16 national parks put on stamps – from Acadia to Yellowstone | CNN

Acadia National Park's Bass Harbor Head Light stars as the first of 16 Forever stamps celebrating the National Park Service's 100th anniversary. The special stamps will be issued June 2 at the once-per-decade World Stamp Show in New York. Click through the gallery to view the rest of the stamps.

Delicate Arch is one of more than 2,000 stone arches in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. The park, which hosts the greatest density of natural arches in the world, has hundreds of soaring pinnacles, thousands of natural stone arches and giant, balanced rocks.

Bands of wild horses are the main attraction at Maryland's and Virginia's Assateague Island National Seashore, a barrier island in the states of Maryland and Virginia.

The Pueblo Revival-style visitor center at Frijoles Canyon, part of Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico, is depicted in a 1930s painting by artist Helmuth Naumer Sr. The center also served as the administration building.

A dramatic photograph by Richard McGuire shows the interior of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico.

A photograph by Paul Marcellini of Miami shows the sun setting in Everglades National Park, the United States' largest subtropical wilderness.

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska protects 3.3 million acres of glaciers, mountains, forests and coastlines. The photograph is by Tom Bean of Flagstaff, Arizona.

The Grand Canyon is 277 river miles long, up to 18 miles wide and one mile deep in parts. The image on the stamp is a detail of a chromolithograph-on-canvas, "The Grand Canyon of Arizona, from Hermit Rim Road," by artist Thomas Moran (1837--1926).

John Funderburk's photograph of a long-legged water bird with a wingspan that can exceed 6 feet is the stamp image for Gulf Islands National Seashore, which is in Florida and Mississippi.

The late afternoon sun shining into a rainstorm created these rainbows over the crater at Haleakalā National Park on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Photographer Kevin Ebi, who lives near Seattle, took the picture.

A water lily with a bloom the size of a basketball at Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in Washington, D.C. was photographed by Cindy Dyer of Alexandria, Virginia.

Albert Bierstadt/Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park

A detail of an iconic Hudson River School of Art landscape painting of another national park, "Scenery in the Grand Tetons," celebrates Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. The Albert Bierstadt painting was part of the Conservation Movement that helped create the national parks system. It hangs in Laurence Rockefeller's study in the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion.

A star trail photograph comprised from 200 images is the creation of Matt Dieterich of Pittsburgh, who worked at Mount Rainier as an intern with the National Park Service Geoscientist-in-the-Parks program.

Balclutha/San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

The square-rigger Balclutha is the star of the stamp featuring San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park near Fisherman's Wharf. The three-masted sailing ship is part of the park's historic ship collection. To the right is the 1907 steam tugboat Hercules.

A photograph of the Little Missouri River winding through the Badlands of North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park was taken in July 2013 by Q.T. Luong of San Jose, California. He's on a 20-year project to photograph all 59 national parks.

This photo of bison silhouetted in Yellowstone National Park's winter morning sun was shot by Art Wolfe of Seattle, who described it as "perfectly backlit bison standing on a small rise in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley."

CNN —

Two bison are standing in silhouette at Yellowstone National Park as the winter morning sun rises, shaking off the ice from a bitter cold night.

“Rising at dawn and braving the -30°F temperature I was able to catch the first rays of the morning sun,” said Seattle photographer Art Wolfe.”They had bedded down there all night and now were standing and trying to shake off the cold as the sun came over the horizon.”

Those bison are among 16 natural and cultural treasures that have been picked to star in a pane of Forever stamps celebrating the National Park Service’s centennial birthday.

The June 2 first-day-of-issue ceremony took place at the 2016 World Stamp Show in New York, the world’s largest stamp show that only happens once per decade.

The National Park Service pane features 16 different stamps showing photographs or paintings of national parks or plants, animals, artwork, objects and structures found in or above the national parks.

“This beautiful stamp series showcases the variety of national parks available for all to enjoy,” said National Park Service Deputy Director Peggy O’Dell.

“From a small oasis in the nation’s capital to the wild splendor of Alaska, with beaches and historic sites and natural wonders in between, the stamps represent parks of all shapes and sizes. We hope the stamps encourage everyone to Find Your Park during the centennial.”

It’s not the first time the Postal Service has honored the national parks. Eight stamps honoring the Yellowstone centennial, the world’s first national park, were issued in 1972.

Others include a 1966 stamp celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Park Service and 10 stamps issued in 1934 to promote “National Park Year.”

Centennial birthdays aside, the competition for stamp ideas is usually pretty tough: The U.S. Postal Service receives about 40,000 suggestions for stamp ideas each year and only about 20 topics make the cut.

Filmmaker Ken Burns on the creation of the national parks

The 16 National Park Service stamps

1. Acadia National Park, Maine

2. Arches National Park, Utah

3. Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland and Virginia

4. Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

5. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

6. Everglades National Park, Florida

7. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska

8. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

9. Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida and Mississippi

10. Haleakalā National Park, Hawaii

11. Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens, Washington, D.C.

12. Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, New York

13. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington

14. San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, California

15. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

16. Yellowstone National Park, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho

CNN: National Park Service turns 100

100 years, 100 national park experiences