A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey through an Endangered Land

by Dan Chapman

"Engaging hybrid - part lyrical travelogue, part investigative journalism and part jeremiad, all shot through with droll humor." --The Atlanta Journal Constitution



In 1867, John Muir set out on foot to explore the botanical wonders of the South, keeping a detailed journal of his adventures as he traipsed from Kentucky southward to Florida. One hundred and fifty years later, on a similar whim, veteran Atlanta reporter Dan Chapman, distressed by sprawl-driven environmental ills in a region he loves, recreated Muir’s journey to see for himself how nature has fared since Muir’s time. Channeling Muir, he uses humor, keen observation, and a deep love of place to celebrate the South’s natural riches. But he laments that a treasured way of life for generations of Southerners is endangered as long-simmering struggles intensify over misused and dwindling resources. Chapman seeks to discover how Southerners might balance surging population growth with protecting the natural beauty Muir found so special.



Each chapter touches upon a local ecological problem—at-risk species in Mammoth Cave, coal ash in Kingston, Tennessee, climate change in the Nantahala National Forest, water wars in Georgia, aquifer depletion in Florida—that resonates across the South. Chapman delves into the region’s natural history, moving between John Muir’s vivid descriptions of a lush botanical paradise and the myriad environmental problems facing the South today. Along the way he talks to locals with deep ties to the land—scientists, hunters, politicians, and even a Muir impersonator—who describe the changes they’ve witnessed and what it will take to accommodate a fast-growing population without destroying the natural beauty and a cherished connection to nature.



A Road Running Southward is part travelogue, part environmental cri de coeur, and paints a picture of a South under siege. It is a passionate appeal, a call to action to save one of the loveliest and most biodiverse regions of the world by understanding what we have to lose if we do nothing.

 

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Travel, History, Memoir, Environment, Science Nature

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 26, 2022

Reviews

[Lily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being an ecologist with deep roots along John Muir's southern route, I had high expectations for this book. Probably unrealistically high expectations. It was worth reading, but it was not as good as I hoped it would be. Also, brown trout (Salmo trutta) are not native to anywhere in the United States; they have been introduced globally from Europe (error on page 97-- both rainbow trout and brown trout are non-native to the eastern US).

[Jenna Happach · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Narrator was amazing for a non fiction book. HOWEVER pronounced Appalachia like “apple-aye-chee-uh” In the genre of I took a walk and wrote about the places I passed through in addition to their ecological histories.
As an ecologist much of the information wasn’t new, and it wasn’t a happy hopeful look at the state of the environment in the southeast. But I did learn about the Eastern water wars and a giant coal environmental distasteful that happened 3 hrs north of where I now live.
Liked that I got some context of a region where my new home is. Enjoyed some of the history on Muir.

[Booknblues · Rating 4 out of 5]

While John Muir is largely associated with California, The Sierras and Yosemite, in 1867 when he was still in his 20s, he set out on a thousand mile walk from Louisville, Kentucky to the Big Bend of the Florida Gulf Coast. Dan Chapman's book A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir's Journey through an Endangered Land explores the landscape of Muir's journey then and in the present day, with a close examination of environmental and ecological issues of today's world.

Of Muir, Chapman states,

"Nature was his bag. He was the proverbial “wild child” who never lost his love for adventure. An early advocate of Flower Power, Muir believed that all of God’s flora and fauna were worthy of preservation and were no less valuable than us bipeds."

As someone who is interested in the environment yet not familiar with issues of the American South, I found this book to be informative and educational about both the South and John Muir. It was however not a terribly optimistic look at the south, but I suppose that is true wherever one looks at the challenges faced in the environments of today.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was warned that this book was depressing, and I should have heeded that warning. While I'm no bright-eyed optimist, and I'm fully aware of the environmental degradation that the Southern U.S. has endured and continues to endure, that doesn't mean I want to read about it in excruciating detail on every page. Yes, I know, and yes, it needs to be addressed--if possible--but no, I didn't want that to be the focus of the book.

He does occasionally slip back to Muir and his journey, but then we're back to endless sad statistics.

Sorry to be so negative about the book. I'm not saying that what he wrote wasn't true, nor that it was not well explained. I'm just saying I didn't enjoy reading it like I'd hoped.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Virginia listens quietly to our mountaintop conversation. But the girl who first started rappelling for avens at age thirteen and was recently named a Park Service Volunteer of the Year could remain silent no longer. “A lot of people have the opinion that they’ll only fix stuff if it affects their life,” Virginia says, her voice rising. “But that thinking is just horrible. How selfish. I just personally wish we could do something to save these species, especially if it’s us that’s killing them in the first place.”

“When I awoke, the sun was up and all Nature was rejoicing,” he wrote. “I arose refreshed, and looking about me, the morning sunbeams pouring through the oaks and gardens dripping with dew, the beauty displayed was so glorious and exhilarating that hunger and care seemed only a dream.” John Muir.

I think people fighting for nature in the South are some of the biggest heroes around. As it goes more and more conservative, it gets harder and harder and so many people are not giving up. I have been reflecting a lot about the environmental crisis in the wake of the new 2023 Willow Project that Biden just approved against all his promises and all the advice of really smart people. I hope that when he offered the post to Deb Haaland, our first Native Interior secretary, he warned her this might happen, a declaration meaning destruction to try to mitigate more destruction. I read she cried and I read she did not sign it but was forced to be the face of it. Old white men colonizing indigenous women still.

That said, this was not a great book because it is sad topic and it had the same story and themes over and over again without any insight; the author could have embedded in a climate denier group or found a former climate denier or counted the birds in the cemetery, focused more on the people still fighting or made it soulful or alive in any way. Maybe it is important to document, but it felt like we all know this, all of the people who would read this.

I lived on the Gulf Coast for 6 months, and learned so clearly the lesson that Wallace Stegner teaches, where you find the greatest good, as you define it, you will find the greatest evil, again as you define it, because evil likes paradise as much as good. Almost no one I worked with ever went to any of the seriously gorgeous white sand beaches to swim, for a picnic, for a walk, for a sunset, nothing. They could be living in a concrete prison yard as far as I was concerned. It was stunning and sad. They didn't have boats or fish or surf or anything.

But they were some of the kindest and caring people who helped me when I was very ill, and sent me off with a lovely party and gifts, a custom made tshirt, a knitted blanket, a photo album, telling me how I changed their lives when they did mine, really. It was another world, such a beautiful and chameleon world of bayous and swamps and beaches and bays and sunsets and dolphins. Frog song and alligators. Sweet humidity and storms. It is part of me always, and while I don't go back to that area specifically, I go back when I can.

I was never, ever able to convince even one person to change their mind. Climate change was inevitable to them and unstoppable and they just did not care. But I pray and hope that the ones fighting in the South can.

The Southeast is one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity. Like birds? Well, more than 90 percent of the nation’s bird species live or pass through the region. What about fish? Nearly two-thirds of all US species of fish live in the Southeast’s streams and estuaries, yet the region comprises only 17 percent of the nation’s land mass. And more than a quarter of the area’s freshwater species are found nowhere else in the world. Trees and flowers your thing? One of every three plant species nationwide resides in the Southeast, with various ecosystems rivaling the Amazon or the Congo in biodiversity. Mussels? More than 90 percent of all US freshwater mussel species—and 40 percent of the world’s—inhabit Southeastern rivers and streams.

Evidence of this biological uniqueness abounds nearby. Look no further than the unheralded Conasauga River. Seventy-six species of fish live in the stream that flows one hundred miles through northwest Georgia and a sliver of Tennessee. That’s more species than the Columbia and Colorado rivers combined, yet its watershed is only one one-hundredth the size of those mighty Western rivers.

More than four hundred species of plants and animals are endemic to the southern Appalachians. The Nature Conservancy says no other place in North America is as bountiful. And few spots around the globe tally as many critters and plants at risk of extinction.

Critics scoff at any attempt at putting a dollar value on nature like it’s some sort of commodity to be bought and sold. Environmentalists recoil at the cost–benefit analysis of something as intrinsically wonderful as a saltwater marsh or the trill of a dark-eyed junco. Nature, after all, is like love. Money can’t buy it. Yet Costanza, who analyzed the economic value of seventeen different ecosystem services, made people think. These services are critical to a functioning, livable Earth. They support mankind’s welfare and, therefore, should be considered public goods. It costs a lot of money to make up for their absence. Consider the lowly insect, for example. Bees and other bugs fertilize our crops for free, so, without them, we’d have to pay armies of workers to brush pollen on fruits and nuts. German researchers estimated the non-bug cost to agriculture at more than two hundred billion dollars a year.

There is much of the Southeast’s natural world to be thankful for. It is, pound for pound, the nation’s most naturally eclectic and biodiverse region, with blue-green mountain ranges, Piedmont forests, mysterious swamps, and coastal marshes all swathed in a blanket of greenery. The rivers, including the Wilmington and Savannah, are much cleaner than they were fifty years ago, thanks to robust federal legislation and dedicated nonprofit action.

Millions of acres in the southern Appalachians and along the Gulf have been protected. The alligators below and the bald eagles above rebounded nicely with the advent of the Endangered Species Act and the prohibition of DDT. Serious conservation efforts are being made to save the red-cockaded woodpecker, the gopher tortoise, and the eastern indigo snake. Migratory birds descend in robust numbers upon the barrier islands of St. Catherines, Sapelo, Wolf, and Little St. Simons.

[Matt Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This snapshot of John Muir's experience juxtaposed with the degraded environment of the present American South is not an easy read. Chapman does well to inject humor and optimism where he can, but the state of water, biodiversity, and overall choices of how to use land all come together as indictments against civilization, or "Lord Man," as Muir referred to us.
I don't know how a book like this could wring five stars from me without offering me a clear way to help turn the tide. Maybe that's unfair, as a simple answer to a complex problem will rarely work. Regardless, Chapman offers great research both from reading Muir and going out into the world. I recommend the book highly for anyone involved in land use decisions in the South and for nature lovers who are ready to be distressed for a while.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid entry in the "going on a journey and using points along the way to talk about stuff" canon, using a familiar historical route guide--John Muir--but a less well covered route--the South. Each chapter focuses on a distinct modern environmental challenge in the South with varying degrees of connections to Muir's thousand-mile walk through the region. Mostly, the focus is on the modern issues, with the people making a difference on the ground at the forefront of the narrative. And when it does come to Muir, it's a warts and all perspective on him and his legacy from the contributions to conservation and environmentalism to his racist views, which were on full display in his time in the South. Insightful, timely, and engaging coverage of the state of the environment--and those working to solve the challenging issues--in the South.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Road Running Southward: Following John Muir’s Journey through an Endangered Land by Dan Chapman (Island Press 2022) (304.20973) (3894).

Author Dan Chapman has written an interesting environmental “State of the Southern US” trip journal which comments upon the ecological condition of much of the southern route that John Muir took on his thousand-mile grand tour from Kentucky to Cedar Key, Florida in 1867.

Chapman’s conclusion is a warning that much of the South is dying from the exploitation, overuse, and misuse of the region’s natural resources.

I enjoyed the author’s prose, and his choice of topics fit right into this reader’s wheelhouse. Though Chapman may be a sage and an expert on the state of the region’s natural resources, he made a serious boner concerning the native fauna of my own stomping grounds in the mountains of East Tennessee.

In reference to the collateral damage wrought to Tennessee and North Carolina by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s flood control dams, Chapman states that several native freshwater fish and mussel populations either vanished or all but disappeared beneath TVA floodwaters, including the one native species of trout, which Chapman (mis)identifies as “brown trout.” Chapman advises that the authorities imported a related species to re-stock Tennessee’s eastern waters with disastrous results: “Rainbow trout were imported from California, but the interlopers decimated native brown trout in many streams.” A River Running Southward, (p.97).

While Chapman is correct as to the result, he either misunderstood or misidentified the players. What Chapman missed is that brown trout, like their rainbow trout cousins, are not native to the South, much less to Tennessee. The brown trout which the author specifically identifies as native to the region are an introduced species as well - just like the rainbow trout from California to which Chapman referred.

In fact the sole native trout is the brook trout or “brookie,” which is actually a small member of the char family. These fish are highly sought after by Southern fly fishermen. In 2023, brook trout still populate the small streams in the highest reaches of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; these little fish are ardently pursued as trophies by hardcore sports fisherman willing to hike miles just to reach the brook trouts’ waters.

So is this a small error on the author’s part? Well, yes and no. As a Southerner born and bred, a Tennessean, a Smokies fisherman, a hiker, and an armchair naturalist, I can report that the story of the decimation and recovery of the native brook trout population is well known and widely recounted. If Tennessee has a “canary in the coal mine,” so to speak, it is the brook trout; any Southern ecologist should know which trout is the native.

This failure to fact-check is a shame, for this simple mistake led me to take every other statement or claim in this otherwise enjoyable book with a large grain of salt.

My rating: 7/10, finished 12/6/23 (3894).

[David Jacobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a former resident of California who now lives in the South, I was excited to read about the formative early journey of John Muir, his A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf from Louisville, Ky. to Cedar Key, Fla. This trek is the organizing principle of environmental journalist Dan Chapman's new volume, in which he uses a car to retrace Muir's route and explore the ecological changes that have transpired in the past 150 years. Unfortunately, that reportage overwhelms the parts of the book actually about Muir, such that A Road Running Southward reads more than anything as an essay collection from the author's time with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not that there are not interesting elements to this reporting: I learned about parks and preserves I might want to visit in the future and about the dangers associated with the long-term storage of coal ash. Other elements are those a reasonably well-read person will already be familiar with: depletion of aquifers, global warming, excessive damming of rivers. When the reader passes through these less-engaging stretches, he begins to notice some grating aspects on the part of the author: his stereotypical infatuation with driving a Subaru, his feeling that rules about campsite locations don't apply to him, his insistence on calling regular visitors to Mammoth Cave National Park "hordes of meaty-palmed, graffiti-scrawling tourists".

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry. Very informative. Very environmental? Lovely descriptions of the scenery in some chapters, heavy on climate change threats in other chapters. A mix of old poetry, political interviews, journalism articles, and travel guides. This book is most enjoyable if you’ve traveled to the South and happen to be familiar with an area written about, then it’s like a mental walk down memory lane (Tybee Island fan here!) Of course it then follows with a depressing list of current risks and future lack of existence of that area and the deadly effects to come….overall a great reminder of the biodiversity of the South that we should treasure and the importance of not just appreciating it but urging to preserve it.

[Susannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did not find this as "depressing" as others have stated. There are eye-opening revelations, but it is a tidy journal of observations that we all must see. Written in language that is at once familiar and erudite, Chapman's travelogue follows the route taken by John Muir through the southern US in the late 19th century, painstakingly noting the changes and the remnants of the landscape that Muir would have discovered. Recommended.

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth reading -- wish there was more Muir to it. Very depressing sections about all the environmental erosions across the US and more specifically the south. Found the sections about rivers most interesting (and again, depressing), especially the damage of continued dredging and widening to the ocean ecosystems, which was newer to me than much else in the book. The writing was fine but not the soul stirring nature writing that some authors achieve.

[Virginia C. Linch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrifying.Inspiring. Insightful

Amazing entry into the (largely) hidden war between the states. The state of the environment & the state of mind.
The state of mind where the $ rules & the environment pays the ultimate price.
Brought to those of us (who have been ignorant far too long) with data, not emotion. Ironic humour not hysteria. Facts & observation not hyped up b.s.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well chronicled account of following parts of Muir's southeast trek in the present day but the spots are chosen to highlight current environmental and ecological problems/disasters and the overall tone is negative and somewhat depressing.

[Liene · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for the citizen of the South. This testament to the biodiversity and wondeous natural beauty of our region is also echoing the death knell rung by climate change, development and industry; may we somehow save it all….

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise — journalist following the trail of John Muir through the southeast and then also telling about the regions current ecological crises (coal, fracking, over foresting, etc). I learned some stuff , but it was a bit repetitive. And I wish there’s been more Muir somehow.

[Tim Mathis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant read. I wanted more of a Muir deep dive, which this wasn't really, but still a nice survey of the history and modern reality of the ecosystems of the American South. Well written and entertaining. Chapman was a good tourguide.

[Meredith Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t really know much about John Muir to begin with, but this makes me want to read his books. I think I will read it again in print since it’s sometimes a lot of information to take in via listening.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly depressing.

[Rebecca Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent I learned a lot about Muir. Much of the book is set in familiar territory
I enjoyed it.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️ Not what I was expecting but a powerful read.

[Bella Cornell]

Dnf I couldn’t get into this at all.

[BookSweetie]

John Muir and his historical travel route through the south is revisited with contemporary environmental concerns.