John Muir. Frederick Turner
character, it is because he has stood on the shoulders of giants.
The Rediscovery of Muir in Scotland
The publication of Turner’s biography in Scotland will undoubtedly introduce a new generation of readers, students and academics to the story of Muir and his significance for the world conservation movement, which is only now becoming apparent, even to scholars in the USA.
It is a sobering thought that even Japan was ahead of Scotland in acknowledging the stature of her emigrant son. Kato Noriyushi published a book entitled A Saint in the Forest: The Father of Nature Protection ( Tokyo 1995), and other Japanese books on Muir are also available. Several years ago, Daisy Hawryluk, the owner of John Muir House in Dunbar, opened her door to discover a Japanese professor kneeling in prayer on a square of white silk, placed reverentially on the pavement outside the birthplace of the “Great Soul”. He had travelled halfway around the planet to pay homage at the site, where for him, the seeds of modern environmental awareness were sown. The Japanese attribution of “great soul” or its Indian equivalent “mahatma”, does not sit easily with us in our increasingly secular and materialist society, but Muir does inspire such profound respect in other cultures.
The event which began the process of Muir’s rediscovery in Scotland occurred in 1967 when Bill and Maimie Kimes, the eminent bibliographers of Muir, left California to undertake an environmental pilgrimage to Dunbar. They wrote to the town’s Provost asking if some local historian could guide them around the castle, the harbour, Muir’s birthplace and the beaches where he had first encountered wild nature in the 1840s. On receipt of their letter, the lady Provost began an urgent search for background material on Muir, of whom she knew little. To her embarrassment, neither Dunbar library nor the county library in Haddington had a single copy of any book by John Muir, or about him. Finally, after considerable effort, some volumes were borrowed from Plymouth on the south coast of England, five hundred miles from Dunbar.
Following their return home, Bill and Maimie Kimes wrote a letter of thanks, gently suggesting that Dunbar might acknowledge its most famous son by placing a plaque on the house in which he was born. The Provost replied thanking them for their suggestion and reported that a plaque had been agreed upon by the town council; it was eventually installed in 1969 with the inscription: “Birthplace of John Muir, American Naturalist, 1838–1914”, which reflects the perception of Muir in Scotland at that time.
In view of the fact that for over seventy years Muir regarded himself as Scottish, spoke with a marked Scots accent and became an American citizen only late in life, the plaque might more accurately describe Muir as a “Scottish-American Naturalist”. Indeed, as the “Father of the American National Parks”, and arguably a seminal figure in the birth of the world-wide nature conservation movement, Muir was rather more than just a “naturalist”. It would be gratifying if, in time for the Millennium, a new plaque with a more edifying inscription were to be installed at Muir’s birthplace.
The 600th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Burgh of Dunbar followed in 1970 and, perhaps inspired by the Kimes’s visit, a modest exhibition of Muir books and photographs was arranged by the Planning Department. The exhibition organiser was Frank Tindall, who served from the 1950s until 1975 as County Planning Officer for East Lothian; but until the Kimes’s visit of 1967 he had heard virtually nothing of John Muir. In 1974 Tindall began negotiations with the Earl of Haddington for leasing part of the Tyninghame estate that is now called John Muir Country Park; it was officially opened in 1976. The park’s 1660 acres of wild coastline include the golden sweep of Belhaven Bay as well as the saltmarsh and mudflats of the Tyne and Biel estuaries, dotted with curlew, shelduck, oyster-catchers and eiders.
This wild nature reserve, stretching eight miles from the ruins of Dunbar castle to the wild Tyninghame coastline in the west, overlooks teeming colonies of gannets, puffins, razorbills and guillemots on the Bass Rock and the Isle of May; for hundreds of thousands of subsequent visitors the park has been an invitation to familiarity with the Muir story.
Accompanied by his wife and son, Tindall travelled to California in 1977 to track down the details of the Muir legend. They hiked in Yosemite National Park and visited Muir Woods to the north of the Golden Gate. On Muir’s birthday they were fêted at a Sierra Club barbecue in the grounds of Muir’s Martinez home and were invited to stay at the Kimes’s “Rocking K Ranch” in Mariposa; friendship blossomed from this hospitality.
On their return home they were convinced that Scots should be made aware of the world stature which their kinsman had achieved. But ironically, they discovered that Muir’s birthplace was now threatened with re-development as a fish and chip shop! Fortunately East Lothian Council had no problem agreeing with Daisy Hawryluk, the owner of the house, that the upper floor should be converted into the Muir birthplace museum. The restoration of the house went ahead and in 1980 John Muir House was finally opened to the public; it now attracts visitors from all over the world.
Tindall was appalled to discover that in 1978 the National Library of Scotland did not hold a single copy of any of Muir’s books, nor any of the biographies and literary analyses produced since 1924. However, the National Library willingly agreed to host the first Scottish exhibition of Muir’s life in 1979, and for many people this was the turning-point in raising national awareness of Muir in Scotland. Thereafter the National Library began a comprehensive collection of Muir books and manuscripts which includes a microfilm archive of the collected John Muir Papers. However, for the general public, Muir’s books remained virtually unobtainable in the UK.
In the light of this, Tindall approached Canongate Publishing in Edinburgh with the object of creating the first Scottish editions of Muir’s works. This led to the publication of Muir’s unfinished autobiography, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth in 1987, followed a year later by My First Summer in the Sierra, both issued as Canongate Classics with the support of the Scottish Arts Council. These were re-issued in 1996 as part of a five-volume omnibus entitled John Muir, The Wilderness Journeys, which included three other books: The Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, Travels in Alaska and Stickeen.
The gradual repatriation of Muir’s ideas and ethos to Scotland has not just been literary. In 1983 the John Muir Trust was established in Scotland, to purchase and conserve wild land for future generations. To date the Trust has bought four areas of wild land in the Highlands and Islands, totalling 34,000 acres: Li and Coire Dhorrcail in Knoydart, Torrin on the Isle of Skye, Sandwood Bay in Sutherland, Strathaird and Bla Bheinn in the Skye Cuillin. None of these areas is “wilderness” or “wild” in the American sense; they all have crofting communities and people have farmed here for hundreds of years, possibly for thousands. But whatever the label, these wild landscapes, the haunt of the golden eagle, red deer and otter, are among the most beautiful and unspoiled in Britain.
The John Muir Trust aims to demonstrate exemplary management of these areas, sharing responsibility with local communities for the sustainable use of the landscape, wildlife and natural resources. It aims to foster a wider knowledge of Muir’s life and work among the Trust members as well as the general public.
The John Muir Award
In 1994 the present writer proposed the creation of a prestigious award for environmental endeavour, to be called the John Muir Award. This was intended to address the disturbing fact that less than 15,000 young people in Scotland were actively involved in environmental conservation, from a target population of 1.3 million. The scheme, which was nationally launched in February 1997 by Scottish Environment Minister Lord Lindsay, is non-competitive, open to all and is offered through partnerships with existing educational, youth and environmental organisations. It aims to offer people a warm welcome to involvement with the environmental movement, with the emphasis on first-hand experience, action, fun and adventure. It is hoped that by the Millennium, the John Muir Award will have welcomed many thousands of young people and adults into a lifelong commitment to conservation, and that such involvement should be the norm, rather than the exception. It is also intended that the Award should honour the memory of John Muir and his achievements and encourage Scottish children and adults to emulate the ethos and example of their famous kinsman.
Frederick Turner’s superb biography is published