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National Parks Traveler Gets Facelift

by Erik Olsen (RSS feed) on Jun 27th 2007 at 8:42AM

One of my favorite Web sites about the National Parks, National Parks Traveler, has received both a face and content lift, and I highly recommend you give it a spin. It is lovely and they have a much more sensible web address now.

NPT is run by the ever-diligent, park-loving Kurt Repanshek who has done a stellar job over the years bringing to light issues and developments within our nation's national parks. Seems he has teams up with the folks that do Park Remark to create a fantastic new site dedicated to the parks.

I wax rhapsodic about the parks frequently here because I deeply believe they are the crown jewels of our national heritage. We should all thank ~~Teddy Roosevelt~~ Ulysses Grant for having the foresight all those years ago to set off Yellowstone as a place that would be protected from development and where all Americans (and others) would be welcome3 to enjoy. The parks are in peril...well, there is a large backlog of much-needed repairs, and it is our duty to pay attention to what is happening to them. Now, that said, I am a realist. My first job out of school (my first REAL Job...after being a photographer in Tahoe) was with the Department of the Interior, the government agency that contains the National Park Service. At that time, there was a serious backlog of repairs, a shortage of qualified rangers and various threats to the sanctity of the parks (i.e. snowmobile issues, planes over the Grand Canyon, etc.). So many of these issues are not new. Not that we shouldn't continue to pay attention, especially during these "difficult" years.

Anyway, I've given the new National Park Traveler a once-over and it is loaded with new features and lots of useful, interesting info. So I urge you, as we move swiftly into summer during which time your plans might include a trip here and there to the parks, to check it out.

Filed under: Activism, Biking, Climbing, Hiking, History, Learning, Podcasts, Stories, North America

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jim Macdonald Jun 28th 2007 7:55AM

Hi. Thanks for supporting their work; I agree with you that it's terrific.

I just feel the need to point out an error here, one that I find is very common all over the internet and in popular myth. Teddy Roosevelt had nothing to do with setting aside Yellowstone as a national park in 1872. Grant was president. Roosevelt also wasn't behind the founding of the Yellowstone Timber Preserve, which carved out much of the rest of the ecosystem of what later became the five national forests and Grand Teton National Park. That happened before he was president. Roosevelt also didn't found the National Park Service, which happened when Wilson was president after his administration. The National Forest Service was founded in his administration, but as I mentioned, the Yellowstone areas had already been set aside.

Roosevelt seems to be associated with Yellowstone because of visits he made, his work in protecting buffalo (after having slaughtered his fair share), and because there are place names named after him. However, he did not set it aside and has nothing to do with the history that set it aside and little to do with the administrative history that made Yellowstone what it is from that standpoint.

I hope people will stop spreading the myth about Roosevelt because it misses a lot both about the parks and about the man himself.

If you want to know more about the creation of Yellowstone, there are a lot of good books, especially by Aubrey Haines, as well as by Lee Whittlesey. It's not a very romantic story, as it turns out, but one that probably began amongst executives in the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Cheers and I do mean sincere thanks for promoting Kurt and Jeremy; they are a true jewel of the internet.

Jim Macdonald
http://www.yellowstone-online.com/eclecticworld.html

Erik Olsen Jun 28th 2007 7:59AM

Thanks so much for the comment. I have been educated. And here I worked there. Ugh for me. I read up a bit more on the NPS history and will try not to make the same mistake again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service