The National Parks: An Embodiment of Democracy

There have been no national parks in the variety of my touring capabilities when I was developing up. I didn’t seriously know what a national park was. The phrases didn’t evoke any type of picture within just my knowledge. I by no means frequented a person right until I was an adult. It took me a prolonged time to find out to enjoy what a fantastic issue the countrywide parks are.

I have to credit score the Ken Burns-Dayton Duncan movie “The Nationwide Parks: America’s Best Idea” for opening my eyes to the entire magnitude of that idea. I was very considerably convinced of the fact of their thesis, that the National Parks truly could be “America’s Very best Thought,” soon after the founding of the state and the formulation of democracy by itself.

In an job interview, Duncan explained, “I will make the argument that the countrywide parks is our best concept. And the cause is for the reason that it is really an expression of the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape, which is that the most stunning, most majestic, and, I would say, sacred sites in our country should really be set apart not for royalty or the prosperous or the properly related, as it had been in all recorded heritage, but for anyone and for all time.”

Today the plan has been picked up all more than the globe. The Worldwide Union for Conservation of Character counts much more than 4,000 national parks. And that is very good for the complete globe. It usually means that quite a few of the most stunning sites will be preserved for the gain of all individuals. It’s a deserving aspiration towards a larger stage of modern society than one particular that just allows exploiters run roughshod more than every thing.

The movie grew out of Dayton Duncan’s deep enthusiasm for the nationwide parks due to the fact his childhood. Duncan has worked with Ken Burns on almost every film, either as a specialist, writer or producer, going back again to The Civil War. But it looks obvious to me, from observing interviews with him, that the movie about the countrywide parks was a special beloved for him, and an intensely particular eyesight.

The nationwide parks have been just one of the most profound passions of his daily life. The film was a likelihood for him to put that enthusiasm into a cinematic expression. His really like for the parks is infectious. The film series gained two Emmy awards, but even more importantly, I assume, its broad viewership when it arrived out in 2009 was followed by a surge of attendance at the Countrywide Parks.

I suppose the collection motivated several many others the way it did me. I was actually taken by the thought that the countrywide parks are the theory of democracy expressed in the landscape itself.

Duncan claimed that the concept arrived from writer and historian Wallace Stegner, who wrote an short article in 1983 termed “The Most effective Plan We At any time Had: An Overview.” In it he wrote, “National parks are the greatest idea we ever had. Totally American, totally democratic, they replicate us at our most effective instead than our worst.”

Stegner himself credits James Bryce, a British Ambassador, with coining the phrase. And there may perhaps be other authentic statements to becoming the initially to articulate the strategy. But, as with so numerous factors, locating the “first” is probably difficult. Beginnings tend to fade into the mist of the past. But that speaks to the universality of the plan.

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

The thought behind the countrywide parks would seem to have occur from the inhabitants alone, a spontaneously arising movement to protect the most attractive spots from exploitative destruction. That much too speaks to it as an expression of democracy. The concept seems to have labored its way up to the governmental companies that could enact legal guidelines to codify it.

It emerged out of a rising consciousness that all those attractive places out west would soon be overrun and possibly desecrated. It’s an encouraging instance of how individuals who believe passionately in a thing can truly make a distinction, even in the encounter of strong forces against them.

The origin of the national parks on their own is also not simple to pinpoint. The site of the Countrywide Park Services says, “Artist George Catlin, through an 1832 vacation to the Dakotas, was potentially the first to counsel a novel option to this quick-approaching reality.”

Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness were being all in threat, wrote Catlin, until they could be preserved “by some wonderful shielding coverage of government… in a magnificent park… A nation’s Park, that contains man and beast, in all the wild[ness] and freshness of their nature’s magnificence!”

Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt have been all instrumental in the improvement of a countrywide park procedure. It is a prolonged and sophisticated record. We are lucky that the plan has managed to endure the political system and to progress as properly as it has

When I traveled to some of the fantastic national parks of the American West, I acquired the feeling that the notion fundamental the parks is shared in normal by the folks who go to the park. Absolutely, they haven’t all viewed the Ken Burns movie. But somehow there appeared to be an unspoken sharing of the beliefs.

It struck me notably when I was in Zion Countrywide Park, but the exact was genuine of all the parks I frequented. Persons appear to be to share a form of reverence for the place, for the environment.

The identify Zion refers to a hill in the metropolis of Jerusalem, but it is also outlined much more commonly as “holy place” or “kingdom of heaven.” As soon as I experienced Zion, I comprehended why it was referred to as that. It is an astonishingly gorgeous put, with colossal mountains and steep cliffs, ample working h2o flowing in crystal very clear streams. I received a solid perception amongst the individuals going to that they appreciated that transcendent beauty and honored the spot as a type of holy spot – a secular spirituality that creates a popular floor for folks of different religions to meet up with on.

I was particularly moved by the spirit of camaraderie I felt and noticed there amongst individuals who had been certainly from a lot of diverse states and nations around the world and ethnic backgrounds. But the attractive landscape, and a shared reverence towards it united everyone in an unspoken pact.

The way men and women addressed other people, with kindness and regard, was a revelation. It was as if the reverence for the natural magnificence infused our interactions with each other. It did truly feel like a holy spot. And it felt superior.

Could that have existed without having the development of the nationwide parks? I question it. There had to be an formal proclamation that set apart this land to shield it from those who would not honor its magnificence and see it as a sacred position.

One more thing the film designed apparent was that it was often a battle. The protection of those people sites so that they have survived in great shape up to the time when we could love them is a wonderful blessing. It’s not something I take for granted.

But I am way at the rear of. I’ve frequented nationwide parks in Africa, Australia, Scotland, Jordan and other places. And nonetheless there are so quite a few in my have state that I have not observed. I have to have to attempt to make up for that blank house in my lifestyle story.

Your humble reporter,

Colin Treadwell