the john muir exhibit - john_muir_newsletter - shasta
Jeanne Carr on Shasta
by Jeanne C. Carr
(Reprinted from the
John Muir Newsletter
Vol. 4, no. 4, Fall 1994)
(Editor's note: the following, from an unidentified clipping, dated
May 17, 1876, is from the Muir Family collection at the Holt-
Atherton Library. The source is probably the Sacramento Union).
"SHASTA-WARD"
"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation," and we who
went, not without misgivings, to perform an unfamiliar task, found
one of the crowning pleasures of our lives. Incommunicable as the
impressions made upon the mind by sublime natural scenery may be,
it is possible to convey a craving for it which will lead another
along the same track. So John Muir's letters, written last year in
his wild walks over and around Our Fusiyama, and the earlier
blossoming of Mr. Avery's thought flowers, had drawn me Shasta-ward
with an irrepressible longing. Despising merely big things, I have
a profound respect for high things, but this is also best in all
its characters and conditions, celestial or terrestrial.
Somewhere I shall never care to remember where, during that
May day's ride from Redding northward, from one of the mountain
benches along which the stage creeps slowly, the white wonder of
Mount Shasta breaks upon the enchanted vision. No nearer view can
enhance the majesty, the glory of it as seen from that spot. The
forest billows rise and fall like pulsations from the living soul
of the scene; young rivers musically pour their silver floods out
of its deep stillness; the many-colored earth carpet, blue, crimson
and gold, is only the embroidered hem of that snowy robe, beautiful
through every fold.
Once revealed in fullest perfection, I lost sight of the
mountain for many hours of day and night, the stage road following
the tortuous line of the McCloud, Pitt and Sacramento rivers. I
had one noble view by moonlight, compensating for much weariness of
the flesh incident to staging over freshly repaired corduroy roads
then everywhere deeply rutted by heavy teams. But the morning of
the 2d found me at the monarch's feet silently worshipful. There
was no smoke in Sisson's chimney, and I was driven past to Mrs.
Fellows' where only a month before the stages encountered seven
feet of snow. The great fire place and our mountain hunger held me
but a few of the precious moments from the crisp, bracing air.
Only the faintest line of shadow broke the grand sweep of the snow
from summit to base on the eastern side and showed where the
canyons might be.
"SPOTLESS FROM CROWN TO GARMENT'S HEM", Shasta stood waiting
for "Our Brother, the Sun" who laid his golden rays like an aureole
upon the summit before all the stars had faded from the morning
sky.
The ride around the base of Shasta for miles and miles is as
charming as the braided beauty of pine and fir forests, and singing
waters can make it. Up there spring is just opening her eyes, and
the blue Nemophilas were everywhere nodding their infantile faces;
links in the flowery chain which binds our alps to the plains
below. I may not speak of the flowers peculiar to our northern
counties, which some winged messenger brought ages ago from Armenia
and the base of Ararat. Nor yet of our ride homeward with two
enthusiastic teachers, our stay at Sissons', who accompanied us
down as far as "Portugee", and introduced as the first (aboriginal)
families, who were still in their winter quarters, awaiting the
coming in of the salmon. About fifty Indians, were congregated on
the evening of our visit, to celebrate with a dance the arrival of
one of their young women at the marriageable age. I asked of the
chief the name of the maiden, whose charms even the Poet of the
Sierras could hardly celebrate. "No name" he said. "Your wife, has
she a name? I asked. "No name; woman no name", was the reply. The
names of these tribes would already have disappeared but for the
patient labors of our Western Bancroft who has saved from oblivion
the perishable records of these native races.
The stars and stripes were waving over the Fish Commissioner's
station, on the McCloud, where I would gladly have lingered. Would
that the Government could rehabilitate the forests as easily as it
can repeople the rivers. Then the sound of the ax and the buzz of
the steam mill would no longer mean waste and desolate places,
where these bright, foodful [sic] rivers now rise and flow.
To the seekers for health and recreation I say go north,
brothers, go north. Take your gun and fishing tackle, and fix your
eve steadily on Shasta butte. And you, dear sisters, fearless of
tan and freckles, shorten your trails, take some stout shoes, and
abide at Sissons' until the wild strawberries flavor your dreams,
and you are at home in that
hospitable wilderness.
Sacramento, May 10, 1876 Jeanne C. Carr
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