Filmmaker Dayton Duncan on the making of The National Parks: America's Best Idea

On this episode, Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham talk with writer and filmmaker Dayton Duncan, best known for his 30-year collaboration with Ken Burns., the famed PBS documentary filmmaker.  We discuss one of his best film -- we think so -- The National Parks: America's Best Idea, which is currently being rebroadcast on PBS, and we talk bout the broader sweep of American conservation movements.   National Parks was filmed over the course of more than six years at some of America's most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska.   The film is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy. Catch one of the most timely and insightful conversations we've had on the American Shoreline Podcast.