By Clara Chang

These last few weeks of my internship have been very exciting and filled with new experiences! I have been helping my supervisor with her annual museum inventory, which includes all the southeastern parks of North Carolina: Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, Wright Brothers National Memorial, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, and Moores Creek National Battlefield. Last week we traveled to Cape Lookout and Moores Creek to finish up the last of the inventory due this week. Both parks were new to me, and I was blown away by the serenity of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, surrounded by crystal clear blue waters. Moores Creek was equally serene, beautifully green and surrounded by lush trees and forest. Both sites were also filled with history and welcoming rangers, eager to share their parks with us.

Figure 1: Lots of travel in my last few weeks!

Last week I also spent some time at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, assisting with archaeological monitoring while maintenance installed new bollards at the entrance road. I also completed photographing the Fort Raleigh archaeological collection at the Museum Resource Center.

Figure 2: Maintenance installing new bollards at the entrance station.

In addition to inventory, I also became familiar with the Interior Collections Management System (ICMS), a database software used by the Department of the Interior for cataloging and accessioning the cultural and natural resources of each park. The past couple of days I was updating the locations and statuses of the museum collections for some of the parks as my supervisor was completing the inventory sheets for each park. Also this week, I went back to Cape Hatteras to reinstall the 20th Anniversary of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse move exhibits in the correct colored exhibit cases with my supervisor and John Havel of the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society. I also began converting slides from the Moores Creek slide collection to JPEG format.

Figure 3: One of my site visits this week

Next week, for my last week, I will most likely continue to work in ICMS, cataloging resources and uploading those Fort Raleigh archaeological photos into the database as well.

These past 11 weeks have been so fulfilling and educational for me. As I begin my graduate studies in Anthropology at NC State, I feel so prepared from this experience with ACE and NPS. I have become more confident in my abilities with cultural resource management, and I would like to thank the Resource Management Division and everyone at the Outer Banks Group Headquarters that made my time here so memorable and inspiring. I am especially grateful to have worked under my supervisor, Jami Lanier. As the Cultural Resource Manager for five parks, she showed me just how capable and talented one person can be when under so much pressure and having so many responsibilities. I am lucky to have learned so much from her and the many people that she works with on a daily basis, as it demonstrates the power of teamwork and strong leadership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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