My First Summer in Sierra [Paperback]

John Muir (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2008

Following the American Civil War in the summer of 1869, John Muir signed on with a crew of shepherds to drive a flock of 2500 sheep to Yosemite National Park at the headwaters of the Merced river. It wasn't until 1911, however, that he published "My First Summer in Sierra", an account of that experience which would inspire many to visit the Yosemite region and has become a classic of environmentalist literature.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Digireads.com (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1420931024
• ISBN-13: 978-1420931020
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #631,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Science > Nature & Ecology > General

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On The Road from Walden To the Sierra, July 28, 2009

By 

LJFurman "Popular Logistics" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My First Summer in Sierra (Paperback)

Three statements by Muir sum up his journal:
"It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur."
"My notes and pictures, the best of them printed in my mind as dreams."
"I scrambled home through the Indian Canyon gate, rejoicing, pitying the poor Professor and General, bound by clocks, almanacs, orders, duties, etc., and compelled to dwell with lowland care and dust and din, where Nature is covered and her voice smothered, while the poor, insignificant wanderer enjoys the freedom and glory of God's wilderness."

My First Summer In The Sierra, by John Muir, reads like On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. It is however, calm, serene, and enlightened. Kerouac, the "Beat Hipster" had Muir's joy and focus on the here and now, but focused on the characters: Neal Cassady, Alan Ginsberg, himself; their mad rushes between New York and San Francisco. Muir, the naturalist, focuses on the Sierra; the trees, flowers, brush, insects, lizards, bears, dear, dogs, humans, and on the rocks, mountains, and waterfalls that more than set the stage are players in the drama. The only mad rushes in My First Summer In The Sierra are those of the sheep into and out of streams, and Muir has little use for sheep, shepherds, or even the money shepherding can bring. While the beat hipster wrote about meditating, he lacked the naturalist's serenity, perspective, and comfort in the wilderness. Kerouac's pursuit of intoxicants and stimuli may have indicated a lack of comfort in his own skin, his own self. Muir's intoxicant was life and the Sierra. He was comfortable in his own skin - as comfortable editing it in 1904 as he was writing it in 1869.

Muir and Billy, the crazy shepherd, share a similar dim view of the tourists in Yosemite. However, while Billy thinks they might as well stay home rather than waste their money, Muir thinks that coming all this way, yet they stay in the valley, they miss the best views.

My First Summer In The Sierra is much easier to read than Walden. Both are critical of the path society is taking. But where Thoreau is arrogant, harsh, pompous, and pessimistic; Muir is humble, gentle, optimistic. Thoreau criticizes a farmer, "you say you can't build bones by eating grains, yet your ox has stronger bones and eats nothing but grass and grain." Muir, on the other hand, repeats "I am blessed," he says. "Join me." Thoreau may have been comfortable in the wilderness, but only because he tamed it and needed very little. Muir was comfortable on the mountains and under the stars. Because he knew how much money he needed to live well, Muir considered himself wealthier than Edward H. Harriman, the railroad magnate, who he enlisted to help create the national parks.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless, informative and original, November 9, 2008

By 

Tay A. Ducey (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My First Summer in Sierra (Paperback)

I hope this book will inspire future generations to immerse themselves in both enjoying and preserving the Sierra Nevada landscape and the environment as a whole. Along with classic literature, I'd like to see books like this also become a part of the required curriculum in high schools because environmental awareness and compassion begin with our youth.

5.0 out of 5 stars Curious and contagious reverence for nature, December 30, 2010

By 

Michael B. Spotts "theopenlife.com" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My First Summer in Sierra (Paperback)

We have John to thank as the instrument behind our National Parks. His unparalleled zeal for nature, especially to observe it with a curious reverence, is legendary. This book is more or less a journal from the season he spent as a part-time shepherd in Yosemite Valley and surrounding high country. His attention to detail and skill for fluid, gorgeous description is terrific. Often his humor is first-rate and his ability to interweave scriptural metaphors is equal to Spurgeon and Bunyan. Unfortunately for me he seems to have been one of the Transcendentalists in terms of religion, but I can always go to him for a fresh enthusiasm to get out and explore God's good world.