My First Summer in the Sierra: Thoughts

John Muir’s “My First Summer in the Sierra” was less an adventure book, and more a passionate stroll through the wild mountains of California. I have never known anyone to find greater pleasure in nature than John Muir. Though the reading was wearisome at times, with endless descriptions of trees, rocks, and clouds, I found it difficult to put the book down. His seemingly boundless ecstasy from being surrounded by wilderness was extremely contagious, even after 100 years. I have never spent more than an hour in the Yosemite Valley, but after experiencing it through the eyes of John Muir, I am sure it is one of the most marvelous places on earth.

 Muir was hired to spend the summer as a shepherd, taking the flock of a Mr. Delaney into the mountains for grazing. Though he despised the sheep and often faulted them for marring his otherwise untouched wilderness, he agreed to the work because it was the only way he could afford to spend so much time in the wild.

Here is one of my favorite passages which illustrates the depth of Muir’s passion for the untouched wilderness.

On the way back to our Tuolumne camp, I enjoyed the scenery if possible more than when it first came into view. Every feature already seems familiar as if I had lived here always. I never weary gazing at the wonderful Cathedral. It has more individual character than any other rock or mountain I ever saw, excepting perhaps the Yosemite South Dome. The forests, too, seem kindly familiar, and the lakes and meadows and glad singing streams. I should like to dwell with them forever. Here with bread and water I should be content. Even if not allowed to roam and climb, tethered to a stake or tree in some meadow or grove, even then I should be content forever. Bathed in such beauty, watching the expressions ever varying on the faces of the mountains, watching the stars, which here have a glory that the lowlander never dreams of, watching the circling seasons, listening to the songs of waters and winds and birds, would be endless pleasure. And what glorious cloudlands I should see, storms and calms, -- a new heaven and a new earth every day, aye and new inhabitants. And how many visitors I should have. I feel sure I should not have one dull moment. And why should this appear extravagant? It is only common sense, a sign of health, genuine, natural, all-awake health. One would be at an endless Godful play, and what speeches and music and acting and scenery and lights! – sun, moon, stars, auroras. Creation just beginning, the morning stars “still singing together and all the sons of God shouting for joy.”

If only mankind could learn a lesson from John Muir. If only we could see what he sees in the natural world, I am certain that we would seldom have reason to be unhappy. If only we could take the time to discover what a marvelous world our God has created for us, I am certain that no one ever become an atheist.

Mr. Delaney arrived this morning. Felt not a trace of loneliness while he was gone. On the contrary, I never enjoyed grander company. The whole wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. No wonder when we consider that we all have the same Father and Mother.

My rating: 7 out of 10
 

August's Book: My First Summer in the Sierra

This volume in the John Muir Library Series is the most popular of Muir's works: the naturalist's account of his first visit to the High Sierra and the Yosemite. There he recognized his life's calling: to preserve wilderness areas. Muir's extraordinary memoir vividly communicates the excitement and reverence he felt at discovering the spectacular natural world of the Sierra.

Based on his journal entries for 1869, the text has an immediacy and spontaneity that bring alive the voice and emotions of the young Muir and the humor of his rough-and-tumble adventures as a California shepherd. The book brims with the budding naturalist's detailed observations of the region's flora and fauna as well as his memorable encounters with local characters and the region's Indians.

This joyous book is Muir's celebration of the landscape that he came to love passionately--"my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion, when I crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built." My First Summer in the Sierra traces the emergence of his conservationist urge as he contrasts the Indians, "who walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds or the squirrels," with the white settlers--blasting roads, building intrusive structures, and altering the landscape. Muir shares his growing determination to preserve this "divine, enduring, unwastable wealth" for future generations.

(Summary from Goodreads.com)