I am Patty Brown and I have lived in Haines for 28 years. From 1995-2017 I taught at the local K-12 school, primarily middle school science, but also fourth grade, middle school math, natural resources, PE, and Spanish. Before I taught school, I was a park ranger for 20 years in California and in Alaska. Noticing and knowing plants has always made me feel more grounded and more connected to place. It stimulates my curiosity when I see plants I have never seen before and when I see familiar plants growing in a place that surprises me. Once I climbed the highest peak in Costa Rica and while hiking through one section of the trail, I saw a plant community that looked very much like one I saw in the foothills in California where I had grown up. At the 10,000 foot peak, I saw bamboo growing!
Patty Brown–Introduction
Author: Patricia Brown
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Welcome Patty,
sounds like you had an amazing journey in education as well as a Park Ranger in CA, wow! Love the Sierras, and also the deserts of California. We often travelled to San Clemente from Arizona to spend time at surf camp with our kids. The wild grapes in San Juan Canyon in the Santa Mountains on state route 74 on our way to San Clemente are just amazing, and I collected there many times. See Vitis girdiana Munson in fruit below.
Hi Patty! I feel like our paths have crossed or almost-crossed many times. I was also a park ranger and public school teacher. One of my first jobs in Alaska was at the Prince William Sound Science Center and I was on the ANROE Board for a while–at least 25 years ago. Hope we get to chat at some point!