The Wilderness Warrior

by Douglas Brinkley

  Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Mariposa Grove in California.

  T.R. and Muir at Mariposa Grove. β (Courtesy of the National Park Service)

  Through a blinding snowstorm, Roosevelt and Muir footslogged to Sentinel Dome, a few miles from Glacier Point Hotel. Five feet of snow already lay on the ground. A little base camp was chosen sheltered from the frost heave and glaze ice.108 Muir built a marvelous bonfire that second evening and made a bed of ferns and cedar boughs. “Watch this,” Muir said. Grabbing a flaming branch from the campfire he lit a dead pine tree on a ledge. With a roar, as if a squirt of gasoline had been administered, the flame shot up the dead branches. Suddenly Muir did a Scottish jig around the pine torch. Such ritualistic acts were right up Roosevelt’s alley. Leaping to his feet he hopped around the flaming tree, shouting “Hurrah!” over and over again into the night sky. “That’s a candle,” Roosevelt told Muir, “it took 500 years to make. Hurrah for Yosemite! Mr. Muir.”109

  Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, on April 21, 1838. When he was eleven his family emigrated from Glasgow to Marquette County, Wisconsin. Throughout his adolescence he toiled on his father’s farm and tinkered with clocks, barometers, hydrometers, and table saws. When he was eighteen he almost died from “choke damp” while digging a well. During the Civil War he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he invented a study desk that retrieved a book, held it stationary for hours, then automatically replaced it with a different volume. It was a weird contraption, but it indicates how enthusiastic a bibliophile Muir was. With eagerness and diligence Muir read about Henry David Thoreau’s rejection of bourgeois society and Robert Burns’s revolutionary democracy. The sage Ralph Waldo Emerson, as an old man, encountered Muir and deemed him “one of my men,” a true-blue Transcendentalist.110

  Over time botany became Muir’s passion. In 1863 he took his first botanical tramp along the Wisconsin River to the upper Mississippi River. Hunting for plants liberated him from religious orthodoxy and family commitments. He drifted to Ontario, Canada, working for a long spell at a sawmill and a broom and rake factory. In Ontario he discovered the rare orchid Calypso borealis (this led to his first published article in the Boston Recorder). Odd jobs became Muir’s specialty: they were his way to finance his botanical tramps. In 1867, however, a factory accident made Muir temporarily blind. When his vision returned, he made a vow to himself: he would dedicate his life to nature (“the University of the Wilderness,” as he called it). Off he went on a 1,000-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida (with South America his eventual destination). When a bout of fever prevented him from tramping south of the Tropic of Cancer, he contemplated the relationship between man and nature in new and profound ways while his temperature soared to over 100 degrees. Like Roosevelt, Muir concluded that all species have an inherent value and a right to exist. Not until 1911, however, would Muir fulfill his dream of exploring the Amazon of Brazil and the mountains of Chile.

  Muir’s arrival to San Francisco in 1868 forever changed his life. From April to June, he hiked around Yosemite. Walled in by the Sierra range, Muir was captivated by the enduring rocks, slow-moving glaciers, and ancient redwoods, which Yosemite offered up in astonishing numbers. There was a grace to Yosemite which defied language; it was a terrestrial manifestation of the Almighty. There was no denominational snobbishness and no chosen people in nature; there was just one big sky. “His studies in the Sierra, earnestly as they were pursued, were only secondary—his rapt admiration of the dawn and the alpenglow, of majestic trees that wave and pray, of rejoicing waters, and the sacred, history-bearing rocks, of night and the stars on lonely mountain tops,” Clara Barrus wrote in an article for The Craftsman, “reveal the soul of the mystic.”111

  From 1869 on, Muir’s almost wanderlust life was framed by holy Yosemite: making his first ascent of Cathedral Peak; taking Ralph Waldo Emerson to see the great falls; publishing his first article in California on glaciers; and articulating the wilderness protection ethos in Century magazine. In between there were all sorts of fine outdoor adventures ranging from climbing Mount Shasta (14,400 feet) to floating 200 miles down the Sacramento River. But somehow he always came back to holy Yosemite. Muir’s discoveries in Alaska, his promotion of U.S. national parks like General Grant and Sequoia, and his creation of the Sierra Club in 1892 brought him much celebrity back east. He became wild California personified to the New York literary set. When Muir published his first book in 1894—The Mountains of California—he became widely known as the “sage of the Sierras,” the West Coast counterpart of John Burroughs. Before long he was writing so much high-quality prose that the term “Muirian” came into academic use.112

  From the outset, there was much Roosevelt admired about Muir. Although Muir sometimes played the misanthrope, he had a shrewd political instinct. Memories of Yosemite seemed to gush out of Muir once back in the San Francisco Bay area. “Ordinarily, the man who loves the woods and the mountains, the trees, the flowers, and the wild things, has in him some indefinable quality of charm which appeals even to those sons of civilization who care for little outside of paved streets and brick walls,” Roosevelt wrote. “John Muir was a fine illustration of this rule…. His was a dauntless soul, and also one brimming over with friendliness and kindliness.”113

  Not only did Muir write as naturalist with the authority of someone like Thoreau or Burroughs; he also joined the U.S. Forestry Commission, offering practical advice on land management. He could play the wonk when necessary. Muir’s articles in Harper’s Weekly and Atlantic Monthly galvanized popular support for protecting forests. Although history always associates Muir with Yosemite, he was also largely responsible for Mount Rainer’s becoming a national park in 1899. So when Roosevelt arrived in Muir’s backyard, Yosemite National Park, in 1903 the sixty-five-year-old Muir was celebrated worldwide as a wise man. That year alone, and the next, Muir traveled to London, Paris, Berlin, Russia, Finland, Korea, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Hawaii. Roosevelt had purposefully come to Yosemite before Muir left on his intercontinental tour. The president wanted to pay homage to Muir (and to exploit their high-profile rapport for the history books).

  The general goodwill between Roosevelt and Muir that spring was exemplary. Both men had gone after the “malefactors of great wealth” in the West for raping the natural landscape. Muir was thrilled that President Roosevelt—through Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock—was punishing those who abused their power at the GLO (and even forcing the commissioner Binger Hermann to resign in disgrace for covering up the Halsinger Report regarding land fraud in Arizona). Directing Hitchcock to investigate illegal land grabbers such as John A. Benson and Frederick A. Hyde (two lawyers in San Francisco whom Muir deeply distrusted), President Roosevelt waged “historic warfare” against dishonest California cooper syndicates, real estate speculators, thieves at the land office, and lumber companies. Under Roosevelt’s influence the county indicted Binger Hermann, Senator Mitchell of Oregon, and Benson and Hyde. In other words, besides their insatiable love for the outdoors, Roosevelt and Muir shared enemies lists.114

  Roosevelt and Muir in Yosemite National Park.

  T.R. and Muir at Yosemite National Park. (Courtesy of the Sierra Club)

  The great three-night Yosemite campout of Roosevelt and Muir almost didn’t happen, owing to conflicting schedules. As noted Muir had planned to travel around the world promoting national parks with his conservationist friend Charles S. Sargent that May. But Roosevelt, upon hearing of this, sent Muir a coaxing personal letter. “I do not want anyone with me but you,” he wrote, “and I want to drop politics absolutely for four days and just be out in the open with you.”115 Realizing that such private time with the president discussing vulnerable Yosemite would be invaluable to the preservationist movement, Muir wiggled out of his other commitment. “I might be able to do some good in talking freely around the campfire,” Muir told Sargent a
pologetically.116

  As difficult decisions go, Muir was right to postpone his globe-trotting to spend this time with Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Muir, in the temple of Yosemite, vowed to let their biographies be intertwined for the sake of the conservation movement they were both leading, each in his own way. In effect, the Sierra Club joined forces with the Boone and Crockett Club—hikers and hunters forged an alliance on behalf of California’s preservation. Always a biosphere activist, Muir talked nonstop with Roosevelt about the Sierra Club’s ambition to get the Yosemite Valley incorporated into the surrounding park. And his stories of reckless timber depredations were ideal for arousing Roosevelt to shout down the “swine”—his new favorite word. Muir proved masterful at riling Roosevelt up. “I stuffed him pretty well regarding the timber thieves,” Muir later bragged to a friend, “and the destructive work of the lumbermen, and other spoilers of the forests.” As for Roosevelt, he admired Muir’s dedication to California’s beauty. Muir, he knew, was a hero and a live wire when it came to preserving Yosemite; Muir spoke directly and from the heart at all times. At one point, by the campfire, Roosevelt began telling his yarns about big game hunting. Muir, however, was bored and was singularly unimpressed. “Mr. Roosevelt,” he asked, “when are you going to get beyond the boyishness of killing things…. Are you not getting far enough along to leave that off?” After a moment’s pause Roosevelt, in a softer voice than usual, replied, “Muir, I guess you are right.”117 (But while Roosevelt did start promoting the camera instead of the rifle, he never gave up the sport of shooting big game.)

  Because Muir was the California mountain man, Roosevelt embraced him as a fellow advocate of the strenuous life. Muir’s philosophical concept of God as being found in nature likewise earned Roosevelt’s approval. They were joined at the hip in both regards. But Roosevelt was truly at odds with Muir over sport hunting. When Muir, for example, received a solicitation to support a society called the Sons of Daniel Boone (which was like the Boy Scouts), he demurred. Young Americans, Muir wrote, needed to mature away from “natural hunting blood-loving savagery into natural sympathy with all our fellow mortals—plants and animals as well as men.” And this wasn’t an isolated antihunting statement. Muir’s correspondence after 1903 is laden with criticisms of “the murder business of hunting,” and with demands that the “rights of animals” be enforced as ethical standards. This was a far cry from Roosevelt’s and Burroughs’s belief that sportsmanlike hunting and fishing provided “ideal training for manhood” and would in the end “save the nation” from effeminacy.118

  Hunting wasn’t the only intellectual division between Roosevelt and Muir. Roosevelt liked Gifford Pinchot too much for Muir’s comfort. Ever since the dispute in Portland Muir saw Pinchot as—for the most part—a deadly enemy. Muir didn’t recognize the Pinchot who helped save wonders like Crater Lake or Wind Cave; he saw only a featureless scoundrel who had once said that forests were a factory for trees.119 And soon to come was Muir’s tragic disagreement with Pinchot over Hetch Hetchy—the glacial valley filled by the Tuolumne River in 1923 with the construction of the O’Shaughnessy Dam. Why didn’t Roosevelt use an executive order to save Hetch Hetchy? Still, some historians have mistakenly downplayed Roosevelt and Muir’s mutual admiration society. There was a very real tenderness between them. Ever since Muir formed the Sierra Club in 1892, Roosevelt had kept a close eye on his courageous actions; Roosevelt was, in fact, a New York cheerleader for Muir. While Roosevelt always saw Ulysses S. Grant as the “father of the national parks,” he knew that Muir was California’s watchdog. In particular Roosevelt’s famous essay “Wilderness Reserves” echoes Muir’s 1901 book, Our National Parks. However, Roosevelt was disappointed that unlike Burroughs, Muir simply didn’t know his birds; he was focused on “the trees and the flowers and the cliffs.”120

  Because Roosevelt considered himself “many-sided” he unhesitatingly and admiringly accepted Muir’s self-description as a Californian “poetico-trampo-geologist-bot. and ornith-natural, etc!—etc!—etc!”121 By 2009 the John Muir National Historic Site had created a Web site featuring dozens of “Muirisms” arranged alphabetically. Whether you looked under “Age” or “Rough It” or “Water Ouzel,” all of these pearls of wisdom could have been written by Roosevelt; their viewpoints on nature were that closely shared. With great enthusiasm, Roosevelt read Muir, savoring lines like: “Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better every way.”122 And Muir wrote to his wife that Roosevelt was “so interesting,” overflowing with “hearty & manly” companionship.123 “Camping with the president was a remarkable experience,” Muir told Merriam. “I fairly fell in love with him.”124

  Oh, what a grand time Roosevelt and Muir had together in Yosemite for those three memorable days. They hiked to and camped in many of the most beautiful spots in Yosemite, including Bridal Veil Falls, where they had a fantastic view of El Capitan and Ribbon Falls gushing down from the valley’s north rim. Religious metaphors filled Roosevelt’s writings about Yosemite, with Muir serving as his Old Testament guide through the wilderness. (Except that Muir’s god wasn’t the god of ancient Israel.) For starters, there didn’t seem to be a sickly face within 100 miles of the park; such human healthiness always appealed to Roosevelt. Even though Yosemite was a national park, bear traps were still laid on the floor of Yosemite Valley; Roosevelt wanted the “setters” arrested. Only hunting bears with rifle or knife was a sport; there should be no steel traps in a national park.125

  Although Roosevelt changed clothes a few times, he is remembered as wearing jodhpurs with puttees, a thick sweater, a Stetson hat, and around his neck a soiled bandanna. Muir wore an oversize coat and loose-fitting trousers, looking rather like a hobo who had been cleaned up for a photo. Both men later boasted that they were alone in the Sierras, but Leidig and Lenord were constantly with them. There were also two packers and three mules.

  Housed in the Yosemite National Park Archive is a detailed report of Roosevelt and Muir’s visit of 1903, written by Charlie Leidig, one of the trail guides. It gives a revelatory insider’s look at the trip. Leidig, for example, claimed that Roosevelt was annoyed when Muir wanted to stick a twig in one of the president’s buttonholes. He also noted that “some difficulty was encountered because both men wanted to do all the talking.” According to Leidig the president snored loudly, mimicked birds exactly, ate huge amounts of steak-fried chicken, and disdained crowds. Roosevelt’s primary order was to “outskirt and keep away from civilization.” 126 Highlights, according to Leidig, included seeing the sonorous Bridal Veil Falls, or Pohono (“puffing wind”), as the Indians called them.127

  Roosevelt complained that the botanist and ornithologist Muir was much more interested in the trees than in the deer families they encountered along the primitive trail.128 Muir explained to Roosevelt on the third day, May 17, that he had an ulterior motive, an agenda item—saving Mount Shasta along the California-Oregon border and enlarging Yosemite National Park to include Mariposa Grove at the Yosemite Valley. Roosevelt was all ears, enjoying himself in the timeless hills and valleys of Yosemite. Always intent on self-mythologizing, Roosevelt had created a “lost in the wild” scenario for himself. It made for good copy. There was something very romantic, indeed, about the president of the United States sleeping outside in a snowstorm, high in the Sierras, with the weather-worn John Muir as a companion. At sunrise Roosevelt and Muir hiked into Yosemite Valley, camping within range of the spray from Bridal Veil Falls. “John Muir talked even better than he wrote,” Roosevelt found out in Yosemite. “His greatest influence was always upon those who were brought into personal contact with him.”129

  Back at the Sentinel Hotel, still pumped up with adrenaline, Roosevelt was unbelievably buoyant. He portrayed himself as a surviving backwoodsman, trapped by the harsh winter, eating dusty bread. “We were in a snowstorm last night, and it was just what I wanted,” he said. “This is the one day of my life and one that I will always rem
ember with pleasure. Just think of where I was last night. Up there!” President Benjamin Wheeler of the University of California–Berkeley hosted a dinner for Roosevelt at the Sentinel Hotel in the park. Instead of speechifying, Roosevelt recounted his exploits with Muir on Glacier Point “amid the pines and the silver firs in Sierrian solitude, in a snowstorm, too, and without a tent.” Again he declared, “I passed one of the most pleasant nights of my life. It was so reviving to be so close to nature in this magnificent forest of yours.”

  Muir had been a wise, shrewd host. His desired effect had been to galvanize President Roosevelt to save more of wild California from human destruction. The camping in Yosemite clearly worked. Back in Washington, D.C., Roosevelt urged Congress to bring as many California redwoods as possible into the national park system. He wanted both the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to be part of the Yosemite National Park (at the time, they weren’t). Immediately after leaving Yosemite, while he was in Sacramento, Roosevelt fired off a telegram to Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock. “I should like to have an extension of the forest reserves to include the California forests throughout the Mount Shasta region and its extensions. Will you not consult Pinchot about this and have the orders prepared?”130

  No sooner had Roosevelt sent the order saving the Mount Shasta region than he wrote Muir a thank-you letter; he was already missing Muir’s companionship and merry blue eyes. They had achieved a feeling of brotherhood. “I trust I need not tell you, my dear sir, how happy were the days in Yellowstone I owed to you, and how greatly I appreciated them,” he wrote. “I shall never forget our three camps; the first in the solemn temple of the giant sequoias; the next in the snowstorm among the silver firs near the brink of the cliff; and the third on the floor of the Yosemite, in the open valley, fronting the stupendous rocky mass of El Capitan, with the falls thundering in the distance on either hand.”131 Attached to this letter was his telegram to Hitchcock.