“We cannot have freedom without wilderness…”

These words from Edward Abbey are just one of the powerful phrases voiced in this gorgeous video showcasing vast tracts of North American wilderness. A little over 50 years ago, the U.S. Congress passed the Wilderness Act, establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System “for the permanent good of the whole people” with four types of lands managed by the federal government: national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, and lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Since that day in 1964, there has been more than a ten-fold increase in the amount of acreage (from nine million acres to 109 million acres in 762 areas in 44 states) protected and put into preservation since that time.
With powerful words from icons of wilderness and nature — John Muir, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, to name a few — voiced by Duke Beardsley, we are immersed in areas “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain” and allowed to witness the majestic, neverending aerials and panoramic vistas of this nature’s splendor.
As the folks at Vital Films so eloquently put it, “Thanks to the visionaries who saved some wild country.” I only wish it were more.