America's Best Idea

Like many of you, I've been enjoying Ken Burns' latest opus, The National Parks. Part II was especially inspiring, with its tales of those who fought to preserve our natural (and later, ancient cultural) wonders, against the relentless, single-minded commercial urge of the nation. I stand in awe of people like John Muir, who can fight year after year for a cause they believe in -- in his case, the preservation of the Yosemite Valley, and of all the land that eventually became Yosemite National Park -- despite setbacks, despite being up against powerful, moneyed opponents, despite simply not being successful, for so long a time. I consider it one of my character flaws that I am too easily discouraged; had I been in Muir's place, I fear I would have given up long before the moments of success could arrive.

But then, Muir's successes were often not quite complete -- as when he succeeded in having the high country around Yosemite Valley declared a national park, but not in getting the valley itself trans-ferred from the (indifferent) care of the state of California, to the federal government -- or they weren't permanent, as when the city of San Francisco managed to persuade the federal government to allow the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley to be dammed, to form a reservoir for the Bay Area. But he plugged on, he never gave up, which is of course what They always say: you must Never Give Up.

I've certainly learned lots of fascinating facts, thanks to Mr. Burns & Co. For one thing, I hadn't realized how far in the past John Muir lived, worked, wrote! I thought he was active, making his travels (to Alaska, among other places) and writing his books, in approximately the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Undoubtedly a shameful thing for a librarian to be admitting, but I also have to admit that I've never read any of his books. I simply knew they were considered classics in the realm of environmental literature, books one did not discard from the collection, even if no one had checked them out in a long time.

But good lord, the fellow stumbled onto Yosemite -- which he promptly fell in love with, and which soon became his life's obsession (something else I didn't know) -- way back in the 1850s. And I didn't know that it was because of him that the Sierra Club came into existence, for the express purpose of protecting Yosemite. I also had no idea that that organization went back as far as it does (1892). Just as I didn't know the Audubon Society was originally started by someone named George Bird Grinnell, who worked tirelessly in the late 1800s to preserve natural habitats and their wildlife. One of the most satisfying moments of Part II was when it described his publishing in the magazine Forest and Stream, of which he was editor, an article on the slaughter by poachers of buffalo in Yellow-stone National Park, which so outraged people that Congress in short order passed the National Park Protective Act, thereby saving the buffalo of the park, and animals throughout all the parks. Yes! The power of the press!

Indeed, again and again in this series we are learning about individuals -- many of whom I personally had never heard of -- whose passion and dedication were given over to protecting and preserving the natural wonders of this country, for the enjoyment of all of us. These men -- and early on they were all men -- are as much an in-spiration as the parks themselves. And certainly the many gorgeous views of the various parks is an inspiration to get out there and experience some wilderness.

It reminds me of the time I went camping with my Aunt Kittisue in Alaska. My lovable aunt's idea of camping was to put Pavarotti on the cassette player, pour a glass of wine and wait for the steaks to cook on the habachi. While she and her friend Mary were doing that, and enjoying a good gab fest, I made the short walk from our campsite out to the road. Straight ahead reared that awesome sight, Mt. McKinley, completely white though it was the end of May. It was ten o'clock at night but the sun was still shining, and all the birds were still singing (I wondered fleetingly if they dropped dead from exhaustion because they never knew when to go to bed). I stood there in the middle of that two-lane highway for a good ten minutes, and no car passed, there was no sound but birdsong. And I realized that there was virtually no touch of humankind for many miles in all directions; we were surrounded by true wilderness. And I was forcefully struck, for the first time in my life, by how valuable that fact was, the fact of wilderness, of land untrampled, undeveloped, uncommercialized. Just nature, doing its thing.

The National Parks, America's Best Idea, is reminding me of that moment, and that conviction.