WILLIAMSPORT — A refurbished C&O Canal lockhouse near Williamsport soon will open to the public for overnight stays as part of a new interpretive program by the C&O Canal Trust, a canal official said Saturday.

The Canal Quarters program is just one of a number of initiatives under way to better realize the potential of the C&O Canal, including several projects planned for the Williamsport area, said Kevin Brandt, superintendent of C&O Canal National Historical Park.

Brandt was in Williamsport Saturday afternoon to screen a sneak preview of “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” a Ken Burns film scheduled to air on PBS starting Sept. 27. About 20 people attended the screening at the Springfield Farm Barn during Williamsport Days.

The film does not focus on the C&O Canal, but Brandt said its insights about the importance of national parks are just as relevant to the C&O Canal park.

When most people think of national parks, they think of western parks like Yosemite National Park or the Grand Canyon, but Brandt said C&O Canal National Historical Park is just as important, if not more, in terms of the resources it protects and the stories it has to tell.

The Canal Quarters program is one new project aimed at telling those stories in an interactive way, Brandt said. The program will allow visitors to experience what it was like to live and work along the C&O Canal in a bygone era by viewing photographs and reading accounts written by canal families while staying overnight in one of four lockhouses furnished to evoke different eras in the canal’s history.