Anderson Design Group Interviews Canyonlands Natural History Association! October 14, 2024

As artists and wilderness explorers, our passion is to venture into the 63 American National Parks, photograph and document the wonder of these natural places, and share our enthusiasm for the parks by creating original, high-quality poster art for our 63 Illustrated National Parks Collection. In our travels, we’ve also developed an immense appreciation for national monuments, which inspired the American National Monuments and Natural Wonders Collection.

The national parks and monuments were created to preserve America's natural beauty and cultural history, with each park representing a significant chapter in the great American story. Because we believe strongly in preserving the parks for future generations to enjoy, we're always looking for opportunities to support the conservancies, foundations, natural history associations, and friend groups that protect the parks.

To raise awareness for the important educational work, conservation, fundraising, youth involvement, and preservation activities taking place in the national parks and monuments of Southeast Utah, we took some time this week to sit down with Sam Wainer, Executive Director of Canyonlands Natural History Association (CNHA).

An Interview with Canyonlands Natural History Association

ADG: Thanks for chatting with us, Sam. Can you start by describing CNHA? 

Sam: Certainly! CNHA is the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management in Southeast Utah. Our mission is both simple and comprehensive, to support the scientific, educational and visitor service efforts for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Natural Bridges, Hovenweep, Bears Ears National Monuments, the Manti La Sal National Forest, and the BLM.

ADG: That’s really great to hear. You mentioned CNHA assists the National Park Service on the educational side of visitor experiences. Can you tell us a bit about that and why education is an important part of a park experience?

Sam: Visitors come from all over the U.S. and the world to recreate in the greater Moab Area. Many visitors have never been to a desert ecosystem before. The landscape here may be much different from what they’re used to back home. It can be a harsh yet fragile environment, and that’s not always apparent at first. Educating visitors on how to recreate responsibly and safely is a main goal of our partners. Also, visitors want to know more about our desert environment; the unique geology that sculpted the region, the plants and animals that live here, and the importance of dark sky parks and communities. Our assistance lends financial support for the interpretive programs of the park service and our other partners, which are then utilized to engage and inform visitors. 

ADG: It’s wonderful your organization helps folks enjoy the parks and other public lands and learn a thing or two while they’re there! Let’s talk about your backstory. How did CNHA get its start? 

Sam: CNHA was established in 1967, just a few years after the designation of Canyonlands National Park. We got our start with a $10,000 loan from Southwest Parks and Monuments Association which was repaid within ten years. As our organization and sales grew, we were able to provide financial assistance to the Park Service almost immediately. The first donation to NPS was for $363.37 in 1968 and increased to $446.27 in 1969. Last year, we donated 1.3 million dollars to the park service! We signed our initial cooperating agreement with the Utah State Office of the Bureau of Land Management in 1980 and with the Manti La Sal National Forest in 1988. CNHA is a bit unique in that we partner with three federal land management agencies (NPS, BLM, and the U.S. Forest Service).

ADG: What types of projects does your group work on/fund each year? What are some projects you're most proud of?

Sam: Several come to mind:

- We funded the SEUG (Southeast Utah Group Parks) E-Bike Patrol Program where we purchased several E-Bikes for backcountry patrols. The use of E-bikes has many advantages over motorized vehicles such as trucks and jeeps. E-bikes are quieter and create less dust when engaging with visitors, they are more environmentally friendly, and they have a much quicker response time for emergencies.

Pictured below is information about how CNHA funded an immensely popular E-bike program in the park. Credit: CNHA.

- We assisted with the Ring of Fire Annular Eclipse last year where we provided a total of 7,500 custom eclipse glasses to all three federal partners to hand out to visitors for free. 1,000 glasses were printed in Spanish. Southeast Utah was in the 100% totality range of the eclipse.

Photo credit CNHA.

- Every year we fund Government to Government Tribal Consultations which are imperative in making sure there is Indigenous representation in public land management issues.  Tribal engagement is in the proclamation for Bears Ears National Monument.

- The Mineral Bottom outhouse mural project is definitely one of my favorites. We hired a local artist and former Community Artist in the Parks (Pete Apicella) to paint murals on the interior of the vault toilets at Mineral Bottom. Mineral Bottom is a launch point for rafting and canoeing on the Green River through Canyonlands National Park. One of the outhouses is painted with native fish and the other is a visual history of John Wesley Powell’s trips down the Green and Colorado Rivers.

CNHA funded beautiful vault toilet murals. Art by Pete Apicella, photos by Sam Wainer. 

- I’m also proud of the fact that we’ve purchased seven telescopes for all of our sites which enable night sky interpretive programs in some of the darkest skies in the world. Natural Bridges was the very first International Dark Sky Park and now all of our sites are dark sky parks and Moab is a dark sky community.

This is one of seven telescopes purchased by CNHA. Photo credit to NPS and William Pedro.

ADG: Those are some amazing accomplishments. Do you have a favorite?

Sam: To be honest, the thing I’m most proud of is that we are a relatively small organization yet we’ve donated over $24 million to our partners in support of their educational, scientific, and visitor service efforts. Half of that has been in the past decade. 

ADG: Incredible. And we understand CNHA operates multiple stores. Can you tell us a bit about them?

Sam: Sure! We operate 10 stores in SE Utah. Arches National Park has our largest and busiest store. The next busiest stores are at the Island in the Sky and Needles Districts of Canyonlands National Park. We have a small sales presence in the Maze District of Canyonlands at the Hans Flat Ranger station. The Maze is the most remote and least visited district of Canyonlands, accessible by 50 miles on a dirt road or by boat on the Green and Colorado Rivers. We have two stores with the BLM. The Kane Gulch Ranger Station which is one of the main contact points for Bears Ears National Monument, and we have a small presence at the Hanksville BLM Henry Mountain Field Station. We manage a multi-agency visitor center in downtown Moab, The Moab Information Center, which represents and supports all of the public lands surrounding Moab and is the face of the BLM and Forest Service for visitor contact. We also have an independent contract with the City of Blanding to have a store at the Blanding Information Center. And we have stores at Natural Bridges and Hovenweep National Monuments. And last but not least, we have an online store at our website!

Arches National Park Store, managed and operated by CNHA. Photo credit CNHA.

ADG: Do you have other avenues for funding your projects beyond the CNHA stores?

Sam: Although CNHA is a 501c3 non-profit organization, we do not have a philanthropic agreement with the NPS which means we cannot go out and actively seek donations. However, we are allowed to accept them. The exception to the donation rule is we are able to ask for round up donations at the cash register. The official philanthropic partner for the Southeast Utah Group Parks is the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands, who can create capital campaigns for the parks. Proceeds from sales at our stores is our main source of revenue, part of which goes back to our federal partners in the form of direct aid. 

ADG: Can you tell us a bit about your Discovery Pool?

Sam: The Discovery Pool is a granting program funded by CNHA to support scientific discovery in SE Utah. The Discovery Pool gets its revenue from what we call neutral funds, which include membership dues and donations to our general fund (excluding cash register donations), proceeds from the wholesaling of self-produced product and rental income from a commercial building we own. Since its inception in 2008, the CNHA Discovery Pool has awarded over $947,000 in grants to enhance critical understanding for land management agencies in how to best manage public lands.

ADG: We also saw you have a Community Artist program. Can you tell us about that?

Sam: Certainly. We’ve partnered with SEUG in their Community Artist in the Parks Program. The Community Artist is a volunteer position for 24 hours a month, April – October that is awarded to one applicant each year via a selection committee. CNHA is a member of that committee and we provide space in our stores for the current artist to sell product on a commission basis. The community artist spends their time in the park engaging with visitors, discussing art techniques and what on or within the landscape inspires them as an artist. It's a wonderful program that involves the local community and engages the visitor on a more creative front. 

ADG: How else do you interact with the communities around the parks?

Sam: Other connections within the local community include our partnership with Science Moab where we sponsor four weekly podcasts each year with recipients of Discovery Pool grants. We also sponsor their Science Moab on Tap series with three lectures through the winter season. And we underwrite the Science Moab podcasts that are broadcasted on KZMU Moab Community Radio. 

ADG: How does CNHA involve students in the parks and monuments?

Sam: CNHA offers a scholarship program to local high school students where we hire them to work in different aspects of our organization including our warehouse and as retail associates expanding their business and educational skills. We then pay a $2,000 scholarship to their college of choice for each year worked for us. One task that all of our scholarship students enjoy the most is assisting Arches National Park with their Junior Ranger Program. In all, we’ve had 15 students and have awarded over $40,000 in scholarships.

Pictured below is Gavin Vink, CNHA's scholarship student for the past three years. Photo credits CNHA.

ADG: Touching back on the educational side of things, what goes on in the educational side of Canyonlands Natural History Association? What are some of the educational programs your team is invested in?

Sam: Education is a huge priority for us, because it is only with educated and informed stewardship that American parks will be maintained for generations to come. One of the largest programs that we support financially every year is Canyon Country Outdoor Education or CCOE. CCOE is a fabulous NPS program that takes local Grand and San Juan County Utah school kids, grades 1-6 on field trips on public lands to teach them basic science in the field (and it helps the teachers meet their state core science curriculum). This program has been in existence since the late 80s, and with this year’s contribution, CNHA has now put over $1 million in support of this program that touches every local school kid. 

ADG: I bet the students love that. Are you involved in other educational programs? 

Sam: Yes, for visitors and staff alike. We fund a number of trainings for different aspects of park management in support of visitor services. This year alone, we funded Search and Rescue Training, Interagency Emergency Medical Services Training, Leave No Trace Level 1 Instructor Training, and Family Liaison Officer Training. We help the park service with educational trainings for their interpreters, such as Interpretive Coaching Training and sending two rangers a year to the Night Sky Academy where they learn to give star programs utilizing telescopes and dark sky education. Other training programs in the past have included EMT, Technical Rescue, and swift water safety training. We’ve also helped the Park Service create a series of educational videos such as Leave No Trace – Pack Rafting, Canyoneering Safety and Resource Protection, Four Wheel Driving, Motorcycle and Mountain Biking Safety, and Cultural Resources Visitor Education. In conjunction with all of our partners, CNHA created a Welcome to Moab film, which is shown on demand at the Moab Information Center, educating visitors on how to recreate responsibly on public lands.  

ADG: Now that we have a really good idea of what CNHA is involved in in the present, what are some of the plans for the future? Short-term and long-term goals?

Sam: My #1 goal is to continue with smart business practices to ensure financial stability for the organization which in turn enables us to support our federal partners in their important work. Building on that concept of financial success, another goal is to grow our Discovery Pool Program while also increasing the amount of direct aid to all three land management partners. One particular long-term goal is to assist all three agencies with their housing needs. Ideally that would be financial assistance to them for building their own housing on their lands. Last year, CNHA purchased seven houses in the Moab area to help with these needs as a stop gap measure. We are in the beginning stages of a major construction project at Arches National Park, expanding our sales area and building a warehouse for onsite storage of product. When this project is completed in the winter of 2026, we will be looking at something similar for Canyonlands National Park at the Island in the Sky. Another goal of mine is to explore ways to create new or expand existing partnerships with local organizations. 

ADG: Never a dull moment from now into infinity! And since you spend so much time in the parks and have intimate knowledge of their layout, what do you think about our poster art of Canyonlands, Arches, and other Utah parks? Any designs we should add to our series? Any angles or views that you feel should be better represented in art?

Sam: I love your artwork and always have since the first time I spotted it at the Smoky Mountain Gift Show in Gatlinburg. It was in 2015 and I saw one of ADG’s Delicate Arch posters from a distance in the booth for Tourist Courts/Pumpernickel Press. I walked right up to Bob Harju, pointed to the image and said, “That’s me!” As for future art, we are always getting requests for imagery of the Fiery Furnace in Arches or the Confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers in Canyonlands. Neither of these areas is easy to capture so it should be a good challenge for you. 

ADG: We’ll pass those ideas onto the artists! One last question, if there would be one thing about your group or about national park conservation/restoration/education generally that you’d want the broader public to know, what would that be?

Sam: Know before you go. Do your research as you plan to recreate on public lands. Be aware of how you can recreate safely and responsibly. Be mindful of wildlife. Know where you can and cannot hike with your dog. Don’t leave your pets in the car while you go for a hike or mountain bike ride. Know the hazards such as flash flooding, lightning, or heat stroke. Take plenty of water, don’t “Bust the Crust” and respect other visitors and user groups. And last but not least, please support the not-for-profit organizations that aid the national parks and your public lands. By making purchases in the association stores or from their websites you are helping to back the educational efforts of your favorite national parks and monuments. 

CNHA raises awareness for the unique biology of the region's parklands and why it's important to stay on designated trails.

ADG: Great advice, Sam. Thanks for sitting down with us today!

Sam: Thanks for having me!

The Importance of Supporting National Park Associations and Friend Groups

You can learn more about Canyonlands Natural History Association at their website. Their store has a selection of educational materials, books, toys, games, and gifts. And if you want to support their work in perpetuity, you can become a member.

If you represent a natural history association, foundation, friend group, conservancy, or preservation association that works in any of the 63 American National Parks or the hundreds of national monuments and other NPS sites across the U.S., contact us today to set up an interview! Just email: ren@andersondesigngroup.com.

In the meantime, we'll get back to creating vintage poster art of the national parks. Let's enjoy these beautiful, historic places and do our part to preserve them for future generations.

- Ren Brabenec 
Anderson Design Group Staff Writer