Our Parks Worth Fighting for Part 3. pt. 1

The pitfall of positivity.

Our National Treasures are Amazing. Behind every National Park, Monument, Preserve, Reserve, Historical Park, and on and on, There are Amazing Stories of Wonderful Places which local communities recognized, wanted to see protected, fought for and preserved.

The reasons were varied and many: But in each and every case, people found something worth saving, and came together to save it. And that is awesome.

(Before I get into the heart of this: I want to make it abundantly clear that both in our parks, and in our nation there is a lot to be proud of, and there is a lot to admire. Being positive and forward thinking are two awesome aspects of human progress.

I’m going to spend the next few blogs, reflecting on the problems with positivity and the ways it can be abused. But this shouldn’t be taken, as these discussions often are, as a message only of detraction. It’s a message of hope. But progress is really only effective if it embraces both hopeful successes and learns from failures so we don’t repeat them.)

Often, I think I bury the lead. I’m a mystery writer, a sci-fi writer, a fantasy writer.  Part of the fun is unfolding the story. However, I think that sometimes, it’s better to get to the point. So. I’ll start there, and then provide my justification below.

Friday the 13th, June 2025 saw the deadline of a new policy out of the Department of the Interior, run by Doug Burgum. Signs must be posted in each national park encouraging visitors to report any “Interpretive materials in the National Park System that disparage Americans past or living or which contain content that detracts from viewpoints of scenic grandeur.” - https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/05/public-urged-report-national-park-placards-disparage-americans-or-detracts-scenic-grandeur

And frankly this is weak, misguided, a bad idea, and wrong.

Let’s talk about why.

First, by looking at the words on those signs now posted in every park which ask visitors to identify

(1)    any areas that need repair;

(2)    any services that need improvement

(3)    any signs or other information that are negative about past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.”

Yay! Report repairs. Rangers are busy, tourists are plenty, you might notice a broken board or a washed out rut before they do. No problems there. Not really any problem with services needing reporting either.

But let’s look at the last one, and talk about the problems at the end first.

Let’s start with ‘scenic grandeur’ (and ‘beauty,’ because close enough)

Image of Crater Lake to remind you that there is ‘Scenic Granduer’ in most parks, before I complain about those words.

It has been better stated by numerous people smarter than I, the focusing on the ‘beauty’ and the “Scenic Grandeur” of National Parks is, ironically, shortsighted. There are 433 National Parks managed by the National Park Service, and a larger number I’m unwilling to count (because I’m lazy) managed by other agencies. They were, have been, and are established for a variety of reasons, ‘Scenic Grandeur’ is one of them, but definitely not all.

It really annoys me, because I’m deep into work on book #4 of the Junior Rangers Investigative Club Series, which is set in Everglades National Park, a park that was founded not to preserve a specific historical area, and not because of the area’s scenic beauty, but because of the distinctive nature of it’s wilderness, and to preserve the living things within it. More on that in a later article. It’s also set in Big Cypress National Preserve. (Two parks for the price of 1 book, ha ha.) That park was set aside to preserve the wildlife, the wilderness, and also the abundant opportunities for recreation on that land, where people can still hunt, fish, and ride ATV’s. (Also it was established in coordination with the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes for their continued use.) Basically: this was a large paragraph to say “Its not all about scenic grandure.”

But, hopefully, you caught another problem with this idea of “Scenic Grandeur” in that paragraph above: There are historic parks. There are monuments to the past. There are battlefields preserved. There are wilderness areas most of us will never see, which preserve spawning areas for plants and animals which people, and industries, rely upon. There are parks which protect areas most of us will never lay eyes on, which, due to that protection, help to continue the ebbs and flow of life as we know it. Food webs, ecosystems, and climate.

No park was established simply because people thought that they would look good in photographs or paintings. And no park should simply be experienced for their beauty. That’s lame.

Yellowstone is pretty, sure, but how much cooler is it to know that you’re standing atop the caldera of a massive Super volcano?

The Grand Canyon is nice to look at, but the experience can be so much deeper if you take the time to hike parts of it, or ride the river and learn about the geology or the people who have lived there and traversed it since long before Europeans came to the new world. (or learn about the people who are still living there today, and the people still running the river.)

Biscayne, honestly, kinda just looks like a lot of water, and some squat little islands in the distance, but if you know the history of those tiny little islands, or learn about the many awesome things happening just beneath the surface then the park really comes alive. Snorkeling will let you see some of that ‘scenic grandeur,’ but it won’t really walk you through the lifecycle of the coral or the fish that you may see. In the same way that the shipwrecks only tell part of their story. But the signage of the national park will tell you so much more.

Picture of a dolphin just to break things up and brighten your day.

On the other hand,

For some parks the implications of ‘Scenic Grandeur” are downright insulting. Is that a fitting way to describe the USS Arizona Memorial? Ah yes, as I looked at the wreckage of a ship within which men serving their country were trapped and died while fighting to protect it. I can help but think of how grand the scenery is. – That is absurd.

Gettysburg, the ‘scenic’ battlefield where men stopped to take in the ‘grandeur’ before dying in a war which pitted brother against brother and nearly severed the country in two.

Am I supposed to use the words ‘Scenic Grandeur’ to describe the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Or Manzanar National Historic Site?

What a vapid way to look at our parks as though they are nothing more than a painted façade, when there’s really so much more depth beyond that. Our parks are beautiful, they are majestic, they have grandeur. But they can be so much more than that. They are not gardens, they can be so much more dangerous than that, and so much more awesome.

Let’s focus next on the word ‘abundance’ of landscapes and other natural features. A hypothetical: A fire burns through the Sunset Crater. In the long run it will be restorative, and that is on the sign. However, the trees are blackened hulks today. Well, that’s not a very abundant natural feature, can’t post information about that, I guess.

Absurd extreme.

Let’s talk about the real reasons this is a problem. I snorkeled Biscayne when I was a kid. The coral reefs were awesome! There were huge boulders, massive branching structures, and impressive mazes of connected coral heads.

A lot of those coral are dead. Storms destroyed some. Human activity destroyed others. Silt from the dredging of the Port of Miami choked out parts of the waters. Sunscreen poisoned them (and still does if you don’t use the right kind, so look for Reef Safe Sunscreen) People still crash boats into reefs. People also drive their boats through waters too shallow and carve paths through seagrass beds which can take years to recover. But that information fails to emphasize the abundance of our natural features, so don’t post in parks, I guess.

Some of our parks are hurting. Sometimes it’s humans hurting them, tourist activities, nearby industrial operations. I’ve literally spent 3 blogs writing and researching about why People came together to form Biscayne, and a lot of it had to do with their opposition to a planned Oil Refinery which would have ruined the ecosystem.

It was recognizing that there were problems with abundance, risks to the future, and then doing something about it which formed Biscayne. It’s recognizing the problems today which allow scientists to look for ways to restore Biscayne’s Reefs. It’s informing the public of the harm that some of them, and some of the big industries nearby, cause which may lead to pushes to improve. And this is true for all parks.

Not every park is under constant threat, but many have problems with ‘abundance’ of some kind or another as resources are being lost or damaged, and it’s only in highlighting these threats and informing the public that we can fix those problems. Sometimes those problems are so persistent that it even means a permanent sign talking about missing, lost or vanishing resources. But I guess that’s not allowed now.

Both ‘Scenic Grandeur’ and ‘Abundance’ present wedge influences that can allow people to nitpick, worry, and complain about anything which seems to negative. And that’s a problem

To talk about why, let’s look at Doug Burgum’s intent with this new order.

His goal is “to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.” (2)

A common phrase of international discourse with China is “hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.” I understand the sentiment, it’s been explained to me where it comes from. But still, I’d never expect to hear those words uttered in the United States, about Americans, because our nation was founded on the critiques of the government, and our founders wanted to learn from the mistakes of the past, and hoped that their successors would learn from their mistakes. Because they were not perfect, and admitting flaws and imperfections-both present and past-is incredibly important if we want to improve.

With that in mind, we can look at the last, earlier, section of part (3) on this sign where visitors are asked to report“…any signs or other information that are negative about past or living Americans…” (a later part of the executive order also mentions colonials)

another series of absurd hypotheticals. (in a world where absurd is possible.)

Newly proposed signs coming to our National Parks to preserve the feelings of United States Citizens:

In Salem, MA: From 1692 to 1693, a series of trials in Salem Massachusetts saw people in a small community fighting for their very souls against the witches in their midst. Ultimately they succeeded and the witches are gone.

In Valley Forge: Benedict Arnold worked with the continental army for a while. Don’t really know what happened after that.

Throughout the southeast: On plantations men worked very hard in the fields to sustain the southern economy. Between the years of 1830 to 1850 a lot of people of various Indigenous Nations moved west for some reason.

Ever Civil War… I mean Every random battlefield historic park..: April 12th 1861, Nothing Happened for four years 1 month and fourteen days.

At Ford’s Theatre: Jon Wilkes Booth was a pretty good actor, who once strolled through Ford’s Theatre While World War 2 some people voluntarily moved out to camps in the desert, because while they were Americans, they understood that their heritage might be scary during times of war. They had a pleasant time.

These stories and more brought to you in hopes of ‘uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress towards becoming a more perfect Union, and an unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”

Before my sarcasm meter explodes, allow me to say that there’s nothing wrong with admiring the steps the United States has made to become a more perfect Union. Just like there is actually a lot of beauty in our parks, there is a lot to celebrate in our history. But we don’t progress by papering over our flaws, and we don’t learn and grow by highlighting only our successes while ignoring our failures and black marks.

Preserving a positive image of every American an impossible task anyway, without just getting rid of history, and even the positive images will never be perfect. There’s an old, and flawed, theory in archelogy which suggested that human society was always advancing persistently towards a better version of connection, of social order, of government. Scientists viewing the past through this lens would inevitably find a line of progress from prehistoric man to the most recent, perfect, form of government. The thing is though, in the west, that was Democracy. In the east, it was Communism. Somehow scientists had both drawn straight lines through history as arrows pointing to themselves. Again, an article for another day, let me use an example I’m more familiar with.

A picture of Dry Tortugas because this has been a word heavy blog. and it relates to the example below.

Dr. Samuel Mudd, was convicted as a co-conspirator in Lincoln’s assasination. (fact)

He was sent to serve his remaining days imprisoned in Fort Jefferson (Fact)

The night of President Lincoln’s assassination, when John Wilks Boothe (American) shot him in the head, Boothe fled on horseback to Mudd’s house, where the Dr. treated him for the leg he had broken while leaping from Lincoln’s balcony in his escape. (Fact)

That wouldn’t be enough to convict a Doctor, but the investigation into President Lincoln’s assassination discovered evidence that Mudd knew Boothe, and was part of the plans to kidnap/assassinate the President. (wobbly but fact)

Dr. Mudd served some harsh time in Dry Tortugas, writing about the terrible prison conditions. (Easily verifiable fact, he wrote a lot of letters and they still exist.)

When a yellow fever outbreak swept through the Dry Tortugas, killing the fort’s doctor. Dr. Mudd took over, caring for the sick, who were mostly his U.S. army prison guards. (Fact)

A fascinating story about an American Doctor, and over the years, the debate still rages whether he was guilty or not. It’s an impossible catch-22. Either the doctor was a conspirator. (that’s pretty negative) or the U.S. Government was too hasty in their conviction and they sentenced an innocent man to jail for the crime of doing his job as a doctor. (That’s pretty negative too!)

After his efforts were complete, and many men survived, the guards wrote to the President and Dr. Mudd was pardoned. (Fact) So, whether or not he was innocent, he eventually found redemption and got to go home. A fascinating story only mired by forced positivity. So what are we to do, take it out of history?

Again, we don’t learn and grow by highlighting only our successes while ignoring our failures and black marks.

We certainly don’t progress by asking people to report “anything” which is negative, and then using those reports to hide away information, gloss over important bits, or change it to better suit a more positive feel good image. That’s a weak way of dealing with negative information and negative facts which will hamper forward momentum and set the nation up for failure.

“But we just want to go on vacation, see the sites, and not encounter negative signs or engage with negative history.” - Says a man I made from paper straws to allow me to segue to the point that: I understand that people come to our parks on vacation. I understand that some people just want to hike the trails, read a few fun facts, take a break form their daily lives, and then go home. There’s nothing wrong with that, but our parks are worth so much more than only that, and we shouldn’t strip that information away from all just because it might be painful or embarrassing for a few.

So, if information on a sign bother’s you, the simple solution is, don’t read it. Or maybe do, and use that as a springboard to learn more.

I want to explain ‘why’ in more detail, but this blog has gone on long enough. I’ve reached my error quota and am falling asleep. This is too important to delay, however, so I’ll be posting the second part tomorrow. … Or not…