A natural history lesson: Muir's life captured at
home-turned-park

By Reed Parsell
Bee Staff Writer
Sacramento Bee
June 1, 2000
Page E1

MARTINEZ -- "John Muir talked even better than he wrote,"
according to Theodore Roosevelt. "His greatest influence was
always upon those who were brought into personal contact."

Contact with the famous conservationist, who died in 1914,
in a way can be achieved through a visit to the John Muir
National Historic Site, which includes the mansion in which
Muir lived his last 24 years. School groups often go there.
The students -- mostly fourth-graders, according to park
ranger Barbara Phillips -- seem to sense that the
Scotland-born Muir had a great fondness for children.

"Adults, he could take 'em or leave 'em," Phillips said. But
young people he adored, she continued, and that warm feeling
is reciprocated today through the student visitors. "They
just love John Muir. Something special is going on there. I
just love that."

The 8.8-acre park, about 90 miles from Sacramento in the
Alhambra Valley south of Martinez, incorporates ground that
Muir himself cultivated in the 1880s. The property was part
of a 2,600-acre farm owned by his father-in-law, Dr. John
Strentzel, who died in 1890. Muir then moved into
Strentzel's 17-room house and resided there until his death
at age 76.

That last third of Muir's life is when he earned his fame.
He became a tireless advocate for conservation. Through his
direct influence, five national parks were established:
Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest and Grand
Canyon. He traveled extensively, including to Alaska and
Africa, and wrote 10 books and more than 300 magazine
articles. In 1892, he helped found the Sierra Club and
served as its president for the rest of his life.Alook at
Muir's role with the environmental group shows how he cared
about matters beyond wilderness. The former schoolteacher,
also a lecturer, geologist, botanist and inventor, had
credentials as a feminist, too.

"John Muir did not accept the stereotype of his time that
women were too delicate for a wilderness experience ...,"
according to a sign on the mansion's second floor, next to a
picture of Muir and his "outing secretary" -- a woman -- on
horseback in 1908. "He encouraged women to take an active
part in all Sierra Club activities." About one-third of the
club's early members were women.

In fact, Muir's personal life revolved around three women.
He and his wife, Louie, had two daughters. Little Wanda and
Helen, no doubt blessed with some of their father's
adventuresome spirit, reportedly made good use of the
mansion's attic and bell tower. The tower's view has changed
since their day, however, and not in ways that would have
pleased Muir.

Today from that perch, accessible by stairs leading from the
attic, visitors can see to what extent nature has given way
to the sprawl of humanity. Not more than 100 yards away is
busy Highway 4, its vehicular roar reduced to a constant but
distinct hum inside the large house. Scanning to the left,
one can see through the tower's windows first a bank, then a
shuttered gas station, an oil refinery in the distance, huge
power lines cutting across the visage, a subdivision on the
hillside and, directly across Highway 4, a rusty railroad
trestle.

Children can add to the commotion by ringing the tower's
bell, Phillips said.

"Over and over again, it's the loud, overbearing kid who
does it beautifully," according to the park ranger, "and
it's some pipsqueak kid who just yanks it." Another lesson
to be learned at the house is a backpacker's obligation to
pack out what he or she packs in. If school groups stay for
lunch, Phillips said, students are responsible for carrying
out their own garbage.

Muir himself was an accomplished backpacker, a long-bearded,
thin man whose association with Roosevelt included a
four-day hike into Yosemite in 1903. One morning, the two --
who slept without a tent -- awoke to find themselves covered
with snow. The president himself was instrumental in our
country's early conservation movement, authorizing many
national parks and monuments before leaving office in 1909.
After their Yosemite trip, Muir commented about Roosevelt:
"I was surprised to find he knew so much natural history."

What the two had done together, exploring the Sierra, was
one of Muir's passions. He liked to describe such excursions
in specific terms, as is evident by the following quote
attributed to Muir in one of the historic site's exhibits.

"You know, when the pilgrims were going from England to the
Holy Land, the French would ask them, 'Where are you going?'
And they did not speak French very well, but they would say,
'Sante Terre' (holy land). That is where we get our word
'saunter,' and you should saunter through the Sierra,
because this is holy land, if there ever was one."

Sauntering is something visitors can do at the historic
site, learning as they go thanks to the mansion's exhibits
and a self-guided-tour pamphlet that costs $1. The trail,
which can take a leisurely 90 minutes to complete, passes by
two trees Muir planted: a dying fig and a growing sequoia.

Long before Muir's family plowed the earth here, Saklan
Indians of the Miwok tribe and Karkin Indians of the Ohlone
tribe inhabited the valley. Their way of life, in place as
early as 2000 B.C., surely appealed to Muir.

"As hunters and gatherers, they did not cultivate crops," a
sign about the American Indians explains inside the Martinez
Adobe, part of the self-guided tour. "Instead, they used
sophisticated techniques like controlled burning to promote
plant growth and seed propagation. Their lifestyle
established a harmony and balance with nature that lasted
for many thousands of years."

This past New Year's Eve, as a century much influenced by
the legendary conservationist drew to a close, television
cameras in time zones around the globe followed the arrival
of the new century. Midnight shots of people's celebrations
gave way, a few hours later, to the sun's rising. Muir's own
words would have been an appropriate narrative.

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere;
the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever
falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal
sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and
islands, each in its turn, as the round Earth rolls."

John Muir National Historic Site is open from 10 a.m. to
4:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; it is also closed on
New Year's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is $2
per person (free for 16 and younger) or $4 per vehicle. For
more information: (925) 228-8860 or www.nps.gov/jomu.
Directions: From Sacramento, take Interstate 80 west to
Highway 4. Go east to the Alhambra Avenue exit to Martinez.
Turn left at the bottom of the ramp, and after driving under
the overpass turn left into the site's small parking lot.
Bus No. 116 from the site offers connections to BART and
Amtrak.


Document source:
http://www.sacbee.com/lifestyle/news/lifestyle03_20000601.html


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