the john muir exhibit - people - galen clark - influential people in john muir's life - john muir exhibit
Galen Clark
1814-1910
- One of Yosemite's earliest explorers, its first public guardian, and one of its most revered hosts, tour guides, and protectors for most of his life. He
was a charter member of the Sierra Club.
- Galen Clark, with Milton Mann, was one of the earliest white
settlers to explore the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in 1857.
- In 1866 Clark was appointed to be the first Guardian of
the new Yosemite Grant, and he served in this role for twenty-one
years.
- John Muir met Galen Clark on his first visit to Yosemite, and
later called him "the best mountaineer I ever met,
and one or the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends."
- Clark wrote
several books, including Indians of the Yosemite (1904), The
Big Trees of California, Their History and Characteristics (1907),
and The
Yosemite Valley (1910). Exhibiting modern ecological knowledge informed by traditional Indigenous knowledge, Clark believed that the problem with Yosemite National Park was that it needed Native people to come back and burn the land and tend the oak trees so that vegetation would not overtake the Tuolumne Valley.
- For more information, see Galen Clark: Yosemite Guardian by Shirley Sargent.
Photo courtesy of Yosemite Library, National Park Service
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