In a blast of media exposure that just must rival, if not surpass, Ken Burns' documentary on the national parks, Oprah Winfrey is about to devote two shows to her visit to Yosemite National Park.
The talk show host, who wonders why more African-Americans don't visit national parks, went camping at the invitation of Yosemite Ranger Shelton Johnson, an African-American who has worked both to preserve the memory of Buffalo Soldiers and to lure more African-Americans to the parks.
On Friday and next Monday Ms. Winfrey will showcase the visit she made to Yosemite earlier this month.
Ranger Johnson, who was featured in Ken Burns National Parks: America's Best Idea, invited Oprah to visit the park several years ago. During her trip to the park the ranger, leading an evening campfire program at the Lower Pines Campground in the Yosemite Valley, told the story of a detachment of Buffalo Soldiers -- African-American Army cavalry troops -- patrolling the Yosemite backcountry on horseback.
The two shows will feature Oprah's visit and activities such as fly-fishing and a mule ride. Oprah also questions why there aren’t more visitors of color in national parks. Ranger Johnson has been working on this issue for a long time.
"All Snoop Dogg has to do is go camping in Yosemite and it would change the world," said Ranger Johnson in a San Francisco Chronicle article last year. "If Oprah Winfrey went on a road trip to the national parks, it would do more than I have done in my whole career."
The ranger was clearly excited by Oprah's visit and called it a seismic event. See his youtube interview.
In a memo published in Outdoor Afro, a blog that strives to reconnect African-Americans with nature, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis said that, "Ms. Winfrey’s visit and the popularity of her show offer the National Park Service an unprecedented opportunity to reach a vast audience of potential first-time visitors and to start a conversation with them."
Oprah's shows will reach more than 30 million viewers and many more on her website, Oprah.Com.
Watch the show on Friday 29, read a review on the Traveler this weekend, and join the conversation.
Support Essential Coverage of Essential Places
Comments
As a Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute I can't wait for the shows and there are going to be two of them.
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/yourict/105758908.html
Very exciting that both Oprah and Gayle are going to show Yosemite National Park, the ancient homeland of the Paiutes.
Whooopee!! I feel like I've been waiting on this day for 15 years! Ever since Frank and I "discovered" the National Park System on our road trip around the country in 1995, we have been desperate for a celebrity like Oprah (oops! there's nobody like Oprah!) to take an interest and show the American people the incredibly beautiful natural treasures that we own. We even wrote a book about the national parks, "Legacy on the Land," focusing on the contributions of racially diverse Americans to the development of the park system and our country. (www.legacyontheland.com)
who says you have to die to go to heaven? I'm in heaven right now anticipating the millions of people who will fall in love with our national parks as a result of Oprah's shows!
The field is all aflutter about this wonderful opportunity to connect more people to the beauty and benefits of the National Park System. It's high time African American women are seen enjoying outdoor spaces as a model for what is possible for others, and to recall our heritage that has deep, positive connections to natural spaces.
Bravo Oprah! Hope it won't be the last time we see you in a National Park!
Rue Mapp
Founder, Outdoor Afro
I totally agree with Audrey. The national parks provide us an inspiration to connect with America's natural and cultural heritage which all people can benefit from, and to take responsible actions to sustain our mother Earth. And yet, as a woman of color and recent immigrant, I recognized that our parks' visitors and stories don't always reflect our diverse population of our world. I admire Audrey and Frank's work to publicize the needs to make our parks more inclusive to racially diverse Americans, and I am also committed to bringing stories that reflect the connection of people of color with our parks. I am currently working on profiling Native American women activists in America's public land to honor their voices and connection to our national parks and public land.
I hope that celebrity like Oprah can inspire many people to experience our parks, and to be a part of the change to make our parks accessible for all!
I wish I could be as excited as Jon Jarvis. But, being that he lead the way back when the Yosemite National Park Service accepted millions of dollars from Congress to replace the flood campgrounds in 1997, but then didn't do it, clearly pocketing the money while leaving the campgrounds damaged", there's something wrong with the NPS using Lower Rivers campgrounds as the backdrop for Oprah's well meaning photo op’ to promote camping in The Park. What is Jarvis thinking.
Of all places, Lower River Campgrounds, where Jon Jarvis, the new NPS Director, who back then helped to lead the way to reduce the available auto-based family camping in Yosemite Valley to approximately 40% of their former, pre-flood numbers.
It is disingenuous for the Jarvis and the NPS to promote camping, using Yosemite Valley as their model.
Jarvis's excitement is sure to create a many angry, disappointed, and disillusioned people who will try to get campsite reservations in Yosemite Valley, only to find out that it is next to impossible to get one during the summer season, unless you're Oprah I guess.
Sorry Shelton Johnson, but you need to get behind the Yosemite Valley Camper Coalition on this one.
Along with that push for diversity, we must teach new comers to the park system to respect it and to respect nature - my personal experience is that this doesn't always happen.
Oprah wasn't there during the summer, it was September 17-18, after labor day. The reason that the campgrounds weren't rebuilt is because they were in a FLOOD zone. The NPS has learned from past mistakes and is trying to manage the parks to preserve and protect the land for future generations. Allowing people to trample the beauty just because they want to camp no matter what is insane! I don't know why anyone would want to camp there in the summer anyway. It's hot and it's way too crowded.
To each his own I suppose. I find the Valley campgrounds to be centrally located and frankly a bargain. One can cook at one's own campsite and bring assorted creature comforts. I knew it was loud in the daytime and a bit crowded, but all the Happy Isles trailhead was only a half-mile walk from my campsite in Upper Pines.
They've talked a lot about replacing the shuttered campgrounds (I sort of agree that the River campgrounds are unlikely to be reopened) but for whatever reason there doesn't seem to be a plan yet. Some of the criticism is that Yosemite and NPS management seems to be more interested in possibly expanding with more expensive lodging at Yosemite Lodge rather than replace some of the lost campsites.