the john muir exhibit - writings - steep_trails - chapter 22
Chapter 22
The Forests of Oregon and their Inhabitants
Like the forests of Washington, already described, those of Oregon are
in great part made up of the Douglas spruce
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, or Oregon pine (Abies
Douglasii). A large number of mills are at work upon this species,
especially along the Columbia, but these as yet have made but little
impression upon its dense masses, the mills here being small as
compared with those of the Puget Sound region. The white cedar, or
Port Orford cedar (Cupressus Lawsoniana, or Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana),
is one of the most beautiful of the evergreens, and produces excellent
lumber, considerable quantities of which are shipped to the San
Francisco market. It is found mostly about Coos Bay, along the
Coquille River, and on the northern slopes of the Siskiyou Mountains,
and extends down the coast into California. The silver firs, the
spruces, and the colossal arbor-vitae, or white cedar
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(Thuja
gigantea), described in the chapter on Washington, are also found here
in great beauty and perfection, the largest of these (Picea grandis,
Loud.; Abies grandis, Lindl.) being confined mostly to the coast
region, where it attains a height of three hundred feet, and a
diameter of ten or twelve feet. Five or six species of pines are
found in the State, the most important of which, both as to lumber and
as to the part they play in the general wealth and beauty of the
forests, are the yellow and sugar pines (Pinus ponderosa and P.
Lambertiana). The yellow pine is most abundant on the eastern slopes
of the Cascades, forming there the main bulk of the forest in many
places. It is also common along the borders of the open spaces in
Willamette Valley. In the southern portion of the State the sugar
pine, which is the king of all the pines and the glory of the Sierra
forests, occurs in considerable abundance in the basins of the Umpqua
and Rogue Rivers, and it was in the Umpqua Hills that this noble tree
was first discovered by the enthusiastic botanical explorer David
Douglas, in the year 1826.
This is the Douglas for whom the noble Douglas spruce is named, and
many a fair blooming plant also, which will serve to keep his memory
fresh and sweet as long as beautiful trees and flowers are loved. The
Indians of the lower Columbia River watched him with lively curiosity
as he wandered about in the woods day after day, gazing intently on
the ground or at the great trees, collecting specimens of everything
he saw, but, unlike all the eager fur-gathering strangers they had
hitherto seen, caring nothing about trade. And when at length they
came to know him better, and saw that from year to year the growing
things of the woods and prairies, meadows and plains, were his only
object of pursuit, they called him the "Man of Grass," a title of
which he was proud.
He was a Scotchman and first came to this coast in the spring of 1825
under the auspices of the London Horticultural Society, landing at the
mouth of the Columbia after a long dismal voyage of the Columbia after
a long, dismal voyage of eight months and fourteen days. During this
first season he chose Fort Vancouver, belonging to the Hudson's Bay
Company, as his headquarters, and from there made excursions into the
glorious wilderness in every direction, discovering many new species
among the trees as well as among the rich underbrush and smaller
herbaceous vegetation. It was while making a trip to Mount Hood this
year that he discovered the two largest and most beautiful firs in the
world (Picea amabilis and P. nobilis -- now called Abies), and from the
seeds which he then collected and sent home tall trees are now growing
in Scotland.
In one of his trips that summer, in the lower Willamette Valley, he
saw in an Indian's tobacco pouch some of the seeds and scales of a new
species of pine, which he learned were gathered from a large tree that
grew far to the southward. Most of the following season was spent on
the upper waters of the Columbia, and it was not until September that
he returned to Fort Vancouver, about the time of the setting-in of the
winter rains. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the great pine he had
heard of, and the seeds of which he had seen, he made haste to set out
on an excursion to the headwaters of the Willamette in search of it;
and how he fared on this excursion and what dangers and hardships he
endured is best told in his own journal, part of which I quote as
follows: --
October 26th, 1826. Weather dull. Cold and cloudy. When my
friends in England are made acquainted with my travels I fear
they will think that I have told them nothing but my miseries....
I quitted my camp early in the morning to survey the neighboring
country, leaving my guide to take charge of the horses until my
return in the evening. About an hour's walk from the camp I met
an Indian, who on perceiving me instantly strung his bow, placed
on his left arm a sleeve of raccoon skin and stood on the
defensive. Being quite sure that conduct was prompted by fear and
not by hostile intentions, the poor fellow having probably never
seen such a being as myself before, I laid my gun at my feet on the
ground and waved my hand for him to come to me, which he did slowly
and with great caution. I then made him place his bow and quiver
of arrows beside my gun, and striking a light gave him a smoke out
of my own pipe and a present of a few beads. With my pencil I made
a rough sketch of the cone and pine tree which I wanted to obtain
and drew his attention to it, when he instantly pointed with his
hand to the hills fifteen or twenty miles distant towards the
south; and when I expressed my intention of going thither,
cheerfully set about accompanying me.
At midday I reached my long-wished-for pines and lost no time
in examining them and endeavoring
to collect specimens and seeds. New and strange things seldom fail
to make strong impressions and are therefore frequently overrated;
so that, lest I should never see my friends in England to inform
them verbally of this most beautiful and immensely grand tree, I
shall here state the dimensions of the largest I could find among
several that had been blown down by the wind. At three feet from
the ground its circumference is fifty-seven feet, nine inches; at
one hundred and thirty-four feet, seventeen feet five inches; the
extreme length two hundred and forty-five feet.... As it was
impossible either to climb the tree or hew it down, I endeavored to
knock off the cones by firing at them with ball, when the report of
my gun brought eight Indians, all of them painted with red earth,
armed with bows, arrows, bone-tipped spears, and flint knives.
They appeared anything but friendly. I explained to them what I
wanted and they seemed satisfied and sat down to smoke; but
presently I saw one of them string his bow and another sharpen his
flint knife with a pair of wooden pincers and suspend it on the
wrist of his right hand. Further testimony of their intentions was
unnecessary. To save myself by flight was impossible, so without
hesitation I stepped back about five paces, cocked my gun, drew one
of the pistols out of my belt, and holding it in my left hand, the
gun in my right, showed myself determined to fight for my life. As
much as possible I endeavored to preserve my coolness, and thus we
stood looking at one another without making any movement or
uttering a word for perhaps ten minutes, when one at last, who
seemed to be the leader, gave a sign that they wished for some
tobacco; this I signified they should have if they fetched a
quantity of cones. They went off immediately in search of them,
and no sooner were they all out of sight than I picked up my three
cones and some twigs of the trees and made the quickest possible
retreat, hurrying back to my camp, which I reached before dusk.
The Indian who last undertook to be my guide to the trees I sent
off before gaining my encampment, lest he should betray me. How
irksome is the darkness of night to one under such circumstances.
I cannot speak a word to my guide, nor have I a book to divert my
thoughts, which are continually occupied with the dread lest the
hostile Indians should trace me hither and make an attack. I now
write lying on the grass with my gun cocked beside me, and penning
these lines by the light of my Columbian candle, namely, an ignited
piece of rosin-wood.
Douglas named this magnificent species Pinus Lambertiana, in honor of
his friend Dr. Lambert, of London. This is the noblest pine thus far
discovered in the forests of the world, surpassing all others not only
in size but in beauty and majesty. Oregon may well be proud that its
discovery was made within her borders, and that, though it is far more
abundant in California, she has the largest known specimens. In the
Sierra the finest sugar pine forests lie at an elevation of about five
thousand feet. In Oregon they occupy much lower ground, some of the
trees being found but little above tide-water.
No lover of trees will ever forget his first meeting with the sugar
pine. In most coniferous trees there is a sameness of form and
expression which at length becomes wearisome to most people who travel
far in the woods. But the sugar pines are as free from conventional
forms as any of the oaks. No two are so much alike as to hide their
individuality from any observer. Every tree is appreciated as a study
in itself and proclaims in no uncertain terms the surpassing grandeur
of the species. The branches, mostly near the summit, are sometimes
nearly forty feet long, feathered richly all around with short, leafy
branchlets, and tasseled with cones a foot and a half long. And when
these superb arms are outspread, radiating in every direction, an
immense crownlike mass is formed which, poised on the noble shaft and
filled with sunshine, is one of the grandest forest objects
conceivable. But though so wild and unconventional when full-grown,
the sugar pine is a remarkably regular tree in youth, a strict
follower of coniferous fashions, slim, erect, tapering, symmetrical,
every branch in place. At the age of fifty or sixty years this shy,
fashionable form begins to give way. Special branches are thrust out
away from the general outlines of the trees and bent down with cones.
Henceforth it becomes more and more original and independent in style,
pushes boldly aloft into the winds and sunshine, growing ever more
stately and beautiful, a joy and inspiration to every beholder.
Unfortunately, the sugar pine makes excellent lumber. It is too good
to live, and is already passing rapidly away before the woodman's axe.
Surely out of all of the abounding forest wealth of Oregon a few
specimens might be spared to the world, not as dead lumber, but as
living trees. A park of moderate extent might be set apart and
protected for public use forever, containing at least a few hundreds
of each of these noble pines, spruces, and firs. Happy will be the
men who, having the power and the love and benevolent forecast to do
this, will do it. They will not be forgotten. The trees and their
lovers will sing their praises, and generations yet unborn will rise
up and call them blessed.
Dotting the prairies and fringing the edges of the great evergreen
forests we find a considerable number of hardwood trees, such as the
oak, maple, ash, alder, laurel, madrone, flowering dogwood, wild
cherry, and wild apple. The white oak (Quercus Garryana) is the most
important of the Oregon oaks as a timber tree, but not nearly so
beautiful as Kellogg's oak (Q. Kelloggii). The former is found mostly
along the Columbia River, particularly about the Dalles, and a
considerable quantity of useful lumber is made from it and sold,
sometimes for eastern white oak, to wagon makers. Kellogg's oak is a
magnificent tree and does much for the picturesque beauty of the
Umpqua and Rogue River Valleys where it abounds. It is also found in
all the Yosemite valleys of the Sierra, and its acorns form an
important part of the food of the Digger Indians. In the Siskiyou
Mountains there is a live oak (Q. chrysolepis), wide-spreading and
very picturesque in form, but not very common. It extends southward
along the western flank of the Sierra and is there more abundant and
much larger than in Oregon, oftentimes five to eight feet in diameter.
The maples are the same as those in Washington, already described, but
I have not seen any maple groves here equal in extent or in the size
of the trees to those on the Snoqualmie River.
The Oregon ash is now rare along the stream banks of western Oregon,
and it grows to a good size and furnishes lumber that is for some
purposes equal to the white ash of the Western States.
Nuttall's flowering dogwood makes a brave display with its wealth of
show involucres in the spring along cool streams. Specimens of the
flowers may be found measuring eight inches in diameter.
The wild cherry (Prunus emarginata, var. mollis) is a small, handsome
tree seldom more than a foot in diameter at the base. It makes
valuable lumber and its black, astringent fruit furnishes a rich
resource as food for the birds. A smaller form is common in the
Sierra, the fruit of which is eagerly eaten by the Indians and hunters
in time of need.
The wild apple (Pyrus rivularis) is a fine, hearty, handsome little
tree that grows well in rich, cool soil along streams and on the edges
of beaver meadows from California through Oregon and Washington to
southeastern Alaska. In Oregon it forms dense, tangled thickets, some
of them almost impenetrable. The largest trunks are nearly a foot in
diameter. When in bloom it makes a fine show with its abundant
clusters of flowers, which are white and fragrant. The fruit is very
small and savagely acid. It is wholesome, however, and is eaten by
birds, bears, Indians, and many other adventurers, great and small.
Passing from beneath the shadows of the woods where the trees grow
close and high, we step into charming wild gardens full of lilies,
orchids, heathworts, roses, etc., with colors so gay and forming such
sumptuous masses of bloom, they make the gardens of civilization,
however lovingly cared for, seem pathetic and silly. Around the great
fire-mountains, above the forests and beneath the snow, there is a
flowery zone of marvelous beauty planted with anemones, erythroniums,
daisies, bryanthus, kalmia, vaccinium, cassiope, saxifrages, etc.,
forming one continuous garden fifty or sixty miles in circumference,
and so deep and luxuriant and closely woven it seems as if Nature,
glad to find an opening, were economizing space and trying to see how
may of her bright-eyed darlings she can get together in one mountain
wreath.
Along the slopes of the Cascades, where the woods are less dense,
especially about the headwaters of the Willamette, there are miles of
rhododendron, making glorious outbursts of purple bloom, and down on
the prairies in rich, damp hollows the blue-flowered camassia grows in
such profusion that at a little distance its dense masses appear as
beautiful blue lakes imbedded in the green, flowery plains; while all
about the streams and the lakes and the beaver meadows and the margins
of the deep woods there is a magnificent tangle of gaultheria and
huckleberry bushes with their myriads of pink bells, reinforced with
hazel, cornel, rubus of many species, wild plum, cherry, and crab
apple; besides thousands of charming bloomers to be found in all sorts
of places throughout the wilderness whose mere names are refreshing,
such as linnaea, menziesia, pyrola, chimaphila, brodiaea, smilacina,
fritillaria, calochortus, trillium, clintonia, veratrum, cypripedium,
goodyera, spiranthes, habenaria, and
the rare and lovely "Hider of the
North," Calypso borealis, to find which is alone a sufficient object
for a journey into the wilderness. And besides these there is a
charming underworld of ferns and mosses flourishing gloriously beneath
all the woods.
Everybody loves wild woods and flowers more or less. Seeds of all
these Oregon evergreens and of many of the flowering shrubs and plants
have been sent to almost every country under the sun, and they are now
growing in carefully tended parks and gardens. And now that the ways
of approach are open one would expect to find these woods and gardens
full of admiring visitors reveling in their beauty like bees in a
clover field. Yet few care to visit them. A portion of the bark of
one of the California trees, the mere dead skin, excited the wondering
attention of thousands when it was set up in the Crystal Palace in
London, as did also a few peeled spars, the shafts of mere saplings
from Oregon or Washington. Could one of these great silver firs or
sugar pines three hundred feet high have been transplanted entire to
that exhibition, how enthusiastic would have been the praises accorded
to it!
Nevertheless, the countless hosts waving at home beneath their own
sky, beside their own noble rivers and mountains, and standing on a
flower-enameled carpet of mosses thousands of square miles in extent,
attract but little attention. Most travelers content themselves with
what they may chance to see from car windows, hotel verandas, or the
deck of a steamer on the lower Columbia -- clinging to the battered
highways like drowning sailors to a life raft. When an excursion into
the woods is proposed, all sorts of exaggerated or imaginary dangers
are conjured up, filling the kindly, soothing wilderness with colds,
fevers, Indians, bears, snakes, bugs, impassable rivers, and jungles
of brush, to which is always added quick and sure starvation.
As to starvation, the woods are full of food, and a supply of bread
may easily be carried for habit's sake, and replenished now and then
at outlying farms and camps. The Indians are seldom found in the
woods, being confined mainly to the banks of the rivers, where the
greater part of their food is obtained. Moreover, the most of them
have been either buried since the settlement of the country or
civilized into comparative innocence, industry, or harmless laziness.
There are bears in the woods, but not in such numbers nor of such
unspeakable ferocity as town-dwellers imagine, nor do bears spend
their lives in going about the country like the devil, seeking whom
they may devour. Oregon bears, like most others, have no liking for
man either as meat or as society; and while some may be curious at
times to see what manner of creature he is, most of them have learned
to shun people as deadly enemies. They have been poisoned, trapped,
and shot at until they have become shy, and it is no longer easy to
make their acquaintance. Indeed, since the settlement of the country,
notwithstanding far the greater portion is yet wild, it is difficult
to find any of the larger animals that once were numerous and
comparatively familiar, such as the bear, wolf, panther, lynx, deer,
elk, and antelope.
As early as 1843, while the settlers numbered only a few thousands,
and before any sort of government had been organized, they came
together and held what they called "a wolf meeting," at which a
committee was appointed to devise means for the destruction of wild
animals destructive to tame ones, which committee in due time begged
to report as follows: --
It being admitted by all that bears, wolves, panthers, etc., are
destructive to the useful animals owned by the settlers of this
colony, your committee would submit the following resolutions as
the sense of this meeting, by which the community may be governed
in carrying on a defensive and destructive war on all such
animals: --
Resolved, 1st. -- That we deem it expedient for the community to take
immediate measures for the destruction of all wolves, panthers, and
bears, and such other animals as are known to be destructive to
cattle, horses, sheep and hogs.
2d. -- That a bounty of fifty cents be paid for the destruction of a
small wolf, $3.00 for a large wolf, $1.50 for a lynx, $2.00 for a
bear and $5.00 for a panther.
This center of destruction was in the Willamette Valley. But for many
years prior to the beginning of the operations of the "Wolf
Organization" the Hudson's Bay Company had established forts and
trading stations over all the country, wherever fur-gathering Indians
could be found, and vast numbers of these animals were killed. Their
destruction has since gone on at an accelerated rate from year to year
as the settlements have been extended, so that in some cases it is
difficult to obtain specimens enough for the use of naturalists. But
even before any of these settlements were made, and before the coming
of the Hudson's Bay Company, there was very little danger to be met in
passing through this wilderness as far as animals were concerned, and
but little of any kind as compared with the dangers encountered in
crowded houses and streets.
When Lewis and Clark made their famous trip across the continent in
1804-05, when all the Rocky Mountain region was wild, as well as the
Pacific Slope, they did not lose a single man by wild animals, nor,
though frequently attacked, especially by the grizzlies of the Rocky
Mountains, were any of them wounded seriously. Captain Clark was
bitten on the hand by a wolf as he lay asleep; that was one bite among
more than a hundred men while traveling through eight to nine thousand
miles of savage wilderness. They could hardly have been so fortunate
had they stayed at home. They wintered on the edge of the Clatsop
plains, on the south side of the Columbia River near its mouth. In
the woods on that side they found game abundant, especially elk, and
with the aid of the friendly Indians who furnished salmon and
"wapatoo" (the tubers of Sagittaria variabilis), they were in no
danger of starving.
But on the return trip in the spring they reached the base of the
Rocky Mountains when the range was yet too heavily snow-laden to be
crossed with horses. Therefore they had to wait some weeks. This was
at the head of one of the northern branches of the Snake River, and,
their scanty stock of provisions being nearly exhausted, the whole
party was compelled to live mostly on bears and dogs; deer, antelope,
and elk, usually abundant, were now scarce because the region had been
closely hunted over by the Indians before their arrival.
Lewis and Clark had killed a number of bears and saved the skins of
the more interesting specimens, and the variations they found in size,
color of the hair, etc., made great difficulty in classification.
Wishing to get the opinion of the Chopumish Indians, near one of whose
villages they were encamped, concerning the various species, the
explorers unpacked their bundles and spread out for examination all
the skins they had taken. The Indian hunters immediately classed the
white, the deep and the pale grizzly red, the grizzly dark-brown -- in
short, all those with the extremities of the hair of a white or frosty
color without regard to the color of the ground or foil -- under the
name of hoh-host. The Indians assured them that these were all of the
same species as the white bear, that they associated together, had
longer nails than the others, and never climbed trees. On the other
hand, the black skins, those that were black with white hairs
intermixed or with a white breast, the uniform bay, the brown, and the
light reddish-brown, were classed under the name yack-ah, and were
said to resemble each other in being smaller and having shorter nails,
in climbing trees, and being so little vicious that they could be
pursued with safety.
Lewis and Clark came to the conclusion that all those
with white-tipped hair found by them in the basin
of the Columbia belonged to the
same species as the grizzlies of the upper Missouri; and that the
black and reddish-brown, etc., of the Rocky Mountains belong to a
second species equally distinct from the grizzly and the black bear of
the Pacific Coast and the East, which never vary in color.
As much as possible should be made by the ordinary traveler of these
descriptions, for he will be likely to see very little of any species
for himself; not that bears no longer exist here, but because, being
shy, they keep out of the way. In order to see them and learn their
habits one must go softly and alone, lingering long in the fringing
woods on the banks of the salmon streams, and in the small openings in
the midst of thickets where berries are most abundant.
As for rattlesnakes, the other grand dread of town dwellers when they
leave beaten roads, there are two, or perhaps three, species of them
in Oregon. But they are nowhere to be found in great numbers. In
western Oregon they are hardly known at all. In all my walks in the
Oregon forest I have never met a single specimen, though a few have
been seen at long intervals.
When the country was first settled by the whites, fifty years ago, the
elk roamed through the woods and over the plains to the east of the
Cascades in immense numbers; now they are rarely seen except by
experienced hunters who know their haunts in the deepest and most
inaccessible solitudes to which they have been driven. So majestic an
animal forms a tempting mark for the sportsman's rifle. Countless
thousands have been killed for mere amusement and they already seem to
be nearing extinction as rapidly as the buffalo. The antelope also is
vanishing from the Columbia plains before the farmers and cattlemen.
Whether the moose still lingers in Oregon or Washington I am unable to
say.
On the highest mountains of the Cascade Range the wild goat roams in
comparative security, few of his enemies caring to go so far in
pursuit and to hunt on ground so high and dangerous. He is a brave,
sturdy shaggy mountaineer of an animal, enjoying the freedom and
security of crumbling ridges and overhanging cliffs above the
glaciers, oftentimes beyond the reach of the most daring hunter. They
seem to be as much at home on the ice and snowfields as on the crags,
making their way in flocks from ridge to ridge on the great volcanic
mountains by crossing the glaciers that lie between them, traveling in
single file guided by an old experienced leader, like a party of
climbers on the Alps. On these ice-journeys they pick their way
through networks of crevasses and over bridges of snow with admirable
skill, and the mountaineer may seldom do better in such places than to
follow their trail, if he can. In the rich alpine gardens and meadows
they find abundance of food, venturing sometimes well down in the
prairie openings on the edge of the timberline, but holding themselves
ever alert and watchful, ready to flee to their highland castles at
the faintest alarm. When their summer pastures are buried beneath the
winter snows, they make haste to the lower ridges,
seeking the wind-beaten crags and slopes
where the snow cannot lie at any great depth,
feeding at times on the leaves and twigs of bushes when grass is
beyond reach.
The wild sheep is another admirable alpine rover, but comparatively
rare in the Oregon mountains, choosing rather the drier ridges to the
southward on the Cascades and to the eastward among the spurs of the
Rocky Mountain chain.
Deer give beautiful animation to the forests, harmonizing finely in
their color and movements with the gray and brown shafts of the trees
and the swaying of the branches as they stand in groups at rest, or
move gracefully and noiselessly over the mossy ground about the edges
of beaver meadows and flowery glades, daintily culling the leaves and
tips of the mints and aromatic bushes on which they feed. There are
three species, the black-tailed, white-tailed, and mule deer; the last
being restricted in its range to the open woods and plains to the
eastward of the Cascades. They are nowhere very numerous now, killing
for food, for hides, or for mere wanton sport, having well-nigh
exterminated them in the more accessible regions, while elsewhere they
are too often at the mercy of the wolves.
Gliding about in their shady forest homes, keeping well out of sight,
there is a multitude of sleek fur-clad animals living and enjoying
their clean, beautiful lives. How beautiful and interesting they are
is about as difficult for busy mortals to find out as if their homes
were beyond sight in the sky. Hence the stories of every wild hunter
and trapper are eagerly listened to as being possibly true, or partly
so, however thickly clothed in successive folds of exaggeration and
fancy. Unsatisfying as these accounts must be, a tourist's frightened
rush and scramble through the woods yields far less than the hunter's
wildest stories, while in writing we can do but little more than to
give a few names, as they come to mind, -- beaver, squirrel, coon, fox,
marten, fisher, otter, ermine, wildcat, -- only this instead of full
descriptions of the bright-eyed furry throng, their snug home nests,
their fears and fights and loves, how they get their food, rear their
young, escape their enemies, and keep themselves warm and well and
exquisitely clean through all the pitiless weather.
For many years before the settlement of the country the fur of the
beaver brought a high price, and therefore it was pursued with
weariless ardor. Not even in the quest for gold has a more ruthless,
desperate energy been developed. It was in those early beaver-days
that the striking class of adventurers called "free trappers" made
their appearance. Bold, enterprising men, eager to make money, and
inclined at the same time to relish the license of a savage life,
would set forth with a few traps and a gun and a hunting knife,
content at first to venture only a short distance up the beaver
streams nearest to the settlements, and where the Indians were not
likely to molest them. There they would set their traps, while the
buffalo, antelope, deer, etc., furnished a royal supply of food. In a
few months their pack animals would be laden with thousands of
dollars' worth of fur.
Next season they would venture farther, and again farther, meanwhile
growing rapidly wilder, getting acquainted with the Indian tribes, and
usually marrying among them. Thenceforward no danger could stay them
in their exciting pursuit. Wherever there were beaver they would go,
however far or wild, -- the wilder the better, provided their scalps
could be saved. Oftentimes they were compelled to set their traps and
visit them by night and lie hid during the day, when operating in the
neighborhood of hostile Indians. Not then venturing to make a fire or
shoot game, they lived on the raw flesh of the beaver, perhaps
seasoned with wild cresses or berries. Then, returning to the trading
stations, they would spend their hard earnings in a few weeks of
dissipation and "good time," and go again to the bears and beavers,
until at length a bullet or arrow would end all. One after another
would be missed by some friend or trader at the autumn rendezvous,
reported killed by the Indians, and -- forgotten. Some men of this
class have, from superior skill or fortune, escaped every danger,
lived to a good old age, and earned fame, and, by their knowledge of
the topography of the vast West then unexplored, have been able to
render important service to the country; but most of them laid their
bones in the wilderness after a few short, keen seasons. So great
were the perils that beset them, the average length of the life of a
"free trapper" has been estimated at less than five years. From the
Columbia waters beaver and beaver men have almost wholly passed away,
and the men once so striking a part of the view have left scarcely the
faintest sign of their existence. On the other hand, a thousand
meadows on the mountains tell the story of the beavers, to remain
fresh and green for many a century, monuments of their happy,
industrious lives.
But there is a little airy, elfin animal in these woods, and in all
the evergreen woods of the Pacific Coast, that is more influential and
interesting than even the beaver. This is the Douglas squirrel
(Sciurus Douglasi). Go where you will throughout all these noble
forests, you everywhere find this little squirrel the master-existence.
Though only a few inches long, so intense is his fiery
vigor and restlessness, he stirs every grove with wild life, and makes
himself more important than the great bears that shuffle through the
berry tangles beneath him. Every tree feels the sting of his sharp
feet. Nature has made him master-forester, and committed the greater
part of the coniferous crops to his management. Probably over half of
all the ripe cones of the spruces, firs, and pines are cut off and
handled by this busy harvester. Most of them are stored away for food
through the winter and spring, but a part are pushed into shallow pits
and covered loosely, where some of the seeds are no doubt left to
germinate and grow up. All the tree squirrels are more or less
birdlike in voice and movements, but the Douglas is pre-eminently so,
possessing every squirrelish attribute, fully developed and
concentrated. He is the squirrel of squirrels, flashing from branch
to branch of his favorite evergreens, crisp and glossy and sound as a
sunbeam. He stirs the leaves like a rustling breeze, darting across
openings in arrowy lines, launching in curves, glinting deftly from
side to side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and
spirals around the trunks, now on his haunches, now on his head, yet
ever graceful and performing all his feats of strength and skill
without apparent effort. One never tires of this bright spark of
life, the brave little voice crying in the wilderness. His varied,
piney gossip is as savory to the air as balsam to the palate. Some of
his notes are almost flutelike in softness, while other prick and
tingle like thistles. He is the mockingbird of squirrels, barking
like a dog, screaming like a hawk, whistling like a blackbird or
linnet, while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is a jay. A small
thing, but filling and animating all the woods.
Nor is there any lack of wings, notwithstanding few are to be seen on
short, noisy rambles. The ousel sweetens the shady glens and canyons
where waterfalls abound, and every grove or forest, however silent it
may seem when we chance to pay it a hasty visit, has its singers,
-- thrushes, linnets, warblers, -- while hummingbirds glint and hover about
the fringing masses of bloom around stream and meadow openings. But
few of these will show themselves or sing their songs to those who are
ever in haste and getting lost, going in gangs formidable in color and
accoutrements, laughing, hallooing, breaking limbs off the trees as
they pass, awkwardly struggling through briery thickets, entangled
like blue-bottles in spider webs, and stopping from time to time to
fire off their guns and pistols for the sake of the echoes, thus
frightening all the life about them for miles. It is this class of
hunters and travelers who report that there are "no birds in the woods
or game animals of any kind larger than mosquitoes."
Besides the singing birds mentioned above, the handsome Oregon grouse
may be found in the thick woods, also the dusky grouse and Franklin's
grouse, and in some places the beautiful mountain partridge, or quail.
The white-tailed ptarmigan lives on the lofty snow peaks above the
timber, and the prairie chicken and sage cock on the broad Columbia
plains from the Cascade Range back to the foothills of the Rocky
Mountains. The bald eagle is very common along the Columbia River, or
wherever fish, especially salmon, are plentiful, while swans, herons,
cranes, pelicans, geese, ducks of many species, and water birds in
general abound in the lake region, on the main streams, and along the
coast, stirring the waters and sky into fine, lively pictures, greatly
to the delight of wandering lovers of wildness.
[Back to chapter 21]
·
[Forward to chapter 23]