The Interpretation of Nature

This chapter examines the introduction of a new guide accreditation program in Banff National Park by the Mountain Parks Heritage Interpretation Association (MPHIA), based on the ideal of environmental stewardship. The program was implemented as part of neoliberal reforms which outsourced guide work to the commercial sector. Commercial guides were expected to tell stories of nature based on ecological scientific knowledge as if they were national park interpreters and local residents. The Japanese tour guides’ subjectivities had to be reshaped to internalize the norms and values of the state agency. This chapter explores the struggles of the guides in translating and performing the Park’s style of nature interpretation, and how this revealed discrepancies in how different worldviews locate humans in relation to nature.