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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Ken Burns’ National Parks series being rebroadcast on PBS

A grizzly bear fishes for salmon at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska as part of Ken Burns’ six-part documentary series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” on PBS.  (Courtesy of Florentine Films and WETA / The Spokesman-Review)
A grizzly bear fishes for salmon at Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska as part of Ken Burns’ six-part documentary series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” on PBS. (Courtesy of Florentine Films and WETA / The Spokesman-Review)

PUBLIC LANDS -- In celebration of the National Park Service centennial, PBS is re-broadcasting the landmark Ken Burns series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”

Showings of the 12-hour, six-part series started Sunday and run through Saturday, April 30.  See the KSPS Public TV programming schedule.

What strikes me in this documentary is how much initial opposition there was from local and other partisans to preserving what we consider prized public lands today.

“Just as the parks themselves represent a geographic timelessness, the story of the parks and the ideas on which they were founded are equally timeless," said Burns' colleague Dayton Duncan, who also wrote the script.

"The debates that were going on a hundred years ago about private enterprise in the parks, how we maximize access to parks without harming them and how we use federal land are still going on today. It’s an active conversation in which we should all participate.”

With 409 units (59 national parks, plus 350 national monuments, historic sites and other units), the National Park Service has a presence in each of the 50 states.

The series documents the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical --  that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone.



Outdoors blog

Rich Landers writes and photographs stories and columns for a wide range of outdoors coverage, including Outdoors feature sections on Sunday and Thursday.




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