The more you know, the more you care, the better you can do. It’s a naïve thought, but it’s what I choose to believe, especially in my capacity as Great Smoky Mountains Association’s 2022 Steve Kemp Writer in Residence.

Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada's largest national park at 44,807 square kilometres, straddling the border of the Northwest Territories and Alberta. It’s smaller than the U.S.’s largest park, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, but bigger than Switzerland. The park is the world’s largest Dark Sky Preserve and it has a beaver dam so large it’s visible from space.

Dark, heavy skies threaten to unleash a torrent. Undaunted, the single-engine’s propellor rumbles defiantly and roars to life, promising adventure as my float plane taxis upriver from tiny King Salmon, Alaska, headed for the mysterious Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes at Katmai National Park and Preserve.

While the prospect of free land that the Homestead Act promised sounds typically American -- hard work and determination will lift you up -- the stories you can explore at Homestead National Historical Park in Nebraska reflect both jubilation and anguish, deprivation and self-determination.