In Defense of Nature

"The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best He ever planted." 

- John Muir 1838-1914

Some could say that the saga of John Muir begins with a woman named Jeanne Carr. In 1860, they met for the first time at a state fair in Madison, Wisconsin. Jeanne she was a judge in the invention exhibition and a young Muir was displaying the inventions he had created on his father’s farm. Carr was impressed by Muir’s inventions (such as field thermometers and automated logging machines) and saw vast potential in him. Her husband, Ezra Carr, was a professor of chemistry and natural history at the University of Wisconsin, where John would soon enroll in 1861. Although Muir never gathered a degree from University of Wisconsin, he learned much about botany and biology while there and developed a lasting friendship with Ezra. Jeanne would eventually introduce John to some of the most important people of his life, including his wife, Louie Strentzel and the writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

John Muir was born on April 21^st, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland and was brought up rigidly by his Presbyterian minister father. His family moved to America in 1849, where they then built a farm in Wisconsin. Muir practically had the entire Bible memorized by age 11 under the strict instruction of his father. He would meet the Carr’s at age of 22 at that Wisconsin state fair, changing his life forever. By 1867 Muir had decided to leave a promising career with a broom manufacturing company in Canada to begin his journey to Florida by foot, sketching plant life all along the way. His ultimate goal was South America, which he did eventually reach, but during his travels he also contracts malaria. Muir stays in Havana, Cuba for some time, but after it was clear that his health was not improving he boards a ship back to New York. From New York he then begins the long trek West to California.

Muir would leave a lasting impact on many aspects of American culture and our views on nature. Elements of his defiance against corporate America and for the causes he believed in will forever be present in conservationist groups today and into the future. He is widely considered to be the father of United States conservation  movements and National Park program, that is incredible! If not for Muir's ardent and unwavering loyalty to protecting nature, our American landscape could have looked much different from today. But let's get back to his walk to California...  

“I have often wondered in my heart what God was training you for. He gave you the eye within the eye, to see in all natural objects the realized ideas of His mind.” 

- Jeanne Carr in a letter to John Muir, 1867

Only bringing the barest of essentials, Muir typically packed only bread, tea and a few of his favorite books for the long trips. In awe of the trees, lakes and mountains in Yosemite, California, Muir would find what he called “the Range of Light” and his home for a time. He found work as a logger and shepherd while documenting the vast paradise around him. Muir wrote a few journals at the time calling attention to nature’s beauty and beginning his movements for conservation. In 1876, John had become displeased with the ways Yosemite was being overgrazed and heavily logged and began his campaign to protect it. As he puts it in an issue of Sacramento Daily Record-Union, “waste and pure destruction are already taking place at a terrible rate.” It would be almost 15 years later before enough attention was on Yosemite for it to receive National Park status, but we’ll get to that later.

In 1880, after much coaxing, Jeanne Carr introduces John to his future wife, Louie Strentzel. Muir stays close to his new home in Martinez, California and cultivates his new wife’s family farm into a successful orchard over the next decade. It was during this time that Muir remains mostly a family man, not doing much traveling and practically no writing to speak of.

1889, Robert Underwood Johnson, the owner of an East Coast publication called The Century, is in need of someone capable to get the small conservation movement off the ground for Yosemite. What these 2 men eventually accomplish together would permanently be a strong basis for all conservation groups the world over.  “Unless reserved or protected the whole region will soon or late be devastated by lumbermen and sheepmen, and so of course be made unfit for use as a pleasure ground.” Muir writes in an essay titled “Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park”. In his essay he guides readers through an epic tour of Yosemite, maps out vital areas for protection and remarks on the California governor’s, William Vandever, intent to protect the land through a bill. Wasn’t long before President Benjamin Harrison would sign a law cementing Yosemite’s status as a national park.

“… Lordly monarchs proclaiming the gospel of beauty like apostles.” 

- John Muir’s description of the America's ancient trees

A great ally of Muir’s would soon come to power in America, Theodore Roosevelt. A bear of a man with a penchant and love for the outdoors, Roosevelt suggests that he and Muir explore Yosemite together. The 2 set out together in 1903 and Teddy comes away with a huge appreciation for Yosemite, placing even more area around Yosemite under government control. Although Roosevelt makes great strides for protection and creation of National Parks, he was somewhat undermined by the political machinations of a man named Gifford Pinchot. Muir had worked with Pinchot before as advisors to the Sierra Club, which was commissioned to evaluate the health and status of western forests in 1896.

The clashes between Muir and men like Pinchot (who was considered a conservationist at the time, but who also wanted to make changes needed for corporate and population growth) echo throughout the ages. There are invariably those who staunchly want to protect what's been placed on the earth, undisturbed for millenium, and those who will want to either profit and/or expand to serve the inclinations of man. Climate change is a prime example of an environmental issue that is heavily debated. The scientific community is generally in agreement that the earth is warming, but the money and time required to address the problem is, and will perpetually, be tied in to politics and politician agendas. Therefore what's best for nature and it's defenders will not always line up with what people and powerful corporations want and need.  

 

The next cause that Muir decides to take up would unfortunately, end in defeat. Since 1882, San Francisco’s mayors had been hoping to make the Hetch Hetchy Valley a reservoir for the city. They were turned down for many years due to the fact their proposed reservoir was on nationally protected land. James Garfield, Roosevelt’s new Secretary of the Interior, is eventually coaxed by Pinchot to take another look at the proposed reservoir. This launches Muir into an all-out campaign for the protection of Hetch Hetchy Valley. Following a long, harsh battle between the 2 camps, Woodrow Wilson eventually signs the bill into law allowing for the construction of the Hetch Hetchy dam. Putting all he had into protecting the land there, William Kent, from the House of Representatives remarked about John “With him it is me and God and the rock where God put it, and that is the end of the story.” Muir would pass away about a year after losing his campaign, in 1914 at the age of 76.

It's impossible to say how the United States might have looked without Muir's influence. In particular, the Sierra Club, was formed by Muir and remains the longest tenured and largest environmental organization in the US. Even now, leaders of the Sierra Club are zealously battling for their causes. Just last year the president of the club, Michael Brune, was arrested while protesting the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline System.

*websites referenced for this article:

1. http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/muir/
2. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/read-a-biographical-essay-john-muir-natures-witness/1806/