All language subtitles for NatParks-D4_English_Full

WOMAN: The best thing to do
at the Grand Canyon

is to float the river.

Because then you have time
to idle back your soul

to that great vastness
and that great timelessness.

The first time I floated
the river,

I almost was puzzled
and didn't like the fact

that I was so awestruck.

Because I've seen a lot
of other wonderful places.

You know, been to Glacier Bay,
have been in Yosemite,

have lived at Mount Rainier.

So why should the Grand Canyon
be grabbing me so hard?

But it does.

It's an amazing place when
you can really experience it.

Not look at it,
but experience it.

Be part of it.

Hear the constancy
of the river's flow.

Maybe that constancy
is a part of it,

that there's something
bigger than yourself.

Well, you know that,
but you don't feel it

until you get
into the Grand Canyon.

To go inside, you go outside

because you need to
know yourself in context.

Not the big "I"
that you usually feel you are

as you go trotting through
your daily life,

But to find that added dimension
of yourself,

that innermost essential you
that is there.

[TRAIN HORN SOUNDS]

PETER COYOTE:
In late 1915,

on the train ride back
from San Francisco

to their home
in Lincoln, Nebraska,

Margaret and Edward Gehrke
decided to take

the one-day side excursion
to the Grand Canyon

offered by the Aitchison,
Topeka, and Sante Fe Railway.

Margaret had never seen anything
like it before in her life.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
A few things

in this beautiful old world
are too big to talk about.

One can only weep before
so supreme a spectacle of glory

and of majesty.

COYOTE: Margaret was 32,
a lover of books and poetry

who had read and admired
John Muir.

She taught school until shortly
after she married Edward,

a plumber who had gone into
the house-building business.

Edward's passion was
dogs and fishing

and photographing
everything he saw.

Margaret's was dreaming about
the yearly excursions

the childless couple
began taking

once Edward's business
started to flourish.

Over the course
of nearly 30 years,

Margaret would record the start
of every trip

as the "day of days"
in her journal.

Edward would bring along his
Kodak camera, snapping pictures

Margaret would later carefully
place in photo albums

to commemorate their adventures.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
Let those who will buy land

and horde money.

We will have our memories,

glad memories
of golden experiences together.

[Train horn sounds]

COYOTE:
In 1917,

the Gehrkes took the Chicago,
Burlington, and Quincy line

to Yellowstone,
the nation's oldest park.

Two years later,

the Great Northern took them
to Glacier National Park.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE: We
have seen much in a short time.

But still I have not found
the peace I seek.

I have found 5 hotels
filled with crowds.

I've seen beautiful scenery,

but not the deep silence
of the hills.

COYOTE: Then a boat ferried them
to a quiet spot

on the far shore
of Lake McDonald.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
We have a wonderful location,

camped in a forest of tall pines
overlooking the lake.

At last I have found the spirit
of the woods.

I shall like it here very much.

COYOTE: They lingered there
for 11 days.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
August 21. Our last day here.

It has been all we dreamed
it would be.

For in this trip
like all the others,

we have laid up
for ourselves treasures,

and we have remembered to live.

August 24, Lincoln, Nebraska.

To come home
on Edward's birthday was nice,

if returning home can ever
be said to be pleasant.

August 27, the housekeeping
wheel begins.

I swept and dusted, thoroughly
cleaned the front rooms.

COYOTE: Margaret was already
dreaming of more national parks

beckoning her and Edward.

And although the railroads had
introduced them to the parks,

in the future, the Gehrkes
would travel a different way.

Outside their house in Lincoln
sat a new Buick,

1 of 17 Edward would own
in the next 20 years.

MAN: At the heart of the park
idea is this notion

that by virtue
of being an American,

whether you're ancestors
came over on the "Mayflower"

or whether they just arrived,

whether you're from a big city
or from a rural setting,

whether your daddy
owns the factory

or your mother is a maid,

you... you... are the owner

of some of the best seafront
property this nation's got.

You own magnificent waterfalls.

You own stunning views
of mountains

and stunning views
of gorgeous canyons.

They belong to you.
They're yours.

And all that's asked of you
is to put it in your will...

for your children so that
they can have it, too.

Hopefully you won't
let it be sold off,

you won't let it be despoiled.

Hopefully you'll provide

for proper maintenance
of this property that is yours.

But that's all you've got to do.

Now... that's quite a bargain.

MAN:
The national parks themselves

are old as we count age
in America.

But until Stephen T. Mather
conceived them

all combined as a system,

they had existed unnoticed.

Suddenly our national parks
became...

our most wonderful possession,

this shining badge
of the nation's glory,

sharing somewhat even
of the sacredness of the flag.

Robert Sterling Yard.

COYOTE: In 1916,
when Stephen Mather

helped to create
the National Parks Service,

the park idea was already
50 years old in America.

The parks themselves, however,

still existed as a haphazard
collection of scenic places,

occasionally guarded
by the army,

often ignored by Congress

and in many ways controlled
by the railroads

that had invested far more
than the federal government

in advertising the parks
and providing amenities

for the tourists
who could afford to go.

Mather was determined
to change all that.

He wanted more national parks.

He wanted them within reach
of everyone,

and he wanted them promoted
to the American people

as 1 cohesive system.

But with no clear precedence
to guide them,

he and his young assistant,
Horace Albright,

would instead have to rely
on their own judgment

to determine the future
of the parks.

As the nation entered the 1920s,

when a growing prosperity
permitted more and more people

to escape the crowded cities
of the East,

Mather and Albright's efforts

would bring Americans
to their parks as never before.

To do it, they would ally
themselves with the machine

that was already rapidly
transforming American life.

But almost from the start,
some park supporters worried

that they had made a pact
with the devil.

MAN:
I heard the other day

that a question's been raised

as to whether automobiles
should be admitted

in the Yosemite Valley.

May a word be permitted
on that subject?

If Adam had known what harm
the serpent was going to work,

he would have tried
to prevent him

from finding lodgment in Eden.

And if you stop to realize

what the result
of the automobile

will be on that wonderful,
that incomparable valley,

you will keep it out.

Do not let the serpent
enter Eden at all.

Lord James Bryce.

MAN:
The first idea of national parks

seems to have been that

they were stupendous
natural spectacles.

Then came the great
out-of-doors movement.

And people turned
to the national parks

as places to live
during their vacations.

Lastly comes the realization

that our parks are not only
showplaces and vacation lands,

but also vast schoolrooms
of Americanism,

where people are
studying, enjoying,

and learning to love more deeply
this land in which they live.

Stephen Mather.

COYOTE: For Stephen Mather,

being the first director of
the National Parks Service

was more than
a civil service job.

It was a calling
to a noble cause,

something so compelling

it had drawn him away
from private industry

where his business skills
and genius for promotion

had made him a millionaire
several times over.

He could be a whirlwind
of action,

and his intense energy
and friendliness

had earned him the nickname
the eternal freshman.

But Mather was also prone to
crippling spells of depression,

mental collapses that
required hospitalization.

He always found the solace and
rejuvenation he needed so badly

in the parks.

No Mather wanted all Americans

to experience
that healing power.

But he realized that until
more people started showing up,

Congress would never create
more parks

or even support
the existing ones.

MAN: He was at heart
a public relations man

and wanted the country to be
aware of the national parks.

There never could be too many
tourists for Stephen Mather.

He wanted as many as possible
to enjoy these treasures,

no matter how
they got to the parks.

Horace Albright.

COYOTE:
Mather and Horace Albright

were willing to try almost
anything to lure visitors.

They approved golf courses,
zoos, even a summer race track

at different parks

and proposed Yosemite
as an ideal setting

to host the winter Olympics.

In Yellowstone,

Albright arranged for
a buffalo plains week

in which cowboys
and Crow Indians

stampeded the park's bison herd

for tourists arriving
by buckboard.

He also allowed a movie crew
to film the stampede

for a Hollywood western
called "The Thundering Herd."

Albright even considered

stringing a cable car
across the Grand Canyon,

but the idea was
ultimately rejected

because Mather realized
it would ruin the view.

MAN AS STEPHEN MATHER:
This is a new agency.

MAN: Mather and Albright
are building something

that has not existed before.

So they're trying to do
the right things

and trying to understand
what the American people

are going to want
from their parks in the future.

And they're struggling
with all kinds of advice.

They're getting advice
from biologists

not to eradicate the predators

and they're getting advice
from the locals

that there should be more
commercial pursuits.

For Mather, recreation
was the absolute center

of what the parks
were supposed to be

and recreation
and entertainment.

And so he very much is
into the parks as spectacle.

COYOTE: But of all the judgments
Mather made in the early years,

none would have a greater impact

on the number of people
visiting national parks

than his decision to embrace
the automobile.

Mather's hero, John Muir,
had harbored mixed feelings

about the horseless carriage.

"Blunt-nosed
mechanical Beatles," he called them,

"that might mingle
their gas breath"

"with the fresh air of pines
and waterfalls."

Though Muir also admitted

they might help create
new allies for the parks

if they were allowed in
under certain restrictions.

Stephen Mather
had no such qualms.

By 1918, tourists arriving
in Yosemite by automobile

outnumbered those
coming by train 7-1,

and by the end of 1920,
Mather proudly announced

that for the first time
in history,

the number of people
visiting the parks

exceeded one million a year.

"The automobile," Mather said,
"has been the open sesame."

MAN: The advent
of the automobile

was the great
democratizing factor.

Suddenly anyone who owned a car
could come to the park,

could make the drive,
could go around the park

and see it with no guide,
with no tie to the hotels,

with no tie to
the stagecoach operation

that was entrenched.

You could just
camp out along the way,

you know, at your own expense.

MAN: The automobile is
the devil's bargain

because as more people
pour into the national parks

in automobiles, they need
a place to park,

and they start by parking
anywhere they can.

They start by parking
in the meadows.

They start by parking
along the roads.

They begin to become a menace
of the whole idea

of a pristine
natural environment

that you view
from a community setting,

such as a stagecoach
or a motor-bus.

COYOTE: Mather joined forces
with automobile clubs,

chambers of commerce,
good roads associations,

local governments,
and car manufacturers

to lobby for a national
park-to-park highway,

a 6,000-mile loop
of improved roads

linking all the western parks.

"It would be,"
he predicted in 1921,

"the greatest scenic highway
in the world,"

one that would unleash
what he called

"the great flow of tourist gold"

"into every community
along its route."

In 1925, Mather told
his park superintendents

he wanted them all to gather
at Mesa Verde.

To get there, however,

they were explicitly instructed
not to take the train.

They were to form car caravans

and travel together
on the park-to-park highway

and make as much news about it
as possible along the way.

It was a classic
Mather publicity stunt,

and it was a huge success.

That year, visitation at
national parks topped 2 million

for the first time.

MAN AS STEPHEN MATHER:
In the national parks

there is one thing that
the motorists are doing,

and that is making them
a great melting pot

for the American people.

This will go far in developing
a love and pride

in our own country

and a realization of
what a wonderful place it is.

There is no way
to bring it home to them

in a better way than by going
from park to park

through the medium
of an automobile

and camping out in the open.

It is just by trips of that kind

that people learn
what America is.

MAN: It was great that
we created national parks,

but we created rangers
to personify national parks.

It's... it's Yosemite
talking to you.

It was Theodore Roosevelt
and John Muir

and George Bird Grinnell

all those guys rolled into one.

And standing there
in front of you,

giving you a talk by a campfire.

The romance and magic of that,

and as near as I can tell,
it's never faded.

COYOTE: In the past, political
patronage had determined

who got jobs in the parks.

A well-connected employee
at Glacier National Park

was so inept

his patrols were restricted to
following the railroad tracks

to keep him from getting lost.

The son-in-law of an early
Mesa Verde superintendent

turned out to be responsible

for the looting
of precious artifacts

from the ancient
cliff dwellings.

To institute changes,

Stephen Mather
quickly began hand-picking

new superintendents.

Jesse Nussbaum,
a professional archaeologist,

was put in charge of Mesa Verde
and its treasures.

John White was
an English-born adventurer

who had scoured the Klondike
for gold

and fought in 3 wars,

but he had gladly taken
a low-paying job

just to be at the Grand Canyon,

until Mather and Albright
recognized

his leadership skills
could be put to better use

as superintendent
of Sequoia National Park,

where White would serve for more
than a quarter of a century.

The most prestigious post,
superintendent of Yellowstone,

was entrusted
to Horace Albright.

"I felt so desperately young,"
he later remembered,

"I just prayed
to be 30 years old."

To appear more mature,

he took to wearing eyeglasses
in public.

MAN AS HORACE ALBRIGHT:
If you cannot work hard

10 or 12 hours a day

and always with patience
and a smile on your face,

don't fill out
the attached blank.

Apply if you are qualified.

Otherwise, please plan to visit
the Yellowstone National Park

as a tourist.

COYOTE: Underneath
the superintendents,

Mather wanted a cadre of equally
professional park rangers.

"Men between the ages
of 21 and 40," Albright said,

"of good character,
sound physique,"

"and tactful
in handling people."

They needed to be able to ride
and take care of horses,

build trails,
fight forest fires,

handle a rifle and pistol,

have practical experience
in surviving every extreme

of weather in the out of doors,

and be willing to work
long hours

with no provisions
for overtime pay.

The salary was $1,000 a year.

From that, rangers were expected
to buy their own food,

provide their own bedding,

and pay $45 for the symbol
of the job they had chosen:

a specially designed uniform

topped by a distinctive
flat-brimmed hat.

MAN: And that marvelous
flat hat, that cavalry hat,

is just like a magnet to
millions of visitors every year.

There's something special

about the park ranger uniform
and that hat.

Steve Mather and Horace Albright
saw in the park ranger

an opportunity to sell the whole
idea of national parks.

MAN AS STEPHEN MATHER:
If a trail is to be blazed,

it is, "send the ranger."

If an animal is floundering
in the snow,

a ranger is sent
to pull him out.

If a bear is in the hotel,
if a fire threatens a forest,

if someone is to be saved,
it is "send a ranger."

If a dude wants to know the why
of nature's ways,

if a sage-brusher
is puzzled about a road,

his first thought,
"ask a ranger."

COYOTE: And the man
every ranger looked up to

was Stephen Mather.

He once gave a ranger
travel money

to make a cross-country trip
to visit his parents.

Occasionally treated rangers and
their wives

to meals at fancy restaurants,

and in Yosemite, spent $25,000
from his own pocket

to build the ranger's clubhouse,

a place where they could relax
in private.

Mather himself
took to staying there

instead of
in one of Yosemite's hotels

whenever he visited the park.

Impressed by
an educational nature program

run by 2 college professors at
a private resort at Lake Tahoe,

Mather paid to have the whole
thing transferred to Yosemite.

Soon guided nature walks
and evening campfire lectures

by what he called
ranger naturalists

were being inaugurated
in every national park,

where they quickly became

one of the park service's
most popular programs

and did more than anything else

to burnish the image
of friendly professionalism

Mather was trying to create.

MAN: They are the people
who have the answers

to the questions
that the parks pose

when you come into a park.

Who were these people
that built these roads?

How did this great chasm
get created?

What kind of bird
and what kind of flower is that?

It prompts all these questions
in you

that you want answer to.

The ranger is the one
that you go to for the answers.

You know, I think I got
a pretty good education,

but I don't know if I'm proud
or sorry to say

that most of the science
that I know

I learned at a national park
as an adult,

and a good deal of my history,
too.

I learned from a ranger
telling me, explaining to me

as I was just cascading
questions toward them.

COYOTE: Most of the rangers
were men,

but a few were women.

At age 18, Clara Marie Hodges,

who knew Yosemite's trails
as well as anyone,

became the Park Service's
first woman ranger.

At Yellowstone,
Isabel Bassett Wasson

a Brooklyn native with
a Master's degree in geology

from Columbia University,

gave lectures at 3 different
locations each day,

each one on a different topic,

because crowds followed her
wherever she went.

WOMAN:
Park rangers have collections

of silly questions because
we so enjoy them.

What time do the moose come out
for pictures at Isle Royale?

Wind Cave has
one of my favorites.

The rangers there occasionally
get asked what the cave weighs.

DUNCAN: How much of this cave
is underground?

How many miles of this cavern
haven't been discovered yet?

Why did the Indians build their
ruins so close to the road?

MAN: And you could be
a naturalist...

if you knew the answer
to 3 questions:

Where's the restroom?
How far is Las Vegas?

And what's the fastest way
out of here?

That was the 3 questions.

[Birds chirping]

[Woodpecker pecking]

MAN: Whenever someone enters
a national park,

it's like going
to another world.

And I think that people
feel that transition,

the feel that sense that they've
gone to someplace better

than what they've left behind,

but the irony is
that where they've gone

is the place
where they've always been.

It's just now
they understand it,

now they see it,
now they feel it

because parks are like
going home.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
July 15.

This is Colorado.

Ahead, the snow-covered peaks
and cool pines

and a long trail
into the unknown.

About 20 miles out
of Fort Morgan we made camp,

where mosquitoes
made supper and sleep

an interesting undertaking.

Mosquitoes won.

COYOTE: In July of 1921,
Margaret and Edward Gehrke

set off on their most
adventurous trip ever:

a 3-month journey covering
more than 7,000 miles,

adding more national parks
to their growing list.

The Gehrkes were traveling
in their new Buick,

auto camping across the West,

picking each day's
itinerary themselves

and stopping for the night
wherever the mood hit them.

Schoolyards, municipal parks,

or simply on the side
of the road.

To keep them company, they
brought along their pet dog,

an Airedale named Barney.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
75 miles this day

over splendidly graveled roads.

The freedom, the joy,
the ecstasy one feels

when he is going into
the mountains that lie ahead.

The steady purr
of the speeding car

that bears one on
past unfamiliar fields.

COYOTE: At Rocky Mountain
National Park,

they drove over
the continental divide

on the Fall River Road,

which the Park Service had
completed only a year earlier.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
July 19.

We shall long remember
going over this new path

from Estes to Grand Lake.

A ride of 40 miles
of indescribable scenery

and some stretches
of inconceivable roads.

Altitude: 11,000-plus.

COYOTE: From Rocky Mountain
they pushed westward,

across Utah and Nevada
to Northern California,

where they learned that
the visit Margaret had planned

to Lassen Volcanic National Park
would now be impossible

because the mountain roads
were in such bad shape.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
It would be sensible not to go.

But to be sensible
is to be commonplace.

To be commonplace
is unpardonable.

[Thunder]

I shall regret his decision.

[Bird chirping]

COYOTE: They had better luck
in Oregon

at Crater Lake National Park.

They circled it on the newly
completed 35-mile Rim Road,

"one of the great scenic
highways of the West,"

Margaret noted in her journal.

And motored on
to Astoria, Oregon,

reaching the Pacific Ocean
near the same spot

where the Lewis and Clark
expedition

had spent the winter
of 1805-1806,

after becoming
the first American citizens

to cross the continent.

Five days later,

the Gehrkes reached
yet another national park.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
In camping tonight

here at the foot of Mt. Rainier,

its great summit covered
with immaculate snow,

its outline in sharp contrast
against the sky,

the clear bright stars above,

the icy chill of thin air,

a secret dream of my heart
has been realized.

And here I give thanks.

COYOTE: The Gehrkes' trip
had only whetted their appetite

for more trips
over the coming years,

and Edward's revolving parade
of new Buicks

always with new parks
as their destination.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
September 25, 1922.

Mt. Desert Island
off the coast of Maine.

We have arrived.

The tall pines about remind me
a little of Glacier.

The lake with its
low range about it

a trifle of Grand Lake
at Rocky Mountains.

So we sleep tonight and rejoice

in spite of a cold wind
impossible to keep out.

July so, 1923.

Wind Cave National Park.

We took the medium-length trail
devoting 4 hours to the tour.

We have visited
our eighth national park.

November 30, 1923.

Arrived in time for a full day
of seeing hot springs.

Our ninth national park.

August 24, 1925.

We are off into Mesa Verde.

For 31 miles,
we wound and wound,

round and round, up and up.

First the switchback road
with its sharp-grade curves,

then the knife-edge highway
and Mesa Verde.

Here it was.

Scrubby little pinion trees,
canyon,

and spruce tree house over there
in full sight.

Altogether different
than we had expected.

COYOTE:
Mesa Verde meant that 12 parks

had been checked off
Margaret's list.

Like many other Americans,

the Gehrkes realized they were
now collecting parks.

DUNCAN: In the early days,
when you came into a park,

you had to pay a fee
if you brought an automobile.

And so they'd give you
this sticker

that you would put
on your windshield.

And after a while, people sort
of saw that as, you know,

proof that they'd been to parks,

and they decided, well,
I'll start, you know,

collecting parks.

I will try to get
all of the parks.

I'll try to go to all of them
and get my stickers.

Now you don't have the stickers.

You get a little passport
that you can get stamped

when you come into it,
as your proof,

if you suffer
from this obsession,

and you get these little stamps.

I thought that
I was pretty obsessed

with these kind of things,

and then we met a guy
named Tuan Luong.

He was born in Paris
to Vietnamese parents.

Got a degree
in artificial intelligence,

became an avid rock climber

and decided he wanted
to continue rock climbing

and so he did his post-graduate
work in California

so he could be close
to El Capitan and Yosemite.

And he soon decided that
he wanted to photograph

in every national park,
and so he set out to do it,

and he takes these
incredible photographs...

and he has now taken photographs
in every national park

that exists
in the United States today,

all 58 national parks.

So you see this is,
structurally this...

This is the first edition
of the National Geographic guide

to the national parks.

And so what I have is that
on this first page here

I put a stamp for each
of the parks that I visited.

And, well, I've visited
all of them so far.

There is the 58.

Some of them, they are just
somewhat faded.

I photograph in all the 58
with my camera,

and I think I'm the only
photographer to have done so.

MAN:
The dreamy blue haze

that ever hovers
over the mountains

softens all outlines,

lends a mirage-like effect
of great distance

to objects that are
but a few miles off,

while those farther removed
grow more and more intangible

until finally the skyline blends
with the sky itself.

There are 7 peaks
of 6,000 feet altitude

that still have no name.

Could anything better prove
the astonishing isolation

of this majestic region

though set as it is in the very
midst of American civilization?

Horace Kephart.

COYOTE: When Horace Kephart
had first come

to the Smoky Mountains
of North Carolina and Tennessee

in 1904, he was a broken man.

Precociously brilliant,

he had entered college
at age 13,

enrolled as a graduate student
at Cornell when he turned 17,

took a prestigious job
in Yale University's library,

and got married
before he was 25.

As head of the St. Louis
Mercantile Library,

he had gone on
to make a name for himself

as an expert on early
western explorations.

But his marriage proved unhappy.

Kephart turned
to heavy drinking,

and when he lost his job
and his wife left him,

taking their 6 children
with her,

he had suffered a breakdown.

At age 42, he decided
to start over

in a place where he could
lose himself in the wilderness

and find a new purpose
for his life.

He chose the Smoky Mountains,
"which seemed," he wrote,

"like an Eden, still unpeopled
and unspoiled."

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART: When I
went south into the mountains,

I was seeking a back of beyond.

I yearned for a strange land

and a people that had the charm
of originality.

I wanted to enjoy a free life
in the open air,

the thrill of exploring
new ground.

Here, in the wild wood,
I have found peace,

cleanliness,
health of body and mind.

COYOTE: The Smokies
are the tallest mountains

in the Appalachian chain,

hosting the world's greatest
diversity of plant, animal,

and insect life of any region
in a temperate climate zone.

Including more than
100 species of native trees,

spruce and hemlock,
giant tulip poplars

and chestnut oaks.

A greater variety of trees
than in all of Europe.

For centuries, it had been
the home of the Cherokees,

until most of them were
forced from their land

and sent to Oklahoma
on what came to be known

as the Trail of Tears.

In their place,
other people had settled

in the remote mountaintops
and hollows.

Isolate farmers, moonshiners,
Confederate deserters,

and Union sympathizers hiding
out during the Civil War;

Cherokees who had
evaded removal,

and a collection of other people
like Horace Kephart

on the run for one reason
or another from civilization.

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART:
Seldom during my forest exile

did I feel lonesome
in the daytime.

But when supper would be over

and black night closed in
on my hermitage,

and the owls began calling all
the blue devils of the woods,

one needed
some indoor occupation

to keep him in good cheer,

and that is how I came to write
my first little book.

COYOTE: Kephart's book,
"Camping and Woodcraft,"

a guidebook for those
who travel in the wilderness,

became known as
the camper's bible.

He quickly published
another book,

"Our Southern Highlanders,"

about the people
living around him

in the place
he now considered home.

He proposed that
the Smoky Mountains

be made into a national park.

Otherwise, he feared the great
woods would suffer the same fate

as nearly all the other
eastern forests.

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART: I am not
a very religious man.

But often when standing alone
before my maker

in this house
not made with hands,

I bowed my head with reverence
and thanked God for his gift

of the great forest
to one who loved it.

[Chopping]

Not long ago I went
to that same place again.

It was wrecked, ruined,
desecrated,

turned into a thousand
rubbish heaps,

utterly vile and mean.

Did anyone ever thank God
for a lumberman slashing?

COYOTE:
Giant lumber companies

were buying up large parcels
of land at cheap prices,

hiring local workers
at equally cheap wages

and beginning to systematically
strip the mountains

of their forest canopy.

This was logging on
a new industrial scale.

Railroads were extended
into nearly every valley,

bringing steam-powered skidders
and log loaders

to handle the massive trees

of the previously
untouched woodlands.

Cornfields were transformed
into sawmills,

and towns sprang up around them.

Farther up
toward the mountain peaks,

portable housing
called string towns

were assembled to keep
the workers close to their jobs.

When one section was cleared,

they moved everything still
farther up and began again.

By the mid-1920s,

more than 300,000 acres
had been clear-cut.

"Much of the Smokies,"
one resident said,

"looked as if
it had been skinned."

Of the 100,000 acres of
virgin forest still remained.

Kephart and others like him
wanted those trees spared.

"I owe my life
to these mountains," he said.

Among those joining the cause
was another man

who, like Kephart, had arrived
as a stranger.

Masahara Izuka
born in Osaka, Japan, in 1881,

had come to the United States
to study mining,

though by 1915 his
university days were over

and he had permanently severed
ties with his family in Japan.

He was wandering the country
in search of a job...

Colorado, St. Louis,
New Orleans...

When his travels brought him
to Asheville, North Carolina

at the edge of the Smokies.

MAN AS MASAHARA IZUKA: This is
a mountainous area.

It will be cold enough to
require a blanket in the autumn.

No mosquitoes.

An excellent place to live.

Nothing can be better.

Now, if only I make
a lot of money.

COYOTE: He changed his name
to George Masa,

set about to learn
better English,

and took a position
in the laundry room

at Ashville's exclusive
Grove Park Inn.

He was soon promoted
to the valet desk,

where his intelligence
and gentle friendliness

made him a favorite of
the hotel's elite clientele.

To make a little extra money,

Masa began processing the film
and printing photographs

from the guests' cameras,

a skill that quickly blossomed
into a new job

with a professional photographer
and then a business of his own.

Though barely 5 feet tall and
weighing just over 100 pounds,

he lugged his heavy
camera equipment everywhere,

searching the Smokies
for a new vantage point,

Then waiting for hours for the
perfect light to take a picture.

The local chamber of commerce
eventually bought his photos

to promote the region
in their brochures.

Masa turned some of them
into color postcards

for sale to tourists.

His love of the mountains
inevitable brought him

into contact with the man who
had been trying to do with words

what Masa was now doing
with photographs.

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART:
I have been out with George

on several of his trips,

exploring the wildest
and most rugged parts,

scaling precipitous
mountainsides,

delving rocky defiles,

where no sign has been left
by man.

COYOTE: Horace Kephart quickly
became Masa's closest friend

and easily recruited him into
the crusade to save the Smokies.

Others were joining as well.

Community leaders in Asheville
and in Knoxville, Tennessee,

got on the bandwagon.

Some out of a love
of the mountains;

some in the belief that tourism
would result in better roads

and bolster the local economy.

A New York publicity firm,

brought in by
the Knoxville Automobile Club,

suggested that the group
call itself

the Great Smoky Mountain
Conservation Association.

The name caught on.

Soon the mountains themselves

were referred to
as the Great Smokies.

On the North Carolina side,

boosters published
a promotional booklet

with 5 photographs by George
Masa and text by Horace Kephart.

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART:
We have 18 national parks

in the West.

They comprise an area
of over 11,000 square miles.

East of the Mississippi River,
there is but 1,

far up on the Maine Coast,

and it covers
only 8 square miles.

Three-fourths
of the American people

live east of the Mississippi.

Most of them cannot afford
the time or the money

that must be spent to visit
the western parks.

COYOTE: In 1926, with
the support of Stephen Mather,

Congress authorized the creation
of 3 new southern parks:

in Virginia and Kentucky as
well as in the Smoky Mountains.

But there was a hitch.

Congress insisted
that the money to buy the land

come from the states
or private donations.

The federal government
would not put in a penny.

In Tennessee and North Carolina,

a fundraising goal was set
at $10 million,

which seemed
an impossibly lofty figure

for one of the poorest sections
of the country.

But people from all walks of
life rallied to the cause.

Local ministers held special
Smoky Mountain Sunday services

to encourage their congregations
to contribute.

Bellboys at the Farragut Hotel
in Knoxville

donated a dollar each.

Students in the city's
high school pledged $2,490,

including the entire proceeds
from the junior class play.

Asheville's newspaper reported
major contributions

of $1,000 and higher

from prominent businesses
and families...

as well as donations
from every grade school,

white and black, in the city's
segregated school district.

Children were raiding
their piggy-banks

for pennies and nickels.

The logging industry fought back
with full-page advertisements

in local newspapers,

arguing that a national park
would ruin their business

and eliminate the jobs
that went with it.

Meanwhile, they were frantically
cutting the old-growth forests

within the proposed
park boundaries,

60 acres a day
according to 1 estimate,

hoping to extract
everything they could

before the land was closed
to them.

By the Spring of 1927, the fund
drive to save the Great Smokies

had reached $5 million
in cash and pledges.

But it was only half
of what was needed.

Kephart, Masa,
and other park supporters

were now caught
in a race against time

and the loggers' saw.

And time was running out.

[Bird screeches]

MAN AS J.B. PRIESTLY:
If I were an American,

I should make my remembrance
of it the final test

of men, art, and poesy.

I should ask my self,
is this good enough to exist

in the same country
as the canyon?

How would I feel about this man,
this kind of art,

these political measures
if I were near that rim?

Every member or officer
of the federal government

ought to remind himself
with triumphant pride...

that he is on the staff
of the Grand Canyon.

J.B. Priestly.

MAN: For more than 16 years,

I have been exploring
and working

in the Grand Canyon of Arizona
on power sites.

I now have the financial backing

to build 2 huge
hydroelectric plants

in the Grand Canyon

to electrify every railroad,
mine, city, town, and hamlet

in Arizona.

Senator Ralph Henry Cameron.

COYOTE: Since before the turn
of the century,

Ralph Henry Cameron had
considered the Grand Canyon

his own private fiefdom.

In 1919, he had lost
a prolonged fight

to keep the canyon from becoming
an national park,

and a series of court rulings
had ordered him to abandon

many of the questionable
mining claims

he had used to gain
effective control

of some particularly
scenic spots,

including
the Bright Angel Trail,

the main path from the Canyon
rim to the Colorado River.

But after being elected
to represent Arizona

in the U.S. Senate,

Cameron carried on
as if nothing had changed.

Despite repeated
court injunctions,

he simply refused to remove
his buildings.

And through his tight grip

on the political machine
of northern Arizona,

prevented any action from being
taken to make him comply.

Park rangers opposed to him

resorted to having their mail
sent in code

because they suspected that
the canyon's postmaster,

Cameron's brother-in-law,
was opening their letters.

When Cameron proposed
2 giant hydroelectric dams

and a platinum mine
within the park,

Stephen Mather decided
the senator had gone too far

and set out to stop him
and all the other developers

who were planning dams
in other national parks.

Mather did what
he always did best,

galvanizing public support.

Newspapers, women's clubs,
and conservation groups

rallied to the cause
and lobbied congress

to keep dams out of
any existing national park.

No one wanted
another Hetch Hetchy.

MAN AS STEPHEN MATHER:
Can we not preserve

a few of our magnificent lakes,

a few of
the priceless waterfalls

without encountering
the grasping, calloused hand

of commercialism

extended to deprive our children
of their heritage?

Once a small darn is authorized,
other dams will follow.

One misstep is fatal.

COYOTE: Proposed dams
in Sequoia, Glacier,

and Yellowstone were stopped.

And in the Grand Canyon,

all of Cameron's projects
were stopped, too.

[Thunder]

Ralph Cameron took any
opposition to his plans

personally.

Now he lashed out.

He managed to have
the entire appropriation

for Grand Canyon National Park
removed from the senate budget.

He denounced Mather
on the senate floor

and instigated
a congressional investigation

that traveled from park to park,

trying to embarrass both Mather
and Albright

by stirring up spurious claims
against their integrity.

But it all backfired.

Newspapers began their own
investigations into Cameron,

highlighting how he had used
his senate position

to further
his private interests.

Park supporters in congress
took the unusual step

of openly criticizing a
fellow member for his vendetta.

[Thunder]

And in 1926,

the voters of Arizona
refused to re-elect him.

Out of power,

Cameron could no longer protect
his Grand Canyon empire.

His fraudulent mining claims
finally had to be abandoned.

Indian Gardens,

the dilapidated rest stop
on the trail down to the river

where Cameron's outhouses

contaminated
the only fresh water,

had to be turned over
to the park.

And at Bright Angel Trail, the
toll gate was finally removed

so that the people
who actually owned the park

could freely use it.

MAN: I recall
when I was 12 years old

looking into the Grand Canyon

and being told by the ranger
on the rim

that there were rocks down there

that were nearly
2 billion years old...

and thinking to myself,
I'm just 12 years old.

This canyon, at least the rocks

if not the actual scene
that I was looking at,

had been there
for umpteen times longer

than I had been on the planet,
had been alive,

and that humbled me.

I remember thinking to myself,

we don't have very long
on this planet.

And at the same time,
I felt a greatness,

what a privilege to be here,

what a privilege to be
an American

and to look into that canyon and
have this as an American icon

and to be able
to reassure myself

that one day I would come back
and see this place again.

WOMAN AS BESSIE HYDE: Some ships
sail from port to port,

following contentedly
the same old wind.

While others who,
through restlessness,

watch new seas
at each break of day.

We of the night will know many
things of which you sleepers

have never dreamed.

Bessie Hyde.

COYOTE: As the sentimental
poetry she loved to write

made abundantly clear,

Bessie Haley Hyde yearned for
a life of romantic adventure.

By 1928, when she was
22 years old,

she had already picked up
and moved half a dozen times,

studied art and design among
the bohemians of San Francisco,

and in the space of
less than 2 years, got married,

got a quickie divorce in Nevada,

and then got married again.

Her new husband, Glen Hyde,
age 29,

was an Idaho potato farmer

with his own thirst
for doing the unusual.

He had become an experienced
river runner in the northwest,

having built and guided a boat

down Idaho's treacherous
Salmon River,

the fabled river of no return.

Few of their friends
were surprised, therefore,

when Glen and Bessie announced

they would celebrate
their honeymoon

by attempting something
that fewer than 50 people

had ever accomplished:

take a boat
through the Grand Canyon

on the turbulent Colorado River.

Bessie Hyde would be
the first woman ever to try it.

They started out
on October 20, 1928,

from Green River Utah,

in a 2-ton scow
Glen had built for $50

and then loaded with supplies:

bags of Idaho potatoes
and home-canned vegetables,

a rifle for shooting
deer and ducks along the way,

and a set of bedsprings

so they could sleep in comfort
on the boat.

Like other northwest boatmen,

Glen had never worn
life preservers running rivers.

And he saw no need for them
on the Colorado.

After 2 weeks,

they reached the start of
the Grand Canyon a Lee's Ferry,

where locals advised the couple
against proceeding any farther.

They considered Glen's boat
ill-suited

for the huge rapids
farther downstream

and thought it folly
to be entering the big canyon

without companions
in a second boat.

Glen would hear none of it.

They were 2 days
ahead of schedule,

and the Colorado
seemed no harder to master

than the Salmon.

WOMAN AS BESSIE HYDE:
The wind is blowing so much

that everything is just about
covered with sand,

including Glen and I.

We should be nearly
to Grand Canyon Village,

but of course,
it is hard to tell.

The scenery is really
more majestic.

[Bird screeches]

We've had lots and lots
of riffles, large and small,

and have been gliding along
at a great rate.

We've had all kinds of camps,
from beach to rock shelves.

COYOTE:
Moving downstream

with the stone walls
towering above them,

they were seeing the Grand
Canyon from a perspective

few people had experienced:

smaller side canyons
of almost unimaginable beauty

around every bend of the river;

waterfalls
pouring out of sheer stone

to feed the Colorado
as it courses by;

and always the rapids,

where the river's power in its
battle with anything in its way

was on full display.

Farther into the canyon,

the rapids got bigger
and more treacherous.

Bessie, who weighed less
than 100 pounds,

had already been tossed into
the water like a matchstick

by the big sweep oar.

Later, Glen, too,
was knocked from the boat.

Bessie somehow managed to throw
him a rope and get him back in

but was badly shaken.

"I was ready to climb the canyon
wall right then and there,"

she wrote,
"but Glen laughed at me."

At the bottom
of the Bright Angel Trail,

the beached the scow

and hiked up to the south rim
and civilization.

They enjoyed a big meal
at the fancy El Tovar Hotel

and spent a cozy night
in a tent cabin

at Grand Canyon Village.

The next morning,
after buying supplies

and arranging to have them
hauled by mule down to the boat,

the couple paid a visit

to Emery Kolb's
photographic studio.

Kolb and his brother
had themselves

made a legendary descent
of the Colorado in 1911,

compiling thrilling footage
of their journey

which they showed each day
to tourists.

Emery took
the Hyde's photograph,

as he had of virtually every
tourist at the canyon rim

for a quarter century
and gave them a signed copy

of his brother's book
about the 1911 trip.

Glen and Bessie's dream was
to follow the Kolbs' example,

make a name for themselves with
their own daring adventure,

write a best-selling book
about it,

and then go on
the lecture circuit.

The Hydes were certain
that they would soon be famous

when they ran into a reporter
from the Denver Post,

who saw the potential
in their story

and eagerly hung
on their every word.

"I've had the thrills
of my life," Bessie told him.

I've been thoroughly drenched
a dozen times,

but I'm enjoying every minute
of the adventure.

Others who saw the Hydes that
day told a different story,

that Bessie had already
had enough of the Colorado

and was reluctant to continue
the journey.

When she said good-bye
to his family,

Emery Kolb remembered,

Bessie looked at
his daughter's shoes and said,

"I wonder if I shall ever wear
pretty shoes again."

At the small tourist camp

at the bottom of
the Bright Angel Trail,

the Hydes signed the guestbook,

agreed to let
a wealthy vacationer

ride along with them for 1 day,

and set off once more
on November 17.

On the 18th, they dropped
their passenger off

at a place called Hermit Camp,

just upstream from the 10
biggest cascades in the canyon.

He asked to take their
photograph, and they complied.

Then Glen and Bessie Hyde
got back in their boat...

and disappeared.

By mid-December,

news that the honeymooners had
not been heard from in a month

was captivating the nation.

MAN: The "San Francisco
Chronicle."

Mr. and Mrs. Glen Hyde,
now lost in the canyon,

certainly could not have
been aware of the perils

of such a honeymoon voyage.

An anxious country
watching the search

with hope that they
would be found and rescued

also hopes that
the advertisement

they have given of the desperate
character of this adventure

will deter others.

COYOTE:
President Calvin Coolidge

finally ordered
the Army Air Corps

to aid in the search
by flying over the canyon.

And at last,
the scow was sighted.

Emery and Elsworth Kolb
grabbed their cameras

and hurried to the site...

which they reached
on Christmas Day.

The scow was floating
in the still waters of an eddy,

it's bowline caught in the rocks
30 feet underwater.

Everything seemed untouched
on deck:

a baked ham, a sack of flour
and other food,

hiking boots and warm clothes,

the bedsprings and blankets,

the Hydes' money and the book
Emery Kolb had given them,

Glen's rifle, Bessie's camera
with 6 rolls of film,

and a small journal in which
Bessie had been keeping notes

for the book
she intended to write.

The last entry from November 30
simply stated,

"Ran 16 rapids today."

Bessie and Glen Hyde had found
the adventure and the celebrity

they had been seeking.

But neither of them
was ever seen again.

KIRK: In a national park,

you can see something that's
more stable than you are...

[Thunder]

Something that's more enduring
than you are.

Our moment on stage is so brief,

but if you can be aware
of the ingredients

that make up the stage
upon which you live your life,

dance your life,

you can enjoy the dance of life
ever so much more.

MAN AS HORACE ALBRIGHT:
If you have ever stood

and looked across
to Cascade Canyon

weaving its sinuous way toward
the summit of the Tetons...

you will know the joy
of being in a sacred place.

Designed by God
to be protected forever.

Horace Albright.

COYOTE: Many years earlier,

Horace Albright and Stephen
Mather had been in Yellowstone

when they took a day trip to
check on a new road being built

from the park's
southern entrance

toward the valley just beyond,
called Jackson Hole in Wyoming.

There they saw something neither
of them would ever forget,

a stunning series of granite
spires rising into the sky

from a flat sagebrush plain,

adorned with a necklace
of sparkling lakes

and the shimmering Snake River.

It was the Tetons.

As far back as 1882, General
Phil Sheridan had argued

that Yellowstone Park
needed to be made even bigger

to include
the natural grazing range

of the world's
largest surviving elk herd.

The Tetons
and surrounding lowlands

were an essential part
of the Elks' migratory home,

and conservationists
clung to the hope

for what they called
Greater Yellowstone.

A small group of dude ranch
owners in Jackson Hole

also worried that the valley
was becoming too developed

and suggested that some
private holdings be purchased

and then combined
with the public lands.

When he became
Yellowstone's superintendent,

Albright made the cause his own.

MAN AS HORACE ALBRIGHT: This may
sound juvenile and presumptuous,

but I took it personally.

I really felt I had a mission
to preserve the Grand Tetons

in the only way I knew, through
the National Park Service.

COYOTE: Year after year,

every dignitary Albright
escorted around Yellowstone

would eventually find himself
being led to a vantage point

offering a view
south of the park's borders

toward the Tetons while Albright
passionately explained

the reasons why they needed
to be added to his park.

Congressmen,
influential journalists,

and 2 presidents
got the treatments.

One day, Albright learned
that a private citizen

traveling incognito
under the name of Mr. Davison,

was about to visit Yellowstone.

His real identity was
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,

head of one of
the richest families

and greatest fortunes
in America.

He had put up the money
to purchase land

on Mount Desert Island in Maine

and donated it
to the federal government

to create Acadia National Park.

More recently his generosity
had established a museum

at Mesa Verde.

Albright was thrilled to learn
that the great philanthropist

was coming to Yellowstone,

but before he arrived,
Albright heard from Mather,

instructing him to respect
Rockefeller's privacy.

WOMAN: He received a letter
from Stephen Mather

telling him don't you dare talk
about trying to get the Tetons.

You are not to tell
Mr. Rockefeller

anything about your dream.

He always sort of added
the quotation marks.

"Your dream."

So he didn't.

He saw Mr. Rockefeller,
and he didn't say a word.

The Rockefeller family
came back in 1926,

and this time Mr. Mather
either didn't care

or he forgot to tell him
not to talk about it.

So of course he did immediately.

He took them down there
through the valley.

COYOTE: Rockefeller soon began
to see things he didn't like.

MAN AS HORACE ALBRIGHT:
Why are those telephone lines

on the west side of the road

where they mar the view
of the mountains, he asked.

Why is that
ramshackle old building

allowed to stand over there
where it blocks the view?

I explained that it was
on private land.

Mrs. Rockefeller seemed
increasingly upset

as we passed a woebegone-looking
old dancehall,

some dilapidated cabins,
a burned-out gasoline station,

a few big billboards.

The Rockefellers
expressed great concern

that this spectacular country
was rapidly going the way

of development and destruction.

As the shadows lengthened, they
stopped to watch the sunset.

As we sat on logs, I began to
unfold my dream for the area

and how I had been trying
for years to save the Tetons

and the whole valley
north of Jackson.

Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller
listened.

When I finished,
they remained silent

as we watched the sun disappear
behind the jagged peaks,

casting long, sharp shadows
across the valley.

I felt a little let down.

Here I had laid out
my fondest dream

and there was no word
or comment.

COYOTE:
But 4 months later,

Albright was invited to
Rockefeller's New York office

to discuss the Tetons again.

This time he showed Rockefeller
detailed maps and cost estimates

for a modest plan
to purchase some of the land

near Jackson Lake.

SCHENCK: And Mr. Rockefeller
studied it quite a while,

and then he shook his head.

And he looked up and he said,
"Mr. Albright,"

"this is interesting
and everything,"

but he said,
"this isn't what I meant."

"I want to know how much it
would cost to buy that valley."

And my father, I heard him
so many times tell the story,

and he said, "My heart
stopped beating right then..."

"at the whole valley."

COYOTE: "I remember you used
the word dream,"

Rockefeller told Albright,

recounting in detail the grand
panorama they had surveyed

while watching the sunset.

"That's the area for which
I want cost estimates,"

Rockefeller said.

"The family," he added, is only
interested in an ideal project."

Albright went back to work

and soon presented
a much grander proposal:

the purchase of more
than 30,000 acres

at a cost that would exceed
$1 million

and possibly much more
if word got out

that Rockefeller money
was behind the purchases

and land prices skyrocketed.

Rockefeller immediately agreed
to it all,

and to conceal
his participation,

formed the Snake River
Land Company,

ostensibly a cattle business
that began buying up properties

through a local banker
in Jackson,

a man who not only did not know

the true purpose
of the purchases,

but even opposed the idea
of a greater Yellowstone.

When congress finally created

the Small Grand Teton
National Park 2 years later,

Albright and Rockefeller
were disappointed

that the boundaries included

only the eastern front
of the mountains themselves

and none of the
surrounding valley.

Undeterred,

Rockefeller continued
quietly buying up land,

giving Albright hope that his
dream might one day be realized.

"Rockefeller was becoming,"
Albright said,

"one of the best friends
the national parks ever had."

MAN AS ROBERT STERLING YARD:
Already the national parks

are magnificently affecting
the national mind.

Nowhere else do people
from all the states mingle

in quite the same spirit as
they do in their national parks.

One sits at dinner, say,
between a Missouri farmer

and an Idaho miner,

and at supper between
a New York artist

and an Oregon shopkeeper.

One climbs mountains
with a chance crowd

from Vermont, Louisiana,
an Texas...

and sits around
the evening campfire

with a California grape grower,

a locomotive engineer
from Massachusetts,

and a banker from Michigan.

Here the social differences
so insisted on at home

just don't exist.

Perhaps for the first time,

one realizes the common America
and loves it.

In the national parks,
all are just Americans.

Robert Sterling Yard.

COYOTE: In 1928, yearly
visitation at the national parks

topped 3 million
for the first time.

"The parks," Stephen Mather
proudly proclaimed,

"do not belong to one state
or to one section."

They have become democratized.

In many ways he was right.

No longer did park visitors

come exclusively
from the upper classes.

They now came from
the new, expanding

but predominantly white
middle class.

Americans with their own cars,
more money in their pockets

and more time to spend it.

Congress, too,
seemed more wiling

to support the park system.

It doubled and then redoubled
the annual appropriations,

though the bulk of the money
was for improving roads,

to accommodate
the car-driving tourists

pouring into the park.

Mather now embarked on an
ambitious plan in which each

park was to have one major road
that would open up its scenic

wonders to the motoring public.

MAN: The 1920s see,
in certain national parks,

some of the most mind-boggling
roads the world has ever seen

because the Park Service is
willing to take a highway to

heights and to places that no
other sane humane being would

ever imagine taking a roadway.

And so we see these monumental
roads providing some

of the most amazing driving
experiences you can find

on this planet, to this day.

DUNCAN: Mather wanted a road
into every park that would

show off, in his mind,
the beauty of the park,

and at Glacier was
the toughest place.

He went up there to personally
inspect it, and the highway

engineers showed him, "Well,
we'll come up this valley" or

"we'll crisscross with these..."
I don't know how many... more

than a dozen switchbacks
up to the pass.

Fortunately, standing next to
him was Thomas Vint, who was

the landscape architect for
the National Park Service,

and Mather said, "Well,
what do you think?"

And he said, "It'll look
like miners have been here,"

and Mather was horrified by
the notion of it and finally

decided, well, we'll do
this in a different way.

It'll be longer.

It'll be more expensive,
but it won't detract from

the view, and the result was
Going to the Sun Highway,

which is one of the
glories of all roads

in the United States.

COYOTE: Now, at Mather's
insistence, landscape

architects... artists,
not engineers... were employed

to oversee every detail of
all national park roads.

CRONON: What happens is that
the parks are essentially

completely converted to become
available to people in private

automobiles, so there are
new roadways that are carved

through the corridors,
there are rest stops that are

designed to provide framed
vistas of what you're supposed

to see in the parks, there are
new maps, new guide books.

The parks are reinvented in
order to provide a canvas that

people will witness this
nature in these parks as if

they were looking at a
painting through the screen

of an automobile.

MAN AS ROBERT STERLING YARD:
So rapid is the increase

of travel to the parks that it

is none too early to
anticipate the time when their

popularity shall threaten
their primary purpose.

While we are fighting for the
protection of the National

Park System from its enemies,
we may also have to protect it

from its friends.

Robert Sterling Yard.

DUNCAN: Robert Sterling
Yard went through

an incredible transformation.

He started off being paid by
Stephen Mather to be the flack

for this new Park Service.

Later he got sent over to a
new organization, the National

Parks Association, which
started off as under the wing

of Stephen Mather.

But gradually Yard started
to say, "I think Mather is"

"pushing this too much."

"He's going too much into
spectacle, too much into"

"entertainment, too many cars."

Yard wanted to have
what he called

"national primeval parks."

This kept them as pure as
John Muir had described them.

That's where he was going... a
purist of what parks should be,

and eventually he became
one of the greatest critics

of the National Park Service.

COYOTE: Yard also found
himself opposing his old

friend when Kentucky's Mammoth
Cave and Virginia's Shenandoah

National Park had
been set aside.

Mather loved having two more
parks in the east, but Yard

thought they did not meet
what he called "national"

"park standards."

The Virginia site was too
small and lacked primitive

forests, he said.

And no one from the Park
Service, including Mather,

had ever been to Mammoth Cave.

But the final straw for Robert
Sterling Yard was Mather's

plans for highways
in every park.

Hoping to start what he called
"a new nationwide movement to

preserve the primitive,"
he joined forces with the

celebrated conservationist
Aldo Leopold, an idealistic

young forester named Bob
Marshall, and a handful

of other like-minded people
to form an organization to

protect pristine lands,
not just from lumbermen

and developers, but from the
National Park Service itself.

They called it The
Wilderness Society.

RUNTE: It's very ironic that
the National Park Service,

which was called upon to
preserve nature, is then seen

as an impediment to its
preservation because it is not

as interested in wilderness as
a growing number of Americans

are starting to be.

So the National Park Service
is accused of demeaning

wilderness, of wanting to
build roads into wilderness,

of wanting to make wilderness
everything a windshield

experience, an overlook
experience, and many people

in the emerging wilderness
movement begin to become very

critical of the National Park
Service and of Stephen Mather.

MAN: He would talk for
hours, reviewing his plans

for the national parks.

"They belong to everybody,"
he used to say.

"We've got to do what we can
to see that nobody stays away"

"because he can't afford it."

"I hear lots of complaints
about the tin canners,"

I told him.

"They dirty up the parks,
strew cans and papers all over."

"What if they do?"
he would say.

"They own as much of the
parks as anybody else."

"We can pick up the tin cans."

"It's a cheap way to
make better citizens."

Gilbert Stanley Underwood.

COYOTE: Stephen Mather still
enjoyed nothing better than

traveling from park to park in
his big touring car, wearing

a park ranger's uniform,
and keeping a frenetic pace

that became legendary.

"We wore ourselves out trying
to stay with him for 16"

"hours a day,"
one traveling companion

recalled, "and then we had
to sit up half the night"

"listening to him
talk it over."

DUNCAN: Mather could
be just a bundle

of unbounded energy.

Albright said at times he felt
that he was the mightiest man

in the world, and that's how
he operated a lot of the time.

COYOTE: No one admired Mather
more than Horace Albright,

and no one in the Park Service
was more privy to

the director's periodic
wild mood swings.

At least two more times in
the 1920s, Mather was

incapacitated by depression
while Albright quietly

filled in.

SCHENCK: They just said he
was on vacation because they

loved the man so much
they never wanted him hurt

in any Way-

COYOTE: In the spring of 1927,
on his way back from

inspecting Hawaii National
Park, Mather suffered a heart

attack, but a month later
he was in Yosemite, where he

hiked to Glacier Point to
prove to his doctor that he

was back at full strength
and capable of resuming his

busy schedule.

He went to Mt. Rainier to
go over plans for a new road

in the park and attended the
opening of a majestic lodge

on the north rim of
the Grand Canyon.

At Zion, he showed up to check

on the progress of a mile-long
tunnel being blasted through

the sandstone.

It was considered an
engineering marvel, and Mather

became so excited about it he
stayed for several more days

so he could become the first
person to walk through it.

On July 4, 1928, he celebrated
his 61st birthday in his

favorite park, Yosemite,
and took a long horseback ride

up out of the valley to
the Towalame Meadows

in the high country.

He had persuaded some
newspapers to report

on the logging being done on
a grove of giant sugar pines

located on a privately owned
parcel within the park

boundaries and was pleased to
learn that their stories had

prompted John D. Rockefeller
Jr. to put up $1.7 million to

help buy the land, make it
part of Yosemite, and protect

the trees forever.

Then, on November 5, 1928,
he suffered a serious stroke.

Albright rushed to his side.

MAN AS HORACE ALBRIGHT: He had
been trying to say something

but could not
make himself understood.

The only word they had been
able to get was "cascades."

"Cascades in Yosemite?"

I asked, but that was not it.

Cascade Corner in Yellowstone?

But that was not it either.

Cascade Mountains in Washington?

His eyes crinkled in a smile.

That was it.

He wanted to know about
the new highway across

the northeastern corner of
Mt. Rainier that the state

of Washington was
planning to name after him.

I told him that signs were
now going up along the highway

designating it Mather Parkway.

A relaxed, satisfied
look came over his face.

COYOTE: On January 22,
1930, after more than a year

of incapacitation,
Stephen Mather died.

In his memory, a mountain just
east of Mt. McKinley would

be named Mt. Mather.

An overlook at the Grand
Canyon would be called

Mather Point.

A scenic stretch of the
Potomac River would be named

Mather Gorge.

A nationwide tree-planting
campaign in his honor would

also result in Mather
Forest near Lake George.

And in every national park,
the agency he had created

and molded to his vision would
erect a bronze plaque with his

likeness and these words:
"There will never come an end"

"to the good that he has done."

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART:
George Masa and I

put in a lot of work on the park

area... George especially,
for while I only interviewed

old residents throughout the
territory, he labored long

and earnestly on his maps.

It is astonishing that a Jap,
not even naturalized, so far

as I know, should have
done all this exploring

and photographing and mapping
without compensation

but at much expense to himself
out of sheer loyalty to

the park idea.

He deserves a monument.

Horace Kephart.

COYOTE: Horace Kephart and
his friend George Masa had

already devoted years of their
lives trying to get the Smoky

Mountains set aside
as America's newest

national park.

The $5 million pledged by the
people of Tennessee and North

Carolina was only half of
the $10 million price tag

for the land.

Park boosters had been
desperately looking for other

possible sources to make
up the difference.

The search ended once again
with John D. Rockefeller Jr.

After being shown some of
Masa's photographs and told

about the impending
destruction of the old-growth

forests, Rockefeller at
first pledged $1.5 million.

Then he reconsidered and
offered the entire $5 million

that was still needed, from
a fund named for his mother.

But the timber companies
had not given up the fight.

As owners of 85% of the
land in the proposed park,

they held out for exorbitant
prices and kept cutting trees,

sometimes even after
signing agreements to

transfer ownership.

"Boys, we sold it," one company
supervisor told his employees.

"Log her."

"When we got done with that
poor little ridge," a worker

remembered, "there wasn't
a toothpick left on it."

Finally, the cutting stopped
and the lumbermen left.

More than 5,500 people, mostly
whites and Cherokees, lived

within the borders of
the proposed park.

They, too, would have to
leave, willingly or not.

Some happily sold their land.

Others refused, fought and
lost in court, and eventually

had to sell under
condemnation proceedings.

Many were offered leases for
up to two years as the park

took shape, becoming tenants
on the land they had once owned.

As the isolated cabins and
their small communities...

Webb's Creek, Ravensford
and Smokemont, Cataloochee

and Cades Cove... emptied
one by one,

Horace Albright, now in charge
of the Park Service, assured

the people that they would
always be allowed to maintain

the cemeteries near their
now-vacant churches.

It provided small comfort
against the bitterness

of removal.

Their hearts were broken,
one resident remembered,

and most of them left crying.

CRONON: I think the paradox
of local resistance to the

creation of national parks
is a deep, deep paradox

in American ideas of democracy
because on the one hand,

one of our visions is that
people in a local place are

the ones who best understand
that place, are the ones who

have its interests most
at heart, and who really,

ideally, ought to be the ones
who vote about what should

happen to that land, just
as on a local school board.

And yet it is also true that
these national parks are not

in the local place
that they are in.

They are in the nation.

They stand for the nation,
and so by that understanding,

the democratic institutions
that should defend them are

not at the local level but
at the level of the nation,

and this tension between
federal control of our

democracy and local control
of our democracy is hard-wired

into what we think democracy is.

MAN AS HORACE KEPHART:
The long and difficult task

of surveying the Smoky
Mountains national parklands

is finished.

It was a big undertaking and
beset with discouragements

of all sorts, but we've won.

Within two years, we will have
good roads into the Smokies,

and then... well,
then I'll get out.

This will probably ruin
the old country for me.

COYOTE: Horace Kephart
never left the Smokies.

On April 2, 1931, he was
killed in a car crash

on a mountain road.

George Masa, the first to
arrive and last to leave

Kephart's funeral, served
as pallbearer and took

a photograph of the
memorial service at his

friend's gravesite.

MAN AS MASA: I don't know
what I say about the death

of our Kephart.

It shocked me to pieces.

When I am on trail, I
always cry in my heart.

Wish Kep with me.

I have a walking cane which
Kep carried with him, so when

I go to Smokies,
I carry his cane.

I call it Kep.

I miss him so much
because he was my buddy.

COYOTE: In 1933, after
organizing a hike to

commemorate the second
anniversary of Kephart's

death, George Masa became sick.

With no money for his
own doctor, he ended up

in the county hospital,
where he died on June 21,

penniless and with no
known relatives to notify.

His hiking club put together
a funeral service in Asheville

but did not have the money to
bury him next to Kephart as

had been his wish.

By then, the nation itself had
fallen on hard times.

The Great Depression was
devastating the country,

and the people of Tennessee
and North Carolina, despite

their best intentions,
were unable to fulfill many

of the pledges they had
made to create the park.

But now there was a new
president, the cousin

of Theodore Roosevelt, who
had his own ambitious plans

for the national parks.

Inspired by all the pennies
and nickels that had been

collected from everyday
people, Franklin Delano

Roosevelt decided to intervene.

To make up the shortfall,
the president allocated

$1.5 million in scarce federal
funds to complete the land

purchases, the first time in
history that the United States

government had spent its
own money to buy land

for a national park.

Within that park, on the main
divide of the Smoky Mountains

that had offered them so much
solace and for which they,

in turn, devoted so much of
their lives, is a 6,217-foot

peak that now bears
the official name

of Mt. Kephart.

And on its broad shoulder is
another, somewhat shorter peak

now called Masa Knob.

[Birds chirping]

WOMAN AS MARGARET KEPHART:
May 28, 1929.

The Grand Canyon.

We arrived this morning
after a pleasant run through

national forest
over paved highway.

We made camp and had dinner
before we set out to look

at the canyon.

There it was... beautiful,
majestic, sublime.

But somehow I missed the thrill
of that first look 14 years ago.

Great moments in our
lives do not return.

COYOTE: Among the millions of
Americans who had felt Stephen

Mather's impact on the
national parks were Margaret

and Edward Gehrke.

In 1915,
when they had first visited

the Grand Canyon, Mather was
just beginning his crusade to

promote and develop the parks,
and the number of park

visitors nationwide
was just over 300,000.

By 1929, when the Gehrkes
reached the Grand Canyon

a second time, that number
would be 10 times bigger...

3,250,000 visitors to a
well-publicized string of parks

and monuments stretching
from Maine to California,

from Hawaii to Alaska.

By then, the Gehrkes had
already been to 12 of the 21

existing parks, some of
them more than once.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
May 29. For us, the canyon needs

an added experience.

We decided to hike to the
bottom, stay overnight,

and return tomorrow.

May 30. Well, it was a great
hike... 7 miles to the bottom

and 107 to the top.

We are stiff and
lame but satisfied.

What is life but
to dream and do?

COYOTE: Traveling in the new
Buick they called Red Peter

with a new dog named Pride as
their companion, the Gehrkes

kept on the move, intent
on adding more parks to

their list.

On June 9, they reached
Sequoia National Park...

on the 10th, General Grant...

and on June 11, they entered

John Muir's Yosemite
for the first time.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
Yosemite, the incomparable

Yosemite of our dreams.

Edward tried so hard to
capture it all with his

camera, while I wondered a
bit if I could ever get it all

down in my diary.

In these few days, Yosemite
Valley must in some sense

become ours, and we will feel
in part what John Muir felt.

COYOTE: Soon they were
on the move again.

Back in 1921, impassible
roads had prevented them from

reaching Lassen
Volcanic National Park

in northern California.

Not this time.

9 days later, they were
in Zion in southern Utah.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
June 28. We arrived at Bryce

Canyon this morning.

A gorgeous spectacle.

Fantasy and startling beauty.

The silent city with towers
and fortresses and steeples

and afar, a thousand windows.

COYOTE: The Gehrkes had
now been to all but one

of the national parks in
the lower 48 at that time.

5 years later, in the summer
of 1934, they made their

fourth visit to Rocky Mountain
National Park, a place now

filled with memories
stretching back to

the couple's earliest
trips together.

They had a different dog
with them now, and a new car,

one in which Edward had
installed a radio to listen to

while the miles rolled
beneath their wheels.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE: So
much new pavement has changed

the appearance of the country.

We see the mountains.

Before you could say Jack
Robinson, we were lugging

things up the steep steps into
the little cabin called

Rose-Den we have loved
so many years.

The old familiar mountainside
with its cabins, the snowy

peaks beyond, the rush
of water all the same.

Only I am different.

COYOTE: Margaret and Edward
were both in their 50s now,

and on this visit, they tended
to do more driving than hiking

from place to place in the park.

Margaret noted more litter on
the roadside than ever before.

Edward fished as always.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
Sunday at Rose-Den.

The twilight hour is here.

I look out to dark clouds
on the mountainsides.

Towards evening, we have
gotten our things together

for quick packing
in the morning.

Our stay here in Rose
Den comes to an end.

Will we come back again?

I wonder.

[Hammering]

COYOTE: In the mid-1930s,
Edward would build them

a house-car, and they would
take it on some trial runs to

the Minnesota lakes.

But before they could embark
with it on another extended

tour of national parks,
he took ill in 1939 and died.

Margaret would accept a job
working for the University

of Nebraska and no longer
spend her winters dreaming

of new adventures or her
summers pursuing them.

But in 1948, at age 65,
she would return to Rocky

Mountain National
Park and Rose-Den.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
I took a 5-mile walk to the

village of Estes and back.

Found tourists everywhere,
buying things and things.

But the walk was good.

This evening, a great storm
raged on Longs Peak, and when

I beheld this majesty, I felt
equal to the contemplations

of divinity.

Perhaps the walk
cleared my vision.

COYOTE: On this trip, without
Edward to do the driving,

Margaret went out and back the
way the couple had traveled

together so many years
earlier... by train.

WOMAN AS MARGARET GEHRKE:
July 13, 5 PM.

En route the Zephyr.

Here I am this mid-July
afternoon going home, and glad

to be going home.

Surely I care little about home.

I never have.

Back to Nebraska to the
hateful heat of summer to work

day after day, to monotony,
most would say, but glad.

This long, silver train
makes swift passage.

It is streaking across the
flat Colorado country as I sit

here, alone.

Why should I be
so near to tears?

The whole trip to
Colorado like a dream now.

The whole thing drops from my
shoulders now like a jeweled

coat, and I lay it aside,

feeling I've never
worn it at all.

Margaret Gehrke.