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Melody Webb

In the early 1970s, Melody Webb worked for the National Park Service in Fairbanks, Alaska on Native Historic and Cemetery Sites studies. She also conducted historical research in the Wrangell-Saint Elias area and the Yukon-Charley Rivers area, in particular a historic resource study where she traveled with and was guided by Dave Evans, a former resident of the Nation River. Melody published a number of works on Alaska, including her book, The Last Frontier: A History of the Yukon Basin of Alaska and Canada. After Alaska, Melody continued her career with the National Park Service in historic preservation and management positions, including as superintendent at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park in Texas and Grand Teton National Park. Melody Webb writes about her twenty-five year career with the National Park Service, her experiences as a woman, and the politics within the institution in her 2007 memoir, A Woman in the Great Outdoors: Adventures in the National Park Service.

Melody Webb appears in the following new Jukebox projects:

Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve

Interview Title	Abstract	Archive #: Oral History	Project	Date of Interview
Melody Webb	Melody Webb was interviewed on October 7, 1991 by Dan O'Neill and William Schneider in Vail, Colorado where she was attending the 75th anniversary meeting of the National Park Service. Schneider worked with Melody in the early 1970s in Fairbanks, Alaska on the National Park Service's Native Historic and Cemetery Sites studies, but at the time of this interview, she was Superintendent of Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park in Texas. In this interview, Melody talks about historical research she did for the National Park Service in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve and Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park. She speaks of personal experiences doing the Yukon-Charley Rivers study with Dave Evans, and the historical themes she helped develop that are now the basis for current preservation activities in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. She also discusses the concepts of preserving history and cultural values and the role of the National Park Service in doing this, and her views on the "river people" and subsistence.	91-22-29	Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve	Oct 7, 1991