Perhaps America's Best Idea

By now you surely know that we thrive on adventure and exploration, so it’s no surprise that we’re counting down the days until the debut of The National Parks: American’s Best Idea, a compelling new series from director Ken Burns. At its very core, this documentary celebrates fervent discovery, and a desire to protect what exists in our collective backyard – from the crest of Half Dome and the Grand Canyon, to the Great Smoky Mountains and the Everglades. We’re extremely lucky that a feisty swath of people, from soldiers and scientists to entrepreneurs and idealists had the forethought to fight on behalf of our majestic landscape. From just a sneak peek, we can see that preserving our nation’s hidden gems was a long, arduous battle…and we agree, just may have been America’s best idea. This documentary series, The National Parks: American’s Best Idea, was filmed over the course of more than six years, and is said to feature some of the most extensive, breathtaking images of our national parks ever captured on film. Not only is it a story of preservation, it’s a story of the people who made it happen – across all barriers.

“The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is 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.” PBS.org

The six-episode series on PBS, directed by Ken Burns and written and co-produced by Dayton Duncan, will kick-start on September 27th, 2009.