"Guardians of the Past"

This oil on canvas mural is one of the two installed at the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior building in Washington, DC, in commemoration of the Department of the Interior's sesquicentennial in 1999. The scenes in this mural capture the various work of DOI bureaus and some of the lands managed by the Department. In the foreground, from left to right, are Mesa Verde National Park, an environmental technician testing water on the Wind River Reservation, a powwow with nine Native Americans encircling a drum, and a National Park Service ranger presenting an interpretive program at Saguaro National Park. In the background, from left to right, is the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) using lasers to measure almost imperceptible changes in the landscape to help gauge the potential for a volcanic eruption, Mount St. Helens after the 1980 eruption, the Bureau of Land Management corralling wild horses for vaccination, a grazing herd of bison, Monument Valley, a researcher testing groundwater for pollutants, a USGS underwater diver, two Makah Indians celebrating the first successful whale hunt in 75 years, and a deep sea submersible exploring the Continental Shelf.