The first time Muir saw Yosemite, he wrote in his journal that he was “overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower.” -- John Muir

Image credit: "John Muir 1912" by Underwood & Underwood available from the Library of Congress's Prints & Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a10297.

John Muir was a pioneer in saving our wild areas. He led the fight to keep places like Yosemite and Sequoia National Park safe from development and he founded the Sierra Club to encourage others to advocate for forests and parkland. Known as “the Father of the National Parks,” Muir changed how Americans thought about the land and all the many plants and animals that share it with us.

See a 10-minute biography of John Muir, and learn why wild spaces were so important to him.

Video credit: produced by the National Parks Service, starring Lee Stetson as Muir.