National Park Week 2015 encourages everyone to Find Your Park

Lewis and Clark National Historical Park joins parks, programs and partners across the country to encourage everyone to find their park and share their stories online at FindYourPark.com. Launched April 1 by the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation. Find Your Park is a public awareness and education campaign celebrating the milestone centennial anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016 and setting the stage for its second century of service.

Find Your Park invites the public to see that a national park can be more than a place -- it can be a feeling, a state of mind, or a sense of American pride. Beyond vast landscapes, the campaign highlights historical, urban, and cultural parks, as well as the National Park Service programs that protect, preserve and share nature, culture, and history in communities nationwide.

“Find Your Park” is also the theme for this year’s National Park Week, April 18 – 26. Entrance fees will be waived on April 18 and 19, the opening weekend of National Park Week, at all National Park Service sites.

Scott Tucker, Superintendent of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park invites everyone to “Find Your Park” during National Park Week. There are endless ways to Find Your Park - visit Fort Clatsop, hike a trail, come to a lecture, become a Jr. Ranger, kayak or canoe on the Lewis and Clark River, visit Middle Village or the Salt Works or have a picnic at Netul Landing. Opportunities abound at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park.

One opportunity at this park is a lecture on Pacific Northwest Foraging presented by lifetime Northwest forager Dr. Douglas Deur on Sunday, April 19, at 1 p.m. in the Netul River Room of the Fort Clatsop visitor center. The Pacific Northwest offers a veritable feast for foragers. The forests, meadows, streambanks, and weedy margins of neighborhoods are home to an abundance of delicious wild edible plants. A research professor at Portland State University and specialist in American Indian plant traditions, Deur will share some of his insights and experiences, including what to look for, when and where to look, and how to gather in a responsible way.

Visit http://www.NationalParkWeek.org to learn more about how to join parks, programs, and partners in celebrating National Park Week across the country.