the john muir exhibit - bibliographic_resources - book_jackets - muir is still here: a marquette county journal of discovery by daryl christensen and kathleen mcgwin
Muir is Still Here:
A Marquette County Journal of Discovery
by Daryl Christensen and Kathleen McGwin
(
from the book's back cover
)
Muir is Still Here:
A Marquette County Journal of Discovery by Daryl Christensen and Kathleen
McGwin; 136 pages; Maps, Color Photography, Bibliography, softbound. Prepared
for the Year of John Muir - Montello Historic Preservation Society, P.O. Box
473, 55 West Montello St., Montello, WI 53949.
© 2010.www.kathleenmcgwin.com/
montello-historic-preservation-society.
When the renowned American naturalist John Muir was 11 years old, he traveled
from his home city of Dunbar, Scotland with his father, brother, and one sister,
across the Atlantic, to New York, over to Buffalo, through the Great Lakes
to Milwaukee, overland by ox cart to Kingston, Wisconsin, and finally to Buffalo
Township in Marquette County. The year as 1849. the landscape was wilderness
with only blazed trails, inhabited by Ho Chunk INdians, then called Winnebago,
being displaced by the influx of immigrants and Yankees encouraged to settle
in the new state.
John Muir went on to become one of the greatest influences in America on saving
wilderness for its immeasurable diversity of life and its great importance
to the well being of man and womankind. But before he settled in California,
before he embraced and saved Yosemite, before he took his 1,000 mile walk or
climbed on Alaskan glaciers, he rejoiced in the flora and fauna of his boyhood
home in Marquette County, Wisconsin.
That landscape, that wilderness connection, the meadow, the wet sedge orchids,
the chattering bluejay that Muir loved, can still be found in Marquette County. Muir
is Still Here describes important Marquette County influences on the young
John Muir and gives locations where Muir birds, flowers, and even neighboring
settler outpost history can be found. More importantly, the book Muir is
Still Here leads the reader through his or her own journey in understanding
the man Muir, his transcendental view of nature, and the reader's own connection
to the wild world.
Muir is Still Here revisits and revitalizes the influences in John
Muir's young life in Marquette County, Wisconsin that helped shape this great
man's wilderness philosophy. It is a joyful book; a look at who was there with
him in 1850s Wisconsin, what he read, what he saw and what he loved in the
landscape around him. Not a biography, not a history text, this look into the
past leads right into the present and takes the reader on a journey that will
reconnect many to flora, human to fauna, and Muir's view of the universe with
our own longing to feel one with the world. You don't need to walk the path
of the corduroy road that Muir helped build to find your own threads from the
past woven into the present but Muir is Still Here tells you where
to find it if you want to. You can travel in your own county to find winged
wonders that offer your soul a chance to fly free, but if you want to know
where to see the birds that enchanted Muir as a boy, Muir is Still Here helps
you find them, too. Part travel guide, part chronicle of the past, part guide
to self discovery, Muir is Still Here is a fascinating read for anyone
who loves nature, admires John Muir, seeks renewal, or enjoys local history.
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