I Must Go

This photograph was taken on holiday, and the feel of the Olympic National Park and the Olympic Mountain Range holds a treat for the senses. Having a... more

by Kathy Bassett

Title

I Must Go

Artist

Kathy Bassett

Medium

Photograph - Photography - Digital Fine Art

Description

This photograph was taken on holiday, and the feel of the Olympic National Park and the Olympic Mountain Range holds a treat for the senses. Having a lone deer strolling through the wildflowers brings a certain peace and certainty to things. I thought of John Muir, and often do, when I hike in the national parks in the U.S. John Muir (1838-1914), a self-described �poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist� was a Scottish American naturalist, preservationist, and explorer.1 Muir contributed to studies of the natural world throughout his extensive travels across America, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America. His travels often took him to less explored corners of North America, including the Yosemite Valley, the High Sierra Nevada Mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains, the Cascade Mountains, the San Juan Islands, and Alaska. Muir did what few explorers before him had by connecting American citizens to the places few were fortunate enough to experience through writing that gained him widespread recognition. More than provide entertainment in highly regarded publications, Muir�s writing ignited an American interest in land preservation, so influential it inspired President Theodore Roosevelt�s unprecedented land management actions. Muir oversaw America�s greatest land preservation triumphs, continued today by his organization the Sierra Club, and his efforts remain unmatched by any individual or organization since.John Muir�s love of nature was awakened at an early age in Scotland, where he spent his days exploring the coastline and countryside near his home. Fascinated by the American natural history he read of at Dunbar Grammar School, Muir�s interests were realized when his family emigrated from Glasgow to New York , eventually settling in Wisconsin.2 His father, a Presbyterian minister later turned Calvinist, was strict on his eight children, and it is believed Muir found respite from his harsh manner in nature.3 In My Boyhood and Youth, Muir wrote that his childhood and adolescent appreciation of nature was rooted in a �natural inherited wildness in our blood.�4 His curiosity of the natural world continued at the University of Wisconsin, where he became consumed by geology and botany.

Uploaded

December 30th, 2013