John Muir tea towel

"Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life" - the Scottish American naturalist John Muir (1838-1914) wrote these words in the margins of his copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson's prose works. It was his response to Waldo's transcendentalism (the belief in the inherent good of people and nature) that spurred the comment, and it serves as a fitting summary of his life's work.

Muir has been called the "Father of the National Parks". His family emigrated to the States from Scotland in 1849, and when he left the strict religious environment of the family, he followed his desire to tread America's wildest, most untouched regions.