During his numerous travels across the North America John Muir left behind a several travel books and travel reports. In September 1867, Muir undertook a walk of about 1,000 miles from Indiana to Florida, which he recounted in his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. He had no specific route chosen, except to go by the "wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find. Upon coming to California Muir immediately left for a visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. His hiking...
The Mountains of California is John Muir's tribute to the beauties of the Sierra, in the book form. When he came to California and finally settled in San Francisco, John Muir immediately left for a visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. Seeing it for the first time, Muir noted that «He was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower.» He...
‘When I was a child 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.’ John Muir was eleven when he and his family left Scotland in 1849 to build a new life on a homestead in the vast wilderness of Wisconsin. Written in simple yet beautiful prose, we see Muir’s delight as he discovers and observes the landscape and wildlife around him as he recalls his childhood and reveals himself as a master of...
The name of John Muir has come to stand for the protection of wild land and wilderness in both America and Britain. Born in Dunbar in the east of Scotland in 1838, Muir is famed as the father of American conservation, and as the first person to promote the idea of National Parks. Combining acute observation with a sense of inner discovery, Muir's writings of his travels through some of the greatest landscapes on Earth, including the Carolinas, Florida, Alaska and those lands which were to...
When the well-known naturalist and environmentalist, John Muir finally settled in San Francisco, he immediately left for a week-long visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. He was overwhelmed with what he saw and he led a successful movement to establish this large national park encompassing not just the valley, but surrounding mountains and forests as well—paving the way for the United States national park system. It was because of Muir that many National Parks were left untouched,...
