Ken Burns National Parks

Airing Tuesday, Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.

“Ken Burns: The National Parks” celebrates one of the filmmaker’s most beautiful and beloved series, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.” Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature’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 series is filled with incidents and characters as gripping and fascinating as American history has to offer.

Filmmakers Burns and Dayton Duncan vividly reveal behind-the-scenes stories about the making of the series, while engaging interviews with Park Ranger Shelton Johnson and cinematographer Buddy Squires provide additional background.

“Ken Burns: The National Parks” is also a story of the unforgettable Americans who made them possible. People from every conceivable background — rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs — devoted themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in so doing reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.

Select this program when you support Arizona PBS and get the DVD set and an exclusive letter from Ken Burns.