Love of nature drives this Burgess winner

Researching the national parks

“I was surprised at how many of these old national park manuscripts Lilly Library had,” Josie Sparks says. “That we have some of the originals when we're 10 states away and not really connected to the parks, is really cool.” Sparks, who was one of the 2024-2025 Sam Burgess Undergraduate Research Award winners, continues, “And then I got to hold them in my hand!” With a dual degree in Environmental and Sustainability Studies from the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and in History from the College of Arts and Sciences, Sparks has spent her summers working at national parks.

Sparks’s enthusiasm for national park history is undeniable. After utilizing the National Park Service (NPS) archives at Lilly Library from 1906-1919, she dove into other repositories: the University of Western Washington Archives, University of Washington (UW) Archives, and the Library of Congress Newspaper and Photo Archives.” In addition, she also used many books. Not surprisingly, when she happened upon a library while working at Crater Lake, she thought it would be the perfect job.

Spending summers working in national parks

Sparks, a Hoosier, wanted to attend college in California. At 17, she researched colleges in California that specialized in environmental studies. “I was begging my dad to go out of state.” She wanted to go somewhere that took climate change seriously. “Then quarantine hit, and my dad showed me a financial spreadsheet of the colleges I was looking at.” She realized what was practical and what was unrealistic financially.

“IU had everything I wanted and needed,” Sparks says. Once she had proved to her father that the cost of college was covered, she proposed going out of state for the summer. “I pitched it to my dad, thinking for sure he would say it was not smart, and that the money wasn't practical.” Instead, he said, “I’ll visit!”

She poured over NPS videos and applied for over 25 jobs during winter break her freshman year. “I got one call back from Crater Lake, and it was for retail cashier at the little campground store. It paid $13 an hour, no tips, and was in the middle of nowhere. You had no cell connection. You lived in a dorm with people between the ages of 18 to 80.” Sparks decided to work at Crater Lake and her father did visit.

If you’re an outdoorsy person, the idea of working summers at parks probably sounds idyllic, but Sparks discovered it had its drawbacks. “I didn't know what I was getting into, and I didn't know what was legal or right or wrong or any of that.” Sparks was working for a concessions company that worked within the park.  Whose responsibility was whose was a blurry line. For example, one day the waste management lady came in to do recycling. Shocked, Sparks discovered the concessions company oversaw recycling in the park, not the NPS.

“I quickly found out through guest interactions that no one understood how the parks were run,” Sparks stated. Guests thought that everyone within the park worked for NPS. Sparks would get yelled at for things she had zero control over. She had an epiphany. “To me, national parks are these special, natural preservation sites. And that's not what they are to a lot of people. To a lot of people, the national parks are solely recreation sites.”

The crux of the issue

After her first summer out West working at a national park, Sparks was fascinated by the tension between commercializing America’s scenic lands and preserving them. It is an issue with multiple layers. “When you go to a national site, you expect the people who are hired there to be trained and educated-- to be experts in their field even if it's guest service, and that's just not the case.” Sparks tackled the topic in an essay written for Professor Sara Gregg, an environmental historian.

That essay, “To Love a Thing,” starts out with the importance of building roads to bring people to Crater Lake and other parks. After extensive discussion of building the road that circles the crater, Rim Road, Sparks concludes, “The initial focal point of the park (the beauty of the lake) itself is mentioned secondarily to the road. Just three years after its completion, the road is now the leading experience being offered in the park, becoming the destination itself.”

The second park Sparks worked at was Mount Rainier, where she found the tension even worse. The essay she wrote for her history capstone, “To Sell a Thing,” is a look into concessions at Mount Rainer and the odd partnership between NPS and the corporations running campgrounds, restaurants, hotels, and stores. In her conclusion, she states, “The competing ideologies of the National Park Service and the concessionaire companies has resulted in a messy relationship between the public and the parks.”  In the future, she suggests NPS rely on more sustainable and like-minded companies. At present, the companies are not always held accountable for their offenses against employees and the parks.

Sam Burgess Undergraduate Research Award

History Professor Arlene Díaz nominated Sparks for the Burgess Award. At the end of her letter, Dr. Diaz writes, “Rarely does one have the good fortune of having a student who works with Josie’s gusto. Her capstone paper is an excellent example of an undergraduate student who understands how to find, identify, evaluate, analyze, and apply library resources and collections, whether online or in physical form.”

Established by librarian Jo Burgess, the Sam Burgess Undergraduate Research Award requires the extensive use and understanding of IU Libraries resources in support of undergraduate research. It is named after Burgess’ son, who loved both reading and learning.

Because Sparks wrote her capstone during her senior year, the award arrived as she was packing up to go to Glacier National Park. Sparks says, “I was selling my childhood toys on Facebook Marketplace because I was really worried about having enough gas money to get to Montana. It was a big relief to not have to worry.” Sparks continued, “The award let me continue doing the things that have inspired the writing, so I was very excited.”

Sparks found Glacier just as interesting as the other two parks. It had multiple companies running activities, hotels, and concessions. Despite the push and pull of interests on Glacier, she fell in love with the historic hotels and the scenery. She found herself still taking notes. Perhaps there is a book in her future.

As she was leaving Glacier this year, she didn’t shy away from talking about the government shutdown when many park employees were furloughed. It was important to her to talk about it with park visitors. Sparks says, “It's not something that happened and is over.”

Despite the shutdown and the ongoing problems, Sparks sees solutions in the people around the parks. Hire smaller companies. Hire the people who live there. Hire Indigenous companies. Change is happening. People are recognizing climate change and concessionary companies are beginning to be held accountable for misconduct. Sparks ends “To Sell a Thing,” by calling for the “National Park Service to work more closely with companies dedicated to equitable and sustainable business practices, with shareholders who fit closely with the ideologies of the National Park Service and its mission, rather than those who directly oppose it.”

Josie Sparks's next destination is Big Sky Resort in Montana as the Activities Concierge Associate for the 2025-2026 winter.