Yosemite - John Muir: Conversations with a Tramp

Lee Stetson as John Muir

For 35 years actor Lee Stetson has been studying the celebrated naturalist John Muir.  For 34 years, he has run a one man show where he channels John Muir in a gently affecting live performance.  Lee Stetson at 76 is now just a few months older than Muir was when he died.  According to a recent interview of Stetson, he plans on continuing to play Muir until his voice and energy give out.  Stetson has become Muir in all ways that count.  He has perfected a Dunbar Scots accent (Muir immigrated to Wisconsin from Scotland as a youth), and has visited Muir's boyhood homes in both Wisconsin and Scotland. He has read everything Muir has every written.  He has also "sauntered" through all of Muir's haunts at Yosemite.

As we learned in Stetson's show tonight at Yosemite Theater, Muir detested the word "hike," as it implied a sweaty athletic event that did an injustice to the act of exploring nature. "Saunter" is Muir's preferred term.  Stetson sets his one act play on the exact day that Muir learns that his beloved Hetch Hetchy Valley will be filled with water to serve as a reservoir for the City of San Francisco.  Muir described it as a "water tank" designed by politicians to save money.  In fact, the reservoir still stands, one of Muir's few failures to preserve the "wildness" that every American needed to experience.

Stetson approaches his one hour play as a conversation with the audience, weaving in memories of his childhood with adventures in Yosemite Park.

If you visit Yosemite during high season (April - October) don't miss this living embodiment of Muir. Shows are Wednesday and Thursday nights at the theater attached to the Yosemite Valley Visitor's Center.  Only $10 per seat.  A bargain for such a treat.