Today I am speaking with a representative from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who describes a beautiful opportunity to volunteer for a few months at a wildlife refuge near the northern California coast.

Denise Seeger is the visitor services assistant for the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge near Eureka, Calif., which is located about 100 miles south of the Oregon border.

Her agency is tasked with maintaining a diverse range of wildlife habitats, including a salt marsh, mud flats, sand dunes and even a forest dune ecosystem.

Denise is responsible for environmental education programs at the refuge. She also hires about 12 Workampers every year to serve as hosts in opening and closing the park every day as well as maintaining trails and public areas.

The refuge is open year-round, so Denise is looking for volunteers to make a three month commitment in exchange for a free full-hookup RV site in a beautiful area near the coast.

The refuge sounds like a unique place to visit, let alone live for several months. The agency maintains two wildlife sites in the area. One is a pasture grassland near Humboldt Bay, and the other is a dune forest where people can hear the ocean as they walk among the trees.

Denise said the refuge is similar to visiting the Oregon dunes, but on a smaller scale.

Although Workampers don’t get paid, they do get a wonderful perk. After they put in 250 volunteer hours, they receive a free annual pass to get into any federal recreation area, be it a national park, national historic site or national forest.

Workampers are asked to put in 24 hours a week, so they qualify for the pass in about 10 weeks. The 24-hour commitment is also required to get a free RV site. So, a solo would do the 24 hours by themselves, or a couple can split the time.

Much of the work involves contact with the public, but it also involves habitat restoration and trail maintenance duties as well.

No special skills are needed to be a Workamper at the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge and any needed training is provided. All Denise really looks for in Workampers is the ability to be friendly and engaging with guests.

People interested in the job can email Denise at denise_seeger@fws.gov. She will send a two-page application to become a federal volunteer. Hiring decisions are made relatively quickly after a phone call with applicants.

There are a lot of natural recreation opportunities near the refuge. If you like birding, Denise said there are more than 250 different species that either live at the refuge or migrate through the area.

With a population of nearly 50,000 people, Eureka is the largest city along the coast between San Francisco and Portland, Ore.

For more information about the refuge, people can visit www.fws.gov/refuge/humboldt-bay.

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That’s all I have for today’s show. Next week, I will be speaking with an author who published a book about all 50 states. It’s a good resource for travelers to familiarize themselves with the states and the major activities to check out when visiting.

I’ll have that interview on the next episode of The Workamper Show. If you like these interviews, please consider leaving a review wherever you download the episodes. It’s hard to believe there are less than eight weeks remaining in 2024. Thanks for listening.