Patty Loew:
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 at his boyhood home on Fountain Lake Farm. It's been about 150 years since this preservation giant lived in Wisconsin, but today another man is following in his foot footsteps in Buffalo Township.

Patty Loew:
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, experience the call of sandhill cranes and watch a deer meander in the meadow.   A sanctuary for wild flowers and a lake nearby inspired the 11-year-old John Muir.

Erik Brynildson:
It definitely fueled Muir's fire in terms of his relationship with nature.   

Patty Loew:
The legacy of Muir is also the catalyst that fueled current landowner Erik Brynildson. By coincidence or fate, he found himself walking in Muir's footsteps literally.

Erik Brynildson:
I acquired the property and lived here full-time as I have for 23 years. Everything now is about the landscape and restoring it back to its pristine, pre-settlement wild condition as best we can.

Patty Loew:
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. Removing invasive plants by hand. And regular burns will help achieve a pre-settlement native prairie.

Erik Brynildson:
Oftentimes it's two steps forward and three backwards.

Patty Loew:
He's been at it nearly a quarter of a century. And Wisconsin Public Television was there in 1988 in the early years of his quest.

Erik Brynildson:
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.   

Patty Loew:
Today, restoration of this panoramic view closely mirrors a sketch John Muir drafted 150 years ago from a ridge-top overlooking the lake. All these years later, the prevailing winds carry that same spirit.

Erik Brynildson:
I think Muir is alive and well here. I think the spirit of Muir is very strong yet.

Patty Loew:
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 same wilderness of Muir.

Erik Brynildson:
I decided that his boyhood home had not been adequately studied. I changed my graduate work in a hurry to that. So it was kind of a -- it was just a special idea I had that originally was a project that became a life.   

Patty Loew:
A life that included building a private residence on the exact foundation of the Muirs' farmhouse.

Erik Brynildson:
I was able to document that the house indeed set on the identical site and also on the old cellar depression. The house in back of me now of indigenous Montello granite mimics the architecture of the National Parks system during the arts and crafts period.

Patty Loew:
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.

Erik Brynildson:
We determined that silver maples were deliberately set out as shade trees in the yard by the Muirs. Two large lilacs still bloom here that his older sister planted.

Patty Loew:
Before the California redwoods and Yosemite Valley, this would be the landscape Muir would first seek to preserve.

Erik Brynildson:
Muir did feel it was beyond just majestic snow capped peaks, that a sedge meadow was just as important in terms of landscape diversity.

Patty Loew:
Just like John Muir fought to preserve the most expansive pieces of American wilderness, Brynildson sought to give this small property landmark status. Muir's experience is often overshadowed by his achievements in the west.

Erik Brynildson:
I would argue his years here were the most important years of his life. All one has to do is read his autobiography where he fully credits this farm as being the place he first conceived the notion of saving wild space.   

Patty Loew:
And it's an unsung story that will soon garner national attention.

Catherine Tatge:
What do you think he learned from nature in particular?

Patty Loew:
Catherine Tatge is a freelance producer with Wisconsin ties. Her crew is on location in Marquette County.

Catherine Tatge:
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.

Patty Loew:
She's producing a documentary for the PBS series American Masters.

Catherine Tatge:
I think that Erik trying to restore Fountain Lake to its original state is one of those things that's a very difficult row to hoe and he is doing it and he's passionate, which Muir was passionate. I think they're very similar in that way.

Patty Loew:
And for all his spectacular achievements, it's this prized piece of real estate that eluded Muir's preservationist intentions.

Erik Brynildson:
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. So the irony in that is pretty amazing.

Patty Loew:
But John Muir's failure turned into Erik Brynildson's success.

Erik Brynildson:
I feel very privileged to be a part of that story and now we're finally accomplishing and making that dream come true.

Patty Loew:
Another one of Wisconsin's legendary conservationists tried to save the 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.  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 documentary called “John Muir and the New World” is in edit right now and is tentatively scheduled to air on PBS on Earth Day in April 2011.