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The National Park Service’s B-Roll Archive Is Unexpectedly Mesmerizing

Featuring a really mellow bison.
​Mount Rushmore. Image: Bbadgett.

It has been a long winter this year, sparking a mini-epidemic of cabin fever across the Northern hemisphere. Though I am a bonafide winter lover with Canadian credentials to boot, even I have felt a little cooped up and sunshine-starved in recent weeks.

That's why it was such a godsend when I stumbled across the N​ational Park Service's B-roll archive today, while looking for an NPS press release. The site's comfortingly generic clips of America's most dramatic vistas are like a vicarious shot of outdoor splendor, perfect for shaking off the dust of this extended hibernation.

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Take the below segment, one of the many B-roll collections of Yellowstone National Park.

Credit: National Park Service.

It kicks off with a bison soaking up the Sun and looking almost obscenely blasé about life. I can't tell you how envious I am of this bison. I hope its B-roll is in hundreds of documentaries, because it is undeniably charismatic. In fact, it should play itself in a biopic about its life.

After documenting the non-movements of the bison, the collection moves on to several shots of Yellowstone's geysers, hot springs, and other assorted magma portals. Those are also a pleasure to watch on a cold February afternoon.

Indeed, as far as virtually escaping to warmer pastures goes, the archive offers a lot of good options, like clips of Dry Tortugas National​ Park, El Malp​ais National Monument, and Zion National​ Park. The videos have that flexible stock video feel, open to being slotted into whatever random documentary calls for them, and that on its own can be kind of mesmerizing.

There is even a reel of historical B-roll featuring footage of both Roosevelt presidents, along with clips of early 20th century park visitors standing way too close to geysers.

Credit: National Park ​Service.

But my favorite clip—bison excepted—is a short video of some mountain goats walking all over the presidential mega-busts of Mount Rushmore.

Credit: National Park S​ervice.

This short reel seems to link all of the others together, becoming some kind of symbolic nexus of NPS B-roll. On the one hand, it's showing off how public parks are safe havens for animals like these goats, allowing them to roam over protected territory. On the other, it demonstrates the importance of maintaining human-made monuments as well as parks by featuring the mountainous sculpture.

Finally, it emphasizes the role both monuments and parks have in preserving American history—both social and natural—by making it openly accessible to human and animal guests.

Am I reading too much into government B-roll? Most definitely. But as I've written before, there is a weird kick in voyeuristically experiencing natural wonders, even if it pales in comparison to an actual park visit.

No doubt NPS B-roll has been worked into some gorgeous and informative films, but it turns out that it's kind of a therapeutic sinkhole unto itself. If you're feeling some late-state seasonal affective disorder, or need to be reminded that investing in wilderness protection is awesome, it is the internet oasis you seek.