Muir was the Ultimate B.A. and he died from Pneumonia?

So I was reading this John Muir biography written by John P. O’Grady for Nineteenth-Century American Western Writers, it is about six pages long, and in it O’Grady describes FIVE instances where Muir nearly dies. With five near death experiences in six pages he appears a wee bit reckless, or at least that he has very bad luck, but HE NEVER ACTUALLY DIES. This is incredible because he probably should have in some of these cases, except for the fact that he is invincible!

The first occurred as he was digging an eighty foot well for his father:
“As he resumed his excavations at the bottom of the eighty-foot shaft Muir was overcome by carbon dioxide poisoning, only by a tremendous act of will… was he able to crawl back into the bucket that his father had used to lower him. Daniel Muir hauled the bucket up just in time.” (O’Grady)
Luck you might say, but I think he probably could have lasted another ten minutes.

The second happened when he was working as a mechanic in Indianapolis in 1897, he was temporarily blinded in a factory accident, but this accident led him to make a very important decision, to give up business for wilderness.
“This affliction has driven me to sweet fields. God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.” (O’Grady)
John Muir would make nearly dying a really positive experience. Ahh the little optimist!

The third brush with death happened after his thousand mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico.
“Upon reaching Florida at the end of his thousand-mile walk, Muir was overcome with malarial fever that nearly killed him.” (O’Grady)
After nearly dying, he decided rafting down the Amazon might not be the best idea, and so he went to California instead, and got put on a quarter. YEAH!

The fourth occurred when he attempted to ascend Tenaya Canyon in the Sierras, as a healing adventure after spending too much time in the city.
“Soon into this hike and its spiritual cleansing he slips and falls, knocking himself unconscious among the boulders. When he regains consciousness, he is ‘confident that the last town-fog had been shaken from both head and feet.’ Tenaya Canyon has restored him to his mountain mind.” (O’Grady)
There he goes again, making things positive and being freakishly connected to nature.

The fifth near death experience happened when he was attempting to clime Mt. Ritter:
“After gaining a point about half-way to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below.” (O’Grady)
He was just pretending to give up...

This last quote from The Mountains of California is a little bit dramatic, because he obviously didn’t die. But REALLY, if any of those things happened to me I would be a goner! I would have died of carbon dioxide poisoning; I would have remained blind and then died due to some weird virus germ that wouldn’t have even dared to attack John Muir, I would have been human mash on the bottom of a canyon or on top of a glacier. He weaseled himself out of those situations but died of pneumonia, REALLY?! I doubt that really happened I bet it was some kind of conspiracy. Gifford Pinchot was probably jealous and just wanted him to stop getting all the attention.
Really though, the Ultimate B.A.

Ooh another Muir-Lover!

This graduate student from Stanford walked John Muir's route from San Francisco to Yosemite! And blogged about it!!
Check it out!
http://muirwalk.blogspot.com/

John Muir & the Yosemite

John Muir arrived in California on March 28, 1868, and promptly set off on a six week walk to the Yosemite Valley. (Yeah I mentioned he liked to walk didn't I? SIX WEEKS!) He spent the next ten years of his life wandering around the Sierra Nevada's exploring and writing journals about his experiences and discoveries, that he would later turn into books. Everything that he found he loved, and this love was evident to everyone who met him. Muir’s love for the Yosemite Valley has been described as like the love of a mother for her child (O’Grady). With the help and encouragement of Robert Underwood Johnson, a magazine editor, Muir played an integral part in the campaign to make Yosemite a National Park. He used his writing to encourage people and politicians to preserve it, so future generations would also be able to enjoy it. Muir’s love for the region and role as a political activist continued in his attempt to stop the flooding of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley within the Yosemite. He along with the newly formed Sierra Club attempted to influence the people of San Francisco to save the valley. His passion for this landscape went so far as to negatively affect his public image. (However, he probably cared more about the valley than his public image!) “Muir’s public image was damaged by the excessive vehemence of his attacks upon the citizens of San Francisco, whom he denounced as ‘satanic’.” (Contemporary Authors Online) Muir's passion for the Yosemite is undeniable, and he fought fiercely to ensure its safety and preservation. Since his death, the Sierra Club has continued to follow in his footsteps and preserve his legacy.

Oohh look more pictures!!!

Creepiest picture ever... Bwahahaha!
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/sontag/images/muir.jpg


Oooh look! Daughters! (Not sons :( sadness..) But look how cute they are!
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullimage.asp?id=4392


John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt!
http://greeningwashington.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/muirandteddy.jpg

John Muir the Inventor and Coolest Person Ever!!

Beginning in his youth John Muir displayed a knack for inventing things. He built many wood creations, like a combination alarm-clock study desk, an automatic cow feeder, and other interesting machines...

Like say... the "Early Rising Machine".
A bed that also worked as an alarm clock. The sleeper would set the built-in alarm clock before going to sleep. At the programmed time the mechanism would tilt the bed and toss the sleeper to the floor. (O'Grady)

Really?! Is that not the coolest/crudest thing you have ever heard?!
And his inventions are made almost entirely out of wood! IT IS INCREDIBLE!

The Wisconsin Historical Society has a number of photos of his inventions...
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1581

John Muir & Henry David Thoreau

In reading and learning about John Muir, I have seen numerous comparisons between him and Henry David Thoreau. Particularly Muir’s tendency to walk across the country and all through the Sierra Nevada Mountains (and probably the whole circumference of the earth, if he had wanted to!) made me think of “Walking” by Henry David Thoreau. (Hmm… HOW WEIRD!) In The National Parks, Carl Pope a chairman of the Sierra Club says, “The essence of John Muir is the John Muir who walks. And it is this act of walking which actually creates a faith for him. A new version of Christianity, a Christianity rooted in place and wildness and nature. It is a Christianity not about the built worship of God, but the worship of God’s creation.” (Pope, “The Scripture of Nature”) I like this a lot, and I bet my mother would to, being very fond of walking herself, except maybe not so intense! In “Walking” Thoreau says “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least, - and it is commonly more than that, - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.” (Thoreau, 182) It is not only the act of walking, but within Muir’s writing style emanates with the essence of Transcendentalism. “The philosophical heir of Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Muir regarded contact with the natural world as both wholesome and sanctifying, and he spent much of his life exploring uncharted portions of the Sierra Nevada” (Contemporary Authors Online). Muir and the Transcendentalists both reference the healing powers that they see in nature, as shown by the quote from Thoreau above. Muir believed that nature is restorative and medicinal. "...a fast storm and a difficult canyon were just the medicine I needed" (Steep Trails, 13). Many accounts of John Muir's life, including The National Parks and O'Grady's biography, reference how his health would deteriorate when he spent too much time away from the wilderness. He must have been some weird mythical nature man because of the weirdly deep connection he had with nature. This guy would go to Alaska with a bad cough, spend the night on a glacier, and wake up without a cough. "For no lowland microbe can survive on a glacier" ("The Scripture of Nature"). Try and tell me that anyone other than John Muir wouldn't have ended up even more than when they left!!

THE BALLAD OF JOHN MUIR?!?!

YESSSSS!!!!

I will teach this song to my children. And they will teach it to their children, and their children's children, and THEIR children's children. Everyone on the earth will know this song, by the time I am through!!!

http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/frameindex.html?http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/sound_and_music/karnahan.html

Favorite John Muir Quotes

Here are a few of my favorite John Muir quotes:

“We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this stormday, while swinging in the wind that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings – many of them not so much.” (The Mountains of California, 256)

“None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild…” (Our National Parks, 4)

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” (Our National Parks, 42)

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” (My First Summer in the Sierra, 211)

"Surely all God's people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes— all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them. (The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 149)

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike." (The Yosemite, 192)

As of yet these are my favorites, I feel like they truly epitomize the essence of John Muir. And they just sound nice, he was a very poetic man after all.

Hmm....

So, I just found this quote from a review of Linnie Marsh Wolfe’s Son of Wilderness: The Life of John Muir… “Linnie Marsh Wolfe loved John Muir, loved his "flashing blue eyes," his lyrical language, and the wilderness ideals he represented; she also adored the Sierra, that `Range of Light' he did so much to illuminate through thought, word, and deed.” (Miller)

Uh Oh… Looks like I have some competition…

AND HERE IS ANOTHER PICTURE! YAY!

I think this one is my favorite.

John Muir & the Pacific Northwest

So a month or so ago I was Google-ing John Muir and found this website where you can read the majority John Muir’s writings (http://www.yosemite.ca.us/john_muir_writings/ - if you are interested!). There I found the book Steep Trails in which he talks about areas of the Pacific Northwest, including Puget Sound, Mount Rainier, and other areas of Washington, in other words MY HOOD. See look what he says, “Tacoma occupies near the head of the Sound a site of great natural beauty” (Steep Trails, 178). YES! Since having discovered this, I have purchased the book (I visited Portland and went to Powell’s Books, not only was that the most books I’ve ever seen in my entire life but the most John Muir books I have ever seen in one place – HEAVEN! Slash completely overwhelming…) I have always had PNW pride, but since having discovered that John Muir could have possibly walked on the same ground as me, makes me even more enthusiastic about living here. He also climbed Mount Rainier!! In The National Parks they talk about Muir’s trip to Washington, and his visit to Mount Rainier, and they mention this line from a letter he wrote to his wife… “Did not mean to climb it, but got excited, and soon was on top” (“The Scripture of Nature”). I like that this quote shows how nature had absolute control over him and would make him do things he didn’t intend to. Gah! Why is he so cool?!