In Wisconsin #921
Season 900 Episode 921 | 27m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
John Muir's Scottish heritage, natural areas around his homestead in Buffalo Township.
In Wisconsin, In Wisconsin videographer Wendy Woodard pays tribute to John Muir's Scottish heritage with a closer look at the natural areas surrounding his homestead in Buffalo Township. This video essay captures the wilderness a young John Muir first explored in Marquette County. Today it is the John Muir Memorial Park.
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In Wisconsin is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin
In Wisconsin #921
Season 900 Episode 921 | 27m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
In Wisconsin, In Wisconsin videographer Wendy Woodard pays tribute to John Muir's Scottish heritage with a closer look at the natural areas surrounding his homestead in Buffalo Township. This video essay captures the wilderness a young John Muir first explored in Marquette County. Today it is the John Muir Memorial Park.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪ ♪ - Welcome to "In Wisconsin."
I'm Patty Loew.
This week, John Muir's family farm.
- I have a love affair with this place.
- Meet the man who now walks in Muir's footsteps.
Plus, this little purple book contains Mother Nature's secrets.
- I think somewhere in our evolutionary memory, we're still wanting to be in touch with the rest of nature.
- Find out why it's important to Aldo Leopold's legacy.
And strike up the band, the UW Band.
♪ ♪ Next on "In Wisconsin."
- Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by: the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, we're on for you.
And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.
- I really want Wisconsin as a state, and the citizens within it, and of course the nation as a whole, to recognize just how important Fountain Lake Farm is to our cultural history.
- Perhaps the best way to understand the father of our National Park System is by traveling to the place where he first explored the outdoors here in Wisconsin.
Next Monday, there's a new "American Masters" special on PBS called "John Muir in the New World."
More on that in just a moment.
First, we want to take you to his boyhood home on Fountain Lake Farm.
It's been about 150 years since preservationist John Muir lived here.
Today, another man is following in his footsteps in Buffalo Township.
(bagpipe making pipe music) This is the place in the mid-1800s where a young boy from Scotland first experienced the American landscape.
Here, he could watch geese fill the sky... (birds calling) experience the call of sandhill cranes... and watch a deer meander in the meadow.
A sanctuary for wildflowers and a lake nearby inspired the 11-year-old John Muir.
- It definitely fueled Muir's fire in terms of his relationship with nature.
- The legacy of Muir is also the catalyst that fuels current landowner Erik Brynildson.
- I have a love affair with this place.
- By coincidence or fate, he found himself walking in Muir's footsteps literally.
- I acquired the property, and I live here full-time, as I have for 23 years.
Everything now is about the landscape and restoring it back to its pristine, wild, pre-settlement condition as best we can.
- That's right, his goal, restoring the land to what it would have looked like when the Muirs first walked on this sandy stretch of prairie in 1849.
- It's a little pine.
- Removing invasive plants by hand.
And regular burns will help achieve a pre-settlement native prairie.
- Oftentimes it's two steps forward and three backwards.
- He's been at it at Fountain Lake Farm nearly a quarter of a century.
And Wisconsin Public Television was there in 1988 in the early years of his quest.
- I think that Fountain Lake Farm and the adjoining environs represent the place that's most fundamental to the evolution of the father of our national parks, John Muir.
- Today, restoration of this panoramic view closely mimics a sketch John Muir drafted more than 150 years ago from the ridgetop overlooking the lake.
All these years later, the prevailing winds carry that same spirit.
- I think Muir is alive and well here.
I think the spirit of Muir is very strong yet.
- Both men attended the University of Wisconsin, but Muir left the university after two years for what he called the university of the wilderness.
As a graduate student, Brynildson was mesmerized by the wilderness that seduced Muir.
- I kind of took off on a tangent myself and decided that the boyhood home of Muir had not been adequately studied.
I changed my graduate work in a hurry to that.
And so, it was just a special interest I had that originally it was a project that became a life.
- A life that included building a private residence on the exact foundation of the Muirs' farmhouse.
- I was able to document that the house indeed sat on this identical site and also on the old cellar depression.
The house in back of me now of indigenous Montello granite is a design that I came up with, and it mimics National Park Service rustic architecture of the arts and crafts period.
- None of the original Muir buildings exist today, but if you know where to look, you can still see traces of their time on this land.
- We determined that silver maples were indeed deliberately set out as shade trees in the yard by the Muirs.
Two large lilacs still boom here that Sarah Muir, John's older sister, planted.
- Before the California Redwoods and Yosemite Valley, this would be the landscape Muir would first seek to preserve.
- Muir did feel that it was beyond just majestic snow-capped peaks, and landscapes of that scale, that a sedge meadow such as this one was just as important in terms of landscape diversity.
- Just like John Muir fought to preserve the most expansive pieces of American wilderness, Brynildson fought to give this small property landmark status.
Muir's Wisconsin frontier experience is often overshadowed by his grandiose achievements in the West.
- Wisconsin is definitely unsung, those years that he spent here, that I would argue were probably the most important years of his life.
All one has to do is read his auto biography, "The Story of my Boyhood Youth."
He fully credits Fountain Lake Farm as being the place he conceived the notion of saving wild space.
- And for all his spectacular achievements, it's this prized piece of real estate that eluded Muir's preservationist intentions.
- We probably can't find a personality in our history that's responsible, single-handedly responsible for more acres of wilderness reserves and parks, and yet Muir's early attempts to save this simple little garden meadow, he called it, were never successful, and so, the irony in that is pretty amazing.
- But John Muir's failure turned into Erik Brynildson's success.
- I feel very privileged to be a part of that story.
And now we're finally accomplishing and making that dream come true.
♪ ♪ - Erik Brynildson's home and the 17 acres around it are private property and are not part of the adjoining Muir Memorial County Park.
The unsung story of John Muir's boyhood home will soon garner national attention on PBS.
We were there more than a year ago for a look behind the scenes when the film crew was here in Wisconsin.
- What do you think he learned from nature in particular?
- Catherine Tatge is a freelance producer with Wisconsin ties.
And on this day, her production crew is on location in Marquette County.
- I was a student at Lawrence University here in Wisconsin, and I had no idea that Fountain Lake existed, and this is a place that is a magical place.
- She's producing a John Muir documentary for the PBS series American Masters.
- I hope that this will make us much more appreciative of what we have, because it is remarkable, and in this country, I've lived all my life abroad, my younger life, and I have to say this is an extraordinary country with enormous possibilities.
And to see what John Muir was trying to do is-- I think that's the message that I would like the film to have.
- Muir looked to the wilderness surrounding the family farm as a place to escape from his stern father.
♪ ♪ - Baptism in nature's warm heart.
Every wild lesson a love lesson, not whipped, but charmed into us.
Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness.
♪ ♪ - I think Muir was literally natural, I mean a natural naturalist.
He had that kind of curiosity and spirit from day one.
He started to be befriended by nature.
You know, he identified with it.
- Other than a few months attendance at school, John Muir had no formal education in America.
♪ ♪ He stayed home to work the fields.
But he taught himself, with the encouragement of his mother, who helped him see the world beyond the farm.
- The subject of John Muir is really timely, because I think that right now with all the discussion about saving the environment and all that, I think people really need to know more about Muir and his writings.
It's in his writings that you get a real understanding as to why, what's the urgency, and why we need to take care of this land and take care of our environment.
- The American Masters documentary called "John Muir in the New World" is scheduled to premiere this coming Monday night, April 18, at 8:00.
It explores the life and legacy of the revered naturalist, author and scientist.
In addition to director/producer Catherine Tatge's ties to Lawrence University in Appleton, Garth Neustadter, a 2010 graduate, composed the documentary's score, which was performed by Lawrence Conservatory of Music students.
Also, watch for professor of anthropology Peter Peregrine.
He portrays Muir's stern Bible-reading father.
And Lawrence University senior Mark Hirsch plays Muir during his early years at the University of Wisconsin.
Another one of Wisconsin's legendary conservationists also tried to save the Muir property.
Aldo Leopold in the last week of his life attempted to preserve Fountain Lake Farm, but the effort ended when he died on John Muir's birthday.
After his death, Leopold also left behind a legacy of his own.
"In Wisconsin" reporter Jo Garrett shows you how Leopold's study of phenology is the science of new beginnings.
- In the dead of winter, it's easy to forget that the natural world is all about change.
♪ ♪ That calendar of change in the natural world, when a particular pond melts, when a certain species of forest flower first peeks out in a place, when a migrant bird wings back through our state.
That calendar, that catalog of year's first times is a branch of science called phenology.
It's current to discussions about climate change and as old as the Bible.
"For lo, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone; "the flowers appear on the earth; "and the time of the singing of the birds is come."
Kathy Miner is a woman who spends a good part of her work time... - This is called toothwort.
- ...on the lookout for these changes.
- This is its time, early to mid-April.
This is a little bit early.
- Miner is a naturalist, on the staff of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.
This 1,268-acre tract is as wild as can be in the middle of Madison.
It's a great place to watch things come and go.
- Toothwort is one of a group of plants called the spring ephemerals, which are a group of early spring wildflowers that live out their whole life cycle in about a six-week period between when the ground thaws and before the trees leaf out.
Phenology is the art and science of noticing things.
The "phen" part comes from appearances, as new things appear in nature over the course of the natural year.
- The arboretum has a particularly important phenology history.
It's a place founded by this man, Aldo Leopold, the Wisconsin conservationist who revolutionized conservation through his book "A Sand County Almanac."
Leopold was also phenologist.
He kept copious notes of his observations, both at the family shack in Sand County, and here in the arboretum.
- Aldo Leopold and one of his graduate students kept track of phenological data here from 1935 to, I believe, 1945.
It was at least a decade, and we have those records, and we are trying to keep up with them, to keep faith with them, and keep making the same observations and see how things have changed, or maybe haven't, since then and see what's going on in the natural year.
- In 1939, they first observed pussy willows in pollen on April 6.
Bloodroot in bloom on the 20th.
Canada geese on March 21.
This list of first times in a place can reveal patterns.
Leopold wrote this about phenology.
"A year-to-year record of this order "is a record of the rates at which solar energy flows "to and through living things.
"They are the arteries of the land.
"By tracing their responses to the sun, "phenology may eventually shed some light "on that ultimate enigma, the land's inner workings."
- These are Virginia bluebells.
When they're in bud, they're pink, but when the flower opens it will be this lovely sky-blue color.
Then, as it fades, it will become pink again.
It's only blue for a short time.
I actually just read in an article by a horticulture expert that the color pink and red are almost invisible to bees.
As with most insects, they see in a whole different color spectrum than we do.
They see blue very easily, so that flower being blue right at that time when it's receptive to the bee, it's one of those examples of perfect timing.
- And if the timing is off for the bluebells or the bees... - The bluebells might open and bloom a little too early, earlier than the insects are here, and you'd have a gap between the time of pollen being ripe in the flower and the time that the agent would be around to move it from flower to flower.
- Long-term, very structured phenology studies are a critical element in some global climate change studies.
- I started keeping in book in 1999.
- But Leopold himself wrote that phenology, with all its weighty subject matter, is a very personal sort of science.
Miner keeps a personal phenology journal, what she saw when.
- So, 2010 started with the starling.
The first robin for me this year was on March 7.
Then I go on to sandhill cranes.
(sandhill cranes bugle calls) - Phenology embraces not just sights, but sound.
American toads raising a ruckus in Teal Pond.
This season is a time when all the senses are in play.
And as Leopold wrote, "Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search."
- This is a definite sign of spring.
When the over-wintering buds on the willow have expanded to a point where they've created pussy willows, while some people would say spring is here.
- Looking for signs of spring.
It's a tour in the arboretum led by Levi Wood, another arboretum naturalist.
- That's one of our spring plants coming up.
Just the leaves.
It will be another three weeks probably, maybe a month, before we get the flowers up.
So spring is coming.
- They're looking for those firsts: emerging flowers, a hungry hawk that's just migrated back in.
- He's after a snake on the ground.
- Oh, yeah.
Look at the snake.
- Yeah.
- Oh, wow.
- That's an immature red tail hawk.
- And on the walk, they see an example of a previous peoples tied to nature, an Indian mound in the shape of a panther - The mound builders were here between 800 to 1200 years ago.
They made mounds all over the Four Lakes area of Madison.
One of the things I like about this panther mound, come springtime this has one of the best areas of spring beauties.
I wager, if this is like past years, if I come back here sometime mid to end of April, I can identify where the mound is by the fact that the soil is different, and it's covered with spring beauties.
- We lived outdoors before we lived indoors.... - You like walking in the woods?
- ..and so I think somewhere in our evolutionary memory we're still wanting to be in touch with the rest of nature.
- Chick-a-dee-dee.
(bird echoes call) - Aldo Leopold's daughter Nina continues her dad's phenology studies at the Leopold shack in Sauk County.
You can find out more about what that study revealed and how to add your own observations to national phenology research.
Just go to wpt.org and then scroll down and click on In Wisconsin.
Spring is in the air and it's time to strike up the band.
The University of Wisconsin's Varsity Band Spring Concerts are underway.
The Badger band is celebrating its 125th anniversary.
To honor this milestone, videographer Chuck France captures the history of the UW fight song in Madison.
- Exactly 100 years ago today, in the Red Gym, just down the street, the University Glee Club performed for the first time the song that John Philip Sousa called the greatest college marching song ever written.
And I think you all agree with that, don't you?
I certainly do.
(applause) "On Wisconsin," it's such a great little four-note fragment.
That, ♪ da, da, da, da ♪ - Maybe it's more than a march song and a two-step.
- One of the things we like to do is show the versatility of "On, Wisconsin."
We've played it in all different kinds of modes.
We played it as a 18th century chamber group might have played it.
Then we played it as a Russian composer might have written it.
We played it as if a Latin American composer would have written, or an Asian composer would have written it.
You'll find "On, Wisconsin," if I wrote the arrangement, you're going to find a hint of it.
You may have to look for it, but it's going to be there.
It works so well, everytime.
- The very first version was written and arranged by William T. Purdy for a contest, but not for Wisconsin.
The contest offered a $100 prize for a new University of Minnesota football song.
Lyricist Karl Beck overheard Purdy's melody, penned a few verses, and "On, Wisconsin" was on its way to 100.
- It had an immediate acceptance and so from that point on, every sporting event you could think of, it was a part of it.
- It's hard to guess how many times "On, Wisconsin" has been performed.
- I don't even know if I want to know the answer, because it's such a staggering amount.
- There's no tragedy tonight, just celebration.
- We could play "On, Wisconsin," depending on the number of touchdowns, anywhere from 50 to 70 times on a given Saturday.
Then you multiply that times seven or eight games a season times 40, and that just takes care of Saturday... - He's referring to his 40 years at the helm of the UW Marching Band.
But there were other band directors who played "On, Wisconsin" going all the way back to the first regiment band.
- Sort of a loosely knit group of people that was largely under the military, since it was a land-grant school.
- It's probably fair to say that Beck and Purdy had no idea how much times their song would be performed.
Karl Beck lived long enough to be honored at the 50-year anniversary of "On, Wisconsin" in 1959.
- Now it's all hail the champion.
- That was also a good year for Badger football.
- Wisconsin wins its first undefeated Big Ten title in 47 years as they battle before emerging with the championship.
- Also, in 1959, "On, Wisconsin" became the official state song.
- You know, great songs like that are really timeless.
Today's students get just as much enjoyment out of singing it and performing it as they did back in 1909.
- As part of the centennial celebration for "On, Wisconsin," the greatest college fight song shows its flexibility again in the hands of students, musicians and filmmakers who are entering a video contest.
One YouTube entry came from uwhiphop.com.
It starts with a scratchy glee club recording of "On Wisconsin."
♪ ♪ The catchy hip hop version could become a fan favorite, just like House of Pain's "Jump Around."
♪ ♪ - It's going to stick around for a long, long time, easily another 100 years.
- That entry by uwhiphop.com did go on to win the contest.
Michael Jackson's estate owns the international rights to "On, Wisconsin."
You can bet it will be played at this year's UW Varsity Band concert called "Return to the Roses."
It's an evening of Rose Bowl memories and tributes to "Glee" and Motown.
You can watch it when Wisconsin Public Television airs the spring concert on Saturday, April 30, at 8:00.
Now, for a look at the reports we're working on for the next edition of "In Wisconsin."
- Lambeau Field is a shrine to football fans everywhere.
I'm Adam Schrager, coming up on "In Wisconsin," we'll take you up the road about 15 miles to see a different kind of shrine that's now known worldwide.
- We had it all to ourselves all these years, but now we need to share it with everybody.
- Rock Island might be one of Wisconsin's best kept secrets.
- Come along for an overnight stay inside the state's oldest lighthouse on Rock Island.
- Wisconsin really does have a rich maritime history, and this is part of it.
- And some poetry in motion, as Bianca shares her sweet poetic treats.
- They rise before the bread to mix and roll and march, legions of vanilla biscotti onto metal sheets join the baking rolls with the precision of a percussion ensemble.
- We'll visit one of Milwaukee's family bakeries.
Those "In Wisconsin" reports next Thursday at 7:30 right here on Wisconsin Public Television.
Finally this week, we want to take you back to the wilderness a young John Muir first explored in Marquette County.
"In Wisconsin" videographer Wendy Woodard pays tribute to Muir's Scottish heritage with a closer look at the natural areas at John Muir Memorial Park.
Have a great week in Wisconsin.
(bagpipe blares) - The sudden flash into pure wildness, baptism in nature's warm heart, how utterly happy it made us.
(bagpipe blares) - Major funding for "In Wisconsin" is provided by: the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, we're on for you.
And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh and Minneapolis, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.
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In Wisconsin is a local public television program presented by PBS Wisconsin