Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dean 20240706

Allows to focus on that. All right. Thank you, ricardo. Thank you to the attendees. A round of please. A reminder. Also, the nowhere bookshop outside in the festival marketplace has book sales and signing the next event will come in shortly. And so theyre asking us to boogie out of here pretty quic i im logan ward a long Time Magazine feature writer, author of the memoir see you in 100 years. Its about an experimental year i spent with my Family Living in the shenandoah valley, using only the technology from the year 1900 or earlier. But were here to talk to dean king. Ive known dean for decades now, since my earliest days in new york. I consider him a mentor and a friend. Youve got his boilerplate info, so im not going to reread that hes written many books and magazine articles. He produces tv series. My five word description of his books are he brings history to life. Its a nonfiction writer of. One of the things i most admire about dean is how turns his personal passions into, his livelihood. Way back in the 1990s, he fell in love. The historical maritime maritime novels Patrick Obrian set during napoleonic wars, and he spent the next decade or more becoming a maybe the obrian expert. He published companion books, some of which i him with, and he eventually published the first biography of Patrick Obrian is a fascinating tale of. A man who pretended most of his life during research. He was in the new York Yacht Club library when he discovered an old leather bound volume with, the title sufferings in africa. And that was enough to spark another adventure. That was the 1817 account of an american captain whose ship was wrecked off the coast of africa. And dean spent the next number of years working on what the bestseller skeletons on the zahara. So were here to talk about his latest adventure in storytelling, guardians of the valley. John muir, and the friendship that saved yosemite. Thanks for being here. Thanks, logan. Yeah, thanks for the intro. So to set the stage for our discussion. Say a few words about john muir and what your book about. So john muir is considered father of our National Parks and was a scotsman born in 1838, migrated to the u. S. , wisconsin in 1849, and eventually as were going to talk about, we discovered Yosemite Valley and would create the sierra club and really lay the foundation for our modern environmental movement, inspire the likes of of president Theodore Roosevelt walt of also of even emerson, the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson would come out to visit him in Yosemite Valley and and so so im interested always interested in where people where authors come with their book ideas. And i mentioned a couple of yours. What led you to write this book . In 1998, my mother in law booked a cabin. My father in laws 70th birthday. We went out Yosemite Valley. I took, in the view of point, i dont know if we have images of if were queuing up images today or not but anyway you probably know that view of Inspiration Point where you look out and you see a bridal fall on the right and el capitan on the left and true to its name, it inspired me and i knew that i wanted to spend time there and. Then as i was at the history of the and and how it came to be, you know, one of our Great National landscapes, id discovered that john muir was, the person who embodied the Yosemite Valley story. So he was also inspired i know from reading your book by Yosemite Valley, you have a reading about that. You want to tell us about his experience. Sure. You know, encountering it. So i i first experienced it as many people do through that gorgeous view from Inspiration Point. Muir went there, first of all, in 1868. He walked there from San Francisco and went into the valley in winter. There it was very snowy. There were bears. People said he might make it out alive, but he he decided he was he also fell in love with it almost instantly and decided he wanted stay there. He took a job with a working as a shepherd and went up into the mountains and the passage ill read for you is when he first looks over you. Yosemite falls into the valley. So hes over the falls. 5000 feet into the valley. There were no guardrails at this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And theres a picture of it in the book if you know when, get to it. Wishing to be part of this god work is nearly as possible. Muir took off his shoes and stockings and his feet and hands against the slick granite worked his way down until head was near. The booming, rushing Energy Rising stream, noticing that it leveled before its dive, he hoped he could lean out over the edge and see down into the Falling Water and through it to the bottom. But when he reached the edge, he discovered it to be false another steeper ledge lay below it appeared too steep to allow him to reach the brink. However, he could not convince himself to abandon the effort. He could see the cliffs fully. Now spot a narrow rim just wide enough to hold his heels, studying the polished surface of, the river wall, he noticed a seam on the steep rock face a fault that might provide him the needed finger holes to reach the cliffs edge his nerves tingled as he considered his next move the reverberation of the water enveloped him, and he began to feel a part of it. A giddy mix of emotions, elation, wonder, fear swam in his head. He decided again not to move forward. But then he did some inner wildness taken over as he advanced, choosing his steps carefully. Tufts of artemisia from the cliffs caught his eye. He plucked a few leaves, bent down on them, and soon felt the sedative effect of their bitter juice time slowed. The slope was not his enemy. He was a part of it. He crept, and when he reached the small ledge, three inches wide, planted his heels on it. Then he shuffled sideways like a crab toward the precipice, 30 feet to go, 20 feet the water beside him now white and agitated as it sped to its threshold. Ten feet at last. The edge was right in front of him. Legs, firm, body stiff, arching. He peered over his eyes, bored into the billowing freefall, and he watched the spill separate out into streamers, comets of water whose tails refracted sunlight as the flowed past him on its grand adventure, his body and soul seemed to hang somewhere in between terra firma and air infinitum. Another current emersons words he well knew in the woods we return to reason and faith. There. I feel nothing can befall me in life no disgrace, no calamity which nature cannot repair. Muir lost any sense of the passage of time and later could not remember his retreat from the ledge, although a slip of the heel could sent him over with the powerful creek, the magnificence of the fall its ever active and changing form its rumble and sudden silence, its action and refraction, its immediacy and its distance had him spellbound. So many stimuli bombarded his senses that there was no room for fear instead where earth and water met, air and light mirror with the religious fervor of his upbringing, saw god. He saw god in the fragments of the stream and in the rays of the sun passing through to make vivid rainbow beads, he saw god and the rebirth of the streams suddenly expelled from earth as death and a new life, a new journey where samuel tenuously manifest. Thats great. So yeah. So that was a Pivotal Moment for him. I mean, he had walked there to explore it. He had heard about it, that he devoted his life to it after that or yeah, well, series of events, the valley had become famous. Abraham lincoln actually gave it to the state of california to preserve and protect for for all mankind. Photographers were making their way out there. So he had heard about it. He initially planned to go on a long trek through south america, but on a walk through south, he caught malaria and had heard of Yosemite Valley. Went out there. And i think this moment that that he here and i didnt make any of that up this is nonfiction he gave me all this material and when i read in his writing how he looked through those water beads with the light coming through, and he would he would go back repeatedly. Hed go back to see those water. The light refracting through those beads. But in the idea, the stream came there to the cliffs edge to die and, was reborn in the river below as a new i mean, it kind of blew my mind. And i think, you know, what he saw there, he had a very strict upbringing. His father wasnt evangelical christian who the bible verses into him. He had memorized the new testament and most of the Old Testament as a youth. And but but he never lost his faith. He had this really deep faith. And i think he was looking for his own realization of that faith. It wasnt like his fathers. And and he you could see that he was finding it here. So you mentioned emerson had read the transcendentalists and you know i think of them back east Emerson Thoreau others he was a real wild man, you know, out here on the west coast where, you know, human settlement, westerners, i should say european settlement was relatively new and he was discovering places or experiencing them early on. I mean it in a way. He was sort of i mean, can you talk a little bit about that transcendental spiritualism he was finding in these really dramatic places . Yeah. Muir was something of an autodidact but he did go to the university of at madison for two years and his professors there were loved emerson and thoreau and muir started keeping a like emerson at the time which he he he wrote his name on one of his journals, john muir planet earth the universe. So hes a bit of a, you know, early hippie and and but but emerson carried of emerson around and also of thoreau and in burns poet and all these ideas about nature were of coming together of burns in his poetry talks, you know, about the sorrow of trampling on flowers or, you know, the mouse that has been branded, you know, something that that nobody wants and how sad that is, you know, because, you know, a living animal. And so that this sort of love of the small things in nature our appreciation for animals and trees, life all this is is kind of new. At the same time, america is, you know, destroying the the passenger pigeon. Its its wiping out the bison. Its its clear the trees from coast to coast. So these are new ideas in and mirror is going to echo what what emerson and throw believed in really bring it to a popular audience so of the things i was most surprised by reading your book you know i knew about muir from reading a few of his writings and, you know, his thousand mile walk to the gulf. And ive always thought of him as a naturalist, a conservationist. What i didnt realize is how brilliant he was and how varied his became. So can you talk a little bit about that . What wisconsin childhood and some of his other interests and then what led him to become, you, the voice of nature . Yes, sure. You might say he was somewhat peculiar. His father would let the bible in. The only book he would let in the house was a bible. But muirs neighbors in wisconsin came to realize, hey, this is a really bright kid hes working from dawn to dusk in the fields. He dug a 90 foot well for the family and almost died in the bottom of the well from the gases down there. But he was he was an amazing worker. And to actually read Something Else because he had an expansive mind, he he whittled a machine out of wood and using clockwork that would pull the legs out of the foot of his bed and dump them in a pan of cold water at one time. So he could get up to read before having to go to work at dawn. And so, you know, thats a little bit unusual, i guess. And then and then when he then eventually the neighbors were like, youre youre inventions are incredible. You have to take them. And exhibit them. In the state fair of wisconsin. So he went to madison and he would would never go home after that he was discover right there he was admitted to the university of wisconsin his was a museum slash freak show. I mean, all the other students would come to see, you know, whats me are doing. He had a he he whittled a desk out of wood also using clockwork where hed line up his books and every 15 minutes it would move. So that he could stay on his study schedule, his even his he was, you know, a beautiful speaker and, but he had a sort of a farm lingo and an english i mean, a scottish dialect. And so people want to hear him talk. His professors were inspired by the poetry of his language, even then. And what i mean, what did he look like at the time . Was he tall and gangly i mean, im picturing him as his older years, but as a youth. What was he he was always a wiry, lean guy with a, you know, a big pace outdoorsman at that time. He had a pretty tightly cropped beard not the the the long bushy beard that you see. And, you know, of my goals with the book was to sort of bring him out of the woods. Were used to seeing those portraits of him with the long grizzly beard, but he was so much more than that. And thats what, you know, i really wanted to, you know, show all aspects of him. So in really nice review in the new york times, the reviewer wrote that guardians of the valley is, a book about the power of storytelling, the power of language to sway to change the minds of lawmakers and tourists alike. And really, this book is about how he turned writings and his inspiration into into action. And we can thank him for yosemite and much other. Well continue to talk about that. But you know, when did he become a writer and what made his prose so powerful . He kept a journal from ever, you know, starting it. It madison. He started keeping a journal. And a lot of what we see now are his journal writings, you know, and a lot of his books were not actually published late in his life when editors were saying, hey, youve got get this down, we have to publish this. But after he went to Yosemite Valley, lived there for a couple of years through winters, when most people would leave Yosemite Valley, its still a very remote place prone to you know, great snows. And theres some amazing events where it snows and then it heats up in the whole valleys, just flooding. And he is out there roaming through, you know, water, chest high water, taking it in. He had no fear. He lacked a fear gene. And he started writing stories for newspaper. He started studying how the valley was created at the time, the most common scientific was that a cataclysm had formed the valley and the bottom had dropped out. But he knew that he had he had studied, you know, various natural scientist and knew something of glaciation. And he looked for the clues and found out that there was Glacier Movement that had formed a lot of the valley. And he he went there and proved that and put in spikes into the glaciers that existed and so he was writing about that. And eventually he wrote for century magazine in new york city, which would become his chief vehicle, where he would discover Robert Underwood. Johnson perfect segue to my next question. So this this isnt just a book about john muir. The subtitle is john muir and the friendship that saved yosemite. So you mentioned underwood johnson. Who was he . How did they meet and why was he an especially effective partner for mirror that johnson was one of the fun discoveries. I came to this by wanting to do something about Yosemite Valley discovery. Muir and i didnt know when i first started researching it, which would go. He had an amazing relationship with a woman named jean carr was the wife of one of his professors who was also a botanist. And muir was very into botany and geology, and they became sort of soulmates. She would introduce him to emerson and a lot of the famous scientists who would come out, her husband eventually went to berkeley and she was in in that area and would send scientists to come find him to be their guide in Yosemite Valley. So i thought well maybe thats the story and then when i got sort of midway into muirs life, i realized, well, this editor, Robert Underwood johnson, would be the person who would empower muir. He would put down amazing ideas. And you asked me what his writing. Great. Well, he had this engineer doing scientific mind very keen observer, very incredibly patient. He could go out in the woods, into the valleys and stay for a week by himself just observing. So that power of Observer Mission in the discipline to put it down on paper. I think muir could be little tough to read at first, but once you develop a taste for it and realize, you know, its its almost like reading poetry every word is meaningful and beautiful and well thought out in descriptions are incredible. So johnson certainly, you know, as an editor at century magazine, realized that century magazine wanted anything he could. He could write for them. And so in johnson was he was a man action, really, where muir was well, muir was also a man of action was a great adventure, an explorer but johnson was a guy, i guess a political beast would be the right, right way to put it. He eventually went out and met with muir and and they would go into Yosemite Valley. Muir would say, hey, you got to come out here and see the valley with me because the state owned the valley. But muir could see that they werent taking good enough care of it. Logging was encroaching on it. There were still sheep grazing, massive industrial sheep grazing, and from his sheep herding days, he realized that the sheep didnt just eat the foliage. They they ate the roots. They ate everything. And and he quickly realized that, you know, if that happens, youre going to get youre going to get erosion. The streams and the valley is going to die. If you dont if you dont save the the land around the valley, the the valley is not going to last. So he took johnson out there to show how beautiful it was for one. And how also it was trouble. And johnson. So they go up on wall meadows is kind of the north part of the park out of the valley. They have a wonderful camping. Johnsons amazed at seeing muir in his real natural habitat roaming around the rocks and taking him know, showing johnson around and finally johnson around the campfire. Muir you write me two articles and ill publish them in a century and then ill take them down to washington dc and ill put them on the desk of every congressperson down there. And were going to get a bill passed and create a National Park and lo and behold, muir, the stories, even though hes skeptical because he hadnt had any success in the political realm, johnson publishes them, goes down to d. C. And they get this bill passed. And if it were only so easy, yeah, much of the book is johnson basically back in on the east coast saying muir, were stalling. Youve got to get me more stories, you know, because those were the things that caused the politicians to act. I was really struck by that. And johnson was a real urbane guy. I mean, he was an east coaster city person, savvy, savvy in the halls of congress. And yeah, john johnson in own. Right. Was an amazing guy. At one point i wanted to call the book johnson and mr. Muir and publishers like, no, you cant do that. Its got to be muir comes first and but because i was so taken with johnson, we dont know who must be Lyndon Johnson is. And he he became an ambassador to italy but he also bob stump for and it had International Copyright law passed it he had he lined up you know mark twain to fight for it in literary luminaries of the day. He took part in what probably our best history of the civil war where century magazine for three years interviewed leaders on both sides of the major battles and published those. Thats what made century magazine go from circulation. 125000 to 250000. Really be a leading voice in the nation. It empowered johnson and would be then you know a great place for muirs voice to go. But johnson grew up in indiana and he eventually would go to chicago, where worked for scribner and book. He was there when the great chicago fire happened and he was one of those kind of guys who seemed to be at a lot of central events in, you know, history at the time. And so i was really taken with him. Theres a four decade correspondence between muir and johnson. It would take six, six days for a letter to go across country. But it was a conversation they held for for, you know, for decades and, you know, from from the from the seventies up to. 1914 when when muir died. And so it was an amazing relation relationship that i wanted to capture in the book. One of my i think one of the great pleasures of this book is, is stepping back from our contemporary world, where we all know about the sort of instantaneous and thinking about the media and the communication across country back then and how important and how powerful this century magazine was and how they would carry on, like you said, these conversations, it almost sounded like they were, you know, emailing each other, but they were sitting down, probably using a dip pen and writing these these these letters and sending them across the country by, who knows what. So i hinted at some of your work to bring history to life in researching your previous books, you cross the sahara on camels and land rovers. You trekked the long march trail in the Snowy Mountains of western china. You drew gunfire while traversing the hollers of appalachia on an atv. And these are all four books that took place you know decades if not centuries ago. You know what do you gain from going to these places today and where did you travel for gardening . To the valley and how did that inform this book . Well, this kind of adventure, travel is a reward for spending four years behind the computer. You know, its like it is the gym. I realized when i when i did skeletons on the zahara and i went to africa, i realized going to the sahara was maybe a once a lifetime opportunity and that instead of coming early on in the writing process to get them, it comes later in the process. So i had an entire manuscript. I went to the desert. I knew exactly the questions i wanted to ask and that worked really well i could ask. My god, i knew what i was looking for. And you know, it made me aware of, of the details. So thats, you know part part of my technique. I get, as i do a lot of the Book Research and write a lot of the narrative. So that know what i look looking for when i go there and what i want to find and, and so that thats worked well, with with all the books going to West Virginia was a little bit easier getting shot at wasnt great but but that led me to go to an innkeeper that id met in the town of mate wine and say hey i need to meet a real hatfield not a forest ranger to take in because we got shot at and he found me a real hatfield. And then once those guys got to know me, they took care of me with this with this book. And, you know, when you go in, you go in as a writer to, you know, to to smell smells and see the sights and really get the feel of the place and hear the language, meet the people, you know, the history sticks. Its still with the people today the stuff i discovered in the in the desert or in West Virginia that happened. You know, its, you know, related to what i was writing about, you know, that my books are about a century ago, perhaps. But but but a lot of the culture is is still the same. And i think, you know the same when you go into the Sierra Nevada. Theyre pretty remote. You go into the you know, into Yosemite Valley in that area. And you have people who are really devoted to that region and and you can pick up all kinds of Insider Information and you go go out into the hills. You spend time a sequoia tree. You cannot read about that or look a photograph or a painting. And really grasp what thats like. Its like sitting with a dinosaur, you know, you just cant imagine the immensity of it. And so last october, my research for this one got a little messed up by covered in the forest fires. It was really hard finding a time to go on that deep dive into the you know and also the weather because with the snow, sometimes you cant get into the you cant go in through the tioga pass in that northern part of of of the National Park until, you know, july or august sometimes. And but we did so in this past trip. We went to the Sequoia National forest, drove in on dirt road for two or three miles, hiked and a mile and a half to the bull tree, which is in the converse basin, was once the largest collection of sequoias of of the giant sequoias on the planet. Muir went out there to look the trees and assess them and write about them. And he saw there were there were mills set up there. They were they were taking down these trees. And he he talked to the mill owner and the mill owner said, look, yeah, these are trees. If you can get me a deal for some other property, ill swap it with the government. He realized that back to johnson, but they couldnt get the deal done in. This entire conversation probably 2000 giant sequoias were were cut down, except for one the boole tree, which is still there, ironically named after the guy who ran the logging operation that cut down the other 1999 sequoias, but left one standing anyway, we were there for an hour having lunch and not person came there because still pretty remote and. So you can still have that kind of experience, that area, that Sequoia National. And to me, spending time with that tree and looking at, you know, the scars and the tree the places where the squirrels had, you know, squirreled away the tiny little sequoia cones that theyre saving for winter. And its just a living entity understanding that. You cant take a photograph of that. We took all kinds of photographs and only one really, you know, sort of expressed how gigantic it is because like a tiny little ant next to it and you cant even realize until you zoom in that that its a person. But, you know, those kinds of experience is, i think, are invaluable for somebody writing a book like this to bring in a live for for readers. So the there were lots of pleasures in this book. But one of the biggest pains or difficulties was reading about the loggers who felled those giant trees. It was tragic. Tell us about that and i think have a passage that kind of gets at it. Yeah, i will read this passage because it does a pretty good job. I didnt realize the power of this passage until i did a virtual reading for our discussion for the mark twain house and museum in the moderate here there who works for the museum said, i read this passage three times and it nearly brought me to tears every time. And then i realized, you know, what kind of effect it could have on her. So this is the beginning of chapter 12 as the general noble tree fell in the converse basin grove in 1892, a year after twains namesake met its demise, the giants sequoia lurched back against its stump in its death throes, as if admonishing the jubilant lumberjacks who had just severed the last fibers of what is believed to be the largest tree ever cut down the massive 3000 year old sequoia named after the sitting secretary of the interior, both until that moment still very much alive, sent the men leaping as it smashed scaffolds and rigging. They fell on to the wildly vibrating stump, some 95 feet in circumference the chicago stump, as it would known and found themselves on wobbly knees in, the midst of their own selfinduced earthquake. They would make a 30 foot tall cross of the tree, cleanly cut at both ends, hollow it out, and then prepare it for transportation. Chicago, where during the worlds columbian exposition, it would be erected in the white city in the rotunda of the government building, ringed by benches and outfitted with a spiral staircase. It wasnt just the logging operations, also the institutions were. Its really interesting to think about what motivated these men to cut these trees down. Its its its to depressing and its ironic mentioned they they cut their name to tree after mark twain and then cut it down. Yeah he was he was in europe at the time struggling financially, trying to make a living. And they cut the tree down. I try to find anywhere where he mentioned it, but he didnt he never he never talked about it. I dont know if he knew that he had a tree named after him, but it was the mark twain tree. And here this secretary of the interior, you know, whos had this great named after him and it gets whacked. So, you know, its kind of kind of surprise. And then that must have driven your crazy. I mean, he understood the power or, you know, the importance of these trees. Sure. But not not many people did. And they were the giant sequoias werent, even Good Building wood. You know, there was wood all around. But the wood was somewhat brittle and was off know used for for fence posts and for roof shingles and they would when they fell, they would splinter. They would actually have to carve a bed out and put down branches to look for it to fall. So it wouldnt just shatter some of these trees. You should definitely see the by the book for the photos alone. But bye by 15. Amazing story. So we have about 15 minutes left. I thought i would open the floor to questions. Does anyone have a question for dean . And we have microphones around. Heres one right here, right. Well, ive just begun your sahara book and i havent read this one. But the question is sort of for both of them, now that youre moving with your life and doing your next project and all, how is your philosophy of life or how is your vision changed as you as let this these these experience, this, those two and im sure the others of which you spoke, but. Yeah. Patrick obrien too. Yeah. So i was just wondering because i know when i read Something Like a year later ill say, well, first of all, sticking is i think the very best animal story story. Yeah. And thats not about the yosemite. But anyway, so you get the gist of the question. I think i like to go back into history and in as little and said bring it, bring it alive. Because i think and i can point out a lot of places where time seems to, you know, telescope history and so it comes down to us and maybe a couple little lessons. And i think often when you go back and look at history, its not its not black and white. Its its messy and more beautiful and more fun and more relatable. If we try to crystallize it, it it becomes almost untruth in itself. And i think more particularly, there are a lot of cases, you know. Muir some purist that was trying to keep people out in nature to protect nature. He was all about bringing people to nature. The sierra club that was created the at the same time, these two trees were cut down was created to bring people into the Sierra Nevada to experience it. To him, it was the greatest manifestation of god. And if he could bring people to the mountains to they would fall in love with mountains and the trees, and then they would protect. So i think we you know, we all kinds of mythology and legend develops. And and so for me, as you know, my fun is going back in living with with history and finding all the pieces, almost any great story you. Know that you look for Great Stories where theres still evidence, their record, their written, whatever documentation. If you go back and live and dwell in there and look at those records, they can be interpreted so many ways. So reinterpreting that that material is really fun. I think. So ive learned a lot history and the way we interpret it and what lessons we take from it. And, and this one particular, i think i, i, i think my appreciation for for nature in what were going through now in dealing with our planet is enhanced. Yeah. Heres one here. I got a microphone here. In the year 1999. I wanted to go to california and i did. And a friend of mine was still living there and he took me to the bureau woods and it was amazing because it was one tree that had an area where a car could go through tree. I know if thats still there, but it was just amazing to see these beautiful, huge trees when i got to see them. Well, then you will appreciate this book. Yeah, im going to buy it, but i dont like to have to walk all the way over there, not only here and all that. Ive already got on amazon right here. I think theres a question right behind it . Did you have a question there, sir . I know these guys, theyre a little nervous about question because i know im from way back in new york. Right. So question to dean well, first, how did you pick your . Moderator but well get to that in a minute. Some balls. The book is entitled how he saved yosemite. So id like to kind of get an elevator pitch or story about why specifically you think he saved yosemite and how did mountain man pay for living out there and what was he doing . His writings were later. I assume it was writing. Yeah. How did he how did he. How he lived . Those are good questions. And, you know, theres a lot in this book. Muirs life is sprawling. You he was an inventor. He was a writer. He worked in factories. And you created the most efficient process for making wagon wheels. So its a very complex person. If think in terms that they were cutting down trees and, you know, its really a wonderful, i think, in its complexity. But so part of the complexity is that abraham lincoln, you know, saved the valley during the civil. It was under pressure from was coming up, you know, mining shepherding everything and he was fighting the battle to save the area round. Well they did that but then you had a National Park around the valley and for the next 15 years he and johnson fought have the the the receded to the federal government create the National Park that we know today. Ultimately then San Francisco and the whole second half of the book is battle for hetch hetchy, which San Francisco after the great earthquake of 1906 and the fire that destroyed San Francisco, they wanted part of this park for to create a reservoir. Muir and johnson fought that they lost the battle, but they won the war because. From that, the National Forestry the National Park service was created, which would then make the National Parks and viable, ultimately save the park though that that part was dammed up. So thats really sort of where title comes from. They really saved all the National Parks for for preservation. The way we know money. Obviously the wagon wheel was, you know. Yeah so you know so he he actually married into the family of a fruit rancher and and ten years ran a very prosper kris fruit ranch. His father law was a botanist and you know was creating better fruits and they were very effective. His father in law built a big mansion that muir would move into. But it was it was also draining him in his wife, who was devoted to her. His wife was devoted to her fathers work in the ranch and loved it. But she realized that muirs greatness demanded, that he returned to the mountains, in the woods, and insisted that he go back and hell go on to climb Mount Rainier in the fifth ascension of of rainier and go back to his writing in this advocacy. And you know, johnson make him start the sierra club. And at one point mira says. Johnson turned me into a lobbyist. You know, dag gone it and but hes proud of it. He would be head of the sierra club for life. They would create this great grassroots movement. He would take Theodore Roosevelt, taft camping. And his influence is is all the sort of modern environmental movement, the creation of the other National Parks and national monuments. So theyre really the precursor in in muir to what happened in, you know, in the 20th century with Theodore Roosevelt, roosevelt in and creating the National Park system as we know it. So thats a great place to end. Sorry, we have were of time. But i did want you to talk Teddy Roosevelt. You begin the book with this fascinating scene of muir taking teddy, the former president. You know, he was to run for the second term. Yeah. In 1913. This is 1903 1903 takes him camping. Yeah. And roosevelt was really taken with myra inspired by him. And we consider Teddy Roosevelt the conservationist president. Talk a little bit about his on him and then maybe read a brief passage working for if we have time. Id love to. Oh, yeah. So roosevelt went out on a whistle stop tour after taking over the president s dnc midway after mckinley assassinated, and hes getting ready to run for term and he needs to go out and he, johnson, convinces muir to not go on a world tour, world botany tour, to stay there, to take Theodore Roosevelt camping. And roosevelt wants nothing more than to get away from his handlers and go off. And hes get away from me, you know, im going out with and for three days they go out camping. It its really wonderful. They have amazing conversation ants of which we have various reports, you know, open to interpretation. But i think you know, one of the the great examples of of muirs on roosevelt is roosevelts immediately after coming out of yosemite with having been with muir and can hear muirs words echoed in his speech. So i just this theres a short bit here ill read to you back on his whistle stop tour. Roosevelt made use of freshly inspired elocution, the vein of his new friend muir, telling its lying out at night under the giant sequoias have been like lying in a temple built by hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility, build. And i hope for the preservation of groves, of giant trees, simply because it would be a shame to our civilization to let them disappear. They are monuments themselves in california, impressed by how great the state is. But im even more impressed by the immensely greater greatness that lies in the future. And i ask that marvelous Natural Resources handed on unimpaired to your posterity. We are not building this country of ours for a day it has to last through the ages. The president s deeds would be even more