Understory 2019

The Letters of John Muir

On July 16th, 1879 naturalist writer John Muir wrote a letter to conservationist friend Annie Kennedy Bidwell while on his first expedition to Alaska. In this letter he describes a profound wonder, an amazement in experiencing Alaska’s wilderness for the first time. He is just off the coast of Sitka. Muir uses elevated language and imagery to create a beautiful illustration of Alaska’s nature as he extends an invitation desiring the Bidwell’s make the trip to this majestic country. However, the letter is more than a summoning. Muir claims in the letter to have been hasty in his ‘scribblings’ however the content of the piece cultivates a wild intensity to the opulence of such a place.

The letter is written during a time when the land is just beginning to attract the attention of prospective Americans looking to capitalize on the newly attained territory. The fur trade is in full swing. The fruitful salmon population is catalyzing new methods for harvest as well as a rapidly growing fish industry as canneries sprout up along the Alaskan coast. This is the age of gold, as the first discovery near Sitka inspires the minds of future prospectors in the forefront of the Klondike Gold Rush. However, Muir’s letters and publications illuminate a different kind of treasure. During an era of expansion and growth, John Muir plays a paramount role in the ways in which the preservation of Alaska’s natural phenomena coincide with an explosion of American industry.

John Muir enlightened the people of his time to the grandeur of the wild; he writes about the spiritual necessity of Alaska’s enchantment and the potency of this kind of experience. At one point in the letter he writes, “This is a charming portion of Gods lovely world, such a wondrous composition of land and water… through the most wonderful system of ocean inlets straits reaches and channels imaginable.” Through the writings of John Muir, and the influence of his successors, the fate of Alaska’s natural beauty becomes regarded as something much more valuable than a period of economic advancement. He uses his linguistic finesse and power of description juxtaposed with a love for nature to inspire a transcendental appreciation of Alaska’s exotic wilderness. He does so in a way that still radiates in the vision of Alaska today.

John Muir ends his letter with this, “The glacial phenomena are most eloquently telling.” While Muir’s literature is written about the physical marvel of Alaska, like a stained glass window he covers us in the hues of a perception. He creates a pathway to the emotion we feel when we experience something so incredible, vast and beautiful. Alaska is forever, it’s the last frontier, it is the greatest adventure, with awe in every mountain, glacier and open space.
Through the permanence of his writing Alaska becomes a passion for wonderment, something bigger and more important than all of what we build: a conduit to the soul.

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Julia Murakami is a senior pursuing a Baccalaureate degree in English and Philosophy 

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