The abundance of national parks merchandise is a big tell on how we try to get our government's attention
Our family gestalt is maintained by our buy-in on family rituals and traditions. And one of the biggest components of our family culture -- the thing that would drive the plot engine in our family Hallmark movie, were some executive to lose his mind and greenlight A Very Blue State Yule Season -- is our family's insistence on going to a different national park every year.
Because we are Park People, a lot of well-meaning people hip us to the existence of products that they think we'd like because those products reference or pay homage to the parks. This round-up includes, but is in no way limited to:
Good and Well Supply Company's collection of National Park candles, including all the marquee parks (from Acadia to Zion) but missing lesser-trafficked charmers like Lassen Volcanic or Pinnacles.
Pendleton Woolen Mills' National Parks "gifts and gear," featuring everything from $50 children's hoodie towels to $320 blankets with distinctive stripes for all the parks featured (Acadia, Badlands, Crater Lake, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Olympic, Rainier, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion).
Anderson Design Group's illustrated National Parks merchandise, which is where you can get your fix for comparatively low-profile parks like Guadelupe Mountains or Lake Clark.
To say nothing of stores like National Parks Merch or the Western National Parks Store or Parks Project. Or licensed products like the Monopoly National Parks Board Game.
National Parks merchandise seems like a real win-win, doesn't it? People feel good about "supporting the parks" in some vague way, much like buying pink merch in October means you're joining the fight against breast cancer.
And lord knows the parks could use the money. Until Congress managed to actually pass the Great American Outdoors Act in July 2020 -- a bill that Donald Trump signed into law on August 4 -- which will allocate up to $9.5 billion over five years to tackle some of the maintenance backlog at national parks. (The backlog is currently estimated at $11.6 billion in deferred repairs and maintenance.)
In 2020, buying national parks merchandise is a lot like buying stamps at the U.S. post office. It's a way of supporting a facet of the U.S. government that very nearly everyone in America agrees does a good thing. National parks merchandise is great, but the very fact of its existence says some troubling things. Shopping to support our parks has become a way ordinary citizens can feel as though we're speaking a language our politicians understand, through the intermediaries that politicians actually listen to: we're talking money, as splashed around by corporations.
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FURTHER READING
"Clothing Companies Are Funding Our National Parks Because the Government Won't" (The Outline, August 27, 2018) -- "It’s hard to think that these niche products will make a difference in what feels like an industry-driven onslaught on America’s Best Idea, as Ken Burns titled his series about the NPS."
"The Republicans Who Really Want to Seem Outdoorsy" (Outside, August 14, 2020) -- National treasure Wes Siler runs the numbers on the Great American Outdoors Act and reads some politicians to filth.
"People Are Flocking to National Parks to Cheer Themselves Up" (Adventure Journal, August 10, 2020) -- "As scholars who study conservation and how nature contributes to human well-being, we see opening up parks and creating new ones as a straightforward remedy for Americans’ current blues."
"Why It Matters Who Goes Outdoors" (So What, Who Cares, April 12, 2017) -- "To walk through a national park is to know that we have a national legacy of political commitment to the fellow citizens who need to be given the tools to build their future. We have a national legacy of politicians who thought of future generations and strove to preserve land that belongs to the people."