“The tendency nowadays to wander in wildernesses is
delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are
beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness
is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as
fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
– John Muir
This week, April 18-26, marks
National
Park Week. And April 21 will mark the anniversary of the birth of John
Muir, our country’s secular saint of the wilderness and founding father of our
public
lands.
Born in Scotland, Muir moved to Wisconsin with his family
when he was eleven. A youth full of curiosity and invention led him to study at
the University of Wisconsin, where he stayed for 3 years before moving on,
traveling and finding work here and there around Canada and the northern US.
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John Muir
(Library of Congress) | |
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After a frightful injury that left him temporarily blinded
for several weeks when he was nearing thirty, Muir began traveling again upon
regaining his sight. He headed south through Florida, Cuba, across Panama and
then back north to California and the west coast, where he found his calling
and eventually his home.
Muir’s travels and lifestyle allowed him to immerse himself
in nature, spiritually in tune with the wilderness in a way most of us can never
experience. He did, however, write copiously about these places, animals, and
plants that he loved in stirring prose that inspired not only his contemporary
readers but also kindred spirits over a century later. His work gives us
insight not only into the closing frontier wilderness, with its spectacular
landscapes and dramatic natural history, but also into his philosophy of nature
as something transcendent, worthy of respect and devotion for its own sake, not
simply for the bounty that the country’s individuals and industry could reap
from it.
In his life he had seen the damage caused to pristine
landscapes by commerce and industry for the sole benefit of humans—grazing sheep,
timber harvests, damming rivers—and rejected the idea that these wild places
could be exploited without ruining their special character. His writings helped
inspire Congress to declare several of our most dramatic natural treasures National
Parks in the late 19th century, including Sequoia and Muir’s beloved Yosemite, both established in 1890.
Muir was also the founding president of the Sierra Club, created
in 1892 to protect and support the Sierra Nevada and establish other national
parks. The Sierra Club, in turn, helped promote the creation of the National
Park Service in 1916, which now oversees the 62 existing national parks as well
as hundreds of related historic sites, preserves, monuments, and recreation
areas.
We owe a debt to this remarkable man, who lived a remarkable
life, and helped show the United States the importance of our natural heritage.
He fought the pressures of industry, with its unrelenting quest to extract
profit from our land, and helped show a young country the necessity of
preserving itself, for itself and for future generations.
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| Acadia National Park in Maine |
Although we can’t go visit our favorite parks at the moment,
the amazing NPS has made many of them available virtually. Visit your favorite
virtual
National Park and take a moment to appreciate the legacy preserved for us
through the actions of John Muir and the many dedicated people who worked
alongside him and after him to understood what truly makes America great.
Correction: Yosemite, not Yellowstone as originally posted, is Muir's beloved National Park established in 1890.
