John Muir

"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," John Muir wrote in The Story of my Boyhood and Youth in 1913. Today John Muir is recognized as one of America's greatest environmentalists and conservationists. He pushed the American public to recognize the importance of setting special places aside, that would one day become National Parks, for their conservation.

In 1868 John Muir moved to California and visited the Yosemite Valley for the first time. He was inspired by the sights there and knew that it needed more protection than what Abraham Lincoln had signed, the Yosemite Grant Act, four years before. In 1890 Muir successfully petitioned Congress to establish the highlands of Yosemite as a national park. Later, in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt toured the park with Muir and was convinced that the valley and Mariposa Grove, an old sequoia forrest, needed to be protected as well. Yosemite was not the only place that Muir found extraordinary. His writings led to the creation of Sequoia and Grand Canyon national parks.

John Muir's legacy is remarkable. In 1892 Muir created the Sierra Club, dedicated to protecting America's wilderness and making the Earth a better place to live. He published books, including his experience as a young boy growing up in Scotland and his travel journals, and numerous articles and essays on topics such as Save the Redwoods, God's First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?, and Wild Wool. The amount of places named after John Muir is astounding. You can see the whole list at the Sierra Club's website, but it includes Muir Glacier of Alaska, Muir Woods of California, and the John Muir Trail- a 212 mile long trail starting in Yosemite and ending at the summit of Mount Whitney.

The John Muir National Historic Site is located in Martinez, California, and is the site of the Vincent Martinez abode. The site is nine acres of orchards and parks and includes Mt. Wanda, which is available for hiking. The trees in the orchards are almost constantly in bloom and the park allows visitors to pick the fruits but encourages people to pick off the ground first. The site offers a good start to learning about the "Father of the National Park Service."You can check out John Muir National Historic Site at the National Park Service website here.

Want to learn more about John Muir?

• Some of his writings are in the public domain and can be found online for free. Here's a link to his books from the Sierra Club website. If you would prefer, Google Books also has scans like My First Summer in the Sierra. 
• The National Park Service website also has a ton of information about Muir, including the people who influenced him.
• Gretel Ehrlich's John Muir: Nature's Visionary, from National Geographic, gives an excellent insight into Muir's life coupled with beautiful photographs.
• Check out The Muir Project's website to learn about the team that documented hiking the Muir Trail (the film, Mile... Mile & a Half, is available on Netflix).