Muir Knoll

Muir Knoll is a small, knobby extension of a drumlin — in this case, Bascom Hill — formed by the retreat of the last glaciers that remade Wisconsin’s landscape.

In 1919, one year after the knoll was dedicated to naturalist John Muir x1863, it got something new: a ski jump that extended down the slope toward Lake Mendota. Its replacement was removed in the 1950s. UW.UWArchives.dn06021404.bib

A staircase from the Lakeshore Path, west of the Hasler Laboratory of Limnology, leads visitors through Muir Woods to the knoll, which today is home to the Robert E. Gard Storyteller’s Circle, dedicated in 2011.

“To a good friend the way is not long though he be far away,” reads the inscription on a Swedish rune stone placed in memory of Thomas Brittingham Jr., a charter member of the UW Foundation, after his death in 1960.

Published in the Summer 2017 issue