The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2000

I J \u27 Ov Volume 10, Number 4 NEWSLETTER I Fall 2000 A Sense of the Natural by Richard F. Fleck w rom the time of my first published essay about a Maine sea coast tidal pool in June, 1954 (when I was not quite seventeen), until now, some forty-six fpars later, my major source of inspiration has been the Batural world, be it the Irish Mountains of Mourne rolling flown to the sea or the rocky coast of Maine, or the windy Himmits of Longs Peak, Colorado or Mount Fuji, Japan, ■have always delighted in the smell of turf fire smoke ■sing from a cottage on a rainy Irish day or the briny ■bell of crashing surf along the coast of Maine or the sound of pipits piping their notes high above treeline in (jocky Mountain National Park or the sound of a Shinto :|bng reverberating high above the countryside from the snows of Mount Fuji. Perhaps my initial serious encounter with literature ;Was in grade school where I was first exposed to Henry David Thoreau\u27s Walden. I much admired his ability to tftpture in words the essence of a New England summer lr autumn day, and particularly delighted in his fascination with North American tribal cultures to the extent that he lived Indian style at Walden Pond. In high school fpd college I reached out to other writers such as John fjpuir, Aldo Leopold, Loren Eisely, Edwin Way Teale and Sally Carrighar. Muir brought me, through his vivid imagery, to the lush alpine meadows of the high Sierra. ||e created in my mind a reality more forceful sometimes ||an the actual place itself. In later years I turned to Native American writers including N. Scott Momaday\u27s Way to Rainy Mountain Bid Leslie Silko\u27s Ceremony. They helped me to behold |ihd remember the earth in ways I had never done before. Silko\u27s essay Landscapes and the Pueblo Imagination says it all. The Native American beholder of southwestern landscapes becomes the very landscapes themselves. I remember reading a poem by a Blackfeet Indian about a violent lightning storm in the Montana Rockies. The poet became the mountain and felt the sting of the lightning bolts on his chest. I had two great international experiences, one being a sabbatical leave (from the University of Wyoming) for the better part of a year in Ireland and the other being an exchange professor of English at Osaka University, Japan. My Irish project was to assess the influence of Thoreau, Ghandi and King on the Northern Ireland civil disobedience movement which led me to the writings of William Butler Yeats, AE, George Moore and John Stewart Purnell. Their writings enriched my appreciation for the rich green fields of Ireland to such a degree that Ireland has become my second home. As a result of five long stays in Ireland, I have written a novel, Clearing of the Mist, first published by Dustbooks in 1979 and to be reissued as an expanded second edition by Domhan Books later this year. The novel concerns the struggles of a young Irish Protestant lad by the name of Brian McBride who suffers through the potato famine, comes to America as a railway worker on the Fitchburg line along the shores of Walden Pond and is stationed as a recruit at Fort Laramie in the Dakota Territory. He quickly realizes the forceful parallel of the conditions of the Irish and the American Indians and quits the military to join forces with the Shoshone tribe. But after a series of misfortunes including his Indian bride being killed by advancing troopers, he returns to his native land to fight for home rule. Long after his death, two IRA rebels stumble across (continued page 7) UN I V E R S I T Y OR page 1 F» A C I R I C News & Notes BONNIE GISEL It is with great pleasure that the John Muir Center announces the appointment of Dr. Bonnie J. Gisel as Interim Director of the John Muir Center. She holds a Ph.D. from Drew University where she wrote her dissertation on Jeanne Carr, John Muir\u27s lifelong friend and mentor. Dr. Gisel earlier earned several other degrees, including a M.Div. from Harvard University. She also has published several articles, has taught college, and worked as a Park Ranger at the Woman\u27s Rights National Park in Seneca Falls, New York. While at UOP, she is also Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies, and in Spring, 2001, will offer a Special Topic course on Frederick Law Olmsted and John Muir: From Central Park to Yosemite Valley, Developing the American Landscape. Dr. Gisel is Program Coordinator for the May 4-6, 2001, 53rd California History Institute. The topic is John Muir: Family and Friends. Our next issue will describe the program in detail. For now, all Muir fans will want to save these dates! THE SIERRA INSTITUTE The Sierra Institute, UC Santa Cruz, has announced several courses of interest: Re wilding of California: Ecology and Conservation, April 4-May 29 - Traveling from Big Sur to the Sierra Nevada to the wild North Coast, this program will provide skills to understand ecology and management issues, and act upon them. Three courses: Natural Ecosystems, Ecosystem Management, and Wilderness Education. Nature and Cultural Ecology and Environmental Issues, April 4-May 29 - Interdisciplinary exploration of the boundaries between wilderness and civilization. Hikes in Death Valley, Big Sur, the Sierra Nevada, and Mount Shasta while studying cultural ecology and environmental issues from forests and fisheries to sacred lands and sus- tainability. Three courses: Introduction to Cultural Ecology, Perspectives on Nature, and Introduction to Wilderness Education. Desert Field Studies: The Canyons of Time, April 4- May 29 - Study natural history and nature writing in the redrock canyons of the Colorado Plateau. Explore the desert in the wildlands of the ancient Anasazi. Three courses: Natural History of the Colorado Plateau, Introduction to Nature Writing, and Practicum: Introduction to Wilderness Education. California Wilderness: Nature, Philosophy and Religion, April 4-May 29 - Backpacking in four of California\u27s premier wild areas; Death Valley, Big Sur, the Yolla Bolly Mountains, and the Sierra Nevada are the setting for investigations of nature\u27s influential role in literature, philosophy and religion. Three courses: American Nature Philosophers, Perspectives on Nature, and Practicum: In-troduction to Wilderness Education. For Program Information: Indicate the program title(s) and academic quarter(s) you are interested in. Phone (831) 427-6618 for more information. Sierra Institute, UCSC Extension, 1101 Pacific Avenue, Suite 200, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. E-mail: sierra@cats.usc.edu - Web site: http//:www.ucsc-extension.edu/sierra MOUNTAIN DAYS: THE JOHN MUIR MUSICAL Mountain Days: The John Muir Musical was performed at the Chronicle Pavilion in Concord, California in October, 2000. This full-scale Broadway-style musical focuses on the story of John Muir and Louie Strenzel, and offers a different view of Muir than what is usually emphasized. Theirs is portrayed as a lifelong love story that was strong enough to withstand Muir\u27s long absences as he traveled the Sierra, Alaska, and other places. The play starts with Muir in his Scotland boyhood, and includes his greatest success in winning for Yosemite the status of a national park, and his greatest disappointment, the loss of the Hetch Hetchy. The play, which was very well received, is the work of Richard Elliott of Concord, with music by Craig Bohmler. It featured a cast of 83 (including Teddy Roosevelt and William Keith!) as well as two horses and a sheep. It is hoped that the play will be performed on a regular basis, perhaps at the John Muir National Historical Site in Martinez, California. JOHN MUIR POPS UP IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES An article in the June 2000 issue of the Smithsonian magazine on bighorn sheep quotes Muir a few times. For example, it quotes from his chapter on bighorns in The Mountains of California. Watching bighorns climb an icy slope, Muir wrote that this was the most startling feat of mountaineering I had ever witnessed, and considering only the mechanics of the thing, my astonishment could hardly have been greater had they displayed wings and taken to flight. So be on the lookout for Muir in whatever you read! NEWSLETTER Volume 10, Number 4 Fall 2000 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 MuirAs Ecologist: A Note by Howard R. Cooley, San Jose, CA John Muir is viewed as an ecologist. Many IStters have used such terms as ecological con- •jts in that context, but none as yet seems to have \u27 en willing to emphasize fully that Muir was an ecologist. In a few scattered instances Muir himself used a term such as the balance of nature, so he ::clearly knew the concept. One of his Sunnyside servations from 1873 is a detailed description of the different microclimates of the north and south tils, ledges, and recesses of Yosemite Valley as \u27 (ermined by sunshine and shade. Muir was familiar with the writings of earlier naturalists such as •limboldt, Darwin, Linnaeus, and Thoreau, and was close friends with Asa Gray and C. Hart Merriam who both influenced and advanced scientific ecol- ;\u27V and who in return were influenced to some ree by the works of Muir. Muir\u27s observations of life zones in relation to (he diverse variety of topography, geology, elevation, and climates were among the earliest recorded. For example, in his journal for August, 1873, he noted conifers on canyon floors, wild cherry and alder at 7,000 feet, Anemone occidentalis Growing among rough slate avalanche blocks. . .at an ele- tion of eighty-four hundred feet, Willows and whitebark pine at treeline, wildflowers and ferns I ong the poor, rocky wilderness, and atop alpine peaks along with marmots, bees, butterflies, and ;;fiies, and more flowering plants on one place where a high wall-faced rock reflects the sun heat. . .at an altitude of eleven thousand five hundred feet. How fully, wrote Muir, are all the forms and languages of waters, winds, trees, flowers, birds, rocks, subor- ated to the primary structure of the mountains. .. The word Oecologie was first used by the rman biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866. The term .-ological thought includes the broad scientific, nomic, philosophical, and literary connections of interactive fabric of life. Although the science of logy as we know it today was not well developed lohn Muir\u27s time, he certainly can be called an logical thinker. Through his literary career Muir : dressed geological history and forest evolution, lit rhythms of change and the cycles of days and ■ sons, and the underlying wholeness and harmony lature. He anticipated and presaged the ecological ethic, helped to develop the social and political mechanisms necessary to establish and protect national parks, forests, and wilderness preserves, and contributed some of the most enduring nature writing. It has been said that Muir was a whole man or generalist. He was not a specialist in any one field: he was a skilled botanist, geologist, zoologist, and mountaineer, as well as a philosopher. When Muir roamed the wilderness, he observed and studied everything around him - plants, rocks, landforms, insects, birds, mammals, even clouds - all the while taking immense pleasure in the whole scene. Many professionals of the time considered Muir a scientist. A few even implored him to accept a professorship at one or another prestigious eastern university, some of which eventually bestowed upon him several honorary degrees. When Muir met the geographer Henry Fielding Reid in Alaska in 1880, Reid invited Muir to work with his expedition and introduced him to the team of eight students as Professor Muir. Even though the words ecology or ecological do not appear in Muir\u27s writings, the concept is evident, as in his essays on Sequoias or in his geological studies or his wilderness philosophy. Especially noteworthy in this vein was his walk toward Mount Ritter in \u27A Near View of the High Sierra,\u27 in The Mountains of California. Furthermore, it is significant how frequently modern environmentalists give weight to Muir\u27s accomplishments, and they generally vindicate his findings. In John Muir\u27s writings, and in the biographical narratives, the scholar may trace the development of Muir\u27s ecological thinking from his arrival in California to his studies as an explorer and scientist in the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the Coast Ranges, and to his roles as an activist for preservation and a messenger of the wilderness. ENDNOTES 1. Numerous such passages are found throughout Muir\u27s published works, most of which were first in his magazine articles. But the journal entries cited above are important because they are primary sources. 2. See Michael P. Cohen, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 151-153, and 190-193. Cohen is one of the most distinguished of modern environmental scholars. page 3 Restore Hetch Hetchy t By Ron Good Chair, Board of Directors of RESTORE HETCH HETCHY, a California non-profit corporation Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people\u27s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man. John Muir Mention Hetch Hetchy Valley to visitors to Yosemite National Park and the response of many is immediate: a heartfelt feeling of deep sadness for what has been lost, and a fervent hope that what has been lost can somehow be regained for park visitors, for the people of the United States, for the people of the world, for the plants and animals, and for the glorious granite walls and booming waterfalls of Hetch Hetchy Valley. Probably no issue symbolizes the environmental movement\u27s historical role in protecting the earth\u27s natural wonders as does its effort to preserve and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite Park. Following a fierce nationwide debate led by John Muir, the City of San Francisco was authorized by the U.S. Congress, in the Raker Act of 1913, to construct a dam and reservoir on the Tuolumne River in Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. The O\u27Shaugh- nessy Dam was completed in 1923 and, after the necessary pipelines and power houses were completed, San Francisco began using water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir for its water supply and electrical power generation. John Muir, known as the Father of our National Parks, called Hetch Hetchy Valley a wonderfully exact counterpart of Yosemite Valley. . . a grand landscape garden, one of Nature\u27s rarest and most precious mountain temples. Hetch Hetchy Valley, in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River, should be restored to its natural condition in order to allow one of nature\u27s rarest and most precious mountain temples to be available for public enjoyment, to be reintegrated into its natural ecological and biological systems, and to provide for scientific exploration. Another reason to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley is to preserve the integrity and inviolate status of our national parks. As a 1988 report prepared by the Bureau of Reclamation for the National Park Service states: Such restoration would renew the national commitment to maintaining the integrity of the national park system and keep in perpetual conservation an irreplaceable and unique natural area. The goal of RESTORE HETCH HETCHY is to accomplish a win-win outcome for Hetch Hetchy Valley, and for the cities of the Bay Area and the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts that rely on Hetch Hetchy water and power drop for drop, kilowatt for kilowatt, and dollar for dollar to the extent that is technically feasible. A wonderfully talented group of people has been assembled to accomplish the goals of RESTORE HETCH HETCHY, which includes naturalists, restoration ecolo- gists, investment bankers, attorneys, engineers, economists, public policy and public finance experts, teachers, university professors, river enthusiasts, musicians, actors, artists, and photographers. RESTORE HETCH HETCHY IS: ** raising funds to conduct a feasibility study by competent experts to outline in detail how Hetch Hetchy Valley can be restored in a way that presents a win- win outcome for the City of San Francisco and other Bay Area water and power users; ** implementing an aggressive public education and outreach campaign that includes coalition building with like-minded organizations, and a petition drive targeted at the Secretary of the Interior; ** preparing a new educational video; ** conducting educational outings to Hetch Hetchy, and through the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River; ** making plans for a new book: Hetch Hetchy Valley A Grand Landscape Garden with John Muir\u27s exuberant writing, beautiful paintings by Albert Bierstadt, and photography by award-winning photographers; and, ** assembling materials for sample lesson plans for outdoor educators and classroom teachers. WHAT YOU CAN DO: RESTORE HETCH HETCHY is spearheading the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley. Your involvement is welcomed! We invite you to: 1. Visit the RESTORE HETCH HETCHY website, which includes early and modern-day photographs and paintings of Hetch Hetchy Valley, at www.hetchhetchy.org 2. Encourage organizations to which you belong to pass a resolution of support for restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley. 3. Circulate a petition encouraging the Secretary of the Interior to support restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley. 4. Visit Hetch Hetchy, take photographs, and write articles about your experiences for newspapers and for newsletters of organizations to which you belong. 5. Contact Ron Good, Chair of the Board of Directors of RESTORE HETCH HETCHY, P.O. Box 289, Yosemite, CA 95389; e-mail: info@hetchhetchy.org 6. Volunteer your expertise (volunteer organizing and outreach, outings enthusiast, engineering, economics, geology, law, photography, painting). Thanks for your help! Together, we can, as John Muir said, do something to make the mountains glad. page 4 John Muir: Family & Friends A Conference sponsored by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific 53rd Annual California History Institute May 4 - 6, 2001 On May 4, 5, and 6, 2001, the University of the Pacific will host a John Muir Conference, John Muir: Family & Friends. This three-day conference, the 53rd California History Institute and the fifth on John Muir, will be held at UOP\u27s Feather River Inn ated near Quincy, California, in the Plumas National Forest. Participants and guests will be .■shuttled to the Inn from the Reno Airport and from ihe UOP campus in Stockton. The CHI 2001 con-ference, John Muir: Family & Friends, will define broadly related themes and create a web of inquiry and discussion from which will emerge new interpretations of Muir\u27s place in history and in environmental studies. Topics include, but are not limited to, Muir and family in • lartinez and Southern California; Muir\u27s wilderness family and friends; Muir and the fellowship of all believers; Muir and women; Muir and the community of nature and science; and Muir\u27s friends and acquaintances. Proposals may include formal papers, a panel discussion, an audio-visual presentation or a special exhibit. John Muir: Family & Friends will provide an opportunity for Muir scholars, enthusiasts, family, and friends to gather together during the sesquicen- tennial celebration of the University of the Pacific, heather River Inn is an ideal site for this conference as it symbolizes UOP\u27s commitment to Muir\u27s range of light, the ecological connection between the Sierra and the Great Valley. Optional field trips will be offered. Students and the general public are also welcome to participate, as presenters or as i - dstrants. Dear Friends, The winter issue of this newsletter will list the various sessions of the conference. We hope that you will join us for the 5th John Muir Conference during University of the Pacific\u27s Sesquicentennial. Registration and program material will be forthcoming in January. If you have any questions please contact me at (209) 946-2527. Always in Nature, Bonnie J. Gisel Interim Director, John Muir Center for Regional Studies page 5 Book Reviews Thoreau\u27s Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape By David R. Foster Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999 Reviewed by J. Parker Huber Battleboro, Vermont As more of John Muir\u27s library is revealed, we discover how great a bibliophile he was. Despite his professed low opinion of books, reading for him was living, not a substitute. Reading is being, to paraphrase Rilke, is an apt characterization of Muir. This endeavor for him, as Professor Patricia Hampl reminds us, is an acute form of listening. Here in his quiet hours a relationship formed with writers and ideas. Here he totally absorbed Thoreau\u27s journal as well as his other works. Muir, then, would greet David Foster\u27s Thoreau\u27s Country with much excitement. Curiously, though, he would find that he was familiar with most of it, for Foster quotes liberally from the naturalist\u27s journal; just over half of his 229 pages are by Thoreau himself. The rest is the author\u27s explanation of the importance of Thoreau\u27s ecological wisdom, which he helpfully arranges into five categories: The Cultural Landscape of New England, A Natural History of Woodlands, The Coming of the New Forest,