On March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt penned a letter to mountain man, writer, and early environmentalist John Muir, asking Muir to guide him through Yosemite. “I do not want anyone with me but you,” he wrote, “and I want to drop politics absolutely for four days and just be out in the open….” An epic journey that would lay the foundation for much of Roosevelt’s conservation work ensued—he would go on to protect 230 million acres of public land and establish the U.S. Forest Service. 

Inspired by these visionary men and their legendary camping trip, the actor and filmmaker Kevin Costner has released a new docuseries on Fox Nation, Yellowstone to Yosemite, that retraces Roosevelt and Muir’s steps. Among Costner’s memorable past roles is that of Lieutenant John Dunbar, who in the 1990 film Dances With Wolves sat at his post in the wild western frontier and penned these lines: “There can be no place like this Earth.” Now, at age seventy, Costner again proves the truth of that statement on the cinematic trek through Yosemite National Park, which takes viewers to the sheer rock face of El Capitan, down the spectacular 2,425 feet cascade of Yosemite Falls, and up the iconic overlook Glacier Point. 

As he walks through the same stunning scenery Roosevelt and Muir did, he weaves in geology, wildlife, and the tragedy of the Ahwahneechee people, who called Yosemite home for 7,000 years before being forcibly removed. Below, we caught up with Costner to talk about the new series, the problem with conservation today, and how much he loves a good camping trip.

What was it about this story that jumped out at you and made you want to do a deep dive?

I look at history a lot, and I know when I see signs that there’s more to a story. The fact that Teddy came to Yosemite while he was on the campaign trail, and the fact that these people were all waiting for him, and he just disappeared. The idea that no one could follow them, that Teddy was really out of commission for four or five days—that’s unheard of. Reading about that just fired my imagination. 

Yosemite is worthy of talking about because at the time these places were not being protected. It was a time where America wasn’t thinking environmentally. We were thinking more and more and more of everything. America was like the Garden of Eden. The idea that someone would say, “We ought to save these big redwoods. We ought to save this. We ought to save that”—they were really fighting upstream. And in this story we have the quiet, introspective John Muir coming together with somebody as robust as Teddy and deciding they were going to make a difference. And they did.

The history of the Ahwahneechee people is such an important part of the story—another theme that runs through a lot of your work. 

Yosemite is such a beautiful place. Why wouldn’t other people have been there? We just can’t be talking about history unless we go back a little farther. I’m not interested in pounding people with it, but it’s what happened. We have to be able to say what happened. 

It’s funny how easy it is to see with hindsight that Roosevelt and Muir were doing the right thing by protecting these places. 

Part of what I wanted to get across in the documentary was that at that time you could declare that something was protected, like Yellowstone, but we didn’t have in place anything that was designed to protect it. Those early parks were still being overrun because they could not be watched carefully, and the nature of man is to take what he can, even if there’s a fence or a sign. 

Think about the advent of the car: People are running into each other. They’re crashing. They’re getting into fights. Somebody said, “We’ve got to put up a sign. Let’s put up a light.” But this guy still keeps running through it. This woman, she doesn’t care. Well, why don’t we develop the highway patrol?

This is the same thing that happened with our national parks—the infrastructure was lacking with the idea. Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir were thinking bigger, and they created that infrastructure. Today, millions of people are going to those parks, and we are cutting back right now on the rangers that are there to protect it. And we actually need more. 

We still have a long way to go in conservation. 

What’s disturbing is there are probably more environmentally aware people now than ever on the planet, yet we’re still on the brink with everything. We never thought an ocean could be exhausted, but they’re not fishing for salmon off the coast of California for the first time in 15,000 years. I mean, what’s going on? We’re fighting each other, debating things that are right in front of our eyes. These are the kind of things we should be rallying around. Countries have so much divisiveness. Our Earth is the common denominator, and we keep missing the point that we’re all tied together.

There’s a moment when you’re in your tent and you say, “I love this country.” Can you talk a little bit about how you see conservation as an inherently patriotic thing?

I was speaking for myself, but also for a lot of people, I hope. When we preserve something, it’s an unselfish act. These redwood trees would all be gone had somebody not put their foot down. We conserve these places and they become a place to commune long after we’re gone. Then we can have that common experience—that smile that comes across an inner city kid’s face as he sees something as the great explorers of the day did, because we’ve chosen not to throw a fence up around something, but to protect it. 

I know you grew up going to Yosemite. How did those early experiences in wild places inspire you?

Our vacations were camping because it’s all we could afford as a family. I didn’t sleep in a hotel until I was in my late twenties. We put the sleeping bags back behind the front seats and we went to the High Sierras. We went to the sequoias. We went to Yosemite. When you go camping, the first thing you realize is that you have to do things yourself. The second is that what happens is the environment starts to tell you what to do. If it’s cold, you put a jacket on. If it’s hot, you take it off. If you want a fire, you have to build it. If you want to have a fire at night, you have to go collect wood during the day. The environment starts to inform you what to do. It’s not like, “I’m having breakfast with my agent. Now I’m having lunch with this editor. Now I’m seeing my lawyer.” Out there, clocks don’t mean anything. You learn real quick, things like “I didn’t gather enough wood and I’m cold as hell right now looking for it, and it’s kind of wet and it’s not going to burn. What a dumbass—I’m not letting that happen tomorrow.”

And then driving home—tell me this hasn’t happened to you—you say, Why don’t we do that more often? What was it about those four or five days? You won’t be able to put your finger on it right away. But it’s how you got into a different rhythm.

How do you motivate yourself to get out in nature like that? I feel like all of us are so busy and somehow it just gets put off. 

I take my boys hunting, I take them fishing and diving. I don’t get as much of it as I want, but I take all I can get. I’m leaving at midnight on a flight to Cuba and I’m going to be diving for eight days on a historical ship I’ve been researching. I want to resurrect the story of what may have happened here. 

You’ve got to come down South on one of your next adventures…you’re going to retrace John Muir’s steps from Louisville to the Gulf of Mexico, right?

Ha. I probably won’t do that. I’m not much of a hiker, I’ll tell you that. But the beauty is you can retrace what Muir did in a literary way. And you can go to Mammoth, California, and get on the trail that John Muir walked. You can get in the High Sierras and sit exactly where John and Teddy talked about how we saved these things. You can imagine what it was like. If that place speaks out loud to you, it’s a ripple, and you’ll take someone else there. 

Stream Yellowstone to Yosemite on Fox Nation here.