Muir, John
Botanist, Naturalist, Conservationist ~ 1838-1914
In 1864, when Muir was a third year Botany student from the University of Wisconsin, he was doing field work in Canada with his brother. It became necessary for him to obtain work to continue his research. He and his brother found work in the Meaford area with Trout and Jay Company. They made handles for harvest tools. The brothers were only in Grey County for two years. John Muir returned to the United States and went on to conduct scientific research in botany and became one of the most important conservationists in the twentieth century. John Muir was very involved with the development of the United States National Parks Service and helped start the Sierra Club. Recently letters to Harriet Trout have been discovered by a group called “The Canadian Friends of John Muir”. These letters reveal that the period he spent living in Trout Hollow, working at the Trout Hollow Mill was possibly one of the more significant periods in the development of Muir’s life as a conservationist. This period of self-discovery and awareness of man in nature had an important influence in his later work. In 1998, “The Canadian Friends of John Muir” began archaeological excavations at Trout Hollow and have revealed three sites of interest. The results of those excavations are now available enhancing the knowledge we have about this period in the life of this important figure. Muir made maps of the area of the Bighead and Beaver Valleys and made observations and notes on the flora. South of Meaford at a conservation lookout across the Beaver Valley, the North Grey Conservation Lookout known as the Epping Lookout commemorates this pioneer naturalist and conservation writer with a plaque placed by the Archaeological and Historical Sites Board of Ontario.
Additional information: The Canadian Friends of John Muir website: www.johnmuir.org/canada.
Dorothy Vick, From Quill to Ballpoint, RBW Graphics, Owen Sound, 1988.
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