National Park Week events
• Junior Ranger Day
When: Noon to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Pearson Air Museum, 115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver; reconstructed Fort Vancouver, 1001 E. Fifth St.
Children who complete a Junior Ranger booklet will be “sworn in” and receive their Junior Ranger badges. There also will be specially themed Centennial Edition Junior Ranger Booklets and badges for the first 200 attending children. The Junior Ranger program is designed for children ages 6 to 12, but younger children can complete it with help. Older kids and adults are welcome to participate as well.
• Art of Legacy
When: 11 a.m. Saturday.
Where: Pearson Air Museum, 115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
Partnering with North Bank Artists and Fort Vancouver, students from Vancouver School of Arts and Academics and Thomas Jefferson Middle School created art pieces inspired by artifacts in the park’s museum collection.
The program included a field trip to Fort Vancouver, where the students learned about Vancouver’s past through the lens of historic documents and archaeology, and studied artifacts from the park’s museum collection. Artists, including a master printmaker, visited their classrooms to assist on printing techniques and writing interpretive panels.
The Art of Legacy student show will be on display from Saturday through June 4.
• Yuri’s Night
When: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Pearson Air Museum, 115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver.
Yuri’s Night World Space Party is a global event that commemorates the accomplishments of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the earth. Gagarin attended the First Chkalov Air Force Pilot’s School, named after Valery Chkalov. Chkalov landed the world’s first transpolar flight at Pearson Field in 1937.
Activities include making and launching two-liter pressure bottle rockets. The Oregon division of the National Space Exploration Society will discuss space exploration. Cameron Smith, a Portland State University professor, will show his home-built high-altitude pressure suit. He intends to test it with his high-altitude helium balloon this year.
Weather permitting, the night will finish with an outdoor star-gazing tour led by a park ranger who is a certified star guide.
• Spirit Pole
When: 2 p.m. April 23.
Where: Fort Vancouver Visitor Center, 1501 E. Evergreen Blvd., Vancouver.
The opening reception will honor Yakama artist Toma Villa. A temporary exhibit featuring works by Villa will premiere at this event, but the centerpiece will be a new, permanent art piece in the main lobby of the Visitor Center.
Villa has spent the last year working on the sculpture he calls “Spirit Pole.” Carved from a single cedar log, the work also includes glass sculptural components. A reflection of Pacific Northwest resources that have sustained people here for thousands of years, the “Spirit Pole” is also a touchable work of art.
