Summary (Amazon):
As a conservationist, John Muir traveled through most of the American wilderness alone and on foot, without a gun or a sleeping bag. In 1903, while on a three-day camping trip with President Theodore Roosevelt, he convinced the president of the importance of a national conservation program, and he is widely recognized for saving the Grand Canyon and Arizona's Petrified Forest. Muir's writing, based on journals he kept throughout his life, gives our generation a picture of an America still wild and unsettled only one hundred years ago. In The Wildernesss World of John Muir edited by Edwin Way Teale has selected the best of Muir's writing from all of his major works; including My First Summer in the Sierra and Travels in Alaska to provide a singular collection that provides to be "magnificent, thrilling, exciting, breathtaking, and awe-inspiring" (Kirkus Reviews).
Reviews:
Sierra Club:
https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/bibliographic_resources/book_reviews/wilderness_world_rv_wood.aspx
Articles:
Smithsonian: Yosemite: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-muirs-yosemite-10737/
The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1897/08/the-american-forests/305017/
Dunbar, Scotland (his birthplace): https://www.jmbt.org.uk/
Biography and Exhibit by Sierra Club:
https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx
Videos:
PBS: National Parks: John Muir:
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/muir/
PBS: John Muir in the New World:
https://www.pbs.org/video/american-masters-john-muir-in-the-new-world-1/
Quotes:
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. "
"In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks."
Discussion Questions (Written by John Shiver, who will also lead the discussion)
- How did John’s childhood and upbringing help prepare him for his life and career as a naturalist and explorer?
- Muir encountered many people in his travels. how did they contribute to the success of his wanderings and how were they different from what his father had taught him to expect from strangers?
- Of all his adventures, which would you choose to have experienced or shared with him and why?
- How did Thoreau’s and Emerson’s writings influence Muir? How were these men and their experiences similar and different?
- How would you explain Muir’s accurate premonition that his friend, Professor Butler, had arrived in CA from WI? Was this a coincidence or representative of some greater insight that he was capable of?
- How did Muir’s writings establish and popularize the conservation movement in the US? Discuss his style and why it still holds so much appeal today? What were some of your favorite passages?
- What were some of his scientific contributions that related to the formation and geology of California Sierras and Yosemite?
