John Muir (1838-1914)

A "poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc. !!!!"

1838John Muir born April 21, Dunbar, Scotland

1849Family emigrates to Wisconsin farm

1860Leaves home; inventions win state fair prize; meets mentor Jeanne Carr

1860Enters University of Wisconsin; Civil War begins

1862Postpones studies to teach school; Thoreau, author of Walden, dies

1864Moves to Canada; botanizes; works in sawmill. Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh published

1866Civil War ends; moves to Indiana; works in carriage factory

1867Factory accident damages eye; takes 1,000-mile walk, Kentucky to Gulf of Mexico; writes first journal en

route. His journal of the trip was published after his death

1868Moves to California; first sight of Yosemite

1871Finds glacier in Yosemite; meets Ralph Waldo Emerson there

Timeline

1872Begins writing for Overland Monthly magazine; Yellowstone National Park established

1874-76Begins study of trees; advocates federal control of forests

1879Travels to Alaska

1880Second Alaska trip

1881Alaska travels on the ship Corwin

1888Health poor; climbs Mount Rainier; wife urges taking up conservation writing again

1889Campaigns for a Yosemite National Park

1890Writes Century magazine articles; Yosemite National Park established (without Yosemite Valley);

explores what is now Muir Glacier in Glacier Bay, Alaska; U.S. census notes end of frontier

1892Helps found Sierra Club; elected as its first president; forest reserves established in three western states

1893-94Visits Europe; first book published, The Mountains of California

1896Serves on Forestry Commission; honorary degree from Harvard

1898Honorary degree from University of Wisconsin

1899With scientific Harriman Expedition in Alaska

1901Our National Parks published

1903-04Camps in Yosemite with President Theodore Roosevelt; makes world tour; the first federal wildlife reserve

established

1905California cedes Yosemite Valley back to the federal government

1906Explores Arizona and Petrified Forest

1908Muir Woods National Monument established; begins fight against damming Yosemite National Park’s

Hetch Hetchy Valley

1909Stickeen published

1911My First Summer in the Sierra published; travels to South American and Africa; honorary degree from

Yale

1912The Yosemite published

1913The Story of My Boyhood and Youth published; Hetch Hetchy battle lost; honorary degree from University

of California

1914Dies December 24, age 76

2000Creation of Sequoia National Monument continues Muir’s conservation agenda

The Wilderness Explorer

As a wilderness explorer, he is renowned for his exciting adventures in California's Sierra Nevada, among Alaska's glaciers,

and world wide travels in search of nature's beauty.

The Writer

As a writer, he taught the people of his time and ours the importance of

experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His writings

contributed greatly to the creation of Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon

National Parks.

Muir helped inspire President Theodore Roosevelt's

innovative conservation programs, including

establishing the first National Monuments by Presidential Proclamation, and Yosemite

National Park by congressional action.

"do something for wildness and make the mountains glad."

In 1892, John Muir and other supporters formed the Sierra Club "to make the mountains glad."

John Muir was the Club's first president, an office he held until his death in 1914. Muir's Sierra Club has gone on to help establish a series of new National Parks and a National

Wilderness Preservation System.

John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and influential naturalist

and conservationist. He taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and

protecting our natural heritage. His words have heightened our

perception of nature. His personal and determined involvement in the great conservation questions of the day was and remains an inspiration

for environmental activists everywhere.

Muir's last battle to save the second Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy Valley, failed. But that lost battle ultimately resulted in a widespread conviction that our national

parks should be held inviolate. Many proposals to dam our national parks since that time have been stopped

because of the efforts of citizens inspired by John Muir, and today there are legitimate proposals to

restore Hetch Hetchy. John Muir remains today an inspiration for environmental activists everywhere.

LINKS:

http://yosemite.org/vryos/

http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/conditions.htm