slum but “a place which still bears all the signs of an old-fashioned country town” (Morton 188). Morton makes no effort to describe Wigan as it is, any more than he describes the north as a whole: he simply overlays them with a vision of them as they should be—he invents the Wigan and the north that he and England need.Having surveyed parks and gardens, historical monuments and the half-timbered mock-Tudor High Street, Morton returns to his car and the road where, with an audible sigh of relief, he finds: “Within five minutes of notorious Wigan we were in the depth of the country,” and that “on either side were fields in which men were making hay” (Morton 189).In little more than three pages he passes from one set of haymakers, south of town, to another on its north. The green world has all but smoothed over the industrial eyesore, and the reader, carefully chaperoned by Morton, can pass on to the Lake District having barely glimpsed the realities of industry and urbanism, reassured that if this is the worst that the north has to show then the rural heartland and the essential identity it sustains are safe. Paradoxically, instead of invalidating his account, Morton’s self-evident exclusions and omissions seem only to have fuelled its popularity.For readers of the Daily Express in the months leading up to and immediately after the General Strike of 1926, the myth of England that Morton proffered, of an unspoilt village where old values and traditional hierarchies still held true, was preferable to the violently polarised urban battlefields that the strike had revealed. As the century progressed and the nation suffered depression, war, and a steady decline in its international standing, as industry, suburban sprawl and the irresistible spread of motorways and traffic blighted the land, Morton’s England offered an imagined refuge, a real England that somehow, magically resisted the march of time.Yet if it was Morton’s triumph to provide England with a vision of its ideal spiritual home, it was his tragedy that this portrait of it hastened the devastation of the cultural survivals he celebrated and sought to preserve: “Even as the sense of idyll and peace was maintained, the forces pulling in another direction had to be acknowledged” (Taylor 74).In his introduction to the 1930 edition of In Search of England Morton approvingly acknowledged that a new enthusiasm for the nation’s history and heritage was abroad and that “never before have so many people been searching for England.” In the next sentence he goes on to laud the “remarkable system of motor-coach services which now penetrates every part of the country [and] has thrown open to ordinary people regions which even after the coming of the railways were remote and inaccessible” (Morton vii).Astonishingly, as the waiting charabancs roared their engines and the village greens of England enjoyed the last hours of their tranquillity, Morton somehow failed to make the obvious connection between these unique cultural and social phenomena or take any measure of their potential consequences. His “motoring pastoral” did more than alert the barbarians to the existence of the nation’s hidden treasures, as David Matless notes it provided them with a route map, itinerary and behavioural guide for their pillages (Matless 64; Peach; Batsford).Yet while cultural preservationists wrung their hands in horror at the advent of the day-tripper slouching towards Barnstaple, for Morton this was never a cause for concern. The nature of his journey and the form of its representation demonstrate that the England he worshipped was more an imaginary than a physical space, an ideal whose precise location no chart could fix and no touring party defile. ReferencesAustin, Alfred. Haunts of Ancient Peace. London: Macmillan, 1902.Bartholomew, Michael. In Search of H.V. Morton. London: Methuen, 2004.Batsford, Harry. How to See the Country. London: B.T. Batsford, 1940.Blunden, Edmund. The Face of England: In a Series of Occasional Sketches. London: Longmans, 1932.———. English Villages. 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