It’s not English, but it’s what she loves

REGIONAL- For most people who take a trek into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness the experience is life-enriching, but for some, like Kate Severson, it’s life-altering.
When the Rochester native graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in English and Japanese studies, a career working in the great outdoors wasn’t even on the radar as she left home to spend two years teaching English as a second language in a rural village in Hokkaido, Japan.
With a population of 600, the rural village, called Otoineppu, marketed itself as the smallest town in northern Japan, Severson said. What they lacked in people, they made up for in scenery. “They had mountains and wilderness, and I got into hiking,” recalls Severson.
And like northern Minnesota, the town had plenty of snow, too. In fact, when it comes to the white stuff Otoineppu puts Minnesota to shame, averaging 128 inches of snow in December and 115 inches in January, according to climate data on Wikipedia.
After her adventure on Hokkaido, she returned to Minnesota without a clear sense of what she wanted to do, but was increasingly open to a career in the outdoors.
“I got back to the U.S., and I went through a bit of reverse culture shock,” Severson said. “I was struggling to find something I wanted to do. My dad said, ‘You should look into this program called the Minnesota Conservation Corps. You work for a summer, a nice short gig where you go out and clear out portages in the Boundary Waters.’ I thought that sounded amazing, so I did that. It was so impactful. You have those night skies, you’re out camping, you’re with your crewmates at night cooking around a campfire, then during the day you’re working, and it’s not easy work. But it was really rewarding because you could look back instantly and see all the work you accomplished with your team. That actually is what got my foot in the door into this field.”
And now, a dozen years and many more outdoor gigs later, Severson is back home in Minnesota as the new Manager of Interpretation and Public Affairs for Voyageurs National Park. At least, that’s the short title.
I’m juggling a lot of balls in the air right now,” Severson said.
VNP Superintendent Bob DeGross added some context.
“As the lead for interpretation, Kate’s role is to facilitate opportunities for people to connect with the park,” he said. “This occurs through a variety of activities, including ranger-led programs, developing exhibits, maintaining our website and social media, and leading our curriculum-based education program.”
It’s a complex, multifaceted job that meshes well with Severson’s outdoor-oriented job experience. Following her Boundary Waters experience, she did similar gigs with the Great Basin Institute in Nevada and the Texas Conservation Corps. She parlayed that experience into a park ranger job at Eisenhower State Park near Dennison, Texas, where she prepared and presented interpretive programs, including night sky experiences, and educational curriculum. After three years there, she moved up to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department as a statewide interpretive planner. From there she went to Colorado Springs.
“My sister got married in Colorado, and I went out for her wedding,” Severson said. “My husband and I thought the area was beautiful, and so I looked for jobs and got a position at Pikes Peak. While Pikes Peak mountain is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the city of Colorado Springs has a special use permit to manage the roadway up to the top. So, I was technically a city park ranger on a mountain that was about ten miles away from the center of the city. The work was hard, but that job was amazing. That site receives about 500,000 people every year, and that was just from the roadway. You also had the train going to the top, and you had hikers.”
Colorado Springs was where Kate finally married her husband, Parker, in October 2020, who she first met while on the BWCAW portage crew.
“He was one of the crew leads,” Severson said.
They parted ways at the end of the summer, but their paths would serendipitously cross again in Nevada the next year when Severson worked at the Great Basin Institute. Not having stayed in contact, she had no way of knowing that Parker had signed up to work there as well.
“It’s funny because our crew went to go pick him up at the airport, and someone said, ‘He’s from Minnesota, do you know him?’” Severson recalled. “I was like, ‘Hey, I have no idea who he is.’ And then I saw him, and I was like, ‘Oh, I do know him.’ That’s where we started dating.”
And it was the husband who she first met in the Boundary Waters who encouraged her to apply for the VNP job, she said.
Getting settled
With so many varied responsibilities at VNP, there’s a lot to learn.
“Every time I think I’ve got one thing handled and figured out, something else pops up,” Severson laughed. “Right now, one of the big things for me is getting the hang of operations at the visitor centers. Understanding that at a very detailed level is important because a big part of my role is facilitating the visitor experience, and for most of them they walk into those visitor centers. What are they seeing, how are they being treated, what kind of information are they given? That is so critical for me because that’s how we set people up for success on their trip, whether it’s giving them safety information or telling them about the tours or the campsites they’re staying at.”
“Tied to that,” Severson continued, “are the programs we’re providing. Are they reaching the audiences we want them to reach, and are they telling the stories that are important to the park? A huge part of the workforce that does that are our seasonal park rangers, so making sure they’re set up for success at the start of the season is really important.”
Another aspect of her job is the park’s online presence.
“I’m trying to get a handle on our social media and the messages we’re wanting to send out there,” Severson said. “You can’t ignore it. It’s an amazing way to connect with people, and it’s such a powerful tool. Technology is important, and that includes our website. We’re trying to make sure the content on our website is compliant with National Park Service accessibility standards.”
One of the partnerships Severson is grateful to have is with the Voyageurs Conservancy, the park-affiliated nonprofit that provides so many of the special visitor and educational experiences.
“When I first started, their support is so intertwined with our operations and our mission that I thought some of their employees were national park employees,” Severson said. “This is such a valuable working relationship we have with them, and it needs to continue to grow and be strengthened any way we can think to do that.”
Severson noted the work of the education specialists that work for the Conservancy.
“They really facilitate the field trips that are taking place in September,” she said. “They’re going to be busy – I was told it’s going to be over 400 students in the next couple of weeks that are going to come through. One of those education specialists focuses on our night sky programming.”
The night sky is one of two recurring themes that keep popping up as Severson learns about the park, the other being Ojibwe culture. And she’s discovered that the two complement each other well.
“When we had our star party, we had people from all over the U.S. who showed up and wanted to see the northern lights,” she said. “That is an amazing resource – it inspires awe, and it’s part of our heritage. And cultures from everywhere have stories to tell about the sky. The Ojibwe have lots of stories about constellations, so making sure we’re telling those stories is important.”
“One other thing that surprised me here was wild rice, manoomin,” Severson said. “It seems like such a humble piece of the park, but it’s connected to heritage and culture and science and the health of the environment. Wild rice has this spiritual significance for people in the area, too – there’s a lot to be learned there and a lot I think that can be shared with visitors.”
Severson said she hopes to build public awareness and a perception of the park in a way that makes it a well-known desired destination in the way the Boundary Waters has been.
“I grew up in Rochester, I went to high school there, and I don’t feel I heard much about Voyageurs National Park,” she said. “We talked about the Boundary Waters, and I went on two trips to the Boundary Waters. I never, never heard anything about Voyageurs and how amazing it is. It’s a best kept secret, for sure. We’re right next to the Boundary Waters, and in some ways it’s a bit more accessible for folks who might not be prepared for an intense backcountry experience.”
Severson said the number one experience for families at the park that she would recommend is camping.
“The superintendent likes to say we have the best campgrounds in the National Park Service, and the reason for that is every campsite is a waterside campsite,” Severson said. “And the campsites are well-maintained. I love the Boundary Waters, but some of those campsites are rough – bringing younger kids would be a challenge. But out here you can go camping with your family. They’ll have adventures – there’s swimming, canoeing, and just being able to explore the natural world.”