Читать книгу The John Muir Trail. Through the Californian Sierra Nevada онлайн

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John Muir was born on April 21st 1838 in Dunbar on the east coast of Scotland, in Lothian. He was the son of a strict Calvinist and tyrannical disciplinarian who worked his sons harshly. In 1849 the family decided to emigrate to the New World, and so at the age of eleven John left his homeland to make a new life in the United States of America. The family settled on Hickory Hill Farm, near Portage in Wisconsin. In his free time John learnt to wander the open, unfenced country of the neighbourhood, and at this early age developed the love of the outdoors that was to remain with him all his life. He was largely self-taught during these formative years, hiding his reading from his father, who disapproved of book learning. John discovered that he had a gift for invention as well as for geology and botany, and with these talents entered the University of Wisconsin in 1860.

After three years of higher education Muir did various odd jobs, living for a while in Canada to escape the Civil War in the States, but it wasn’t until an accident that nearly blinded him in 1867 that he determined to wander widely. His first long trek was 1000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He next sailed to Cuba with the intention of travelling down to South America, but instead changed his plans to head north for San Francisco where he landed in March 1868.