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!!