Five-minute digest
Our National Parks
Summary
Our National Parks is John Muir's invitation to Americans to visit, love and protect the wild parks and forest reservations of the West. In a short preface he explains that the ten sketches, first written for The Atlantic Monthly, aim to show the beauty, grandeur and usefulness of the mountain forests so that people will come, take them into their hearts, and see to their preservation. The first chapter is a manifesto. Muir rejoices that tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized city people are learning that going to the mountains is going home and that wildness is a necessity. He surveys the four national parks then existing, Yellowstone, Yosemite, General Grant and Sequoia, and the forest reservations, and warns that their margins are already being wasted by axe, fire, mining and the hoofed locusts of the sheep flocks. The second chapter guides the visitor through Yellowstone: its volcanic plateau, geysers, hot springs, the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone, its forests, flowers and animals. Muir urges travelers not to rush through in a few days but to walk away quietly, climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Seven chapters then turn to his own Sierra. Muir describes the Yosemite National Park as a whole, then its conifer forests, its wild gardens of lilies and meadow flowers, its animals from bears and deer to wood rats and rattlesnakes, its birds from the water-ouzel to the noisy Clarke crow of the high peaks, and its fountains and streams from the high snowfields down through the cañons. In the ninth chapter he follows the belt of Big Trees through the Sequoia and General Grant parks, traveling with a small pack-mule named Brownie, counting growth rings in fallen giants and arguing that the sequoia is not dying out but needs protection from lumbermen and sheepmen. The last chapter, on the American forests, is a history and a sermon. Muir describes the continent's forests as the best God ever planted, recounts their destruction by settlers, lumber companies and fire, contrasts American waste with European forestry, and calls on the federal government to protect what remains. The essays appeared in book form in 1901; the new and enlarged edition of 1909, used here, adds an appendix listing the national parks, monuments and forests of the day.
Top Lessons
Wildness as a necessity
Muir argues that people worn out by over-industry and luxury need the mountains for health of body and spirit. He calls going to the mountains going home. Christian readers may weigh this claim against the rest God promises in Christ, while still valuing the refreshment of creation.
Slow seeing
Muir warns that visitors who rush through Yellowstone in a few days come away with only a blur. Real knowledge of a place takes time, walking and quiet. The advice applies to reading great books as much as to visiting parks.
Stewardship and the common good
Muir says God has cared for the ancient trees for thousands of years but cannot save them from fools, and only the national government can. He makes a moral case that some goods belong to the whole people and to future generations, not only to those who can profit today.
Repentance for needless killing
In the chapter on animals Muir tells how he once killed rattlesnakes and felt degraded, farther from heaven, and resolved to be as fair to them as they were to him. The episode shows a man examining his conscience about cruelty.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
“Nothing can be done well at a speed of forty miles a day.”
Frequently cited
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
“I felt degraded by the killing business, farther from heaven, and I made up my mind to try to be at least as fair and charitable as the snakes themselves”
“The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted.”
“Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed,—chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones.”
Frequently cited
“Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ’s time—and long before that—God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools,—only Uncle Sam can do that.”
Medical Lens
The book is an early, influential statement of the idea that wilderness restores health. Muir writes of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people, of the stupefying effects of over-industry and luxury, and of mountain air and exercise as remedies for rust and disease. The argument belongs to the same era as the neurasthenia diagnosis and the rest cure, and Muir's outdoor prescription is a counterpart to them. Modern readers can compare it to current research on nature and well-being, but the book makes moral and aesthetic claims rather than medical ones.
- Chapter I
Over-civilized, nerve-shaken city people find in the mountains a remedy for the effects of over-industry and luxury.
- Chapter II
Advice to camp, climb and walk slowly so that cares drop away; Muir says Nature's sources of enjoyment never fail with age.