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John Muir and 2014

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2014 could be an important year for Scotland. The Commonwealth Games, the Year of Homecoming, the Independence Referendum and a celebration of an event that will probably miss most people's radar – the centenary of the death of John Muir.

I guess most folk who read this will know of John Muir but it still surprises me that so many people here in Scotland have never heard of him. Perhaps that’s not too surprising as he left these shores at a young age and made his name across the Atlantic where he inspired a nation, a young nation that was having second thoughts over its traditional assumptions about wild land.

John Muir was the conduit through which American people could begin to see and recognize the magnificence of the wild land that lay on the doorsteps of their cities, a land they could take a pride in, and while many of his concepts echoed those of earlier romantics like Thoreau and Emerson, or even Wordsworth and Coleridge, Muir articulated them with a new-found intensity that commanded widespread attention.

I often wonder what would have happened if John Muir had stayed here in Scotland and never emigrated at all. Would Scotland be a different place today? Would he have inspired Scots to look at our majestic landscapes and consider them in a different way? It’s an intriguing thought.

John Muir photographed in 1902

John Muir photographed in 1902


Scotland, particularly the highlands of Scotland, was a very different place towards the end of the nineteenth century. Roads were few, many of the glens that we now consider as wild land would still have been inhabited and sheep farming was the main land use, along with the nascent “industry” of huntin’ fishin’ and shooting’.

I suspect even the great John Muir might have had an impossible task in trying to convince the land-owning Lords of Westminster that great tracts of highland land should be set aside for the nation! Particularly since very few people actually went there. It was to be some time before hillwalking and mountaineering became the popular activities they are today.

If he had stayed at home Muir would have been a contemporary of the Scottish pioneer mountaineers. He may even have become a member of one of our earliest clubs, the Cobbler Club, founded in 1866 or the Cairngorm Club in 1888.

In terms of what he achieved as a mountaineer I don’t think there is much doubt that he would have been comparable with Mummery, Collie, Hastings or Slingsby, or perhaps even with the great Harold Raeburn, but such comparisons are probably a bit silly. Muir was a loner, an explorer, a pioneer – someone who was discovering much more than the hardest rock or snow and ice climbs.

Muir was an amateur botanist, naturalist and glaciologist who, in his writings, challenged the scientists of the day. It was John Muir who discovered that the granite landscapes of Yosemite had been created by glaciers, and not by some enormous volcanic eruption as was the common belief of the time.

In such terms we might be better comparing Muir to the likes of Professor JD Forbes of Edinburgh, who travelled widely, climbing mountains throughout the highlands, making the first recorded ascents of Sgurr nan Gillean and Bruach na Frithe on the Isle of Skye. His chief interest was in glaciology, and in 1857 he became the first honorary president of the Alpine Club in London.

But I wonder if John Muir’s social background might have distanced him from the main mountaineering movers and shakers of the day. He wasn’t of the privileged class. His father was a former army recruiting sergeant who eventually became a shopkeeper and then a meal dealer, hardly in the ranks of bankers, doctors, church minsters and landed gentry who made up the bulk of the early Scottish mountaineering community.

In America John Muir railed against the timber industry who, it seemed to him, were determined to destroy groves of giant Sequoia pines and his instincts and observations suggested to him that grazing sheep were destroying those plant covered habitats that he had grown to cherish. It was with good reason that he nicknamed the flocks of sheep he saw in Yosemite as ‘hooved locusts’.

As early as the mid to late nineteenth century Muir recognized that browsing animals caused considerable damage in fragile environments. In comparison, up until very recently our Governments have been giving grants and subsidies to farmers to encourage them to do exactly the same.

Muir saw the need for an expansion of the National Park system. Yellowstone was in existence but his experiences in the Sierra Nevada convinced him that Yosemite should be similarly protected. Yosemite National Park came into being after Muir hosted President Roosevelt for three night camping in the Yosemite backcountry and convinced him of the need for legislative protection.

Compare that with the situation in Scotland. For years many of us argued the case for National Parks in Scotland. Our argument was partly based on the fact that John Muir, recognised internationally as one of the founding fathers of the National Park movement, was born and bred here in Scotland, one of the few countries in the world that didn’t have any National Parks. Indeed, I think I’m correct in saying that as recently as 2000 the only countries in Europe not to have National Parks were Scotland and Albania!

John Muir (right) with President Theodore Roosevelt, Yosemite National Park

John Muir (right) with President Theodore Roosevelt, Yosemite National Park

And here’s a thought as you consider how to vote in next year’s referendum. We still wouldn’t have National Parks in Scotland, or our much-lauded access legislation, if devolution hadn’t happened. It was in the first term of a devolved Scottish Parliament that provisions were made to create two National Parks – in the Trossachs and Loch Lomond, and the Cairngorms.

So why couldn’t the UK Government have created National Parks in Scotland, after all they created 13 in England and Wales? The fact of the matter is that landowning interests in the non-elected House of Lords continually put the kibosh on any plans for Scottish National Parks or changes in access legislation. Just as the self-same unelected House of Lords is still eager to strip Scotland of some of its devolved powers.

I’m not sure that John Muir would have made much of a difference had he stayed in Scotland. Far better, I believe, for us to celebrate those who did make a difference here in Scotland – people like Frank Fraser Darling and William Hutchinson Murray, the latter who comes to mind as perhaps the single most effective conservationist Scotland has produced. I would strongly recommend the excellent biography – The Sunlit Summit, by Robin Lloyd-Jones, for a comprehensive account of Murray’s conservation achievements.

Tom Weir was a notable conservationist but tended not to become involved in some serious issues if they turned out to be controversial – the Lurchers’ Gully proposal in the early eighties was a good example of that and one that led to much friction between him and a very old friend, Dr Adam Watson, another outstanding conservationist.

I had the privilege of working alongside Dave Morris, Director of Ramblers Scotland, during the campaign for the Land Reform (Scotland) Act, and I have little doubt that Dave and his adviser, the highly knowledgeable and skilled Alan Blackshaw, made that legislation come about.

The absolute commitment, energy and drive from these two men during the various consultations leading up to the creation of the Bill was astounding and represented the fulfillment of any legacy that John Muir may have left here in the land of his birth.

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