Those were the words of environmentalist, naturalist, writer and scientist John Muir.
In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the first national park in the United States. Today, there are 58 national parks that cover over 52,000,000 acres of land from Maine to Alaska to Hawaii. In fact, the most visited national park in America is right outside our front door: the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Because of the current economic climate, many people are choosing to experience more low cost adventures and once again discover one of the many things that makes this country so amazing: its natural beauty.
This weekend, filmmaker Ken Burns will debut his film The National Parks: America’s Best Idea on PBS. The film will be shown in a six part series that traces the history of the national park movement through historic photos, cinematography, personal interviews, and first-person accounts of historical characters. For this project, Burns and his team spent countless hours over the better part of a decade filming in 53 of America’s 58 national parks while assembling historical and educational information to chronicle the lives of our national parks and those that worked tirelessly to preserve public lands for all.
As John Muir once said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” I’d say that’s about right. Tune in.
