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The Sierra Club's LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite continues to provide a special
online program, Words for Wilderness Around the World.
Originally offered on-the-ground in Yosemite to celebrate the LeConte Memorial
Centennial, the Words
for Wilderness Around the World now invites people from around the
Earth to submit
electronically their thoughts and experiences about nature, wilderness,
and wildlife.
These themes are a point of
departure. Individuals may write about a personal relationship with nature
or about environmental challenges faced by family, friends, organizations,
agencies, local communities, their nation, or the global community. You may
also write about the landscape of home or a natural habitat; protecting wildlife;
biodiversity; the challenges of life in the twenty-first century; clean air
and clean water; global population; human rights and the environment; or concerns
about global warming.
A poem, drawing or words of naturalists or nature writers
(if properly identified) may be included. All contributions at this time must
be submitted electronically.
Please see the links at left for further information.
Words for Wilderness Around the World were collected at
LeConte Lodge in 2003 and 2004. Now we are seeking contributions from
elsewhere - especially overseas!
Selected
submissions are
posted on this website.
Here's the idea: each contribution becomes a link in a virtual necklace of
words that will circle the Earth. The idea for the necklace of words grew from
the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, who believed that parks are opportunities
to weave together parcels of green space-living necklaces - healthful places
where people rest and recreate. Olmsted sought to link the United States together,
park to park, in one green corridor. From the door of LeConte Memorial Lodge,
in Yosemite Valley, a necklace of words - GREEN
WORDS - will grow around the world.
Our course around the world follows John Muir's travels
around the world. We start in Yosemite National Park, where Muir's preservationist
ideas took form and multiplied. From LeConte Memorial Lodge, the
necklace depicts the progress of Words for Wilderness Around the World
(see map.) This Words
for Wilderness Around the World website includes a web
submission form through which to forward
words.
John Muir, Joseph LeConte, Frederick Olmsted, Ansel Adams, and David Brower sought to preserve wild places. They accomplished this goal, in part, by writing journals about their wilderness experiences, which became articles and books that shared their sentiments about the natural world and the need to preserve wilderness. These inspiring conservation leaders believed in the University of the Wilderness - that in nature are important lessons about the world in which we live. Words for Wilderness will follow the lead of these inspirational writers, engaging people in creating a global necklace of words as each person records experiences and thoughts about nature, wilderness, and the environment. From individual communities, from the places we recreate, from organizations through which we are guided to a greater understanding of our world, LeConte Memorial Lodge and the Sierra Club invite participation in Words for Wilderness.
* All ages are welcome. Words (up to 50), poetry, and drawings will be accepted.
Please use our Website Submission Form to submit your
contributions.
Information and Donations
For more information, during the summer contact Sierra Club LeConte Memorial Lodge
Curator, P.O. Box 755, Yosemite, CA 95389, 1-209-372-4542; e-mail:
leconte.curator@sierraclub.org.
During the winter, contact LeConte Lodge Committee Chair, Harold Wood, P.O. Box 3543,
Visalia, CA 93278; phone: (559) 697-3525; e-mail: harold.wood@sierraclub.org
Tax deductible donations to support the new exhibits and renovation efforts of the
LeConte Memorial can be made to "Sierra Club Foundation," marked for the "LeConte Lodge Fund."
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