The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Episode 05 (2009)

Director: Ken Burns
Stars: Peter Coyote, William Cronon, Dayton Duncan

Film Distributor: PBS

The history of the U.S. National Parks system, including the initial ideas which led to the world's first national parks and the expansion of the system over 150 years.

Episode 05: "Great Nature" (1933-1945)
A new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, expands the national park idea to embrace battlefields and other historic and iconic sites. He enters pitched battles to create national parks on the Olympic Peninsula, Florida's Everglades, Wyoming's Teton Mountains, and California's High Sierra; he also creates the Civilian Conservation Corps to provide young men with jobs improving conditions at national parks. George Melendez Wright, a young Park Service employee, begins arguing that the parks are not doing enough to protect wildlife in their natural state. In Seattle, Iwao and Hanaye Matsushita fall in love with Mount Rainier National Park; and in California, another Japanese immigrant, Chiura Obata, finds inspiration for his art in Yosemite. When they are interned during World War II, they all find solace in their memories of the national parks of their adopted country.

Extras:
- Available with optional Spanish audio and subtitles, disc five features The National Parks: This is America (1080i, 44:20). More an extension to the film proper rather than a separate endeavor, this piece features continued interview clips, footage, and narration recalling tales of and the history behind America's National Parks. It's almost like a very condensed version of the entire film, and might serve nicely as a period-long piece for classrooms engaged in the study of the National Parks.




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