John Muir stands as a powerful symbol of connection with the natural world. In this interpretation of the formative years Holmes reveals the agony as well as the elation of Muir's earliest experience of nature through to the fulfilment of the vision that would shape his lifelong environmental experience.

As a founder of the Sierra Club and a promoter of the national parks, as a passionate nature writer and as a principle figure of the environmental movement, John Muir stands as a powerful symbol of connection with the natural world. But how did Muir's relationships with nature begin? In this book, Steven J. Holmes offers an interpretation of Muir's formative years, one that reveals the agony as well as the of his earliest experiences of nature. From his childhood in Scotland and Wisconsin through young adulthood in the Midwest and Canada, Muir struggled - often without success - to find a place for himself both in nature and in society. Far from granting comfort, the natural world confronted the young Muir with a full range of practical, emotional and religious conflicts. Only with the help of his family, religion, and the power of nature itself could Muir, in his late 20s, find a welcoming vision of nature as home.