The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2000/2001
NEWS TER Was John Muir A Woodsman? by Jason Meijia, California (Editor's Note: The former director of the John Muir ■Center, R. H. Limbaugh, has submitted the following paper as an example of outstanding undergraduate "■research on John Muir.) hat is a woodsman? Several definitions are ava...
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| Summary: | NEWS TER Was John Muir A Woodsman? by Jason Meijia, California (Editor's Note: The former director of the John Muir ■Center, R. H. Limbaugh, has submitted the following paper as an example of outstanding undergraduate "■research on John Muir.) hat is a woodsman? Several definitions are available. First, Webster's College Dictionary defines the term as "a person accustomed to life in the woods and skilled in the arts of the woods, as hunting or trapping." Secondly, a special operations organization, spECOps, with the United States Special Forces Veterans, provides global survival training and according to it, a modern "woodsman" should have an arsenal of survival skills, including experience in wil- Berness first aid, jungle survival techniques, intense map reading expertise, and land navigation skills.1 Thirdly, the Boy Scouts of America say that the skills fieeded to survive in the wild are having a general knowledge of the area in question and the species in Hie vicinity, knowing how to manage on the land and {laving a method of tackling emergencies.2 If one were to intertwine the definitions of these present day Sources, a skilled woodsman must have knowledge Hf the woods and the species within, know first aid, possess the ability to read maps and navigate through the land, and know how to live off the land as hunters ;|nd trappers once did in this country. All this might seem unattainable, but many individuals have become skilled woodsmen. A century ago Ernest Thompson ;§eton and Daniel Carter Bear were two highly skilled outdoorsmen who wanted to start an organization to help other young men learn outdoor skills which led to the founding of the Boy Scouts of America.3 As a naturalist, John Muir studied wild plants and animals and knew them intimately. He was capable of surviving in the wilderness, for he spent weeks, even months, alone in the Sierra Nevada. But was he a skilled woodsman? Did he know what to do when his food supply ran out? Could he live off the land in comfort? Did he possess the knowledge needed to survive unaided outdoors regardless of time or season? A mountain climber as well as a naturalist, Muir scaled the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada, and traversed the formidable glaciers of Alaska. He preferred to climb alone, fearing that he would pressure other less experienced climbers to exceed their limits. S. Hall Young's near-fatal accident in 1880 taught Muir a valuable lesson. Eager to accompany Muir on a climbing expedition in the coastal range near Fort Wrangell, Alaska, Young proved he was a better missionary than a climber. On a treacherous slope he fell, dislocating both of his shoulders. After rescuing Young, Muir never forgave himself for this mis-fortune.4 In comparison with today's mountaineers, Muir was as gutsy as they get, never using carabiners or ropes. Muir recognized the physical demands of climbing and believed in a stoical attitude as an understood precedent for future mountain climbing. He was a free climber, a purist with an intuitive gift for finding a purchase. "John Muir, today, is deified by the American climbing community. . .and is regarded in the (continued on page 3 ) re S I T Y O F R A C I R I C page 1 News & Notes The ongoing work of John Muir has suffered a great loss with the death of David Brower on November 5, 2000. He was a "Sierra Club legend" as the newspapers headlined many of his obituaries, and a "steward of the planet." Brower, 88, was the first executive director of the Sierra Club, and the founder of the Friends of the Earth and also of Earth Island Institute. Like his hero, John Muir, he was a mountaineer (having 70 first ascents of peaks to his credit including the east face of Glacier Point, Yosemite) as well as a writer, and a collector of rocks and minerals. He joined the Sierra Club in 1935, sponsored by Ansel Adams. Taking time off for World War II service, where he trained troops in the Alps in climbing techniques, his postwar return to the Sierra Club saw him revive its Muir activism on behalf of Nature. He led the battle which prevented federal dams being built in Dinosaur National Monument and in the Grand Canyon. He was instrumental in the creation of Point Reyes and Cape Cod National Seashores, Redwood National Park and North Cascades National Park, and the passage of the National Wilderness Preservation System. For a time alienated over issues from his fellow Sierra Club members, at the end he was honored by the U.S. Interior Department for his "overwhelming influence" on the conservation of the environment. Brower commented on the current Yosemite Valley Plan just before his death. . ."remember what the national park idea is all about. It was probably not just to let people who can afford the Ahwahnee or Yosemite lodges to luxuriate there, but to be a place to celebrate a bit of equity in a magical place meant to be shared with the current brief tenants of the Earth, but most importantly, one held in trust for the 'uncounted millions' not yet born. The greatest luxury in Yosemite comes from what the Valley has to say, not just from its structures. . .1 saw trouble begin with an earlier development policy, Mission 66, when then National Park Service Director Connie Wirth went to the American Automobile Association, not to conservationists, for advice. What he let happen to Yosemite in the controversy over rerouting the Tioga Road was a disaster, which the Sierra Club let happen by not opposing it strongly enough. Park service people should have been jailed for what they destroyed atTenayaLake. .what photographer Ansel Adams described as National Park Service vandalism at Tioga Pass. .It'stime to wake up, and for God's sake, no more construction on the river between the Highway 120 junction and Yosemite Valley!" (San Francisco Chronicle, November 7, 2000, ibid., November 20, 2000). Final Yosemite Plan Announced. The thirty-years-in-the- making Yosemite National Park plan has now been put in place. In announcing it at the park in November, 2000, then- Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt said "I can't escape John Muir when I'm up here. Everyone is quoting him like he has just gone for a beer and will be right back." Babbitt thanked various public policy and conservation groups, as well as the public, for their input and criticism over the years, resulting in a stronger plan. He was very pleased to have the support for the final plan of the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club. The plan will reshape the Valley by reducing development, concessions, structures and the presence of cars. Overnight guest housing will be reduced by a fourth, with the number of campsites increased by about 10 percent, parking will be essentially moved to outlying sites with cleaner busses transporting most visitors, with employee housing also removed from the Valley. Additionally, an environmentally-damaging bridge on the Merced River will be removed. It will take 10 to 15 years to take effect. Lee Stetson, whose performances as John Muir, this newsletter has publicized in the past, continues to offer his rousing portrayal as John Muir. The stirring production of "Conversation with a Tramp: An Evening with John Muir" has been presented every summer in Yosemite National Park - and throughout the country and around the world as well - since 1983. It depicts Muir's last dramatic battle to preserve the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley, part of our National Park, but threatened by San Francisco's desire to construct a dam there. Audience members are his guests as they await final word of the Hetch Hetchy's fate from Washington decisionmakers. While waiting, Muir's righteous anger at the 'temple ( c o n I i n u e d o n p a g e 5 ) Volume 11, Number 1 Winter 2000/01 Published quarterly by The John Muir Center for Regional Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 ♦ Staff ♦ Editor Sally M. Miller Production Assistants . . . Marilyn Norton, Pearl Piper All photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. page 2 Was John Muir A Woodsman? by Jason Meijia highest esteem."5 The rock climbing greats of today turn to Muir and bow in recognition of his climbing skills. Though Muir is widely recognized as a preservationist, some scholars have labeled him a primitivist, inferring that he preferred wilderness to civilization. Muir did see the purpose for all living creatures, and disagreed strongly with the slaying of wildlife, even refusing to do so for his own survival. When asked about the purpose of rattlesnakes, he responded by saying that "snakes are 'good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life.'"6 Gifford Pinchot even noticed "that he never carried a fishhook with him on his solitary expeditions" because he believed "fishing wasted too much time."7 Even Muir's diet and equipment indicated returning to wilderness, bringing with him only dry bread and tea for sustenance and "a clean shirt, a change of underclothing, and some extra socks"8 for his "equipment." Yet the question rises, how did he survive in the wild if he refused to bunt? The answer is simple: he never took long trips beyond the reach of commercial supplies. He carried his daily bread and tea with him in a knapsack, and came down from the mountains periodically to replenish himself. Though Muir was no primitivist in the classical sense of living wholly off the land, he was still able to live in the depths of the wilderness for weeks on end, and risk his life for the sake of what he cherished. C. Hart Merriam, a friend and fellow scientist, who camped with Muir on occasion, was astonished by his lack of woodsmanship. "In spite of having spent a large part of his life in the wilderness," wrote Merriam, Muir "knew less about camping than almost any man I have ever camped with." Muir could survive, that was without question, "but of the art and conveniences of camping as ordinarily understood he was as innocent as a child."9 Was Muir a true woodsman? If we are to believe Merriam, he clearly was not. Muir was a preservationist, and Muir spoke in 1899 to Oregonians about the importance of preserving the natural forests. "It is unreasonable to suppose that (the northwest forest reserves) should be destroyed or imperiled for any local convenience. . .they are the property of the nation and for its greatest good."10 This strong devotion towards the environment was shown through what Muir took for food on his journeys. During his walks, Muir had only tea and bread, and often he relied on other people's kindness, and sometimes pity, to keep his body going. Ross Wakefield points out that in My First Summer in the Sierra, "because of [Muir's] periodic bouts with hunger in the mountains, food gathering [is] a recurrent theme."" At one point during the journey, Muir confronts an Indian wanting to trade veal for goods.12 Apparently this is where Muir obtained the food sources he required. Clearly, Muir would not destroy nature for sustenance. Merriam notes another such occurrence with Muir demonstrating his dedication to preserving nature. "Another peculiarity for a woodsman was that he never carried a gun or killed game either for sport or meat, preferring to eat dry bread."13 Ironically, Merriam uses the term "woodsman." John Muir spent eleven years studying the Sierra Nevada, took expeditions to Alaska and Australia, and kept hundreds of pages of entries. Muir's journals exhibit a wealth of knowledge about the wilderness in which he traveled; he continually rattles off scientific names for species after species of wildlife. There is, however, a difference of being 'book' smart and being 'street' smart. Undoubtedly, Muir possessed 'book' smarts, but was he 'street' smart? Muir's hesitancy to use the surrounding land to aid him in his travels does not show that he lacked 'street' smarts, but if Muir knew how to live off the land and chose not to, which demonstrates a conscious act, perhaps a rejection of conventional knowledge, a lack of desire, or a lack of need. Comfort is to some degree a necessity. Woodsmen made sure they were comfortable where they homed, just as a cowboy makes sure he is comfortable on his steed. Was Muir comfortable living in the wilderness? Surely he was at ease with the surroundings, and secure as he ventured out into the wilds. But what about ordinary creature comforts? Merriam, again, provides disquieting evidence as he refers to a late fall trip to the High Sierra. "He had carried no bed or blanket, and in the way of food only bread and tea, so that his main concern was in finding a protected place, usually a hollow beside a log, where he could spend the night with a minimum of discomfort from the cold."14 Most people would call this an act of stubbornness; no one would say it was an act of a true woodsman. When Muir was confronted by the harsh elements of nature, he often benefitted from contact with Native Americans. During his Alaskan travels, he sought the help of indigenous people for food, shelter, and direction. As shown in his journals, Travels in Alaska, Muir relied on the survival skills of the Indians, particularly for their woodcraft, seamanship, and hunting capabilities. Numerous times throughout his journal record, Muir refers to the Indians as the "hunters."15 Muir was a great man who helped inaugurate the environmental movement in the United States, but the essence of Muir, it may be argued, lives on in his literature. Henry Fairfield Osborn, who knew Muir in his last years, offered this tribute: "I do not believe anyone else has ever lived with just the same sentiment toward page 3 Was John Muir A Woodsman? by Jason Meijia trees and flowers and the works of nature in general as that which John Muir manifested in his life, his conversations and his writings."16 John Muir had a gift, and the people of his time remembered him mostly for his ability to touch the hearts of thousands and spark in them a desire to preserve the environment. Enos Mills describes Muir as "the greatest character in national park history and nature literature."17 Theodore Roosevelt and Robert Underwood Johnson, two of Muir's closest friends, said he wrote with a "marked excellence, combining accurate and carefully coordinated scientific observation with poetic sensibility and expression."18 Never, though, was he ever remembered for being a skilled woodsman. ENDNOTES 1. Special Forces Veterans: S.P.E.C.O.P.S. http://www. specops.com/'_ (03-01-2000). 2. Boy Scouts of America, The Boy Scout Handbook (Indiana Press, 1994), 334-347. 3. Ibid., p. 617. 4. Erica Goldman, "Why Climb Mountains? John Midland Clarence King at a Historical Crossroads of American Mountain Climbing," (Yale American Studies Seminar, Fall 1995), http://www.sierraclub.org/john_ muir_exhibit/ (03-02-2000); John Muir, Travels in Alaska (Houghton Mifflin, 1915), pp. 35-37. 5. Goldman; Muir, pp. 35-37. 6. Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1982), p. 128. 7. Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (New York, 1947), p. 100. 8. C. Hart Merriam, "To the Memory of John Muir," Sierra Club Bulletin 10 (January, 1917). 9. Ibid. 10. John Muir, "John Muir Talks About Maintaining Forest Reserves," The Oregonian, (May 31, 1899). 11. Ross Wakefield, "Muir's Early Indian Views: Another Look at My First Summer in the Sierra," The John Muir Newsletter 5 (Winter 1994-95):3. 12. John Muir, "The Mono Trail," My First Summer in the Sierra (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911), p. 119. 13. Merriam. 14. Ibid. 15. John Muir, "A Canoe Voyage to Northward," Travels in Alaska, pp. 84, 85, 86. 16. Henry Fairfield Osborn, "John Muir Memorial Issue," Sierra Club Bulletin 10 (January, 1916). 17. Enos Mills, Ibid. 18. Robert Underwood Johnson, Ibid. John Muir: Family & Friends The 53rd California History Institute, John Muir: Family & Friends, is scheduled for May 4-6, 2001, at the Feather River Inn. The presentations and responses by thirty-three Muir scholars and enthusiasts include: Maymie Kimes and Jill Harcke, "John Muir: His Long and Very Close Friendship with the Henry Fairfield Osborn Family at Cas- tlerock"; Ron Limbaugh, "Pride, Prejudice and Patrimony: The Dispute Be-tween George Wharton James and The Family and Friends of John Muir"; Cherry Good, "On the Trail of John Muir"; Ron Good, "Hetch Hetchy Valley: Yosemite's Lost Twin"; Michael Branch, "John Muir's Last Journey: South to the Amazon and East to Africa"; Dennis Williams, "The Content of Faith: Muir's Vision of Nature in the Midst of the Nineteenth Century Religious Ferment"; Daryl Morrison, "John Muir and the Bairns"; David Blackburn, "Muir and Family: The History of Interpretation at John Muir National Historic Site"; Harold Wood, "John Muir on the Internet"; Jill Carlino, "John Muir and the Influence of Significant Women in His Life"; Nicholas C. Polos, "John Muir: A Stranger in the Southland"; and Nancy Woodbury, "Preservation of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta Region: A Contemporary View of John Muir's Efforts." In addition, Lee Stetson will present his portrait of John Muir on Saturday evening following an afternoon of hiking and botanizing with nine naturalists, geologists, and conservationists in the Plumas National Forest near Feather River Inn. On Monday, May 7, the Holt-Atherton Special Collection, University of the Pacific, and the John Muir National Historic Site will be open by appointment. Contact Daryl Morrison, Director of the Holt-Atherton Special Collection, (209) 946- 2945, e-mail: dmorrison@uop.edu and David Blackburn, Chief of Interpretation, JMNHS, (925) 228-8860, e-mail: jomu__interpretation@nps.gov. A field trip in Yosemite Valley has been scheduled for May 7-9, and is limited to fifteeen individuals who attended the John Muir: Family & Friends Conference. Campsites and Curry Village tents have been reserved. Particpants must supply food, a tent, and a sleeping bag. Contact Marilyn Norton at UOP (209) 945-2145 or e-mail: mnorton@uop.edu for further information. Registration forms and program material are available through the John Muir Center for Regional Studies at (209) 946-2527 or e-mail: johnmuir® uop.edu. page 4 News & Notes (continued.) destroyers' is tempered by his hearty good humor, and his relating of a number of his most extraordinary wilderness adventures, including his remarkable 'tree ride' in a Sierra windstorm. It can be seen on March 30 and 31 at the Ojai Land Conservancy in Ojai, CA; on April 19 at the Miner's Foundry in Nevada City, CA; on April 20 at Sierra College in Rocklin, CA; and July 30-Aug. 6 at Camp Denali in Denali National Park, Alaska. Also of interest, Stetson's "The Tramp and the Roughrider" is his newest production. In May of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt, planning a (our of the western forests, invited John Muir to a four-day camping trip in the Yosemite wilderness. The Tramp and the Roughrider illuminates this extraordinary encounter, with the action unfolding at sunset on Glacier Point, overlooking Yosemite Valley. Both of these characters were feisty and opinionated, and had sharp disagreements on issues like hunting, animal rights, and forest management. Muir's goetic and evangelistic temperament, clashing with Roosevelt's political (and boyish) enthusiasms, naturally spawned both tension and humor. Both skillful storytellers, is seems natural that both would seek to top one another by n laling some of their many adventures in the American wilderness - Roosevelt bringing a frontier ruffian to justice, for example, or Muir telling of his hair-raising 'interview' with a Yosemite bear. At the time of this historic meeting, many millions of acres of our western forest, with little or no governmental supervision, were being exploited and abused by hunting, lumber, stock and mining interests. But around the campfire, in sifting through their histories and their hopes, these very different men slowly discover how the other had been shaped by the wilderness they loved, opening up some rich possibilities of "doing some forest good." And by the end of Roosevelt's presidency, America could boast of an additional 200 million acres of forest wilderness, five ■more national parks, and 65 wildlife preserves. Readers will want to see this performance by Lee Stetson as John Muir and Doug Brennan as Theodore Roosevelt. College courses reflective of environmental themes are not scarce these days. For example, "Religion and Ecology" was a course taught last fall at Emory University. Students were to consider how the natural world can deepen our sense Of: spirituality, and how different religions relate to the natural world. The class took monthly hikes, a camping trip, meditated outdoors, wrote phenomenological studies on one-square-foot plots of land, and tended a communal garden. Their readings included ninth-century Buddhist writings on forest meditation and fourth-century monastic texts on the Egyptian desert, and Gary Snyder's A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds, and also Wendell Berry's Standing By Words. Among the assignments, the students had to draft a field report, keep a portfolio and undertake an oral history of a spiritual environmentalist. New Books John Muir Would Want to Read: The Promise of Green Politics: Environmentalism and the Public Sphere, by Douglas Torgerson (Duke University Press; 218 pages; $49.95 hardcover, $17.95 paperback). Analyzes the political implications of various schools of ecological thought, then offers a three-part approach to "green politics." Designing the Green Economy: The Postindustial Alternative to Corporate Globalization, by Brian Milani (Rowman & Littlefield; 235 pages; $65 hardcover, $19.95 paperback). Defends an approach to sustainable economics. Conservation Reconsidered: Nature, Virtue, and American Liberal Democracy, edited by Charles T. Rubin (Rowman & Littlefiled; 254 pages; $65 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Essays on the nature and legacy of the early American conservation movement, including such figures as Aldo Leopold and John Muir. Yellowstone: The Creation and Selling of an American Landscape, 1870-1903, by Christopher J. Magoc (University of New Mexico Press/Montana Historical Society Press; 304 pages; $49.95 hardcover, $19.95 paperback). Topics include how the Northern Pacific Railroad promoted tourism in the park and the exploitation of its natural resources. Agency, Democracy, and Nature: the U.S. Environmental Movement From a Critical Theory Perspective, by Robert J. Brulle (MIT Press; 347 pages; $62 hardcover, $25 paperback). A study of the ideology, activities, and effectiveness of American environmental groups. The Tropical Deciduous Forest of Alamos: Biodiversity of a Threatened Ecosystem in Mexico, edited by Robert H. Robichaux and David A. Yetman (University of Arizona Press; 260 pages; $50). Research on a diverse ecosystem in the Alamos region of the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Constructing Sustainable Development, by Neil E. Harrison (State University of New York Press; 175 pages; $54.50 hardcover, $17.95 paperback). Examines the values and assumptions behind the concepts of sustainable development put forth by environmental and business interests in developed and developing countries. Nature and Psyche: Radical Environmentalism and the Politics of Subjectivity, by David W. Kidner (State University of New York Press: 375 pages; $73.50 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Argues that the concept of domesticating nature is an idea so prevalent that it has even entrapped some of the most radical environmentalists. A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell, by Donald Worster (Oxford University Press; 673 pages; $35). A biography of the American geologist, explorer, and conservationist (1834-1902). No Man's Garden: Thoreau and aNewVisionfor Civilization and Nature, by Daniel B. Botkin (Island Press; 310 pages; $24.95). Explores Thoreau's engagement with both civilization and wildness and draws lessons from his quest for a spiritual connection to nature. page 5 Book Reviews John Muir: Nature's Visionary By Gretel Ehrlich National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C, 2000 reviewed by B.J.Gisel University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA John Muir's "etiquette of the wild" was to learn through the experience of wilderness. It was always to the palimpsest of nature that Muir turned to learn something about the world in which he lived. Nature was his teacher. For a glimpse of his world view, we turn to Gretel Ehrlich's John Muir: Nature's Visionary published by the National Geographic Society which seeks to educate and inspire its more than nine million members worldwide and to awaken in others knowledge of the earth and its many communities. Muir spent his adult life striving to strengthen the resolve of the National Geographic Society. He sought to awaken and unite people to a common cause in behalf of nature and wild places. In true National Geographic Society-style, Nature's Visionary is a dashing visual display and color extravaganza. The scenic photographs and reproductions of Muir's letters and journals that make up the corpus of Nature's Visionary offer both the experienced Muir scholar as well as the neophyte opportunities to ramble visually in the paths through wilderness Muir himself walked. Guided by a map of Muir's travels, we engage in portrait-study of his family and friends; and we come to understand something of Muir's sense of extended family that included for him mountains, rivers, glaciers, plants, trees, and creatures of all kinds. Ehrlich's narrative account of Muir's life invites us to saunter along the peaks of Muir's own writing. Though she does not divulge her sources, Ehrlich draws heavily upon Muir's story of his boyhood and youth and also of his first summer in the Sierra. Quotes from his journals are laced together sometimes poetically; but sometimes Ehrlich's interpretation lacks historical integrity. The extant record of Muir's biography and writings reveals the depth of his unique perspective on life, nature, and wilderness, thus eliminating the need for embellishment and the bundling of conjecture and opinion. Ehrlich's conclusions lack subtle interpretation of Muir's motives and decisions. Her writing begs for consideration of nineteenth century patterns of behavior and response, based on everything from religion to interpersonal relationships and marriage; and her impressions call for a more thorough examination of Muir's personal correspondence. While every effort is being made by Muir scholars to correct inaccuracies in the historical record of Muir's life and work and of his mentors and friends, some of Ehrlich's conclusions will cause consternation and reveal the lack of primary research. Most striking in this regard are her remarks about Muir as a draft evader, her faulty interpretation of the relationship between Muir and Louie Strentzel - suggesting his promise to marry a woman for whom he felt no driving passion who was anything but a flame to whom he flew - and her limited understanding of Muir's friendship with Jeanne Carr. John Muir: Nature's Visionaiy serves as a general introduction to the life of John Muir. Those who devote countless years to studying Muir may well be disappointed in Ehrlich's brief historical narrative. However, there is something important to be gained. As an introduction, Nature's Visionaiy paves the way for novices and nature- lovers alike who have not previously encountered Muir to explore his wilderness discovery books and the outstanding secondary sources currently being published by Island Press, the University of Wisconsin Press, and the University of Utah Press, to name a few. Every effort to increase the audience of Muir enthusiasts and to develop greater environmental consciousness is a positive step toward encouraging both individual and collective understanding about the diverse biological world in which we live. Nature's Visionary makes a generous contribution by extending Muir's words to an audience that scholars may not have reached. Kindred and Related Spirits: The Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr edited by Bonnie Johanna Gisel The University of Utah Press, 2001 Salt Lake City, UT reviewed by J. Parker Huber Brattleboro, Vermont Jeanne Carr assured John Muir that she had a "cordial and constant interest in all that concerns you." This was in autumn, 1865, after the Civil War had ended that spring in Virginia. Muir was in Canada West, now Ontario, Carr in Wisconsin. He was twenty-seven and single, while she was forty and married with four sons. They had met five years previously in Madison, Wisconsin, where her husband, Ezra Carr, was a university professor who taught Muir geology. Two years later, in 1867, Carr told Muir about Yosemite; "You know my tastes better than anyone else," he responded. The next spring, May, 1868, Carr invited Muir to her native Castleton, Vermont, where she planned to reside from July to October. By then, however, Muir was tramping across California to meet his destiny with the Sierra Nevada. Carr provided Muir with his first taste of the soul of New England, a region he would come to know in his readings and travels. By the end of 1868, the Carrs were also in California, eventually residing in Oakland. The next ( c o nti n it e d o n page 7 ) page 6 Book Reviews (continued. ft summer she came to Yosemite, but missed Muir who was sauntering in the mountains. All the while they kept in touch. Editor Bonnie Johanna Gisel, whose Ph.D. dissertation on Jeanne Carr should be published, has done a splendid job of bringing together their correspondence. Gisel provides an informative introduction, narratives to each of the eight sections, a discussion of missing missives, and the hope that even more may surface. (A foreword by Ronald H. Limbaugh was not included in my copy so I cannot comment on it.) Presented here are 136 letters between Muir and Carr (as well as others, such as Muir to Emerson and Carr to the editor of The Overland Monthly, for examples). They cover a thirty-year period from 1865 to 1895, with the majority from the first decade. Twenty-six letters in 1872, fifteen in 1867, thirteen in three of those years and eleven in 1869 suggest the most prolific times. A scant twenty-two letters suggest the last twenty years, within which there are two big gaps (1861-1886 and 1890-1893) when none appear. Why their correspondence was not sustained after 1875 is an intriguing question. Gisel brings Carr's part of this exchange to light for the first time. Though Gisel gives us Carr's voice as fully as possible, it is still minimal. A close look at their exchange reveals that in sum the preponderance of the letters (98 or 72%) arc led by Muir. Just over a quarter (38 or 28%) are Carr's, so we have much less of her than desired. Nonetheless, her letters are powerful. They, Gisel says, "demonstrated that his development was in large part dependent on the friendship, guidance, and love bestowed upon him by Carr and the many friends and acquaintances she directed to him." In his darkest hour, Carr reminded Muir of God's gift to him: "the eye within the eye, to see in all natural objects the realized ideas of his mind." She introduced him to Thoreau and Emerson - the latter she sent knocking at his Yosemite door - and to his wife-to-be, and a host of other luminaries. She encouraged his writing career, even to the point of discouraging his writing her. She reveled with him in the beauty of a single flower. Wc discover that their epistolary. We see the impact silent conversations conducted for the other to absorb in quiet significant and nourishing wor thankful for their communion record of it before us, so that we of heart and spirit. relationship was largely of letters on their lives, of in private and sent overland We learn how enormously ds on paper can be. We are and for Gisel's putting this can share in their generosity Be a Member of The John Muir Center for Regional Studies Costs are a problem everywhere, especially in academia today. We can only continue publishing and distributing this modest newsletter through support from our readers. By becoming a member of the John Muir Center, you will be assured of receiving the Newsletter for a full year. You will also be kept on our mailing list to receive information on the annual California History Institute and other events and opportunities sponsored by the John Muir Center. Please join us by completing https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1063/thumbnail.jpg |
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