John Muir's Birthplace

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Content updated Sun, 31 Jan 1999 19:07:27 GMT

John Muir's Dunbar... [home]

John Muir's Dunbar...

Foreword

Introduction to the Walk

by Sir Alistair Grant
Governor of Bank of Scotland

John Muir was a sterling example of Scotland's largest and most valuable export of the last 300 years - its people. Well educated by the standards of his class and time, determined, hard-working and inventive, he was an exemplar of the merits of a "lad o' pairts". After his family migrated from Dunbar to Wisconsin he spent ten years helping his father to carve out a farm from the wilderness. Later, as a shepherd in the High Sierras of California he came to admire and love the solitude of these wild places, and was horrified by the impact of man on a fragile environment.

His lobbying efforts led to the creation of Yosemite National Park; 230,000 square miles of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery set aside for permanent conservation for the Nation. John Muir is regarded as the father of the US National Parks and a pioneering spirit of sympathetic preservation of the natural environment.

It is Scotland's loss that for nearly 70 years after his death he was largely unknown and unsung. Things are now changing, but his legacy has yet to bear fruit here. Although England and Wales have a well-developed system of National Parks, Scotland still has nothing comparable despite having some of the largest areas of spectacular scenery and wild spaces in Western Europe. East Lothian Council have taken an important step forward by establishing the John Muir Country Park - on a beautiful stretch of Dunbar coastline with cliffs, dunes and saltmarshes. The purpose of combining rest, recreation, and instruction for visitors with the preservation of a wide range of natural habitats and wildlife is a goal worthy of John Muir.

Bank of Scotland is pleased to be associated with a venture which is part of an education process to ensure that at long last John Muir's message is being heard in the land of his birth.