So, you’re all like, “I don’t even know what and where all the National Parks are. There’s like… Jellystone and Yosemite Sam and the presidents’ face one…?”

Yes. Sort of. JellyYellowstone and Yosemite are National Parks, but Mount Rushmore is a National Memorial. There are 59 National Parks which are included in the currently 412(!) units managed by National Park Service.

Monday, in “An Introduction,” I wrote that, “I’ve never been to a National Park (or National Memorial or Lakeshore or Trail).” Turns out the stuff in the parenthesis is a smidge wrong. Apparently I’ve been to two units in the National Park System. Again, not parks, but a National Lakeshore and a National Historic Site. I’ve been to Indiana Dunes State Park (I went to the beach) which is part of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and I’ve seen the Liberty Bell. But more or less stumbling onto two of 412 sites doesn’t make the point of my first post any less valid. I haven’t seen as much of the world, as much of this very-problematic-sometimes-terrible-but-when-you-think-about-it-really-kind-of-awesome-country as I’d like! But I have watched a lot of TV! I’m great at 90s and 00s TV trivia. (mmmm…teeeveee…)

Back to the NPS.

FDR said, “There is nothing so American as our National Parks… The fundamental idea behind the parks… is that the country belongs to the people…” When the country was a baby (to the western world, that is, because of course Native Americans had been here already) it looked for an identity, culture. Europe had castles and famous works of literature and a rich history and visual art, and it had thousands of years to create those. But it had also had thousands of years to plow down all its trees and disappear its wilderness. To eliminate any opportunities that wilderness offered forever. America was the wilderness. It had bonkers giant trees and canyons and waterfalls and geysers and weird rock formations, and finally early Anglo-Americans said, “Hold up. This is what we have that they don’t. And we need to keep it around.” Yellowstone is the first known National Park in the world! The first time a country took land out of private hands looking for private profit and instead protected it for the enjoyment of and preserved it for everyone! For generations. That’s amazing!

Now, with the advantage of hindsight we can say the colonization should never have happened, or that settlers could have lived in harmony with native peoples. That the American ideals FDR was talking about earlier would have been far better served if we had. Yeah! That would have astounding! What forethought! What ethics! But, gravely, and unfortunately, that’s not what happened. And probably if colonists came over and said, “Yeah, we should totes live in harmony, make this Peace Utopia,” another set of colonists would have come over and taken that over. Probably other Brits.

But with history as it is, the NPS is kind of decent at owning the horrors of the country’s past and honoring the memory of those this country has oppressed and enslaved. And I expect it to continue doing so. Take a good look at the NPS website, read through the descriptions of memorials, trails, and historical sites and they’re pretty upfront about this country’s shitty times. An engraving on the polished granite memorial in African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City reads, “For all those who were lost/ For all those who were stolen/ For all those who were left behind/ For all those who are not forgotten.” And the very first words describing the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail on the NPS website say, “Remember and commemorate the survival of the Cherokee people, forcefully removed from their homelands in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to live in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.” [emphasis mine]

None of these things make up for the b.s. colonialism white settlers have exhibited. But at least now, in the modern era, this country is trying to remember it. And at least now, we can recognize how unprecedented it was and what forethought was exhibited in the creation of these parks. It’s a tangible and remarkable 84 million acres that more flawlessly conveys the idea of America than probably anything else we’ve got. The world’s wild life and wild places are disappearing more and more everyday. And even with such a capitalist national and world culture, we have these. They exist. These lands are still here.

And we should enjoy them while they are.

So we can love them more. And work harder to save them.