A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land by Dan Chapman

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land by Dan Chapman Joann Mossa A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land. Dan Chapman. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2022. 256 pp., 2 figs. $26.94 hardcover (ISBN 9780817359997). The southeastern United States is a zone of tremendous biodiversity, but is under duress from changes in land use, climate, industry, invasive species and more. Dan Chapman's first book A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey Through an Endangered Land reexamines the travels of John Muir, the naturalist and conservationist, best known for his work in Yosemite but also the author of a book A Thousand Mile Walk about travels in the Southeast in 1867. Technically, it was a 900-mile walk and 100-mile boat trip from Louisville, Kentucky to Cedar Key, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. With limited funds, sleeping in cemeteries, and meeting locals, Muir ends his journey with a three-month convalescence with malaria. Through recounting parts of Muir's journey through mountains, foothills, plains, wetlands, and the coast, and in some cases going beyond it, Chapman weaves Muir's observations about threatened landscapes of the past, with the transformations of today. The key words of Chapman's title are "Endangered Land." Themes like climate change, invasive species, endangered species, pollution, demise of the reefs at Cedar Key, water wars, and other direct and indirect human actions have transformed the Southeast. Through the lens of environmental geography and history, focusing on what has made the South a unique and diverse in its culture, economy, climate, terrain, and biota, the book's goal is to inform the interested layperson about the many past environmental and historical, current, and emerging threats. The table of contents includes a title for each chapter, and a few-sentence synopsis of the topics and major themes. Chapman's graphics include an 1870 photo of John Muir, and a map depicting the 1867 walk through the Southeast and other place names mentioned in the text. The background chapter is an introduction: "Ghosts, Skeeters, and Rye." As Muir did, Chapman stays in a mosquito-rich cemetery named Bonaventure near Savannah where "Tall, dead oak trees resembling the bones of giants rise from the marsh just north of Bonaventure, ghost-forest victims of a rising sea's surge of salt water" (8). Laying the foundation for the interconnectedness of human impacts, Chapman notes: "A billion-dollar river-deepening project for the port of Savannah allows even more salt water to push farther upstream and harm the delicate ecosystem that sustains crustaceans, fish, and shorebirds" (9). In this introduction, he gives an overview and describes the scope of the Southeast's transformation because of human impacts: "Ninety million acres of stately longleaf pine forests and nourishing savannah grasses once filled the coastal plains stretching from Virginia through Georgia and all the way to Texas. Only four million acres remain today, the rest disappearing under the woodsman's ax, the farmer's plow, and the developer's bulldozer" (10). [End Page 123] After the introduction, Chapman begins with background on John Muir, recognizing his flaws and strengths. Some perceived shortcomings and flaws were detailed in the following quote: "Muir remained a Bible-toting prude who blanched at relations with the opposite sex. His encounters with African and Native Americans were less than enlightened, even downright racist. As a boy, he was cruel to animals. Marriage was more of a convenience than an affair of the heart. His all-natural piety grated on less-devoted disciples of wildness" (16). Then, Chapman notes Muir's apparent achievements: "Muir eventually embraced mainstream society, raised a loving family, got rich, and trod the corridors of power. He realized that his articles and books, leadership of the Sierra Club, and lobbying of the mighty served the budding conservation movement better than his musings on flowers and glaciers…Muir's preaching the back-to-nature gospel to an increasingly jaded, yet eager, American audience that would prove to be his most enduring legacy" (16). Chapman uses the biographical information to set the stage in how Muir's long walk began...