*Includes pictures
*Includes contemporary accounts and quotes
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean." - John Muir
The name of John Muir as one of the earliest conservationists, naturalists and natural philosophers is forever entwined with California - he is the man behind the creation of the Yosemite National Park and the namesake of the John Muir Trail in Sierra Nevada - but Muir was 30 years old before ever set foot in the state. In fact, Muir was a Scotsman, and despite the fact that he lived in the United States for almost his entire life, he never lost his accent, nor did he lose his fundamental identity with the wild East Lothian countryside and the rugged Scottish coast upon which he was born.
The United States is full of natural wonders, but few remain unspoiled by man as much as Yosemite National Park, a 750,000 square acre park near the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Despite being inhabited by people for nearly 3,000 years, the relatively remote spot helped ensure that even as America expanded west, the Yosemite area avoided being settled or exploited like so many other areas on the frontier. Although it is a World Heritage Site and has been visited by millions of people, nearly the entire park remains wilderness, replete with features like waterfalls, giant sequoia groves, mountains, and some of America's most impressive granite cliffs.
Given its natural wonders, it should come as no surprise that the area attracted some of the 19th century's most famous conservationists, including Muir and his good friend Theodore Roosevelt. Muir in particular was instrumental in having Yosemite declared a national park, and he would wax eloquently about the area and the fight to preserve it: "The making of gardens and parks goes on with civilization all over the world, and they increase both in size and number as their value is recognized. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in the little windowsill gardens of the poor, though perhaps only a geranium slip in a broken cup, as well as in the carefully tended rose and lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National Parks-the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc.-Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like anything else worth while, from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been subject to attack by despoiling gain-seekers and mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised in smug-smiling philanthropy, industriously, sham-piously crying, 'Conservation, conservation, panutilization, ' that man and beast may be fed and the dear Nation made great. Thus long ago a few enterprising merchants utilized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves; and earlier still, the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was likewise despoiled. Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite National Park, strife has been going on around its borders and I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however much of its boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed."
John Muir: The Life and Legacy of America's Most Famous Conservationist examines the legendary career of one of the country's most influential figures. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about John Muir like never before.