Preserving Yellowstone’s history for generations to come

Alana Joy Okonkwo (she/her)
Hometown: Fontana, CA
Major: African & African American Studies and Archaeology, '26
Internship: Yellowstone National Park Heritage and Research Center

Alana Okonkwo reflects on preserving Yellowstone National Park’s expansive collection (over 5 million objects spanning more than 50 million years!) through conservation, curation, and museum education.

This summer, I had the privilege of interning at Yellowstone National Park’s Heritage and Research Center where I worked closely with the museum team on several projects. The Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center (YHRC) is home to over 5 million objects and documents, with over 1.1 million objects in the museum collection and over 4 million archival records and library materials! Most of the collection documents Yellowstone’s history as a National Park (1872 to the present day), but the museum also has a significant geological and archaeological collection that extends over 50 million years back.

Because our museum team is small (an amazing team of two creative museum technicians, one dedicated registrar, and one passionate curator!) I have the opportunity to build skills in a variety of museum jobs within a short 10-week chunk. I have researched, designed, and written labels about the Yellowstone Lake Hotel to be displayed in the hotel’s lobby in 2027; led 6 public tours to the general public, Yellowstone National Park staff, and the Southeast Montana Yellowstone County Board of Tourism; constructed and installed plastic curtains to protect open shelf collections; cleaned a historic stagecoach using conservation chemicals; designed a geology exhibit for the Yellowstone Center for Resources building; assisted with locating objects for the Annual Inventory; mitigated insects in the building through integrated pest management, and much more. Each task I have been involved in has served the same purpose: to preserve Yellowstone’s tangible and intangible heritage for generations to come through conservation, curation, and museum education.

Working with a museum collection at a National Park has reaffirmed my commitment to service and solidified my dream of pursuing a public service career. These objects have taught me that Yellowstone’s land runs deep with significance. From the petrified wood, I learned that Yellowstone was once a rainforest sprouting above active volcanoes during the Eocene Epoch over 50 million years ago. From examining an obsidian projectile point marked with coyote, fox, and wolf blood, I was reminded of the geothermal importance of the Yellowstone landscape to Indigenous peoples for millennia. When I looked at Thomas Moran’s 1871 Romantic paintings of geysers, waterfalls, and mountain ranges, I saw early white Americans’ fantasies of conserving Yellowstone’s land at the expense of the Native Americans who had inhabited the region for over 13,000 years and were ultimately displaced from it. When I saw a horn and drums used during the 1995 ceremony of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, I learned to have hope– that through collaboration, cultural empathy, and a deep rooted care for the land, we can collectively work to restore Yellowstone’s health and serve the interests of Tribal Nations.

This internship has shown me that public service in a museum looks like telling the stories learned from objects and preserving objects for future research and education. I will forever be grateful for this life-changing experience.