John Muir's Dunbar [jmd] | Introduction to the Walk

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with the other stars, all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

Dunbar is the birthplace of John Muir (1838 - 1914); inventor, naturalist, explorer, mountaineer, farmer, geologist, writer, he was above all a pioneer of nature conservation.

John Muir emigrated to Wisconsin in the United States of America at the age of eleven. He settled in California in his mature years, after a period of travel and exploration. There he played a crucial role in creating Yosemite National Park. He fought to save the Giant Redwood trees of California and the forests and alpine meadows of the Sierra Nevada from foresters and graziers. He was a founder of the Sierra Club in 1892 and the first President. Now it is the premier conservation body in California. From this position, his writing challenged Establishment figures of the United States to act positively in the emergent conservation debate of the late nineteenth century.

One of his greatest achievements was to convert President Theodore Roosevelt to the idea of creating National Parks - the first such system in the world. But for all his contact with the great and the powerful, Muir never lost touch with the common man and with children - the future inheritors of his beloved wilderness. As a result of his lifelong struggle on behalf of wild places and wildlife, Americans honour Muir as 'The Father of Our National Parks'. For many millions of Californians, John Muir is regarded in the same light as Abraham Lincoln or Andrew Carnegie, and his writings are as celebrated as those of Robert Burns or Robert Louis Stevenson. Yet in Britain he is largely unknown and even in the land of his birth few Scots have heard of him.

This is changing.

In recent years the work of the John Muir Trust has done much to raise the profile of Scotland's own pioneer conservationist. The Trust has purchased several Scottish estates, and aims to manage its land on community based, sustainable usage principles. It has initiated 'John Muir Awards' for young people interested in the environment. The scheme has been pioneered with the active participation of East Lothian schools and the Education and Community Services Department of East Lothian Council. Through its Museum Service, the Council is also Custodian of John Muir House, his birthplace, now a small museum.

Working for a sustainable world

Scottish Charity No. SC 022857

Putting Dunbar on the Map