Skagit River Journal of History & Folklore Free Resources Stories & Photos

Covers from British Columbia to Puget sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan. An evolving history dedicated to the principle of committing random acts of historical kindness Noel V. Bourasaw, editor 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284 Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

John Muir and the Douglas fir of Washington See caption below       Two Scotsmen toured Washington's forest two generations apart but left distinct footprints in our moss. David Douglas, born in 1798, sailed to Fort Vancouver in 1825 and walked thousands of miles through forests in Washington, Oregon, Washington and Alaska over the next eight years. Along the way, he left his mark on the Oregon pine, Pseudotsuga menziesii, which was renamed in his honor. He discovered this grand tree, which once stood in thick forests all over the site of present Sedro-Woolley, when he took a 900-mile trip through Oregon forests in 1925-26. On his second trip through this region in 1833, he almost lost his life in a harrowing canoe accident on the Fraser river in British Columbia; he did lose all his notes and his vast botanical collection. He died a horrible death in 1834 in Hawaii, when he tripped into a hunter's pit trap that also held a wild bull.       John Muir, the author of this article, was born in 1838 and walked the Washington woods in 1889, when he was 51 years old. He had moved to California in 1868 at age 30 and made that state his headquarters as he hiked all over North and South America, Australia and Africa. In 1880 he married Louie Wanda Strentzel, whose father was a pioneer winegrower in California, and Muir grew fruit trees there for 11 years. The year after this walk in Washington that he describes, he led the campaign for an act of Congress that established Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in 1890, and in 1892 he founded the Sierra Club, serving as its first president. He fought commercial interests for the next ten years over preserving the forests of California, finally convincing President Theodore Roosevelt to set large blocks of acreage aside. In addition to his many articles, he published several books during his lifetime. Muir Woods, a sequoia forest near San Francisco, was named in his honor and the John Muir Trust acquires wildlands in Britain.       While looking at logger Frank Gee and his remarkable gigantic friend in the photo at the upper right, you might want to sit back and try to think what his life must have been like in the Washington woods in the 1920s. When the weather was just right, you worked seven days a week. At other times it was just six days or five and a half around the holidays.       Think of the rapturous feelings of these brawny men when they got the weekend off and headed down to Wild Woolley town to get a real bath, great food at the Osterman House or the Wixson Hotel, and amusements of all sorts all over town. Except you did not want to stagger down Metcalf between Ferry and State when it was still light out. That was the family area and marshal Chauncey Ingham might just thump you over the head if you scared the children or the horses.       Art Robinson, an old Tarheel (North Carolina) logger and uncle of the famous Pinky Robinson (of Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop of Sedro-Woolley), took my family out to a first-growth forest back in the early '50s and showed us some of the giant trees that predated the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Describing the sensation he felt when one of the firs crashed to the forest floor, he asked me to imagine my school bus dropping from the top of the tree. "It's like one of them San Francisco earthquakes every time," he drawled. Photo courtesy of the late Wyman Hammer.

Excerpt from John Muir's Steep Trails, Chapter 18, from Forests of Washington, published in 1918.

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      When we force our way into the depths of the forests, following any of the rivers back to their fountains, we find that the bulk of the woods is made up of the Douglas spruce (Pseudotsuga Douglasii), named in honor of David Douglas, an enthusiastic botanical explorer of early Hudson's Bay times. It is not only a very large tree but a very beautiful one, with lively bright-green drooping foliage, handsome pendent cones, and a shaft exquisitely straight and regular.
      For so large a tree it is astonishing how many find nourishment and space to grow on any given area. The magnificent shafts push their spires into the sky close together with as regular a growth as that of a well-tilled field of grain. And no ground has been better tilled for the growth of trees than that on which these forests are growing. For it has been thoroughly ploughed and rolled by the mighty glaciers from the mountains, and sifted and mellowed and outspread in beds hundreds of feet in depth by the broad streams that issued from their fronts at the time of their recession, after they had long covered all the land.

Darius Kinsey photos such as this one were often retouched and reproduced as post cards. Those who moved out here were sometimes joshed back home for their tall tales about their new home. These photos put such joshing aside. Photo courtesy of Bob Whitefield of LaConner, who retouches original black and white photos. Email if you would like to connect with him.

      For so large a tree it is astonishing how many find nourishment and space to grow on any given area. The magnificent shafts push their spires into the sky close together with as regular a growth as that of a well-tilled field of grain. And no ground has been better tilled for the growth of trees than that on which these forests are growing. For it has been thoroughly ploughed and rolled by the mighty glaciers from the mountains, and sifted and mellowed and outspread in beds hundreds of feet in depth by the broad streams that issued from their fronts at the time of their recession, after they had long covered all the land.
      The largest tree of this species that I have myself measured was nearly twelve feet in diameter at a height of five feet from the ground, and, as near as I could make out under the circumstances, about three hundred feet in length. It stood near the head of the Sound not far from Olympia. I have seen a few others, both near the coast and thirty or forty miles back in the interior, that were from eight to ten feet in diameter, measured above their bulging insteps; and many from six to seven feet. I have heard of some that were said to be three hundred and twenty-five feet in height and fifteen feet in diameter, but none that I measured were so large, though it is not at all unlikely that such colossal giants do exist where conditions of soil and exposure are surpassingly favorable. The average size of all the trees of this species found up to an elevation on the mountain slopes of, say, two thousand feet above sea level, taking into account only what may be called mature trees two hundred and fifty to five hundred years of age, is perhaps, at a vague guess, not more than a height of one hundred and seventy-five or two hundred feet and a diameter of three feet; though, of course, throughout the richest sections the size is much greater.
      In proportion to its weight when dry, the timber from this tree is perhaps stronger than that of any other conifer in the country. It is tough and durable and admirably adapted in every way for shipbuilding, piles, and heavy timbers in general. But its hardness and liability to warp render it much inferior to white or sugar pine for fine work. In the lumber markets of California it is known as "Oregon pine" and is used almost exclusively for spars, bridge timbers, heavy planking, and the framework of houses.
      The same species extends northward in abundance through British Columbia and southward through the coast and middle regions of Oregon and California. It is also a common tree in the canyons and hollows of the Wahsatch Mountains in Utah, where it is called "red pine" and on portions of the Rocky Mountains and some of the short ranges of the Great Basin. Along the coast of California it keeps company with the redwood wherever it can find a favorable opening. On the western slope of the Sierra, with the yellow pine and incense cedar, it forms a pretty well-defined belt at a height of from three thousand to six thousand feet above the sea, and extends into the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. But, though widely distributed, it is only in these cool, moist northlands that it reaches its finest development, tall, straight, elastic, and free from limbs to an immense height, growing down to tide water, where ships of the largest size may lie close alongside and load at the least possible cost.

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Go here to read the whole 1918 book, Steep Trails.
Or you can read the entire book at: Project Gutenberg Etext, http://www.sd70.bc.ca/books/sttrl10.txt
Our alert reader, Barbara Halliday, descendant of the upriver Kemmerich family, tells us there is a marker someplace near Rockport that honors David Douglas. Does anyone know its location?

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Story posted on Apr. 1, 2001, and updated on Dec. 14, 2003
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You can read about our prime sponsors: Read the history websites of our two newest sponsors and supporters: Oliver Hammer Clothes Shop at 817 Metcalf street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 82 years Bus Jungquist Furniture at 829 Metcalf street in downtown Sedro-Woolley, 36 years Peace and quiet at the Alpine RV Park, just north of Marblemount on Hwy 20 Park your RV or pitch a tent by the Skagit river, just a short driver from Winthrop or Sedro-Woolley College Way Antique Mall, 1601 E. College Way, Mount Vernon, WA 98273, (360) 848-0807 Where you will find wonderful examples of Skagit county's past, seven days a week North Cascade Ford, formerly Vern Sims Ford Ranch, West Ferry street and Crossroads/Highway 20 either on the Sedro-Woolley page or directly at www.northcascadeford.com DelNagro Masonry Brick, block, stone — See our work at the new Hammer Heritage Square See our website www.4bricklayers.com 33 years experience — 15 years as a bonded, licensed contractor in the valley Free estimates, reference, member of Sedro-Woolley Chamber (360) 856-0101

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