27th September 2009, 8:09 PM
PBS has been hyping this constantly for months now, so anyone who watches the channel at all would know about it for sure... And it finally started. Part one was today, so I watched it of course because, well, it's a major Ken Burns documentary. Of course I'm going to watch.
I've traveled a decent bit, and have been to a few national parks, including Acadia here several times, and a few out west including Yosemite and Rocky Mountain. I'm also very much a liberal and in favor of keeping what we can non-industrialized. Traveling and seeing nature is always interesting, and I absolutely sympathize with the with the feelings this series evokes. The series does a good job of showing how interesting places are, and how hard it was and has been to keep these places preserved, compared to the standard American instinct to settle and industrialize and make money off of things.
So, the first two hour segment of the six segment film played on Sunday. It covers the period from 1860-1890, focusing on the creation of the parks in Yosemite and Yellowstone, as well as John Muir. It was good as I said, but I do have a few issues I want to bring up. It gives pretty minimal attention to the Native American side of the story for instance. I mean, it's mentioned, but not enough... most of the story is about the white "discoverers". Now I know that we have much better sources there, and they do mention some Indian stuff... but watching this it'd be easily to understate how big an issue the whole Indian thing was in the 1800s, and that's a problem. Again, the film DOES cover it... but with enough detail, and with information about how as they became parks local Indians were forced out of the area? Just barely.
I know that they wanted to keep the tone positive, and if you go into that more it's not going to stay that way, but still. They do say interesting facts like "Yosemite" actually means "they are killers", and wasn't the name of the local tribe as the white soldiers naming it thought, but something very different in their language. Probably a reference to the soldiers dispossessing them, I imagine... but overall the Native American side is only mentioned, while the focus is very strongly on the beauty of the places and the story of the white adventurers. Again understandable, as I've said, but it doesn't fully say how much the Indians suffered I think... I know this is not a history of them, but when talking about the early history of national parks you really can't get away from it.
It also doesn't completely separate itself from the American, and Western, fiction that America was an 'unspoiled natural wilderness'. This is an old American tradition that essentially places Indians as part of nature, and not really people; they are just part of the natural landscape like the bears and the trees and such, not other people. I understand that Indians did much less damage to the environment than white people later did, and the series definitely points this out -- that the difference was key, between how much they damaged nature -- but the American continent was not uninhabited, and the landscape was not untouched by humans... humans had modified the environment. Less, yeah, but less is still some.
Still though, the focus on how much worse things would be if modern development came to these places is of course quite right and accurate. Indian activity changed the landscape a lot slower, at minimum. I'm not challenging that at all. And the American landscape certainly was much more 'natural' than anything in Europe, that much is obvious. So the approach, and the story saying over and over how awed the new visitors were by the landscapes, is fine. In a documentary you need to say what the people you are talking about said, after all. But apart from a few words here and there they don't really take on this issue, and that is a lost opportunity.
Also, looking at the National Parks, you get the idea that all of America's valuable natural features are out west... there are like three National Parks in the East. I know the East is much more developed, but still, the history of American environmentalism (opposing too much development, most notably), love of nature (but get rid of the Indians first, they're getting in the way of the view!), is a history of the West. That's understandable... but it does seem to be skipping part of the story.
I mean, up here in Maine at least the state is mostly tree-covered, not settled... I know that it all used to be farmed, before the farmers mostly moved to the Midwest, and we do have one National Park (Acadia), but still. I took a class on the history of the American environmental movement, as with this documentary it's focused on the West. Again I know that there are good historical reasons for that, but maybe it should get a bit more attention... I don't know.
Other than that, it was good... I do want to say though, I disagree with the title. National parks aren't America's best idea... democracy probably is. :) Early in the episode one of the commenters in the film says this as well, that democracy and equal opportunity are America's best ideas, not national parks, but that national parks are on the list as well. But that's not what's in the series' title, "America's Best Idea" is, so I think the criticism is valid. They are a good idea though, and it is true that there had never been anything strictly like them before -- parks owned not by the rich and powerful but by the people.
Still, I think that those parks owned by the rich ARE worth mentioning, because they provide background for the kind of park you see in this series. Honestly, it almost comes across as a somewhat deceptive thing to say. After all, numerous kingdoms and empires and what have you had large amounts of forest preserves, which legally only the nobility could enter and not peasants. Their reasons for having these were mostly for making sure that there would be enough game in the preserves, which meant preserving nature to a degree even if they didn't really care about environmentalism. Occasionally these had specific preservational reasons for existing as well -- I remember reading once about a special forest in Poland that, for centuries ending in the early 1800s, had been specifically set aside to protect the highly endangered Aurochs bull, a large Eurasian species of cattle which modern cows were domesticated from. When populations declined they stopped hunting but continued to pay the people of the area to protect them, which they did for several hundred years until the species went extinct in 1627.
There are plenty of other such examples I'm sure, going back farther. Or am I understating the importance of our national parks in not paying enough attention to the core of what the documentary says was unique about US national parks, the fact that they were public places, not just something for the rich. It is related to the democracy and equality issues, as they say... but a subset of that core American originality, really. And I also think that the original idea WAS to simply protect nature (something which, again, has a long history of government support that goes far back before the founding of America), not to make places for the people to visit; or at least that was the case for Yosemite. Yellowstone evidently did have big backing from the Northern Pacific railroad, which knew that the main way people would get to the park would be by their railroad. And so from the beginning of our national parks there has been this central conflict, between the needs of the people who want to visit these places and the need to preserve it as much as possible. I am sure that the future episodes will go into much greater detail about all of the repercussions of this uniquely American dilemma.
Anyway though, despite my criticisms here it is a good show, and I'll definitely continue watching. I'm not sure if I'm going to watch all this week (as they play all the episodes one day after the other) or on the weekends, as they play each episode on Sundays, but I'll watch the rest... the subject doesn't grab me like Baseball or The Civil War, but it's definitely interesting, and covers something quite important, the protection of less-inhabited places. Watch it if you haven't been.
I've traveled a decent bit, and have been to a few national parks, including Acadia here several times, and a few out west including Yosemite and Rocky Mountain. I'm also very much a liberal and in favor of keeping what we can non-industrialized. Traveling and seeing nature is always interesting, and I absolutely sympathize with the with the feelings this series evokes. The series does a good job of showing how interesting places are, and how hard it was and has been to keep these places preserved, compared to the standard American instinct to settle and industrialize and make money off of things.
So, the first two hour segment of the six segment film played on Sunday. It covers the period from 1860-1890, focusing on the creation of the parks in Yosemite and Yellowstone, as well as John Muir. It was good as I said, but I do have a few issues I want to bring up. It gives pretty minimal attention to the Native American side of the story for instance. I mean, it's mentioned, but not enough... most of the story is about the white "discoverers". Now I know that we have much better sources there, and they do mention some Indian stuff... but watching this it'd be easily to understate how big an issue the whole Indian thing was in the 1800s, and that's a problem. Again, the film DOES cover it... but with enough detail, and with information about how as they became parks local Indians were forced out of the area? Just barely.
I know that they wanted to keep the tone positive, and if you go into that more it's not going to stay that way, but still. They do say interesting facts like "Yosemite" actually means "they are killers", and wasn't the name of the local tribe as the white soldiers naming it thought, but something very different in their language. Probably a reference to the soldiers dispossessing them, I imagine... but overall the Native American side is only mentioned, while the focus is very strongly on the beauty of the places and the story of the white adventurers. Again understandable, as I've said, but it doesn't fully say how much the Indians suffered I think... I know this is not a history of them, but when talking about the early history of national parks you really can't get away from it.
It also doesn't completely separate itself from the American, and Western, fiction that America was an 'unspoiled natural wilderness'. This is an old American tradition that essentially places Indians as part of nature, and not really people; they are just part of the natural landscape like the bears and the trees and such, not other people. I understand that Indians did much less damage to the environment than white people later did, and the series definitely points this out -- that the difference was key, between how much they damaged nature -- but the American continent was not uninhabited, and the landscape was not untouched by humans... humans had modified the environment. Less, yeah, but less is still some.
Still though, the focus on how much worse things would be if modern development came to these places is of course quite right and accurate. Indian activity changed the landscape a lot slower, at minimum. I'm not challenging that at all. And the American landscape certainly was much more 'natural' than anything in Europe, that much is obvious. So the approach, and the story saying over and over how awed the new visitors were by the landscapes, is fine. In a documentary you need to say what the people you are talking about said, after all. But apart from a few words here and there they don't really take on this issue, and that is a lost opportunity.
Also, looking at the National Parks, you get the idea that all of America's valuable natural features are out west... there are like three National Parks in the East. I know the East is much more developed, but still, the history of American environmentalism (opposing too much development, most notably), love of nature (but get rid of the Indians first, they're getting in the way of the view!), is a history of the West. That's understandable... but it does seem to be skipping part of the story.
I mean, up here in Maine at least the state is mostly tree-covered, not settled... I know that it all used to be farmed, before the farmers mostly moved to the Midwest, and we do have one National Park (Acadia), but still. I took a class on the history of the American environmental movement, as with this documentary it's focused on the West. Again I know that there are good historical reasons for that, but maybe it should get a bit more attention... I don't know.
Other than that, it was good... I do want to say though, I disagree with the title. National parks aren't America's best idea... democracy probably is. :) Early in the episode one of the commenters in the film says this as well, that democracy and equal opportunity are America's best ideas, not national parks, but that national parks are on the list as well. But that's not what's in the series' title, "America's Best Idea" is, so I think the criticism is valid. They are a good idea though, and it is true that there had never been anything strictly like them before -- parks owned not by the rich and powerful but by the people.
Still, I think that those parks owned by the rich ARE worth mentioning, because they provide background for the kind of park you see in this series. Honestly, it almost comes across as a somewhat deceptive thing to say. After all, numerous kingdoms and empires and what have you had large amounts of forest preserves, which legally only the nobility could enter and not peasants. Their reasons for having these were mostly for making sure that there would be enough game in the preserves, which meant preserving nature to a degree even if they didn't really care about environmentalism. Occasionally these had specific preservational reasons for existing as well -- I remember reading once about a special forest in Poland that, for centuries ending in the early 1800s, had been specifically set aside to protect the highly endangered Aurochs bull, a large Eurasian species of cattle which modern cows were domesticated from. When populations declined they stopped hunting but continued to pay the people of the area to protect them, which they did for several hundred years until the species went extinct in 1627.
There are plenty of other such examples I'm sure, going back farther. Or am I understating the importance of our national parks in not paying enough attention to the core of what the documentary says was unique about US national parks, the fact that they were public places, not just something for the rich. It is related to the democracy and equality issues, as they say... but a subset of that core American originality, really. And I also think that the original idea WAS to simply protect nature (something which, again, has a long history of government support that goes far back before the founding of America), not to make places for the people to visit; or at least that was the case for Yosemite. Yellowstone evidently did have big backing from the Northern Pacific railroad, which knew that the main way people would get to the park would be by their railroad. And so from the beginning of our national parks there has been this central conflict, between the needs of the people who want to visit these places and the need to preserve it as much as possible. I am sure that the future episodes will go into much greater detail about all of the repercussions of this uniquely American dilemma.
Anyway though, despite my criticisms here it is a good show, and I'll definitely continue watching. I'm not sure if I'm going to watch all this week (as they play all the episodes one day after the other) or on the weekends, as they play each episode on Sundays, but I'll watch the rest... the subject doesn't grab me like Baseball or The Civil War, but it's definitely interesting, and covers something quite important, the protection of less-inhabited places. Watch it if you haven't been.