What does it mean to be an American? There’s no one way. At NPR, we think of the American identity as a story - one that's always being rewritten by the people who live it. The American Storytelling collection gathers stories from local stations across the NPR Network - from small town struggles, to natural phenomena, to the intricate histories that build the constantly-evolving tale of our nation. These are our biggest little-known shows. Find them in the American Storytelling channel on Apple Podcasts or on the NPR App.

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Been camping or hiking in a national park this summer? It's pretty wild right now. In the midst of their busiest season, national parks and other public lands are under-staffed and facing massive budget cuts.

Former National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis spoke with How Wild's Marissa Ortega-Welch about the threats to public lands right now and shared his insights from forty years of working within the agency.

This interview was recorded live at KALW Public Media on July 22, 2025.

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Noticed any changes to signs in your local national park?

An exhibit at California's Muir Woods National Monument was recently edited because of a Trump executive order banning any types of content — like exhibits, signs, books in the gift shop — that "inappropriately disparage" people in American history.

This isn't the first time that a national park exhibit has been affected because of Trump's policies though and park rangers and historians are speaking out.

This interview first aired on KALW's Crosscurrents on July 31, 2025.

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It's wild times, y'all. Just as we're getting ready to go hiking and camping this summer, national parks and forests are facing the biggest staff and budget cuts in history under the Trump administration. In this interview, How Wild host Marissa Ortega-Welch shares what she's been hearing from park and forest rangers, biologists, and custodians about how these cuts will impact the nation's public lands.

This interview originally aired on KALW Public Media's Crosscurrents on May 15, 2025.

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It may not be designated capital "W" wilderness, but the ocean is an incredibly wild place.

We're sharing an episode about the ocean from The Wild with Chris Morgan, produced by our friends at KUOW. The Wild is about the wonders of our natural world and the people working to protect it. On this episode, Chris takes us to Biscayne National Park off the coast of Florida to see how scientists are trying to restore one of the world's largest coral reefs.

If you like this episode, find more at https://omny.fm/shows/the-wild-with-chris-morgan

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What if the next time you were in wilderness looking at the sky on a clear, dark night, you saw more visible satellites than stars? What if the Big Dipper and Orion were drowned out by a satellite traffic jam, criss-crossing through space?

More satellites are being launched into space than ever before. And as they become more common, they're changing the experience of looking at the night sky and raising questions about who regulates the stuff we put up there. We think about how to protect the environment here on earth. Shouldn't that extend to how we think about outer space?

We're sharing a story from Outside/In, a podcast that gets curious about the natural world. If you like How Wild, we think you'll like Outside/In, too. It's a thoughtful, fun show that tells fascinating stories about the outdoors. Everything from whether it's better to pick up your dog poop or bury it to how planting trees can be a tool of colonization. Check out more episodes of Outside/In here.

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How wild? We don't have the foggiest idea. In this final episode of season one, we go to California's Point Reyes National Seashore on a cloudy day to think about the nebulous feeling of wilderness and its future. "Capital W" wilderness is a useful land management tool, but wilderness as a feeling is different for everybody.

Photo by Janet Rosen (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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Not everything fits into neat little boxes. Sometimes you have to check "other."

What are other perspectives on wilderness?

We visit the country's first tribal wilderness in the Mission Mountains of Montana to hear how it's managed by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe.

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Do you have all your gear to head into nature? What about your smartphone?

Technology helps people access wilderness, but it can also get in the way.

We're hitting the Pacific Crest Trail with hikers and a Search and Rescue team who have mixed feelings about technology in wilderness, and we meet a recreator who wouldn't be able to be here without it.

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Do you have a permit?

We're going to a popular trail in Colorado's Maroon Bells to talk about the slippery feeling of solitude and what to do about more people on the trail.

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