1 00:00:15,191 --> 00:00:17,659 MAN: One of the last jobs l had in Yellowstone was 2 00:00:17,694 --> 00:00:21,994 delivering the mail on snowmobile. 3 00:00:22,031 --> 00:00:25,728 There l was in the world's first national park, and l 4 00:00:25,769 --> 00:00:30,138 remember going down into Hayden Valley. 5 00:00:30,173 --> 00:00:33,904 There were bison crossing over the road--2,000-pound mammals 6 00:00:33,943 --> 00:00:36,571 crossing over the road, and it was so cold. 7 00:00:36,613 --> 00:00:39,707 lt was about 60 below zero. 8 00:00:39,749 --> 00:00:42,616 And the bison, as they breathed, their exhalation 9 00:00:42,652 --> 00:00:45,678 would seem to crystallize in the air around them, and there 10 00:00:45,722 --> 00:00:49,180 were these sheets, these ropey stands of crystals kind 11 00:00:49,225 --> 00:00:51,785 of flowing down from their breath. 12 00:00:51,828 --> 00:00:54,661 And l saw them, and they just moved their heads and were 13 00:00:54,697 --> 00:00:57,666 looking at me, and l remember thinking that if l had not 14 00:00:57,700 --> 00:01:00,669 been on that machine, l would have thought l had been thrust 15 00:01:00,703 --> 00:01:02,603 fully back into the Pleistocene, back into 16 00:01:02,639 --> 00:01:05,506 the lce Age. 17 00:01:05,542 --> 00:01:07,976 And l remember just stopping and turning it off 18 00:01:08,011 --> 00:01:10,070 because the only way you could hear was to turn that thing 19 00:01:10,113 --> 00:01:13,310 off, and l would turn it off, and l would listen, and l felt 20 00:01:13,349 --> 00:01:17,479 like this was the first day... 21 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:20,489 and this morning was the first time the sun had ever come up 22 00:01:20,523 --> 00:01:22,787 and the shadows that are being cast right now is the first 23 00:01:22,826 --> 00:01:26,819 time those shadows have ever been cast on the earth. 24 00:01:28,832 --> 00:01:31,767 And l was all alone, but l felt l was in the presence 25 00:01:31,801 --> 00:01:35,202 of everything around me and l was never alone. 26 00:01:37,340 --> 00:01:39,501 lt was one of those moments when you get pulled outside 27 00:01:39,542 --> 00:01:42,238 of yourself into the environment around you, 28 00:01:42,278 --> 00:01:45,008 and l felt like l was just with the breath of the bison 29 00:01:45,048 --> 00:01:47,744 as they were exhaling and l was exhaling and they 30 00:01:47,784 --> 00:01:48,910 were inhaling. 31 00:01:48,952 --> 00:01:51,113 lt was all kind of flowing together, and l forgot 32 00:01:51,154 --> 00:01:53,349 completely about the mail. 33 00:01:53,389 --> 00:01:58,019 All l was thinking of was that a single moment 34 00:01:58,061 --> 00:02:00,495 in a place as wild as Yellowstone, and most 35 00:02:00,530 --> 00:02:03,829 of the national parks, can last forever. 36 00:02:12,075 --> 00:02:16,102 PETER COYOTE: ln 1883, a young politician, the second son 37 00:02:16,145 --> 00:02:19,308 of a prominent New York City family, became alarmed 38 00:02:19,349 --> 00:02:23,080 about reports that the vast herds of buffalo that had once 39 00:02:23,119 --> 00:02:28,580 blanketed the Great Plains were quickly disappearing. 40 00:02:28,625 --> 00:02:32,026 So he hurried west on the Northern Pacific Railroad 41 00:02:32,061 --> 00:02:35,087 and got off when he reached the heart of the badlands 42 00:02:35,131 --> 00:02:36,689 in the Dakota territory. 43 00:02:36,733 --> 00:02:38,724 [Train whistle blows] 44 00:02:38,768 --> 00:02:41,737 His name was Theodore Roosevelt. 45 00:02:41,771 --> 00:02:45,673 He was 24 years old, and he was afraid the buffalo would 46 00:02:45,708 --> 00:02:50,668 become extinct before he got the chance to shoot one. 47 00:02:50,713 --> 00:02:54,444 He hired a local guide and endured days of rough travel 48 00:02:54,484 --> 00:02:58,580 by horseback until he finally came across a solitary buffalo 49 00:02:58,621 --> 00:03:02,853 bull, killed it, and then removed its head for shipment 50 00:03:02,892 --> 00:03:08,262 back to New York to be mounted on his wall. 51 00:03:08,298 --> 00:03:10,528 MAN: Roosevelt loved to kill. 52 00:03:10,567 --> 00:03:13,400 He liked to shoot quadrupeds. 53 00:03:13,436 --> 00:03:15,996 At times he basically said he didn't trust Americans who 54 00:03:16,039 --> 00:03:18,906 wouldn't hunt, and he hinted that he didn't believe that 55 00:03:18,942 --> 00:03:20,603 Americans should have citizenship who weren't 56 00:03:20,643 --> 00:03:23,043 willing to kill a quadruped. 57 00:03:23,079 --> 00:03:26,537 COYOTE: That first trip to the west, Roosevelt said later, 58 00:03:26,583 --> 00:03:29,848 was an important turning point for him. 59 00:03:29,886 --> 00:03:32,855 Over the next several years, he would return again 60 00:03:32,889 --> 00:03:36,950 and again to take more hunting trips into the mountains, 61 00:03:36,993 --> 00:03:40,588 to ranch on the open plains, to build up his health 62 00:03:40,630 --> 00:03:45,533 and character by pursuing what he called ''the strenuous life,'' 63 00:03:45,568 --> 00:03:49,800 to become, in his own words, ''at heart as much a Westerner 64 00:03:49,839 --> 00:03:53,400 as l am an Easterner.'' 65 00:03:53,443 --> 00:03:58,005 Roosevelt would never lose his love of hunting, but in time 66 00:03:58,047 --> 00:04:01,414 he would learn that there were much bigger and more important 67 00:04:01,451 --> 00:04:04,147 trophies to pursue. 68 00:04:16,466 --> 00:04:19,731 [Roaring] 69 00:05:15,358 --> 00:05:19,351 WOMAN: Our national parks are an idea, an idea based 70 00:05:19,395 --> 00:05:23,297 on generosiry--not just for our own species, but 71 00:05:23,332 --> 00:05:26,324 for all species. 72 00:05:26,369 --> 00:05:30,567 l think that is profoundly original in terms of a people 73 00:05:30,606 --> 00:05:34,872 that say, we value wild nature in place. 74 00:05:34,911 --> 00:05:37,903 We are of this place. 75 00:05:37,947 --> 00:05:41,815 And l think it's our own declaration of both 76 00:05:41,851 --> 00:05:45,378 independence and interdependence. 77 00:05:49,559 --> 00:05:52,494 MAN: The great wilds of our country, once held to be 78 00:05:52,528 --> 00:05:56,965 boundless and inexhaustible, are being rapidly invaded 79 00:05:56,999 --> 00:06:00,901 and overrun in every direction, and everything 80 00:06:00,937 --> 00:06:06,239 destructible in them is being destroyed. 81 00:06:06,275 --> 00:06:10,507 How far destruction may go is not easy to guess. 82 00:06:10,546 --> 00:06:15,176 Every landscape, low and high, seems doomed to be trampled 83 00:06:15,218 --> 00:06:17,686 and harried. 84 00:06:17,720 --> 00:06:19,779 John Muir. 85 00:06:21,257 --> 00:06:24,420 COYOTE: As the 19th century entered its final decade, 86 00:06:24,460 --> 00:06:27,588 Americans began to take stock of what they had made 87 00:06:27,630 --> 00:06:32,124 of the continent they had been so busily subduing. 88 00:06:33,469 --> 00:06:36,870 Only 50 years earlier, the nation's western border 89 00:06:36,906 --> 00:06:39,568 had been the spine of the Rocky Mountains. 90 00:06:39,609 --> 00:06:42,669 Buffalo numbering in the tens of millions teemed 91 00:06:42,712 --> 00:06:44,771 on the Great Plains. 92 00:06:44,814 --> 00:06:48,648 Vast forests had never heard the ring of an ax. 93 00:06:48,684 --> 00:06:52,950 lndian peoples stilled controlled most of the west. 94 00:06:52,989 --> 00:06:54,616 [Train whistle blowing] 95 00:06:54,657 --> 00:06:58,718 Now the nation stretched all the way to the Pacific. 96 00:06:58,761 --> 00:07:02,492 Railroads had pushed into every corner of the country. 97 00:07:02,532 --> 00:07:05,501 lndians had been systematically dispossessed 98 00:07:05,535 --> 00:07:10,802 from their homelands and forced onto reservations. 99 00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:14,435 White settlements had sprung up in so many places that the 100 00:07:14,477 --> 00:07:18,607 director of the census of 1890 announced he could no longer 101 00:07:18,648 --> 00:07:23,642 find an American frontier. 102 00:07:23,686 --> 00:07:26,849 The bountiful land Thomas Jefferson considered nature's 103 00:07:26,889 --> 00:07:32,828 nation had seemingly been conquered. 104 00:07:32,862 --> 00:07:34,796 MAN: The moment that Americans start setting aside these 105 00:07:34,831 --> 00:07:37,595 national parks is also the moment of sort of the most 106 00:07:37,633 --> 00:07:40,431 explosive exploitation of so many elements 107 00:07:40,469 --> 00:07:43,131 of the national landscape. 108 00:07:43,172 --> 00:07:44,969 lt's the cutting down of the north woods 109 00:07:45,007 --> 00:07:46,372 at an extraordinary rate. 110 00:07:46,409 --> 00:07:48,400 lt's the destruction of the bison herds, the elimination 111 00:07:48,444 --> 00:07:50,639 of the passenger pigeons. 112 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:53,274 There is so much being destroyed in the name 113 00:07:53,316 --> 00:07:55,477 of progress in the United States in the late 19th 114 00:07:55,518 --> 00:08:00,546 century that the parks are a kind of reaction against that. 115 00:08:00,590 --> 00:08:03,184 They are saying, if we keep going the way we're going, 116 00:08:03,226 --> 00:08:05,786 we're going to use it all up, and some of this is 117 00:08:05,828 --> 00:08:09,229 so beautiful, so essential to who we are as a people that 118 00:08:09,265 --> 00:08:12,894 we've got to put walls around these parts and protect them 119 00:08:12,935 --> 00:08:15,335 from ourselves. 120 00:08:18,274 --> 00:08:21,641 COYOTE: By 1890, the United States has established 4 121 00:08:21,677 --> 00:08:26,614 national parks: Yellowstone, the world's first; the high 122 00:08:26,649 --> 00:08:30,813 country of Yosemite; and two groves of big trees 123 00:08:30,853 --> 00:08:35,017 in California--General Grant and Sequoia. 124 00:08:35,057 --> 00:08:37,855 The army had recently been placed in charge 125 00:08:37,894 --> 00:08:39,691 of protecting them all. 126 00:08:39,729 --> 00:08:40,957 [Gunshot] 127 00:08:40,997 --> 00:08:45,457 Nonetheless, park wildlife were still routinely killed. 128 00:08:45,501 --> 00:08:49,904 Cows and sheep still overgrazed park meadows. 129 00:08:49,939 --> 00:08:53,500 Ancient forests were still endangered. 130 00:08:53,542 --> 00:08:57,239 And tourists seemed intent on squandering the treasures 131 00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:01,649 a previous generation had bequeathed them. 132 00:09:01,684 --> 00:09:05,211 The park idea, not yet a quarter century old, 133 00:09:05,254 --> 00:09:08,519 still seemed an uncertain experiment. 134 00:09:08,557 --> 00:09:11,048 The issues of what was permissible and proper 135 00:09:11,093 --> 00:09:16,087 for people who visited the parks were still unresolved. 136 00:09:18,434 --> 00:09:21,767 But as a new century was about to dawn, a handful 137 00:09:21,804 --> 00:09:25,433 of Americans began to question the headlong rush that had 138 00:09:25,474 --> 00:09:30,207 caused so much devastation and saw in the national parks 139 00:09:30,246 --> 00:09:33,682 a seed of hope that at least some pristine places could be 140 00:09:33,716 --> 00:09:37,812 saved before it was too late. 141 00:09:37,853 --> 00:09:41,755 Among them would be the young assemblyman from New York Ciry 142 00:09:41,791 --> 00:09:45,591 who had gone west on a boyish impulse but who would mature 143 00:09:45,628 --> 00:09:49,894 into a president whose most lasting legacy was rescuing 144 00:09:49,932 --> 00:09:54,028 large portions of America from destruction. 145 00:09:56,806 --> 00:10:01,334 MAN: Surely our people do not understand even yet the rich 146 00:10:01,377 --> 00:10:04,141 heritage that is theirs. 147 00:10:05,748 --> 00:10:08,512 There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than 148 00:10:08,551 --> 00:10:14,421 the Yosemite, the groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, 149 00:10:14,457 --> 00:10:21,625 the canyon of the Yellowstone, the canyon of the Colorado, 150 00:10:21,664 --> 00:10:24,963 the Three Tetons. 151 00:10:25,001 --> 00:10:28,402 And our people should see to it that they are preserved 152 00:10:28,437 --> 00:10:34,034 for their children and their children's children forever 153 00:10:34,076 --> 00:10:38,376 with their majestic beaury all unmarred. 154 00:10:51,761 --> 00:10:53,626 DlFFERENT MAN: Dear reader, 155 00:10:53,662 --> 00:10:59,396 today l'm in the Yellowstone Park, and l wish l were dead. 156 00:10:59,435 --> 00:11:04,202 The park is just a howling wilderness of 3,000 square 157 00:11:04,240 --> 00:11:10,475 miles, full of all imaginable freaks of a fiery nature. 158 00:11:12,715 --> 00:11:16,583 l have been through the park in a buggy in the company of 159 00:11:16,619 --> 00:11:20,612 an adventurous old lady from Chicago and her husband, 160 00:11:20,656 --> 00:11:26,322 who disapproved of the scenery as being ungodly. 161 00:11:26,362 --> 00:11:29,388 l fancy it scared them. 162 00:11:29,432 --> 00:11:31,491 Rudyard Kipling. 163 00:11:32,868 --> 00:11:36,702 COYOTE: ln 1889, Rudyard Kipling, a young Englishman 164 00:11:36,739 --> 00:11:39,765 and aspiring writer, was making his first tour 165 00:11:39,809 --> 00:11:42,607 of the United States, financing the trip by 166 00:11:42,645 --> 00:11:47,309 writing dispatches for newspapers overseas. 167 00:11:47,349 --> 00:11:50,318 Like many foreigners, Kipling could not resist stopping 168 00:11:50,352 --> 00:11:54,288 at Yellowstone, a place already known around the world 169 00:11:54,323 --> 00:11:57,190 as the wonderland. 170 00:11:57,226 --> 00:12:01,458 Most visitors in those days were well-to-do, able to pay 171 00:12:01,497 --> 00:12:05,763 the $1 20 train fare across the continent to the remote 172 00:12:05,801 --> 00:12:10,238 northwestern corner of Wyoming and then $40 more 173 00:12:10,272 --> 00:12:14,140 for the 5-day stagecoach trip through the park known as 174 00:12:14,176 --> 00:12:16,804 the grand tour. 175 00:12:16,846 --> 00:12:20,282 The first stop was the hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs, 176 00:12:20,316 --> 00:12:23,479 where everyone unpacked quickly and then rushed to buy 177 00:12:23,519 --> 00:12:28,115 souvenirs and post cards made by the park's resident 178 00:12:28,157 --> 00:12:31,684 photographer, Frank J. Haynes. 179 00:12:31,727 --> 00:12:34,594 Many guests were perfectly content to view the Mammoth 180 00:12:34,630 --> 00:12:39,363 Springs from the comfort of the hotel veranda, but some 181 00:12:39,401 --> 00:12:42,837 bought guide books and hiked up to the terraces 182 00:12:42,872 --> 00:12:45,864 for a closer look. 183 00:12:45,908 --> 00:12:47,432 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: l found a basin which some 184 00:12:47,476 --> 00:12:52,345 learned hotelkeeper has christened Cleopatra's Pitcher 185 00:12:52,381 --> 00:12:58,115 or Mark Antony's Whiskey Jug or something equally poetical. 186 00:12:58,154 --> 00:13:01,214 l do not know the depth of that wonder. 187 00:13:01,257 --> 00:13:04,351 The eye looked down into an abyss that communicated 188 00:13:04,393 --> 00:13:08,955 directly with the central fires of the earth. 189 00:13:08,998 --> 00:13:14,231 The ground rings hollow as a kerosene tin, and someday the 190 00:13:14,270 --> 00:13:18,639 Mammoth Hotel, guests and all, will sink into the caverns 191 00:13:18,674 --> 00:13:23,441 below and be turned into a stalactite. 192 00:13:26,315 --> 00:13:28,510 COYOTE: ln the morning, the passengers loaded back 193 00:13:28,551 --> 00:13:32,385 into their assigned carriages and one by one set off toward 194 00:13:32,421 --> 00:13:36,983 the park's interior, spaced about every 500 yards to 195 00:13:37,026 --> 00:13:40,393 lessen the effects of dust that clung in the air, Kipling 196 00:13:40,429 --> 00:13:44,729 wrote, as dense as a fog. 197 00:13:44,767 --> 00:13:48,225 He was bemused by his fellow tourists, especially the older 198 00:13:48,270 --> 00:13:52,206 woman from Chicago sitting next to him, who chewed gum 199 00:13:52,241 --> 00:13:55,836 and talked constantly, pontificating with her husband 200 00:13:55,878 --> 00:13:58,847 on everything they encountered, especially once 201 00:13:58,881 --> 00:14:02,874 they reached the first geyser area. 202 00:14:02,918 --> 00:14:04,545 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: The old lady, regarding the 203 00:14:04,587 --> 00:14:08,921 horrors of the fire holes, could only say ''Good Lord!'' 204 00:14:08,958 --> 00:14:12,621 at 30-second intervals. 205 00:14:12,661 --> 00:14:18,258 Her husband talked about the dreadful waste of steam power. 206 00:14:18,300 --> 00:14:22,236 ''And if,'' continued the old lady,'' if we find a thing 207 00:14:22,271 --> 00:14:25,434 ''so dreadful as all that steam and sulfur allowed on the face 208 00:14:25,474 --> 00:14:28,602 ''on the earth, mustn't we believe there is something 209 00:14:28,644 --> 00:14:32,011 ''10,000 times more terrible below, 210 00:14:32,047 --> 00:14:37,280 ''prepared for our destruction?'' 211 00:14:37,319 --> 00:14:40,516 COYOTE: At noon, they stopped at a tent hotel, a place 212 00:14:40,556 --> 00:14:44,652 called Larry's, run by Larry Matthews, a friendly 213 00:14:44,693 --> 00:14:48,060 and loquacious lrishman known for lavishing special 214 00:14:48,097 --> 00:14:52,659 attention on his gentille guests. 215 00:14:52,701 --> 00:14:54,931 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: Larry enveloped us all in the golden 216 00:14:54,970 --> 00:15:00,101 glamour of his speech, 'ere we had descended. 217 00:15:00,142 --> 00:15:04,841 And the tent with the rude trestle table became a palace, 218 00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:07,246 the rough fare became delicacies 219 00:15:07,283 --> 00:15:11,344 of Delmonico's, and we, the abashed recipients 220 00:15:11,387 --> 00:15:14,754 of Larry's imperial bounry. 221 00:15:14,790 --> 00:15:18,282 lt was only later that l discovered that l had paid 8 222 00:15:18,327 --> 00:15:23,765 shillings for tinned beef, biscuits, and beer. 223 00:15:27,736 --> 00:15:29,328 COYOTE: Like the other establishments within 224 00:15:29,371 --> 00:15:33,330 the park, Larry's encouraged tourists to believe that all 225 00:15:33,375 --> 00:15:36,867 the water in Yellowstone was impregnated with sulfur 226 00:15:36,912 --> 00:15:40,177 and therefore unfit for drinking. 227 00:15:40,215 --> 00:15:43,844 lt was untrue, but it boosted sales of mineral water 228 00:15:43,886 --> 00:15:48,016 and beer at the inflated price of 50 cents a bottle 229 00:15:48,057 --> 00:15:52,926 and created roadsides littered with empties. 230 00:15:52,961 --> 00:15:55,327 When the parade of stagecoaches reached the lower 231 00:15:55,364 --> 00:15:58,925 geyser basin, the tourists encamped for two nights 232 00:15:58,967 --> 00:16:02,926 at the Fire Hole Hotel, or later, the more luxurious 233 00:16:02,971 --> 00:16:07,965 Fountain Hotel, built at a cost of $100,000 and capable 234 00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:13,175 of handling 350 guests, complete with electric lights, 235 00:16:13,215 --> 00:16:19,279 steam heat, and hot baths fed by one of the thermal springs. 236 00:16:19,321 --> 00:16:23,052 The next two days of the grand tour were devoted exclusively 237 00:16:23,092 --> 00:16:26,425 to visiting the spectacular array of geysers and thermal 238 00:16:26,462 --> 00:16:30,489 pools and fumaroles, the largest concentration 239 00:16:30,532 --> 00:16:33,626 of them in the world. 240 00:16:33,669 --> 00:16:36,433 Tourists would peer down the throat of gaping holes 241 00:16:36,472 --> 00:16:40,169 in the ground, taking their chances that a geyser was not 242 00:16:40,209 --> 00:16:43,542 about to erupt in their face. 243 00:16:43,579 --> 00:16:46,878 They marveled at the beaury of translucent pools of turquoise 244 00:16:46,915 --> 00:16:51,852 water, washed pieces of linen in Handkerchief Pool, which 245 00:16:51,887 --> 00:16:56,483 turned the cloth white as snow. 246 00:16:56,525 --> 00:16:58,015 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: They are guarded by soldiers who 247 00:16:58,060 --> 00:17:01,223 patrol with loaded six-shooters in order that the 248 00:17:01,263 --> 00:17:04,027 tourists may not bring up fence-rails and sink them 249 00:17:04,066 --> 00:17:09,197 in a pool or chip the fretted tracery of the formations 250 00:17:09,238 --> 00:17:13,504 with a geological hammer or, walking where the crust is too 251 00:17:13,542 --> 00:17:17,239 thin, foolishly cook himself. 252 00:17:20,048 --> 00:17:22,209 COYOTE: No visit to Yellowstone was considered 253 00:17:22,251 --> 00:17:28,247 complete without seeing Old Faithful go off on schedule. 254 00:17:28,290 --> 00:17:30,190 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: All the young ladies remarked that 255 00:17:30,225 --> 00:17:32,955 it was elegant and betook themselves to writing their 256 00:17:32,995 --> 00:17:36,795 names in the bottoms of shallow pools. 257 00:17:36,832 --> 00:17:41,201 Nature fixes the insult indelibly, and the after-years 258 00:17:41,236 --> 00:17:47,505 will learn that Hattie, Sadie, Mamie, Sophie, and so forth 259 00:17:47,543 --> 00:17:50,876 have taken out their hairpins and scrawled in the face 260 00:17:50,913 --> 00:17:54,713 of Old Faithful. 261 00:17:54,750 --> 00:17:57,947 COYOTE: The last night in the park was spent at a hotel near 262 00:17:57,986 --> 00:18:02,719 the majestic Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. 263 00:18:02,758 --> 00:18:05,921 The view from its edge was considered the inspirational 264 00:18:05,961 --> 00:18:07,929 grand finale. 265 00:18:07,963 --> 00:18:12,400 Even the cynical Rudyard Kipling was impressed. 266 00:18:15,204 --> 00:18:16,865 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: All l can say is that without 267 00:18:16,905 --> 00:18:22,138 warning or preparation, l looked into a gulf 1,700 268 00:18:22,177 --> 00:18:26,876 feet deep with eagles and fish hawks circling far 269 00:18:26,915 --> 00:18:31,614 below, and the sides of that gulf were one wild welter 270 00:18:31,653 --> 00:18:38,286 of color--crimson, emerald, cobalt, ocher, amber, honey 271 00:18:38,327 --> 00:18:43,458 splashed with port wine, snow white, vermillion, lemon, 272 00:18:43,499 --> 00:18:48,129 and silver-gray in wide washes. 273 00:18:48,170 --> 00:18:52,937 So far below that no sound of its strife could reach us, 274 00:18:52,975 --> 00:18:57,173 the Yellowstone River ran, a finger-wide strip 275 00:18:57,212 --> 00:19:00,340 of jade green. 276 00:19:00,382 --> 00:19:05,513 Now l know what it is to sit enthroned amid the clouds 277 00:19:05,554 --> 00:19:07,818 of sunset. 278 00:19:14,696 --> 00:19:17,722 COYOTE: The final day consisted of a stagecoach ride 279 00:19:17,766 --> 00:19:22,226 back to the start of the tour, lunch once more at Larry's, 280 00:19:22,271 --> 00:19:24,535 shouting out the names of their home states 281 00:19:24,573 --> 00:19:28,168 and countries to passing wagons filled with fresh loads 282 00:19:28,210 --> 00:19:32,112 of tourists heading into the park, dinner at the hotel 283 00:19:32,147 --> 00:19:35,981 at Mammoth Hot Springs, then on to the train waiting 284 00:19:36,018 --> 00:19:41,786 at the station to carry them and their memories away. 285 00:19:43,492 --> 00:19:45,357 MAN AS RUDYARD KlPLlNG: ''And to think,'' said the old lady 286 00:19:45,394 --> 00:19:49,262 from Chicago, ''that this showplace has been going 287 00:19:49,298 --> 00:19:55,965 ''on all these days, and none of we ever saw it.'' 288 00:19:56,004 --> 00:19:58,268 Rudyard Kipling. 289 00:20:01,443 --> 00:20:04,537 MAN: Those first few years--and maybe this was OK 290 00:20:04,580 --> 00:20:07,071 because there were so few visitors--but it was 291 00:20:07,115 --> 00:20:10,175 just wide open. 292 00:20:10,218 --> 00:20:14,018 Those early visitors trying to figure out how best to enjoy 293 00:20:14,056 --> 00:20:18,186 Yellowstone were very quickly teaching the managers what 294 00:20:18,226 --> 00:20:20,387 wasn't gonna work. 295 00:20:20,429 --> 00:20:22,727 Nobody knew how to act in a national park. 296 00:20:22,764 --> 00:20:26,860 lt hadn't been decided yet. 297 00:20:26,902 --> 00:20:29,700 COYOTE: Having created the national parks, Congress had 298 00:20:29,738 --> 00:20:33,572 not seen fit to provide some kind of authoriry to oversee 299 00:20:33,609 --> 00:20:38,012 them, and in 1886, it even refused to appropriate any 300 00:20:38,046 --> 00:20:40,674 money whatsoever. 301 00:20:42,551 --> 00:20:45,281 General Phillip Sheridan had been forced to send the U.S. 302 00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:48,312 Cavalry into Yellowstone simply to maintain some 303 00:20:48,357 --> 00:20:50,587 semblance of order. 304 00:20:50,626 --> 00:20:53,390 By the 1890s, this temporary arrangement had 305 00:20:53,428 --> 00:20:56,158 become permanent. 306 00:20:56,198 --> 00:20:59,292 Up to 4 troops of cavalry were stationed at the newly 307 00:20:59,334 --> 00:21:05,102 constructed Fort Yellowstone near the Mammoth Hot Springs. 308 00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:07,631 SCHULLERY: l think the odds are really good that if 309 00:21:07,676 --> 00:21:11,442 the army hadn't been sent in, Yellowstone wouldn't 310 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:13,141 have made it. 311 00:21:13,181 --> 00:21:16,810 Writing your name on things was such a proud tradition 312 00:21:16,852 --> 00:21:20,652 that people would put their address, too, and the soldiers 313 00:21:20,689 --> 00:21:23,214 could just very simply go out and write them all down, 314 00:21:23,258 --> 00:21:25,749 head back to the hotel, and look through the hotel 315 00:21:25,794 --> 00:21:29,787 registers and find these people and drag them by the 316 00:21:29,831 --> 00:21:32,527 collar back out so they could spend some time scrubbing 317 00:21:32,567 --> 00:21:34,933 their name off. 318 00:21:39,675 --> 00:21:42,473 COYOTE: The army was expected to patrol 2 million acres 319 00:21:42,511 --> 00:21:46,447 on horseback, doing their best to stop poachers and vandals 320 00:21:46,481 --> 00:21:50,212 and campers careless with their fires. 321 00:21:50,252 --> 00:21:52,516 But the troopers were hampered by the fact that the federal 322 00:21:52,554 --> 00:21:56,422 park existed in a legal no man's land. 323 00:21:56,458 --> 00:21:59,689 Usually their only recourse was a warning, or in the most 324 00:21:59,728 --> 00:22:04,062 serious cases, expulsion from the park. 325 00:22:04,099 --> 00:22:07,364 Army engineers built and improved the roads and bridges 326 00:22:07,402 --> 00:22:10,496 that guided travel within the park to the places tourists 327 00:22:10,539 --> 00:22:14,202 wanted to see, while leaving major portions of Yellowstone 328 00:22:14,242 --> 00:22:18,679 a roadless and totally wild expanse. 329 00:22:20,916 --> 00:22:23,282 With the tourists gone, the cavalrymen found 330 00:22:23,318 --> 00:22:26,014 themselves holed up in small cabins scattered 331 00:22:26,054 --> 00:22:30,457 around the park, patrolling for poachers on skis in frigid 332 00:22:30,492 --> 00:22:33,825 temperatures and lethal snowstorms. 333 00:22:33,862 --> 00:22:36,695 Frederick Remington, when he visited and traveled with 334 00:22:36,732 --> 00:22:39,200 the soldiers in Yellowstone, said that they were very fond 335 00:22:39,234 --> 00:22:43,000 of saying that Yellowstone had 3 seasons: July, August, 336 00:22:43,038 --> 00:22:46,303 and winter, and they hated it. 337 00:22:46,341 --> 00:22:48,775 COYOTE: Men were lost transporting mail from one 338 00:22:48,810 --> 00:22:51,711 isolated outpost to another. 339 00:22:51,747 --> 00:22:53,738 They died in avalanches. 340 00:22:53,782 --> 00:22:56,546 Some may have been killed by poachers, who were often 341 00:22:56,585 --> 00:22:59,520 better equipped and more experienced at maneuvering 342 00:22:59,554 --> 00:23:03,991 through the back country in deep snow. 343 00:23:04,025 --> 00:23:06,755 MAN: ln my last report, l noted the death of Private 344 00:23:06,795 --> 00:23:10,697 Matthews of Troop B, 6th Cavalry, while on detached 345 00:23:10,732 --> 00:23:13,292 service for the mail. 346 00:23:13,335 --> 00:23:15,860 A most thorough search for his remains was continued 347 00:23:15,904 --> 00:23:19,169 for almost 6 months after his disappearance. 348 00:23:21,409 --> 00:23:23,969 His body was found early in June. 349 00:23:24,012 --> 00:23:26,913 lt was evident that he became lost and while in that 350 00:23:26,948 --> 00:23:33,080 condition became crazed and perished from the cold. 351 00:23:33,121 --> 00:23:35,783 Captain George Anderson. 352 00:23:40,262 --> 00:23:43,163 COYOTE: The cavalry was also in charge of the nation's 3 353 00:23:43,198 --> 00:23:47,464 other national parks--General Grant, Sequoia, and the high 354 00:23:47,502 --> 00:23:50,938 country surrounding Yosemite. 355 00:23:50,972 --> 00:23:53,964 Each spring, troops stationed at the Presidio in San 356 00:23:54,009 --> 00:23:57,877 Francisco would make the 2-week, 250-mile ride to the 357 00:23:57,913 --> 00:24:02,941 Sierras and patrol the 3 parks during the summer season. 358 00:24:02,984 --> 00:24:06,681 Some of them were African Americans, the celebrated 359 00:24:06,721 --> 00:24:10,680 buffalo soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry who had made 360 00:24:10,725 --> 00:24:14,855 a name for themselves in the lndian wars. 361 00:24:16,965 --> 00:24:20,025 Their commander was Captain Charles Young, born into 362 00:24:20,069 --> 00:24:23,527 slavery in Kentucky, whose father had escaped bondage 363 00:24:23,572 --> 00:24:28,134 during the Civil War to enlist in the Union Army. 364 00:24:28,177 --> 00:24:31,613 Young followed his father's example of military service, 365 00:24:31,647 --> 00:24:35,674 becoming the third black man to graduate from West Point 366 00:24:35,718 --> 00:24:40,985 and the first to be put in charge of a national park. 367 00:24:41,023 --> 00:24:43,617 JOHNSON: lf you're an enlisted man and then you see 368 00:24:43,659 --> 00:24:48,119 an African American officer--an officer-- 369 00:24:48,163 --> 00:24:49,528 that stays in your mind, 370 00:24:49,565 --> 00:24:53,831 and it also sparks a fire in your own sense of self-worth, 371 00:24:53,869 --> 00:24:56,099 your own sense of what is possible in this world, 372 00:24:56,138 --> 00:24:57,867 because you might say to yourself, ''lf he could do 373 00:24:57,906 --> 00:25:01,364 ''that, maybe l could do that as well.'' 374 00:25:01,410 --> 00:25:05,574 So he was a walking inspiration to the enlisted 375 00:25:05,614 --> 00:25:08,447 men in the 9th and 10th Cavalry. 376 00:25:10,152 --> 00:25:13,121 COYOTE: As superintendent of Sequoia, Young directed his 377 00:25:13,155 --> 00:25:15,953 men to complete the first wagon road into 378 00:25:15,991 --> 00:25:18,118 the Giant Forest. 379 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,254 They accomplished more in one summer than had been done 380 00:25:21,296 --> 00:25:24,857 in the 3 previous years combined. 381 00:25:24,900 --> 00:25:27,232 They built the first trail to Mt. Whitney, 382 00:25:27,269 --> 00:25:31,205 the highest peak in the west, and erected fences 383 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:37,042 around the big trees to prevent vandalism by visitors. 384 00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:39,343 JOHNSON: So the early parks--Yellowstone, Sequoia, 385 00:25:39,381 --> 00:25:42,214 and Yosemite--you had to have park protectors 386 00:25:42,251 --> 00:25:44,344 because otherwise, people would be going into those 387 00:25:44,386 --> 00:25:47,787 areas doing what they've always done--cutting trees 388 00:25:47,823 --> 00:25:51,224 down, you know, for firewood, or shooting the game, shooting 389 00:25:51,260 --> 00:25:52,591 the deer to feed their family. 390 00:25:52,628 --> 00:25:54,653 How do you tell someone who's just trying to keep their 391 00:25:54,696 --> 00:25:58,826 children fed, not hungry, that it's illegal now to 392 00:25:58,867 --> 00:26:03,804 shoot the game in Yosemite or in Sequoia National Park? 393 00:26:03,839 --> 00:26:06,535 And that would be a difficult proposition if you were 394 00:26:06,575 --> 00:26:11,535 a white soldier, but when you add that overlay of race, 395 00:26:11,580 --> 00:26:15,107 which is no overlay at all, and you have an African 396 00:26:15,150 --> 00:26:19,246 American, a colored man, giving orders to people who 397 00:26:19,288 --> 00:26:24,316 are not used to taking orders from anyone who looks like me, 398 00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:28,796 then you have the beginning of a very interesting day. 399 00:26:28,831 --> 00:26:31,061 COYOTE: Like their counterparts at Yellowstone, 400 00:26:31,099 --> 00:26:34,865 the troops in California had to operate without clear legal 401 00:26:34,903 --> 00:26:38,395 authoriry and therefore invented techniques to protect 402 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,704 their parks. 403 00:26:40,742 --> 00:26:44,143 When they collected travelers' rifles upon entry and only 404 00:26:44,179 --> 00:26:47,410 returned them when the visitors left, the wildlife 405 00:26:47,449 --> 00:26:50,282 began to come back. 406 00:26:50,319 --> 00:26:53,413 Sheep herders defiantly bringing their flocks into the 407 00:26:53,455 --> 00:26:57,516 park's alpine meadows had been openly scornful of the troops, 408 00:26:57,559 --> 00:27:01,290 once they realized that the army had no power of criminal 409 00:27:01,330 --> 00:27:04,322 arrest and prosecution. 410 00:27:04,366 --> 00:27:08,735 The soldiers then came up with a creative solution. 411 00:27:08,770 --> 00:27:10,567 JOHNSON: lt was a standard rule. 412 00:27:10,606 --> 00:27:13,905 You find the sheep that are grazing illegally in the park, 413 00:27:13,942 --> 00:27:16,240 and you move the sheep out to the eastern boundary 414 00:27:16,278 --> 00:27:17,506 of the park. 415 00:27:17,546 --> 00:27:18,877 You find the sheepherders, and you move them out the 416 00:27:18,914 --> 00:27:21,883 western boundary of the park. 417 00:27:21,917 --> 00:27:23,908 Now, the park in those days was 1,500 418 00:27:23,952 --> 00:27:26,682 square miles, so by the time the sheep 419 00:27:26,722 --> 00:27:29,452 and the sheep herders were reunited, well, let's just say 420 00:27:29,491 --> 00:27:33,484 the season was done, and if you have a business and your 421 00:27:33,529 --> 00:27:36,123 business is herding sheep and that happens to you more than 422 00:27:36,164 --> 00:27:38,997 once or twice, you don't come back, and l think that was 423 00:27:39,034 --> 00:27:41,935 a pretty effective way of dealing with illegal grazing 424 00:27:41,970 --> 00:27:43,767 in the park. 425 00:27:46,275 --> 00:27:48,436 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: For many years, the military have guarded 426 00:27:48,477 --> 00:27:51,913 the great Yellowstone Park, and now they are guarding 427 00:27:51,947 --> 00:27:54,973 the Yosemite. 428 00:27:55,017 --> 00:27:58,282 They found it a desert as far as underbrush, grass, 429 00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:01,949 and flowers were concerned, but in two years, the skin 430 00:28:01,990 --> 00:28:05,391 of the mountains is healthy again. 431 00:28:06,628 --> 00:28:09,893 Blessings on Uncle Sam's soldiers. 432 00:28:09,932 --> 00:28:14,392 They have done their job well, and every pine tree is waving 433 00:28:14,436 --> 00:28:17,200 its arm for joy. 434 00:28:19,174 --> 00:28:21,074 COYOTE: No one was more thankful for the army's 435 00:28:21,109 --> 00:28:25,375 presence than John Muir, for whom the Sierra Nevada was 436 00:28:25,414 --> 00:28:29,817 the range of light--mountains, he wrote, ''that were throbbing 437 00:28:29,851 --> 00:28:33,753 ''and pulsing with the heartbeats of God.'' 438 00:28:33,789 --> 00:28:36,986 WOMAN: l think John Muir understood, as perhaps no one 439 00:28:37,025 --> 00:28:43,988 else has, how essential beaury is--natural beaury is to us. 440 00:28:44,032 --> 00:28:47,524 Without beaury, we have no, kind of, lubrication 441 00:28:47,569 --> 00:28:49,366 of the human spirit. 442 00:28:49,404 --> 00:28:54,842 We would just be dead, and that's really what drove him. 443 00:28:54,876 --> 00:28:57,640 That's what fueled him. 444 00:28:57,679 --> 00:28:59,237 COYOTE: Clambering ecstatically over 445 00:28:59,281 --> 00:29:02,978 the mountainsides, Muir had become a self-taught expert 446 00:29:03,018 --> 00:29:06,749 in glaciers, a keen observer and lover of everything he 447 00:29:06,788 --> 00:29:10,815 encountered, from the tiniest specks of lichen on a rock to 448 00:29:10,859 --> 00:29:14,192 the mighry sequoias. 449 00:29:14,229 --> 00:29:16,789 And through his magazine articles, he had emerged as 450 00:29:16,832 --> 00:29:19,960 a wilderness prophet, a nationally known voice 451 00:29:20,002 --> 00:29:22,596 for preserving the last remaining vestiges 452 00:29:22,638 --> 00:29:27,541 of America's virgin forests and unspoiled lands. 453 00:29:30,045 --> 00:29:33,947 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: Mere destroyers--tree killers, 454 00:29:33,982 --> 00:29:37,918 wool and mutton men, spreading death and confusion 455 00:29:37,953 --> 00:29:41,821 in the fairest groves and gardens ever planted. 456 00:29:41,857 --> 00:29:45,418 Let the government hasten to cast them out and make 457 00:29:45,460 --> 00:29:48,918 an end of them. 458 00:29:48,964 --> 00:29:52,331 Any fool can destroy trees. 459 00:29:52,367 --> 00:29:54,426 They cannot run away. 460 00:29:54,469 --> 00:29:58,906 And if they could, they would still be destroyed--chased 461 00:29:58,940 --> 00:30:02,774 and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out 462 00:30:02,811 --> 00:30:06,372 of their bark hides. 463 00:30:06,415 --> 00:30:09,612 Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since 464 00:30:09,651 --> 00:30:14,645 Christ's time and long before that, God has cared for these 465 00:30:14,690 --> 00:30:20,720 trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, 466 00:30:20,762 --> 00:30:25,699 and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods, 467 00:30:25,734 --> 00:30:29,500 but he cannot save them from fools. 468 00:30:29,538 --> 00:30:33,269 Only Uncle Sam can do that. 469 00:30:38,914 --> 00:30:43,476 a national park in 1890, but the valley itself remained 470 00:30:43,518 --> 00:30:47,045 under the control of a California state commission 471 00:30:47,089 --> 00:30:49,683 and their political appointees, a group 472 00:30:49,725 --> 00:30:52,694 of ''blundering, plundering, moneymaking vote sellers,'' 473 00:30:52,728 --> 00:30:54,787 Muir said. 474 00:30:54,830 --> 00:30:56,991 He wanted it all transferred back to 475 00:30:57,032 --> 00:30:58,863 the federal government. 476 00:30:58,900 --> 00:31:04,167 Only then, he believed, would it be safe from ruin. 477 00:31:04,206 --> 00:31:07,937 ln 1892, to help promote Yosemite's protection, 478 00:31:07,976 --> 00:31:11,810 Muir and a small group of prominent Californians formed 479 00:31:11,847 --> 00:31:13,906 a new organization. 480 00:31:13,949 --> 00:31:17,715 They called it the Sierra Club. 481 00:31:17,753 --> 00:31:21,621 Muir enthusiastically agreed to serve as its president, 482 00:31:21,656 --> 00:31:24,955 hoping, he said, that ''we will be able to do something 483 00:31:24,993 --> 00:31:28,793 ''for wildness and make the mountains glad.'' 484 00:31:33,301 --> 00:31:35,394 [Scattered applause] 485 00:31:39,074 --> 00:31:41,338 MAN: ln the 19th century, when the census bureau would 486 00:31:41,376 --> 00:31:46,109 do its census, it would draw a line that's the frontier line, 487 00:31:46,148 --> 00:31:51,677 and proudly say it marches westward, and their definition 488 00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:53,483 of it had this wonderful phrase. 489 00:31:53,522 --> 00:31:58,221 lt would say, in the last 10 years, this many million 490 00:31:58,260 --> 00:32:01,696 of acres have been ''redeemed from wilderness by 491 00:32:01,730 --> 00:32:05,598 ''the hand of man.'' 492 00:32:05,634 --> 00:32:11,129 ''Redeemed from wilderness by the hand of man.'' 493 00:32:11,173 --> 00:32:17,476 ln other words, a virgin forest is redeemed when it's cut down. 494 00:32:17,512 --> 00:32:21,448 A beautiful mountain stream is redeemed when the miners are 495 00:32:21,483 --> 00:32:24,281 turned loose in it. 496 00:32:24,319 --> 00:32:29,723 That symbolized what our view of nature was as we were 497 00:32:29,758 --> 00:32:33,819 rushing across the continent. 498 00:32:33,862 --> 00:32:38,799 That's totally the opposite of what John Muir would say. 499 00:32:38,834 --> 00:32:41,428 Wilderness isn't redeemed by man. 500 00:32:41,469 --> 00:32:44,529 Man is redeemed by wilderness. 501 00:32:59,521 --> 00:33:02,422 MAN: To know you are the first to set foot in homes that have 502 00:33:02,457 --> 00:33:08,657 been deserted for centuries is a strange feeling. 503 00:33:08,697 --> 00:33:13,191 lt is as though unseen eyes watched, wondering what aliens 504 00:33:13,235 --> 00:33:18,434 were invading their sanctuaries and why. 505 00:33:20,642 --> 00:33:25,170 The dust of centuries filled the rooms and rose in thick 506 00:33:25,213 --> 00:33:29,172 clouds at every movement. 507 00:33:29,217 --> 00:33:31,151 Al Wetherill. 508 00:33:34,689 --> 00:33:37,089 COYOTE: A few months before Rudyard Kipling visited 509 00:33:37,125 --> 00:33:40,856 Yellowstone, cowboys searching for stray cattle 510 00:33:40,896 --> 00:33:43,888 in southwestern Colorado, along the edge of a high 511 00:33:43,932 --> 00:33:47,561 plateau known as Mesa Verde, came upon the ruins 512 00:33:47,602 --> 00:33:52,869 of an ancient ciry tucked into the side of a cliff. 513 00:33:52,908 --> 00:33:56,241 Using a tree trunk and their lariats, they improvised 514 00:33:56,278 --> 00:34:00,112 a ladder and descended for a closer look. 515 00:34:02,684 --> 00:34:05,152 MAN AS AL WETHERlLL: lt was like treading holy ground to 516 00:34:05,186 --> 00:34:10,351 go into those peaceful-looking homes of a vanished people. 517 00:34:10,392 --> 00:34:13,623 Things were arranged in the rooms as if people might just 518 00:34:13,662 --> 00:34:16,631 have been out visiting somewhere. 519 00:34:19,701 --> 00:34:22,534 COYOTE: ln quick succession, they soon came across even 520 00:34:22,570 --> 00:34:26,267 more ruins nestled into the remote canyon walls of Mesa 521 00:34:26,308 --> 00:34:29,971 Verde and gave names to them all. 522 00:34:30,011 --> 00:34:32,036 Cliff Palace. 523 00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,571 Spruce Tree House. 524 00:34:34,616 --> 00:34:38,416 Balcony House. 525 00:34:38,453 --> 00:34:40,944 lt was the largest concentration ever found 526 00:34:40,989 --> 00:34:44,618 of the cliff dwellings--built, occupied, and then 527 00:34:44,659 --> 00:34:48,720 mysteriously deserted nearly a thousand years earlier by 528 00:34:48,763 --> 00:34:51,823 the ancestors of some of the modern Pueblo lndians 529 00:34:51,866 --> 00:34:53,891 of the southwest. 530 00:34:55,971 --> 00:34:57,962 MAN AS AL WETHERlLL: We knew that if we did not break into 531 00:34:58,006 --> 00:35:02,943 that charmed world, someone else would sometime--someone 532 00:35:02,978 --> 00:35:07,176 who might not love and respect those emblems of antiquiry 533 00:35:07,215 --> 00:35:09,809 as we did. 534 00:35:09,851 --> 00:35:12,149 COYOTE: The cowboys who discovered the ruins were the 535 00:35:12,187 --> 00:35:15,782 Wetherills--5 brothers from a family of Quakers who had 536 00:35:15,824 --> 00:35:20,284 moved to Colorado from Kansas 8 years earlier. 537 00:35:20,328 --> 00:35:23,263 The oldest was Richard, who encouraged them all to 538 00:35:23,298 --> 00:35:26,597 spend every free moment digging among the ruins, 539 00:35:26,634 --> 00:35:29,364 hoping to sell their discoveries to museums 540 00:35:29,404 --> 00:35:33,602 in big cities. 541 00:35:33,641 --> 00:35:35,370 MAN AS AL WETHERlLL: We had started in as just ordinary 542 00:35:35,410 --> 00:35:38,004 pothunters, 543 00:35:38,046 --> 00:35:41,072 but as work progressed along that sort of questionable 544 00:35:41,116 --> 00:35:45,815 business, we developed quite a bit of scientific knowledge by 545 00:35:45,854 --> 00:35:50,314 careful work and comparisons. 546 00:35:50,358 --> 00:35:53,816 COYOTE: One day a stranger showed up, a young Swedish 547 00:35:53,862 --> 00:35:56,922 nobleman with an interest in archaeology-- 548 00:35:56,965 --> 00:36:00,401 Gustaf Nordenskiold. 549 00:36:00,435 --> 00:36:03,700 When the Wetherills showed him the ruins, his enthusiasm, 550 00:36:03,738 --> 00:36:06,673 one of the brothers remembered, increased almost 551 00:36:06,708 --> 00:36:08,869 beyond his control. 552 00:36:10,578 --> 00:36:14,275 For two months, from sunup to sundown, he kept the Wetherill 553 00:36:14,315 --> 00:36:19,252 brothers busy, teaching them more scientific methods. 554 00:36:19,287 --> 00:36:22,051 He showed them how to use a mason's trowel instead 555 00:36:22,090 --> 00:36:26,686 of a spade, digging slowly and carefully to reveal a relic 556 00:36:26,728 --> 00:36:29,128 without damaging it. 557 00:36:29,164 --> 00:36:32,691 He insisted on labeling and photographing everything 558 00:36:32,734 --> 00:36:35,703 and often saved items that no other archaeologist 559 00:36:35,737 --> 00:36:40,174 of the time would have kept-- wood ash from fire pits, 560 00:36:40,208 --> 00:36:44,008 dust and trash from the floors, even dried pieces 561 00:36:44,045 --> 00:36:47,708 of human excrement that one day might help determine what 562 00:36:47,749 --> 00:36:52,516 the ancient Puebloans had been eating so long ago. 563 00:36:52,554 --> 00:36:55,045 ln all, he amassed hundreds of items 564 00:36:55,090 --> 00:36:59,959 which he intended to ship home to Sweden. 565 00:36:59,994 --> 00:37:03,054 But when his pack animals, loaded down with artifacts, 566 00:37:03,098 --> 00:37:07,194 reached the railway station in Durango, Nordenskiold was 567 00:37:07,235 --> 00:37:09,965 immediately arrested. 568 00:37:10,004 --> 00:37:11,403 MAN: The basic problem was, 569 00:37:11,439 --> 00:37:13,498 this foreigner is stealing our 570 00:37:13,541 --> 00:37:16,635 relics, our bowls, our pots, 571 00:37:16,678 --> 00:37:18,873 and we're not gonna allow that. 572 00:37:18,913 --> 00:37:21,404 lt's all right for we Americans to steal them, 573 00:37:21,449 --> 00:37:24,748 but it's not all right for those foreigners to do it. 574 00:37:24,786 --> 00:37:27,755 Gustaf's lawyer asked the judge, under what law are we 575 00:37:27,789 --> 00:37:29,188 arresting him? 576 00:37:29,224 --> 00:37:30,486 And there was no law. 577 00:37:30,525 --> 00:37:34,518 There was no law at all, so they couldn't stop him. 578 00:37:34,562 --> 00:37:38,931 They couldn't stop anybody, and that probably sparked some 579 00:37:38,967 --> 00:37:41,458 interest--why isn't there a law? 580 00:37:41,503 --> 00:37:44,267 COYOTE: Nordenskiold was released and got to take his 581 00:37:44,305 --> 00:37:47,570 huge shipment home to Scandinavia, where he 582 00:37:47,609 --> 00:37:52,444 published the first scientific study of the cliff dwellers. 583 00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,244 But the controversy had brought worldwide attention to 584 00:37:55,283 --> 00:37:59,185 Mesa Verde and to the fact that its treasures were 585 00:37:59,220 --> 00:38:01,518 completely unprotected. 586 00:38:14,969 --> 00:38:17,733 MAN: We have seen the lndian and the game retreat before 587 00:38:17,772 --> 00:38:22,471 the white man and the cattle and beheld the tide 588 00:38:22,510 --> 00:38:26,207 of immigration move forward which threatens before long to 589 00:38:26,247 --> 00:38:29,683 leave no portion of our vast territory unbroken by the 590 00:38:29,717 --> 00:38:34,450 farmer's plow or untrodden by his flocks. 591 00:38:36,157 --> 00:38:40,856 There is one spot left--a single rock about which this 592 00:38:40,895 --> 00:38:45,264 tide will break and past which it will sweep, leaving it 593 00:38:45,300 --> 00:38:50,203 undefiled by the unsightly traces of civilization. 594 00:38:50,238 --> 00:38:55,301 Here in this Yellowstone Park, the large game of the west may 595 00:38:55,343 --> 00:38:59,939 be preserved from extermination in this, 596 00:38:59,981 --> 00:39:03,212 their last refuge. 597 00:39:03,251 --> 00:39:05,412 George Bird Grinnell. 598 00:39:08,389 --> 00:39:11,688 COYOTE: By the 1890s, few Americans understood as 599 00:39:11,726 --> 00:39:15,753 keenly as George Bird Grinnell, the editor and owner 600 00:39:15,797 --> 00:39:19,028 of ''Forest and Stream'' magazine, how fearful 601 00:39:19,067 --> 00:39:22,366 the price had been for the nation's relentless expansion 602 00:39:22,403 --> 00:39:25,497 across the continent. 603 00:39:25,540 --> 00:39:28,873 Raised on the estate of the famous painter and naturalist 604 00:39:28,910 --> 00:39:32,539 John James Audubon at the north end of Manhattan, 605 00:39:32,580 --> 00:39:35,174 Grinnell could remember spotting a bald eagle from his 606 00:39:35,216 --> 00:39:39,050 bedroom window and watching immense flocks of passenger 607 00:39:39,087 --> 00:39:43,421 pigeons darkening the sky from horizon to horizon as they 608 00:39:43,458 --> 00:39:45,289 passed overhead. 609 00:39:47,595 --> 00:39:50,223 Traveling across Kansas, he had once encountered 610 00:39:50,265 --> 00:39:54,599 a buffalo herd so vast that his train was forced to stop 611 00:39:54,636 --> 00:39:58,902 for 3 hours while the beasts crossed the tracks. 612 00:39:58,940 --> 00:40:02,432 He had hunted elk in Nebraska when elk could still be found 613 00:40:02,477 --> 00:40:05,935 on the plains, ridden with the Pawnees in a great buffalo 614 00:40:05,980 --> 00:40:09,677 chase as the lndians brought down their prey with bows 615 00:40:09,717 --> 00:40:11,344 and arrows. 616 00:40:13,288 --> 00:40:18,487 Now all that and so much more suddenly seemed gone or 617 00:40:18,526 --> 00:40:21,791 on the verge of disappearing. 618 00:40:21,829 --> 00:40:25,265 Passenger pigeons had been so systematically killed that 619 00:40:25,300 --> 00:40:28,963 a bird once numbering in the hundreds of millions had been 620 00:40:29,003 --> 00:40:33,804 reduced to a handful, and soon the death of a solitary bird 621 00:40:33,841 --> 00:40:36,901 in a Cincinnati zoo would bring an end to 622 00:40:36,944 --> 00:40:39,038 the species' existence. 623 00:40:39,081 --> 00:40:41,379 The hide-hunters had been equally effective 624 00:40:41,417 --> 00:40:43,078 with the buffalo. 625 00:40:43,118 --> 00:40:46,679 By the mid-1880s, the last of the great free-roaming herds 626 00:40:46,722 --> 00:40:49,213 had been slaughtered. 627 00:40:49,258 --> 00:40:53,160 Now the only wild herd left in the country was in Yellowstone 628 00:40:53,195 --> 00:41:00,101 National Park, estimated at only a few hundred animals. 629 00:41:00,135 --> 00:41:02,330 MAN AS GEORGE BlRD GRlNNELL: For 4 centuries, we have been 630 00:41:02,371 --> 00:41:06,933 killing and marketing game, destroying it as rapidly 631 00:41:06,975 --> 00:41:11,241 and as thoroughly as we knew how, and making no provision 632 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,511 toward replacing the supply. 633 00:41:14,550 --> 00:41:16,814 We are just beginning to ask one another how we may 634 00:41:16,852 --> 00:41:20,549 preserve the little that remains for ourselves 635 00:41:20,589 --> 00:41:22,648 and our children. 636 00:41:26,161 --> 00:41:29,187 COYOTE: Grinnell regularly used the pages of ''Forest 637 00:41:29,231 --> 00:41:34,225 and Stream'' to try to point Americans in a new direction. 638 00:41:34,269 --> 00:41:36,499 lt wasn't that he was against hunting. 639 00:41:36,538 --> 00:41:38,699 ln fact, he loved to hunt. 640 00:41:38,741 --> 00:41:41,869 Grinnell just feared that without wise management, 641 00:41:41,910 --> 00:41:46,574 there would be nothing left for hunters to shoot. 642 00:41:46,615 --> 00:41:49,778 He proposed the creation of a new organization aimed 643 00:41:49,818 --> 00:41:53,845 at stopping the heedless killing of wild birds, 644 00:41:53,889 --> 00:41:56,858 ''in honor,'' Grinnell wrote, ''of the man who did more to 645 00:41:56,892 --> 00:42:00,487 ''teach Americans about birds of their own land than any other 646 00:42:00,529 --> 00:42:02,121 ''who ever lived.'' 647 00:42:02,164 --> 00:42:07,295 He named the group The Audubon Sociery. 648 00:42:07,336 --> 00:42:10,396 And when Grinnell published a mildly critical review 649 00:42:10,439 --> 00:42:13,636 of Theodore Roosevelt's book chronicling his own western 650 00:42:13,675 --> 00:42:17,441 adventures, the young author burst into Grinnell's office 651 00:42:17,479 --> 00:42:19,242 to confront him. 652 00:42:19,281 --> 00:42:22,409 The two men turned the awkward moment into the beginning 653 00:42:22,451 --> 00:42:27,388 of a lasting friendship and together formed the Boone 654 00:42:27,423 --> 00:42:30,984 and Crockett Club to promote what they called ''the manly 655 00:42:31,026 --> 00:42:34,223 ''sport of hunting.'' 656 00:42:34,263 --> 00:42:37,721 DUNCAN: But Grinnell had other, larger issues in mind 657 00:42:37,766 --> 00:42:41,031 that he wanted to steer Teddy Roosevelt toward, and l think 658 00:42:41,069 --> 00:42:44,334 over time he became something of a mentor to Roosevelt, 659 00:42:44,373 --> 00:42:48,537 of taking this energetic guy, this guy who was a political 660 00:42:48,577 --> 00:42:52,980 star, a rising political star, and gradually pointing him 661 00:42:53,015 --> 00:42:57,475 in directions that were clearly in Roosevelt's heart 662 00:42:57,519 --> 00:43:01,080 but needed that little tilt from George Bird Grinnell to 663 00:43:01,123 --> 00:43:03,887 bring them to fruition. 664 00:43:03,926 --> 00:43:06,895 COYOTE: As president of the new club, Theodore Roosevelt 665 00:43:06,929 --> 00:43:10,592 was increasingly drawn into Grinnell's battles, including 666 00:43:10,632 --> 00:43:14,466 the longstanding crusade to keep Yellowstone as pristine 667 00:43:14,503 --> 00:43:16,903 as possible. 668 00:43:16,939 --> 00:43:19,066 lt was a constant fight. 669 00:43:19,107 --> 00:43:21,405 There were repeated attempts in Congress to reduce 670 00:43:21,443 --> 00:43:24,378 the park's size or open it up to greater 671 00:43:24,413 --> 00:43:26,779 commercial exploitation. 672 00:43:26,815 --> 00:43:30,876 Roosevelt helped defeat them all. 673 00:43:30,919 --> 00:43:34,878 But despite those successes, there was still no federal law 674 00:43:34,923 --> 00:43:38,324 giving Yellowstone's caretakers clear authoriry to 675 00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:42,820 protect its wildlife, including its dwindling herd 676 00:43:42,865 --> 00:43:44,799 of wild buffalo. 677 00:43:48,470 --> 00:43:52,133 On March 1 3, 1894, two troopers out 678 00:43:52,174 --> 00:43:55,871 on patrol in Yellowstone heard shots in the distance 679 00:43:55,911 --> 00:43:57,640 and hurried in that direction. 680 00:43:57,679 --> 00:43:59,306 [Gunshot] 681 00:43:59,348 --> 00:44:02,374 Soon they came across several buffalo carcasses. 682 00:44:02,417 --> 00:44:06,251 A man was hunched over one of them, so busily skinning it 683 00:44:06,288 --> 00:44:09,280 that he didn't realize the troopers were there until one 684 00:44:09,324 --> 00:44:13,158 of them was beside him with a drawn gun. 685 00:44:13,195 --> 00:44:16,756 The poacher was Edgar Howell, and he had been methodically 686 00:44:16,798 --> 00:44:20,529 killing as many buffalos as he could, planning to haul out 687 00:44:20,569 --> 00:44:25,529 their heads for sale to a Montana taxidermist. 688 00:44:25,574 --> 00:44:29,408 As luck would have it, a reporter named Emerson Hough 689 00:44:29,444 --> 00:44:33,403 on assignment for ''Forest and Stream,'' was also in the park 690 00:44:33,448 --> 00:44:36,849 with a photographer to do an article about Yellowstone 691 00:44:36,885 --> 00:44:39,285 in the winter. 692 00:44:39,321 --> 00:44:42,085 When the poacher bragged that the worst punishment he could 693 00:44:42,124 --> 00:44:45,958 receive for his crime was expulsion from the park 694 00:44:45,994 --> 00:44:49,555 and the loss of only 26 dollars' worth of equipment, 695 00:44:49,598 --> 00:44:53,728 Hough realized he had stumbled onto a great story and quickly 696 00:44:53,769 --> 00:44:57,569 telegraphed it to Grinnell in New York Ciry. 697 00:44:57,606 --> 00:45:01,599 Grinnell knew just what to do with it. 698 00:45:01,643 --> 00:45:04,407 SCHULLERY: Grinnell just pulled out all the stops. 699 00:45:04,446 --> 00:45:07,438 He ran the story in ''Forest and Stream.'' 700 00:45:07,482 --> 00:45:11,509 He was in contact with everybody he knew who might be 701 00:45:11,553 --> 00:45:15,421 able to wake up, you know, the sleeping giant, 702 00:45:15,457 --> 00:45:19,120 the American public, and make them care about this, 703 00:45:19,161 --> 00:45:21,095 and he succeeded. 704 00:45:21,129 --> 00:45:23,324 COYOTE: Within a week, legislation was working its 705 00:45:23,365 --> 00:45:26,801 way through Congress, authorizing regulations that 706 00:45:26,835 --> 00:45:30,236 would finally protect the park, its geysers, 707 00:45:30,272 --> 00:45:33,332 and its wildlife. 708 00:45:33,375 --> 00:45:38,574 On May 7, 1894, less than two months after Howell's capture, 709 00:45:38,614 --> 00:45:44,211 President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law. 710 00:45:44,252 --> 00:45:46,345 [Birds chirping] 711 00:45:48,457 --> 00:45:50,391 SCHULLERY: George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt 712 00:45:50,425 --> 00:45:54,054 and the other defenders of Yellowstone were thinking 713 00:45:54,096 --> 00:45:59,363 in ecosystem terms before anybody was using the term. 714 00:45:59,401 --> 00:46:04,100 They saw places like Yellowstone as reservoirs. 715 00:46:04,139 --> 00:46:06,471 They used the term ''reservoir.'' 716 00:46:06,508 --> 00:46:09,341 lt was a reservoir for wildlife. 717 00:46:12,147 --> 00:46:16,379 l think if the opportuniry presented by the capture 718 00:46:16,418 --> 00:46:20,980 of Howell had been missed, we would have lost the bison. 719 00:46:21,023 --> 00:46:23,583 They were so close to gone. 720 00:46:38,306 --> 00:46:43,107 MAN: Gentlemen, why in heaven's name this haste? 721 00:46:43,145 --> 00:46:45,636 You have time enough. 722 00:46:45,681 --> 00:46:49,583 Why sacrifice the present to the future, fancying that you 723 00:46:49,618 --> 00:46:53,247 will be happier when your fields teem with wealth 724 00:46:53,288 --> 00:46:55,950 and your cities with people? 725 00:46:57,959 --> 00:47:01,258 ln Europe, we have cities wealthier and more populous 726 00:47:01,296 --> 00:47:06,495 than yours, and we are not happy. 727 00:47:06,535 --> 00:47:11,370 You dream of your posteriry, but your posteriry will look 728 00:47:11,406 --> 00:47:16,105 back to yours as the golden age and envy those who first 729 00:47:16,144 --> 00:47:20,171 burst into this silent, splendid nature, who first 730 00:47:20,215 --> 00:47:25,084 lifted up their axes upon these tall trees and lined 731 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:30,023 these waters with busy wharves. 732 00:47:30,058 --> 00:47:33,858 Why, then, seek to complete, in a few decades, what took 733 00:47:33,895 --> 00:47:39,527 the other nations of the world thousands of years? 734 00:47:39,568 --> 00:47:44,733 Why, in your hurry to subdue and utilize nature, squander 735 00:47:44,773 --> 00:47:47,367 her splendid gifts? 736 00:47:49,811 --> 00:47:55,443 You have opportuniry such as mankind has never had before 737 00:47:55,484 --> 00:47:58,385 and may never have again. 738 00:47:59,921 --> 00:48:02,219 Lord James Bryce. 739 00:48:06,394 --> 00:48:09,886 MAN: The first dury of the human race is to control 740 00:48:09,931 --> 00:48:13,731 the earth it lives upon. 741 00:48:13,769 --> 00:48:17,762 The first principle of conservation is development, 742 00:48:17,806 --> 00:48:21,867 the use of natural resources now existing on this continent 743 00:48:21,910 --> 00:48:26,347 for the benefit of the people who live here now. 744 00:48:26,381 --> 00:48:28,542 Gifford Pinchot. 745 00:48:32,487 --> 00:48:35,183 COYOTE: Gifford Pinchot was a graduate of Yale who had 746 00:48:35,223 --> 00:48:38,920 studied forestry in Germany and France and returned as 747 00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,554 the first American to declare himself 748 00:48:41,596 --> 00:48:44,429 a professional forester. 749 00:48:44,466 --> 00:48:48,664 He and John Muir had met in 1896 and in the beginning 750 00:48:48,703 --> 00:48:52,139 enjoyed each other's company, camping together on the rim 751 00:48:52,174 --> 00:48:55,405 of the Grand Canyon. 752 00:48:55,443 --> 00:48:58,571 But while the two men agreed that America's forests were 753 00:48:58,613 --> 00:49:02,276 being rapaciously destroyed, they ultimately parted company 754 00:49:02,317 --> 00:49:05,343 on the solution. 755 00:49:05,387 --> 00:49:08,151 Muir considered forests sacred. 756 00:49:08,190 --> 00:49:11,717 He wanted them treated as parks with logging, grazing, 757 00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,558 and hunting prohibited. 758 00:49:14,596 --> 00:49:16,621 Pinchot didn't agree. 759 00:49:16,665 --> 00:49:20,192 He wanted forests protected, too, but he believed the best 760 00:49:20,235 --> 00:49:25,673 way to do it was to manage their use, not leave them alone. 761 00:49:25,707 --> 00:49:28,574 His favorite saying was ''the greatest good 762 00:49:28,610 --> 00:49:31,443 ''for the greatest number.'' 763 00:49:31,479 --> 00:49:34,448 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: Much is said on questions of this kind 764 00:49:34,482 --> 00:49:38,248 about the greatest good for the greatest number, 765 00:49:38,286 --> 00:49:44,486 but the greatest number is too often found to be number one. 766 00:49:44,526 --> 00:49:47,188 lt is never the greatest number in the common meaning 767 00:49:47,229 --> 00:49:50,494 of the term that makes the greatest noise and stir 768 00:49:50,532 --> 00:49:54,229 on questions mixed with money. 769 00:49:54,269 --> 00:49:56,635 Complaints are made in the name of poor settlers 770 00:49:56,671 --> 00:49:59,970 and miners, while the wealthy corporations are kept 771 00:50:00,008 --> 00:50:04,206 carefully hidden in the background. 772 00:50:04,246 --> 00:50:08,580 Let right, commendable industry be fostered, but as 773 00:50:08,617 --> 00:50:12,144 to these Goths and Vandals of the wilderness who are 774 00:50:12,187 --> 00:50:16,385 spreading black death in the fairest woods God ever made, 775 00:50:16,424 --> 00:50:19,325 let the government up and at 'em. 776 00:50:22,731 --> 00:50:25,165 CRONON: We often tell stories about the origins 777 00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,862 of the American conservation movement by setting John Muir 778 00:50:27,903 --> 00:50:30,872 and Gifford Pinchot in counterpoint with each other. 779 00:50:30,906 --> 00:50:32,897 Often in those stories, John Muir is the hero 780 00:50:32,941 --> 00:50:34,670 and Gifford Pinchot is the villain. 781 00:50:34,709 --> 00:50:38,668 ln fact, they represent, l think, two sides of one coin. 782 00:50:38,713 --> 00:50:41,807 Muir is the figure who celebrates the sacred 783 00:50:41,850 --> 00:50:45,752 in nature--the wildness, the otherness of nature, 784 00:50:45,787 --> 00:50:49,382 that which we need to protect if we are not to contaminate 785 00:50:49,424 --> 00:50:53,053 things that are nonhuman with our own human agendas. 786 00:50:53,094 --> 00:50:55,927 Pinchot, on the other hand, is about a conservation that 787 00:50:55,964 --> 00:50:58,831 celebrates sustainabiliry. 788 00:50:58,867 --> 00:51:01,563 lt's about keeping the roots of our material lives 789 00:51:01,603 --> 00:51:04,436 in the natural world in such a way that we don't destroy 790 00:51:04,472 --> 00:51:09,409 nature as we use nature for our own livelihood. 791 00:51:09,444 --> 00:51:11,571 COYOTE: Congress and the administration of President 792 00:51:11,613 --> 00:51:15,276 Grover Cleveland sided with Pinchot, who was appointed 793 00:51:15,317 --> 00:51:19,344 the nation's chief forester. 794 00:51:19,387 --> 00:51:22,686 National forests would become part of the Department 795 00:51:22,724 --> 00:51:26,524 of Agriculture, used and managed like a crop, 796 00:51:26,561 --> 00:51:30,657 not preserved like a temple. 797 00:51:30,699 --> 00:51:33,998 But if Muir could not prevail on the future of all national 798 00:51:34,035 --> 00:51:38,404 forests, he tried to salvage at least a partial victory by 799 00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:43,139 protecting one forest as a national park. 800 00:51:43,178 --> 00:51:46,147 lt was in western Washington state within sight 801 00:51:46,181 --> 00:51:50,117 of the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, the ancient homeland 802 00:51:50,151 --> 00:51:54,053 of nearly a dozen lndian tribes, including the Cowlitz, 803 00:51:54,089 --> 00:51:58,253 Nisqually, Puyallup, and Yakima, who called it 804 00:51:58,293 --> 00:52:03,458 Tahoma, the big mountain where the waters begin. 805 00:52:03,498 --> 00:52:08,629 White settlers called it Mount Rainier. 806 00:52:08,670 --> 00:52:11,571 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: Altogether, this is the richest subalpine 807 00:52:11,606 --> 00:52:19,206 garden l ever found, a perfect floral elysium. 808 00:52:19,247 --> 00:52:23,479 The icy dome needs not a man's care, but unless the reserve 809 00:52:23,518 --> 00:52:27,784 is guarded, the flower bloom will soon be killed, 810 00:52:27,822 --> 00:52:30,757 and nothing of the forest will be left but black 811 00:52:30,792 --> 00:52:34,159 stump monuments. 812 00:52:34,195 --> 00:52:37,687 COYOTE: A broad coalition, including the Sierra Club, 813 00:52:37,732 --> 00:52:40,496 the National Geographic Sociery, and the Northern 814 00:52:40,535 --> 00:52:44,528 Pacific Railroad, worked hard with Muir for more than 5 815 00:52:44,572 --> 00:52:50,477 years, and on March 2, 1899, Mount Rainier became the 816 00:52:50,512 --> 00:52:53,913 nation's fifth national park. 817 00:53:01,656 --> 00:53:04,591 MAN: When on the streets l meet young girls and matrons 818 00:53:04,626 --> 00:53:08,562 with their kindly faces and see the egrets in their 819 00:53:08,596 --> 00:53:12,362 bonnets and hats, l cannot help feeling that these 820 00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,301 daughters of Eve do not know how these feathers 821 00:53:15,336 --> 00:53:17,861 were obtained. 822 00:53:17,906 --> 00:53:22,673 These plumes only grow while the bird is rearing its young, 823 00:53:22,710 --> 00:53:26,077 and l believe that if most of the women who wear them knew 824 00:53:26,114 --> 00:53:30,107 they were obtained by shooting the mother on her nest, 825 00:53:30,151 --> 00:53:34,178 they would be ashamed to keep them, even in secret, 826 00:53:34,222 --> 00:53:38,682 much less to display them on the public streets. 827 00:53:38,726 --> 00:53:41,627 John F. Lacey. 828 00:53:41,663 --> 00:53:44,029 COYOTE: For centuries, the nation's greatest breeding 829 00:53:44,065 --> 00:53:47,762 ground for its most beautiful plumed birds was southern 830 00:53:47,802 --> 00:53:51,135 Florida, where the fresh waters of Lake Okeechobee 831 00:53:51,172 --> 00:53:54,801 drained slowly toward the Gulf of Mexico, through cypress 832 00:53:54,843 --> 00:53:59,542 swamps and mangrove forests and the biggest saw grass marsh 833 00:53:59,581 --> 00:54:03,108 in the world, the Everglades. 834 00:54:03,151 --> 00:54:07,315 But by 1900, the long plumes of the great white and snowy 835 00:54:07,355 --> 00:54:11,815 egrets had become more valuable per ounce than gold, 836 00:54:11,860 --> 00:54:16,320 and nearly 95% of Florida's shorebirds had been killed by 837 00:54:16,364 --> 00:54:18,696 plume hunters. 838 00:54:18,733 --> 00:54:22,260 More than 5 million birds a year were perishing to satisfy 839 00:54:22,303 --> 00:54:25,830 the demand of the latest fashion trend--using bird 840 00:54:25,874 --> 00:54:29,970 feathers to decorate women's hats. 841 00:54:30,011 --> 00:54:33,742 Strolling the streets of New York for part of an afternoon, 842 00:54:33,781 --> 00:54:39,981 one ornithologist counted 542 feathered hats, representing 843 00:54:40,021 --> 00:54:43,855 40 different species. 844 00:54:43,892 --> 00:54:48,591 Some hats included an entire stuffed bird. 845 00:54:51,299 --> 00:54:54,166 MAN AS GEORGE BlRD GRlNNELL: Fashion decrees feathers, 846 00:54:54,202 --> 00:54:57,069 and feathers it is. 847 00:54:57,105 --> 00:54:59,801 This condition of affairs must be something of a shock to 848 00:54:59,841 --> 00:55:03,641 the leaders of the Audubon Sociery, who were sanguine 849 00:55:03,678 --> 00:55:06,511 enough to believe that the moral idea represented by 850 00:55:06,548 --> 00:55:11,952 their movement would be enough to influence sociery at large. 851 00:55:11,986 --> 00:55:14,819 George Bird Grinnell. 852 00:55:14,856 --> 00:55:17,791 COYOTE: The Audubon Sociery had done its best to try to 853 00:55:17,825 --> 00:55:22,353 persuade women not to buy such hats, even promoted the sale 854 00:55:22,397 --> 00:55:25,833 of featherless hats called Audubonetts decorated 855 00:55:25,867 --> 00:55:27,960 with ribbons. 856 00:55:28,002 --> 00:55:31,233 lt didn't work, and the millenary industry, based 857 00:55:31,272 --> 00:55:35,606 principally in New York Ciry, used its influence in Congress 858 00:55:35,643 --> 00:55:39,545 to defeat a series of national laws aimed at stopping 859 00:55:39,581 --> 00:55:41,549 the slaughter. 860 00:55:41,583 --> 00:55:45,679 Then an unlikely champion stepped forward. 861 00:55:45,720 --> 00:55:48,245 MAN AS JOHN F. LACEY: We have a wireless telegraph, 862 00:55:48,289 --> 00:55:50,416 a thornless cactus, 863 00:55:50,458 --> 00:55:54,690 a seedless orange, and a coreless apple. 864 00:55:54,729 --> 00:55:58,426 Let us now have a birdless hat. 865 00:55:58,466 --> 00:56:00,434 John F. Lacey. 866 00:56:03,538 --> 00:56:06,063 COYOTE: As the Republican parry began fracturing 867 00:56:06,107 --> 00:56:08,905 at the start of the 20th century into a progressive 868 00:56:08,943 --> 00:56:12,674 wing and a group of die-hard conservatives known as 869 00:56:12,714 --> 00:56:17,276 Stand-Pat Republicans, Representative John F. Lacey 870 00:56:17,318 --> 00:56:20,583 of Oskaloosa, lowa, counted himself with those 871 00:56:20,622 --> 00:56:22,954 opposed to change. 872 00:56:22,991 --> 00:56:26,586 But when it came to defending wildlife or saving America's 873 00:56:26,628 --> 00:56:30,359 remaining unspoiled lands, Lacey's definition 874 00:56:30,398 --> 00:56:34,027 of conservative placed him not only outside his fellow 875 00:56:34,068 --> 00:56:37,037 Stand-Patters but in the vanguard of even 876 00:56:37,071 --> 00:56:42,304 the most progressive politicians of the day. 877 00:56:42,343 --> 00:56:44,311 MAN AS JOHN F. LACEY: The first settlers found this continent 878 00:56:44,345 --> 00:56:47,906 a storehouse of energy and national wealth, but we have 879 00:56:47,949 --> 00:56:51,715 not been content with using these resources. 880 00:56:51,753 --> 00:56:55,985 We have wasted them as reckless prodigals. 881 00:56:56,024 --> 00:56:58,891 For more than 300 years, destruction was 882 00:56:58,926 --> 00:57:02,384 called improvement. 883 00:57:02,430 --> 00:57:06,196 Mankind must conserve the resources of nature, or the 884 00:57:06,234 --> 00:57:10,534 world will, at no distant day, become as barren as 885 00:57:10,571 --> 00:57:13,904 a sucked orange. 886 00:57:13,941 --> 00:57:16,466 COYOTE: lt had been Lacey, working with George Bird 887 00:57:16,511 --> 00:57:19,446 Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt, who pushed through 888 00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:22,574 the bill that finally gave government officials the tools 889 00:57:22,617 --> 00:57:26,417 they needed to protect America's last wild buffalo 890 00:57:26,454 --> 00:57:28,979 herd in Yellowstone. 891 00:57:29,023 --> 00:57:32,857 Now, after years of ceaseless effort, he won passage 892 00:57:32,894 --> 00:57:38,764 of another landmark, the Lacey Bird and Game Act of 1900. 893 00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,861 Soon, government agents were confiscating huge shipments 894 00:57:42,904 --> 00:57:47,568 of bird skins and feathers. 895 00:57:47,608 --> 00:57:50,338 But the Lacey Act did not put an end to plume hunting 896 00:57:50,378 --> 00:57:56,374 entirely, especially in the lawless Everglades. 897 00:57:56,417 --> 00:57:59,716 5 years after the bill's passage, a game warden was 898 00:57:59,754 --> 00:58:02,120 murdered by poachers. 899 00:58:02,156 --> 00:58:06,991 3 years after that, another one was gunned down. 900 00:58:07,028 --> 00:58:10,259 Some people began thinking that the uniquely abundant 901 00:58:10,298 --> 00:58:14,667 array of wildlife in southern Florida would never be safe 902 00:58:14,702 --> 00:58:18,331 unless the Everglades itself was set aside, like 903 00:58:18,373 --> 00:58:21,934 Yellowstone, as a national park. 904 00:58:24,212 --> 00:58:26,271 MAN AS JOHN F. LACEY: The attempt to preserve and restore 905 00:58:26,314 --> 00:58:28,612 some of the wildlife of America 906 00:58:28,649 --> 00:58:33,643 is no longer looked upon as a fad or idle sentiment. 907 00:58:33,688 --> 00:58:36,885 We have given an awful exhibition of slaughter 908 00:58:36,924 --> 00:58:39,552 and destruction which may serve as a warning to 909 00:58:39,594 --> 00:58:42,028 all mankind. 910 00:58:42,063 --> 00:58:45,760 Let us now give an example of wise conservation of what 911 00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:50,794 remains of the gifts of nature. 912 00:58:50,838 --> 00:58:54,865 COYOTE: As America moved into a new century, a new word-- 913 00:58:54,909 --> 00:58:59,346 conservation--had crept into the nation's vocabulary. 914 00:58:59,380 --> 00:59:04,841 Now a new president would turn the word into a movement. 915 00:59:07,522 --> 00:59:11,618 MAN: Like all Americans, l like big things--big 916 00:59:11,659 --> 00:59:15,959 prairies, big forests and mountains, big wheat fields, 917 00:59:15,997 --> 00:59:18,830 railroads, and herds of cattle, too. 918 00:59:18,866 --> 00:59:23,803 Big factories, steamboats, and everything else. 919 00:59:23,838 --> 00:59:26,329 CRONON: l think it's hard to exaggerate the significance 920 00:59:26,374 --> 00:59:28,205 of Theodore Roosevelt in the history 921 00:59:28,242 --> 00:59:30,335 of American conservation. 922 00:59:30,378 --> 00:59:33,074 He creates a presidency when he arrives in the White House 923 00:59:33,114 --> 00:59:36,242 that sets in motion most of the conservation agendas that 924 00:59:36,284 --> 00:59:39,845 will define the first half of the 20th century. 925 00:59:39,887 --> 00:59:44,881 MAN: The key to Teddy Roosevelt's leadership was his 926 00:59:44,926 --> 00:59:49,295 passion, his audaciry, the fact that he was 927 00:59:49,330 --> 00:59:55,064 an inspiring public speaker and enjoyed leading the country. 928 00:59:55,102 --> 00:59:58,731 He was a person who turned the country in a different 929 00:59:58,773 --> 01:00:02,334 direction where conservation was concerned. 930 01:00:02,376 --> 01:00:06,369 COYOTE: ln the spring of 1903, Theodore Roosevelt once again 931 01:00:06,414 --> 01:00:11,317 boarded a train headed west, and on April 8, he stepped off 932 01:00:11,352 --> 01:00:14,549 at the Northern Pacific railroad terminal just outside 933 01:00:14,589 --> 01:00:17,854 of Yellowstone National Park. 934 01:00:17,892 --> 01:00:22,056 He was no longer the scrawny and inexperienced Easterner 935 01:00:22,096 --> 01:00:25,224 cowboys had laughed at and called ''four-eyes'' 936 01:00:25,266 --> 01:00:26,563 20 years earlier. 937 01:00:27,568 --> 01:00:29,593 He was a national hero, 938 01:00:29,637 --> 01:00:32,800 the leader of the Rough Riders in the war with Spain, 939 01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:35,331 a former governor of New York state, 940 01:00:35,376 --> 01:00:39,176 President William McKinley's running mate in 1900, 941 01:00:39,213 --> 01:00:43,650 and now, following McKinley's assassination in 1901, 942 01:00:43,684 --> 01:00:47,017 the youngest president in United States history. 943 01:00:48,956 --> 01:00:50,981 MAN: The president unites in himself 944 01:00:51,025 --> 01:00:54,392 powers and qualities that rarely go together... 945 01:00:55,730 --> 01:00:58,028 the qualities of a man of action 946 01:00:58,065 --> 01:01:00,192 with those of a scholar and writer... 947 01:01:01,202 --> 01:01:02,829 the instincts and accomplishments 948 01:01:02,870 --> 01:01:05,236 of the best breeding and culture 949 01:01:05,273 --> 01:01:07,673 with the broadest democratic sympathies. 950 01:01:09,043 --> 01:01:11,807 He is doubtless the most vital man on the continent, 951 01:01:11,846 --> 01:01:14,076 if not on the planet, today. 952 01:01:15,449 --> 01:01:16,643 John Burroughs. 953 01:01:19,253 --> 01:01:22,245 COYOTE: Not since Thomas Jefferson a century earlier 954 01:01:22,290 --> 01:01:24,520 had there been an American president 955 01:01:24,559 --> 01:01:28,222 with greater interest in the natural world. 956 01:01:28,262 --> 01:01:31,561 JENKlNSON: Roosevelt began his life as a naturalist. 957 01:01:31,599 --> 01:01:34,261 He formed Theodore Roosevelt's Natural History Museum 958 01:01:34,302 --> 01:01:37,135 as a child, and he was a taxidermist. 959 01:01:37,171 --> 01:01:40,072 He would find snakes and mice and other creatures 960 01:01:40,107 --> 01:01:43,008 and sometimes store them in the refrigerator, 961 01:01:43,044 --> 01:01:44,534 the icebox of his family. 962 01:01:44,579 --> 01:01:46,945 Several maids quit over this. 963 01:01:46,981 --> 01:01:50,747 The house smelled of taxidermy. He had formaldehyde everywhere. 964 01:01:50,785 --> 01:01:53,447 This was a young boy who was fascinated by 965 01:01:53,487 --> 01:01:56,217 the idea of the museum and nature, 966 01:01:56,257 --> 01:01:59,090 but all of this is preliminary. 967 01:02:00,328 --> 01:02:04,059 lt wasn't until he went out to Dakota in 1883 968 01:02:04,098 --> 01:02:07,329 that Roosevelt really started to understand 969 01:02:07,368 --> 01:02:09,359 what was at stake in the debate 970 01:02:09,403 --> 01:02:11,268 about the future of nature in this country. 971 01:02:12,907 --> 01:02:15,671 COYOTE: ''When l hear about the destruction of a species,'' 972 01:02:15,710 --> 01:02:19,146 he said, ''l feel just as if the works 973 01:02:19,180 --> 01:02:22,946 ''of some great writer had perished.'' 974 01:02:22,984 --> 01:02:25,111 JENKlNSON: l think it can be said that Roosevelt invented 975 01:02:25,152 --> 01:02:27,382 the national wildlife refuge system. 976 01:02:27,421 --> 01:02:29,218 This was done by executive order alone. 977 01:02:29,256 --> 01:02:31,315 A national park needs to be voted on 978 01:02:31,359 --> 01:02:34,055 by a majoriry in two houses of Congress. 979 01:02:34,095 --> 01:02:37,360 Roosevelt said to his attorney general Philander Knox, 980 01:02:37,398 --> 01:02:38,695 ''ls there anything that would prevent me 981 01:02:38,733 --> 01:02:41,827 ''from naming Pelican lsland on the lndian River in Florida 982 01:02:41,869 --> 01:02:44,167 ''a national bird sanctuary?'' 983 01:02:44,205 --> 01:02:46,070 and Knox, the Attorney General, said, ''No, nothing.'' 984 01:02:46,107 --> 01:02:47,734 And so Roosevelt said, ''l do declare it.'' 985 01:02:50,244 --> 01:02:52,678 COYOTE: When Roosevelt arrived in Yellowstone, 986 01:02:52,713 --> 01:02:54,874 he was in the middle of a national tour 987 01:02:54,915 --> 01:02:57,349 unprecedented in its ambition. 988 01:02:57,385 --> 01:03:00,252 14,000 grueling miles. 989 01:03:00,287 --> 01:03:04,781 25 states. 150 towns and cities. 990 01:03:04,825 --> 01:03:09,159 More than 200 speeches in the space of 8 weeks. 991 01:03:10,331 --> 01:03:11,958 From the day he left Washington, 992 01:03:11,999 --> 01:03:15,366 he had been looking forward to some time off in Yellowstone, 993 01:03:15,403 --> 01:03:17,337 and immediately upon his arrival, 994 01:03:17,371 --> 01:03:19,532 he set off on horseback with the Army's 995 01:03:19,573 --> 01:03:22,736 acting park superintendent as his host, 996 01:03:22,777 --> 01:03:24,438 leaving the rest of the presidential 997 01:03:24,478 --> 01:03:25,945 entourage behind, 998 01:03:25,980 --> 01:03:29,609 including his staff, his Secret Service men, 999 01:03:29,650 --> 01:03:34,110 his physician, and all the reporters covering the trip. 1000 01:03:34,155 --> 01:03:36,589 ''As far as the world at large is concerned,'' 1001 01:03:36,624 --> 01:03:39,058 his private secretary told the press, 1002 01:03:39,093 --> 01:03:41,425 ''The president will be lost.'' 1003 01:03:41,462 --> 01:03:44,590 Only John Burroughs, the popular nature writer, 1004 01:03:44,632 --> 01:03:46,224 was allowed to come along. 1005 01:03:47,635 --> 01:03:51,036 The summer tourist season was still two months away, 1006 01:03:51,072 --> 01:03:54,940 so Roosevelt had Yellowstone essentially to himself. 1007 01:03:56,110 --> 01:03:58,408 He loved every minute of it. 1008 01:04:01,382 --> 01:04:04,681 He delighted in seeing so many animals-- 1009 01:04:04,719 --> 01:04:07,244 herds of mule deer and whitetails 1010 01:04:07,288 --> 01:04:11,019 and pronghorn antelope, flocks of bighorn sheep. 1011 01:04:12,159 --> 01:04:14,184 He watched an eagle swoop down 1012 01:04:14,228 --> 01:04:16,526 to try to capture a yearling elk, 1013 01:04:16,564 --> 01:04:20,261 saw cougars feasting on the carcasses of their prey, 1014 01:04:20,301 --> 01:04:22,735 spent 4 hours one afternoon 1015 01:04:22,770 --> 01:04:24,795 looking through his field glasses, 1016 01:04:24,839 --> 01:04:27,899 trying to count all the elk within sight, 1017 01:04:27,942 --> 01:04:31,639 ultimately estimating them to number 3,000. 1018 01:04:34,882 --> 01:04:38,477 On Easter morning, the President of the United States 1019 01:04:38,519 --> 01:04:42,182 insisted on leaving the campsite entirely on his own. 1020 01:04:44,258 --> 01:04:47,318 He tramped 18 miles over rough ground 1021 01:04:47,361 --> 01:04:50,057 in order to sneak up to within 50 yards 1022 01:04:50,097 --> 01:04:51,564 of another elk herd, 1023 01:04:51,599 --> 01:04:55,535 sat down on a rock, and gazed rapturously upon them 1024 01:04:55,569 --> 01:04:59,938 while he ate his lunch of hardtack and sardines. 1025 01:04:59,974 --> 01:05:03,808 One morning, President Roosevelt was shaving, 1026 01:05:03,844 --> 01:05:06,312 and he had lathered up his face with shaving cream, 1027 01:05:06,347 --> 01:05:08,144 and he was shaving himself in the wilderness 1028 01:05:08,182 --> 01:05:09,376 with a little mirror, 1029 01:05:09,416 --> 01:05:10,644 when somebody came in and said, 1030 01:05:10,684 --> 01:05:12,379 ''There are bighorn sheep out there 1031 01:05:12,419 --> 01:05:14,512 ''and they're coming down this cliff.'' 1032 01:05:14,555 --> 01:05:17,217 So, Roosevelt said, ''By Godfrey, l have to see that,'' 1033 01:05:17,258 --> 01:05:19,886 and he jumps up with half of his face clean-shaven 1034 01:05:19,927 --> 01:05:21,656 and the other half full of lather 1035 01:05:21,695 --> 01:05:23,754 and runs out into nature to see 1036 01:05:23,798 --> 01:05:28,497 the bighorn sheep coming down this nearly sheer cliff. 1037 01:05:28,536 --> 01:05:31,699 And Burroughs said, ''What kind of president is this?'' 1038 01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:37,206 He's just an overgrown boy who's so enthusiastic about nature 1039 01:05:37,244 --> 01:05:38,973 that it infects everyone around him 1040 01:05:39,013 --> 01:05:42,039 with a new enthusiasm for the natural world. 1041 01:05:44,218 --> 01:05:46,652 COYOTE: Roosevelt was witnessing firsthand 1042 01:05:46,687 --> 01:05:49,417 the results of the wildlife protection bill 1043 01:05:49,456 --> 01:05:53,552 he and George Bird Grinnell and Congressman John Lacey 1044 01:05:53,594 --> 01:05:55,528 had worked so hard to pass. 1045 01:05:56,864 --> 01:05:59,332 The game animals were now much more numerous, 1046 01:05:59,366 --> 01:06:00,731 he assured Burroughs, 1047 01:06:00,768 --> 01:06:05,364 than when he had last visited the park 1 2 years earlier. 1048 01:06:05,406 --> 01:06:09,365 Still, the president was itching to shoot something. 1049 01:06:11,412 --> 01:06:15,849 SCHULLERY: Roosevelt will always baffle people who don't hunt 1050 01:06:15,883 --> 01:06:19,717 because he both loved animals and loved hunting them, 1051 01:06:19,753 --> 01:06:22,586 and in Yellowstone, what he really wanted to do 1052 01:06:22,623 --> 01:06:24,250 was shoot a mountain lion. 1053 01:06:25,693 --> 01:06:30,187 At the time, park managers were killing predators. 1054 01:06:30,231 --> 01:06:32,722 lt was something that was going on anyway. 1055 01:06:32,766 --> 01:06:37,396 And so to Roosevelt's mind, ''Well, why not me?'' 1056 01:06:39,106 --> 01:06:41,131 COYOTE: The president's advisers thought 1057 01:06:41,175 --> 01:06:43,769 killing any animal in a national park 1058 01:06:43,811 --> 01:06:45,335 would be bad politics 1059 01:06:45,379 --> 01:06:47,574 and quietly dissuaded him. 1060 01:06:51,552 --> 01:06:54,953 ln all, Roosevelt spent two weeks in Yellowstone, 1061 01:06:54,989 --> 01:06:58,891 including several days traveling in a horse-drawn sleigh 1062 01:06:58,926 --> 01:07:00,553 to the park's interior, 1063 01:07:00,594 --> 01:07:04,496 still covered in some places by up to 6 feet of snow. 1064 01:07:05,733 --> 01:07:08,998 He saw the Norris geyser basin and Old Faithful 1065 01:07:09,036 --> 01:07:11,436 and skied to the rim of the Grand Canyon 1066 01:07:11,472 --> 01:07:12,734 of the Yellowstone. 1067 01:07:13,974 --> 01:07:17,410 But these wonders held only passing interest to him 1068 01:07:17,444 --> 01:07:19,878 compared to the park's wildlife. 1069 01:07:21,115 --> 01:07:23,106 ln addition to the larger animals, 1070 01:07:23,150 --> 01:07:25,778 he recorded sightings of pine squirrels 1071 01:07:25,819 --> 01:07:27,309 and snowshoe hares 1072 01:07:27,354 --> 01:07:29,584 and scores of different birds, 1073 01:07:29,623 --> 01:07:33,457 including a pygmy owl, the first he had ever seen. 1074 01:07:34,762 --> 01:07:38,198 ''He responded with boyish glee,'' Burroughs wrote. 1075 01:07:38,232 --> 01:07:40,598 ''l think the president was as pleased 1076 01:07:40,634 --> 01:07:43,262 ''as if we had bagged some big game.'' 1077 01:07:44,838 --> 01:07:46,806 At one point, Roosevelt sees a mouse 1078 01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:48,171 that he thinks is new to science, 1079 01:07:48,208 --> 01:07:50,768 so he jumps off the sleigh and grabs it with his hand 1080 01:07:50,811 --> 01:07:53,336 and kills it and then stuffs it. 1081 01:07:54,682 --> 01:07:55,842 MAN AS JOHN BURROUGHS: While we all went fishing 1082 01:07:55,883 --> 01:07:59,876 in the afternoon, the president skinned his mouse 1083 01:07:59,920 --> 01:08:02,889 and prepared the pelt for Washington. 1084 01:08:02,923 --> 01:08:05,721 lt was done as neatly as a professed taxidermist 1085 01:08:05,759 --> 01:08:07,727 would have done it. 1086 01:08:07,761 --> 01:08:10,889 This was the only game the president killed 1087 01:08:10,931 --> 01:08:12,922 in the park. 1088 01:08:12,967 --> 01:08:14,161 John Burroughs. 1089 01:08:22,576 --> 01:08:26,876 COYOTE: On April 24, at the end of Roosevelt's visit, 1090 01:08:26,914 --> 01:08:30,816 the entire population of the town of Gardiner, Montana, 1091 01:08:30,851 --> 01:08:33,319 gathered at the park's north entrance 1092 01:08:33,354 --> 01:08:34,912 for a special ceremony. 1093 01:08:37,057 --> 01:08:39,651 A new arch to welcome visitors to Yellowstone 1094 01:08:39,693 --> 01:08:41,251 was under construction, 1095 01:08:41,295 --> 01:08:43,320 and the president had agreed to speak 1096 01:08:43,364 --> 01:08:45,764 at the laying of the arch's cornerstone. 1097 01:08:47,468 --> 01:08:50,062 For the occasion, Roosevelt reluctantly 1098 01:08:50,104 --> 01:08:52,402 changed out of his camping clothes, 1099 01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:53,906 put on a business suit, 1100 01:08:53,941 --> 01:08:56,671 and rode through town to the awaiting crowd. 1101 01:08:58,746 --> 01:09:02,807 He watched as the cornerstone was carefully put into place, 1102 01:09:02,850 --> 01:09:05,045 then climbed to a rough platform 1103 01:09:05,085 --> 01:09:08,145 on the stonework of the incomplete pillar 1104 01:09:08,188 --> 01:09:09,712 and began to speak. 1105 01:09:14,528 --> 01:09:15,927 MAN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT: The Yellowstone Park 1106 01:09:15,963 --> 01:09:18,830 is something absolutely unique in the world, 1107 01:09:18,866 --> 01:09:21,096 so far as l know. 1108 01:09:21,135 --> 01:09:24,832 This park was created and is now administered 1109 01:09:24,872 --> 01:09:28,740 for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. 1110 01:09:28,776 --> 01:09:30,437 The scheme of its preservation 1111 01:09:30,477 --> 01:09:34,004 is noteworthy in its essential democracy. 1112 01:09:36,083 --> 01:09:38,551 The only way that the people as a whole 1113 01:09:38,585 --> 01:09:41,611 can secure to themselves and their children 1114 01:09:41,655 --> 01:09:43,748 the enjoyment in perpetuiry 1115 01:09:43,791 --> 01:09:46,419 of what the Yellowstone park has to give 1116 01:09:46,460 --> 01:09:50,396 is by assuming ownership in the name of the nation 1117 01:09:50,431 --> 01:09:53,594 and jealously safeguarding and preserving 1118 01:09:53,634 --> 01:09:57,866 the scenery, the forests, and the wild creatures. 1119 01:10:01,341 --> 01:10:03,866 JENKlNSON: Roosevelt argued that the parks 1120 01:10:03,911 --> 01:10:06,311 are a democratic experience. 1121 01:10:06,346 --> 01:10:10,874 That was his essential argument about the national parks, 1122 01:10:10,918 --> 01:10:14,012 that the rich people always have their playgrounds, 1123 01:10:14,054 --> 01:10:16,147 they know how to amuse themselves, 1124 01:10:16,190 --> 01:10:18,624 and that America as a classless sociery 1125 01:10:18,659 --> 01:10:22,095 or at least a sociery that would like to be classless 1126 01:10:22,129 --> 01:10:26,156 needs to have places where regular human beings can go 1127 01:10:26,200 --> 01:10:28,634 and stand side by side with the rich and privileged 1128 01:10:28,669 --> 01:10:30,136 and enjoy the same experience 1129 01:10:30,170 --> 01:10:33,833 and not be made to feel that they are somehow less. 1130 01:10:33,874 --> 01:10:37,241 And so his primary argument was that the national parks 1131 01:10:37,277 --> 01:10:40,405 are a democratic experiment in nature. 1132 01:10:42,516 --> 01:10:44,313 COYOTE: Before he got back on the train 1133 01:10:44,351 --> 01:10:45,943 to resume his trip, 1134 01:10:45,986 --> 01:10:48,477 Roosevelt also deliberately quoted 1135 01:10:48,522 --> 01:10:51,753 from the act of Congress that had made Yellowstone 1136 01:10:51,792 --> 01:10:54,522 the world's first national park-- 1137 01:10:54,561 --> 01:10:57,894 ''for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.'' 1138 01:11:00,501 --> 01:11:03,993 Later, when the arch was finally completed, 1139 01:11:04,037 --> 01:11:08,030 that phrase would be permanently carved into its mantle 1140 01:11:08,075 --> 01:11:10,873 so that everyone who entered Yellowstone 1141 01:11:10,911 --> 01:11:14,677 would be reminded of why the park was there 1142 01:11:14,715 --> 01:11:15,909 and for whom. 1143 01:11:20,821 --> 01:11:24,086 JOHNSON: l remember the first time l arrived in Yellowstone, 1144 01:11:24,124 --> 01:11:26,422 l got off the bus right outside the north entrance, 1145 01:11:26,460 --> 01:11:29,793 where there's that wonderful stone arch that says 1146 01:11:29,830 --> 01:11:33,027 ''For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.'' 1147 01:11:33,066 --> 01:11:35,364 lt doesn't say, ''For the benefit and enjoyment 1148 01:11:35,402 --> 01:11:37,734 ''of some of the people, or a few of the people.'' 1149 01:11:37,771 --> 01:11:39,136 lt says, ''All of the people,'' 1150 01:11:39,173 --> 01:11:41,073 and for me, that meant democracy, 1151 01:11:41,108 --> 01:11:42,700 and for me, that meant l was welcome, 1152 01:11:42,743 --> 01:11:44,472 and l stepped outside, and as l was 1153 01:11:44,511 --> 01:11:46,138 stepping down onto the ground, 1154 01:11:46,180 --> 01:11:50,241 there was bison, a 2,000-pound animal walking by, 1155 01:11:50,284 --> 01:11:51,717 and there was no one else around. 1156 01:11:51,752 --> 01:11:53,583 The bison was just strolling by. 1157 01:11:53,620 --> 01:11:55,417 And l looked up at the driver and l said, 1158 01:11:55,455 --> 01:11:56,854 ''Does this happen all the time?'' 1159 01:11:56,890 --> 01:11:59,381 and he looked at me and said, ''All the time.'' 1160 01:11:59,426 --> 01:12:01,758 And l said to myself, ''l've arrived,'' 1161 01:12:01,795 --> 01:12:03,990 and l can't imagine being in any other place, 1162 01:12:04,031 --> 01:12:06,864 and to be honest with you, once l stepped off that bus, 1163 01:12:06,900 --> 01:12:08,128 l never got back on. 1164 01:12:08,168 --> 01:12:10,159 [Whistle blows] 1165 01:12:26,720 --> 01:12:29,018 COYOTE: Two weeks after leaving Yellowstone, 1166 01:12:29,056 --> 01:12:31,286 Roosevelt's whirlwind tour brought him 1167 01:12:31,325 --> 01:12:33,418 to Arizona's Grand Canyon 1168 01:12:33,460 --> 01:12:35,018 for a brief stop on the way 1169 01:12:35,062 --> 01:12:37,826 from New Mexico to southern California. 1170 01:12:39,299 --> 01:12:42,359 Roosevelt had never before seen the Grand Canyon, 1171 01:12:42,402 --> 01:12:46,133 and he was overwhelmed by the vista from the south rim. 1172 01:12:46,173 --> 01:12:48,607 He longed to spend more time there, 1173 01:12:48,642 --> 01:12:51,770 but his schedule permitted only this quick visit 1174 01:12:51,812 --> 01:12:55,179 and a few remarks to the crowd that had gathered to greet him. 1175 01:12:57,317 --> 01:12:59,683 MAN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT: l want to ask you to do one thing 1176 01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:01,153 in connection with it 1177 01:13:01,188 --> 01:13:04,453 in your own interest and in the interest of the country. 1178 01:13:07,327 --> 01:13:11,764 Keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. 1179 01:13:13,333 --> 01:13:19,033 Leave it as it is. You cannot improve it. 1180 01:13:19,072 --> 01:13:23,941 The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. 1181 01:13:25,112 --> 01:13:28,912 What you can do is to keep it for your children, 1182 01:13:28,949 --> 01:13:33,045 your children's children, and for all who come after you 1183 01:13:33,086 --> 01:13:36,886 as one of the great sights which every American, 1184 01:13:36,923 --> 01:13:39,983 if he can travel at all, should see. 1185 01:13:43,463 --> 01:13:45,624 JENKlNSON: The great statement in this speech is 1186 01:13:45,666 --> 01:13:47,759 ''Leave it as it is. 1187 01:13:48,902 --> 01:13:51,462 ''The ages have been at work on it 1188 01:13:51,505 --> 01:13:53,564 ''and man can only mar it.'' 1189 01:13:54,775 --> 01:13:57,403 Nothing has ever been said about the national parks 1190 01:13:57,444 --> 01:13:58,706 as fine as that. 1191 01:14:00,580 --> 01:14:03,947 The idea for Roosevelt was that humans have an itch 1192 01:14:03,984 --> 01:14:05,417 to change things... 1193 01:14:06,420 --> 01:14:08,217 but the beaury of the Grand Canyon 1194 01:14:08,255 --> 01:14:10,519 is when you look at it and you see nothing 1195 01:14:10,557 --> 01:14:12,582 that humans have constructed. 1196 01:14:14,094 --> 01:14:16,324 lt's a magnificent thing that he said, 1197 01:14:16,363 --> 01:14:19,764 and if that were the one wilderness statement 1198 01:14:19,800 --> 01:14:21,859 of American life, 1199 01:14:21,902 --> 01:14:24,666 l believe it's greater than Thoreau. 1200 01:14:24,705 --> 01:14:26,639 l believe that it's greater than John Muir. 1201 01:14:28,575 --> 01:14:31,442 ''Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it 1202 01:14:31,478 --> 01:14:33,912 ''and man can only mar it'' 1203 01:14:33,947 --> 01:14:36,142 should be the motto in front of every national park 1204 01:14:36,183 --> 01:14:37,810 in the country. 1205 01:14:37,851 --> 01:14:39,284 And if you think that this was said 1206 01:14:39,319 --> 01:14:44,256 by a man on a 14,000-mile trip in which he gave 262 speeches 1207 01:14:44,291 --> 01:14:45,815 more or less off the top of his head 1208 01:14:45,859 --> 01:14:48,657 on seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, 1209 01:14:48,695 --> 01:14:51,289 you realize what presidential greatness can be. 1210 01:14:56,570 --> 01:14:58,902 COYOTE: Then Roosevelt was gone... 1211 01:14:59,906 --> 01:15:01,373 and by the next day, he was 1212 01:15:01,408 --> 01:15:03,968 whistle-stopping his way through California, 1213 01:15:04,010 --> 01:15:06,376 giving 2 to 3 speeches a day, 1214 01:15:06,413 --> 01:15:09,348 attending banquets and dinners in his honor, 1215 01:15:09,383 --> 01:15:12,841 presiding at dedications and groundbreakings, 1216 01:15:12,886 --> 01:15:17,016 setting the frenetic pace that had become his hallmark. 1217 01:15:18,525 --> 01:15:22,393 [Bird cawing] 1218 01:15:22,429 --> 01:15:24,397 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: Nothing can be done well 1219 01:15:24,431 --> 01:15:27,195 at a speed of 40 miles a day. 1220 01:15:27,234 --> 01:15:29,429 Far more time should be taken. 1221 01:15:30,437 --> 01:15:33,429 Walk away quietly in any direction 1222 01:15:33,473 --> 01:15:36,203 and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. 1223 01:15:37,611 --> 01:15:42,071 Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 1224 01:15:42,115 --> 01:15:44,982 Nature's peace will flow into you 1225 01:15:45,018 --> 01:15:48,715 as sunshine flows into trees. 1226 01:15:48,755 --> 01:15:51,690 The winds will blow their own freshness into you 1227 01:15:51,725 --> 01:15:54,353 and the storms their energy 1228 01:15:54,394 --> 01:15:58,797 while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. 1229 01:16:02,903 --> 01:16:06,896 COYOTE: By 1903, John Muir was 65 1230 01:16:06,940 --> 01:16:09,534 and more famous than ever. 1231 01:16:09,576 --> 01:16:13,376 Mountain peaks and canyons, campsites and glaciers 1232 01:16:13,413 --> 01:16:16,041 now bore his name. 1233 01:16:16,082 --> 01:16:21,213 Magazine editors besieged him with requests for articles. 1234 01:16:21,254 --> 01:16:24,781 The Sierra Club he had founded was growing steadily, 1235 01:16:24,825 --> 01:16:27,623 and the hikes he personally led into the mountains 1236 01:16:27,661 --> 01:16:30,630 were always the club's most heavily attended. 1237 01:16:31,898 --> 01:16:35,891 People loved to hear him preach his deeply held gospel 1238 01:16:35,936 --> 01:16:38,871 that salvation could be found through immersion 1239 01:16:38,905 --> 01:16:40,372 in the natural world. 1240 01:16:42,075 --> 01:16:44,168 WOMAN: John Muir was there, 1241 01:16:44,211 --> 01:16:47,078 mounted on the horse which he rode now and then, 1242 01:16:47,113 --> 01:16:49,411 when no woman would accept the loan of it. 1243 01:16:50,884 --> 01:16:54,047 He was rapt, entranced. 1244 01:16:54,087 --> 01:16:56,715 He threw up his arms in a grand gesture. 1245 01:16:56,756 --> 01:16:59,816 ''This is the morning of creation,'' he cried. 1246 01:17:00,827 --> 01:17:02,761 ''The whole thing is beginning now.'' 1247 01:17:03,763 --> 01:17:05,924 ''The mountains are singing together.'' 1248 01:17:07,267 --> 01:17:08,529 Harriet Monroe. 1249 01:17:12,205 --> 01:17:13,763 COYOTE: For nearly a decade now, 1250 01:17:13,807 --> 01:17:16,742 he had been struggling to have the Yosemite Valley 1251 01:17:16,776 --> 01:17:19,244 given back to the federal government 1252 01:17:19,279 --> 01:17:23,079 and made part of the larger Yosemite National Park. 1253 01:17:23,116 --> 01:17:25,812 But nothing he seemed to say or do 1254 01:17:25,852 --> 01:17:27,513 had proven successful. 1255 01:17:29,022 --> 01:17:32,617 Things remained at a standstill in the spring of 1903, 1256 01:17:32,659 --> 01:17:36,527 as Muir prepared to leave his home in Martinez, California, 1257 01:17:36,563 --> 01:17:40,727 and embark on a trip to Europe and Asia with some friends. 1258 01:17:41,735 --> 01:17:44,499 Suddenly, his plans changed. 1259 01:17:45,739 --> 01:17:48,503 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: An influential man from Washington 1260 01:17:48,542 --> 01:17:51,375 wants to make a trip into the Sierra with me, 1261 01:17:51,411 --> 01:17:54,175 and l might be able to do some forest good, 1262 01:17:54,214 --> 01:17:56,842 in freely talking around the campfire. 1263 01:18:00,487 --> 01:18:01,784 COYOTE: lt was the president, 1264 01:18:01,821 --> 01:18:05,086 still working his way up through California, 1265 01:18:05,125 --> 01:18:08,856 asking Muir to accompany him during a visit to Yosemite. 1266 01:18:10,330 --> 01:18:12,560 ''l do not want anyone with me but you,'' 1267 01:18:12,599 --> 01:18:13,930 Roosevelt had written. 1268 01:18:13,967 --> 01:18:16,765 ''l want to drop politics absolutely 1269 01:18:16,803 --> 01:18:19,670 ''and just be out in the open with you.'' 1270 01:18:21,875 --> 01:18:26,141 Muir realized this was the opportuniry of a lifetime. 1271 01:18:26,179 --> 01:18:29,444 He purchased a brand-new woolen suit for the occasion 1272 01:18:29,482 --> 01:18:32,383 and hurried to join the presidential entourage. 1273 01:18:34,621 --> 01:18:38,819 On May 15, they set off for the Mariposa Grove of big trees 1274 01:18:38,858 --> 01:18:40,951 in a flurry of activiry. 1275 01:18:40,994 --> 01:18:45,522 A long caravan of wagons filled with staff and dignitaries, 1276 01:18:45,565 --> 01:18:48,261 a detachment of 30 buffalo soldiers 1277 01:18:48,301 --> 01:18:50,360 riding along as escorts. 1278 01:18:51,705 --> 01:18:55,300 Muir soon found himself seated in the president's coach 1279 01:18:55,342 --> 01:18:57,742 along with the governor of California, 1280 01:18:57,777 --> 01:19:01,235 the Secretary of the Navy, the Surgeon General, 1281 01:19:01,281 --> 01:19:03,010 two college presidents, 1282 01:19:03,049 --> 01:19:05,574 and Roosevelt's personal secretary. 1283 01:19:07,387 --> 01:19:09,981 lt was hardly the trip he had been promised, 1284 01:19:10,023 --> 01:19:13,117 but Muir tried his best to squeeze in words 1285 01:19:13,159 --> 01:19:14,922 to the president and governor 1286 01:19:14,961 --> 01:19:19,523 about the issue of making all of Yosemite a national park. 1287 01:19:22,969 --> 01:19:25,028 ln the grove of mighry sequoias, 1288 01:19:25,071 --> 01:19:28,734 the president's group paused, as all tourists did, 1289 01:19:28,775 --> 01:19:32,973 for a snapshot at the famous Wawona tunnel tree, 1290 01:19:33,013 --> 01:19:36,107 and later, they posed for an official photograph, 1291 01:19:36,149 --> 01:19:39,084 lined up along the base of the Grizzly Giant, 1292 01:19:39,119 --> 01:19:42,646 the oldest and most famous sequoia in Yosemite, 1293 01:19:42,689 --> 01:19:46,625 estimated to be 2,700 years old 1294 01:19:46,660 --> 01:19:52,826 and boasting a single branch that was 6 1/2 feet in diameter. 1295 01:19:52,866 --> 01:19:57,030 Then the troops, the phalanx of reporters and photographers, 1296 01:19:57,070 --> 01:19:59,368 and virtually all of the official parry 1297 01:19:59,406 --> 01:20:01,636 headed back to the Wawona Hotel, 1298 01:20:01,675 --> 01:20:04,735 where a series of receptions and a grand dinner 1299 01:20:04,778 --> 01:20:06,803 were scheduled in the president's honor 1300 01:20:06,846 --> 01:20:08,245 that evening. 1301 01:20:09,716 --> 01:20:14,676 None of them knew that Roosevelt had no intention of attending. 1302 01:20:14,721 --> 01:20:19,215 lnstead, he remained behind with only John Muir 1303 01:20:19,259 --> 01:20:21,250 and a few park employees, 1304 01:20:21,294 --> 01:20:23,228 who started preparing a camp 1305 01:20:23,263 --> 01:20:25,754 at the base of one of the sequoias, 1306 01:20:25,799 --> 01:20:28,927 part of a secret plan Roosevelt had hatched 1307 01:20:28,968 --> 01:20:31,801 to allow him time alone with the trees 1308 01:20:31,838 --> 01:20:34,534 and the man who considered them sacred. 1309 01:20:36,242 --> 01:20:38,836 They built a fire and sat around it, 1310 01:20:38,878 --> 01:20:43,838 eating a simple supper, talking as twilight enveloped them, 1311 01:20:43,883 --> 01:20:47,683 getting to know one another in the glow of the blaze. 1312 01:20:49,723 --> 01:20:51,657 MAN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT: The night was clear, 1313 01:20:51,691 --> 01:20:55,684 and in the darkening aisles of the great sequoia grove, 1314 01:20:55,729 --> 01:20:59,722 the majestic trunks, beautiful in color and symmetry, 1315 01:20:59,766 --> 01:21:03,793 rose around us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral 1316 01:21:03,837 --> 01:21:08,399 than ever was conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages. 1317 01:21:09,843 --> 01:21:13,006 Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening. 1318 01:21:15,014 --> 01:21:16,481 JENKlNSON: And Muir said, 1319 01:21:16,516 --> 01:21:18,609 ''l fell in love with this Theodore Roosevelt.'' 1320 01:21:18,651 --> 01:21:20,380 l mean, he actually used those words. 1321 01:21:20,420 --> 01:21:23,753 ''You can't resist this man. l fell in love with him.'' 1322 01:21:23,790 --> 01:21:25,951 Roosevelt, interestingly enough, 1323 01:21:25,992 --> 01:21:27,857 came back and complained a little bit about Muir 1324 01:21:27,894 --> 01:21:30,226 and said, ''He doesn't know his bird songs.'' 1325 01:21:30,263 --> 01:21:31,560 Roosevelt's an ornithologist. 1326 01:21:31,598 --> 01:21:33,759 He knows everything there is to know about birds. 1327 01:21:33,800 --> 01:21:36,735 But Muir also got one off on Roosevelt. 1328 01:21:36,770 --> 01:21:38,965 He said to him, ''Mr. President, 1329 01:21:39,005 --> 01:21:41,701 ''when are you going to get over this infantile need you have 1330 01:21:41,741 --> 01:21:44,209 ''to kill animals?'' 1331 01:21:44,244 --> 01:21:46,872 Roosevelt would not have taken that from any other human being. 1332 01:21:48,848 --> 01:21:51,112 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: l had a perfectly glorious time 1333 01:21:51,151 --> 01:21:53,642 with the president and the mountains. 1334 01:21:53,686 --> 01:21:55,847 l never before had a more interesting, 1335 01:21:55,889 --> 01:21:59,017 hearry, and manly companion. 1336 01:21:59,058 --> 01:22:03,154 l stuffed him pretty well regarding the timber thieves 1337 01:22:03,196 --> 01:22:05,289 and other spoilers of the forest. 1338 01:22:07,867 --> 01:22:09,494 COYOTE: Long after sundown, 1339 01:22:09,536 --> 01:22:13,097 with no tent and only a pile of army blankets, 1340 01:22:13,139 --> 01:22:15,300 the two men finally went to sleep. 1341 01:22:15,341 --> 01:22:17,935 [Owl hooting] 1342 01:22:17,977 --> 01:22:19,501 [Horse whinnying] 1343 01:22:20,647 --> 01:22:22,274 COYOTE: The next morning at 6:30, 1344 01:22:22,315 --> 01:22:25,614 they saddled up for the long ride to Yosemite Valley, 1345 01:22:25,652 --> 01:22:28,485 with the guide under strict orders from the president 1346 01:22:28,521 --> 01:22:32,116 to avoid at all costs the Wawona Hotel 1347 01:22:32,158 --> 01:22:36,185 and the delegation of officials he had jilted the night before. 1348 01:22:39,098 --> 01:22:41,726 ln the high country near Glacier Point, 1349 01:22:41,768 --> 01:22:44,532 with its spectacular panorama of the valley 1350 01:22:44,571 --> 01:22:47,438 and its waterfalls arrayed at their feet, 1351 01:22:47,473 --> 01:22:49,998 they stopped and once more made camp 1352 01:22:50,043 --> 01:22:53,911 at a spot their guide-- Charlie Leidig--had picked out. 1353 01:22:56,583 --> 01:22:59,347 MAN AS CHARLlE LElDlG: Around the campfire, Roosevelt and Muir 1354 01:22:59,385 --> 01:23:02,821 talked far into the night regarding Muir's glacial theory 1355 01:23:02,856 --> 01:23:05,916 of the formation of Yosemite Valley. 1356 01:23:05,959 --> 01:23:07,483 They also talked a great deal 1357 01:23:07,527 --> 01:23:10,360 about the protection of forests in general 1358 01:23:10,396 --> 01:23:12,455 and Yosemite in particular. 1359 01:23:14,367 --> 01:23:16,528 l heard them discussing the setting aside 1360 01:23:16,569 --> 01:23:21,529 of other areas in the United States for park purposes. 1361 01:23:21,574 --> 01:23:25,374 There was some difficulry in their campfire conversation 1362 01:23:25,411 --> 01:23:28,346 because both men wanted to do the talking. 1363 01:23:32,785 --> 01:23:34,582 COYOTE: They awoke the next morning, 1364 01:23:34,621 --> 01:23:38,079 covered by a light snow that had fallen in the high country 1365 01:23:38,124 --> 01:23:39,386 during the night. 1366 01:23:39,425 --> 01:23:41,757 Rather than feeling inconvenienced, 1367 01:23:41,794 --> 01:23:44,354 the president couldn't have been more delighted. 1368 01:23:45,665 --> 01:23:47,895 ''We slept in a snowstorm last night,'' 1369 01:23:47,934 --> 01:23:49,663 he exclaimed to the crowds 1370 01:23:49,702 --> 01:23:53,069 that had been patiently waiting for him on the valley floor. 1371 01:23:53,106 --> 01:23:57,440 ''This,'' he said, ''has been the grandest day of my life.'' 1372 01:23:59,345 --> 01:24:02,280 After camping one more night alone with Muir, 1373 01:24:02,315 --> 01:24:04,909 the president was picked up and escorted 1374 01:24:04,951 --> 01:24:07,317 back to the train station for the resumption 1375 01:24:07,353 --> 01:24:09,218 of his cross-country tour. 1376 01:24:11,624 --> 01:24:14,354 And when he spoke at the state capital in Sacramento 1377 01:24:14,394 --> 01:24:15,622 a day later, 1378 01:24:15,662 --> 01:24:19,098 Roosevelt's words sounded as if they could have come 1379 01:24:19,132 --> 01:24:22,329 from the lips of John Muir. 1380 01:24:22,368 --> 01:24:24,233 MAN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT: Lying out at night under those 1381 01:24:24,270 --> 01:24:29,731 sequoias was lying in a temple built by no hand of man. 1382 01:24:30,843 --> 01:24:33,971 A temple grander than any human architect 1383 01:24:34,013 --> 01:24:37,005 could by any possibiliry build, 1384 01:24:37,050 --> 01:24:41,043 and l hope for the preservation of the groves of giant trees 1385 01:24:41,087 --> 01:24:44,682 simply because it would be a shame to our civilization 1386 01:24:44,724 --> 01:24:46,385 to let them disappear. 1387 01:24:49,562 --> 01:24:52,292 They are monuments in themselves. 1388 01:24:52,332 --> 01:24:54,197 l want them preserved. 1389 01:24:55,568 --> 01:24:59,629 We are not building this country of ours for a day. 1390 01:24:59,672 --> 01:25:02,004 lt is to last through the ages. 1391 01:25:04,444 --> 01:25:07,413 COYOTE: Within 3 years, the California legislature 1392 01:25:07,447 --> 01:25:09,438 and United States Congress 1393 01:25:09,482 --> 01:25:12,474 approved the transfer of the Yosemite Valley 1394 01:25:12,518 --> 01:25:14,713 and Mariposa big trees 1395 01:25:14,754 --> 01:25:16,813 back to the federal government. 1396 01:25:21,194 --> 01:25:24,595 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: l am now an experienced lobbyist. 1397 01:25:24,630 --> 01:25:27,258 My political education is complete. 1398 01:25:28,968 --> 01:25:30,868 Have attended the legislature, 1399 01:25:30,903 --> 01:25:34,805 made speeches, explained, exhorted, 1400 01:25:34,841 --> 01:25:37,969 persuaded every mother's son of the legislators, 1401 01:25:38,011 --> 01:25:40,673 newspaper reporters, and everybody else 1402 01:25:40,713 --> 01:25:42,738 who would listen to me. 1403 01:25:42,782 --> 01:25:44,807 And now that the fight is finished 1404 01:25:44,851 --> 01:25:49,447 and my education as a politician and lobbyist is finished, 1405 01:25:49,489 --> 01:25:51,923 l am almost finished myself. 1406 01:25:53,826 --> 01:25:56,021 COYOTE: Yosemite National Park 1407 01:25:56,062 --> 01:25:58,326 now encompassed almost everything 1408 01:25:58,364 --> 01:26:00,798 Muir had been fighting for. 1409 01:26:00,867 --> 01:26:03,358 ''Sound the timbrel,'' he wrote a friend, 1410 01:26:03,403 --> 01:26:08,170 ''and let every Yosemite tree and stream rejoice.'' 1411 01:26:11,110 --> 01:26:12,737 JOHNSON: l remember one day l was walking 1412 01:26:12,779 --> 01:26:14,178 in the Cook's Meadow, 1413 01:26:14,213 --> 01:26:16,875 which is the meadow in the central part of Yosemite Valley, 1414 01:26:16,916 --> 01:26:18,907 and there was a woman there, 1415 01:26:18,951 --> 01:26:20,976 and she was just looking up and around her 1416 01:26:21,020 --> 01:26:25,616 and she just kept saying, ''Oh. Oh, my. 1417 01:26:25,658 --> 01:26:27,057 ''Oh, my.'' 1418 01:26:27,093 --> 01:26:28,754 l looked at her, l said, ''Ma'am, are you all right?'' 1419 01:26:28,795 --> 01:26:33,232 She said, ''Yes, l'm just fine. l just--oh.'' 1420 01:26:34,233 --> 01:26:35,598 l didn't have to talk to her about 1421 01:26:35,635 --> 01:26:37,227 the transcendent experience. 1422 01:26:37,270 --> 01:26:40,137 She was having one, and it wasn't a transcendent experience 1423 01:26:40,173 --> 01:26:41,936 because it was a national park. 1424 01:26:41,974 --> 01:26:44,204 lt was transcendent because it was Yosemite Valley. 1425 01:26:44,243 --> 01:26:46,473 But because it had become a national park, 1426 01:26:46,512 --> 01:26:49,140 she could have that transcendent experience. 1427 01:26:50,283 --> 01:26:53,343 And that's commonplace in Yosemite. 1428 01:26:53,386 --> 01:26:55,581 And where else can you get an experience like that? 1429 01:27:07,166 --> 01:27:11,125 [Bird cawing] 1430 01:27:13,306 --> 01:27:15,774 WOMAN: ln other parts of the world, 1431 01:27:15,808 --> 01:27:18,038 there are certain areas that are preserved 1432 01:27:18,077 --> 01:27:22,207 because some rich nobleman out of the goodness of his heart 1433 01:27:22,248 --> 01:27:24,478 decided to decree it. 1434 01:27:26,552 --> 01:27:29,578 But in the United States, you don't have to be 1435 01:27:29,622 --> 01:27:33,888 dependent on some rich guy being generous to you. 1436 01:27:35,094 --> 01:27:36,959 To me that's what national parks mean. 1437 01:27:36,996 --> 01:27:41,831 lt's a symbol of democracy, democracy when it works well. 1438 01:27:43,202 --> 01:27:44,533 At its best. 1439 01:27:47,707 --> 01:27:49,470 COYOTE: Back in 1870, 1440 01:27:49,509 --> 01:27:53,912 a 15-year-old boy in Kansas was idly reading the newspaper 1441 01:27:53,946 --> 01:27:56,744 that had been used to wrap his lunch. 1442 01:27:56,782 --> 01:27:58,272 He came across an article 1443 01:27:58,317 --> 01:28:01,218 about a mysterious sunken lake in Oregon 1444 01:28:01,254 --> 01:28:03,484 and he vowed to visit it one day. 1445 01:28:05,992 --> 01:28:08,392 lt would take William Gladstone Steel 1446 01:28:08,427 --> 01:28:10,691 15 years to get there. 1447 01:28:12,565 --> 01:28:15,033 MAN AS WlLLlAM STEEL: lmagine a vast mountain, 1448 01:28:15,067 --> 01:28:17,228 6 by 7 miles through, 1449 01:28:17,270 --> 01:28:21,798 at an elevation of 8,000 feet with the top removed 1450 01:28:21,841 --> 01:28:24,036 and the inside hollowed out, 1451 01:28:24,076 --> 01:28:27,807 then filled with the clearest water in the world, 1452 01:28:27,847 --> 01:28:30,372 and you have a perfect representation 1453 01:28:30,416 --> 01:28:31,678 of Crater Lake. 1454 01:28:33,719 --> 01:28:35,619 COYOTE: When a volcanic eruption 1455 01:28:35,655 --> 01:28:38,818 witnessed by the ancestors of the Klamath lndians 1456 01:28:38,858 --> 01:28:45,058 blew the top off a mountain peak in the Cascades 7,700 years ago, 1457 01:28:45,097 --> 01:28:47,964 the hole that was left began slowly filling 1458 01:28:48,000 --> 01:28:50,969 with each year's rainfall and snowmelt. 1459 01:28:52,471 --> 01:28:54,632 The result was Crater Lake-- 1460 01:28:54,674 --> 01:29:00,772 at 1,942 feet, the deepest lake in America. 1461 01:29:00,813 --> 01:29:04,112 Because it is filled almost entirely by snowfall, 1462 01:29:04,150 --> 01:29:06,983 the lake is also the world's clearest. 1463 01:29:07,019 --> 01:29:10,921 An 8-inch disc lowered into its sky-blue waters 1464 01:29:10,957 --> 01:29:15,485 is still visible 142 feet below the surface. 1465 01:29:17,163 --> 01:29:21,190 William Steel resolved that it should be protected forever, 1466 01:29:21,234 --> 01:29:24,328 just like Yellowstone and the other parks. 1467 01:29:25,905 --> 01:29:28,999 That quest took him another 17 years 1468 01:29:29,041 --> 01:29:31,669 of tireless promotion and lobbying 1469 01:29:31,711 --> 01:29:35,044 before he finally succeeded in 1902, 1470 01:29:35,081 --> 01:29:37,481 when Crater Lake became the nation's 1471 01:29:37,516 --> 01:29:39,609 sixth national park. 1472 01:29:41,554 --> 01:29:42,987 And it had all happened 1473 01:29:43,022 --> 01:29:46,116 because of this accidental lunchtime reading 1474 01:29:46,158 --> 01:29:49,457 32 years earlier. 1475 01:29:49,495 --> 01:29:52,987 DUNCAN: The parks, they're the greatest spots on earth, 1476 01:29:53,032 --> 01:29:55,262 wonderful natural places, 1477 01:29:55,301 --> 01:29:57,201 but the story of national parks 1478 01:29:57,236 --> 01:29:59,670 really isn't a story about the place. 1479 01:29:59,705 --> 01:30:02,833 lt's--it's the story of people 1480 01:30:02,875 --> 01:30:05,810 who fell in love with those places, 1481 01:30:05,845 --> 01:30:08,905 people who became so devoted to them 1482 01:30:08,948 --> 01:30:12,349 that they wanted to do anything they could to save them. 1483 01:30:18,692 --> 01:30:20,023 SMlTH: Richard Wetherill. 1484 01:30:20,060 --> 01:30:22,290 He's broadening out from Mesa Verde. 1485 01:30:22,329 --> 01:30:23,853 He wants to make people aware 1486 01:30:23,897 --> 01:30:26,195 that we have such a treasure, such a heritage here, 1487 01:30:26,233 --> 01:30:28,724 and yet here's this cowboy. 1488 01:30:28,769 --> 01:30:30,634 A cowboy, and we all know what cowboys are. 1489 01:30:30,671 --> 01:30:32,195 We read in our dime novels. 1490 01:30:32,239 --> 01:30:34,207 They can't be doing anything scholarly. 1491 01:30:36,209 --> 01:30:38,837 COYOTE: Despite his lack of formal education, 1492 01:30:38,879 --> 01:30:41,473 Richard Wetherill wanted to be taken seriously 1493 01:30:41,515 --> 01:30:43,483 as an archaeologist. 1494 01:30:43,517 --> 01:30:47,351 He had left Mesa Verde and began scouring the Southwest 1495 01:30:47,387 --> 01:30:49,184 in search of other ruins. 1496 01:30:51,892 --> 01:30:55,988 His journey took him from Colorado to Utah and Arizona 1497 01:30:56,029 --> 01:31:00,830 and finally to New Mexico, to a place called Chaco Canyon. 1498 01:31:00,867 --> 01:31:03,495 another eerily silent set of ruins 1499 01:31:03,537 --> 01:31:06,529 left behind by the ancient Puebloans. 1500 01:31:09,309 --> 01:31:11,903 With walls of remarkable workmanship, 1501 01:31:11,945 --> 01:31:14,175 some rising 5 stories, 1502 01:31:14,214 --> 01:31:16,808 Pueblo Bonito, the biggest ruin, 1503 01:31:16,850 --> 01:31:19,876 contained remnants of an enclosed plaza, 1504 01:31:19,920 --> 01:31:22,821 35 circular kivas, 1505 01:31:22,856 --> 01:31:27,418 more than 2 acres honeycombed by 650 rooms, 1506 01:31:27,461 --> 01:31:31,557 connected by small passageways and doors. 1507 01:31:31,598 --> 01:31:34,965 The religious and cultural hub of the civilization 1508 01:31:35,001 --> 01:31:37,435 that had dominated the surrounding region 1509 01:31:37,471 --> 01:31:40,668 between 850 A.D. and 1 200 A.D. 1510 01:31:43,143 --> 01:31:46,271 By itself, Pueblo Bonito was several times larger 1511 01:31:46,313 --> 01:31:48,178 than anything at Mesa Verde 1512 01:31:48,215 --> 01:31:50,445 and it sat in the midst of an array 1513 01:31:50,484 --> 01:31:53,351 of nearly a dozen other significant ruins. 1514 01:31:54,621 --> 01:31:57,454 Wetherill moved there with his wife Marietta, 1515 01:31:57,491 --> 01:31:59,118 filed a homestead claim, 1516 01:31:59,159 --> 01:32:03,619 and hired nearly 100 Navajos to help with the excavations. 1517 01:32:07,234 --> 01:32:09,725 Though Wetherill tried to carry on his work 1518 01:32:09,770 --> 01:32:12,933 as carefully and scientifically as possible, 1519 01:32:12,973 --> 01:32:16,033 professional archaeologists still dismissed him 1520 01:32:16,076 --> 01:32:17,304 as a pothunter. 1521 01:32:18,545 --> 01:32:20,445 And as the relics he was unearthing 1522 01:32:20,480 --> 01:32:22,448 reached eastern museums, 1523 01:32:22,482 --> 01:32:27,385 50,000 pieces of turquoise, 10,000 pieces of pottery, 1524 01:32:27,421 --> 01:32:30,481 5,000 stone implements, and much more, 1525 01:32:30,524 --> 01:32:34,517 they clamored for the government to do something to stop him. 1526 01:32:35,829 --> 01:32:37,592 SMlTH: Richard Wetherill was very careful 1527 01:32:37,631 --> 01:32:39,758 identifying everything he found. 1528 01:32:39,800 --> 01:32:43,258 He was ahead of the professional archaeologists, 1529 01:32:43,303 --> 01:32:45,533 which is an oxymoron at that time, 1530 01:32:45,572 --> 01:32:46,903 but he was ahead of them, 1531 01:32:46,940 --> 01:32:48,669 and l think they were jealous of him. 1532 01:32:49,843 --> 01:32:51,572 There's a snobbishness. 1533 01:32:51,611 --> 01:32:53,476 Educated Easterners can't believe 1534 01:32:53,513 --> 01:32:56,607 that a western cowboy could possibly be doing these things. 1535 01:32:58,218 --> 01:33:00,152 COYOTE: For his part, Wetherill said, 1536 01:33:00,187 --> 01:33:04,146 he would gladly turn over any portions of Chaco Canyon 1537 01:33:04,191 --> 01:33:07,752 if the federal government would simply do something 1538 01:33:07,794 --> 01:33:09,022 to protect them. 1539 01:33:10,263 --> 01:33:12,424 But the criticism of Wetherill's work 1540 01:33:12,466 --> 01:33:14,161 would not go away. 1541 01:33:15,936 --> 01:33:17,961 [Bird cawing] 1542 01:33:18,004 --> 01:33:20,404 COYOTE: Meanwhile, back at Mesa Verde, 1543 01:33:20,440 --> 01:33:25,036 the ruins Wetherill had first discovered were in danger. 1544 01:33:25,078 --> 01:33:27,774 Thieves, pot hunters, and tourists 1545 01:33:27,814 --> 01:33:29,509 were flocking to the site, 1546 01:33:29,549 --> 01:33:33,542 looting the artifacts, damaging the ancient structures, 1547 01:33:33,587 --> 01:33:36,920 sometimes even setting off sticks of dynamite 1548 01:33:36,957 --> 01:33:39,619 simply to frighten away the rattlesnakes. 1549 01:33:41,728 --> 01:33:44,925 Now a new group had taken up the cause 1550 01:33:44,965 --> 01:33:47,024 of protecting its treasures. 1551 01:33:50,170 --> 01:33:52,934 WOMAN: Mesa Verde seems to be set apart 1552 01:33:52,973 --> 01:33:54,304 for a park, 1553 01:33:54,341 --> 01:33:57,003 and to make and keep it as such 1554 01:33:57,043 --> 01:34:01,503 is the aim of the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association 1555 01:34:01,548 --> 01:34:03,709 of Women. 1556 01:34:03,750 --> 01:34:05,149 Virginia McClurg. 1557 01:34:08,188 --> 01:34:11,021 COYOTE: Virginia McClurg was a well-known lecturer 1558 01:34:11,057 --> 01:34:13,491 with a seemingly boundless determination 1559 01:34:13,527 --> 01:34:15,392 to leave her mark on the world. 1560 01:34:16,663 --> 01:34:18,255 She gathered a group of women 1561 01:34:18,298 --> 01:34:21,734 into the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association, 1562 01:34:21,768 --> 01:34:23,463 organized petitions, 1563 01:34:23,503 --> 01:34:25,801 wrote personal letters to the president, 1564 01:34:25,839 --> 01:34:28,205 held rummage sales, and solicited 1565 01:34:28,241 --> 01:34:31,142 10-cent contributions from other women's groups 1566 01:34:31,177 --> 01:34:33,372 across the country. 1567 01:34:33,413 --> 01:34:34,880 And it was working. 1568 01:34:34,915 --> 01:34:37,008 Support for protecting Mesa Verde 1569 01:34:37,050 --> 01:34:39,951 had become a national cause. 1570 01:34:39,986 --> 01:34:42,955 But just when Congress seemed ready to act, 1571 01:34:42,989 --> 01:34:45,287 it became clear to those around her 1572 01:34:45,325 --> 01:34:47,919 that Virginia McClurg had a different vision 1573 01:34:47,961 --> 01:34:50,987 of how Mesa Verde should be preserved. 1574 01:34:52,832 --> 01:34:53,992 WOMAN AS VlRGlNlA McCLURG: l do not see why 1575 01:34:54,034 --> 01:34:57,800 this small and compact tract in the proposed park 1576 01:34:57,837 --> 01:35:00,135 should not be under the protective care 1577 01:35:00,173 --> 01:35:05,042 of a body of 1 25 women with hereditary membership 1578 01:35:05,078 --> 01:35:08,878 who know more about the matter and care about the matter 1579 01:35:08,915 --> 01:35:10,712 than anyone else. 1580 01:35:11,952 --> 01:35:15,820 Virginia became so engrossed in it 1581 01:35:15,855 --> 01:35:19,621 that it suddenly was not our park as a nation, 1582 01:35:19,659 --> 01:35:21,889 it was her park. 1583 01:35:21,928 --> 01:35:24,829 COYOTE: Twice McClurg even negotiated leases 1584 01:35:24,864 --> 01:35:27,662 between her group and the Ute lndians 1585 01:35:27,701 --> 01:35:30,363 only to have the federal government remind her 1586 01:35:30,403 --> 01:35:34,533 that private citizens cannot make treaties. 1587 01:35:34,574 --> 01:35:36,474 The uproar she created 1588 01:35:36,509 --> 01:35:38,773 threatened to derail the bill in Congress 1589 01:35:38,812 --> 01:35:42,407 at the very moment it seemed headed for passage. 1590 01:35:42,449 --> 01:35:44,679 Even some of her closest allies 1591 01:35:44,718 --> 01:35:47,380 now suspected that Virginia McClurg 1592 01:35:47,420 --> 01:35:49,615 had lost sight of the real goal. 1593 01:35:52,125 --> 01:35:55,561 Lucy Peabody, the association's vice regent, 1594 01:35:55,595 --> 01:35:59,895 had preferred to get results rather than grab headlines. 1595 01:35:59,933 --> 01:36:02,959 She believed that only as a national park 1596 01:36:03,003 --> 01:36:07,269 could Mesa Verde be properly saved for future generations, 1597 01:36:07,307 --> 01:36:11,334 and now felt compelled to resign from the association. 1598 01:36:12,545 --> 01:36:14,445 With her went many other members, 1599 01:36:14,481 --> 01:36:18,144 including some of the group's most nationally prominent women. 1600 01:36:20,620 --> 01:36:23,714 McClurg, once the darling of the press, 1601 01:36:23,757 --> 01:36:27,488 found herself disparaged in newspaper editorials. 1602 01:36:28,595 --> 01:36:30,927 SMlTH: There was a sadness in all this. 1603 01:36:30,964 --> 01:36:34,400 At the moment of your greatest achievement, you lose it. 1604 01:36:34,434 --> 01:36:36,925 l--l think it's a normal reaction. 1605 01:36:36,970 --> 01:36:39,962 This becomes so possessive with her 1606 01:36:40,006 --> 01:36:43,032 that to have it within your grasp, right there, 1607 01:36:43,076 --> 01:36:44,236 and it's gone. 1608 01:36:45,645 --> 01:36:48,978 COYOTE: On June 29, 1906, 1609 01:36:49,015 --> 01:36:51,040 President Roosevelt signed the law 1610 01:36:51,084 --> 01:36:54,019 creating Mesa Verde National Park, 1611 01:36:54,054 --> 01:36:55,851 the first of its kind, 1612 01:36:55,889 --> 01:36:59,620 meant to celebrate not majestic natural scenery 1613 01:36:59,659 --> 01:37:03,060 but a prehistoric culture and its people. 1614 01:37:10,036 --> 01:37:11,970 With Mesa Verde protected, 1615 01:37:12,005 --> 01:37:14,667 anger over Richard Wetherill's excavations 1616 01:37:14,708 --> 01:37:18,269 at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico boiled over 1617 01:37:18,311 --> 01:37:21,678 and set in motion events that would change the course 1618 01:37:21,715 --> 01:37:23,012 of park history. 1619 01:37:24,484 --> 01:37:26,748 SMlTH: The bill for Mesa Verde was just for Mesa Verde, 1620 01:37:26,786 --> 01:37:29,118 but what about the other ruins? 1621 01:37:29,155 --> 01:37:31,020 There's sites all over the Southwest, 1622 01:37:31,057 --> 01:37:32,524 and the same thing's happening there. 1623 01:37:34,127 --> 01:37:37,290 COYOTE: Once more, Representative John F. Lacey 1624 01:37:37,330 --> 01:37:41,733 came to the rescue of places nowhere near and nothing like 1625 01:37:41,768 --> 01:37:43,099 his native lowa. 1626 01:37:44,304 --> 01:37:46,602 He sponsored a new bill to make 1627 01:37:46,639 --> 01:37:50,871 any unauthorized disturbance of any prehistoric ruin 1628 01:37:50,910 --> 01:37:52,343 a federal crime. 1629 01:37:53,713 --> 01:37:57,080 The act for the preservation of American antiquities 1630 01:37:57,117 --> 01:38:00,052 also granted the president of the United States 1631 01:38:00,086 --> 01:38:03,146 an extraordinary power: 1632 01:38:03,189 --> 01:38:07,182 the exclusive authoriry without any Congressional approval 1633 01:38:07,227 --> 01:38:09,957 to set aside places that would be called 1634 01:38:09,996 --> 01:38:13,625 not national parks but national monuments. 1635 01:38:15,368 --> 01:38:17,529 MAN: John F. Lacey gave the president 1636 01:38:17,570 --> 01:38:20,004 the greatest power a president could ever have 1637 01:38:20,039 --> 01:38:22,007 for the preservation of nature, 1638 01:38:22,041 --> 01:38:24,202 which allowed the president to do 1639 01:38:24,244 --> 01:38:27,111 something as simple as pick up a pen 1640 01:38:27,147 --> 01:38:29,308 and declare an area of the public domain 1641 01:38:29,349 --> 01:38:31,613 a national monument, 1642 01:38:31,651 --> 01:38:34,347 and since Teddy Roosevelt happened to be 1643 01:38:34,387 --> 01:38:36,116 the president at the time, 1644 01:38:36,156 --> 01:38:38,283 was that a gift or what? 1645 01:38:38,324 --> 01:38:40,258 Bully. Delighted. 1646 01:38:41,394 --> 01:38:43,362 Teddy Roosevelt picked up that pen 1647 01:38:43,396 --> 01:38:45,660 and started creating national monuments 1648 01:38:45,698 --> 01:38:48,132 and the country would never be the same again. 1649 01:38:51,371 --> 01:38:54,636 COYOTE: Roosevelt quickly put his new powers to use. 1650 01:38:55,975 --> 01:38:58,671 He proclaimed the first national monument, 1651 01:38:58,711 --> 01:39:03,842 a unique mass of grooved rock sacred to several lndian tribes 1652 01:39:03,883 --> 01:39:08,445 rising nearly 900 feet above the plains of eastern Wyoming. 1653 01:39:08,488 --> 01:39:10,979 lt was called Devil's Tower. 1654 01:39:12,292 --> 01:39:16,353 Then he named El Morro National Monument in New Mexico, 1655 01:39:16,396 --> 01:39:20,457 a rock abutment bearing prehistoric lndian petroglyphs 1656 01:39:20,500 --> 01:39:24,493 as well as the inscriptions of early Spanish expeditions 1657 01:39:24,537 --> 01:39:28,473 that had come north from Mexico 300 years earlier 1658 01:39:28,508 --> 01:39:32,171 and founded a colony 15 years before the Pilgrims 1659 01:39:32,212 --> 01:39:34,112 landed at Plymouth Rock. 1660 01:39:36,683 --> 01:39:39,550 And on March 11, 1907, 1661 01:39:39,586 --> 01:39:42,714 he did exactly what Richard Wetherill had wanted 1662 01:39:42,755 --> 01:39:46,418 and created Chaco Canyon National Monument. 1663 01:39:48,294 --> 01:39:51,195 Roosevelt would also use the antiquities act 1664 01:39:51,231 --> 01:39:54,689 to protect an endangered grove of coastal redwoods 1665 01:39:54,734 --> 01:39:56,725 north of San Francisco 1666 01:39:56,769 --> 01:40:00,762 named in honor of the man who had first introduced Roosevelt 1667 01:40:00,807 --> 01:40:03,037 to the giant trees-- 1668 01:40:03,076 --> 01:40:04,373 Muir Woods. 1669 01:40:07,313 --> 01:40:10,578 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: The man of science, the naturalist, 1670 01:40:10,617 --> 01:40:13,984 too often loses sight of the essential oneness 1671 01:40:14,020 --> 01:40:15,282 of all living beings 1672 01:40:15,321 --> 01:40:18,347 in seeking to classify them in kingdoms, 1673 01:40:18,391 --> 01:40:20,689 orders, species, etc. 1674 01:40:22,829 --> 01:40:25,992 While the eye of the poet, the seer, 1675 01:40:26,032 --> 01:40:29,934 never closes on the kinship of all God's creatures. 1676 01:40:29,969 --> 01:40:32,460 And his heart ever beats in sympathy 1677 01:40:32,505 --> 01:40:34,871 with great and small alike 1678 01:40:34,908 --> 01:40:38,537 as Earth-borne companions and fellow mortals 1679 01:40:38,578 --> 01:40:42,241 equally dependent on Heaven's eternal love. 1680 01:40:46,953 --> 01:40:51,890 COYOTE: ln 1905, John Muir's life had been beset by sorrow. 1681 01:40:51,925 --> 01:40:55,452 His devoted life Louie died of lung cancer 1682 01:40:55,495 --> 01:40:57,759 and he buried her next to her parents 1683 01:40:57,797 --> 01:40:59,890 near an orchard on their farm. 1684 01:41:01,768 --> 01:41:04,931 President Roosevelt, who had lost his first wife 1685 01:41:04,971 --> 01:41:06,165 as a young man, 1686 01:41:06,205 --> 01:41:10,005 and then found solace in the open spaces of the west, 1687 01:41:10,043 --> 01:41:13,308 sent his personal condolences. 1688 01:41:13,346 --> 01:41:17,077 ''Get out among the mountains and trees, friend,'' he wrote. 1689 01:41:17,116 --> 01:41:20,984 ''They will do more for you than either man or woman could.'' 1690 01:41:22,689 --> 01:41:25,123 But the aging mountaineer went instead 1691 01:41:25,158 --> 01:41:27,058 to the deserts of Arizona, 1692 01:41:27,093 --> 01:41:29,425 where it was hoped his daughter Helen 1693 01:41:29,462 --> 01:41:31,396 might recover from pneumonia. 1694 01:41:32,932 --> 01:41:36,834 ln his grief, he began exploring the surrounding area 1695 01:41:36,869 --> 01:41:40,430 and discovered that in fact he was, once again, 1696 01:41:40,473 --> 01:41:42,498 in a majestic forest, 1697 01:41:42,542 --> 01:41:46,501 only this one was 200 million years old 1698 01:41:46,546 --> 01:41:50,175 and all of the trees had long ago fossilized 1699 01:41:50,216 --> 01:41:52,548 into solid rock. 1700 01:41:52,585 --> 01:41:54,815 lt was the petrified forest. 1701 01:41:58,091 --> 01:42:03,393 EHRLlCH: l think parks represent the wildness inside us. 1702 01:42:05,331 --> 01:42:08,391 They're the place where we can be lonely, 1703 01:42:08,434 --> 01:42:11,198 where we can experience solitude. 1704 01:42:12,739 --> 01:42:18,678 They're a place we go to as refuge, as sanctuary. 1705 01:42:20,646 --> 01:42:24,343 lt's a place we go out to to come back in. 1706 01:42:24,384 --> 01:42:28,343 lt's the only place perhaps left in many people's lives 1707 01:42:28,388 --> 01:42:29,855 where that's possible. 1708 01:42:33,259 --> 01:42:36,057 COYOTE: Soon, Muir was himself again, 1709 01:42:36,095 --> 01:42:39,929 sometimes taking total strangers on long walks 1710 01:42:39,966 --> 01:42:42,901 through the tumbled and broken stone trees. 1711 01:42:44,437 --> 01:42:45,961 ln what he now called 1712 01:42:46,005 --> 01:42:48,974 ''these enchanted carboniferous forests,'' 1713 01:42:49,008 --> 01:42:50,839 he loved nothing more than to sit 1714 01:42:50,877 --> 01:42:53,437 near the trunk of a petrified tree 1715 01:42:53,479 --> 01:42:56,812 and inspect it minutely with a magnifying glass. 1716 01:42:58,451 --> 01:43:01,579 But even this forest was endangered. 1717 01:43:01,621 --> 01:43:05,079 Scavengers used dynamite to blow up large logs 1718 01:43:05,124 --> 01:43:08,890 in hopes of finding amethyst crystals inside them. 1719 01:43:08,928 --> 01:43:12,796 Boxcar loads of petrified wood were being shipped east 1720 01:43:12,832 --> 01:43:16,529 to be made into tabletops and mantelpieces. 1721 01:43:16,569 --> 01:43:19,402 An enormous stone crusher was being constructed 1722 01:43:19,439 --> 01:43:23,842 to pulverize the logs for use as industrial abrasives. 1723 01:43:25,978 --> 01:43:30,176 For years, John F. Lacey had been trying to protect the area 1724 01:43:30,216 --> 01:43:32,741 by making it a national park. 1725 01:43:32,785 --> 01:43:35,618 Congress would not go along. 1726 01:43:35,655 --> 01:43:37,919 But John Muir knew somebody 1727 01:43:37,957 --> 01:43:40,687 who now could save his enchanted forest 1728 01:43:40,726 --> 01:43:42,489 with a stroke of his pen. 1729 01:43:44,564 --> 01:43:48,295 President Roosevelt invoked the antiquities act again, 1730 01:43:48,334 --> 01:43:52,600 and Petrified Forest National Monument was created. 1731 01:43:56,109 --> 01:43:58,043 MAN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT: There is nothing more practical 1732 01:43:58,077 --> 01:44:01,205 than the preservation of beaury, 1733 01:44:01,247 --> 01:44:03,442 than the preservation of anything 1734 01:44:03,483 --> 01:44:06,941 that appeals to the higher emotions of mankind. 1735 01:44:09,021 --> 01:44:12,889 l believe we are past the stage of national existence 1736 01:44:12,925 --> 01:44:15,587 when we could look on complacently 1737 01:44:15,628 --> 01:44:19,394 at the individual who skinned the land 1738 01:44:19,432 --> 01:44:24,096 and was content for the sake of 3 years' profit for himself 1739 01:44:24,137 --> 01:44:26,765 to leave a desert for the children of those 1740 01:44:26,806 --> 01:44:28,865 who were to inherit the soil. 1741 01:44:31,344 --> 01:44:33,175 JENKlNSON: lf government doesn't protect 1742 01:44:33,212 --> 01:44:35,373 the weakest elements of humaniry 1743 01:44:35,414 --> 01:44:37,473 and the weakest elements of nature... 1744 01:44:38,484 --> 01:44:40,008 the whole game is lost. 1745 01:44:42,822 --> 01:44:44,915 That was an incredible breakthrough 1746 01:44:44,957 --> 01:44:46,185 for a man who grew up 1747 01:44:46,225 --> 01:44:48,557 in a profoundly Republican household 1748 01:44:48,594 --> 01:44:51,461 in an age of J.P. Morgan and John Rockefeller. 1749 01:44:53,232 --> 01:44:56,133 There's a paradox at the very center of American life. 1750 01:44:56,169 --> 01:45:00,162 We are meant to be the most materially happy, 1751 01:45:00,206 --> 01:45:03,175 wealthiest, most privileged people who ever lived on Earth. 1752 01:45:03,209 --> 01:45:06,337 That's one version of the American dream. 1753 01:45:08,281 --> 01:45:11,876 We are also Thoreau's Americans and Jefferson's Americans, 1754 01:45:11,918 --> 01:45:15,615 and Roosevelt's Grand Canyon Americans. 1755 01:45:15,655 --> 01:45:18,351 We want that, and somehow we've gotten it into our heads 1756 01:45:18,391 --> 01:45:20,120 that we can have both, 1757 01:45:20,159 --> 01:45:21,592 and maybe we can. 1758 01:45:24,730 --> 01:45:27,631 But Roosevelt understood that we can only have both 1759 01:45:27,667 --> 01:45:30,932 if we severely restrain our acquisitive energies 1760 01:45:30,970 --> 01:45:32,733 for some parts of this continent. 1761 01:45:33,739 --> 01:45:35,036 That's the key. 1762 01:45:36,976 --> 01:45:38,773 UDALL: We used to talk about Teddy Roosevelt 1763 01:45:38,811 --> 01:45:41,109 having distance in his eyes... 1764 01:45:42,348 --> 01:45:46,114 and that's what's important, is to have this 1765 01:45:46,152 --> 01:45:51,351 strong, powerful part of our heritage vivid 1766 01:45:51,390 --> 01:45:55,258 so that people can understand it and appreciate it. 1767 01:45:55,294 --> 01:45:57,262 COYOTE: Before his presidency was over, 1768 01:45:57,296 --> 01:46:00,288 he would create 5 new national parks, 1769 01:46:00,333 --> 01:46:05,771 51 federal bird sanctuaries, 4 national game refuges, 1770 01:46:05,805 --> 01:46:08,137 18 national monuments, 1771 01:46:08,174 --> 01:46:12,611 and more than 100 million acres worth of national forests. 1772 01:46:17,016 --> 01:46:22,079 Now Roosevelt wanted one more national park added to his list, 1773 01:46:22,121 --> 01:46:24,988 the place he had urged the citizens of Arizona 1774 01:46:25,024 --> 01:46:29,552 to leave as it is-- the grandest canyon on Earth. 1775 01:46:31,530 --> 01:46:34,727 Developers were already erecting buildings, 1776 01:46:34,767 --> 01:46:37,099 miners were filing claims, 1777 01:46:37,136 --> 01:46:41,232 and ranchers were grazing cattle all along the south rim. 1778 01:46:43,075 --> 01:46:46,670 But even Theodore Roosevelt could not persuade Congress 1779 01:46:46,712 --> 01:46:47,838 to act. 1780 01:46:47,880 --> 01:46:50,405 Local sentiment and vested interests 1781 01:46:50,449 --> 01:46:52,383 were just too powerful. 1782 01:46:52,418 --> 01:46:55,546 The president looked for some way, any way 1783 01:46:55,588 --> 01:46:57,715 to prevent the canyon from becoming 1784 01:46:57,757 --> 01:47:01,420 another commercialized Niagara Falls. 1785 01:47:01,460 --> 01:47:05,157 He found his solution in the antiquities act. 1786 01:47:07,166 --> 01:47:09,794 CRONON: lt was written basically to try to prevent 1787 01:47:09,835 --> 01:47:12,963 the destruction of lndian archaeological sites 1788 01:47:13,005 --> 01:47:14,438 in the American southwest, 1789 01:47:14,473 --> 01:47:16,236 the idea being that there were people going in 1790 01:47:16,275 --> 01:47:17,902 and robbing these graves, 1791 01:47:17,943 --> 01:47:19,740 and that that needed to be stopped. 1792 01:47:21,347 --> 01:47:23,406 And so a law is written that says the president 1793 01:47:23,449 --> 01:47:26,009 can very quickly set aside a tract of land 1794 01:47:26,052 --> 01:47:28,452 as a national monument, 1795 01:47:28,487 --> 01:47:30,717 and that's a fairly narrow purpose. 1796 01:47:31,757 --> 01:47:33,782 But there were no restrictions in the law, 1797 01:47:33,826 --> 01:47:36,192 and Teddy Roosevelt quite quickly realized 1798 01:47:36,228 --> 01:47:37,354 that you could set aside land 1799 01:47:37,396 --> 01:47:39,523 for reasons other than archaeology, 1800 01:47:39,565 --> 01:47:41,499 and the great beneficiary of that law would be 1801 01:47:41,534 --> 01:47:42,728 the Grand Canyon. 1802 01:47:44,203 --> 01:47:46,364 COYOTE: The wording of the antiquities act 1803 01:47:46,405 --> 01:47:49,033 referred to protection of so-called 1804 01:47:49,075 --> 01:47:52,841 ''objects of historic and scientific interest,'' 1805 01:47:52,878 --> 01:47:56,541 and though it had contemplated only small-sized parcels, 1806 01:47:56,582 --> 01:47:59,676 up to then, no more than 5,000 acres, 1807 01:47:59,719 --> 01:48:01,687 it did not absolutely restrict 1808 01:48:01,721 --> 01:48:04,884 the number of acres a president could set aside. 1809 01:48:08,627 --> 01:48:13,496 On January 11, 1908, declaring the Grand Canyon 1810 01:48:13,532 --> 01:48:17,161 ''an object of unusual scientific interest, 1811 01:48:17,203 --> 01:48:19,467 ''being the greatest eroded canyon 1812 01:48:19,505 --> 01:48:21,405 ''within the United States,'' 1813 01:48:21,440 --> 01:48:27,106 Roosevelt set aside 806,400 acres 1814 01:48:27,146 --> 01:48:28,875 as a national monument. 1815 01:48:30,583 --> 01:48:32,778 lt would not enjoy the same protections 1816 01:48:32,818 --> 01:48:34,683 as a national park, 1817 01:48:34,720 --> 01:48:37,951 but it was a step in the right direction. 1818 01:48:37,990 --> 01:48:40,550 Politicians in Arizona were outraged 1819 01:48:40,593 --> 01:48:43,892 and threatened to challenge Roosevelt in court. 1820 01:48:43,929 --> 01:48:45,863 Members of Congress complained 1821 01:48:45,898 --> 01:48:49,732 that the president had overstepped his authoriry. 1822 01:48:49,769 --> 01:48:51,202 He ignored them all. 1823 01:48:52,338 --> 01:48:54,966 UDALL: A lot of Westerners, powerful Westerners, 1824 01:48:55,007 --> 01:48:58,238 Congressmen, senators, were opposed and critical... 1825 01:48:59,412 --> 01:49:04,042 and that was part of Teddy Roosevelt's power, 1826 01:49:04,083 --> 01:49:08,179 that he could overwhelm the wishes of local people 1827 01:49:08,220 --> 01:49:09,619 and dared to do it. 1828 01:49:11,323 --> 01:49:13,188 JENKlNSON: Well, there was furor. 1829 01:49:13,225 --> 01:49:16,194 There is always furor when these things happen. 1830 01:49:16,228 --> 01:49:17,388 Short-term. 1831 01:49:19,131 --> 01:49:21,122 But Roosevelt understood 1832 01:49:21,167 --> 01:49:23,727 that short-term controversy over nature 1833 01:49:23,769 --> 01:49:26,431 leads to long-term benefit. 1834 01:49:26,472 --> 01:49:30,568 Roosevelt's view was that an intact environment 1835 01:49:30,609 --> 01:49:34,807 is infinitely more valuable spiritually and economically 1836 01:49:34,847 --> 01:49:36,542 than an extracted one. 1837 01:49:37,917 --> 01:49:40,977 UDALL: But history always vindicates, 1838 01:49:41,020 --> 01:49:42,988 always vindicates what they did. 1839 01:49:44,723 --> 01:49:48,557 There's not a single person in Arizona today 1840 01:49:48,594 --> 01:49:52,030 who would say the Grand Canyon was a mistake. 1841 01:50:05,009 --> 01:50:06,977 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: The very first reservation 1842 01:50:07,011 --> 01:50:09,309 that ever was made in this world, 1843 01:50:09,347 --> 01:50:12,874 the garden of Eden, contained only one tree. 1844 01:50:13,885 --> 01:50:17,286 The smallest reservation that ever was made. 1845 01:50:18,957 --> 01:50:21,721 Yet no sooner was it made 1846 01:50:21,759 --> 01:50:25,718 than it was attacked by everybody in the world-- 1847 01:50:26,731 --> 01:50:29,598 the devil, one woman, and one man. 1848 01:50:30,535 --> 01:50:33,003 This has been the history of every reservation 1849 01:50:33,037 --> 01:50:35,938 that has been made since that time, 1850 01:50:35,974 --> 01:50:39,341 that is, as soon as a reservation is once created, 1851 01:50:39,377 --> 01:50:43,074 then the thieves and the devil and his relations 1852 01:50:44,082 --> 01:50:45,777 come forward to attack it. 1853 01:50:49,287 --> 01:50:53,553 DUNCAN: He said, ''Nothing dollarable is safe''... 1854 01:50:53,591 --> 01:50:57,357 and it's like this insight into human beings, 1855 01:50:57,395 --> 01:50:59,090 but particularly Americans. 1856 01:50:59,130 --> 01:51:02,156 He understood this relentless grasp 1857 01:51:02,200 --> 01:51:03,827 of American commerce. 1858 01:51:04,836 --> 01:51:06,770 lt wants to reach into everything. 1859 01:51:07,238 --> 01:51:09,433 And he realized that if a dollar value 1860 01:51:09,474 --> 01:51:13,740 could be attached to, in his mind, a sacred place, 1861 01:51:14,746 --> 01:51:16,213 it was vulnerable. 1862 01:51:16,915 --> 01:51:19,315 COYOTE: Since the start of the 20th century, 1863 01:51:19,350 --> 01:51:21,716 the ciry of San Francisco had been looking 1864 01:51:21,753 --> 01:51:25,951 for a better supply of water to fuel its growth, 1865 01:51:25,990 --> 01:51:28,823 and it had set its sights on the Tuolumne River 1866 01:51:28,860 --> 01:51:30,327 and the Hetch Hetchy Valley 1867 01:51:30,361 --> 01:51:34,263 as the perfect place for a dam and reservoir, 1868 01:51:34,299 --> 01:51:37,268 a narrow valley remote enough to assure 1869 01:51:37,302 --> 01:51:40,760 that the waters trapped from the yearly Sierra runoff 1870 01:51:41,773 --> 01:51:43,331 would stay pure. 1871 01:51:43,408 --> 01:51:45,273 The fact that it was within the boundaries 1872 01:51:45,310 --> 01:51:47,244 of Yosemite National Park 1873 01:51:47,278 --> 01:51:50,736 only added to its attractiveness to ciry planners. 1874 01:51:50,782 --> 01:51:54,047 No competing claims to water rights existed. 1875 01:51:55,053 --> 01:51:58,716 The only land owner to deal with was the federal government. 1876 01:51:59,023 --> 01:52:01,116 Damming and flooding Hetch Hetchy 1877 01:52:02,126 --> 01:52:06,256 would be cheaper and easier than finding alternative sites. 1878 01:52:07,432 --> 01:52:09,923 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: That anyone would try to destroy 1879 01:52:09,968 --> 01:52:12,869 such a place seems incredible, 1880 01:52:12,904 --> 01:52:15,702 but sad experience shows that there are people 1881 01:52:16,708 --> 01:52:20,701 good enough and bad enough for anything. 1882 01:52:24,449 --> 01:52:26,815 COYOTE: To John Muir, allowing a dam 1883 01:52:26,851 --> 01:52:28,910 in any national park 1884 01:52:28,953 --> 01:52:31,786 would betray the very purpose of parks, 1885 01:52:31,823 --> 01:52:33,814 and even worse in his eyes, 1886 01:52:34,826 --> 01:52:37,556 set a dangerous precedent for the future. 1887 01:52:37,862 --> 01:52:41,821 Hetch Hetchy was among his favorite places in Yosemite. 1888 01:52:41,866 --> 01:52:44,596 He called it ''one of nature's rarest 1889 01:52:45,603 --> 01:52:48,128 ''and most precious mountain temples.'' 1890 01:52:48,573 --> 01:52:53,010 With its own majestic waterfalls and massive granite faces, 1891 01:52:53,044 --> 01:52:56,480 it had all the beaury of the more famous Yosemite Valley 1892 01:52:56,514 --> 01:52:58,778 20 miles to the south, he said, 1893 01:52:59,784 --> 01:53:02,548 without the clutter of tourist hotels. 1894 01:53:02,720 --> 01:53:04,881 When he had helped draw the boundary lines 1895 01:53:04,922 --> 01:53:07,516 for the national park back in 1890, 1896 01:53:08,526 --> 01:53:11,324 he had deliberately included Hetch Hetchy. 1897 01:53:13,031 --> 01:53:15,158 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: These temple destroyers, 1898 01:53:15,199 --> 01:53:18,566 devotees of ravaging commercialism, 1899 01:53:18,603 --> 01:53:22,369 seem to have a perfect contempt for nature, 1900 01:53:22,407 --> 01:53:24,136 and instead of lifting their eyes 1901 01:53:24,175 --> 01:53:26,006 to the god of the mountains, 1902 01:53:27,011 --> 01:53:29,571 lift them to the almighry dollar. 1903 01:53:29,647 --> 01:53:31,376 Dam Hetch Hetchy. 1904 01:53:31,416 --> 01:53:33,384 As well, dam for water-tanks 1905 01:53:33,418 --> 01:53:36,353 the people's cathedrals and churches, 1906 01:53:36,387 --> 01:53:39,686 for no holier temple has ever been consecrated 1907 01:53:40,692 --> 01:53:42,284 by the heart of man. 1908 01:53:44,395 --> 01:53:47,694 COYOTE: At first, Muir's view had prevailed. 1909 01:53:47,732 --> 01:53:50,667 Theodore Roosevelt's interior secretary 1910 01:53:51,669 --> 01:53:56,038 turned down San Francisco's application 3 different times. 1911 01:53:56,974 --> 01:54:01,468 Then on April 18, 1906, a tremendous earthquake 1912 01:54:01,512 --> 01:54:03,571 had shaken San Francisco, 1913 01:54:03,614 --> 01:54:05,673 bringing down hundreds of buildings 1914 01:54:05,717 --> 01:54:09,084 and igniting fires that consumed most of the ciry, 1915 01:54:10,088 --> 01:54:11,521 killing thousands. 1916 01:54:14,358 --> 01:54:17,088 With San Francisco reduced to ashes, 1917 01:54:17,128 --> 01:54:19,187 politicians redoubled their efforts 1918 01:54:19,230 --> 01:54:21,198 for a reservoir at Hetch Hetchy, 1919 01:54:21,232 --> 01:54:24,167 claiming falsely that its water supply 1920 01:54:25,169 --> 01:54:27,194 could have prevented the destruction. 1921 01:54:28,206 --> 01:54:31,869 ln a referendum, San Franciscans voted 7-1 1922 01:54:32,877 --> 01:54:34,708 in favor of the dam. 1923 01:54:35,012 --> 01:54:37,242 The ciry's mayor launched a campaign 1924 01:54:37,281 --> 01:54:39,215 attacking Muir's character 1925 01:54:40,218 --> 01:54:42,345 for trying to obstruct the project. 1926 01:54:42,687 --> 01:54:46,885 Even Muir's own Sierra Club split over the issue, 1927 01:54:47,892 --> 01:54:51,350 with some prominent members advocating the dam. 1928 01:54:51,929 --> 01:54:53,692 MAN: They loved Yosemite, 1929 01:54:53,731 --> 01:54:58,862 but they loved Yosemite in a kind of additive way. 1930 01:54:58,903 --> 01:55:02,236 lt wasn't at the core of their understanding of America. 1931 01:55:02,273 --> 01:55:06,710 And for them in San Francisco, the ciry came first. 1932 01:55:06,744 --> 01:55:09,474 COYOTE: Meanwhile, an old adversary of Muir's 1933 01:55:09,514 --> 01:55:12,074 stepped forward on the ciry's behalf-- 1934 01:55:13,084 --> 01:55:14,449 Gifford Pinchot. 1935 01:55:14,786 --> 01:55:16,686 As the nation's top forester 1936 01:55:16,721 --> 01:55:19,451 and President Roosevelt's trusted adviser, 1937 01:55:19,490 --> 01:55:21,754 Pinchot had become one of the most powerful 1938 01:55:21,793 --> 01:55:23,226 men in Washington. 1939 01:55:23,261 --> 01:55:25,923 At his urging, Roosevelt had reserved 1940 01:55:25,963 --> 01:55:28,591 millions of acres of western land 1941 01:55:28,633 --> 01:55:30,032 as national forests 1942 01:55:31,035 --> 01:55:33,697 in the face of Congressional opposition. 1943 01:55:33,771 --> 01:55:35,864 Pinchot steadfastly believed 1944 01:55:35,907 --> 01:55:39,536 that conservation meant wise use of nature, 1945 01:55:39,577 --> 01:55:42,205 not preserving it for its own sake, 1946 01:55:42,246 --> 01:55:44,612 and he had never been a wholehearted supporter 1947 01:55:44,649 --> 01:55:46,116 of national parks, 1948 01:55:46,150 --> 01:55:49,142 let alone John Muir's unbending vision 1949 01:55:50,154 --> 01:55:52,588 of protecting and expanding them. 1950 01:55:52,924 --> 01:55:56,360 When a new interior secretary joined the administration, 1951 01:55:57,361 --> 01:56:00,797 Pinchot began lobbying him in support of the dam. 1952 01:56:01,165 --> 01:56:04,726 ln response, Muir once again took his case 1953 01:56:04,769 --> 01:56:06,930 to the man with whom he had shared 1954 01:56:06,971 --> 01:56:11,237 3 magical nights in the park back in 1903-- 1955 01:56:12,243 --> 01:56:16,612 the outdoorsman he considered a friend and kindred spirit. 1956 01:56:17,849 --> 01:56:23,947 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: April 21, 1908. Dear Mr. President, 1957 01:56:23,988 --> 01:56:26,513 a few promoters of the present scheme 1958 01:56:26,557 --> 01:56:29,048 all show forth a proud set of confidence 1959 01:56:29,093 --> 01:56:31,561 that comes from a good, sound, substantial 1960 01:56:32,563 --> 01:56:34,724 irrefragable ignorance. 1961 01:56:35,800 --> 01:56:39,327 Hetch Hetchy is one of the most sublime and beautiful 1962 01:56:39,370 --> 01:56:41,702 and important features of the park, 1963 01:56:41,739 --> 01:56:44,071 and to dam and submerge it 1964 01:56:44,108 --> 01:56:47,544 would be hardly less destructive and deplorable 1965 01:56:48,546 --> 01:56:51,709 than would be the damming of Yosemite itself. 1966 01:56:53,150 --> 01:56:56,984 Faithfully and devotedly yours, John Muir. 1967 01:56:58,489 --> 01:57:00,889 MAN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT: My dear Mr. Muir, 1968 01:57:00,925 --> 01:57:05,521 Pinchot is rather favorable to the Hetch Hetchy plan. 1969 01:57:05,563 --> 01:57:06,928 l have sent him your letter 1970 01:57:06,964 --> 01:57:09,626 with a request for a report on it. 1971 01:57:09,667 --> 01:57:11,794 l will do everything in my power 1972 01:57:11,836 --> 01:57:14,430 to protect not only the Yosemite, 1973 01:57:14,472 --> 01:57:16,303 which we have already protected, 1974 01:57:17,308 --> 01:57:20,800 but other similar great natural beauties of this country. 1975 01:57:21,712 --> 01:57:25,409 But you must remember that it is out of the question 1976 01:57:25,449 --> 01:57:27,280 permanently to protect them, 1977 01:57:27,318 --> 01:57:30,981 unless we have a certain degree of friendliness toward them 1978 01:57:31,022 --> 01:57:33,013 on the part of the people of the state 1979 01:57:34,025 --> 01:57:35,686 in which they are situated. 1980 01:57:38,696 --> 01:57:41,631 CRONON: What makes the conflict between Muir and Pinchot 1981 01:57:41,666 --> 01:57:43,600 so bitter, so personal 1982 01:57:43,634 --> 01:57:49,436 is that 2 really wonderful visions of the human good, 1983 01:57:49,473 --> 01:57:51,839 both of which are worth celebrating, 1984 01:57:51,876 --> 01:57:53,867 are on a collision course, 1985 01:57:53,911 --> 01:57:55,879 and that collision course meets 1986 01:57:55,913 --> 01:57:59,041 in Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. 1987 01:57:59,083 --> 01:58:01,779 For one man, Muir, that valley and that park 1988 01:58:01,819 --> 01:58:03,150 are a cathedral, 1989 01:58:03,187 --> 01:58:05,781 and anything that might desecrate that cathedral 1990 01:58:05,823 --> 01:58:07,120 is blasphemy. 1991 01:58:07,158 --> 01:58:10,321 lt is a--it is a sacrilege against God. 1992 01:58:10,361 --> 01:58:12,022 For the other man, Pinchot, 1993 01:58:12,063 --> 01:58:14,861 these are resources that serve the common good. 1994 01:58:15,866 --> 01:58:17,993 These are resources for a democracy. 1995 01:58:19,837 --> 01:58:22,169 COYOTE: But Pinchot was in Washington 1996 01:58:22,206 --> 01:58:25,266 and Muir was in California. 1997 01:58:26,277 --> 01:58:28,074 Pinchot's view prevailed. 1998 01:58:28,679 --> 01:58:30,704 Pending Congressional approval, 1999 01:58:30,748 --> 01:58:34,775 the interior secretary granted San Francisco's application, 2000 01:58:34,819 --> 01:58:37,117 calling it ''the greatest benefit 2001 01:58:38,122 --> 01:58:40,454 ''to the greatest number of people.'' 2002 01:58:42,960 --> 01:58:46,123 President Roosevelt did nothing to stop it. 2003 01:58:47,865 --> 01:58:50,163 Muir was devastated. 2004 01:58:51,602 --> 01:58:53,263 But the fight was not over. 2005 01:58:54,271 --> 01:58:57,172 A year later, with Roosevelt out of the White House, 2006 01:58:57,208 --> 01:59:00,041 the new president, William Howard Taft, 2007 01:59:00,077 --> 01:59:03,604 came to California on his own tour of Yosemite, 2008 01:59:03,647 --> 01:59:06,878 and to the dismay of San Francisco's politicians, 2009 01:59:06,917 --> 01:59:09,977 chose Muir as his guide. 2010 01:59:10,988 --> 01:59:15,425 Before the visit was over, Taft decided to oppose the dam. 2011 01:59:16,027 --> 01:59:18,018 By 191 3, however, 2012 01:59:18,062 --> 01:59:20,428 yet another president had taken office-- 2013 01:59:20,464 --> 01:59:24,901 Woodrow Wilson, who chose as his secretary of the interior 2014 01:59:24,935 --> 01:59:30,703 Franklin K. Lane, the former ciry attorney for San Francisco. 2015 01:59:31,709 --> 01:59:35,975 Lane wasted no time getting the project back on track. 2016 01:59:40,251 --> 01:59:45,018 Muir was now 75, and the long battle over Hetch Hetchy 2017 01:59:46,023 --> 01:59:47,513 had taken its toll. 2018 01:59:47,625 --> 01:59:49,957 Ten years earlier, he had anticipated 2019 01:59:49,994 --> 01:59:53,395 completing 20 books in his old age. 2020 01:59:53,431 --> 01:59:56,093 Because of what he called ''this everlasting 2021 01:59:56,133 --> 01:59:57,691 ''Hetch Hetchy business,'' 2022 01:59:57,735 --> 02:00:00,636 he had managed to finish only 2. 2023 02:00:00,671 --> 02:00:02,901 ''l wonder,'' he wrote his daughter, 2024 02:00:03,908 --> 02:00:08,140 ''if leaves feel lonely when they see their neighbors falling.'' 2025 02:00:09,046 --> 02:00:13,642 Still, he soldiered on, speaking, writing, 2026 02:00:13,684 --> 02:00:15,709 urging anyone who would listen 2027 02:00:16,720 --> 02:00:19,484 not to flood the exquisite valley. 2028 02:00:19,757 --> 02:00:22,191 ''l still think we can win,'' Muir said 2029 02:00:22,226 --> 02:00:25,161 in November of 191 3, adding, 2030 02:00:25,196 --> 02:00:28,495 ''anyhow, l'll be relieved when it's settled, 2031 02:00:29,500 --> 02:00:30,967 ''for it's killing me.'' 2032 02:00:33,037 --> 02:00:36,268 3 weeks later, the bill approving the dam 2033 02:00:36,307 --> 02:00:39,242 cleared its final hurdle in Congress. 2034 02:00:40,244 --> 02:00:43,873 President Wilson quickly signed it into law. 2035 02:00:45,850 --> 02:00:47,875 MAN: lt was sorrowful indeed 2036 02:00:47,918 --> 02:00:50,352 to see him sitting in his cobwebbed study 2037 02:00:50,387 --> 02:00:52,480 in his lonely house 2038 02:00:52,523 --> 02:00:55,287 with the full force of his defeat upon him 2039 02:00:56,293 --> 02:01:00,286 after the struggle of a lifetime in the service of Hetch Hetchy. 2040 02:01:01,165 --> 02:01:04,965 l could not but think that if Congress, the president, 2041 02:01:05,002 --> 02:01:09,371 and even the San Francisco contingent could have seen him, 2042 02:01:09,406 --> 02:01:11,135 they would certainly have been willing 2043 02:01:12,143 --> 02:01:16,136 to have delayed any action until the old man had gone away. 2044 02:01:17,448 --> 02:01:19,678 And l fear that is going to be very soon... 2045 02:01:20,818 --> 02:01:24,345 as he appeared to me to be breaking very fast. 2046 02:01:26,223 --> 02:01:27,485 Robert Marshall. 2047 02:01:31,629 --> 02:01:33,824 COYOTE: Exhausted and frail, 2048 02:01:33,864 --> 02:01:36,424 Muir forced himself to finish a book 2049 02:01:36,467 --> 02:01:38,526 on his travels in Alaska. 2050 02:01:38,569 --> 02:01:42,198 He built new bookcases in the big, empry house 2051 02:01:42,239 --> 02:01:44,764 he had once shared with his wife Louie 2052 02:01:45,776 --> 02:01:47,073 and their 2 children. 2053 02:01:49,547 --> 02:01:51,310 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: The battle for conservation 2054 02:01:51,348 --> 02:01:54,044 will go on endlessly. 2055 02:01:54,084 --> 02:01:56,279 lt is part of the universal warfare 2056 02:01:57,288 --> 02:01:59,188 between right and wrong. 2057 02:02:01,025 --> 02:02:04,392 Fortunately, wrong cannot last. 2058 02:02:04,528 --> 02:02:08,294 Soon or late, it must fall back home to Hades, 2059 02:02:09,300 --> 02:02:12,701 while some compensating good must surely follow. 2060 02:02:15,306 --> 02:02:17,501 They will see what l meant in time. 2061 02:02:17,808 --> 02:02:20,174 There must be places for human beings 2062 02:02:20,211 --> 02:02:23,146 to satisfy their souls-- 2063 02:02:24,148 --> 02:02:26,514 food and drink is not all. 2064 02:02:26,550 --> 02:02:29,144 There is the spiritual. 2065 02:02:30,154 --> 02:02:33,248 ln some, it is only a germ, of course. 2066 02:02:34,658 --> 02:02:36,387 But the germ will grow. 2067 02:02:39,830 --> 02:02:44,358 COYOTE: ln December of 1914, he came down with pneumonia. 2068 02:02:44,635 --> 02:02:47,661 On Christmas Eve, John Muir, 2069 02:02:47,705 --> 02:02:51,141 the wilderness prophet who had struggled so hard 2070 02:02:51,175 --> 02:02:53,939 to get his adopted country to experience 2071 02:02:54,945 --> 02:02:57,812 the blessings of nature, died. 2072 02:03:00,451 --> 02:03:03,852 POPE: l think when John Muir walked into Yosemite, 2073 02:03:04,855 --> 02:03:08,313 a century-long conversation began... 2074 02:03:09,026 --> 02:03:12,484 and it was a conversation about the nature of America 2075 02:03:12,529 --> 02:03:15,464 and about whether we were going to remain 2076 02:03:15,499 --> 02:03:18,059 what Lincoln called ''the last best hope of Earth'' 2077 02:03:19,069 --> 02:03:21,469 or whether we were simply going to become another Europe. 2078 02:03:22,072 --> 02:03:24,097 And John Muir's encounter with Yosemite-- 2079 02:03:24,141 --> 02:03:25,938 remember, he was a European. 2080 02:03:25,976 --> 02:03:28,444 He came from this narrow Scots background. 2081 02:03:28,479 --> 02:03:30,640 He was not an American. 2082 02:03:30,681 --> 02:03:33,775 And he encountered Yosemite and he imagined what America 2083 02:03:34,785 --> 02:03:35,945 could be. 2084 02:03:36,020 --> 02:03:37,612 And for a century, we've fought about 2085 02:03:38,622 --> 02:03:41,614 whether we liked his vision or not. 2086 02:03:43,193 --> 02:03:46,162 MAN: l like what he said on one occasion 2087 02:03:46,196 --> 02:03:49,688 where he essentially said, ''the enemies of wildness 2088 02:03:49,733 --> 02:03:52,998 ''are invincible, and they are everywhere, 2089 02:03:54,004 --> 02:03:55,972 ''but the fight must go on... 2090 02:03:56,140 --> 02:03:58,904 ''and for every acre that you gain, 2091 02:03:58,942 --> 02:04:03,140 ''10,000 trees and flowers and all the other forest people 2092 02:04:03,180 --> 02:04:07,173 ''and the usual unborn generations 2093 02:04:08,185 --> 02:04:11,348 ''will rise up and call you blessed.'' 2094 02:04:13,123 --> 02:04:15,250 COYOTE: 4 years after Muir's death, 2095 02:04:15,292 --> 02:04:19,854 work on the dam he had opposed with all his strength began, 2096 02:04:19,897 --> 02:04:21,626 and the Hetch Hetchy valley, 2097 02:04:21,665 --> 02:04:25,726 whose tranquil meadows he had compared to a landscape garden 2098 02:04:25,769 --> 02:04:27,361 and a mountain temple 2099 02:04:28,372 --> 02:04:32,536 would slowly be entombed under hundreds of feet of water. 2100 02:04:35,813 --> 02:04:39,442 But Muir's fight had struck a chord in many Americans, 2101 02:04:39,483 --> 02:04:41,974 who now wondered if a lovely valley 2102 02:04:42,019 --> 02:04:43,953 in Yosemite National Park 2103 02:04:43,987 --> 02:04:46,182 could be turned into a reservoir, 2104 02:04:47,191 --> 02:04:50,183 were any national parks safe? 2105 02:04:53,564 --> 02:04:57,091 CRONON: John Muir lost the fight over Hetch Hetchy 2106 02:04:57,134 --> 02:04:58,658 and the dam was built, 2107 02:04:58,702 --> 02:05:00,499 and people who live in San Francisco today 2108 02:05:00,537 --> 02:05:02,835 drink the water of Hetch Hetchy. 2109 02:05:02,873 --> 02:05:05,865 Muir died feeling that he'd been defeated by that, 2110 02:05:05,909 --> 02:05:08,969 and that was a great tragedy at the end of his life. 2111 02:05:09,012 --> 02:05:12,277 But it's also true that Hetch Hetchy would then go on 2112 02:05:12,316 --> 02:05:13,840 across the 20th century 2113 02:05:13,884 --> 02:05:16,375 as a kind of battle cry that would inform 2114 02:05:16,420 --> 02:05:19,856 all wilderness, wild land, parkland battles 2115 02:05:19,890 --> 02:05:21,824 from that moment on. 2116 02:05:21,859 --> 02:05:24,521 lt looks like a defeat, and yet what's interesting about it 2117 02:05:24,561 --> 02:05:27,530 is that in that defeat, a whole series of people 2118 02:05:27,564 --> 02:05:30,533 began to wonder whether the parks needed more protection 2119 02:05:31,535 --> 02:05:32,934 than they currently had. 2120 02:05:33,470 --> 02:05:35,961 That there needed to be some greater rampart, 2121 02:05:36,006 --> 02:05:38,474 some greater wall that could defend the parks 2122 02:05:39,476 --> 02:05:41,671 against a future such controversy. 2123 02:05:44,782 --> 02:05:47,250 COYOTE: A proposal that Muir had supported 2124 02:05:47,284 --> 02:05:50,879 now began gaining greater ground across the nation-- 2125 02:05:50,921 --> 02:05:54,448 to create an agency within the federal government 2126 02:05:54,491 --> 02:05:58,359 whose sole job would be to promote, administer, 2127 02:05:58,395 --> 02:06:00,886 and protect the national parks, 2128 02:06:00,931 --> 02:06:04,196 to make sure they fulfilled their great promise 2129 02:06:05,202 --> 02:06:08,433 and endured for countless generations. 2130 02:06:12,309 --> 02:06:13,606 MAN: Muir said... 2131 02:06:13,644 --> 02:06:16,306 MAN AS JOHN MUlR: As long as l live, l will hear the birds 2132 02:06:16,346 --> 02:06:19,873 and the winds and the waterfalls sing. 2133 02:06:19,917 --> 02:06:23,375 l'll interpret the rocks and learn the language 2134 02:06:24,388 --> 02:06:27,687 of flood, of storm and avalanche. 2135 02:06:29,193 --> 02:06:31,661 l'll make the acquaintance of the wild gardens 2136 02:06:31,695 --> 02:06:32,889 and the glaciers 2137 02:06:33,897 --> 02:06:39,267 and get as near to the heart of this world as l could. 2138 02:06:39,603 --> 02:06:42,663 And so l did. l sauntered about 2139 02:06:42,706 --> 02:06:45,300 from rock to rock, from grove to grove, 2140 02:06:45,342 --> 02:06:46,673 from stream to stream, 2141 02:06:46,710 --> 02:06:48,610 and whenever l met a new plant, 2142 02:06:48,645 --> 02:06:51,842 l would sit down beside it for a minute or a day 2143 02:06:51,882 --> 02:06:55,045 to make its acquaintance, hear what it had to tell. 2144 02:06:55,085 --> 02:06:57,178 l asked the boulders where they had been 2145 02:06:57,221 --> 02:06:58,552 and whither they were going 2146 02:06:58,589 --> 02:07:02,958 and when night found me, there l camped. 2147 02:07:02,993 --> 02:07:06,986 l took no more heed to save time or to make haste 2148 02:07:07,030 --> 02:07:10,796 than did the trees or the stars. 2149 02:07:10,834 --> 02:07:13,302 This is true freedom, 2150 02:07:14,304 --> 02:07:18,400 a good practical sort of immortaliry.