A joyous journey through the back country
The world may be full of overblown names – “Riverview” apartments that can’t view a river, “Pleasant Valley” subdivisions with no valley and few pleasantries.
But Baratunde Thurston (shown here) – whose new “America Outdoors” is 9 p.m. Tuesdays on PBS — has seen the opposite, places far better than their names:
— Death Valley, in California. “That name is pretty unfortunate,” Thurston said in a Television Critics Association press conference. It was coined by “some colonists who fared badly” in the searing sun.
— The Great Dismal Swamp, in Virginia and North Carolina. The “name does not imply happiness,” but for some people, the swamp was a place to escape to. It “became a refuge for people freeing from slavery, for maroon communities …. I got to visit that swamp and feel the presence of my ancestors.” Read more…
