The National Parks: An Embodiment of Democracy

There were being no national parks within the assortment of my traveling capabilities when I was escalating up. I didn’t truly know what a nationwide park was. The text didn’t evoke any form of impression inside of my encounter. I hardly ever frequented 1 till I was an adult. It took me a prolonged time to understand to recognize what a excellent thing the nationwide parks are.

I have to credit score the Ken Burns-Dayton Duncan film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” for opening my eyes to the entire magnitude of that notion. I was pretty a great deal certain of the fact of their thesis, that the Countrywide Parks definitely may well be “America’s Finest Concept,” following the founding of the state and the formulation of democracy itself.

In an interview, Duncan reported, “I will make the argument that the nationwide parks is our greatest strategy. And the rationale is because it is actually an expression of the Declaration of Independence used to the landscape, which is that the most beautiful, most majestic, and, I would say, sacred destinations in our nation must be set aside not for royalty or the prosperous or the effectively connected, as it experienced been in all recorded heritage, but for all people and for all time.”

These days the thought has been picked up all more than the planet. The Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature counts a lot more than 4,000 countrywide parks. And that is excellent for the full planet. It implies that many of the most gorgeous locations will be preserved for the reward of all persons. It’s a deserving aspiration toward a larger stage of culture than a single that just allows exploiters run roughshod around all the things.

The film grew out of Dayton Duncan’s deep passion for the national parks considering that his childhood. Duncan has labored with Ken Burns on practically each and every movie, possibly as a guide, writer or producer, going back again to The Civil War. But it would seem apparent to me, from looking at interviews with him, that the film about the nationwide parks was a special most loved for him, and an intensely own vision.

The national parks have been one particular of the most profound passions of his lifetime. The film was a possibility for him to set that passion into a cinematic expression. His appreciate for the parks is infectious. The film sequence received two Emmy awards, but even far more importantly, I consider, its wide viewership when it arrived out in 2009 was adopted by a surge of attendance at the National Parks.

I suppose the sequence affected quite a few other individuals the way it did me. I was seriously taken by the plan that the nationwide parks are the theory of democracy expressed in the landscape by itself.

Duncan reported that the thought arrived from author and historian Wallace Stegner, who wrote an post in 1983 referred to as “The Greatest Plan We At any time Experienced: An Overview.” In it he wrote, “National parks are the finest plan we at any time experienced. Unquestionably American, absolutely democratic, they mirror us at our very best alternatively than our worst.”

Stegner himself credits James Bryce, a British Ambassador, with coining the phrase. And there might be other legitimate claims to remaining the 1st to articulate the notion. But, as with so a lot of matters, obtaining the “first” is likely extremely hard. Beginnings tend to fade into the mist of the earlier. But that speaks to the universality of the notion.

In a 1990 report in which Stegner credits Bryce for the phrase, he also acknowledges that “The tracing of thoughts is a guessing sport. We simply cannot convey to who to start with had an plan we can only tell who initially experienced it influentially….”

The thought powering the countrywide parks looks to have occur from the populace itself, a spontaneously arising motion to guard the most lovely locations from exploitative destruction. That much too speaks to it as an expression of democracy. The thought looks to have labored its way up to the governmental businesses that could enact legal guidelines to codify it.

It emerged out of a increasing awareness that all those gorgeous places out west would before long be overrun and in all probability desecrated. It’s an encouraging example of how individuals who believe that passionately in one thing can really make a difference, even in the deal with of potent forces from them.

The origin of the national parks on their own is also not easy to pinpoint. The internet site of the Countrywide Park Service claims, “Artist George Catlin, during an 1832 journey to the Dakotas, was perhaps the 1st to advise a novel option to this speedy-approaching reality.”

Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness ended up all in hazard, wrote Catlin, except if they could be preserved “by some terrific preserving plan of government… in a impressive park… A nation’s Park, that contains man and beast, in all the wild[ness] and freshness of their nature’s natural beauty!”

Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt ended up all instrumental in the advancement of a countrywide park procedure. It’s a long and complicated heritage. We are fortunate that the plan has managed to endure the political process and to progress as well as it has

When I traveled to some of the fantastic countrywide parks of the American West, I acquired the emotion that the plan underlying the parks is shared in common by the people who go to the park. Certainly, they have not all witnessed the Ken Burns film. But by some means there seemed to be an unspoken sharing of the ideals.

It struck me significantly when I was in Zion Nationwide Park, but the similar was legitimate of all the parks I visited. Individuals seem to share a type of reverence for the area, for the setting.

The name Zion refers to a hill in the city of Jerusalem, but it is also described far more commonly as “holy place” or “kingdom of heaven.” When I skilled Zion, I recognized why it was called that. It is an astonishingly gorgeous position, with colossal mountains and steep cliffs, abundant managing water flowing in crystal apparent streams. I received a robust perception among the the people going to that they appreciated that transcendent magnificence and honored the area as a sort of holy spot – a secular spirituality that produces a typical floor for people today of various religions to meet on.

I was incredibly moved by the spirit of camaraderie I felt and noticed there among the folks who were being naturally from quite a few unique states and international locations and ethnic backgrounds. But the magnificent landscape, and a shared reverence toward it united every person in an unspoken pact.

The way folks addressed other individuals, with kindness and regard, was a revelation. It was as if the reverence for the organic splendor infused our associations with each and every other. It did feel like a holy put. And it felt good.

Could that have existed devoid of the development of the national parks? I doubt it. There had to be an official proclamation that set aside this land to guard it from these who would not honor its elegance and see it as a sacred spot.

A different point the film manufactured obvious was that it was usually a fight. The safety of those places so that they have survived in very good form up to the time when we could delight in them is a wonderful blessing. It’s not some thing I take for granted.

But I am way powering. I have frequented national parks in Africa, Australia, Scotland, Jordan and other destinations. And nonetheless there are so several in my have nation that I have not found. I will need to consider to make up for that blank room in my lifestyle story.

Your humble reporter,

Colin Treadwell