Crown of the Continent seen by millions

John Grabowska and Steve Ruth filming on location in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, Alaska.

Award-winning NPS film first to be broadcast nationally

Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest national park in the United States, a wild, remote alpine landscape of incomprehensible grandeur, a park most Americans have never heard of. Few visit this magnificent wilderness, which contains the highest coastal mountains in the world and the greatest concentration of glaciers outside the polar icecaps.

Now, however, more than four million people have seen the park's award-winning interpretive film thanks to national prime time broadcast on PBS. "Crown of the Continent - Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias" is the first ever NPS film to receive such a distinction. Reaching a national broadcast audience has great potential for broadening public support for preserving park resources. Outreach efforts such as national broadcast provide a surrogate experience for the millions who wish to preserve wild places like Wrangell-St. Elias but may not have the means, ability or opportunity to visit them.

"Crown of the Continent", produced by Harpers Ferry Center filmmaker John Grabowska and photographed by Steve Ruth, has been an official selection of more than 30 film festivals in 15 countries, the most-awarded film produced by HFC. While still in rough cut the film was selected to win the prestigious Earthwatch Film Award, previously granted to filmmakers Sir David Attenborough, Michael Apted, and Charles Guggenheim. "Crown of the Continent" has been screened at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and at mountain film festivals around the world, winning awards in India, England, and the Czech Republic.

The film was broadcast in prime time in March, July and November 2003, and is still in national distribution by PBS on its High Definition and digital channels.

RELATED LINKS:

HFC Audiovisual Arts »

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve »