All language subtitles for NatParks-D3_English_Full

MAN: I often wonder

what man will do
with the mountains.

Will he cut down all the trees
to make ships and houses?

If so, what will be the final
and far upshot?

Will a better civilization come
in accord with obvious nature,

and all this wild beauty
be set to human poetry and song?

What is the human part of
the mountains' destiny?

John Muir.

MAN: Yes, it's transcendent,
just as walking into a cathedral

is transcendent.

But what could be more cathedral
in feel than Yosemite Valley

or the Grand Canyon?

I mean, John Muir... I think he

thought it was somewhat ironic

that there's a chapel

in Yosemite Valley

because you're building a church

in the greatest cathedral
in America.

And I think that when people
go into these spaces,

they find that
they have enough spirit

that they can fill the space

and they can be filled
by those spaces.

PETER COYOTE: By 1914,
the national park idea

had expanded beyond
Yellowstone and Yosemite,

where the notion of setting
aside special places

for all Americans had
first taken root

half a century earlier.

Parks could now be found
surrounding

snowcapped Mount Rainier
in the Pacific Northwest;

at the ancient cliff dwellings
of Mesa Verde

in the Southwestern deserts;

within the dark caverns
of South Dakota's Wind Cave;

in the reflection
of the deep blue waters

of Crater Lake in Oregon;

and at half a dozen other
locations the nation had decided

to preserve,

usually at the urging of
individual Americans

willing to turn their passion
for a particular landscape

into a crusade.

MAN: There is no master plan
whatsoever for these parks.

What's happening is that people
are identifying

interesting places that look

like they're under
some kind of threat

or look like they

might be worth preserving.

And a law gets written,

a park gets created, and, boom,
it's added to the set.

But the set is not a system.

The set has no coherence to it.

There are no regular rules for
governing it all.

It was pretty chaotic
in the early years.

COYOTE: The Departments of
Agriculture, Interior, and War

each claimed some responsibility
for the parks.

But in truth,
no one was in charge.

Nothing proved it more

than the fact that
the city of San Francisco

had been given permission
to construct a dam

in Yosemite's
Hetch Hetchy Valley,

and submerge a scenic wonder
under a massive water reservoir.

MAN: Hetch Hetchy was
a crucial turning point

in the history
of the national parks

because a valley was lost.

A beautiful valley was lost.

It was a pebble that dropped
in everybody's pool.

To make them ask,

"What future do we want?

"Do we want there to be some
places where you go

"where things aren't necessarily
convenient

"and we don't measure

all of the greatness of the
United States in a ledger book?"

COYOTE: The battle over
Hetch Hetchy had been the last

for John Muir... the mountain
prophet who had done so much

to save the remaining vestiges
of pristine America.

Now an unlikely alliance would
carry on in his name

and in his spirit.

Railroad barons, who saw
in the parks

a chance to increase
their profits,

as well as some of the nation's
wealthiest men,

who at a time when the disparity
between rich and poor

was growing as never before,
would heed a higher calling

and use their fortunes to
advance the public good.

The national park idea
was nearly 50 years old,

but some of the nation's most
spectacular landscapes were

still unprotected, vulnerable

to the acquisitive
and extractive energies

that 20th-century America
possessed in such abundance.

Special places in every corner
of America were threatened.

Volcanic islands in the Pacific,

where the most elemental forces
of nature were still on display,

and along the Atlantic seaboard
of New England,

a much smaller island treasured
for its bucolic tranquility,

the continent's highest
mountain rising

from the tundra of Alaska...

The nation's most remote
territory...

and in the deserts of Arizona,
a mile-deep gash in the Earth,

a canyon of equally
indescribable immensity

and beauty.

In John Muir's absence, a new
leader would step forward...

An impulsive and seemingly
self-confident businessman,

who would promote the parks
as never before,

and then struggle to bring them
under a single management.

Where Muir had changed things
with his words,

he would do it with his wealth
and connections.

Where Muir had emphasized
the ecstatic,

he would emphasize the economic
and patriotic.

But even more than John Muir,
Stephen Mather had

his own intensely
personal reason

that drew him to the parks.

WOMAN: Our national parks are
not only our best idea,

but our highest ideal.

I think that every time we walk
into a national park,

we make vows.

We make vows that we will live
beyond ourselves.

We make vows

that we will not just care about
short-term gains,

but long-term vistas.

We remember

the sweetness of engagement,

that this is

the open space of democracy.

And it is, as John Muir
has reminded us,

the beginning of creation.

COYOTE: Not far from Longs Peak
in Colorado

in the heart of
the Rocky Mountains was an inn

owned and operated

by an aspiring nature writer
named Enos Mills.

Mills had first come to
the Rockies from Kansas

at age 14 on doctor's orders
that without clean alpine air,

he would not live to adulthood.

Thirty years later,
he was still there

traipsing alone from
one mountain peak to another.

Three times a week,
Mills lectured his guests,

extolling the beauty
of the Rockies

and crusading to have
the Longs Peak region preserved,

not for the rich or royalty,
who for years had been buying up

the surrounding area, but
for everyone as a national park.

For his inspiration,
Mills credited John Muir.

"I owe everything to Muir,"
he said.

It was Muir's writings
and the chance encounter

with the famous man himself
that had given Mills' life

new purpose and direction.

"I will glory in your success,"

a sick and aging Muir
had written to Mills

as the younger man pushed
for a national park

in the Colorado Rookies.

"Strange," Muir added,
"that the government is so slow

"to learn the value of parks."

But as congressional hearings
began, word arrived

that John Muir had died.

"It will be a great courtesy"

"to the memory of that
grand old man,"

one person testified,

"if you gentlemen
unanimously recommend"

"creation of this park."

Congress agreed.

Enos Mills' dream came true.

Rocky Mountain National Park was
finally established.

And for the rest of his life,
Mills would be called

the John Muir of the Rockies.

MAN: I remember one afternoon
when I was 25, probably.

I was in
Rocky Mountain National Park.

And I started walking.

I started climbing up
through a pine forest.

And I thought, What would happen
if I never turned back?

What would happen if I

just kept walking?

Where would I end up?

Where would this trail take me?

I had no matches, no flashlight,

no poncho.

I did turn back.

But I still wonder
what would have happened

if I hadn't turned back.

[Train bell clanging]

MAN AS STEPHEN MATHER: We have
as yet no national park system.

The parks have just happened.

Nowhere in official Washington
can an enquirer

find an office
of the national parks

or a desk devoted solely
to their management.

Uncle Sam has simply not waked
up about his precious parks.

COYOTE: In the summer of 1914,

a vacationing millionaire
named Stephen Mather visited

Sequoia and Yosemite
National Parks in California

and was disgusted
by what he saw.

With only the army periodically
policing the parks,

hiking trails were
in poor condition.

Cattle could still be found
grazing there,

and speculators had managed
to file claims

on choice parcels of land,

planning to log the sequoias
that Mather believed

should be protected forever.

Mather dashed off
an angry letter

to an old college schoolmate...

Franklin K. Lane,
the secretary of the interior,

whose standing
among conservationists

was already low since Lane had
personally approved construction

of the Hetch Hetchy darn.

MAN AS FRANKLIN K. LANE:
Dear Steve, if you don't like

the way the national parks
are being run,

why don't you come down
to Washington

and run them yourself?

COYOTE: Soon enough, Mather
showed up in Lane's office

and agreed to serve
as one of his assistants,

overseeing the national parks.

A nationwide search
could not have found

a better man for the job.

Tall and athletic
with prematurely white hair

and piercing blue eyes, Mather
possessed what reporters called

"incandescent enthusiasm
and an 8-cylinder,"

"60-mile-per-hour sort of
personality."

WOMAN: To describe Mr. Mather,
one must roll

all the matinee idols into one

and then put the red blood of
a real man into him.

He has the kindest of blue eyes,
as clear and frank as a child's,

but the mouth and chin of a man
who has fought his way in life.

"Woman's Magazine."

COYOTE: Born in California

to a family with deep patrician
roots in New England,

Mather had taken a job
as a reporter

for the "New York Sun"

and then
moved on as a sales manager

for the Pacific Coast
Borax company,

where his special genius
for promotion found

a national outlet.

He produced a flood of publicity
by glamorizing

the company's beginnings
in California's Death Valley.

MAN: He took Death Valley
and made it a romantic place.

He took Borax,
this household material,

gave it the romantic name
20-mule team Borax.

He would write letters

to magazines posing

as a contented housewife,

talking about

how her life had been
transformed by the use of Borax.

He wasn't meeting a demand
for Borax,

He was creating a demand
for Borax.

COYOTE: Mather
had quickly realized

he could make more money working
for himself

and helped
start a competing company.

By 1914 at age 47, he was rich
beyond belief

and restless for
a new challenge.

Years earlier during a climb
up Mount Rainier,

he had discovered that during
the darkest moments of his life,

time in the great outdoors
seemed to calm

his sometimes fragile nerves

and revive
his prodigious energies.

And he counted as one
of the highlights of his life

meeting the legendary John Muir

on a hike
in Sequoia National Park.

Mather told Secretary Lane he
would work for him,

but for only one year.

He was assigned
a legal assistant

in the secretary's office...

A fellow Californian
and Berkeley graduate

named Horace Albright,

an earnest and ambitious
young man

who had arrived in Washington
a year earlier so poor,

he wore a borrowed suit and took
a room at the local YMCA.

Like Mather and so many others,
Albright had also been inspired

by a personal encounter
with John Muir.

But much of his work so far
had been spent responding

to angry letters protesting
the decision

to flood
the Hetch Hetchy Valley.

MAN AS HORACE ALBRIGHT:
I had to learn to counterfeit

Lane's signature and sign
letters in reply,

trying to explain why the darn
should be built.

I hated this job, for I was
in sympathy with the protests.

COYOTE: Albright had been
intending to quit

and returned to California
to practice law, when Mather

entered his life and persuaded
him to stay for one more year.

MAN AS ALBRIGHT:
I was knowledgeable

about Washington,
the Interior Department,

and the Congress,

was quite good at detail
and administrative work,

which he obviously hated,

and above all, was loyal
and conscientious.

He was 47. I was only 24
and a bit in awe of him.

MAN: Mather was a great
conceptualizer,

and Horace was
a great implementer.

They complemented each other

like father, like son.

I mean, he was the reverse side
of the same coin.

COYOTE: After being sworn in,
Mather's first action was

to more than double
Horace Albright's yearly pay

with $2,400 from his own pocket.

Next, he hired
Robert Sterling Yard,

a gifted editor of
the "New York Herald"

to begin churning out a flurry
of publicity for the parks,

luring Yard to Washington with
the promise of $5,000 a year

and a personal secretary,

all of it paid for by Mather,
not the government.

MAN: Stephen Mather was
the right man in the right place

at the right time...

Wildly enthusiastic about
the national parks,

plus a millionaire
who could speak

to all the millionaire
industrialists

who were developing the parks,
namely the railroads.

Preservationists themselves
during the period

are asking for more cooperation

with the railroads,

more responsible development of
the national parks

to keep at bay the argument that
"nobody goes here."

Because the Hetch Hetchy Valley
had only 2,000 visitors a year,

the argument was used
against it.

It was said that only effeminate
members of the Sierra Club camp

in Hetch Hetchy Valley,

but 500,000 people from
San Francisco could get

a drink out of it.

And Stephen Mather understands
that if he doesn't get people

in the parks, if he doesn't get
500,000 people visiting a park

in his own right, he's going
to lose out to the arguments

when the dams and reservoirs
come down the pike.

COYOTE: Mather wined and dined
congressmen and senators,

newspaper
and magazine publishers,

pushed through legislation that
would allow private individuals

to make gifts of land and money
to the parks,

and began making plans
for a whirlwind inspection tour

of the national treasures now
entrusted to his care.

MAN AS ALBRIGHT: With
ideas popping from Mather's head

every minute, he simply couldn't
sit still at a desk

and handle details.

Talking over an idea
meant listening,

while he restlessly paced,
gesturing to make his points,

his words barely keeping up with
his mile-a-minute brain.

I thanked my stars I was young,
strong, and healthy.

His energy would have killed
someone who wasn't.

COYOTE: Before 1915 ended,
Mather and Albright would travel

nearly 35,000 miles.

In Colorado, they were there
with Enos Mills

and a crowd of 300

for the dedication
of Rocky Mountain National Park.

At Mount Rainier in
Washington State, Mather decided

the superintendent
was a political hack

and fired him on the spot.

At Yosemite, he learned that
the 56-mile long Tioga Road,

the only east-west road
through the park,

was still in private hands
and in terrible disrepair.

Mather got out his checkbook
again, putting up

half of the $15,500 price tag

and raising an equal amount from
wealthy friends.

Then he just
as quickly gave it away

to become part
of the park forever.

And during a brief visit
with Horace Albright

to the Grand Canyon,
still only a national monument

and still under the control
of the Forest Service,

Mather became convinced that it
needed greater protection.

"Make this unbelievable wonder
your next national park,"

he said.

MAN AS ALBRIGHT: It seemed
impossible

that every new national park
appeared more spectacular

than the last,
or at least more unusual.

[Wind]

As I stood gaping at the awesome
beauty, Mather joined me.

[Thunder]

Neither of us spoke
for some time.

Then I heard him say, "Horace,
what God-given opportunity"

"has come our way to preserve
wonders like these before us."

COYOTE: Mather invited a group
of 15 influential Americans...

Prominent editors
and publishers, politicians,

leading businessmen,
and railroad builders...

To join him for two weeks in
the Sierra Nevada of California.

He called it
his Mather mountain party.

And he paid for it all, from
the newfangled air mattresses

placed under their sleeping bags

to a Chinese cook, who brought
along a sheet-metal stove

to prepare gourmet dinners.

Breakfasts included fresh fruit,
steak, eggs, sausages,

and hot, freshly-baked rolls.

Suppers were capped off

by English plum pudding with
brandy sauce, all of it served

on white linen tablecloths
with fine silverware and china.

GEORGE HARTZOG: He had two
concepts... pressing the flesh.

You got to go meet them
in person. Don't write to them.

Go shake their hands.

And secondly, go show it to them
because you don't get anywhere

just telling them about it.

They got to experience it
like you have.

And he made converts.

And he took people,
not the parishioners

who were singing in the choir,

but the members
who didn't go to church yet.

He was bringing them
to the parks

and putting them in the choir.

COYOTE: Corning across
a campsite littered

with tin cans and paper, he got
his wealthy friends

to help pick up the mess.

They spent a night
at Redwood Meadow,

just outside the boundary
of Sequoia National Park,

amidst a privately-owned stand
of majestic trees

Mather could not bear to think
might be cut down.

He bought the grove and donated
it to the nation.

Slowly, the group worked its way

up the western flank
of the Sierra,

fishing, hiking, and swimming in
cold mountain streams.

Then the hardiest of the bunch
decided to ascend Mount Whitney.

At 14,494 feet, the tallest
peak in the 48 states,

from which they could survey
the vast wilderness John Muir,

and now Mather,
wanted preserved.

By the end of their two weeks
in the outdoors, Albright said,

everyone in the party "looked
like a caveman,"

but his boss had converted
them all

into disciples for his cause.

And when they gathered for their
last meal together,

he sent them on their way
with an exhortation.

MAN AS MATHER:
Now, I want you to know

that our job is not over.

It is just beginning.

Remember that God has given us
these beautiful lands,

but none of this will
mean anything unless we have

a safe haven
for these wilderness places.

We must have
a National Park Service.

Every one
of us must pull our oar,

go out and spread the gospel.

DAYTON DUNCAN: He had met
John Muir,

and he knew the ecstasy
that Muir had talked about.

He knew the healing power
of nature, but he added to that

this notion of patriotism.

He called the parks "vast
schoolrooms of Americanism,"

that if you bring a person
to a park, they will feel better

about the nation that was saving
this place.

He was willing to wrap the park
idea in the American flag,

and perhaps somewhat justly so,

but he also saw it as
a tool to help promote the parks

and to get the political support
he needed

to do the things
he wanted to do.

MAN: Napi, the old man, came
down from his home in the sun,

to help his people,
the Blackfeet.

When his work was done, he went
up into the mountains,

where he came to two lakes.

There he said to himself,
"I believe I will go up"

"on that highest mountain
and change myself into stone."

In the crevice in the mountain,
he lay down

with just his face peeking out
and turned himself into a rock.

He is still there, watching for
people to come looking for him.

COYOTE: On the border
of Montana and Canada

in the northern reaches
of the Rockies,

where glaciers could
still be found

sculpting and polishing
mountains

rising 10,000 feet into the sky

and alpine cascades tumbled down
to form more than 650 lakes,

was Glacier National Park...
Established by Congress in 1910.

For centuries, the Blackfeet
Indians had claimed the land

as their own.

But during a mining boom that
brought in

swarms of prospectors,
they had been pressured

into signing a new treaty,
giving up the mountain portion

of their reservation.

MAN: The mountains have been
my last refuge.

Chief mountain is my head.
Now my head is cut off.

White Calf.

MAN: When you walk
into any natural national park,

you're walking
into somebody's homeland.

You're walking
into somebody's house.

You're walking

into somebody's church.

You're walking

into somebody's place,
where they've lived

since the time the Creator made
it for them.

And so you're walking into
someplace that has been utilized

for generations upon generations
in every form you could imagine.

This was our homeland.

COYOTE: When Congress failed
to appropriate adequate funds

for Glacier National Park's
administration,

the Great Northern Railway felt
free to treat the park

as its own little
mountain kingdom.

From the very beginnings
of the park movement,

long before Stephen Mather burst
upon the scene,

railroad companies had been
busily selling America's parks.

More tourists riding the rails
meant more money for them.

ALFRED RUNTE: The railroads make
scenery a national asset.

They make scenery
a national business.

Every railroad tried to have
a national park that would be

its very own.

So the Santa Fe develops
the Grand Canyon

and wants it to be
a full-fledged national park.

Northern Pacific
is in Yellowstone.

Union Pacific will come
to West Yellowstone.

The Great Northern Railway will
go to Glacier.

Northern Pacific will also go
out to Mount Rainier.

The Great Northern Railway will
follow it out to Mount Rainier.

The Southern Pacific will
develop Yosemite and Sequoia.

Their land agents, their people,
their passenger agents will be

in the halls of Congress,
cajoling Congress silently

from the wings.

"Make national parks, so we can
have more tourists going"

"to the national parks and have"

"this new and wonderful
industry."

COYOTE: On every Great Northern
Railway brochure and timetable,

on every company press release
and billboard,

3 words were always attached,
"See America first."

Western boosters had been using

the slogan
for more than a decade,

part of a promotional campaign

aimed at a very specific
audience...

Upper middle class
white Americans,

predominantly
from the East Coast,

who were spending an estimated
$500 million each year

vacationing in Europe.

RUNTE: "You want cathedrals?"

"We've got them
in Yosemite Valley."

"You want to see"

"the architecture here?"

"We've got it"

"at the Grand Canyon."

"Why are you Americans going to
Europe to spend"

"your hard-earned dollars
over there"

"when you have the Alps right
here in Glacier National Park?"

"Spend your dollars at home.
Be patriotic."

[Man yodeling on soundtrack]

COYOTE: The Great Northern liked
to promote Glacier National Park

as America's Switzerland.

When World War I broke out in
Europe in 1914, closing off

overseas travel, the railroads
saw a golden opportunity.

The Great Northern dispatched
a group of Blackfeet Indians

to tour the East.

They camped in teepees

on the roof of New York City's
McAlpin hotel,

rode the subway, and visited
the Brooklyn Bridge,

attracted huge crowds when they
performed war dances

at the annual
Travel and Vacation show.

Everywhere they went, the press
referred to them

not as the Blackfeet

but as the Indians of
Glacier National Park.

Blackfeet Indians were paid
to greet arriving passengers

in full regalia,

and they set up an array of
teepees for those who wanted

what the railroad called "an
authentic Western experience"

at 50 cents a night.

GERARD BAKER: In the early
days of the national parks,

the Indians were brought back

not as a people who would tell
a story,

but as somebody who can dance
for the tourists,

as somebody who
can sing for the tourists,

with their feathers,
their markings on their faces,

their buckskin outfits,
their bells, their drums.

They were expected to be
the Indian... to sing, to dance,

and to use the terms
that the tourists would be using

in those days.
For example, "How."

That's all they would say...

and then do their dances.

COYOTE: While some park purists
worried that the railroads

already wielded too much
influence,

Stephen Mather saw them
as partners,

not only to promote the parks,
but to help him in his quest

to create
a separate park service.

DUNCAN: If you think of Mather

as sort of an acolyte
of John Muir

but taking things into
a new direction.

He did remember from John Muir,
"Nothing dollarable is safe."

And so how do you make it safe?
You make it dollarable

by saying, "OK, there
is this value to national parks"

"beyond the beauty,
beyond the sentimentality,"

"beyond spirituality."

"There's a dollar value to it."

"We've always had the railroads."

"And if we attach that to it,
we can get chambers of commerce,"

"and we can form this movement"

"that will protect the parks."

And what's interesting about it
is while he's pushing

this sort of economic argument
as far and as hard as he can,

no one was an example
of the healing power,

the spiritual power,

the rejuvenation of being in
a national park

more than Stephen Mather.

MAN AS MARK TWAIN: I turned
my eyes upon the volcano again.

For a mile and a half
in front of us

and half a mile on either side,

the floor of the abyss
was magnificently illuminated.

Like the campfires of a great
army far away,

it looked like
a colossal railroad map

of the state of Massachusetts
done in chain lightning

on a midnight sky.

Imagine it.
Imagine a coal black sky

shivered into a tangled
network of angry fire.

I thought it possible that its
like had not been seen

since the children of Israel
wandered on their long march

through the desert

over a path illuminated by
the mysterious pillar of fire.

And I was sure that I now had
a vivid conception

of what the majestic pillar of
fire was like,

which almost amounted
to a revelation.

The smell of sulfur is strong,
but not unpleasant

to a sinner.

Mark Twain.

COYOTE: Back in 1866, a young
newspaper reporter writing

under the pen name
Mark Twain had been

among the first tourists to stay
at the new Volcano House

on the rim of Kilauea...

An active volcano on Hawaii's
big island,

the home, according to native
Hawaiians, of Pele...

The goddess of
destruction and creation.

Twain's colorful descriptions
helped launch his career

and brought the islands'
attractions to the attention

of thousands of Americans.

"Compared to the huge
caldera of Kilauea

"with its lakes of fire,"
Twain wrote,

"Italy's Mount Vesuvius was just
a soup kettle."

The nearby Mauna Loa,
also an active volcano,

was even bigger, rising
56,000 feet

from the bottom of the Pacific...
13,679 of them above sea level...

The most massive mountain
on Earth.

And on the island of Maui
was the dormant volcano called

Haleakala, the house of the sun.

Twain climbed
to its 10,000-foot summit,

peered into
its vast and desolate crater,

and with his companions,

spent the afternoon idly pushing
boulders off the edge,

simply to watch them tumble
thousands of feet

to the crater's floor.

"It was magnificent sport,"
he wrote.

"We wore ourselves out at it."

After camping
on the crater's edge,

they awoke early the next
morning with a blanket of clouds

far below their feet,

stretching endlessly
across the Pacific

toward the rising sun.

MAN AS TWAIN: I felt
like the last man,

neglected of the judgment and
left pinnacled in mid-Heaven...

A forgotten relic of
a vanished world.

COYOTE: By 1916, 50 years
after Twain's visit,

tourists were now coming in ever
greater numbers

to gawk at Kilauea's
fiery displays.

As proof that they had
been there, some would break off

stalactites in the lava caves or
singe their post cards

by extending them
into the furnace-hot fissures.

At Haleakala, the only place
in the world

where the distinctive
silver sword plant grows,

taking half a century to mature,
so many visitors

had gotten into the habit of
carrying them off as souvenirs

that the species was threatened
with extinction.

On August 1, 1916, after
more than a decade of lobbying

by a coalition of naturalists
and scientists,

businessmen and boosters,

and the enthusiastic support
of Stephen Mather,

Hawaii National Park was born.

But Congress declined
to appropriate any money for it

on the belief,
one senator explained,

"that it should not
cost anything to run a volcano."

DUNCAN: I think one of the most
memorable moments of my life was

walking out onto the lava fields
at Hawaii Volcanoes.

And this field off
in the distance had

these glowing ribbons of light.

And we walked in the darkness
over the lava fields

and came over this rise.

And there was
the coast of Hawaii.

And over it was flowing
a waterfall of lava,

pouring over the top,

and creating steam down
in the bottom.

And as the sun came up,
we walked farther and farther

until we got to that place.

There was heat. There
was this acid smell in the air,

sometimes almost overpowering.

But there you were watching
new land.

For an Iowan...

you know, new land
is a great notion.

I felt like I was in Earth's
maternity ward.

You know that euphoric rush you
get if you walk

into a maternity ward and see
all those little babies?

Well, here was, you know,
a little bit of land being made

where that lava met the sea.

And unlike other
parts that preserve the place

where the monuments of erosion...

Of things
that had been taken away,

where glaciers
have pushed through

or where water has cut
a Grand Canyon...

I was watching new land.

[Birds calling]

COYOTE: In 1604,
sailing off the coast

of what would one day become
the state of Maine,

the French explorer Champlain
had made special note

of an island he named
Mount Desert...

Dominated by looming knobs
of bare granite,

with tall peaks rising so close
to the Atlantic

that they catch the nation's
first rays of sunlight

each morning.

For centuries, it
had been the home of the Micmac

and the Abenaki...
The people of the dawn.

Then for the 150 years after
Champlain, the French claimed it

as part of their North American
possessions, calling it

Acadia, "earthly paradise"

before it passed to British
and then American hands.

The island was a sparsely
populated collection

of fishing villages until 1844,

when the celebrated landscape
artist Thomas Cole arrived

in search of new scenery
for his palette.

Because of Cole's influence,
the island quickly became

the favorite summer locale for
other painters,

all of them drawing inspiration
from the rugged shorelines,

pristine lakes,
and tranquil forests.

Wealthy easterners
began showing up, too,

to spend the summer far from
crowded and polluted cities

at the place the nation's top
artists had made fashionable.

To accentuate the island's early
connection to France,

some of the newcomers began
calling the island

"Mount Dessert."

[Camera shutter clicks]

Soon they were buying up land

and building
their own summer homes...

Places with room enough to
properly entertain and impress

their socially prominent
friends.

The proud owners had a special
name for their new dwellings.

They called them cottages.

MAN: The future at all
our leading seashore places

in truth belongs
to the cottager,

and it is really useless
to resist him.

He moves on all the choice sites
with calm and remorselessness.

His march along the American
coast is nearly as resistless

as that of the hordes
who overthrew the Roman Empire.

WOMAN: Mount Desert Island was,
along with Newport,

the social summer institution.

This is where the rich

and the famous

and the patrician families met,

played, partied,
had their children marry.

They are exclusive.

They are restrictive.

They do not welcome people who
come from immigrant backgrounds,

from different backgrounds
of white Protestant upper class.

COYOTE: But now
one cottager worried

that too much of the island was
being locked up.

As a boy, Charles Eliot
had spent many happy summers

vacationing with his family
on Mount Desert.

After joining the landscape
architecture firm

of Frederick Law Olmsted
in Boston,

Eliot had been inspired by
the great public spaces Olmsted

had helped create or preserve,

including New York's
Central Park

and Yosemite Valley.

Eliot decided to do the same for
Mount Desert,

ambitiously drawing up a plan
to make more of the island

accessible to the public.

But before he could put any of
his ideas to work,

Eliot contracted meningitis
and died suddenly at age 38.

Going through his son's papers
to prepare a loving biography,

Eliot's grief-stricken father,
Charles W. Eliot,

came across his
namesake's idealistic dreams

for Mount Desert.

As president
of Harvard University

and one of
the most prestigious members

of the island's
summer community,

the elder Eliot was in
a position to do

everything possible to make
his son's dream come true.

In the late summer of 1901, he
summoned his neighbors

and reminded them that many of
their favorite places

to hike and picnic and enjoy
a scenic vista were

now off-limits because
of new owners.

They established

the Hancock County Trustees
of Public Reservations

to acquire by gift or purchase
from the island's residents

land deemed important
for its scenic or historic value

and then hold on to it
and manage it for public use.

MAN: I had seen the wreckage

of the great natural landscape
by the hotel builder

and the private owner.

When President Eliot
brought out his plan

for the protection and saving of
our Mount Desert landscape,

it made a strong appeal to me.

George Dorr.

COYOTE: George Bucknam Dorr was
another cottager on the island.

He was nearly
50 years old in 1901,

but had never needed to work
for a living,

thanks to a generous inheritance
from his parents,

whose investments in the textile
industry had placed them

among New England's
social elite.

Now he lived alone in his
family's grand house

in Bar Harbor,

where he carried on the family
tradition of entertaining

prominent guests,

and insisted on taking a swim

in the frigid waters
of the Atlantic every morning.

What Dorr loved best was putting
a few crackers in his pockets

and taking long rigorous hikes.

Many of the island's trails had,
in fact, been blazed by him.

Dorr quickly became

the organization's
most dedicated worker,

slowly buying up important
scenic parcels of the land.

Once the trustees had acquired

a significant
part of the island,

they began looking for a way
to protect it forever.

MAN AS GEORGE DORR: To
the secretary of the interior:

Sir, on behalf

of the Hancock County Trustees
of Public Reservations,

state of Maine, I have the honor
to offer in free gift

to the United States a unique
and noble tract of land

upon our Eastern seacoast.

Sincerely yours, George Dorr.

[Car horn honks]

COYOTE: But in Washington,
Dorr learned

that even giving the land away
was going to be difficult.

At the time, there were

no national parks
east of the Mississippi.

And such an idea... to create one
from donated land...

Had never been proposed.

Horace Albright advised Dorr
that Congress could be bypassed

if President Woodrow Wilson
could be persuaded to use

the Antiquities Act and issue
an executive order,

setting aside 5,000 acres
of the island

as a national monument.

For 3 years, Dorr kept at it.

And on July 8, 1916,

President Wilson finally signed
the proclamation.

But George Dorr was still
not satisfied.

If a president could
unilaterally create

a national monument,
Dorr feared,

he could just as easily
take it away.

Although his own inheritance was
becoming dangerously depleted,

Dorr vowed he wouldn't
rest until the national monument

became a congressionally
authorized, full-fledged,

permanent national park.

MAN AS MATHER: The national
parks are an American idea,

the one thing we have not
imported.

It came about because earnest
men and women became

violently excited

at the possibility
of these great assets passing

from the public control.

COYOTE: Years before Stephen
Mather arrived in Washington,

supporters had argued
that the haphazard collection

of national parks needed to be
brought together

under a single federal agency.

And yet, bill after bill to
create one had died in Congress,

the victim of quiet
but effective lobbying

by powerful
commercial interests,

hoping to exploit park lands,

and by John Muir's old nemesis,
Gifford Pinchot,

and his forest service.

Pinchot believed
that conservation meant using,

not simply preserving,
natural resources,

and most certainly did not want
a potential rival

within the government.

MAN AS MATHER: This nation is
richer in natural scenery

of the first order
than any other nation,

but it does not know it.

It possesses
an empire of grandeur,

which it scarcely has heard of.

It owns the most inspiring
playgrounds

and the best-equipped nature
schools in the world

and is serenely ignorant
of the fact.

In its national parks it has
neglected

an economic asset of
incalculable value.

[Piano playing on soundtrack]

COYOTE: Stephen Mather's
promotional crusade

for a national park service now
shifted into high gear.

Washington had never
seen anything quite like it.

All over the country, newspapers
and magazines ran

glowing feature stories
about the parks,

the result of
Mather's constant cultivation

of publishers and writers.

Schoolchildren were encouraged
to write essays about the parks

for cash prizes.

The General Federation
of Women's Clubs

and American Civic Association
launched

letter writing campaigns.

The "National Geographic
Magazine" devoted

an entire issue to the scenic
wonders of America.

And Mather made sure a copy
was placed

on every congressman's desk.

Then he directed his publicist,
Robert Sterling Yard,

to produce
"The National Parks Portfolio,"

a hardbound book of several
hundred glossy pages filled

with photographs
of every national park

and every national monument
in the country.

The book was such a hit,

Mather ordered up a smaller
paperback version.

2.7 million copies were sold
in the first year.

Meanwhile, Mather convened
a group that drafted

the nuts and bolts language
of a bill to create

a separate parks bureau within
the Interior Department.

Among them was
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.,

who was asked to add a statement
of purpose meant

to stand the test of time.

It would also enshrine in words
the fundamental contradiction

that has always been a part of
the story of the national parks.

"The new agency," he
wrote, "should manage the parks"

"for the enjoyment
of the American people"

"and at the same time,
keep them unimpaired"

"for the enjoyment
of future generations."

MAN AS ALBRIGHT: We were aware
of and discussed

the paradox of use and enjoyment
of the parks by the people

versus their preservation
unimpaired.

Of course, we knew there was
this paradox.

We had finally come
to the belief

that with rational, careful,
and loving thought,

it could be done.

Horace Albright.

DUNCAN: Well, the statement of
purpose is broad,

I think deliberately so,
and I think magnificently so.

If they had outlined in
great detail

what was going to be permitted
and what wasn't,

it would be like if the founders
of our nation had said

what they meant by all men
being created equal and said,

"And by the way in case you
don't get it,

it's all white men of property
that are created equal,"

it wouldn't have been
the statement

that drew us into the future.

And so with the parks'
Organic Act, as it's called,

being lofty and broad,
it allows us... each generation...

To come to grips with it,

just as we do
the meaning of liberty.

COYOTE: On August 25, 1916,
President Woodrow Wilson

signed into law an act creating
the National Park Service

to oversee 5 1/2 million acres

of some of the most beautiful
scenery on Earth.

Stephen Mather, whose relentless
energy had finally achieved

what so many people had been
fighting for for so many years,

was named the new agency's
first director.

Horace Albright agreed to stay
on as his second in command.

MAN AS MATHER:
The parks will have

a constantly enlarging,
revivifying influence

on our national life,

for which there is
no other public agency.

They are our antidote for
national restlessness.

They are national character
and health builders.

They are giving a new impetus
to sane living in this country.

COYOTE: Five months later,

Mather convened a 5-day
conference in Washington, D.C.,

a gathering of park supporters
from across the country

to celebrate the park movement.

But as the conference went on,
Albright found himself having

to find someone
to fill in as presiding officer

because his boss

was mysteriously absent
from the proceedings.

The night
after the conference ended,

Albright was summoned
to the Cosmos Club

and ushered into a private room,

where he found Mather surrounded
by a few of his closest friends.

MAN AS ALBRIGHT: He was rocking
back and forth,

alternately crying, moaning,

and hoarsely trying
to get something said.

I couldn't understand a thing.
He was incoherent.

Suddenly, he broke out
of my hold, rushed for the door,

and, with an anguished cry,
proclaimed

he couldn't live any
longer feeling the way he did.

We all understood what he said
that time.

COYOTE: They contacted Mather's
wife, who asked them

to bring him to a family doctor
in Pennsylvania.

She confided that her husband
had suffered a similar breakdown

in 1903.

Three subsequent episodes
had been prevented

from spiraling out of control,
she added,

only by his retreating

into the wilderness
solitudes of the West...

The trips
which had originally inspired

his passion for the parks.

After accompanying Mather
to the doctor,

Albright returned to Washington,

where he and interior secretary
Lane agreed

to keep Mather's
true condition secret

until more could be learned
about his chances of recovery.

In his absence, Albright
would serve as acting director.

Mather, meanwhile, was sent

to a sanitarium outside
Philadelphia.

His condition worsened at first.

Twice, he attempted
to kill himself.

But his wife believed he would
pull through,

as long as he could be convinced

he had something to look
forward to.

On the wall
of his hospital room,

she permitted only two
decorations.

Both of them were

framed pictures
of Yosemite National Park.

MAN: When I first saw

this tremendous upheaval of
mountains, this range before me

with McKinley rising
in the center,

my impressions were exactly
the same as those given me

by looking down
into the Grand Canyon.

One was nature carved down
into the surface of the Earth,

and the other was

the most magnificent upheaval of
nature above it.

At such times, man feels

his atomic insignificance in
this universe.

Charles Sheldon.

COYOTE: Among the participants
at the National Parks conference

was Charles Sheldon,

a Vermont native,
who had made a fortune

in the railroad and mining
business, allowing him

to retire at age 35
and devote his energies

to his personal passion...

The study of
wild mountain sheep.

Like his friend Stephen Mather,

Sheldon did not
do anything halfway.

As an avid hunter and skilled
but amateur naturalist,

he embarked on field trips to
observe North American sheep

that took him
from the mountains of Mexico,

all the way up the Rockies
through Canada,

to the territory of Alaska

and the highest point on
the continent-Mount McKinley,

20,320 spectacular feet
above sea level.

MAN: And there's something
distant and special

about that mountain.

Well, it's bigger than hell,

and it's colder
than hell on top.

They said it was cold as

the heart of an elderly whore.

I like it
because unlike Everest,

which rises out of
a very high plateau...

I think the base camp
on Everest is

something like 16,000 feet high.

And here you see the whole
magnificence of this peak

rising almost from sea level.

It's very thrilling.

COYOTE: The local Athabaskan
Indians reverently called

the perpetually icebound and
snow-covered mountain Denali,

"the high one."

But in 1896 when the region
was still marked

as unexplored on official maps,

a failed businessman
turned prospector,

who had been arguing politics
with his companions,

dubbed it Mount McKinley
after the presidential candidate

he happened to be supporting.

By 1903, the allure of being
the first to scale

the continent's tallest summit
had begun to attract

a handful of adventurers.

One of them, Frederick Cook,

president of
the prestigious Explorers Club,

announced that
he had made it to the top

in a wild dash of 2 weeks,

and produced a photo
to support his claim.

But a later expedition proved
that Cook had been lying...

By replicating his photo at one
of the mountain's lower peaks

as proof of his deceit.

A few years later, 4 prospectors
in a bar near Fairbanks

decided they would claim
the honor of being

the first to conquer McKinley.

Before setting off
on their dogsleds,

they promised to place
an American flag on the summit,

where their friends in the bar
might see it through telescopes.

MAN: And with their bib overalls
and boots and canvas parkas

and jug of hot chocolate
and a couple of doughnuts,

they headed up

from their 11,000-foot camp

and made it up in one day

to the north peak.

Modern climbers
just stand in awe

of this immense gallop up there,

because they went up there with
no climbing experience,

no route except as they discover
it foot by foot,

and they got up there and they
got back in one day.

Two of them made it to the top.

COYOTE: Many people simply
refuse to believe their story.

Besides, it was pointed out,
the north peak is

actually 850 feet lower
than the south peak.

Finally, in 1913, a team
led by Hudson Stuck,

Alaska's Episcopal archdeacon;

Harry Karstens, an experienced
local outdoorsman;

and Walter Harper...

The half-Indian son of
a fur trapper,

made it all the way
to the top of the south peak.

MAN: There was
no pride of conquest,

no gloating over good fortune
that had hoisted us

a few hundred feet higher

than others who had struggled
and been discomfited.

Rather was the feeling
that a privileged communion

with the high places
of the earth had been granted.

And to cast our eyes
down from them,

seeing all things as they
spread out

from the windows
of heaven itself.

MAN AS CHARLES SHELDON: I have
often wondered in listening

to descriptions of emotions
evoked by the scenery

of our national parks

why it was that animals are not
more mentioned.

Does not, like the spire
in the civilized landscape,

a wild animal so adorn it

that we feel that it is
complete?

That feeling, the completeness
of all your feelings

aroused by such wild scenery,

will be constantly gratified

to the uttermost
in this proposed park.

Charles Sheldon.

COYOTE: For the naturalist
Charles Sheldon,

what made the region unique

was not just
the awe-inspiring mountain,

but the abundance of wildlife
teeming all around it.

Grizzly bears
roaming unconcerned

about the presence
of any other animal,

including humans;

moose, which Sheldon described

as looking more
like prehistoric beasts

than any animal we have;

"caribou," he said,
"that surrounded me

"like cattle on a cattle ranch";

And the species that had drawn
him north in the first place...

The distinctive Dali sheep.

Sheldon made 2 visits

to the wilderness
around Mount McKinley...

One for an entire year
to observe the sheep,

study their habits,

and collect specimens

for the American Museum
of Natural History.

Back in New York,
Sheldon began promoting

the idea of making McKinley
a national park

among his fellow members
of the Boone and Crockett Club,

including the founders...
George Bird Grinnell

and ex-President
Theodore Roosevelt.

Without protection,
he told them,

the wildlife near Mount McKinley
would be slaughtered

by market hunters.

DUNCAN: Charles Sheldon,
George Bird Grinnell,

Theodore Roosevelt...

They are the closest
thing that we had in America

to aristocracy...

Really wealthy people who
because of their heredity were

freed oftentimes from having
to go out and make a living.

That's as close to royalty
as we could get.

And while others like
them might be using that status,

using that wealth to accumulate
more for themselves,

almost counterintuitively,

they were out there looking out
for everybody's benefit.

They were patricians
but populists.

They were guardians
of the greater good,

though it wasn't going to
necessarily benefit them

personally.

BILL BROWN:
The movement for the park

that Sheldon initiated
occurred at a time

when a clubby atmosphere
worked very well.

It was a small power elite.

These people belonged
to the same clubs,

had gone to the same schools,

had innumerable
interties with one another.

I mean, it was a place where
about a dozen people counted,

and you could round up those
dozen people

if you were a Charles Sheldon.

MAN AS SHELDON: It has been said

that the mountains
would remain there.

Why make it a national park now?

The reason for doing it
immediately is

to save the magnificent
herds of game,

which are now threatened.

They exist there as a link
connecting this life

with the life of the past ages,

just as the records in
the rocks show

the records of the past ages
there before you.

COYOTE: As they had once done
for Yellowstone's wildlife,

members of the Boone and
Crockett Club swung into action.

With his friend Stephen Mather
confined to a sanitarium,

Sheldon moved to Washington,

prowling the halls of
the Capitol

to push the bill through.

On February 26, 1917,
he personally delivered it

to President Wilson for signing.

His only disappointment
was that Congress,

in creating
Mount McKinley National Park,

had ignored his repeated pleas
to return the mountain

and its new park
to its original name... Denali.

In the coming decades,

the highest peak of
North America would continue

to attract, challenge, and awe

climbers from
all over the world,

including
Bradford and Barbara Washburn

from Lexington, Massachusetts.

WOMAN: And a movie
company came to Brad

and asked if he would lead
an expedition to Mount McKinley.

And one of the people
from R.K.O. came to me and said,

"Mrs. Washburn, I understand
you've climbed the mountain."

"Why don't you
come on this trip?"

And I said, "Well, I can't.
I've got 3 little children."

"I certainly can't do that."

And so then they got Brad

behind the scenes and said,

"If you could persuade your wife"

"to go on this trip, it would
make a better movie"

"to have a girl in it."

But anyway, I went,
and it wasn't that bad.

It was hard work, at least for
me, trudging up the mountain.

I had to be concentrating
to keep going

and not be a problem to anybody
and not have to take a rest.

When you're on a rope
with other guys,

you don't want to take a rest.

BRADFORD WASHBURN: I think
one of the most exciting things

about having Barbara
on the trip was

the fact that we were sharing
the beauty with each other.

We snuggled in bed together at
night there in the mountain.

And I remember a picture I got
of her that year

at 18,000 feet looking down

the backside of McKinley.

McKinley's an old pal,

but you have to set foot
on that mountain

almost with reverence

because if it wants
to, it can tear you to pieces.

The view from
the top is wonderful.

I know the fellow who made
the first ascent of McKinley,

and he was asked later on

what the view from the top of
McKinley was,

and he hesitated for a moment.

He said, "That's like looking
out the windows of heaven."

I've never forgotten that.

When we left the last time,
we both cried.

It was like leaving
a good friend.

MAN AS ALBRIGHT: Each idea I
have must be tested.

Each fork of the trail
must be examined.

Maybe it's
like constructing a house.

I'm at the stage where
I'm laying the foundations.

I have
no blueprints and no architect,

only the ideal and principles

for which the Park Service
was created.

I think of myself as an explorer
in unknown territory.

Horace Albright.

COYOTE: With his mentor
Stephen Mather

still hospitalized,
the task of organizing

the brand-new National Park
Service fell to Horace Albright.

At 27, he was
the youngest person

in the fledgling organization,

2 years younger than
the department's messenger boy.

There was so much to be done...

Testifying before Congress,

embarking on a 10,000-mile
inspection of the western parks,

and fending off questions about
his boss' whereabouts.

Albright's task
became even more challenging

in April of 1917.

The United States entered
the Great War

that had been raging in Europe
for almost 3 years.

Western lumber and livestock
interests saw

the war mobilization as
an opportunity

to exploit the national parks.

President Wilson was persuaded
to reduce the size

of Washington's Mount Olympus
national monument

by one half in order to open up
virgin stands of forest

for timber cutting.

Ranchers eager to graze their
sheep and cattle in the parks

encouraged friendly newspapers
to editorialize

that soldiers need meat to eat,
not wildflowers.

There were even proposals

that Yellowstone National Park's
elk and buffalo herds

be slaughtered for canned meat
to send to the troops overseas.

Albright did the best he could
to protect the parks

from it all.

When Interior Secretary Lane
ordered him

to let 50,000 sheep graze
in Yosemite Valley,

Albright stopped the plan
by threatening to resign.

During the war, Albright
accepted an invitation to visit

southern Utah,
where the Virgin River carves

its way through a beautiful
canyon of sandstone cliffs.

It had been set aside
as a national monument in 1909,

named Mukuntuweap, from
the Paiute word for "canyon,"

but had been virtually ignored
by the federal government

ever since.

Albright was the first official
from the Interior Department

to actually see it.

MAN AS ALBRIGHT:
Local Utah people said

that Yosemite was a Mukuntuweap
without color.

But this didn't faintly prepare
me for the reality

of the towering rock walls
splashed

with brilliant hues of tans and
reds interspersed with whites.

It was love at first sight
for me.

I was so impressed that
I determined we should expand

Mukuntuweap and have it made
a national park.

COYOTE: Albright's enthusiasm
was enough to persuade

President Wilson
to expand the national monument

and to change its name
from Mukuntuweap...

Which Albright believed was

too hard to pronounce, spell,
and remember...

To the name the local Mormons
used for the canyon:

Zion, the new Jerusalem, set
aside by God

for the pure at heart.

At the end of 1919, Congress set
it aside as a national park.

MAN: I was
brought into the world

on January, 5, 1914,
by a midwife in a lumber shack

on the family farm.

That's just about where Zion
Park headquarters stands today.

But as I grew up, of course, I

saw the park develop.

I saw roads built.

I saw the lodges
come into being.

I can say that I and the park

more or less
did grow up together.

Later I became a dishwasher at
the Zion Lodge.

Whenever I got the chance,
if I get my work done in time,

I'd go down and stand outside
the recreation hall

and listen to the naturalist
give his talk.

And I was fascinated, of course,

mostly by the fact that, gee,
here are these rangers

that are dressed nicely.

They got a good job.

I'd like to be one of those.

Well, after World War ll, as I
came home from Europe,

I was hired
as a seasonal naturalist.

I loved it.

I used to say, "Golly, I'd work
for nothing,"

except that I had to eat.

I don't have any Indian genes in
me that I know of.

I wouldn't go so far as to say

that I consider the peaks
and the rocks have life

and talk to you,

but it has something spiritual
about it.

I did write a poem...

Where I talked to the mountain
and it talks back to me,

but that's fantasy, of course.

But why not dream a little bit?

MAN AS ALBRIGHT: Mr. Mather's
doctor recommended

that I be
the one and only visitor

other than Mrs. Mather
for a while.

"His life depends upon national
parks," the doctor said.

"I think I can break him back
through the parks."

"But without them, I don't know
what may happen."

COYOTE:
18 months after his collapse,

Stephen Mather
returned to his job.

He threw himself into his work
as if he had never been away.

MAN AS MATHER: The national
parks seem destined

to play a role in satisfying
the longings of the people

in times of
great nervous tension

through the calming and
inspiring influence of nature.

Anyone who has been
so fortunate as to witness

their marvels
and spend quiet hours

in the inspiring contemplation
of their beauties

will surely return home with
a burning determination

to love and work for, and
if necessary fight and die for,

the glorious land which is his.

TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS:
Our national parks are

places of pilgrimage...

A place where we return
over and over again to be still,

to be contemplative.

And not only do we save

these lands

or save these national parks.

They save us.

There's something
about this wild continuity

that gives us courage,

that allows us to be the best
of who we are as human beings.

COYOTE: Reinvigorated
from his time in the parks,

Mather became enthusiastic

about the scenic attractions
of Utah

and the southwestern deserts.

He pushed for the creation
of Arches national monument,

the world's largest collection

of exquisite red sandstone
architecture sculpted

over the eons by wind,
rain, and ice.

He also lobbied
for what eventually became

Great Basin National Park, home

of the tough
and gnarled bristlecone pines,

the oldest
living things on earth:

some growing
for nearly 5,000 years.

And he was
instrumental in setting aside

a magnificent natural
amphitheater carved by erosion

from the side
of a mountain ridge,

filled with eerie rock spires
and minarets called hoodoos:

Bryce Canyon National Park.

It was named in honor
of an early settler,

Ebenezer Bryce, who had long
since left the area

after reportedly saying,

"It's a hell of a place
to lose a cow."

But now Mather set his sights
on a even bigger canyon,

whose absence from his list of
national parks bothered him

more than anything.

MAN AS J.B. PRIESTLEY: There
is, of course, no sense at all

in trying
to describe the Grand Canyon.

Those who have not seen
it will not believe

any possible description.

Those who have seen it know that
it cannot be described.

It is not a showplace, a beauty
spot, but a revelation.

The Colorado River made it,

but you feel when you are there

that God gave the Colorado River
its instructions.

The thing is
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

in stone and magic light.

I hear rumors of visitors who
were disappointed...

The same people who will be
disappointed

at the Day of Judgment.

J.B. Priestley.

COYOTE: It is
the grandest canyon on earth...

277 miles long, 10 miles wide,
a mile deep,

and getting a foot deeper
every thousand years

as the Colorado River
patiently cuts its way

through layer
upon layer of time.

"A grand geological library,"
John Muir called it.

"A collection of stone books,
tier on tier,"

"conveniently arranged
for the student."

From limestone and sandstone
and shale,

all the way down to some of the
oldest exposed rock on earth,

Precambrian Vishnu schist formed
1.7 billion years ago.

The home over thousands of years
of the ancient Puebloans

and the Hopi, the Walapai,
and the Havasupai,

the Paiute and the Navajo.

It entered recorded history
in 1540,

when Spanish conquistadors under
the command of Coronado

peered into its depths and were
awed and staggered

by its immensity,

just as every visitor
who followed them would be.

In 1869, a one-armed Civil War
veteran and geology professor

named John Wesley Powell,

hoping to fill in the biggest
remaining gap

of unknown territory in the maps
of the United States,

set off down the Colorado.

It was a costly, deadly trip.

He began with 9 men in
4 wooden boats

and emerged with 5 men
and 2 boats.

But Powell's expedition was
a huge success

and brought the Grand Canyon
to national attention.

Proposals to make it a national
park dated

all the way back to the 1880s.

But they all had failed
in Congress

because of fierce opposition
from local ranchers,

miners, and settlers who did not
want the federal government

imposing restrictions on what
they could and could not do.

Then President
Theodore Roosevelt had stretched

the limits of the newly passed
Antiquities Act,

and with the stroke of his pen
established

the Grand Canyon
National Monument.

"The Canyon," Roosevelt said,

"represented the most impressive
piece of scenery I

"have ever looked at,

"the one great site which every
American should see.

"Leave it as it is," he had
advised the people of Arizona.

No one had listened to him.

A few rustic hotels
were already perched

on the Canyon's precipice
when the Atchison, Topeka,

and Santa Fe Railway extended
its tracks to the South Rim

and began construction of even
more buildings.

Yearly visitation rose into
the tens of thousands.

Among them was
an itinerant piano player

and aspiring composer from
Los Angeles named Ferde Grofe,

who was so overwhelmed
by the experience

that years later the memory
of it would inspire

his masterpiece,
the "Grand Canyon Suite."

[Music playing on soundtrack]

Equally impressed was a humorist
from Paducah, Kentucky,

named Irvin S. Cobb.

MAN AS IRVIN S. COBB:
I think my preconceived conception

of the Canyon was the same
conception most people have

before they come out to see
it for themselves...

A straight up-and-down slit
in the earth.

It is no such thing.

Imagine the very heart
of the world laid bare

before our eyes.

There's nothing between
you and the undertaker

except 6,000 feet, more or less,
of dazzling Arizona climate.

Having seen the Canyon from
the top, the next thing to do is

to go down into it.

Down a winding footpath moves
the procession,

all as nervous as cats and some
holding to their saddle pommels

with death grips.

All at once, you notice

that the person immediately
ahead of you

has apparently ridden right over
the wall of the Canyon.

It is at this point

that some tourists tender
their resignations

to take effect immediately.

You reflect
that thousands of persons

have already done this thing,

that thousands of others
are going to do it,

and that no serious accident
has yet occurred,

which is some comfort
but not much.

The natives will tell you
the tale of a man

who made the trip

by crawling around the more
sensational corners

upon his hands and knees.

Presently, when you've begun to
piece together

the tattered fringes of
your nerves,

you realize that this canyon is
even more wonderful

when viewed from within than it
is when viewed from without.

Also, you begin to notice now

that it is most extensively
autographed.

Apparently, about every other
person who came this way

remarked to himself, This canyon
was practically completed

and only needed his signature
as collaborator

to round it out.

COYOTE: Of all the entrepreneurs
who descended

upon the Grand Canyon
in the early 20th Century

hoping to earn a living
off its scenery,

none worked harder than
2 brothers from Pennsylvania...

Ellsworth and Emery Kolb.

In 1902, they had opened
a photographic studio

on the South Rim, at first
in a canvas tent

near one of the hotels,

and then in a wooden structure
they built

at the head
of Bright Angel Trail,

the principal route from the rim
to the river far below.

Every morning, as
the mule-backed caravans began

their descent, Emery Kolb would
take their photograph

at a prearranged spot
near the trail head

with his 5-by-7 view camera

and enter information about them
in his logbook.

Then he would take off
down the trail himself,

carrying his glass plate
negatives as he ran

to a makeshift darkroom he
and his brother had constructed

near a small spring halfway
between the rim and the river.

Kolb would develop his pictures,

then scurry back up the trail
in time to offer

the photos for sale when
the mule trains returned

from the bottom.

Each trip to the darkroom was

4 1/2 miles
and 3,000 vertical feet down,

4 1/2 miles
and 3,000 vertical feet back up.

MAN AS COBB:
Just under the first terrace,

a halt was made

while the official photographer
took a picture.

And when you get back, he has
your finished copy ready for you

so you can see for yourself just
how pale and haggard

and walleyed and like a typhoid
patient you looked.

COYOTE: During slow seasons,

the Kolb brothers set off
to explore parts of the Canyon

tourists never experienced,

always lugging their bulky
camera equipment

and often
taking great risks to find

the perfect vantage point.

They brought back some
of the most stunning photographs

of the Grand Canyon
the world had ever seen,

offered them for sale, and had
trouble keeping up

with the demand for copies.

And when that wasn't enough,
in 1911,

they decided to retrace

John Wesley Powell's historic
boat trip down the Colorado

and record it not
only with still photographs,

but with
a motion-picture camera.

The trip took 3 rough,
exhilarating months

and included a number of close
calls on the turbulent river,

including one in which Emery
insisted on filming

his brother's precarious
situation

before tossing
him a life preserver.

They emerged with the world's
first moving pictures

of the raging Colorado

and the majestic canyon
it had carved,

took their finished product
on a lecture tour

to packed theaters all around
the East Coast,

and then built an addition to
their studio

on the Canyon's rim
to house a small auditorium,

where every day Emery Kolb would
personally narrate the film

for tourists, who had come
thousands of miles

to see the Grand Canyon
but preferred

that at least part of
their experience be confined

to a movie screen.

MAN AS COBB: Nearly everybody

on taking a look at
the Grand Canyon comes right out

and admits its wonders
are absolutely indescribable,

and then proceeds to write

anywhere from 2,000 to 50,000
words giving the full details.

In the presence
of the Grand Canyon,

language just simply fails you,

and all the parts of speech
go dead lame.

When the Creator made it,
He failed to make

a word to cover it.

Irvin S. Cobb.

MAN AS MATHER: In
many of the foreign estimates

of the great natural spectacles
of America,

the Grand Canyon stands
at the top.

Its absence from the list of
our national parks, therefore,

seems to belittle, in
foreign eyes,

our entire national park system.

What can the system
amount to, they ask,

if it doesn't even
include the Grand Canyon?

MAN AS ALBRIGHT:
Mather desperately wanted

the Grand Canyon
made into a national park.

I felt it would be a tremendous
boost to his health

and well-being,

so I put in an enormous amount
of time and energy

in the project.

COYOTE: In their quest
to add the Canyon

to the system of parks
they were building,

Stephen Mather and
Horace Albright found themselves

blocked at every turn by a man
who considered the Canyon

his own private domain,

and was unafraid to take
on the federal government,

the Santa Fe Railroad, or anyone
else who got in his way.

MAN: I was exploring
the Grand Canyon

before other men ever knew there
was a Grand Canyon.

I went there to seek a fortune,

which all prospectors
expect to make.

And I've always said that I
would make more money

out of the Grand Canyon
than any other man.

Ralph Henry Cameron.

COYOTE: Ralph Henry Cameron was
a prospector

whose opinion of himself was as
grand as the canyon

he planned to exploit.

A few of Cameron's mines
actually yielded

some valuable ore,

but the vast majority
of his claims seemed

conveniently located

on the most scenic
spots along the South Rim,

and he never seemed to do much
mining on them.

At one claim near the head of
the Bright Angel Trail,

which he preferred to call
the Cameron Trail,

he built a cabin,
named it Cameron's Hotel,

and dispatched employees
to hound tourists

getting off the train
to patronize it.

On the trail itself, he erected
a gate at the rim,

where his brother would collect
a toll of a dollar a person

for its use.

When Coconino County
was declared

the trail's proper owner,

Cameron used his influence as
a county commissioner

to be awarded the franchise to
continue collecting the tolls.

Halfway down the trail

at a small oasis
called Indian Gardens,

he operated
a ramshackle tent camp,

where he charged passing
travelers outrageous prices

for water,

then charged again
for the only outhouses

between the rim and the river.

Meanwhile, as Stephen Mather
steadily built support

in Congress
for his park proposal,

federal officials ruled

virtually all of Cameron's
claims invalid

because of their
lack of mineral value.

The Secretary of the Interior
ordered him to abandon them.

Cameron ignored it all,
and instead filed 55 new claims,

bringing his total to 13,000
strategically placed acres.

In a lawsuit working its
way toward the Supreme Court,

his lawyers were even arguing

that Theodore Roosevelt's
executive order

creating the national monument
had been illegal.

In 1919, Congress at last passed
a bill creating

Grand Canyon National Park.

A year later
when the Supreme Court

finally and unequivocally ruled
against Cameron,

Mather and Albright figured that
their troubles with him were

over at last.

They couldn't have been
more wrong.

In the election of 1920,

Arizona sent him to Washington

as a United States senator.

"I feel like getting even,"

Cameron had written a friend.

"And if I live,"

"I certainly will."

MAN AS JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER JR.:
I never had any doubt

about the existence
of a divine being.

To see a tree coming out
in the spring was

enough to impress me
with the fact that God existed.

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

COYOTE: John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Was the only son

of the richest and, some said,
most hated man in America...

John D. Rockefeller Sr.,

the founder of the vast
Standard Oil trust...

Which at the time refined more
than 90% of the oil

sold in America.

John D. Jr. had been raised
in accordance

with his father's strict
Baptist creed...

To work hard,
to watch every penny,

and remember to give to charity.

In 1908, he had come
to Mount Desert Island

with his wife
Abby, a New Englander

who instilled in him an abiding
love of the Maine coast.

Two years later, he purchased
an estate near Seal Harbor

on the quiet side of the island,

where his growing family could
spend their summers

in relative privacy and enjoy

what he called one of
the greatest views in the world.

That same year at age 36,

Rockefeller had made
a momentous decision.

He would step away

from the pursuit of even greater
wealth and the management

of his father's
extensive business interests,

and devote himself instead
to a single goal...

The social purposes, he said,
to which a great fortune

could be dedicated.

Then he was introduced
to George Dorr,

who was still seeking funds
to acquire

even more land
on Mount Desert Island

and still hoping to turn the new
national monument

into a national park.

MAN AS ROCKEFELLER JR:
George Dorr is an impulsive,

enthusiastic, eager person
who works at high tension,

neglects his meals,
sits up too late at night,

and rushes about from
one pressing thing to another.

But he is very diligent, as well
as highly inventive.

COYOTE: Rockefeller soon became
Dorr's principal patron.

As he quietly
began buying up land,

Rockefeller also launched

the most ambitious network
of wilderness carriage roads

New England had ever seen,

not only paying for it all,
but overseeing every detail.

Meant for the aesthetic
enjoyment of people

riding in open carriages,
on horseback, or on a bicycle,

the paths were painstakingly
located to present

a series of scenic vistas
displaying

Mount Desert at its best.

Each bridge,
made of local granite

so it would blend
into its setting,

was individually designed,
including one that was given

a graceful curve to save 2
trees from being destroyed

and oriented
so that a nearby waterfall was

in the same line of the sight
as the bridge's arch.

By the time he was through,

Rockefeller had built 57 miles
of carriage roads weaving

through the island,
donated 10,000 additional acres,

and spent $3.5 million
for the dream

that had begun as young
Charles Eliot's fanciful notion,

his father's noble tribute,

and George Dorr's
magnificent obsession.

Stephen Mather was enthusiastic
about the plans.

Having a national park
in the East

closer to the nation's major
population centers

would help build
support for the larger system

he was trying to create.

It would also be a different
kind of park...

Smaller, more intimate, and set
aside not from federal land,

but as a gift

from some of the country's
wealthiest citizens.

On February 26, 1919,

the same day the Grand Canyon
was brought into the system,

15,000 acres
of Mount Desert Island...

Triple the original gift...

Also became a national park,
eventually named Acadia,

the French word
for "heaven on earth."

MAN AS DORR: The present
generation will pass

as my own has done.

But the mountains and the woods,
the coasts and streams

that have now passed through
the agency of the park

to the national government
will continue

as a national possession,
a public possession henceforth

for all time to come.

It never will be given
up to private ownership again.

Then men in control will change,

the government itself
will change,

but its possession by the people
will remain.

George Dorr.

COYOTE: George Dorr was now 65.

Despite his age,

he was immediately named
superintendent.

He would remain in that
job for the next 25 years.

He would continue badgering
more of his summertime neighbors

to donate their property,

and would so thoroughly
sacrifice

what remained of his inheritance
to the cause

that when he died in 1944,

his estate had money
for his funeral

only because its trustees
had secretly put $2,000 aside

to prevent Dorr
from giving it all away.

Circling over a part of the
island he had especially loved,

friends scattered his ashes
from a plane.

Two wealthy matrons enjoying
lunch on the terrace

of their summer cottage
looked up

as some of the plane's wafting
cargo drifted down

into their teacups.

"Oh, dear,"
one of them exclaimed.

"It's Mr. Dorr."

DUNCAN: One of my
favorite Robert Frost poems is

"West-Running Brook,"
where he describes

this beautiful stream
coming down.

And the narrator is pointing
out this one spot in the brook

where the water hits
a rock and is thrown backward,

and the beauty of that spot
where it sparkles in the light.

And he says
it's from that that we spring.

It's going back

toward the source, toward,

as he said, "the beginning
of the beginnings."

And I think national parks
are a part of that...

That sparkle in the water.

Life pushes us forward.

Our society moves forward
in a great rush,

but the parks are that place
that throws us back

a little bit.

That makes us pause,
makes us reflect,

and points us
back to the source,

to the beginning of beginnings.

And that's their value,
and that's their beauty.

COYOTE: National parks
could now be found

in the territories of
Hawaii and Alaska,

from the coast of Maine to
the canyons of Utah and Arizona.

And there was a new agency
trying to figure out

how to care for them all.

Stephen Mather could easily
claim victory

for setting it in motion
and step down.

But he was feeling strong again
and bursting with more ideas,

ideas that would bring even more
Americans to their parks.

MAN AS MATHER: What is it
that inspires love of the flag,

that tunes the ear of
America to sing

"My Country 'tis of Thee"?

Is it industrial efficiency,
irrigation statistics,

or trade output?

Is it the hideous ore dumps of
the sordid mining camp?

Is it the grim powerhouse
in which is harnessed Niagara?

Is it the blackened waste that
follows the devastation

of much of our forest wealth?

Is it the smoking
factory of the grimy mill town,

the malodorous
wharves along navigable rivers'?

Is it even the lofty
metropolitan skyscraper

that shuts out the sun
and throws its dismal shadow

over all below?

No. Our devotion to the flag is
inspired by love of country.

Patriotism is
the religion of the soil,

and national parks
are our richest patrimony.