John D. Olmsted, a plant ecologist and land preservationist followed in the footsteps of his distant cousin Frederick L. Olmsted, and considered himself a John Muir generalist.  Over the course of five months John introduced what he preserved, Mendocino Pygmy Forest, Jug Handle State National Reserve, and the Independence Trail, and took a budding botanist to the South Yuba River, the Ten Mile Dunes near Mendocino, and Goat Mountain where he sought to restore an ecological staircase.  In between was an encounter with poison oak and every attempt to build a lasting friendship. 

Bonnie J. Gisel
Presenter
Bonnie J. Gisel

Dr. Bonnie J. Gisel, Ph.D., Drew University, M.Div. Harvard University, is an environmental/cultural historian and author of Kindred & Related Spirits: The Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr; Nature’s Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir’s Botanical Legacy; The Wilder Muir: The Curious Nature of John Muir; and has published articles in the John Muir Newsletter. She taught at Drew University, Green Mountain College and University of the Pacific; and served as the curator of the Sierra Club LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite National Park for twenty-two years. With Stephen Joseph and the California Exhibition Resource Alliance, she created a traveling exhibit based on Nature’s Beloved Son.