Captains sailing on a small sea

The boat quietly pushed off, waves from Jenny Lake splashing against its side.

“Your captain today will be Steve,” comes the announcement over the loudspeaker.

Steve Anderson, 22, will pilot this tourist-laden craft across a mile of open lake in Grand Teton National Park. It’s a 10-minute trip, shuttling tourists to the popular sites of Inspiration Point and Hidden Falls. But all the while, Anderson is under the watchful eye of a boat captain – because for now he remains an apprentice.

It seems a mundane enough task. Back and forth across the lake during the day with little motorized traffic and hardly a tide, reef, buoy, lighthouse or foghorn to complicate things.

Anderson will steer and dock his craft. He will oversee its embarkation and disembarkation. He knows to call the left port, the green side starboard. He knows bow from stern, what to do when somebody yells “man overboard!”

All on a lake that’s two miles across at its widest.

The 11 boat captains at Jenny Lake are not teenagers hoping to make some extra spending money. With year-round benefits, a signing bonus, profit sharing opportunities and a four-day work week, the captain’s jobs at Jenny Lake Boating, the park concession for the popular shuttle to Cascade Canyon, is coveted. Most captains are veterans, many living full-time in the valley.