Nicolas Brulliard

Senior Editor at National Parks Magazine

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Articles

Parks can help make sense of challenging and uncertain times

Oct 31, 2024 | npca.org | Rona Marech |Jennifer Errick |Nicolas Brulliard |Edward Stierli

Elections can be times of great change and great uncertainty. Election results – for the presidency, for Congress, for state and local offices – could mean monumental changes for us and for our national parks. Our nation’s history is full of such moments – times when we faced an unclear future. And many of those stories are told through national parks.
The Swiss Model

Mar 26, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Spring 2024 By Nicolas Brulliard Switzerland conveys millions of hikers to alpine landscapes on trains, buses and gondolas. Is a Swiss-like transportation network the solution to overcrowding in U.S. national parks? The Five Lakes trail just east of the Swiss town of Zermatt was “in a class of its own,” according to the local tourism office, which was quite a statement in a region that may be the most picturesque in a very picturesque country.
One Animal’s Trash…

Mar 26, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Spring 2024 By Nicolas Brulliard Dung beetles perform invaluable ecological and janitorial services, but their influence has long been overlooked. In Great Smoky Mountains, researchers are finally giving much-deserved attention to the mighty insects. For months, Maggie Mamantov traveled to points high and low in Great Smoky Mountains National Park to set up traps in the park’s forests and meadows.
Paradise Found?

Mar 21, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Fall 2022 By Nicolas Brulliard A century ago, a college student in “cavewoman” attire reportedly braved bears, freezing temperatures and a bearskin-clad suitor in the wilds of Rocky Mountain National Park. Did any of it actually happen? After a night at an inn in the shadow of Longs Peak, Agnes Lowe, a 20-year-old college student from Michigan, prepared to spend a week alone in the backcountry of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. It didn’t take her long.
A Thorny Question

Mar 21, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Winter 2023 By Nicolas Brulliard Why some saguaros grow more arms than others — and why it matters. Every spring break, Richard Hutto would drive to the Southwest with a group of his field ecology students to conduct some basic science. The first day, they’d walk around the desert looking for interesting patterns. Then they’d gather at a campground at night and brainstorm their ideas, and each student would settle on a particular line of inquiry.
Naming Right

Mar 21, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Mount Doane, a mountain in Yellowstone National Park whose name was deeply offensive to local Tribes, was recently renamed First Peoples Mountain — years after Native advocates first started pushing for the change. Magazine Article Should Devils Tower be called Bear Lodge? Is Tacoma a better moniker than Mount Rainier?
Case Reopened

Feb 25, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Winter 2023 By Nicolas Brulliard A major school desegregation victory in Colorado was all but forgotten. A century later, it’s getting its due. Gonzalo Guzmán was conducting research on the experience of Latino students in Wyoming when he came across a mention in a 1914 newspaper of “Mexican” parents protesting discrimination in Alamosa, Colorado. “It wasn’t even a full sentence,” Guzmán said.
A (Driverless) Drive in the Park

Feb 24, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Summer 2021 By Nicolas Brulliard Yellowstone takes a leap into the future with autonomous shuttles. The Park Service is not generally known for being at the vanguard of transportation technology — think mules and decades-old buses — but Yellowstone National Park is taking a big leap into the future this summer.
As the Robin Flies

Feb 24, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

Winter 2021 By Nicolas Brulliard Where do robins go and why does it matter? The robin was hopping on the parking lot of the Denali post office, less than half a mile from Denali National Park’s entrance — and Emily Williams was desperate to catch it. American robins are a common sight on the North American continent, but this was not just any backyard robin.
Miners' Angel

Feb 24, 2024 | npca.org | Nicolas Brulliard

A century ago, Mother Jones faced bullets and long odds in her quest to better the lives of coal laborers working in New River Gorge and other West Virginia mines. Union organizers told Mother Jones not to go to the coal mines on Laurel Creek. The strikes that started in West Virginia in June of 1902 had dragged on for months, and mine owners had only gotten more combative as time passed.