We can’t escape history. We’re born into a world full of it, and we’re making it as we go from day to day. But how are we at preserving history?

There’s been a lot of concern this year that the administration of President Donald Trump is altering, if not entirely trying to erase, history. But can that actually be done? The National Park Service, often called the nation’s storyteller, has been interpreting history for more than a century, and some of that interpretation revolves around sites that have lost their physical structures over the decades.

Today's guest is Monica Rhodes, an internationally-recognized leader, advisor, and influencer who has directed preservation activities in 46 states and completed projects in more than 100 national parks. Today, she advises and partners with cites, universities, and other institutions to revitalize and leverage historic sites and communities to ensure a vibrant future for these places.

We’ve made it past Labor Day. Which means fall colors in some parts of the country aren’t too far off, seasonal wildlife migrations are getting under way, and summertime crowds in the national park system have thinned out.

Fall is a glorious time to be out in the park system. The question right now, though, is how will the park system be functioning come October? That’s a very pertinent question, because the federal government is facing a shutdown on September 30 if Congress can’t come to terms on a budget for fiscal year 2026, which starts October 1.

To consider the possible options, Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president for governmental affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, joins Editor Kurt Repanshek to discuss the situation.

Once upon a time, there were tens of millions of bison on the North American continent. Today, there are somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000. Most are in commercial herds, with a relative few in private herds and on public lands.

Should there be more bison on the continent? There potentially is space for them on places like the 550,000-acre Thunder Basin National Grassland in Wyoming, the nearly 600,000-acre Buffalo Gap National Grassland in South Dakota, and the roughly 440,000-acre Comanche National Grassland in Colorado, just to name three locations.

And a new study out this past week explains why bison are more beneficial for grasslands than traditional livestock, and the benefits increase as herd size does. To understand what’s going on, we’re joined today by Professor William Hamilton from Washington and Lee University in Virginia, one of the study's co-authors.