National Parks: Made for You and Me

13 THINGS

- Emily Goodman

1 WHILE THE term "national park" conjures images of the American West, there are national park units in every U.S. state and territory. Together they welcome about 300 million visitors each year and span some 85 million acres, almost 55 million of which are in Alaska.

2 THERE ARE more than 400 sites in the National Park System, though that includes far more than what we traditionally think of as “parks,” such as parkways and rivers. Strictly speaking, there are 63 national parks (California has the most, with nine), but there are also national historic parks, national military parks, and other designations. A few are thoroughly unique. Among them: the White House.

3 THE NATIONAL Park Service (NPS) oversees all 400+ of these sites, so Alfred Hitchcock in 1958 needed the agency's permission to shoot part of his film North by Northwest at Mount Rushmore (which is a national memorial). Despite initially granting him permission, the NPS later revoked Hitchcock's permit in the midst of filming, objecting to the chase scene across the presidential faces. (Hitchcock had promised he would not tread upon the sculpture.) He ended up filming the remainder of the movie on a mock-up of the monument.