The Yellowstone National Park

During his lifetime John Muir (1838 1914) published over 300 articles and 12 books. Muir has been called the "patron saint of the American wilderness" and its "archetypal free spirit." As a dreamer and activist, his eloquent words changed the way Americans saw their mountains, forests, seashores, and deserts, said nature writer Gretel Ehrlich. He not only led the efforts to protect forest areas and have some designated as national parks, but his writings presented "human culture and wild nature as one of humility and respect for all life."

Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of Century Magazine, which published many of Muir's articles, states that he influenced people's appreciation of nature and national parks, which became a lasting legacy:

"The world will look back to the time we live in and remember the voice of one crying in the wilderness and bless the name of John Muir. ... He sung the glory of nature like another Psalmist, and, as a true artist, was unashamed of his emotions. His countrymen owe him gratitude as the pioneer of our system of national parks. ... Muir's writings and enthusiasm were the chief forces that inspired the movement. All the other torches were lighted from his."

Muir exalted wild nature over human culture and civilization, believing that all life was sacred. Turner describes him as "a man who in his singular way rediscovered America. ... an American pioneer, an American hero." The primary aim of Muir's nature philosophy, writes Wilkins, was to challenge mankind's "enormous conceit," and in so doing, he moved beyond the Transcendentalism of Emerson to a "biocentric perspective on the world". He did so by describing the natural world as "a conductor of divinity," and his writings often made nature synonymous with God. His friend, Henry Fairfield Osborn, observed that as a result of his religious upbringing, Muir retained "this belief, which is so strongly expressed in the Old Testament, that all the works of nature are directly the work of God." In the opinion of Enos Mills, ( author of "The Story of Estes Park" and "The Adventures of a Nature Guide") a contemporary who established Rocky Mountain National Park, Muir's writings would "likely to be the most influential force in this century."

In 1890, Muir published a 25-page article "The Yellowstone National Park," describing the beauty and wonder of Yellowstone.

In this article's conclusion, Muir advises the visitor: "Stay on this good fire-mountain and spend the night among the stars. Watch their glorious bloom until the dawn, and get one more baptism of light. Then, with fresh heart, go down to your work, and whatever your fate, under whatever ignorance or knowledge you may afterward chance to suffer, you will remember these fine, wild views, and look back with joy to your wanderings in the blessed old Yellowstone Wonderland."

Dettagli