Often referred to as “The Father of our National Parks,” John
Muir (1838-1914) was America’s most famous and influential
naturalist and conservationist, and founder of the Sierra Club.
Ten Reasons John Muir Is Awesome 1. He has his own Woods,
mineral (Muirite), bird (Muir’s Winter Wren), and minor planet
(Johnmuir). 2. While working in a factory at age 29, Muir was
blinded in accident. When his sight returned months later, he
left factory work to study nature. 3. Muir once described
himself as a “poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and
ornithologist-naturalist, etc., etc.” 4. Choosing to go by “the
wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find,” he
walked 1,000 miles from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico. 5. Muir
was a vocal proponent of the awesomeness of dogs, even referring
to them as “our horizontal brothers.” (His position on cats has
been lost to the sands of time.) 6. Before he took President
Theodore Roosevelt camping in Yosemite Valley: 0 national parks.
After? Five national parks, 18 national mon