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Progress, too, is being made by the 'sister' organisation that also bears the name of John Muir. The John Muir Trust recently launched the John Muir Awards and children from Dunbar Primary School were amongst the very first recipients of the Discovery award. Further details are given later on.
Conversation with a Tramp:
An Evening with John Muir
Pre-Edinburgh Festival Fringe Performance of
Lee Stetson's One Man Play
Saturday, 27th July 1996
at Dunbar Primary School 6.00pm
Tickets £3/£2 conc.
See enclosed slip for details
Those of us living in Dunbar and suffering the upheaval of the High Street refurbishment look forward to the completion of the work. It has been decided that a statue of John Muir as a child should be given pride of place in the new-look High Street. Apart from these obvious improvements to the physical fabric of Dunbar, it is also gratifying to note the efforts being made by other local community groups such as Dunbar and District History Society and Victorian Days in enhancing the historical and cultural fabric of Dunbar.
Ed.
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After this discussion some of us climbed up to the Museum in the John Muir House, where Stefany Hawryluk chatted about its history and the host of interesting visitors in recent years. Next, David Anderson's mini-tour took in the house across the road where John's aunt lived, and grandfather Gilrye's property nearby. Our visitor's many questions showed a knowledgeable interest in the Muir family and in the problems facing emigrants a hundred and fifty years ago.
Past the tarpaulin-wrapped Town House and the George Hotel, Cossar's Wynd was dark with scaffolding overhead as David conjured up the people who had lived there and the boy who knew it so well. Straight ahead of us as we walked between the high walls, the sun shone on the derelict lorry depot. With the sunlit sea beyond, it seemed a fitting place for transformation to a forward-looking building beckoning people from the High Street to celebrate the man who had left the confines of Dunbar to explore the world.
Down by the shore time passed quickly until the president hurried us back to the Library to meet representatives of our Affiliate Members, and of our partners in the project, Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise Limited, Scottish Natural Heritage and East Lothian Council.
We got the feeling that the Earl of Dalkeith will be back to Dunbar again, whether we get Millennium funding or not.
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Having decided its course of action and set a target date of November/December 1996 for the completion of the full feasibility study, it was agreed that the work between now and then should be phased and that the decision to proceed from the first phase to the second will only be taken if progress is reassuring - we must be prudent. If, indeed, the second phase is undertaken then our plans for officially opening the John Muir Centre on the 150th anniversary of John Muir emigrating America - in 1849 - will be much nearer realisation.
We now await developments with confidence knowing that ERM will harness the expertise of Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith (architect) and staff of the Tourism Resources Company and Touchstone Heritage Management Consultants. In writing these notes I hope I have not created an atmosphere of euphoria - this is not warranted and would be wholly inappropriate - but solid progress is being made. This is being achieved with the rightly measured support of our partners and the unstinted work of Winifred Sillitto, our Convener, and Carole Ross - this should not be taken for granted.
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In America John Muir is famous as a climber, explorer, geologist, botanist and writer; but above all as the pioneer of conservation. In the 1870s, before 'mountaineering' existed as a sport in the USA, he made the first ascent of Mt. Ritter (13,000ft), the first ascent by the Eastern route of Mt. Whitney (14,500 ft.), and early ascents of Mt. Shasta (14,400ft) and Mt. Rainier (14,500 ft). He was first to ascend Cathedral Peak, a hazardous pinnacle in Yosemite National Park and climbed many peaks in the Sierra Nevada range. However, it was not the desire for fame, or bagging summits, which led him to risk his life in scaling these heights; he climbed in order to understand the geography of the unmapped areas he was exploring. But a deeper need also drew him to these remote summits, for here he found the beauty, cosmic mystery and spiritual insight which gave him his deepest fulfilment. Along the way he pioneered 'clean-climbing' in America, for he normally climbed without crampons, ropes or pitons; his example has never been more needed than today.
A self-taught geologist and glaciologist, he was first to discover living glaciers in the High Sierra and to propose their role in sculpting entire mountain ranges. His theory, that slow-grinding glaciers had gouged out Yosemite Valley over vast epochs of time, was ridiculed by Josiah Whitney, the patriarch of California geology, who held to the 'catastrophist' doctrine, that giant earthquakes had dropped the valley floor. Whitney dismissed Muir's ideas with contempt: "what does the sheep-herder know about geology?", but Louis Agassiz, the father of glaciology, later proved Muir correct.
As a botanist and pioneer-ecologist Muir was consulted by the great scientists of his day, notably Asa Gray of Harvard and Joseph Hooker of Kew. He guided them on expeditions of discovery and they even named some of the plants he led them to in his honour! Ralph Waldo Emerson, the transcendental philosopher of New England, journeyed over 3,000 miles to visit Muir in the 'hang-nest', a wooden shack he had built in Yosemite. Emerson wrote that this self-reliant young Scot had the most original mind and powerful intellect of any man he had met in America; they became lifelong friends.
But it is as the founder of the conservation movement, the first person to call clearly for the conservation and protection of wilderness and wildlife, that we remember John Muir. By the time of his death in 1914 he had become an almost mythic figure in the American pantheon, where today he ranks alongside Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln and Kennedy as "father of the national parks". John Muir is truly revered; not as some intellectual fossil, enshrined in a marble hall of fame, but as a living spirit - an environmental zeitgeist, whose words reverberate through the conservation movement on both sides of the Atlantic, with increasing resonance and relevance.
Americans have named over 200 sites in his honour, including: Muir Glacier, and Mount Muir in Alaska, Muir Woods and Muir Beach near San Francisco, and the John Muir Wilderness and John Muir Trail in the High Sierra. In 1964, Congress designated his Martinez home The John Muir National Historic Site, in recognition of his campaigns and the books in which he celebrated the natural heritage of the United States. This is just one of over 340 historic sites and parks, comprising over 80 million acres of wild land, cared for by the National Park Service, which Muir himself helped create. At Marquette County, Wisconsin, the John Muir Memorial Park is laid out near the Muir homestead at Fountain Lake. A granite slab among the wildflowers declares:
" JOHN MUIR, Foster son of Wisconsin born in Scotland April 21, 1838 He came to America as a lad of eleven, spent his 'teen years in hard work clearing the farm across this lake, carving out a home in the wilderness. In the "sunny woods, overlooking a flowery glacial meadow and a lake rimmed with water lilies," he found an environment that fanned the fire of his zeal and love for all nature, which, as a man, drove him to study, afoot, alone and unafraid, the forests, mountains and glaciers of the west to become the most rugged, fervent naturalist America has produced, and the Father of the National Parks of our country. "After Muir's death President Teddy Roosevelt wrote on January 6, 1915:
"His was a dauntless soul. Not only are his books delightful, not only is he the author to whom all men turn when they think of the Sierras and Northern glaciers, and the giant trees of the California slope, but he was also - what few nature-lovers are - a man able to influence contemporary thought and action on the subjects to which he had devoted his life. He was a great factor in influencing the thought of California and the thought of the entire country so as to secure the preservation of those great natural phenomena - wonderful canyons, giant trees, slopes of flower-spangled hillsides . . our generation owes much to John Muir."Muir's success can be gauged from the fact that, during his lifetime, he influenced Presidents Roosevelt, Wilson and Taft in designating over 50 national parks, 200 national monuments and 140 million acres of National Forest. In the 1930s his example inspired David Brower, an unemployed student, to make first-ascents of over twenty peaks topping 13,000ft in the High Sierra. Brower's experience of mountain beauty soon led him into the conservation movement and, following Muir's path, he became Director of the Sierra Club in 1952.
After seventeen years he resigned as Director in 1969, and went on to found Friends of the Earth, which now has chapters in 53 countries. Muir's influence, working through people like David Brower, now extends across the globe.
But what of Scotland, the land of John Muir's birth, where he is still largely unknown among the mass of people. It is the most extensively de-forested country in Europe, with over 99% of its trees long-gone and its natural heritage sadly impoverished as a result. There are signs that John Muir's spirit is at last coming home to inspire a new generation of conservationists. In 1976 the steady trickle of American pilgrims to Muir's birthplace in Dunbar inspired East Lothian District Council, under the prompting of Frank Tindall, the County Planning Officer, to designate John Muir Country Park; eight miles of wild sea-coast stretching from Belhaven Bay to Tyninghame and beyond.
In 1981 the Council opened the John Muir House Birthplace Museum at 128 High Street, Dunbar, which attracts visitors from all over the world. About the same time, the National Library of Scotland was given a complete microfilm edition of the John Muir Papers, containing copies of virtually every journal, book and letter that Muir ever wrote. This was gifted by the Holt Atherton Institute at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, where the original papers and much of John Muir's personal library are held. This historic archive is now available to scholars in Scotland and the United Kingdom for research into any aspect of Muir's writings.
In 1983 Muir's life inspired the creation of the John Muir Trust in Scotland, established to conserve wild land and protect it for future generations through purchase. To date the Trust has acquired four areas of wild land in Scotland: Li and Coire Dhorrcail in Knoydart (3,000 acres 1988), Torrin on the Isle of Skye (5,000 acres, 1991), Sandwood Bay, Sutherland (11,000 acres 1992), Strathaird and Bla Bheinn in the Skye Cuillin (15,000 acres 1994).
None of these areas is true 'wilderness' or 'wild' in the American sense; they all have crofting communities and people have farmed here for hundreds of years; possibly thousands. Whatever the label, these landscapes are among the most unspoiled in Britain and are sublimely beautiful. The John Muir Trust aims to demonstrate exemplary management of these areas, sharing responsibility with local communities for the sustainable use of the landscape, wildlife and natural resources. The Trust's Information and Education Committee, also aims to foster a much wider knowledge of Muir's life and work, here in Britain.
In 1994 a group of local people founded Dunbar's John Muir Association, with the support of the John Muir Trust. This new body aims to enhance knowledge of Muir and to reclaim him as a Scottish figure, for the educational and economic benefit of Scotland and Dunbar. It has submitted a bid to the Millennium Fund, for the creation of a John Muir Centre in Dunbar, as a beacon for environmental education and sustainability in Scotland. The Centre will function as an environmental gateway for visitors to Scotland, with stunning audio-visual facilities. It will allow children to experience distant wildernesses, anywhere on the planet, using advanced computer facilities, and will also enable schools to share environmental information and projects.
Every country needs heroes to fire the imagination with all that is excellent and provide inspiring role-models for children. Europe has no conservation hero to stand comparison with John Muir and it is timely that the John Muir Trust and Dunbar's John Muir Association are working to bring him home in time for the Millennium. Muir's life and achievements represent a unique contribution to world conservation and it is vital that he should be brought back into the mainstream of Scottish culture and education.
John Muir never forgot his Dunbar roots and Scotland was always in his heart. His first decade in East Lothian was undoubtedly crucial. The foundations of his character: his dogged self-reliance; his hunger for knowledge; his endurance; his thirst for adventure and his profound love of nature, were laid down upon the sandstones and basalt of this rocky shore. Muir was not a systematiser; he wrote no text books and occupied no university chair. But it is arguable that the legacy of his books and successful battles on behalf of conservation, will ultimately have more enduring world-impact than any scientist or statesman of his day.
Muir was a one-off; a unique personality who broke the mould: Poet, Philosopher and Preacher as much as he was botanist or geologist. He is not amenable to simple analysis.
The questions he asked about the survival of wild landscapes and wild creatures are as relevant today as when he first posed them. And his great vision of the whole of Nature as a divine manifestation, shining with beauty, brimming with purpose, filled with meaning, is one of the most potent rejoinders to the materialist and reductionist world-view that has ever been made. It is a vision that the world sorely needs as we approach the Millennium, when mankind's search for spiritual truths, environmental values and practical strategies for sustainability has never been more urgent.
Graham White
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The children, ten and eleven year olds from Primary 6B at Dunbar Primary School, had been invited to test the Award, along with their teachers: Fiona Waddell and Veronica Brunton.
The Award has been created by the John Muir Trust following a report which revealed that less than 5,000 Scottish children are actively engaged as members of environmental groups in Scotland. The Award is intended to welcome many tens of thousands of children into the world of conservation as lifelong, active members.
The Award has been designed to be non-competitive, open to all and national in scope; it is also intended that the style of the Award should be one of fun, adventure and exploration.
The Dunbar children discovered their first wild places in their own gardens and explored the wildlife and plants which they found there. They then contrasted and compared this with a much wilder exploration of John Muir Country Park, with Ranger Bobby Anderson. They helped to conserve the frog-pond in the park by clearing out litter and improving the habitat. Finally, they created a large exhibition about John Muir and about how they had put his principles to work in conserving their local environment in Dunbar.
Terry Isles and Alan Blackie both made short speeches affirming the world importance of John Muir and the relevance of his ideas and philosophy to today's problems. The Director of Education praised the children for their hard work and hoped that these first Awards would be the first of many for East Lothian schools.
Julie Moyes explained to the children how revered John Muir is in the USA and then, together with Terry Isles she presented then with their John Muir Discovery Awards. Teachers Fiona Waddell and Veronica Brunton also received Awards, along with Ranger Bobby Anderson.
All the children received a free copy of Canongate Books new edition of "John Muir; The Wilderness Journeys", generously donated by the publishers.
The children presented the Consul with a bouquet of flowers and a copy of The Nature of Scotland as a memento of her visit to Dunbar.
Children, dignitaries and guests then assembled on the grassy slope above Dunbar Castle, where John Muir played as a boy. The American Consul presented the children with a new American flag and Ian Murdoch, representing Lord Lindsay - Scottish Office Environment Minister, presented a brand new flag of Scotland - the Saltire. Press photographs were taken by The Scotsman, East Lothian Courier and East Lothian News.
The Discovery Level of the John Muir Award is the first of three progressively challenging levels of the Award. The Discovery Level requires 30 hours effort over a period of three months. The Explorer requires 60 hours effort over six months and the Conserver Level requires 120 hours effort over a year.
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Conversation with a Tramp:
An Evening with John Muir
True adventure stories from the life of visionary Scottish-American wilderness warrior John Muir. American actor Bill Ritch and Scottish director Stewart Friendship bring John Muir alive on stage to retell in Muir's own words the joyful encounters with the wilderness that led to Muir's spirited defence of wild lands and wild creatures. Soar to the excitement of riding a tree top storm - share his thrilling escape from Yosemite Falls.
Before the performance begins, birthday cake and drinks will be served.
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<www.cs.strath.ac.uk/Contrib/JMC/>
What appears between < and > brackets is, by convention, a reference to the Internet address - the computer network equivalent of a post code - and in this example is a reference to the Virtual John Muir Centre (VJMC) that is currently hosted by a computer connected to the World Wide Web (www) in the Computer Science (cs) Department at Strathclyde University (strath) which is part of the academic (ac) network in the United Kingdom (uk). The /Contrib/JMC/ part just indicates where on that particular computer the files of the John Muir Centre are to be found. Incidentally, an Internet address like <www.cs.strath.ac.uk> is also known as a 'Domain Name'.
It has been forecast that by the end of this Millennium, over 200 million people will be connected to the Internet. In the UK alone the current number of less than 300,000 users is expected to grow to 5 million in this timescale. As a result, at some point in the future relying on the good will of a University to host the VJMC will no longer be tenable and so plans are already afoot to register our own domain name in expectation of bringing the VJMC 'home' to Dunbar.
To provide maximum exposure for Dunbar, DJMA are proposing that its domain name should include <dunbar.scotland.org> as part of its address (the .org part indicates that this is a not-for-profit organisation). Once the relevant domain name for Dunbar is registered, the relevant sub-addresses (sub-domains) of, for example, <john-muir-assoc.dunbar.scotland.org> and <john-muir-centre.dunbar.scotland.org> would be available for allocation locally without recourse to a higher authority. Sub-domains for other not-for-profit organisations within Dunbar could be readily established. For example, <history-soc.dunbar.scotland.org>, <town-house-museum.dunbar.scotland.org>, etc. Now that e-mail is fast becoming an established form of communication, these domain names open up the potential for self-explanatory e-mail addresses. E.g., <secretary@john-muir-assoc.dunbar.scotland.org>
As far as we are aware, Dunbar would be the first Scottish community to register in this way on the Internet. As we are, in effect, establishing a precedent we will also be keeping our partners appraised of the situation. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Internet facilities of the proposed Centre could enable it to become a local Internet Service Provider. If this were to be the case then personal e-mail addresses of the form <name@dunbar.scotland.org> could become available to the local community. Perhaps Dunbar will have its own 'Information Superhighway' before it gets access to a physical dual-carriageway? If this were to be the case people could tele-work from Dunbar thus reducing their use of the motor car.
Feedback would be welcome - especially by e-mail to:
Most notably, it is the least expensive of the main ISPs and, in common with most, it provides a one-month free 'try before you buy' service. However, it is unusual in that it provides free access to UK charities Here is their pitch about that:
UK Online launches free service for charities
UK Online is offering free Net access, Web space and email accounts to registered charities in the UK, providing that the charity has access to at least 500 members or supporters through its normal promotional activity.
All we ask in return is that the charity promotes UK Online to its members by way of newsletters, magazines or other promotional vehicles, as the Provider to use for their Internet access.
In return, we will donate #163;5 to the charity for every one of their members who subscribes to UK Online, together with an ongoing annual revenue. The #163;5 will be paid once the subscriber has been a member for three months.
Links from suitable areas on the UK Online service to the charity's own Web site will be available.
The key benefits of this offer are:
I would stress that DJMA has all the above benefits as a result of the sponsorship and support of Strathclyde University but it may very well be worthwhile DJMA 'subscribing' to this service as it is also free. Individual members would benefit as a result of low-cost Internet access and a convenient form of communication with DJMA/JMC and beyond.
Feedback of DJMA experience with UK Online will be given in the next Newsletter.
Duncan Smeed
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To: djma@cs.strath.ac.uk Subject: John Muir, etc. I am very interested to find this page on the WWW. I teach in a High School in Edinburgh and have just taken a group of 9 13 year olds on a week's course at Boghall Countryside Centre near Edinburgh. This was organised by Dave Picken and Stephanie Walker. The pupils were awarded the JM Discovery award at the end of the week. It was a fabulous week thoroughly enjoyed by us all. It is my hope that in future years we will be able to provide a similar experience for all of our First Year pupils as an integral part of their curriculum. Best of luck with this venture. I would very much like to be kept informed and placed on mailing lists, etc. You now have my email address. Sincerely, David Walls. To: duncan@cs.strath.ac.uk Subject: John Muir Web Page Dear Duncan, I was pleased to find your web page on John Muir. My name is Bill Bruce and I teach 7th Grade Science at Tenaya Middle School in Fresno , California USA. My interest in John Muir is fairly recent. For the past 2 years I have taken my students on a week long field trip to Yosemite National Park. As part of this trip, John Muir is a person I want my students to be familiar with. In order for this to happen I am attempting to increase my knowledge base on Muir's life and his writings. I would like to learn more about what is happening on your end and would be interested in hooking up my students with students in Dunbar if that is possible. Internet access is still sort of problematic at our school site but we're working on it. Sincerely, Bill
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