John Muir – farmer, inventor, sheepherder, naturalist, explorer, writer, and conservationist – was born on April 21, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland. Until the age of eleven he attended the local schools of that small coastal town. In 1849, the Muir family emigrated to the United States, settling first at Fountain Lake and then moving to Hickory Hill Farm near Portage, Wisconsin.

It was California’s Sierra Nevada and Yosemite that truly claimed him. In 1868, he walked across the San Joaquin Valley through waist-high wildflowers and into the high country for the first time. Later he would write: “Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called no the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light…the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen.” He herded sheep through that first summer and made his home in Yosemite.

By 1871 he had found living glaciers in the Sierra and had conceived his then-controversial theory of the glaciation of Yosemite Valley. He began to be known throughout the country. Famous men of the time – Joseph LeConte, Asa Gray and Ralph Waldo Emerson – made their way to the door of his pine cabin.

As he grew older, Muir became increasingly excited about what plants and nature could teach him. At university, Muir focused his studies on chemistry, geology and botany. Restless to explore more of the country, he left school for what he would call “the University of the Wilderness”. He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains.

During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man’s relationship to nature. He concluded that all life forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. Humans, Muir decided, are no greater or lesser than other forms of life. He also realized how fragile nature was; how people’s impact on the land, through grazing, lumbering and commercial developments, was slowly destroying all the beauty in the wilderness. He wrote many magazine articles and books, inspiring other people to love nature and drawing attention to the need to protect the environment.

Beginning in 1874, a series of articles by Muir entitled “Studies in the Sierra” launched his successful career as a writer. He left the mountains and lived for awhile in Oakland, California. From there he took many trips, including his first to Alaska in 1879, leading to his famous explorations of Glacier Bay. In 1880, he married Louie Wanda Strentzel and moved to Martinez, California , where they raised their two daughters, Wanda and Helen. Settling down to some measure of domestic life, Muir went into partnership with his father-in-law and managed the family fruit ranch with great success.

Through a series of articles appearing in Century magazine, Muir drew attention to the devastation of mountain meadows and forests by sheep and cattle. With the help of Century‘s associate editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir worked to remedy this destruction. In 1890, due in large part to the efforts of Muir and Johnson, an act of Congress created Yosemite National Park. Muir was also personally involved in the creation of Sequoia , Mount Rainier , Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon national parks. Muir deservedly is often called the “Father of Our National Park System “..

In 1901, Muir published Our National Parks , the book that brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite. There, together, beneath the trees, they laid the foundation of Roosevelt’s innovative and notable conservation programs.

John Muir was perhaps this country’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His words have heightened our perception of nature. His personal and determined involvement in the great conservation questions of the day was and remains an inspiration for environmental activists everywhere. Source: Sierra Club; Natl Park Service