John Muir: Founder Of The Sierra Club

John Muir was a muckraker who protested against the expansion of people and animals that would ruin our soon to be national parks. Muir was a man that loved to explore natural formations in nature and traveled around the world to see as much natural land as possible. As he traveled around the world, he found out that California was his place to live. In California, his favorite places to explore and watch were the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Yosemite. As more and more settlers moved West, the land that Muir loved was soon to be destroyed by herds of animals and people looking for a place to build their homes. Muir wrote most of his 300 articles and 10 major books in Oakland, California. In Muir’s writings, he elegantly

Muir was captivated by nature at an early age and he traveled to explore the environment. An early memory of a walk was with his grandfather. Muir heard a sound and “dug into the haystack until he uncovered a mother field mouse with half-dozen tiny babies clinging to her teats. In that moment the wondrous world of nature began to open for Johnnie Muir.” Ever since that walk with his grandfather, John Muir was

In the novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless and Jack London both appreciated the beauty of nature. London said in a biography once, “ ‘When I first came here, tired of cities and people, I settled down on a little farm…130 acres of the most beautiful, primitive land to be found in California.’ ” Just like London, Chris had a great appreciation for the beauty of nature, and wanted to experience it himself. In Chris’s letter to Wayne he said, “If this adventure proves fatal, and you don’t ever hear from me again, I want you to know that you’re a great man. I know walk into the wild.” London and Chris both left their normal lives and escaped reality to go live among the wild. They both had a great appreciation for nature and wanted to experience it themselves. Chris decides to go into the wild to escape reality. In the authors note in Into the Wild Jon tells Chris’s reason for leaving, “And then he invented a new life for himself, taking up residence at the ragged margin of our society,

President Theordore Roosevelt and John Muir went on a camping trip to Yosemite Valley in 1903.Both, Theordore Roosevelt and John Muir went together they both had the same goal to preserve nature.They also went together because, John Muir was the only person that President Roosevelt would go with.

Have you ever been to a national park? Many of those parks took a lengthy time to be preserved under government control and people had to fight to preserve them. Take Yosemite National Park for instance, John Muir had devoted 30 years of his life to that park. John worked fairly close with President Roosevelt on his life's work. Muir and Roosevelt had a shared objective to preserve Yosemite because they both admire nature, they both continuously fought for Yosemite’s preservation and they both spent an enduring amount of time on it.

The short story, “The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West,” by John Muir paints a picture of the necessity of human interaction with the wilderness. In his story Muir pleads with his audience to gain more appreciation of nature and to understand their impact on it by using religion, pathos, and imagery.

Muir was fascinated by California’s Sierra Nevada and the Yosemite. He was hired as a shepherd's assistant in Yosemite Valley. John Muir wrote a series of articles called the “Studies in the Sierra” and this launched his successful career as

John Muir deeply lives in the solitude of now, and integrates a sense of belonging within Yosemite when he writes, “We are now in the mountains and they are in us” (Muir, p. 72). Muir’s detailed, joyous descriptions of the Yosemite, in the mountains, valleys, forests, Yosemite Creek with falling waters, mountain creatures and plants, erupted in his writing as the very breath of his life, that soaked the exquisite sightings into his skin and rooted themselves into his bones. Muir delineated the vast beauty of the landscape and the simple face of a daisy declaring a himself a servant in a “holy wilderness," a wilderness that mirrored the reflection of the Creator.

In a time when the United States was consumed by industrialization, John Muir dedicated his time to the opposite spectrum. John worked vigorously to prove to the government that the nature of the west coast needed to be saved, not destroyed. He did so by taking some of the most important people on simple camping trips to prove that conservation was needed in the United States. He even founded a club, that served to protect nature for years to come. Because of his passion for nature, John Muir was a monumental influence on preserving the United States’ natural beauty by dedicating his life to creating the foundation of the National Parks System.

John Muir is one of California’s most important historical personalities. Born in Scotland, he has been called “The Father of our National Parks,” “Wilderness Profit,” and “Citizen of the Universe.” As a wilderness explorer, his exciting adventures in the Sierra Nevada and Alaska’s glaciers led him searching for nature’s beauty. Gifford Pinchot was born to a wealthy family on

John Muir was a native of Scotland; however, he was an American naturalist at heart. As an author, explorer, and naturalist, Muir was an important character in the United States forest conservation movement in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Through his endeavors, many national parks were established and preserved for generations to come.

“I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields”, Thoreau told us, “It matters not where or how far you travel…but how much alive you are.” Indeed, traveling is a matter of perspective, not location. With curiosity, an open mind, a broad horizon, and awe in nature, it’s possible to travel in your own backyard.

These trips were more than just a way to pass the summers. They made me realize that what I valued was nature, in all its glory. However they also showed me that it was slowly being destroyed.

One can visit a restaurant in the United States and be hard pressed find a menu that does not carry nachos, tacos, or quesadillas. Due to the United States being culturally diverse, Mexican cuisine has assimilated into the country’s daily eating habits (Casa Blanca Mexican Restaurant, 2014). For example, Casa Blanca Mexican Restaurant (2014) detailed that salsa has surpassed ketchup and mayo as America’s number one, and since 2010, tortillas have been outselling hot dog buns. Casa Blanca Mexican Restaurant (2014) surmised that the popularity of Mexican food in America is primarily due to the influx of Mexican immigrants. As a source of cultural pride, Mexican-Americans have continued to serve their cultural dishes at their traditional Mexican restaurants, and Americans have steady patronize their establishments. Due to our proximity to Mexico, Americans have openly embraced Mexican cuisine (Casa Blanca Mexican Restaurant, 2014).

Americans began to worry about their connection with nature when cities gained popularity and frontier closed. In the late 1800’s, Americans began to take notice the land they relied on for resources was beginning to show signs of overuse (Roosevelt, Theodore). The two most prominent activists for the conservation and preservation of American soil were Gifford Pinchot and John Muir. These two men both fought for regulation on how the land was used, but disputed over what this use looked like. Pinchot believed in conservation which meant using the natural resources to serve the needs of Americans for the longest time (Warren, 201). On the other side of the movement, Muir believed that man should leave nature untouched and left in its purist form.(Muir 40) Conservation and preservation impacted not only the land but, also on the people who lived on the land. The conservation and preservation movement benefited whites of upper and middle class who were able to earn a profit, explore, and utilize the nature that was being conserved/preserved. Consequently, the conservation and preservation movements created greater hardship for those who relied on nature's resources to survive, including, but not limited to the working class of Ely, Minnesota and the Indians in Yosemite National Park.