Map: John Muir’s Stroll by way of the South, 1867. Credit score: Filippo Vanzo
150 years later, an Atlanta author follows John Muir’s 1,000-mile trek from Kentucky to Florida
MOST FOLKS KNOW JOHN MUIR because the well-known eco-evangelist of the California Sierra who led efforts to create Yosemite Nationwide Park and to guard wild mountains and rivers all through the West. Muir is the supply of basic bumper sticker quotes, together with:
“One contact of nature makes the entire world kin.”
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will circulate into you as sunshine into timber.”
“The clearest means into the Universe is thru a forest wilderness.”
“The mountains are calling and I need to go.”
Nonetheless, Muir’s first mountain pilgrimages weren’t out West however right here within the East. Earlier than he ever stepped foot in California, Muir launched into a 1,000-mile trek from Louisville, Kentucky, to Cedar Key, Florida, that modified his life. The journey impressed Muir’s transformation into the chief and conscience of the environmental motion.
100 fifty years later, Atlanta author and adventurer Dan Chapman determined to observe in Muir’s footsteps. Chapman retraced Muir’s journey in his new guide, A Street Working Southward. Muir’s nineteenth century path is now a collection of highways and backroads, so Chapman traveled in a Subaru as a substitute of on foot. Alongside the best way, Chapman spends the night time in a Savannah cemetery the place Muir as soon as camped and visits a number of the South’s most necessary and imperiled landscapes. Chapman discovers that the plush forests and vibrant ecosystems that Muir encountered have been decimated by coal mining, city sprawl, and local weather change. In retracing Muir’s trek, Chapman seeks to reply to a easy query: what stays?
He additionally speaks with locals who maintain deep ties to the land—and finds hope of their cherished connections to the pure world. He visits Merrilee Malwitz Jipson, combating to guard pure springs in Florida from a Nestle water bottling plant. He hikes with Chris Ulrey, a botanist and rock climber defending endangered vegetation from local weather change. And he meets Tommy Johnson, who spent eight years cleansing up the Kingston coal ash spill whereas TVA contractors withheld protecting gear and details about the poisonous ash. Prior to now decade, 4 dozen of his fellow staff have died and greater than 4,000 have been sickened.
“However Kingston, right this moment, appears like nothing ever occurred with a giant inexperienced park changing the mountains of spilled coal ash,” Chapman says. “The phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ involves thoughts. And too typically, that’s what we do within the South—cowl up our environmental messes as if nothing’s incorrect.”
Chapman shared extra ideas with BRO on his 1,000-mile journey in Muir’s Southern footsteps.
BRO: Why did you determine to retrace Muir’s journey by way of the South?
DC: I’d lined many environmental points within the South as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Structure, however I used to be searching for a technique to sew them collectively in a big-picture narrative. I had my aha second after I learn that Muir walked throughout the South in 1867. I bought out my map, traced his route, and found that his hike crossed most of the areas the place environmental ills have been prevalent. So I drove the route, camped alongside the best way, and marveled on the pure magnificence, fretted over the environmental degradation, and talked to everyone and anyone. Amid the injury, I hoped to seek out the sweetness and promise of a greater future. And I did.
BRO: What would you like individuals to be taught out of your journey?
DC: Individuals usually know in regards to the grandeur of Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite. Few, although, know of the wealth of landscapes and biodiversity throughout the South. Nowhere else are you able to go from temperate rain forest to marshy estuary in a half-day’s drive. The biodiversity is out of this world. Two-thirds of all fish species swim the South’s waters. One-third of all vegetation develop right here too. Mussels, crayfish, salamanders—they’re Southern by beginning and in numbers that surpass anyplace else on this nation. We’re on a slippery slope to extinction for too many of those species. Muir, as typical, stated it greatest: “Once we attempt to select something by itself, we discover it hitched to every thing else within the universe.”
BRO: What are the largest threats to the Southern panorama?
DC: Sprawl and local weather change are the biggies. The South is the nation’s quickest rising area. Florida alone welcomes 1,000 individuals a day. All of them must stay, eat, poop, and play. 1000’s of acres disappear every day underneath ribbons of concrete and forests of plywood.
However there’s hope. Some unbelievable conservation is being performed by companies, nonprofits, and locals. They’re, after all, outgunned financially and politically. However public consciousness, and motion, is at its peak: nearly everyone understands and experiences the risks of a warming world.
BRO: What classes can the remainder of the nation be taught from the South’s environmental challenges?
DC: If the South can do it—with our conservative, anti-green legislatures and business-first mentality—then y’all can too. Within the South, nothing appears to get performed with out enterprise, {industry}, and, at occasions, the navy on the desk. They personal many of the land within the South. In Georgia, for instance, solely three p.c of the land is in public fingers—and most of that’s the navy. There are some heartening examples of enviro-industry collaboration: a loblolly pine plantation switching to longleaf pine; no-build buffer zones round navy installations; widespread acceptance of prescribed fireplace. The South has a methods to go to meet up with extra environmentally enlightened areas, however we’re getting there.
