John Muir, the father of America's National Parks, lived on the northeast side of this lake from 1849 to 1855. Although he travelled all over the world, Muir never forgot this land and tried several times to buy and preserve parts of it, remarking that even if he should never see it again, the beauty of its lillies and orchids was so pressed into his mind he would always enjoy looking back at them in his imagination across seas and continents and perhaps after he was dead.