John Muir brief biography
John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838. In 1849, the Muir family emigrated to the United States, settling in Wisconsin. As a youth Muir became a keen observer of the natural world and exhibited a unique talent for inventing machines.
In 1860, he entered the University of Wisconsin, but after three years left to travel the northern United States and Canada. In 1867, Muir suffered a blinding eye injury that changed his life. Shortly after regaining his sight, he immersed himself in nature by walking a thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico and sailed on to Cuba. Later he ventured to Panama and sailed up the Pacific Coast, arriving in San Francisco in March 1868.
It was in the Sierra Nevada, especially Yosemite, where he lived in a cabin, that his genius surfaced. An avid reader of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays, he attracted the famous writer to visit him as well as many other luminaries including Theodore Roosevelt. He traveled the world ablaze in a love of nature, writing articles and books on his naturalist philosophy.
In 1890, Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson led efforts to conserve the wilderness of Yosemite, prompting Congress to create Yosemite National Park. Often referred to as the “Father of Our National Park System,” Muir played influential rolls in the establishment of Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon national parks. In 1892, Muir co-founded the Sierra Club. He is revered internationally by environmentalists to this day.
In 1860, he entered the University of Wisconsin, but after three years left to travel the northern United States and Canada. In 1867, Muir suffered a blinding eye injury that changed his life. Shortly after regaining his sight, he immersed himself in nature by walking a thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico and sailed on to Cuba. Later he ventured to Panama and sailed up the Pacific Coast, arriving in San Francisco in March 1868.
It was in the Sierra Nevada, especially Yosemite, where he lived in a cabin, that his genius surfaced. An avid reader of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays, he attracted the famous writer to visit him as well as many other luminaries including Theodore Roosevelt. He traveled the world ablaze in a love of nature, writing articles and books on his naturalist philosophy.
In 1890, Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson led efforts to conserve the wilderness of Yosemite, prompting Congress to create Yosemite National Park. Often referred to as the “Father of Our National Park System,” Muir played influential rolls in the establishment of Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon national parks. In 1892, Muir co-founded the Sierra Club. He is revered internationally by environmentalists to this day.
John Muir was the first person to climb Mt. Ritter. He found himself stuck, unable to go up or down, and resigned himself to his inevitable doom. Suddenly and mysteriously he somehow began scampering up the mountain as if guided by a supernatural force. Art by Steve Simon.
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John Muir climbs a 100 foot Douglas spruce during a windstorm. Art by Steve Simon.
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The following text is the audio narration of the above video:
A Man Equal to the Mountains
Born in Scotland, one day his strict religious father would decide
To move the family to Wisconsin, seeking opportunity stateside
They started a farm and the young boy reveled in nature’s glory
Sewing the seeds of his life’s extraordinary story
With a voracious intellectual appetite to feed
As a youth he would wake in the wee hours to read
Not easily tamed by his father’s strict conventions
Soon young John began creating ingenious inventions
Years later while working as a sawyer for a wage to get by
An accident would leave him temporarily blinded in one eye
It was then he confessed to himself one of his great expressions
“God has to nearly kill use sometimes, to teach us lessons.”
Thence forward the pursuit of his passion he would no longer refuse
The exploration and study of plants would be his dedicated muse
He walked from Indiana to Florida observing each freedom filled day
The beauty of all the beloved plants he discovered along the way
He had wished to continue to the Amazon but the plan would change
Fate would direct him instead to California’s Sierra Mountain Range
There in Yosemite and later Alaska’s unspoiled beauty
A naturalist would hit his stride and make it his duty
To preserve the wonders of nature and all her divine grace
So we all might have sanctuary from life’s frantic pace
Once during a tempestuous storm of frightful gale
Wind shrieked over peaks and howled through wooded dale
So he climbed a hundred foot Douglass spruce just to see
The brilliance of being deeply rooted yet positively free
The mountains, the forest, the light, and all of eternity
And he himself all hitched together in majestic fraternity
But it was upon a mountain he would come face to face
With mortality and the company of supernatural grace
Precariously unable to return down or continue the rise
He resigned himself to his seemingly inevitable demise
When suddenly as if not under his own control or navigation
He scurried up the cliff, atop which he began contemplation
Sometimes things lie beyond our reason or intellectual grip
Perhaps angels keep watch when we might otherwise slip
A natural born engineer and impassioned botanist
Mountaineer, author and revered preservationist
Like his beloved Sierra, he called The Range of Light
A man equal to the mountains and their preeminent might
A Man Equal to the Mountains
Born in Scotland, one day his strict religious father would decide
To move the family to Wisconsin, seeking opportunity stateside
They started a farm and the young boy reveled in nature’s glory
Sewing the seeds of his life’s extraordinary story
With a voracious intellectual appetite to feed
As a youth he would wake in the wee hours to read
Not easily tamed by his father’s strict conventions
Soon young John began creating ingenious inventions
Years later while working as a sawyer for a wage to get by
An accident would leave him temporarily blinded in one eye
It was then he confessed to himself one of his great expressions
“God has to nearly kill use sometimes, to teach us lessons.”
Thence forward the pursuit of his passion he would no longer refuse
The exploration and study of plants would be his dedicated muse
He walked from Indiana to Florida observing each freedom filled day
The beauty of all the beloved plants he discovered along the way
He had wished to continue to the Amazon but the plan would change
Fate would direct him instead to California’s Sierra Mountain Range
There in Yosemite and later Alaska’s unspoiled beauty
A naturalist would hit his stride and make it his duty
To preserve the wonders of nature and all her divine grace
So we all might have sanctuary from life’s frantic pace
Once during a tempestuous storm of frightful gale
Wind shrieked over peaks and howled through wooded dale
So he climbed a hundred foot Douglass spruce just to see
The brilliance of being deeply rooted yet positively free
The mountains, the forest, the light, and all of eternity
And he himself all hitched together in majestic fraternity
But it was upon a mountain he would come face to face
With mortality and the company of supernatural grace
Precariously unable to return down or continue the rise
He resigned himself to his seemingly inevitable demise
When suddenly as if not under his own control or navigation
He scurried up the cliff, atop which he began contemplation
Sometimes things lie beyond our reason or intellectual grip
Perhaps angels keep watch when we might otherwise slip
A natural born engineer and impassioned botanist
Mountaineer, author and revered preservationist
Like his beloved Sierra, he called The Range of Light
A man equal to the mountains and their preeminent might