The National Parks: America's Best Idea

A Six-Part Series from Ken Burns on PBS

Sep 23, 2009 Francine Brokaw

Renowned filmmaker Ken Burns brings television viewers up close and personal with the incredible places known as the National Parks.

When Ken Burns addressed the Television Critics Association during the summer of 2009 to introduce his newest project, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, he was bombarded with questions about why the twelve hour series does not cover recent events in the National Parks. He did not have to think about the answer to that at all. He said his business is history and that is what he wanted to bring to the viewers – the history of the National Parks Service and the parks themselves.

The History of America’s National Parks

“[This] film begins in 1851 when the Mariposa Battalion rides into Yosemite to exterminate the Indians, and it ends in 1980. It does go forward not only into the '90s, but also into a future in which we discuss things, but that is impressionistic, and that has always been our desire in all the films that we do that come up more or less to the present. It's interesting, though, that all of the contemporary issues that we debate and argue about have historical antecedents.”

Burns, who has been nominated and won several awards for his filmmaking, explained, “Whatever we do between that moment, in the case of this film, the huge disposition of Alaska lands more than doubling the size of the park landscape, in one of the most contentious conflicts in the history of the parks, was a good place to put on the brakes and allow the last 30 or so years to be a little bit more impressionistic. But having said that, almost every issue, perhaps save the cataclysmic issues in climate change, have been part of the park decision from the very beginning, when John Muir realizes the parks need constituents and is welcoming the democratization that the automobile represents; he also worries that it might be a devil's bargain, that the horseless carriage might mix its gas breath with the cool air of the pines and the waterfalls. So you get the tensions that we have today as we debate how many snowmobiles should go into Yellowstone.”

Stories Combine with Photography to Show the History of the Parks

Discovering the history of the National Parks is more than simply showing the beautiful scenery. Stories about the people who were influential in creating the parks, those who were instrumental in getting the legislation through, the animals that reside in the parks, and the people who visit the parks are just as important to this film as the gorgeous landscapes.

“We're telling a narrative [in this film] that begins with the natural national parks and follows the evolution of ideas and the stories of compelling individuals. And as such, and not wanting to be an encyclopedia, we don't feel compelled to list every single one. We show an image, at least an image of every one of the 58 natural national parks. It is a system that has 391 units in it. And we tell stories and sometimes come back again and again and again to Yellowstone and Yosemite, five or six or seven or ten times,” Burns said about the film.

Burns is a true lover of the National Parks, and that is evident when listening to him discuss them and seeing him light up when he talks about The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the other parks.

He told the audience about being in the Grand Canyon in the spring and did an impromptu survey one night with the visitors there. He found that the majority of them were either German or Japanese. “It's the grandest canyon on Earth. And it's amazing, and I think what we hope is that in some ways, just as the [1990] Civil War [documentary] did to sort of attendance at the battlefields, that we might get that kind of renewal that the parks continually need every generation or so of people coming back and remembering what it's like.”

Burns said with excitement, “The National Parks are great tourist destinations. “This is ground zero, and we have the most spectacular, we believe, scenery on Earth,” Burns declared.

The National Parks Service is made up of 391 units. Most people think of Yosemite and Yellowstone when they think of National Parks. But they are only two of the various and varied areas set aside as National Parks. Some are Civil War battlegrounds, there is Mount Rushmore, wilderness areas, The Statue of Liberty, and other sites.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is a six-part, twelve hour film that premiers Sunday, September 27, 2009 on PBS.

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Filmmaker Ken Burns

Grand Teton National Park