Every year for the past three years Marcia and Gabe Williamson have been on the road for 11 months, logged more than 50,000 miles in a Subaru decorated with a “Leave no Trace” logo and spent 150 nights in a small, two-person tent.
Now, after being nomadic outdoor educators for “Leave no Trace,” a nonprofit organization founded by the U.S. Forest Service in collaboration with the National Outdoor Leadership School, the Williamsons are settling back into a settled lifestyle in their South Portland home.
From 2001 to 2004 the Williamsons crisscrossed the country, visiting national, state and local parks, students from kindergarten to college, Boy and Girl Scout troops, trade shows and festivals. The whole time they were disseminating information about how to protect our natural resources by reducing the impact we have on our environments.
On one occasion the couple was driving through Baxter State Park. As they drove behind another car Marcia and Gabe saw something being thrown from the window. When they came to the spot where the object had landed they saw a still-lit cigar stub. The couple took the opportunity for what they like to call a “teachable moment.”
Marcia put the cigar stub in a plastic bag, followed the other car to a parking lot and walked up to the man as he got out of his vehicle.
“It’s easy to go up to someone with a badge,” said Marcia. But she stressed that the badge should not be the authority. Instead it is the “authority of the resource” – nature – that is important.
The man’s jaw dropped as Marcia spoke with him about the threat of forest fires and how devastating it would be for everyone if a fire had started from carelessness. Then she asked him to be more careful in the future.
As she walked away the man’s son came up to him and asked what had just happened. Marcia smiled thinking back to that moment. She knew the man would now have to explain to his son what had happened and a “teachable moment” had been created.
Statistics provided by Leave no Trace claim an estimated 273 million people visit our country’s national parks annually, a number that has soared since the 1960s. In some of this country’s most fragile landscapes, like the arid Southwest, visitor use has increased 1,500 percent over the last seven years.
After so much time traveling through this vast country, meeting the people and experiencing the hospitality of others, coming home with a new perspective is inevitable.
“It’s a hard transition to degree,” said Marcia. “I felt incredibly overwhelmed.”
Marcia experienced this on one occasion when she began to unpack boxes for their dining room. Here they were, back at home with 10 sets of dinner plates, 10 sets of silverware, 10 of this, 10 of that. While on the road they had their backpacker tent with one plastic bowl and one plastic plate for each of them. Now they were surrounded by a home full of belongings, material things that seemed superfluous after living with so little.
“Life is very simple when everything is in your tent,” Gabe said.
During their travels the Southwest became one of the Williamsons’ favorite spots, which certainly influenced the new color scheme in the house. The Williamsons decided to bring their home along with them for the transition. After almost 15 years in a house with white walls the couple decided it was time for a change. Every room in the house was sanded and painted. The bathroom is now jalapeno red and their living room a sandy, southwestern yellow.
A photograph of Monument Valley in southeastern Utah, a gift from the Leave no Trace staff as a going-away gift, sits atop the white mantle in the living room.
“The beauty of nature is so unbelievable at times … it’s spectacular,” Marcia said as she looked at the photograph.
Marcia and Gabe first met in the 1980s while both were fitness instructors at the USM Center for Health and Wellness Promotion. They found a common bond in the outdoors that led them on hiking and camping excursions. In 1987, on a trip to Baxter State Park with a group of friends, they stopped at Daicey Pond Campground. The couple immediately fell in love with the place.
“We fell in love with not merely the view, but the people, the calmness about it and the feeling,” the couple said.
The two sat at the end of the dock and dipped their toes in the pond. Sitting there, affected by the silence, both voiced their desire to spend more time in that place. They returned together for the next three years and volunteered at Daicey Pond Campground. They were married in 1990 and inherited the official ranger positions at Daicey Pond Campground in 1991.
For the next 10 years Marcia and Gabe worked six months at the campground and six months off. During the off-season they would return to their home in South Portland where Gabe led team-building exercises and promoted healthy, leisurely lifestyles through his own small business called “Everyone Wins.” He would also teach an occasional class in USM’s Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. Marcia would often return to work in the health field.
As campsite rangers they had many responsibilities, including maintenance of the grounds and the several 100-year-old log cabins, registering all AT hikers, providing support to visitors, and sharing information about the proper etiquette while in the park. For ten years before working for Leave no Trace the couple was already espousing the same philosophy of zero impact to hikers and campers at Daicey Pond Campground.
The Williamsons are settling in and deciding what the next step will be for them. They are still involved with Leave no Trace as state advocates for Maine, which means they coordinate the dissemination of teaching materials around the state. They have also been involved with a task force in Maine that is being created to apply the seven principles embodied in Leave no Trace ethics to issues specific to the state.
“We need it here as well,” Gabe said. The couple is eager to utilize the abilities and experience they have gathered to work together and within their own state.
“Leave no Trace starts in our backyard,” Gabe said.
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