Yearning for the Land: A Search for the Importance of Place

by John Warfield Simpson

What does landscape mean to us? How does it shape our sense of “rootedness” to place and connection to community? Can that sense and that connection enrich us in the same manner as having knowledge of our familial lineage? Landscape historian John Warfield Simpson sets out to answer these questions by following the journey of the great conservationist John Muir from his homeland along the North Sea coast in East Lothian County, Scotland, to his family’s adopted home in the fields and forests of Marquette County, Wisconsin. Along the way he discovers much about himself; and we, in turn, can learn much about ourselves.

In 1849 the Muirs immigrated from East Lothian to the wilds of central Wisconsin in search of religious and economic opportunity. What concept of land did they and millions of others from the Old World leave behind, and what did they find in their New World homes? Simpson physically retraces the Muirs’ journey, as he delves into the meaning and importance of place. He speaks with estate owners and tenant farmers in Scotland who have centuries-long ties to the land they own or work; to Wisconsin farmers for whom one hundred years measures a profound connection to place; and to Native Americans working to reclaim the land they lost to white pioneers like the Muirs and to the author’s own Scottish ancestors. Among all of these people Simpson discovers a powerful link between personal and communal history, and a deep connection to the land on which they have been played out.

Time and history, landscape and community, are tightly intertwined, Simpson learns. Roots matter, he discovers, in his adopted home of Cockburnspath, Berwickshire, Scotland.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 2002

Reviews

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book at the Muir woods north of San Francisco. I am an American who, at the time, was deeply struggling with my American identity. I also happened to be two weeks away from moving to Scotland at that exact moment. I took my family to the Muir woods for a final American vacation before the move, and here it was, a book written by an American, about a struggle with his identity in his own land, who looked for the meaning of homeland in Scotland, literally, just miles away from where I was about to move to in Edinburgh, and the book features the comparative narrative of the life of John Muir whose work in America inspired the name of the very woods I was waking through at that very moment. This book was going to give me perspective. It's like it was written just for me, just for that moment.

It was a tale of two halves. I love the first 2/3 of this book, which fulfilled everything I had hoped for when I bought it. The book was insightful and full of discussion about life, farming, what it means to be tied to the earth. The discussions about the Ho Chunk tribes and Muir family in Wisconsin were excellent.

The final 1/3 of the book, when the author finally focuses more on Scotland, was tedious and dull. All insight and reflection gave way to jumbled names and facts, the Muir family became an afterthought, and the pursuit of homeland and identity became completely redundant. Either the author lost steam in the writing, or I did in the reading, or both, but the last 100 pages or so was quite a let down.

Overall I liked the book, but the first half gives the reader the real meat promised by the title.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a slow read... and I mean that in the best possible way. The author moves back and forth between the two settings of John Muir's childhood -- East Lothian, Scotland, and Marquette County, Wisconsin -- in search of how Muir's connection to the landscape evolved.

Surprisingly, though, the author keeps finding new perspectives from which to view these two places. In the New World, he interviews people from the Ho-Chunk nation, a native tribe that lived in Wisconsin before European settlers arrived, and who are now buying back large portions of land that was once robbed from them. In the Old World, he talks to owners and guardians of formerly grand old estates, which are now being sold off, piece by piece, because hanging on to them is financially impossible.

Again and again, the author surprised me with how he could introduce yet more layers of history. Frankly, I found it difficult to slow down my speed of reading to match the pace of the text. Being primarily a reader of fiction, I have a tendency to buzz through lengthy descriptions of weather and landscape... but those descriptions were primarily what this book was all about! Slowing down was worth the effort, though, particularly because it gave me a better feel for one of the author's main points: that history does not flow in a linear fashion, but accrues in layers, which need to be sifted through, bit by bit.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

at first i got bogged down in this book. really liked it then started skimming. the sections of interviews in wisconsin just went on too long for me. i enjoyed the information about john muir. what i really enjoyed was the end of the book when the author went to scotland and lived there for a short while. that part was what i was really looking for throughout the rest of the book, and made me glad that i had read it.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can be read in any number of ways -- an homage to John Muir, a survey of land use in Scotland versus the United States, an effort to understand the Native American view of the land, a stab at a memoir, and a search for roots, and rootedness. Held together by a reverence toward 'place' in shaping human lives. Serious but not solemn.