Biography of John Muir

Oh a sun-dappled day in Northern California - laughing girls a doting father this home is the picture of Victorian convention but life here was never routine instead this loving family lived in the eye of a raging social storm stirring the waters was John Muir the battle for conservation will go on endlessly it is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong from this home John Muir changed the way a country viewed its wilderness not a resource to be harvested he argued but a treasure to be preserved his campaign for preservation bridged a lifetime carrying John Muir across America on a glorious journey [Music] in 1893 the World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago radiant with electric lights it glows with the triumphs of the Industrial Revolution but half a continent away at his home outside San Francisco John Muir calls for a counter-revolution Muir is a man at once revered and despised to those who want to protect America's wilderness he's a visionary to those who want to exploit it he's a threat Muir makes his home amid such contradictions from 1890 until his death in 1914 the future father of the environmental movement lives not in the woods but in a 10,000 square-foot Italianate mansion surrounded not by sequoias but by groves of fruit trees [Music] now nearing the end of his life Muir reflects in the room of the house that's his bridge from the civilized world to the wild one newer calls it his scribble den here in the early 1900's the man known as America's great defender of wild places were members and writes about the extraordinary journey of his life the Odyssey begins half a century earlier and half a continent away as the first 49ers set foot in California John Muir's family sets foot in the new state of Wisconsin the 11-year olds family has just emigrated from Dunbar Scotland much of the back-breaking labour of homesteading Falls unto his young shoulders shoulders that also bear his father's discipline what John calls the old Scotch fashioned of whipping but instead of the iron fist it is the soft caress of nature that shapes John Muir's soul here without knowing it we were still at school every wild lesson a love lesson not whipped but charmed into us all that glorious Wisconsin wilderness there is another force fueling John Muir's inner fire forbidden by his Stern father to study by day he rises in the middle of the night to read the lessons he learns here will stay with him his entire life they form John Muir's inner map and will guide him through a lifetime of unexpected twists and turns [Music] 1867 Muir's journey takes him along an unlikely path the man who would one day rebel against the Industrial Revolution becomes a cog in its massive wheel Muir now 29 years old has a mind for machines Muir's inventions have some calling him a genius he begins putting his ideas to work at a carriage parts factory in Indiana but in just the blink of an eye Muir's life would profoundly change a metal file pierces his right cornea he despairs to his mother the eye is lost on doctor's orders Muir sits in a darkened room for four weeks his mind wandering to places he dreams of seeing like the mythic Yosemite Valley which he's read has Cascades that batter the earth and trees that stretch to the sky the I'm your thought was lost has in fact slowly healed this affliction has driven me to the sweet fields God has to merely kill us sometimes to teach us lessons [Music] the would-be Edison turns instead to reinventing himself he chooses in his own words to be a for months he drifts across America a trek he will one day memorialize in the book a thousand mile walk to the Gulf seeking the road less traveled Muir begins a life of wandering that will never really end and will eventually lead him to California San Francisco 1868 this is the California that John Muir first sets eyes on I stopped one day in San Francisco and then inquired about the nearest way out of town but where do you want to go asked the man to whom I had applied for this important information to any place that is wild I said the mountains are calling he would later write and in 1868 the Restless Muir eagerly answers the call the Sierra Nevada [Music] they glisten like a towering city of gold again John Muir is nearly blinded this time by nature's glory then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called not the Nevada or snow range but the range of light [Music] but even this radiant view could not prepare Muir for what he was about to experience in the heart of the Sierra the place that in many ways John Muir would come to define would have an even greater effect on him in the brilliance of the Yosemite Valley John Muir is reborn after years of wandering he puts down roots living in this valley for four years [Music] his new life plays out against the backdrop of Half Dome and El Capitan [Music] Muir fills endless journals with calculations measurements and awful descriptions of Yosemite no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite every rock in its walls seems to goal with life giving welcome to storms and karma like seemingly aware yet heedless of everything going on around them his powers of observation and inventive mind crystallize in Yosemite in a way that would ultimately define him in 1871 Muir pens the first of many published works on Yosemite a story for the New York Tribune describing the valleys natural wonders it is a time when great thinkers are celebrities and like Emerson and Thoreau John Muir's eloquence captures imaginations and readers then just as his fame is growing Muir's journey through life once again takes a surprising turn the 1880s dawn to find John Muir not studying sequoias but tending fruit trees cultivating a new life in the alhambra valley near a small town called martinez reinventing himself again this time as a rancher husband and father after more than 15 years in the wilderness the solitude had become too much even for John Muir his loneliness has led him here to the ranch of dr. John strengthen a well-known horticulturalist he falls in love with strenght CIL's daughter Luisa a classically trained pianist they marry in 1880 Louie as Muir fondly called her would spend the rest of her life being a devoted wife and companion understanding the complex Muir in a way that perhaps no one else ever would John and Louie live a mile from the stressful home built in 1882 the Stren CIL's Victorian mansion features luxuries that seem to contradict everything Muir stands for one day though Muir will inherit this mansion and make it his own for now he is content to leave a smaller mark planting a tiny sequoia seedling gathered from the Sierra newer works dogged ly in this transyl's orchard but ten years I was engaged in fruit raising giving land planting vineyards and orchards selling the fruit until I had more money than I thought I would ever need while the orchards thrive so too does his family the Muir's have two daughters Wanda and Helen and a devoted dog Stikine strolling with them through the Alhambra Valley is John Muir's special joy [Music] but amid the elderberry and oak John Muir again feels torn between two worlds though he loves his family he dearly misses the wilderness he is growing frail and irritable what Louie calls low altitude sickness Louie decides to take on management of the ranch she encourages her husband to return to his true calling and to write about it in 1889 Muir once again returns to the Yosemite Valley years earlier this view left him awestruck [Music] now the same view leaves him devastated Yosemite and much of the Sierra are under siege ancient sequoias are harvested for lumber a businessman even has plans to adjust the flow of Nevada Falls Muir returns to Martinez and penned his outrage tinkering with the Yosemite waterworks would seem about the last branch of industry that even the Yankee ingenuity would be likely to undertake perhaps we may yet hear of an appropriation to whitewash the face of El Capitan or correct the curves of the donors [Music] appearing in century magazine a national publication his words strike a passionate chord with many Americans in 1890 with the death of dr. stressful the Muir's move into the big house on the hill the family's new home becomes the unlikely center of an emerging environmental movement a movement whose primary voice is that of John Muir their leave fool can destroy trees they can't run away his writings are eloquent but Muir struggles with every word one eternal grind he calls it but that grind reaps astonishing rewards from the scribbled em come words that begin to change the way Americans look at the wilderness God has cared for these trees saved them from drought disease avalanches and a thousand straining leveling tempest sand flats but he cannot see them from fools or nay Uncle Sam can do that Muir triumphs in 1890 Congress sets aside more than 1,200 square miles of wilderness as Yosemite National Park but the precious Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Sequoia Grove remain under California jurisdiction through Muir's advocacy the valley and the Grove are added to the park in 1906 during the 1890s while living at his Martinez home Muir is at the zenith of his influence he is named the first president of the newly formed Sierra Club politicians seek his counsel and in 1903 the President of the United States Teddy Roosevelt asks Muir personally to guide him through um for four days these kindred spirits walked the woods together neither suspecting they will soon be on a collision course over the future of this mountain wilderness within Yosemite National Park glaciers sculpted a canyon so marvelous that Muir calls it one of nature's rarest and most precious Mountain temples the Hetch Hetchy Valley [Music] Hetch Hetchy represents the nation traveling two paths into the 20th century one pursued by john muir and other like minds leads to preservation the other sees the resources of the wilderness as critical to a growing nation they converge at Hetch Hetchy with dire consequences in 1901 San Francisco politicians proposed damming this valley for drinking water the Hetch Hetchy is a battle that in many ways muir will fight alone enemies in timber conspire against him friends shrink from the political controversy even Teddy Roosevelt turns his back [Music] at home in Martinez his loneliness is compounded grown children have left the halls violent and in 1905 his wife Louie passes away [Music] by 1913 the fate of Hetch Hetchy is sealed Muir's precious mountain temple would be drowned under millions of gallons of water the decision to dam Hetch Hetchy slows john muir spirit and his gait in the dusky glow of the orchards the Sun is setting on a remarkable lifelong journey a know that the faint has finished and my education as a politician and lobbyist is finished almost finished myself on Christmas Eve 1914 at the age of 76 John Muir takes his last breath and quietly slips away on a new journey [Music] but John Muir's vision did not die [Music] the crowning achievement of his life happened two years after his death the damming of Hetch Hetchy mobilised many Americans to better protect our national parks in 1916 Congress created the National Park Service to preserve America's treasures for future generations a mission so profoundly influenced by John Muir that he is called the father of the National Park Service building on John Muir's vision the Park Service has grown to protect more than 83 million acres these are all John Muir's legacy [Music] the John Muir National Historic Site stands as a reminder that a single voice can make a difference that an idea like the sequoia seedling Muir planted over 100 years ago can grow tall with faith and time here at journey's end John Muir changed the world with his words I only went out for a walk that finally concluded to stay out till Sunday for going out I found was really going in [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Length: 22min 21sec (1341 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2017