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The coast at Dunbar where John Muir first explored the outdoors |
With the official opening of the John Muir Way last weekend as part of the John Muir Festival and much attention being paid to John Muir in the media (even an editorial in The Guardian) here's my contribution - a piece I wrote for The Great Outdoors earlier this year. The John Muir Way was opened by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. Hopefully he will heed the words of Muir and protect Scotland's remaining wild land. Otherwise this gesture is meaningless.
This year is the centenary of the death of John Muir,
arguably the most influential defender of wild places ever and whose legacy is
still relevant and important today. Born in Dunbar in Scotland, Muir emigrated to the USA
when he was eleven and lived there the rest of his life. He's still not that
well-known in Britain,
unlike the USA,
where he is regarded as the 'father of National Parks'. In Martinez
in California
where he settled there are John Muir roads and businesses and the house where
he lived is now the John Muir National Historic Site. The Sierra Club, which
Muir founded in 1892, is one of the USA's leading conservation
organisations and does much to keep Muir's memory alive. Scotland is slowly catching up with John Muir's Birthplace, a statue of the young Muir and the John
Muir Country
Park in Dunbar plus now the John Muir Way. And of course there is
the John Muir Trust, founded in 1983 to campaign for wild land.

Muir is to be admired not just as a conservationist, not
just for his love of nature, key though these are to his greatness, but also
for his outdoor adventures and experiences. Long before any of the equipment we
take for granted, or the guidebooks, maps and paths, Muir would head off into
the wilderness on long solo treks and climbs. From a boy scrambling on the
cliffs and castle walls of Dunbar to the adult mountaineer making a daring
first ascent of Mount
Ritter deep in the High
Sierra (a climb described superbly in The
Mountains of California) Muir revelled in exploring wild places. He didn't
just look at them or study them he went into them - climbing trees in a storm,
edging out on narrow ledges to look down a waterfall, climbing rock faces,
crossing glaciers, sleeping out wrapped in a coat (his minimal equipment makes
today's ultralight backpackers look burdened down). He walked long distances as
well - A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf
describes his journey from Indianpolis to the Gulf of
Mexico in 1867. And when he arrived in California
a year later he walked from San Francisco to Yosemite Valley. There followed many trips into the then
still little-known Sierra Nevada mountains and in later years further afield,
especially Alaska (as told in Travels in
Alaska).

Much will be written and said about John Muir this year.
What should be remembered is that his vision of the necessity of wildness and
nature is as valid now as it was 100 years ago.
Great, insightful article. really enjoyed reading it.
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