Jym St. Pierre, May 6, 2025
I first became aware of the expansive array of national lands in the United States more than half a century ago when I read One Third of the Nation’s Land (1970, Public Land Law Review Commission) for a college course. Since then, I have been fascinated by the extraordinary collection of parks, forests, refuges, and other areas designated for people and wildlife across the wide expanse of North America. Over the decades, I have had opportunities to explore dozens of public lands in the eastern and western parts of the U.S. However, I had not been to many of those in the middle.
This Spring, I spent five weeks on a cross-country road trip from Maine, down the spine of the Appalachians, across a southern tier, over the western deserts and mountain ranges to the Pacific, then back east through the northern states. I could not get to every national park, historical park, monument, preserve, parkway or other unit within the National Park System, or other public land, but I did visit more than four dozen in the whirlwind tour (list below). It gave me a better sense of the scope of our nation’s public lands coast to coast.
You can read the entire report here.