John Muir lived from 1838 to 1914. During that time he covered most of the American wilderness alone and on foot without a gun without a sleeping bag with only a sackful of stale bread and tea. Major credit is ascribed to him for saving the Grand Canyon and Arizona s Petrified Forest. In 1903 he convinced President Theodore Roosevelt while on a three-day camping trip together of the importance of a national conservation program. He had been president of the militia Sierra Club since its formation in 1892. Muir s writing based on journals he kept throughout his life gives our generation a picture of America only 100 years ago still wild and unsettled. Edwin Way Teale has preserved the best of Muir s work in selections that show both the ago and the man.