John Muir

John Muir was born at Dunbar, Scotland in 1838, and emigrated to America in 1849, where he is still revered as ‘Father of the National Parks’ and ‘Herald of the Conservation Movement’.

A true Renaissance man, Muir was: inventor, mountaineer, explorer, botanist, geologist, nature-writer and environmental campaigner; many would add: Christian-mystic, visionary and wilderness-sage. His writings are the fountain-head from which the American conservation movement erupted, setting the agenda, the ethos and the argument for the creation of a vast National Park system. Muir did more than simply describe the grizzly bears, the giant redwoods and luminous landscapes of California’s High Sierra; as the founder of the Sierra Club, his endless campaigns saved them for all posterity.

For more information go to the John Muir Trust at www.jmt.org or the Sierra Club at www.sierraclub.org.