John
Muir's family immigrated to America in 1849 and settled in Wisconsin. John was
happy and inventive on the family farm, but in 1867, an accident with machinery
changed his life. He was temporarily blinded. When his sight gradually returned,
he decided he could never again take the sights around him for granted. And so
he walked a thousand miles from Louisville, Kentucky to Savannah, Georgia, then
on to Florida taking in the beauties of the natural world. From the eastern states,
he traveled to California where he first set eyes upon Yosemite. It was there
he stayed, first working as a shepherd, then as a wilderness guide (for the likes
of Ralph Waldo Emerson), and finally, as an author of many widely read books and
magazine articles about the wonders of the Sierra Nevada. In 1892, Muir founded
the Sierra Club to preserve the beauty of the area he came to love so well. The
club grew slowly by offering high wilderness trips to the public, but in 1901
came into its own as an activist group by opposing the construction of a dam in
a nearby valley. As Theodore Roosevelt said, "Our generation owes much to John
Muir."
Bio
© Larry Auld
