Geography Is The U.S. National Parks System: America's Splendor

📝 Substack: https://geographyiseverything.substack.com/
📽️ YouTube: @GeographyByGeoff
📷 Socials: https://linktr.ee/geographybygeoff
📖 Check out Hunter's atlas' here: https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=hunter+shobe

The beauty of the National Parks in the United States are one of the few things most Americans can agree on today. However, did you know that there was a chance we would never have a national park system at all? Were it not for some key decisions by a few people, the entire system of parks, monuments, trails, and more would simply not exist. In today's episode we'll cover what a national park is in the United States, how they came to be, how parks are created, and why we love them so very much.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hunter. Have you ever visited aNational park of the United States, but
or anywhere, to be honest,and what do you think of it.
I have visited national parks in theUnited States, and some national parks and
a few other countries. The onethat comes to mind immediately for me is
Arches National Park in Utah. Interestingthat I would not have guessed that.

(00:26):
I mean, it's a little faraway from US. If I had to
have guessed, I thought you weregoing to say, like Mount Rainier or
Crater Lake. I've been the proximity, right. I've been to both those
places as well, and they're bothfantastic. I mean, Mount Rainier is
beautiful, the Olympic National Park isfantastic. Crater Lake is very dramatic,
the Grand Canyon is very dramatic.But Arches it was a kind of environment,

(00:49):
a kind of landscape that I wasvery unfamiliar with. I have not
spent tons of time in desert typeplaces, and you know, the arches
and the balancing rocks and all thesesort of very distinctive landforms were fascinating to
me. I felt like I wasin a road Runner video or something like
that. You know, this islike from living in the Northeast. That's

(01:11):
my exposure initially to that kind oflandscape was those cartoons and then to sort
of go there and to see howvaried Utah is because there's these you know,
the Wasatch are not a national park, but beautiful forests. So yeah,
I'm going to go with arches.But I've been to a bunch that
I think are fantastic. Yeah.I mean, I think one you nailed

(01:34):
on, or you're at least hintingat something that we're going to talk a
little bit about, which is thedramatic landscape and scenery sort of in the
western half of the United States comparedto the eastern half. And that's not
to say that there's not beautiful,majestic areas of the East half the eastern
half of the country. However,we're going to show that. You know,

(01:56):
perhaps there's reasons why. Well,we'll get to it. Yeah.
All that's to say is there's alot of national parks based on those kinds
of landscapes, and so I guesswe'll get to that. We're going to
get to that, yeah, Andso I guess just add my my experience.
I've also been to Crater Lake,very beautiful I've been to Olympic National
Park, very beautiful. I've alsobeen to the Utah they're called A mighty

(02:17):
five the Utah National Parks, whichis you know, Capitol Reef, Bryce
Canyon, Zion Arches, and itwas it Colorado Plateau maybe the fifth one.
Canyon Lands there, canyon lands that'sit's in the Colorado Plateau. Canyon
Lands and all of them are sospectacular for so many very different reasons.
Zion is the one that to mewas just like you sort of get to

(02:38):
it and you're sort of at thissmall little town the entryway, and you
you sort of wander in and allof a sudden, you're in this majestic
almost like green area surrounded by theselike red cliffs that sort of you know,
line both sides, and it's justit's so awe inspiring. You're like,
how is this? How is thisa thing? Yeah? How does

(02:58):
this exist? I mean that waskind of a Grand Canyon moment too,
where I, you know, I'veheard about this so much and it couldn't
possibly deliver, you know, onall the hype. And then you get
there and I went to the northend, the South rim, and I
was like, wow, you knowthis is this is fantastic. I can't
believe I get to be here.Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. So listener,

(03:19):
if you haven't guests, today,we're going to talk all about the
national park system. Specifically, we'regoing to talk about national parks in the
United States. There are national parkselsewhere in the world, of course,
the United States doesn't have a monopolyon them, but we're focusing on the
US national parks for a number ofreasons. For one, we're based here
in the United States. We're basedhere in Oregon, and if you couldn't

(03:39):
tell, we already have plenty ofexperience with our local national parks. It
seems like a hunter might have someinternational experience, but I think it's just
easier to sort of, you know, talk to that experience a little bit
since we're from here. But alsobecause the US National park system is controlled
by a federal agency called an NationalPark Service, which just gives us an

(04:01):
overwhelming, abundant wealth of data thatallows us to really pull out some fun
geographic facts and figures that really,to be honest, it creates a really
compelling podcast series. So we're gonnawe're gonna talk all about the US National
parks will hint at some some stuffgoing on elsewhere in the world a little
bit, especially in the history,but overall this can be about the US

(04:23):
National park system. Really quick,Hunter, I have this question in my
notes for you. You kind ofalready answered it. But we're based here
in Portland. Do you know whatthe closest national park to US is?
It's it's Mount Rainier. It isabsolutely not right near. I think the
reason why I ask because I thinkmost people, if they're familiar with Oregon,

(04:43):
you know, knowing that we're herein Oregon, they would have said,
you know, maybe Crater Lake,but Creater Lake is actually pretty far
south. It's pretty far south.Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's almost
to the border of California, butyou know, maybe like another hour's driver.
So I mean, Olympic National Parkis probably closer than, yeah,
than Crater Lake as well. Yeah, yep, absolutely. We're also going

(05:04):
to talk about national parks because theyhave also become kind of very emblematic of
the United States itself, attracting millionsof visitors both domestically but also internationally.
In fact, we're going to getsome of those statistics later. But the
National park system of the United Statesis frequently cited in sort of traveler surveys

(05:25):
as the reason why people come tothe United States. They want to go
visit places like New York, Miami, La. These you know, really
really fun metropolitan areas, but theyalso really want to see the natural areas
because they are quite stark and verydifferent, especially compared to places that don't
have as dramatic of scenery. Sothat's another This is a reason why we're

(05:48):
also going to talk about National parkstoday. And what we're also going to
find is that the US National ParkService and the National parks themselves have just
great branding. They have really pulledout all the stuffs and the marketing and
just created a system that well,people just people just love them. And

(06:10):
and there's so much we're not goingto talk so much about the marketing EFT
and the commercialization of it, butthere's a whole business sort of surrounding these
parks where people like to wear wearshirts sort of representing iconic sort of images
of these parks or collect maps ofthem. There's a whole business surrounding these
things. It's really great branding thatthe National Park Service. Yeah, I
can imagine what's up? Sort oflike NASA, Like NASA has really great

(06:33):
brandy. They've done pretty well.Yeah, with the National Park Service,
I can imagine some of these sortof stylized posters that go along with each
of the National parks, and there'sthis particular aesthetic. It's sort of simple
but elegant, and it's interesting how, you know, they distill these huge
areas into one image that actually ispretty powerfully representing it. Absolutely. Yeah,

(07:00):
And it's kind of amazing because thesethese are federal agencies, well,
National park services, So it's NASA'ssort of the corollary for the good branding.
These are federal agencies that we typicallythink of as like being mired and
bureaucracy and s dodginess and sort oflike government and like all these kinds of
things that's just not necessarily sexy forlack of a better word. And yet
despite all of that, the NationalPark Service is just like home run.

(07:25):
Right, let's go ahead and diveinto the episode. Hunter. First question
for you as we kick this off, what, in your opinion is a
national park or do you have anyguests at what a national park actually is?
I have a guess I don't knowfor sure, I believe in national
park is an area that's designated assuch, there's a boundary around it,

(07:49):
and this allows the US government tocontrol what happens in the area, and
the idea is to preserve it fromcertain kinds of development like logging and urban
development in most cases, and it'smeant for it's it's largely reserved for natural
reasons and for people to visit andappreciate. That's that's my guess. That's

(08:13):
a that's a great guess. That'salmost exactly and what we're gonna find.
We're gonna talk a little bit aboutthis. But there's different, you know,
slightly different definitions depending on sort ofwhere the national park is being founded.
Right, So at its most basicand you sort of already cover this
at its most basic, a nationalpark is an area set outside by a
national government for the preservation of thenatural environment. Now what that preservation for,

(08:35):
that's sort of the key differentiator.So within the United States and Canada,
they tend to focus on the protectionof both land and wildlife, so
things, you know, prohibiting thingslike drilling and mining and deforesting that kind
of stuff. Those in the UnitedKingdom however, tend to focusally tend to

(08:56):
focus mainly on access to the land, so there are might not be so
many stipulations against you know, miningor deforesting. And in fact, if
you go to the Scottish Highlands there'ssome national parks up there, there's there's
developments within those things, extensive developmentsand even farms. However, people are
allowed to have access to them.That's sort of the key point. It's,
you know, make sure that peoplehave access to this. Those within

(09:18):
various countries in Africa are a littlebit different as they primarily exist to conserve
wildlife and animals. So you're thinkingabout sort of an elephant a national park
that's sort of designed to create habitatfor elephants so that they can breed and
you know prosper and all that kindof stuff and so on and so forth.
Right, we're not going to gothrough every single country, but those
are just some examples. Specifically,according to the US National Park Services Criteria

(09:45):
for National Parks, a potential parkshould meet all of the following standards.
One it is an outstanding example ofa particular type of resource. Now that
that doesn't necessarily mean like an extractableresource. Just there's something there, right,
there's you know, something that's youknow, maybe it's a wealth of
forest, a big mountain, somethinglike that. It's an interesting term to

(10:07):
use the resource. And in thiscontext, I know, right, it's
very it's very I always say,you know, laid into sort of the
capitalist sort of mindset that the federalgovernment. Yeah, it's very. Two.
It possesses exceptional value or quality inillustrating or interpreting the natural or cultural

(10:30):
themes of the nation's heritage. Andso I think that's probably pretty self explanatory.
Three, it offers superlative opportunities forrecreation, for public use and enjoyment,
or for scientific study. And sothis is again one of the ways
that it might differ a little bitfrom the UK, because a national park
in the US does not have tobe for recreation. Typically we think about,

(10:54):
right, think of that, right, we think of places like the
Grand Canyon and doing hikes around theGrand Canyon, that kind of stuff,
But that does not actually have tobe the criteria. If there's a big
enough criteria that it's worthy of scientificstudy, okay, interesting. And then
four, it retains a high degreeof integrity as a true, accurate and

(11:15):
relatively unspoiled example of the resource thatwe talked about in the first one.
So a mountain of forest that hasn'treally been spoiled yet, if it's already
been logged, you know, tothe point where there's no more trees than
obviously it could be. It couldhave been very beautiful one hundred years ago,
but it's not going to be anational park today because it's already been
spoiled, right, so it hasto be sort of relatively pristine and maintained.

(11:35):
Also an interesting term, the spoiling, because if it's spoiled by its
spoiled is is it suggests that it'shumans that have had an impact on it.
If there's a fire that's a naturalfire, I don't know if that
qualifies as being spoiled or not,but it's again the terminology here is worth
paying attention to. Well, whatwe're going to find out is that while

(12:00):
there's this, while this criteria exists, it's also kind of meaningless. I
see there's some reasons for that,or no, I don't. I wouldn't
say they're good reasons, but we'llget to that in a little bit.
Because there's one specific park we're goingto talk quite a bit about later in
the episode, but that's for later. Little little teaser there. Now,
should you know I think the there'sa oh yeah, a potential park should

(12:22):
meet all of the four criteria standards. This is This is a key word
because of the reasons I just said, right this is should is that you
know, that's that's the wiggle roomright there, that these should have all
of these, but they don't necessarilyall do. Okay. Finally, it's
worth pointing out that within the NationalPark Service, National Park Service is the
federal agency under the Department of theInterior that sort of manages all the parks

(12:46):
under the National Park Service. Theagency runs and manages all of the national
parks and other designations as well.And I'm sure you've heard of some of
these, hunter, do you know, you know what some of these other
designations might be thinking? National Monumentis one of the ones that comes to
that's the other big one. Okay, absolutely, National Monument is the other
big one. So we think ofthe National Park Service, we think of

(13:07):
places like Yosemite, you know,Yellowstone, you know, all these national
parks. But there's these would benational parks themselves. There's national monuments,
which is the other sort of bigone that most people don't think about,
you know, as readily. However, people have probably heard of them.
The key difference here is that nationalmonuments can be established by the President of
the United States, but a nationalpark requires congressional approval. Interesting. So,

(13:33):
so, yeah, so this is, you know, the President Biden
wants a place, you know,in let's say Oregon, to be a
national monument, he just sort ofsigns an executive order and it becomes a
national monument. Conversely, this meansthat a president can also sign an executive
order and the national monument designation goesaway, okay, as opposed to national
park, which would require congressional approval. Going both ways, right, So

(13:54):
there's probably more national monuments the nationalparks, I'm guessing there are. These
can also be human made structures inaddition to natural. So an example of
a natural national monument would be Devil'sTower in Wyoming. So if you're unfamiliar
with it, it's a very coolsort of spire that juts out of the
earth, you know, hundreds offeet into the air. Very cool,

(14:15):
okay, but it's kind of smalltoo. A human made structure that's a
national monument would be the Statue ofLiberty. Right, so those are your
two sort of corollaries for natural Statuteof liberty, Yes, right, Moving
on, there's national lake shores orseashores, and these are coastal areas that
have been federally designated by Congress asbeing of natural and recreational significance as a

(14:41):
preserved area along a coast of amajor water body. There are, of
course, some national parks that havea coastline, but there's a few sort
of national lake shores or seashores.If you can't tell a hundred, you
know, as we get through someof these lesser known designations, they become
sort of more unknown, and Iwould say people are like, I don't
know of a single national lakeshore orseashore, but you probably do know of

(15:03):
one. Yeah. In fact,the example I have here of a National
seashore is Cape Cod in Massachusetts.Oh, yes, of course I didn't.
I didn't realize that was designated assuch. But growing up where I
did, I've been to Cape Cod. Yeah, you know, I I've
definitely heard of Cape Cod. Iabsolutely did not know that it was a

(15:24):
national Seashore Lakeshore. Yeah, no, it's even news to me. I
feel like I should know that,but now I do, so, thank
you. Moving on, there's Nationalmemorials. This is a designation of the
United States for an officially recognized areathat memorializes a historic person or event.
And so the most famous one ofthese would be the Washington Monument in Washington,
DZ. A number of forts arealso national memorials, or various houses

(15:48):
where famous people you know his famous, famously historic people lived or were born,
that kind of stuff. There areNational preserves. So these were established
by an Act of Congress to protectareas that have resources, often associated with
national parks, but where certain naturalresource extractive activities such as hunting and mining
may be permitted. And so thisis sort of right. You can't do

(16:11):
that in a national park, butin a national preserve you can. There's
just more regulations around it. It'slike, hey, we want to enable
this kind of economic activity here.We don't want to be strip mined.
We don't want everything to be pulledout. However, you know, we
want we want that to still beable to exist. We don't want to
be a national park. So there'sextra extra rules compared to land that even

(16:32):
doesn't have that. There are extrarules, but it's still allowed. Yes,
It's worth pointing out that typically anational preserve is connected to a national
park. So up in Alaska,Danali National Park, there's also Denali National
Preserve. They're just connected. DanaliNational Park is a little bit smaller,
and you can't do anything in there, but obviously in the preserve surrounding it
you can. Okay, the MojaveDesert is also a National preserve. Interesting,

(16:57):
there are of course National rivers signatedto preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural,
cultural, and recreational values in afree flowing condition for the enjoyment of
present and future generations. I believeI couldn't find this out specifically. I
believe this means that areas with thedesignated area cannot be dammed, at least
by humans. And so listener,we have a whole episode all about dams.

(17:18):
You can go check out, checkit out. That's our look all
back. There are national parkways,and these are scenic roadways with a protected
corridor of surrounding parklands. So theseare typically roadways that will oftentimes go through
a National park or monument, thoughsometimes not. There's not an obvious example
here that I think most people wouldknow, but Clara Barton Parkway in Maryland
and Washington Washington, d C.Is one, So if you're familiar with

(17:41):
that area. I think it's alsoworth pointing out here that this is kind
of an old designation. In fact, a new national parkway hasn't been established
since nineteen seventy two, and beforethat nineteen fifty wow, So I wouldn't
be surprised if they kind of haveand sort of sunsets as a designation.

(18:02):
Yeah. Yeah, there are NationalHistoric sites or parks. These are designations
for officially recognized areas of national historicsignificance in the United States. These would
oftentimes be sort of some of theseold Western forts. In fact, in
our neck of the woods, hunterFort Vancouver, just across the river here
is a National Historic Site, Okay, and Fort Vancouver. You know,

(18:23):
listener, if you're unaware, that'ssort of where the first population center of
the Portland metro region sort of gotits founding as a British sort of outpost,
eventually becomes the city of Vancouver,Washington, and I believe the original
Vancouver. I believe that one wasfounded before Vancouver, BC, initial European
American population correct. And then finallythere are National Scenic Trails. These are

(18:49):
a series of trails within the UnitedStates designated to promote the preservation of public
access to travel within and enjoyment andappreciation of the open air, outdoor area,
and historic resources of the nation.The Pacific Coast Trail, for example,
is a National Scenic Trail. TheAppalachian Trail, to give an east
coast example, is one. Ibelieve the Continental Divide Trail is also won.

(19:11):
So these really long trails that sortof span the country. Then that's
it. Those are all the designations, but there's a lot of them,
right, so you're starting to understand. Yeah, you're starting to understand,
like the National Park Service does quitea lot, and it has quite a
lot of things that it's sort ofmaintaining and keeping its eye on. And
we're going to talk all about sortof the history of how all of this
started to come together, how theNational Park Service, what was the first

(19:33):
National park? Right after we getthrough some ads, Okay, so let's
do it. We will be rightback and we're back. We are talking
about the geography is national parks geographyof national parks, specifically within the United

(19:56):
States. So let's go ahead andtalk about how these things sort of came
to be sort of the history ofnational parks. As already mentioned, we
are talking primarily about the United Statesnational parks, and this is largely because
the concept of national parks as weknow them today kind of originated here.
Now, as with everything in history, that's a little bit, you know,

(20:18):
it's obviously not the full story.Yeah, yeah, but if you
do like a quick Google search,most things are going to say, yeah,
the national park as an idea,as a concept originated here. But
let's let's talk about some reasons whythis isn't exactly the case. So there
have been other preserved areas in othercountries that date back a long time,

(20:42):
well before the first national park wasestablished here in sort of the mid late
eighteen hundreds of the United States.So, for example, starting sometime around
seventeen thirty five in the Naples governmentin Italy undertook laws to protect natural areas
which could be used as a gameresions by the royal family, and so

(21:02):
Prosida was the first protected site withinItaly. Now, the difference here is
that, yeah, the government inItaly sort of protected this. It was
still owned by the Royalty of Neapoli, and it wasn't really accessible by common
people, at least not in thesame way. So that's sort of a
differentiator of you know, you know, what's the hook here between sort of

(21:25):
a national park in the United Statesversus sort of one of these old sort
of game preserved lands. Obviously,kings have been doing this in Europe for
a long time, right was avery common now. Some naturalists have also
argued that the that there's evidence thatindicates that the creation of the first national
park in the United States was predatedby the creation of the Boged Khan Mountain

(21:48):
National Park in Mongolia, which madedate from his earliest seventeen seventy eight.
I don't know why there's there's debate. I didn't dig too deeply into it,
but it seems like there are somepeople who are like, well,
this is probably actually the very firstnational park that sort of resembles what we
have today. All this is tosay, however, that the United States
certainly had a large hand in pioneeringnational parks as a as a public good,

(22:15):
as a public lands, and furthermore, expanding it and growing it and
sort of organizing it under a singlesort of governmental entity. Right, So
the National Park Service is an institutionthat kind of tracks back to the United
States, this kind of organization thatmight exist in other places now absolutely,
So Hunter, question for you,yes, do you know what the very

(22:37):
first national park was inside the UnitedStates? I think I do. I
think it's Yellowstone. It is,It's absolutely Yellowstone. And what do you
know of Yellowstone? What's the firstthing you would think of it? You
know, I've not been there,so I don't have My geographic imagination isn't
wrapped around it as well. ButI'm thinking it's if I said, if

(23:00):
I said the two words old faithful, what would you think of? Oh
right, I'd think of this giantguys or that people stand around and wait
to Okay, that's what's going on, all right, the giant guys.
Okay. So so Yellowstone was thefirst national park, however, and it
was it was sort of, youknow, pushed pushed forward as a national

(23:22):
park for the reason that the landwas so unlike anything that at least the
American sort of settlers and explorers hadever seen. For obviously, the Native
tribes around it that was a normalpart of their lives right millennium, But
that was that was sort of theideas like this was this was a very
incredibly majestic place, apparently, thoughYellowstone was not slated to become the first

(23:45):
national park. In fact, thefirst effort by the US federal government to
set aside such protected lands was onApril twentieth, eighteen thirty two, This
is about forty years before Yellowstone,when President Andrew Jackson signed legislation to set
up side four sections of land aroundwhat is now Hot Springs, Arkansas,
to protect the natural thermal springs andadjoining mountain sides. It was then known

(24:08):
as the Hot Springs Reservation, butno legal authority was ever established to manage
it, and federal control of thearea was not clearly established until eighteen seventy
seven. And so Hot Springs isa National park today and so you can
visit it today. However, itit kind of you know, maybe had
the crown of like maybe this wasthe first one, but there was just

(24:29):
never anything that was sort of musteredtogether to actually designate it, to actually
control it, to actually manage itin any capacity such but not official.
Yeah, and I guess like evensaying like treated as such as it's a
little hard because I mean they sortof wrote it down in a document,
but you know that didn't there wasno enforcement of anything, Okay, right,

(24:51):
so there were like it was sortof on maybe on name it was
sort of a protected area. Therewasn't. The national park label was never
used either, So it's just kindof this wishy washy sort of idea.
Of course, actually, under doyou know who John Muir is? I
do know who John Murrer is,natural John or naturalist conservationists from California,
I want to say, an advocateof protecting natural environments exactly. So this

(25:19):
leads us to sort of what ispotentially could have been the next actual first
national park. And so John Muir, who is today kind of referred to
as the father of national parks dueto his work in Yosemite. He pushed
a lot of legislation and ideas thatspecifically would have made Yosemite the very first

(25:40):
national park. So apparently Muir publishedtwo influential articles in the Century magazine which
formed the base for the subsequent legislationon converting Yosemite into a national park.
This is sort of in the eighteensixties. From there, President Abraham Lincoln
signed an Act of Congress on Julyfirst, eighteen sixty fe for seating the
Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove ofGiant Sequoias, later becoming Yosemite National Park

(26:07):
to the state of California. Accordingto this bill, private ownership of the
land in this area was no longerpossible, and the state of California was
designated to manage the park for publicuse, resort, and recreations. So
leases were permitted inside the area forup to ten years, things for like
cabins, that kind of stuff,things that we sort of associate with national
parks today, but there was noownership allowed. Okay. Public discussion followed

(26:30):
this legislation, and there was actuallya heated debate on whether the government had
the right to create parks. Right. So, the federal government is seating
this line to California with the ideathat hey, you have to set this
land aside and say this is forpeople to access and recreate and can't build
there, you can't extract things.But we're going to give it to California
and you're gonna have to manage it. Because there's no National Park Service yet,

(26:52):
right, there's no federally there's nofederal government to manage this yet.
But they charged California with not allowingpeople to own any part of it is
private property exactly. And so thisdebate, you know, this debate over
whether the government, the state ofCalifornia government has the right to manage this
land and say no, you can'tbuild here. This debate and the overall
mismanagement of Yosemite by the California statewas the reason why Yosemite did not actually

(27:18):
become the first national park. Ok. So there was just there was too
much chaos going on at the moment. The federal government, you know,
at the time was starting to youknow there and there was a lot of
proponents at the time starting to pushfor national parks within the United States.
It just kind of became a quagmireand people were like, this is this
isn't going to get solved anytime soon. We need to bail on Yosemite as

(27:40):
becoming a national park and move onto something else I see. And so
that something else would go on andbecome Yellowstone. So Yellowstone would become the
first National Park of the United States. On March first, eighteen seventy two.
And of course Yellowstone's historic name comesfrom French trappers who named it Rosha

(28:00):
Schwan. My French is awful translatingthe Hidatsa name Mitsi dot Se, which
means Yellowstone River. And it's worthhighlighting here that Native American history in the
park dates back at least eleven thousandyears, with paleo Native Americans using local
obsidian tools and weapons, indicating sortof trade with distant tribes all this kind

(28:21):
of stuff. Right, This is, you know, going back to what
I was saying earlier tribes have beenaround this area for a long time.
Yeah, at least eleven it wouldbe year, yeah, at least at
least, but it would be JohnColter sort of going back to the sort
of American exploration of the region.It would be John Coulter of the Lewis
and Clark expedition who explored parts ofwhat would become Yellowstone in the eighteen oh

(28:44):
seven eighteen oh eight years, encounteringgeothermal features that and he would later describe
them as mystical fire and brimstone area. Right, So he was painting Yeah,
yeah, right, it's it's it'sa very I mean, and if
you go there, you're like,oh, yeah, that kind of fits
the landscape a little bit, right. It's there's a lot of there's a
lot of colors, there's a lotof like things shooting out of the ground.

(29:07):
Like if you didn't know any better, and you didn't have any sort
of knowledge of sort of geology orsort of the magnetic sort of underpinnings of
our planet, it would it woulddefinitely feel otherworldly. I think. So.
Later reports from early explorers like JimBridger about yellowstones geothermal phenomena were often
dismissed as myths. People are like, this can't this can't possibly exist.

(29:30):
There's no way, there's no suchlike somebody's making this up there. Yeah,
they're they're pulling one over on us. That there's which again, yeah,
you can kind of understand why thatwould be the case. It's like
stop, please, yeah, that'sthis. So the first organized explorations were
hindered until the late eighteen sixties.So this is now well after sort of

(29:52):
that Lewis and Clark expedition due tothe Civil War, but the cook fulsome
Peterson expedition of eighteen sixty nine,followed by the Washburn Langford don expedition of
eighteen seventy provided detailed accounts of theregion, and these would be the expeditions
that would sort of start that process. Okay, let's start figuring out what's
going on here. And these peoplewere very much proponents of a national park

(30:17):
in the United States. So CorneliusHedges, who was a member of that
Washburn expedition, that second one ineighteen seventy, proposed creating a national park
to protect this region, an ideasupported by others, including at the time
Congressman William D. Kelly. Sothis would continue on. At eighteen seventy
one geologic survey supported by government fundingwas sort of instrumental in persuading Congress to

(30:41):
establish Yellowstone as a National park.And this would eventually rope in things like
the Intercon or Transcontinental Railroad or companiesbuilding railroads off that to then sort of
establish railway connections all that kind ofstuff. It would be Nathaniel Langford who
was appointed the first superintendent of Yellowstone. But as kind of similar with Hot

(31:03):
Springs that we talked about in Arkansas, the original national park, even after
it was designated, would suffer froma lack of support and funding, right,
there was just not a lot thereto protect the park against poaching or
vandalism or even early mining efforts thatkind of stuff. There was also considerable

(31:23):
opposition to Yellowstone National Park during itsearly years, so the people of I
believe it was the Montana territory atthe time. This is kind of before
Wyoming I think, became its ownterritory. So basically, the locals who
were living there, ranchers, fearedthat the regional economy would be unable to
thrive if there remained strict federal prohibitionsagainst resource development or settlement within park boundaries,

(31:49):
and local entrepreneurs advocated for reducing thesize of the park so that mining,
hunting, and logging activities could bedeveloped. So again this sort of
establishes that the national park system,you know, the idea is to conserve
these very very vast areas against thesekinds of extractive resources that that people want
access to. Numerous bills were introducedinto Congress by Montana representatives who sought to

(32:15):
remove the federal land use restrictions entirely. Of course, those didn't ever work
out, right, and now wehave a very pristine, relatively speaking,
Yellowstone National Park could have looked verydifferent. However, it seems like there
was. I mean, this isa debate that's ongoing in some respects.
I imagine that designating a new nationalpark is often controversial because they're going to

(32:42):
be some people who who would liketo benefit from the resources. But anyways,
yeah, well, what we're goingto find is that the it is,
it's gotten very political. What we'regoing to find is there's almost a
little bit of the inverse, andwe're going to talk about why that.
It is. Right, there's alot of politics involved in the establishment of

(33:02):
national parks, but it's in thatpeople want one more so than ever.
States really want a national because asguessing it's tourism dollar related, perhaps that
would be a large part of it. Yes, I think I read mentioned
this, but Yellowstone would become thefirst National Park of the United States on
March first, eighteen seventy two.This would be followed by Sequoia National Park

(33:27):
in California on September twenty fifth,eighteen ninety. So it's eighteen years later.
So they sort of founded Yellowstone.Then it took a while for everything
to sort of get figured out.Right, there's a lot of oppositions,
like what does this mean? Wasa national park? Mean? This is
all sort of new to country andcertainly to the people living in these areas,
who now all of a sudden thatthe deal with you know, increased

(33:49):
federal restrictions, Yosemite would eventually becomea national park. In fact, it's
the third oldest at this point,and it was designated on October first,
eighteen ninety so pretty close to Sequoia, probably not surprise. And then Mount
Rainier up in Washington State on Marchsecond, eighteen ninety nine. That would
be followed pretty quickly by Crater Lakein Oregon on May twenty second, nineteen

(34:10):
oh two, and then wind Cave, South Dakota on January ninth, nineteen
oh three. Do you know whenthe latest national park was was designated?
Hunter? Oh, I don't.I can't. I don't. I don't
have the answer. I have noanswer for that. I think people think
that it's it's a fairly rare occurrence. But the latest national park to be

(34:32):
designated is actually it's New River Gorgein West Virginia, and it was made
on December twenty seventh, twenty twenty, So it's not that old, that's
over at all. Yeah, yeah, I would say one comes around every
you know, two years or soon average. It would be my guests,
and so that mostly brings us upto speed. Obviously, every national

(34:52):
park has its own unique story,and we on a single podcast apt so
we can't cover them all unfortunately,So we're gonna leave history behind at this
point. But you know, maybewe visited the subject, Maybe we visited
some key national parks on the laterepisodes, so we can dive into sort
of their stories. Because again,you know, the Yosemite National Park,

(35:13):
for example, we sort of grazedover why it didn't become a national park,
but there's definitely a whole big storythere around around the efforts of conservation
within California specifically. So maybe wejump back. Okay, we can do
that for now. We're gonna jumpto the current geographic impacts of the National
park system. But first we haveto hit our last ad break because we're

(35:34):
already at time. All right,well, we'll be right back, and
we're back. We're talking about thegeography is national parks within the United States
specifically. We just ran through somehistory, We ran through what all the
designations were, We ran through whatmakes a national park at the beginning of

(35:55):
this episode. Now, let's kindof get to sort of the meat of
the episode, which is of thenational park system today and all the fun
statistics that I was able to pullfrom a bureau that meticulously calculates everything,
which is really a handy for us, and I kind of wanted to save
all the juicy statistics to the end, so that frankly, so that you
know, you listener, you payattention all the way through that, thanks

(36:19):
for sticking with us. Hunter.Do you know how many National parks exist
today? I could take a guess. I'm guessing, take a guess maybe
fifty or sixty maybe something like that. That's that's a really good guess.
There are sixty three national parks.This would be separate from the national monuments,

(36:43):
shorelines, recreation areas, et cetera. So these are actual national parks.
There are sixty three of them spreadthroughout the country. So your guess
of fifty to sixty pretty spot on. I would have if I would have
guessed what you would guess, orwhat a listener guess, I would guess
that people would say twenty, maybethirty. Yeah, yeah, mostly because
I think most people think of afew key ones, right, and there's

(37:05):
actually a lot that most people don'tknow exist. And most of these are
in the Western United States. Oh, we're going to talk about okay,
all right, we're going to getto the geography of where these things are.
Back. Yeah, the total areaprotected by national parks is approximately eighty
one eight hundred and seventy five squaremiles of land. Now using our system

(37:29):
of measurement connecticuts, right, whichdoesn't have a national park by the way,
which doesn't have a national park,this would be about seventeen and a
half connecticuts in size. Wow.Or to use a single state, it
would be a little less than thestate of Kansas. So take to the
state of Kansas. That those areall of the national parks combined. That's
about the which is a sizable area, it is, right, Yeah,

(37:51):
yeah, I mean it's it's verysmall compared to the overall size of the
United States. Of course, thisisn't including things like national forests and like
you know, all these things tomanagement other bureaus. Right, there's obviously
a lot of wildlands still out there. These are just the national parks.
If we look at a map ofnational parks in the United States. There's
a pretty interesting trend that you alreadyalluded to, Hunter that is clearly very

(38:16):
visible. The vast majority of nationalparks are located in the western half of
the United States, including Alaska,Hawaii, and American Samoa. Do you
want to take a stab at sortof the what the what the spread is
here? Oh, between east andwest and west, I'm guessing that there

(38:38):
are may be ten on the eastcoast or something like that. I mean,
that's close, right, So thereare only sixteen national parks that exist
east of the state of Kansas,leaving forty seven for everywhere to the west
of those. Okay, do thirtystates have national parks, as do the
territories of American Samoa and the USVirgin Islands. The state with the most

(39:00):
national parks is California. They havenine nine national parks, and this would
be followed by Alaska with eight,Utah with five, in Colorado with four.
Now again, I think, youknow, as people are trying to
think of, like, you know, national parks, I don't think most
people would even know all the onesin California. In fact, would you

(39:20):
be able to would you know themoff hand? I could not rattle off
all nine and I don't think Icould do that. I don't know if
I could let me. I wishI actually pulled this information. Actually,
I have the Wikipedia page here.All this ime off here. So there's
Joshua Tree Amazing, which is amazingarea. There's the Channel Islands, which
again I don't think most people wouldguess, that's a national park that's sort

(39:42):
of a string of islands off thecoast of California. Obviously, there's Sequoia
beautiful area. There's a place calledthe Pinnacles National Park, which I've never
been to, and I this isone that's sort of I'm definitely very unfamiliar
with as somebody who's from California.I've lived in California, but I've never
been to Pinnacles. There's King Canyon, again, not super familiar with it.
Right, There's Yosemite, obviously thisis the big one. There's Last

(40:07):
and Volcanic, which I have heardabout. I've not been. It's where
Last and Peak is. I've beento Last and it's really it's spectacular.
Yeah, I think is it Lastin Peak that's also the highest peak in
California. Maybe I wonder I don'tknow. That's a that's a that's a
total that. Yeah, there's Redwood, which I think most people would know

(40:28):
of, you know, the RedwoodNational Park obviously very beautiful. There's Death
Valley, the hottest place in theplanet maybe I think so. Yes,
Well, temperatures have exceed one hundredand thirty degrees that's or fifty degrees celsia.
Hoping it doesn't to hotter anywhere else. Yeah, there, and then
that's it. Those are those arethe nine. So there's there's just a

(40:49):
lot there, right, there's alot of a lot of different things there.
Yeah, And I won't I won'tlist out. I won't list off
the other states as well. Butthe largest national park in the country is
Ring Dell Saint Elias in Alaska,and that's over twelve thousand, five hundred
square miles or about two and ahalf. Connecticut's a big national park.
Yeah, it's a big national park, right, I mean Connecticut is not

(41:10):
a huge day, but it's notlike it's still sizable, right, Yeah,
to have that all is but it'snot Rhode Island. Come on now,
Yeah, no, no offense tolisteners in Rhode Island. In fact,
the Raindale Saint Elias National Park islarger than each of the nine small
est states of the United States.So do you want to take a guess?

(41:32):
I think you probably already know this, but you want to take a
guess at what the smallest national parkis. I'm because we mentioned the Statue
of Liberty, I'm going to gowith that. Well, the Statue of
Statue of Liberty is a national monument, national national park, the smallest national
park. Yeah, I don't know. I'm afraid to guess because I think

(41:53):
I'd be way off. Yeah,well I will. I'll just go ahead
and tell you it's it's a littlebit of a head scratch. Most people
probably wouldn't have guessed it, butwe did mention it already on this episode,
and it is the Gateway Arch inSaint Louis. We're going to talk
all about sort of why that's anational park here in a minute. Yeah.
I have been to the Gateway Archand it's pretty dramatic because you can

(42:13):
go up in it and it's alittle vertigo inducing, but there's quite a
view. And yeah, they callit the Gateway to the West. I
think, yeah, that's a commonmoniker for Saint Louis as a whole.
Right now, these parks are allincredibly popular, not all of them,
but you know, the National parksystem is very, very popular, both
domestically and abroad. In twenty twentyone, the National Parks set a visitor

(42:37):
record with more than ninety two millionpeople, highlighting that I think that these
places are pretty important to people andvery important to the economies of the states
that the exist in, because alot of people sort of established you know,
national park is sort of a almostlike a trophy. You know,
it's like a bragging right for yourstate to have one. A little bit.

(42:59):
And so again another question for you. Do you want to take a
guess at what the most visited nationalpark is? Yeah, I don't have
this in my notes. I've gotan idea on this one. I'm going
to stay the Grand Canyon National Parkand you would be wrong. Oh a
lot. Actually, wow, SoI get a second guess, Grand Canyon.

(43:19):
Do you want to take a secondguess? Yeah, it could be
wrong again, Yosemite still wrong?Dang? All right, well though,
is one to go here? Iwould be surprised if you guess this because
it was a total surprise to me. Okay, the reality is that it's
it's the most visited by like alot. It is the Great Smoky Mountains

(43:43):
in North Carolina and Tennessee. Wow. Yeah, that would in my top
ten probably yeah, what right?I think for most people unless you're there.
Apparently in twenty twenty two, theGreat Smoky Mountains had twelve million,
nine hundred and thirty seven thousand visitorsjust within twenty twenty two. Wow.
The number two, The second mostwould be Grand Canyon at four point seven

(44:07):
million field, so it's about threetimes exactly then there would be so I
guess all that's to say is Ithink the most people would probably be like
you hunter, they would guess theGrand Canyon, Yosemite or Yellowstone. These
are very iconic national parks yep,perhaps the best well known, but those

(44:29):
right, But you know, theGrand Cany would come in at number two
where we talked about that. Yosemitecomes in at number six with three point
six million people, and you Yellowstoneat seventh with three point three million people,
so it's quite the drop off.The number three is actually pretty interesting
actually sorry. Number three is Zionthat's probably not surprise, followed by Rocky
Mountains. The number five just aboveYosemite, I thought was pretty interesting.

(44:52):
And that's Acadia and Maine the AkadiaNational Park with almost four million people visiting
that. Well, it's sort ofstands the reason that I mean, there's
a lot more population on the Eastcoast than there is on the west coast,
so that that adds up a littlebit if you think about it that
way. Yeah, I think.I think once you start thinking about it,
you start thinking about the geographies thatsort of surround these places. You

(45:14):
know, getting to a place likeZion, for example, beautiful, or
even Yellowstone or even Yosemite. Right, these these are beautiful places, but
getting to them is hard. Evenif you let's say you live in you
know, Phoenix, for example,and you want to take a visit up
to the Grand Canyon. That's stillthat's a trek, right, You're not
You're not taking a flight there.Now, it's a trick to get a

(45:35):
little bit to get to the GreatSmoky Mountains as well. Right, It's
not like it's next to Nashville oror or Charlotte, North Carolina. However,
the distances are a little bit smallerand there's just more population overall.
Right, you know, if youlook at a sort of population density map,
you know, of the east versusthe west. You're gonna notice a
pretty stark difference in how many peoplethere actually are over on that side.

(45:57):
I mean, there's a few majorcities not super far compared to these other
examples that we've been talking about.Right, So I have another question for
you. Okay's perhaps a bit unfairfor you to take a guess here,
but you know here we are.Do you know what the least visited national
park is? Oh? I mean, I would be so surprised if you

(46:19):
if you have a so you thinkthat I probably wouldn't know this. In
other words, I think you wouldprobably not know this, but maybe I
think you would. I think youcould probably hazard a guess at sort of
the geographic location. Okay, Idon't know if you guess the exact Because
you mentioned that there is a nationalpark in America Samoa, I'm going to
guess that one. That would bea fantastic guess. The American Samoa National

(46:43):
Park as it's called, is thesecond least visit Okay, with only twelve
thousand people visiting it in twenty twentytwo. The least visited would be the
Gates of the Arctic in Alaska,so it's the country's northernmost park. It
only it only got about ninety fourhundred people to visit it twenty twenty two.

(47:04):
So listener, if you want someNational Park trophies to add to your
collection here and you want to youknow, some bragging rights a little bit,
you can go and visit some ofthese places. There's actually, i
mean people who try to visit themall if you go there, yeah,
right, I mean, Alaska hasthree of the top five or lowest five
visited, right, which is probablynot surprise because Alaska is a huge state

(47:24):
and once there's not a whole lotof infrastructure, so getting to these places
is a monumental challenge. Obviously AmericanSamoa that's also a pretty hard trip to
get get out there. The mostinteresting one I think is number five,
which is Isle Royal in Michigan.So only about twenty five thousand people have
visited it. It's the largest islandin Lake Superior, and you know,

(47:46):
very isolated relatively, but Michigan ispopulous, you know, there's a lot
of people up there. I don'tknow is the other one that I thought
is Royale only of accessible by boat. There's no probably there'sbably no land strip
or anything. There's probably no landbridge. I don't have a map in
front of me of it, unfortunately, or or like a landing strip for

(48:07):
a plane or something like that.Maybe, well, there are planes that
you go there, I know that, but I think they land you can
land in the water. Yeah,right right. You can go back to
our our air travel episode if youwant to learn more about that kind of
stuff. Yeah, exactly. Iwould say the most surprising, and so
this comes in at number six.The most surprising least visited national park is

(48:29):
the North Cascades National Park in WashingtonState. Only about thirty thousand people visited
it in twenty twenty two. Thereason why this is so surprising is because
it's actually fairly close to Seattle metropolitanarea. It's you know, it's not
that far away. You could doit in a day trip. You can
go up there and visit it.And if you compare it to Mount Rainier

(48:51):
or or the Olympic, you know, it's I think, let me see
if I can find those on mylist here, but those ones get you
know, Olympic National Park gets twopoint five million. Yeah, it was
about the same way. Yep,Mount Rainier gets one point six million,
right, and so I think thatthat always surprised me. I'm like,
oh, what what's going on upthere? What's why is this not getting

(49:12):
his mind? I mean, Iwould speculate that you can see Mount Rainier
from Seattle sometimes, right, isn'tthat true? That's right? So that's
looming, right, and so that'son people's radar. And then Olympic National
Park is close to the coast aswell, and so that I wonder if
that's part of the draw as well, perhaps, right, yeah, yep.

(49:35):
And because we're in here in Oregon, I gotta I gotta talk about
our our local national park a littlebit. So Crater Lake, if you
haven't visited, listener, it istruly beautiful. It's a big well,
it's a big crater, that's alake. It's actually a collapse volcano.
Wasn't caused by a meteor. It'sa whole other things. Caldera, yes,
caldera. Yep. Crater Lake intwenty twenty two had five hundred and
twenty seven thousand visitors in just lastyear or two years ago, and it

(49:59):
placed three thirty seventh. So itis one of the less visited national parks.
Aren't a lot of right nearby CraterLake. No, it's it's yeah,
it's kind of I would say it'salmost getting pretty close to being equidistant
between Sacramento and Portland. That soundsabout right, which is a hard drive.
It's probably about four hours if wewere to drive south from Portland,

(50:21):
probably about four or five hours ifyou drive north from Is it only four
to five hours from Portland? Ithink? So, Okay, I don't
know, I don't know exactly,Yeah, right, Okay, it could
be a little bit further. Yeah, not sure. Anyways, it's it's
far, it's it's it's secluded forsure. Beautiful now it's the bluest water
that I remember seeing, I think, perhaps, I mean right, yeah,

(50:43):
So, to conclude our episode onNational Parks Hunter, I kind of
want to talk a little bit aboutthe Gateway Arch because it's definitely different from
all the other National parks we've beentalking about. Right, So it's actually,
you know, I have this likefun corollary, which is like you're
taking one of those standardized tests andit's like one of these is not like
the other. Have to pick oneof the four questions. This is this
would be one of those where youknow, you look at you know,

(51:04):
four national parks and that and theGateway Arch is there. It's like one
of these is not like the others. We had a whole song about that,
I think. Yeah. And sothe Gateway Arch is ninety two acres
in total area size, which wouldmake the Gateway National Arch National Park the
smallest national park by far. Thenext smallest would be Hot Springs, Arkansas,
that we talked about earlier in thisepisode, which is about fifty five

(51:25):
hundred acres. Okay, right,so this is this is a fraction and
that's that's fifty five hundred acres isstill really small, still compared for a
national park. So the Gateway Architself was built in nineteen sixty five and
was originally designated as the Jefferson NationalExpansion Memorial. However, on June twenty

(51:45):
sixth, twenty seventeen, so notthat long ago, Senator Roy Blunt,
who was a Republican, introduced GatewayArch National Park Designation Gateway Arch National Park
Designation Act to redesignate the Jefferson NationalExpansion Memorial as the Gateway Arch National Park.
And the reason why I brought uprepublican is because the legislation was co

(52:05):
sponsored by Senator Claire mcgaskill, whowas a Democrat, both from the state
of Missouri. So just illustrating thatthis was a what's the word bipartisan effort.
Yeah, this was largely seen asa way to push more tourism to
Saint Louis due to the overwhelming popularityof national parks. Right, So,
national parks again, it's a verypopular concept. Americans generally really love national

(52:29):
parks, and to have one fora state, it's kind of seen as
bragging rights states that don't have them, you know, they I think they
feel a little left out. SoI think that's true. I think that's
definitely true. Let me make sureI understand this. It was a national
park before and then they renamed itor it was designated a National park in
two thousand seves. It wasn't partof the National Park Service at all before

(52:49):
it was designated under the Department ofthe Interior as Jefferson National Expansion Memorial,
which is a whole other thing.Okay, Right, it wasn't a national
monument, it wasn't anything. Itwas not part of the National so when
I visited, but it was nota National park, I'm realized, right
now, Yeah, right, itwould have just been you know, just
its own sort of memorial. Andwe have to remember that, you know,

(53:10):
these two centators wanted this because theyfor the tourism and because remember,
like National Park Service has really goodbranding. To be associated and have a
tie to the National Park Services issought after. Well, there are a
lot of people who wanted to justgo to as many as possible, or
maybe all of them, And soif you become one, then you get
at least that population plus people whoare wanting to visit it for other reasons.

(53:34):
Right, there's definitely a got tocatch them all sort of sense.
Yeah, sense here. You know. So that initially the National Park Service
pushed back on this designation, suggestingthat instead it should be redesignated as a
National Monument, which would align itwith things such as the Statue of Liberty,
which I think is probably a fairand sensical sort of designation. Right

(53:58):
if we compare national if we comparethe Gateway Arch too, you know,
Yosemite and the Statue of Liberty,I think most people would say, oh,
it's probably more like the Statue ofLiberty. It's in terms of it's
more urban than most of the otherexam any of the other examples I think
that we've been talking about exactly,and that's one of the things, right,
it's it's an urban area. So, despite this pushed back by the

(54:20):
National Park Service, Congress officially passedthe Act and the Gateway Arch became an
official national park. And this hasbeen highly critiqued by nature journalists throughout the
country as it doesn't really conserve quoteunquote a natural area, which is you
know again, that's very true,right, this is an urban area.
There's not there's nothing really natural aboutit at this point. There's a lot

(54:42):
of grass, there's some buildings,there's obviously the Gateway Arch, which is
entirely man made. It's Giant Stadiumnearby. Yeah, Giants Stadium nearby.
It's worth noting that as of twentytwenty three, so there's some more recent
statistics, the Gateway Arch had abouttwo point four million visitors, and this
is the highest it's been since twentytwelve, when it hit two point five

(55:05):
million visitors. Okay, though it'sstill considerably down from nineteen sixty six after
it opened, which when it gotfour point four million visitors. But this
perhaps illustrates that, oh, thereactually is a benefit to having a National
park designation, right, because ifyou go back to it, was it
like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen,it was sort of floating around the one
point four one point five million visitorrange, and now it's sort of peaking

(55:28):
up again. It's like, gota million more visitors at least, right,
you're late because of that, whichis right, I mean, that's
that's probably a huge boom for SaintLewis. Yeah, absolutely, I have.
I've driven through Saint Louis. Idid not stop to take a you
know, visit to the I waspretty I was probably twenty. It wasn't
really on my radar. Saw fromthe freeway. I was like, oh,

(55:49):
that's kind of neat, and justkept going. I was like that
I was. I was in mytwenties when I went there, when I
went up it, and then mysister lives in the area, So okay,
but last time we went there asa family, it was they were
doing construction on it or some Idon't know, some repairs or beautification something.
I'm not sure. Yeah, nexttime. Well, so anyway,

(56:12):
I guess all that's to say,you know, I want to talk about
the gateway arts because it sort ofillustrates the you know, politicking of you
know, if we go back tosome of the first part of this that
so we went ran through some ofthose the criteria of what makes the national
park right, you know, obviously, the criteria is that Congress has to
sign off on it, and that'sit. That's all that it is.
Once Congress says that, then allthe other stuff those should that we talked

(56:34):
about sort of fall fall by theway. So Congress may or may not
take that criteria into account when they'remaking a designation. That seems there seems
to be evidence for that recently.Yes, absolutely, yep. So to
close us out here, Hunter,I thought, you know, it might
be fun to talk about some ofthe ideas that are floating around about the
next potential national park. You know, like I said, one comes around

(56:57):
every few years. It's not likea super uncommon car. It's one hasn't
been designated since twenty twenty so there'sprobably one do And so according to one
National Geographic article from June third,twenty twenty three, these are the current
contenders and I'm not super familiar withsome of these, but we'll run through
them. So there's the and I'mprobably gonna mispronounce this, but the Aukmolgi

(57:17):
Mounds in Ukmolgi Mounds National Historic Parkin Georgia. This would Georgia doesn't currently
have a national park, so thismight be there first. There's the Craters
of the Moon National Monument and Preservein Idaho, which I am familiar with,
and it is quite stark and beautifulif you've ever seen it. There's
Katadan Woods and Waters National Monument tomain Kataden, Kataden. Yeah, so

(57:45):
I appreciate the pronunciation. Now it'sthe New England names always get me.
Yeah, No, is it Worcesteror is it Wooster? I think it's
it's Worcester. Yeah. There's theCherry Kawa National Monument in Arizona, the
Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, theDelaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New

(58:09):
Jersey and Pennsylvania, and then theTongue Gas National Forest in Alaska. So
these are sort of the ones thatare floated out. I've also seen mount
Hood floated, Mounthood National Forest forOregon floated as a potential national park I'm
not sure how much how many legsthat one has. In fact, I'm
not sure if any of these necessarilyhave legs or if this is just national

(58:30):
geographic sort of saying this is sortof what we think as the most likely.
Yeah, yeah, because it's notreally like the process isn't really made.
It's all political, right, it'syou know who what's going to be
sort of floated in front of Congress, right, and that sort of also
necessities having sort of a Congress that'syou know, functioning at any given moment,
which is not always the case,right, so you know when and

(58:52):
where, you know, it's alldetermined by politics. But I thought it
was fun. I think it's alwaysfun to sort of speculate on you know,
what the next one's going to be, and you have an idea of
what you would want to see asthe next one. But what I want
to see if you have any place, I mean, I'm familiar with Mount
catad In a little bit in thatarea, so that hits in my heart
strings a little bit because I'm familiarwith the area deserve one. I on

(59:16):
the one hand, I think Connecticutdeserves one. I'm not sure where it
should be necessarily, but there's gotto be I mean, there's a lot
of beautiful spots. I grew upnext to us, not next to,
but very near a state park,so it wasn't it probably wouldn't be a
good candidate for a National park,but it was great having it nearby and
going on lots of hikes with myfamily and we could access it from our

(59:38):
house, so that was cool.Yeah, I always thought that the so
bringing it back to Oregon, thatthe Columbia River Gorge is very it's very
dramatic landscape, very cool. Idon't know how, I mean, there's
a lot of development there at thispoint, so I'm not sure how you
would necessarily cordon off areas for nationalpark. But that's always a place where

(01:00:00):
I'm like, this is this isan area that is I think follows along
with the spirit of a national park. You know, if we look back
at things like you know, theGrand Canyon or Yosemite or Yellowstone, where
it's just it's so awe inspiring andmajestic, you're like, wow, how
is this? How am I goingthrough this right now? How is this?
You know? I feel like soI'm there's always a part of me

(01:00:21):
it is like, well, maybethat should be a national park, but
I don't know how you fit itin there. Yeah. I mean,
and it's a waterway with an enormousamount of economic activities still, so I
don't know how that's probably why.Yeah, that might be it. Yeah,
yeah, Well this has been areally fun episode. Hunter, who
are you? Tell us? Tellour listeners where they can find you.
I'm Hunter Showby. I'm a professorof geography at Portland State University. I'm

(01:00:43):
co author of Portland as a Culturalat List and Upper Left Cities a Cultural
Atlas San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. I've co author does with David Mannis,
and i am co host of thispodcast, Geography Is Everything. With
you? Jeff, Thanks Hunter.Yeah, my name is Jeff Gibson.
You can find me over on youTube in addition to this podcast. Just
google my name on you know whateverYouTube you'll find me. If you liked

(01:01:06):
what you heard today, please rate, review on Apple Podcasts, all these
fun stuff Spotify, or if you'relistening to this on YouTube, please license
subscribe really helps us out over thereand you get all these you know.
Now, there's video versions of thisyou can sort of see some of these
places we're talking about see maps ofthese places. If you want to find
more of our stuff, you canalways go over to substack Geographies Everything dot
Substack, where you can get thisall sent directly to your email box.
It's totally free. We don't chargeanything do that. It's just an easy

(01:01:29):
way to sort of get this directlysent to you. Next week, Hunner,
I think we are doing a prettyinteresting episode right which is all about
whales. All about whales, sonow for something completely different. Yeah,
And as I'm preparing it, I'mrealizing this is just yet another topic that
I'm wondering how we're going to fitwithin an hour. But that's the challenge,

(01:01:52):
and I think it's going to bevery interesting. I've been kind of
fascinated with Wales. I grew upin a place where there were there's a
lot of whaling, which is sortof economic activity that's that's discouraged now by
international law. But yeah, we'llget into Wales next week. Yeah,
it should be fun. I think, you know. The way I'm thinking
about it is like so much ofwhat we talk about is so wholly focused

(01:02:15):
on land. Obviously, that's wherehumans are, It's where a lot of
the things that we build are alot of like the nature. You know,
the national parks for example, areI think this will be really interesting
because it can be you. Soit's almost like a very different viewpoint of
our planet. Right. The whalescan go in a lot of different places,
and they travel around in a lotof different ways, you know,

(01:02:36):
because they're in an ocean, they'rein a body of water that's all connected.
That's right. So it's time toget aquatic here. Yes, we're
gonna get aquatic. So come backnext week. We're gonna do the geography
as whales episodes should be a lotof fun, and I guess that will
do it for us today. Sowe will see you then. Thank you
for listening.