> Quickly after the park was established, Whittlesly describes white superintendents trying to make the area “safe” by removing “primitive savages” from the park, claiming they didn’t live there to begin with as they were afraid of the geysers. Those claims were completely untrue; in fact, the Yosemite Indians — as well as Sheep-eaters and Mountain Shoshone tribes — lived on and revered the land, and many others also considered the geysers to be sacred. Tribes such as the Crow, the Blackfeet, the Flatheads and the Kiowa would travel through the land as well at other points of the year, for hunting or in search of obsidian for arrowheads.
> Making the land safe wasn’t the least of the problems for the Native American tribes. In a “park” now protected and preserved from “the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within said park, and against their capture or destruction for the purposes of merchandise or profit,” how were the tribes to eat, sleep, hunt, gather food, light fires? They weren’t. Forced off the land now considered a natural preserve by the government, Indians were once again removed from their ancestral home.
So sure, we could say national parks are "absolutely american"..
If you want to see something closer to "absolutely democratic", look e.g. at British Columbia, where all provincial parks are free to enter. They still have a permit system and fees, but only for overnight camping; if you just want to come and walk and enjoy the surroundings during the day, it costs nothing.
Curiously, the provincial govt tried to introduce an access fee a few years ago, and there was a huge pushback from the citizenry.
For an interesting contrast to this sentiment, read Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. He is writing from a somewhat unique perspective from his position as a park ranger in Arches, way back in the 1930s when it was still mostly undeveloped.
The parks are heavily curated and managed — think of them as open air museums. Personally I don’t like visiting national parks because of this - I prefer the pretty unregulated wilderness and BLM land. But many people aren’t prepared for the wild (and it really is wild; there’s nothing like it in the UK, more like the Aussie bush in level of isolation) so these parks are great to get people exposed to the outdoors.
Parks constitute a tiny percentage of public open land. And for the ones I’ve visited really have been built around special places (Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Larsen, etc) and why not? If it’s someone’s only exposure to nature why not make it the best. And I won’t have to see them when I’m in the desolation wilderness.
Ones near urban areas are usually busy. I’ve lived close to one and there’s usually a line on the weekend in the middle of the day to enter the park. It gets especially worse during holidays or when school is out during the summer.
So I always make it a point to go during weekdays when school is in session.
Worth noting in many cases the fee applies only to entering by vehicle, not bike or foot, and indeed many of the fees go towards accommodations for vehicles- roads, parking lots, traffic management, etc.
A few years ago, I took a car trip out west and went through three or four of them. I was astounded at the level of knowledge, friendliness and helpfulness of every park ranger I met and every service provided at the parks.
Side note: at a lookout at the very top of the Rocky Mountains, I was alone and staring out between two peaks when a ranger came up and started chatting with me and answered a few questions. After several minutes of that, I thanked her and she mentioned she was actually a volunteer. She and her husband did this work for fun for a month or so but, far more interesting, it turns out she lives less than a mile from my house back home!
By the way, if you are 60+, the parks are free but you must apply for a Parks Service card at any park entrance. The regular price, if I recall, is still only $10 or so.
A lot of them are. OTOH, we have a lot of other public lands that are free to use. This one's right near where I live, and clocks in at 7,300 square km.
I'm American and have mixed feelings on this. National Parks can definitely be massive operations during the summer months so I understand charging a fee. But it also removes this public good from the poor and I think that's wrong. Maybe the park system provides free/cheap passes via welfare programs.
I'm more concerned that many state parks charge up to $15/day usage fee. A fee just to enter and hike or play around a lake. I think that's very wrong. Simple fun in the outdoors ought to cheap recreation option - the cost to get there and whatever food you want to bring. It is gross that we fund these great places through taxes, then only those you can easily pay again can use them.
I live near Joshua Tree National Park. We pull upwards of 3 million visitors each year and growing. Expecting this weekend will be extremely busy around town.
What a wonderful thing the US national parks are. They are remarkably cheap, with a single pass you can visit all of them, which is a perfect way for tourists to roadtrip the US.
Indeed, the "America the Beautiful" $80 annual pass, good for vehicle + occupants admission to all Federal fee areas is an incredible value. You can buy it right at the gate as you visit your first park, instead of the standard entry fee. No need to do anything in advance of your visit.
Use them. Stakeholder usage determines regulation.
Yes, NP’s are ludicrously crowded, sometimes; but not actually always.
The fed land system is something the US has mainly done right, IMHO. Could improve? Of course. But, having spent solid time in another three dozen countries, what we have is pretty, pretty OK.
I wonder how that works for something like the MotorCities National Heritage Area (that I learned about just now). One of the things they list are the Diego Rivera murals in the Detroit Institute of Arts[0]; is the DIA going to waive their entrance fee Sunday?
National Heritage Areas (NHAs), while administered by the National Park Service, are not National Parks. To quote from the NPS website[0]:
NHAs are not national park units. Rather, NPS partners with, provides technical assistance, and distributes matching federal funds from Congress to NHA entities. NPS does not assume ownership of land inside heritage areas or impose land use controls.
It's really crazy how crowded national parks are. In a lot of ways, I feel like charging a fee to enter adds to the problem. Sure they need the money to help maintain all of that area, but they also use that money to advertise so more people buy passes. They use that money to advertise their volunteer programs to get volunteers to work on trails.
It's be interesting to look at visitor data for parks that went from free to paid (if they even collected such data years ago) and see if charging for parks and the business around them has actually made them more crowded.
Personally, I don't think there should be a fee for entering a National Park. It should be paid for by our taxes. Just skim off a tiny bit from those billions used for defence and parks could be fully funded for years.
The crowds bug me too, so I go to national forests instead. Lots more area, lots more freedom, many fewer people, likely to be much closer to you, and free every day.
It is not the people that bug me, but the noise from traffic. Keep the charge for cars, but if people want to hike in or ride the shuttle, let them in for free.
"National" parks should only be free to the sovereign tribes that were forced out of there by colonizers. In fact all of that land should be given back to the tribal nations who previously did a great job managing those lands before the US National Park/Forest service and Smokey the terrorist came along and decided they knew more about the land than the people who previously spent thousands of years carefully tending the land.
And what about the tribes that those tribes forced out? This notion that everything was peaceful without territory wars before "colonizers" is a joke.
There is no single tribe that has carefully tended the land for thousands of years. Additionally, since they lacked a meaningful method of keeping knowledge beyond word of mouth, any non-common technique would have to be rediscovered every 100 years. They weren't carefully tending to the land, they were just struggling to get by with their crap agricultural skills.
In many (most?) cases you can. But you may need a permit to enter some areas, which may or may not require a fee (if it does require a fee, it's usually pretty small). For instance https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wpres.htm
Usually these fees are for multiple days. For Yosemite: car fee is valid for a week(there are other deals if you want to stay for longer or visit multiple times an year). The wilderness permit... I don't really know. You do have to submit start and end dates for each trip, but the fee covers the duration.
I'm pretty sure the answer is: "It depends." Some parks don't even have fees. Plenty of others you can walk into without parking within the park boundaries--this is the case with many areas within Acadia for example. Others you could potentially backpack into but you'd require a backcountry permit which would probably require you paid the entrance fee. Others do have an entrance where walkers still need to pay--at least at the primary entrance. This is the case at Zion as I recall.
[+] [-] shawnbaden|7 years ago|reply
"National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst."
Source: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/npsthinking/famousquo...
[+] [-] zeebeecee|7 years ago|reply
https://timeline.com/national-parks-native-americans-56b0dad...
> Quickly after the park was established, Whittlesly describes white superintendents trying to make the area “safe” by removing “primitive savages” from the park, claiming they didn’t live there to begin with as they were afraid of the geysers. Those claims were completely untrue; in fact, the Yosemite Indians — as well as Sheep-eaters and Mountain Shoshone tribes — lived on and revered the land, and many others also considered the geysers to be sacred. Tribes such as the Crow, the Blackfeet, the Flatheads and the Kiowa would travel through the land as well at other points of the year, for hunting or in search of obsidian for arrowheads.
> Making the land safe wasn’t the least of the problems for the Native American tribes. In a “park” now protected and preserved from “the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within said park, and against their capture or destruction for the purposes of merchandise or profit,” how were the tribes to eat, sleep, hunt, gather food, light fires? They weren’t. Forced off the land now considered a natural preserve by the government, Indians were once again removed from their ancestral home.
So sure, we could say national parks are "absolutely american"..
[+] [-] int_19h|7 years ago|reply
Curiously, the provincial govt tried to introduce an access fee a few years ago, and there was a huge pushback from the citizenry.
[+] [-] nerdponx|7 years ago|reply
It's also a great book in general.
[+] [-] scarejunba|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KKKKkkkk1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Emma_Goldman|7 years ago|reply
Are they all that busy?
[+] [-] gumby|7 years ago|reply
Parks constitute a tiny percentage of public open land. And for the ones I’ve visited really have been built around special places (Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Larsen, etc) and why not? If it’s someone’s only exposure to nature why not make it the best. And I won’t have to see them when I’m in the desolation wilderness.
[+] [-] iscrewyou|7 years ago|reply
Ones near urban areas are usually busy. I’ve lived close to one and there’s usually a line on the weekend in the middle of the day to enter the park. It gets especially worse during holidays or when school is out during the summer.
So I always make it a point to go during weekdays when school is in session.
[+] [-] ip26|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sureaboutthis|7 years ago|reply
Side note: at a lookout at the very top of the Rocky Mountains, I was alone and staring out between two peaks when a ranger came up and started chatting with me and answered a few questions. After several minutes of that, I thanked her and she mentioned she was actually a volunteer. She and her husband did this work for fun for a month or so but, far more interesting, it turns out she lives less than a mile from my house back home!
By the way, if you are 60+, the parks are free but you must apply for a Parks Service card at any park entrance. The regular price, if I recall, is still only $10 or so.
[+] [-] davidw|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschutes_National_Forest
[+] [-] KingPrad|7 years ago|reply
I'm more concerned that many state parks charge up to $15/day usage fee. A fee just to enter and hike or play around a lake. I think that's very wrong. Simple fun in the outdoors ought to cheap recreation option - the cost to get there and whatever food you want to bring. It is gross that we fund these great places through taxes, then only those you can easily pay again can use them.
[+] [-] teej|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tcdent|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buboard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vibrolax|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] romed|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drivers99|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Park_Worker|7 years ago|reply
Use them. Stakeholder usage determines regulation.
Yes, NP’s are ludicrously crowded, sometimes; but not actually always.
The fed land system is something the US has mainly done right, IMHO. Could improve? Of course. But, having spent solid time in another three dozen countries, what we have is pretty, pretty OK.
Support your local wilds.
[+] [-] phjesusthatguy3|7 years ago|reply
[0]https://www.motorcities.org/locations/diego-rivera-murals-at...
[+] [-] janzer|7 years ago|reply
NHAs are not national park units. Rather, NPS partners with, provides technical assistance, and distributes matching federal funds from Congress to NHA entities. NPS does not assume ownership of land inside heritage areas or impose land use controls.
[0] https://www.nps.gov/articles/what-is-a-national-heritage-are...
[+] [-] tranchms|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djsumdog|7 years ago|reply
It's be interesting to look at visitor data for parks that went from free to paid (if they even collected such data years ago) and see if charging for parks and the business around them has actually made them more crowded.
Personally, I don't think there should be a fee for entering a National Park. It should be paid for by our taxes. Just skim off a tiny bit from those billions used for defence and parks could be fully funded for years.
[+] [-] jessaustin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] francisofascii|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kibwen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shshhdhs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MastrChefRocks|7 years ago|reply
[1]: https://lnt.org/learn/seven-principles-overview
[+] [-] LanceH|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogecoinbase|7 years ago|reply
The cost of the ferry ticket is not an entrance fee—there is no charge to visit the grounds of Alcatraz Island.
... All private vessels are prohibited from docking on the island.
I guess you could swim.
[+] [-] eBombzor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hueving|7 years ago|reply
There is no single tribe that has carefully tended the land for thousands of years. Additionally, since they lacked a meaningful method of keeping knowledge beyond word of mouth, any non-common technique would have to be rediscovered every 100 years. They weren't carefully tending to the land, they were just struggling to get by with their crap agricultural skills.
[+] [-] devmunchies|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] outworlder|7 years ago|reply
Usually these fees are for multiple days. For Yosemite: car fee is valid for a week(there are other deals if you want to stay for longer or visit multiple times an year). The wilderness permit... I don't really know. You do have to submit start and end dates for each trip, but the fee covers the duration.
EDIT:
Also Yosemite: it appears that foot traffic is charged too. https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/fees.htm
That highly depends on the park.
[+] [-] npsbackcountry|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MastrChefRocks|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oscar_wong67|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply