1. True or false? Glacier National Park is smaller than Waterton Lakes National Park, the Canadian park with which it is paired to form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

2. True or false? Biscayne National Park, Everglades National Park, and Big Cypress National Preserve are all at least partly located in the same county.

3. True or false? The two separate national parks that comprise the pair known as Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks were established in the same year.

4. Which of the following is a meridionally linked pair of National Park System units?
a. Devils Tower National Monument and Yellowstone National Park
b. Grand Canyon National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park
c. Acadia National Park and Everglades National Park
d. Big Bend National Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial

5. Each of the following is a contiguous (touching at the edge) pair of National Park System units EXCEPT:
a. Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore
b. Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park
c. Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
d. Noatak National Preserve and Kobuk Valley National Park

6. With one exception, each of the following pairs consists of two National Park System units that are in the same time zone. The pair that does NOT belong in this set is
a. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Badlands National Park
b. Joshua Tree National Park and Olympic National Park
c. Padre Island National Seashore and Gulf Islands National Seashore
d. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

7. Nez Perce National Historical Park is to Big Hole National Battlefield as Golden Gate National Recreation Area is to
a. Muir Woods National Monument
b. Gettysburg National Military Park
c. Yosemite National Park
d. Point Reyes National Seashore

8. Name two noncontiguous National Park System units that are linked by the Hubbard Glacier.

9. Two national monuments beginning with the Spanish word “El” are nearest neighbors, meaning that they are closer to each other than to any other NPS unit. Can you name them?

10. Name a pair of National Park System units with hyphenated names that are nearest neighbors.

Extra Credit Question:

11. Major John Wesley Powell was stationed at Castle Clinton when he saw Jenny Lind perform at the opera house there. Smitten by the famous singer, he later named a mountain after her in what is now
a. Dinosaur National Monument
b. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
c. Lake Mead National Recreation Area
d. Grand Canyon National Park

Super Bonus Question:

12. Only two units of the National Park System have a forward slash (/) in their names, and both are located at least partially in the same state. Name these two National Park System units.

Answers:

(1) False. Glacier National Park (1,584 square miles) is nearly eight times the size of neighboring Waterton Lakes National Park (203 square miles).

(2) True. All three of these NPS units are located at least partially within Miami-Dade County, Florida.

(3) False. Sequoia National Park was established on September 25, 1890, and General Grant National Park was established less than a week later (October 1, 1890). However, Kings Canyon National Park (incorporating the abolished General Grant National Park) was not created until 1940.

(4) d – In the global grid context, a meridian is a line (actually a half-circle) connecting the north and south poles. All points on a given meridian have the same longitude – that is, they are the same distance east or west of the zero-degree longitude line (the prime meridian). Big Bend National Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial are meridionally linked because they are both located at about 103 degrees west longitude. This means that a line drawn due north from Big Bend will pass close to Mount Rushmore. None of the other pairs is linked in similar fashion.

(5) b – Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park are not contiguous, but are linked by the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. National Parkway.

(6) d – Although Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore are both situated on Lake Michigan, the former is in the Central Time Zone and the latter is in the Eastern Time Zone.

(7) a – Even though Big Hole National Battlefield is part of Nez Perce National Historical Park, it is counted as a separate unit of the National Park System. Similarly, even though Muir Woods National Monument is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, it is counted as a separate unit of the National Park System.

(8) Before entering the sea at Disenchantment Bay and Yakutak Bay, the 76-mile long Hubbard Glacier (Alaska’s longest tidewater glacier) flows through both Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve and Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

(9) El Malpais National Monument and El Morro National Monument are nearest neighbors situated west of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

(10) Vermont’s Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park and New Hampshire’s Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site are nearest neighbors.

(11) a – While exploring the upper reaches of the Green River in what is now Dinosaur National Monument, Powell arrived at Steamboat Rock near the Yampa River confluence and decided to name the mountain on the other side of the river “Jenny Lind Rock” in honor of the singer he had found so enthralling at Castle Clinton (now Castle Clinton National Monument).

(12) The two NPS units that have a forward slash in their names are Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front National Historical Park and World War II / Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The former is located in Richmond, California, and one component of the latter (Tule Lake Segregation Center) is also located in California.

Grading: 9 or 10 correct, rest on your laurels; 7 or 8 correct, pretty darn good; 6 correct, passable fair; 5 or fewer correct, nothing to brag about.