Ken Burns’ “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” premiered yesterday on PBS, delivering with his typically deliberate pacing, a moving portrait of how and why some of the most beautiful places in America, and on the planet, came under the protection of the U.S. government.

He starts with Yosemite and Yellowstone, the first areas designated national parks in the late 1800’s. The film provides what you might expect from Burns: beautifully shot wilderness scenes of the modern day parks, slow pans over old black and white stills, anecdotes of the mountain men who discovered these wonders and the Indian wars waged on them, a wistful soundtrack of acoustic instrumentals reminiscent of the period, and historians waxing lyrical about how these sacred places serve to reconnect us to the land.

As the film goes on, we learn how, prior to passage of these laws, opportunists discovered and exploited these lands as they became increasingly popular with tourists, and how naturalists like John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, fought them until the national parks laws were passed, banning to some extent, the construction on and access being carved into these lands. Previews of later episodes suggest that the struggles between commercial and naturalist interests escalate after the laws are passed, and much will be made of Teddy Roosevelt’s influence in creating many more of these parks.

It’s remarkable to see the many facets of the American character that are reflected in these stories, the goodness and the greed, the spiritual fervor of the naturalists pitted against the commercial interests of railroad barons and sheep herders – all against a wild, magnificent backdrop of mountains and geysers, incredible valley vistas and burbling mud pots.

Given that much of America’s history is highlighted by its struggles over who should govern its lands, what’s most surprising about the story is how relatively little debate was required for Congress to pass, and Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, and later Grant, to sign into law bills protecting these huge swaths of land. Appropriately titling one of the sections of his story “Eden,” Burns seems to imply that an otherwise  covetous, capitalistic and commercial society, at the tipping point of evolving into an industrial and urbanized world power, had an uncharacteristically reverent, almost childlike regard for these lands. Of course, this was all before the advent of easy international travel, and the development of movies, television and the internet, at a time when people were not yet jaded and still able to wonder at a 1,000 foot waterfall or the beauty of “Old Faithful.” If we put ourselves in their shoes, maybe we can understand the innocence and awe that made America do something so amazingly right.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: environment & nature, television // Add Comment »