John Muir

“ Muir sailed south on the monthly mail steamer; while I took passage on a trading steamer for another missionary trip among the northern tribes.
So ended my canoe voyages with John Muir. Their memory is fresh and sweet as ever. The flowing stream of years has not washed away nor dimmed the impressions of those great days we spent together. Nearly all of them were cold, wet and uncomfortable, if one were merely an animal, to be depressed or enlivened by physical conditions. But of these so-called "hardships" Muir made nothing, and I caught his spirit ”

“ John Muir, or Mure, of Auchindrane, was a gentleman of an ancient family and good estate, in the west of Scotland, bold, ambitious, treacherous to the last degree, and utterly unconscientious,—a Richard the Third in private life, inaccessible alike to pity and remorse. ”

“ He taught school and worked in the harvest fields during the long summer vacations. When in college he lived so frugally that sometimes he did not spend more than half a dollar a week.
The greatest interest of John Muir's life had always been the things he found in nature. From the days when, as a little fellow, he played around the fields and streams near Dunbar in Scotland, he had loved the open air and the hundreds of things which lived and grew there. When he did finish his course at college he suffered from eye trouble, and was even threatened with blindness. ”

“ John Muir, naturalist, enthusiast, writer, glorifier of the Sierras, is held in affectionate memory the world over, but especially in California, where he was known as a delightful personality. Real pleasure and a good understanding of his nature and quality await those who read of the meeting of Emerson and Muir in the Yosemite in 1871. It is recorded in their diaries. He was a very rare and versatile man. ”

“ I have had inspiring companions, and my life has been blessed by many friendships inestimably precious and rich; but for me the world has produced but one John Muir; and to no other man do I feel that I owe so much ”

“ His name has always been associated with that magnificent public acquisition, and there is never any question that it was his skillful and sincere word-painting of the natural beauties of the Yosemite that caused Congress to pass the measure which gives America the most stupendous pleasure ground in the world — a park absolutely unique in its primitive grandeur and diversified scenery. Long before the Yosemite was taken in charge by the government and held to be a people's park, John Muir knew perfectly its mountains, valleys, canyons, waterfalls, and wild denizens. ”

“ One man among these explorers stands out above all others for his loving appreciation of Nature in her wild state, combined with a remarkable power of delineation, and a gift of carrying to his readers not only the facts that engaged his attention, but a share of his delight in his experiences and of the inner meanings of them. This man is John Muir, whose narratives of discovery in the Western mountains are an immortal part of American literature. Never will the present writer forget the inspiration of a day in the woods with John Muir and John Burroughs! ”

“ The unquenchable energy and physical vigor of John Muir was well shown when, at the age of seventy-four, he returned from a wilderness journey up the Amazon and through the trackless jungles of Africa. ”

“ An appeal issued in his name in 1890 led to the creation of the Yosemite Valley and surrounding forests as a national reserve. Muir has been called the pioneer of our system of national parks. In the cause of science he traveled to Siberia, South America, Africa and India. "Tall, lean, craggy,"—a great tree of a man himself, he knew the forests of the world.
John Muir, "grandest character in Nature literature," died at the age of seventy-six on the day before Christmas, 1914. ”

“ The Muir Woods of “big trees” near San Francisco and Muir Glacier in Alaska are fitting monuments to his name and fame. But the real man needs no memorial. For when we visit the glorious Yosemite, which his untiring efforts won for us and which his boundless enthusiasm{28} taught us rightly to appreciate, we somehow feel that the spirit of John Muir is still there, in the beauty that he loved, bidding us welcome and giving us joy in the freedom of the heights.{29}
THE SEER OF WOODCHUCK LODGE: JOHN BURROUGHS{30}
In every man’s life we may read some lesson. ”

“ John Muir arrived in Yosemite for the first time in 1868. Intent upon making deliberate studies of all that fascinated him, he determined to remain a resident of the Yosemite region. In order to do so, he attached himself to a sheep ranch. He gave the first winter to work on the foothill ranch and the next summer to herding in the Yosemite Sierra. With the intimate 153 acquaintance so made with sheep and their ways, he was destined to create a wave of public interest in Yosemite that would eclipse all former attentions and revolutionize the administrative scheme. ”

“ Conservationist John Muir emigrated to the United States as a child 150 years ago this year. As a young man, he experienced for the first time the high country of California's Sierra Nevada and Yosemite, and for the rest of his life he championed America's wild places. "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread." he wrote, "places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." ”

“ Burroughs says, "The world wants this knowledge seasoned with John Muir, not his mere facts. He could accumulate enough notes to fill Yosemite, yet that would be worth little. He has spent years studying and sketching the rocks, and noting facts about them, but you can't reconstruct beauty and sublimity out of mere notes and sketches. He must work his harvest into bread." But concerning this writing Mr. Muir confesses he feels the hopelessness of giving his readers anything but crumbs from the great table God has spread: "I can write only hints to incite good wanderers to come to the feast." ”

“ After considerable deliberation and almost deciding to go to the backwoods of Upper Canada, the father took the little family to Wisconsin, taking up a farm claim in the heart of the wilderness near Fox River. The last hundred miles from Wisconsin was made by wagon over the trackless prairie, just after the spring thaw, and John Muir never forgot how they stuck in the mud again and again, and how doubtful it seemed many times whether they ever would reach their destination. ”

“ It is likely that few who today enjoy the Yosemite High Sierra realize that sheep, “hoofed locusts,” were responsible for the creation of Yosemite National Park. The people of California, awakened to the danger by the warnings of Muir and others, attempted to secure an enlargement of the state park. Selfish local interests frustrated the plan. In 1889, John Muir allied himself with the Century Magazine, and a plan was 155 launched which was designed to arouse a public sentiment that could not be shunted. ”

“ Mr. Muir was done before starting for South America. He had promised to come to the Catskills, but had to keep putting it off to get copy ready, and the Laird of Woodchuck Lodge was exasperated that the mountaineer would stay in that hot Babylon,—he, the lover of the wild,—when we in the Delectable Mountains were calling him hither. As we looked upon the riot of color one day, Mr. Burroughs said, "John Muir, confound him! ”

“ Springing ashore he said, "When can you be ready?"
"Aren't you a little fast?" I replied. "What does this mean? Where's your wife?"
"Man," he exclaimed, "have you forgotten? Don't you know we lost a glacier last fall? Do you think I could sleep soundly in my bed this winter with that hanging on my conscience? My wife could not come, so I have come alone and you've got to go with me to find the lost. Get your canoe and crew and let us be off."
The ten months since Muir had left me had not been spent in idleness at Wrangell. ”

“ Dr. John Muir's appreciation is worth having. It did not occur to me that what I had to say would interest people out of Britain, but to my surprise I had an application from a German for permission to translate the address the other day.
[Again to his wife, March 1:—]
...I was considerably tired after my screed on Friday, but Bain and I took a long walk, and I was fresh again by dinner-time. I dined with the Senators at a hotel in the town, and of course had to make a speech or two. However I cut all that as fast as I could. They were all very apologetic for the row the students made. ”

“ Strong, towering spruces, hemlocks, and cedars tossed their arms, bowing, waving, in every leap, quivering and rejoicing together in the gray, roaring storm. John and Charley put on their gun-coats and went hunting for another deer, but returned later in the afternoon with clean hands, having fortunately failed to shed any more blood. The wind still held in the south, and Toyatte, grimly trying to comfort us, told us that we might be held here a week or more, which we should not have minded much, for we had abundance of provisions. Mr. Young and I shifted our tent and tried to dry blankets. ”

“ John Muir's love for the Yosemite was little short of devotion, and he was the first to proclaim to the world the beauties of that glorious region. He wrote a series of magazine articles on “The Treasures of the Yosemite” in August and September, 1890, and it was largely through the interest awakened by those papers that the Sequoia and Yosemite national parks were established by the United States government. In the cause of forest preservation he was a vigorous and life-long worker, and his slogan, “Save the trees!” ”

“ At last we got out on the smooth mud slope with only a mile of slow but sure dragging of weary limbs to camp. The Indians had been firing guns to guide me and had a fine supper and fire ready, though fearing they would be compelled to seek us in the morning, a care not often applied to me. Stickeen and I were too tired to eat much, and, strange to say, too tired to sleep. Both of us, springing up in the night again and again, fancied we were still on that dreadful ice bridge in the shadow of death. ”

“ But amid the spray and foam and fine-ground mist ever rising from the various falls and cataracts there is an affluence and variety of iris bows scarcely known to visitors who stay only a day or two. Both day and night, winter and summer, this divine light may be seen wherever water is falling dancing, singing; telling the heart-peace of Nature amid the wildest displays of her power. In the bright spring mornings the black-walled recess at the foot of the Lower Yosemite Fall is lavishly fine with irised spray ”

“ The little dog, who always slept with one eye and ear alert for Muir's movements, had, as usual, quietly left his warm nest and followed his adopted master. Muir was scolding and expostulating with him as if he were a boy. I chuckled to myself at the futility of Muir's efforts; Stickeen would now, as always, do just as he pleased—and he would please to go along.
Although I was forced to stay at the camp, this stormy day was a most interesting one to me. There was an old Hoonah chief camped at the mouth of the little river which flowed from under Taylor Glacier. ”

“ When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation. With red-blooded playmates, wild as myself, I loved to wander in the fields to hear the birds sing, and along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells and seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was low ”

“ Muir had a strong aversion to taking the life of any animal; although he would eat meat when prepared, he never killed a wild animal; even the rattlesnakes he did not molest during his rambles in California. Often his softness of heart was a source of some annoyance and a great deal of astonishment to our natives; for he would take pleasure in rocking the canoe when they were [Pg 172] trying to get a bead on a flock of ducks or a deer standing on the shore.
On leaving the mouth of Glacier Bay we spent a week or more exploring the inlets and glaciers to the west. ”

“ Next morning we went by rail to Glasgow and thence joyfully sailed away from beloved Scotland, flying to our fortunes on the wings of the winds, care-free as thistle seeds. We could not then know what we were leaving, what we were to encounter in the New World, nor what our gains were likely to be. We were too young and full of hope for fear or regret, but not too young to look forward with eager enthusiasm to the wonderful schoolless bookless American wilderness. ”

“ Muir would not give up his quest of the mother glacier until the Indians frankly refused to go any further; and old Tow-a-att called our interpreter, Johnny, as for a counsel of state, and carefully set forth to Muir that if he persisted in his purpose of pushing forward up the bay he would have the blood of the whole party on his hands.
Said the old chief: "My life is of no account, and it does not matter whether I live or die ”

“ Abundance of sunlight was there for every crown, and plenty to fall between. I walked enchanted in their midst. What a landscape! Only palms as far as the eye could reach! Smooth pillars rising from the grass, each capped with a sphere of leaves, shining in the sun as bright as a star. The silence and calm were as deep as ever I found in the dark, solemn pine woods of Canada, and that contentment which is an attribute of the best of God’s plant people was as impressively felt in this alligator wilderness as in the homes of the happy, healthy people of the North. ”