by Kate Jonuska
a coffee table book of awe-inspiring photos celebrating America’s national parks
THE ONLY EXPERIENCE guaranteed to be better than visiting one of America’s National Parks is visiting in the company of a park employee with all the scientific facts, historical context and entertaining stories that bring the land to life. With two degrees in parks and recreation and postings throughout the American West, Jacob W. Frank is literally that passionate park ranger, and he’s now providing an impactful journey through our public lands on the page via his book, “Parklands: America’s National Parks and Public Lands.”
As beautiful and varied as our parks themselves, Frank’s stunning photography is undoubtedly the book’s main attraction. Taken over the course of his jobs with national parks and his personal travels, the collection is sorted not by location but by subject: geology, water, flora, fauna, dark skies and history. The result is a captivating mixture of images and ideas that ask the viewer to engage deeper than eye level, perhaps learn something.
For example, the chapter on dark skies explains how parklands combat artificial-light encroachment, which affects the health of both plants and animals, including humans. And from petroglyphs and cave dwellings to the National Mall and Alcatraz, Parklands’ visual examples of the beauty and breadth of the history preserved on public lands are surprising and amazing.
The best bits of the book, however, are Frank’s personal stories: spelunking through a tight cave in Carlsbad Caverns, the sound of glaciers calving into Kenai Fjords, and how a house near Yellowstone shook when a buffalo decided to scratch against the siding. These sensory details make the reader feel like they, too, have felt the quaking, heard the cracking and perhaps now they feel connected with these places as Frank does.
At the end of Parklands, the reader has taken a true journey alongside this ranger and has likely come out the other side inspired to help protect and celebrate our public lands, which are currently facing unprecedented environmental and political challenges.
