Uncle Sam's Forests
Once we reached a certain ranger station after sundown. It was the end
of a long trail day, our horses were tired, we were fagged, and darkness
was hard upon us. The only good grass in sight was the forty-acre fenced
pasture surrounding the Forest Service cabin. So opening the gate we
entered the forbidden land, unsaddled, and turned the horses lose.
Just as we had the fire started and the coffee boiling, up came the
ranger, with a star on his shirt and an air of outraged authority about
him. "You can't make camp here," said he. My partner had a legal turn of
mind, and came back quickly with the observation that we had already
done so.
"Well, you'll have to unmake it, then," continued Uncle Sam's
representative. "This here isn't for campers; it's reserved for the
Service."
And thereafter, with considerable bluntness, he told us to "git," and
quickly. Our arguments were in vain. The fact that it was dark, that we
were played out, that there was no other horse feed near, availed not at
all. With him it was no case for logic. Like a good and faithful servant
he always came back to the beginning with the statement, "Them's the
rules and I gotter enforce 'em."
But in the meantime the coffee boiled and the horses wandered farther
from us. The ranger became exasperated.
"You're trespassing," he expostulated. "This is private property
and----"
"Whose property?" My partner hit the nail on the head. But the ranger
didn't see the rocks ahead.
"Property of the Forest Service, of course," said he.
"And who is the Forest Service?"
"Why, it's--it's--" the ranger stuttered a bit, seeking adequate
explanation. "It's the Government, of course."
The ranger swelled with pride--after all, hadn't he demonstrated himself
the representative of our omnipotent nation? But pride precedeth falls.
"And who is the Government?" persisted my partner, as he poured his cup
full of coffee from the battered pot.
But before an Armageddon of violence was reached I interrupted and
dispelled the threatened storm. For as it happened we were privileged
characters, of a sort, and our note from the District Supervisor
extending the special courtesies of the Service turned the rising wrath
of our ranger into the essence of hospitality. We never again heard of
the rules from him.
However, my friend had expressed a monumental conclusion. Our pasture
was the property of the Forest Service, the Service was a part of the
Government, and the Government is of and for the people--us common
people. Therefore that pasture was ours--Q.E.D.! Of course the principle
doesn't work out in practice, because the Service, in the proper conduct
of its affairs, must have strict property rights like any other
organization or individual. But, broadly speaking, that is the truth of
the matter. And in justice to the new spirit of the Forest Service, and
the aims and methods of its employees of to-day, it is well to state
that the ranger in question was of the old school, which regarded its
reserves as its own sacred property and operated somewhat on the
antedated motto of some railroads of the past, "The public be damned."
For whatever one's feeling regarding the economic phase of national
forests, from the casual camper's standpoint there is no doubt that
their conduct to-day is admirable. Viewed from this angle they are great
playgrounds, and as in Oregon alone the national forests embrace an
astounding total of more than sixteen million acres, their importance to
the recreationist is evident. On the doors of the ranger stations are
signs which read: "Property of the United States. For the use of
officers of the Forest Service." Leaving off the trespass warning which
concludes the text of the cloth notices, one might change the other
sentence thus: "For the use of whomever enjoys out-of-doors"; then you
would have the meaning of the Western forest reserves in a nutshell, so
far as campers are concerned.
If you are a settler who unsuccessfully seeks "elimination" of a
homestead on the ground that it is "more valuable for agricultural
purposes than for timber," or a timber speculator, or even a mill owner
desirous of cheap logs, your enthusiasm for "conservation" may be a
negligible quantity. Certainly if you are a vote-seeker you will damn it
whenever opportunity affords, for that is politically fashionable, and
always safe--unlike woman suffrage, prohibition, and tariff questions;
conservation is an architectural phenomenon, for it is a fence with only
one side in a West whose people consider themselves robbed of their
heritage of natural wealth, which most of them are all for turning into
dollars as fast as logging-roads and band-saws can contrive. "To-day for
to-day; let the morrow care for itself," they say. But if you are merely
a foolish camper, with a secret dread of the time when the old earth
will be divested totally of her timber covering, you may actually be
grateful for the manner in which the reserves are administered. Your
playground is cared for and guarded and improved. Maps, often accurate,
are obtainable. The trails are well blazed and well kept, and new trails
and roads are constantly being installed for the double purpose of
making the forests more accessible to the public and to simplify fire
fighting.
For above all, of course, the great good work is the ceaseless battle
against fire--now far more one of prevention than of extinction. Visible
and arresting signs of the fire-war are encountered everywhere--notices
warning against the risks and losses of forest fires, exhortations on
the criminal dangers of leaving camp-fires burning, reminders to the
smokers about forgotten cigarettes. These, and a score more, stare the
trail follower in the face at intervals upon his way, until hostility to
the plundering fire god is so thoroughly drummed home as to become a
sort of second nature.
The more frequented trails, as I have said, are plastered with fire
warning signs. Once one of them all but broke up a contented camping
trip, in this wise:
After a two days' ride in a driving rain storm and a night in wet
blankets, we came to a deserted ranger station, and in it found a
welcome refuge. Our blankets spread in a dry corner, we set to work upon
a fire, just beyond the overhang of what had once been a porch roof.
That fire was a task! If we were soaked, the woods were wetter still,
and everything normally inflammable seemed as water-logged as a dishrag.
However, Mac fared forth with his double-bitted axe, and in due course
secured some near-dry chips from the sheltered side of a dead tree.
However, the chips showed no overweening desire to ignite, despite Mac's
most tender efforts. The rain beat on his face, mud plastered his knees,
water from the shake roof trickled down his neck, and matches and temper
approached exhaustion while he struggled coaxingly with the stubborn
fire god.
On a tree just behind the would-be fire maker was a Forest Service sign,
whose large letters read: "Beware of Setting Fires!" Glancing up from
Mac at his sodden task to that sign a latent sense of humor somewhere
within my damp person overbalanced discretion, and I burst into
uproarious laughter.
Somehow Mac took my levity quite to heart.
"Well," said he--or something with the same number of letters--"if you
think you can make this dodgasted fire burn better'n I can, come out and
try--the water's fine."
There were embellishments, too, not fit to print in a modest book,
regarding a loafer who would hang back in the dry places while the only
intelligent member of the party, etc. But when he saw the sign even
irate Mac had to laugh, too.
"Whoever posted that warning," said he, "ought to be compelled to come
in September and try to set a fire hereabout! He'll get a medal for
incendiarism if he succeeds!"
At all events the National Forests occupy an all-important place in the
Pacific Playland, if mountains and woods figure at all in your
itinerary. The Californian Sierras are in the "reserves," as are the
Cascades and much of the coast mountains of Oregon and Washington. There
are countless other outing places in the three States, of course, for
many prefer the automobile to the pack-horse, and the beach to the
highlands, and for such, the road maps of the automobile associations
and the shore line of the Pacific open an endless field of pleasure.
In hunting and fishing, too, the sportsman need not confine himself to
the mountain regions, and whether the hunter use gun or camera there are
regions throughout the three States where his rewards for patient
diligence will be ample. Ducks and geese abound, from the Sacramento
marshes to the sloughs of the Columbia and the myriad shooting grounds
of Puget Sound, and there are deer and bear and occasionally a cougar or
cat scattered through the hills. Coyotes roam the sagebrush plains,
devastating neighbors to the sage hens and rabbits, grouse lurk in the
timbered foothills, and gay Chinese pheasants are prospering--where they
have been "planted" by the State game authorities.
With all the rivers, and all the lakes, of the three States to choose
from, it would be folly to list any special ones of marked piscatorial
virtue, even if one were able where superlatives are appropriate in
describing so many. Suffice to say that from actual experience I know
that there are streams in the Sierras, in the Oregon Cascades, and in
the Olympics of Washington whose very contemplation would make Izaak
Walton long for reincarnation. Back East--in New Brunswick and Cape
Breton, for instance--one often catches as many and as large trout, and
sometimes more and larger, than in the Western streams. But after all,
the fish are a small part of the fishing. The tame sameness of the
surroundings of the down-east waters compares ill with the theatrical
bigness and infinite variety of setting of most of the Western rivers,
where half the delight is the recurring glimpses of snowy peaks and the
majestic companionship of colossal trees.
Beside a little lake not far from the summit of the Cascades is a small
cabin. It is squatty in appearance and strongly constructed, but has
neither the earmarks of a ranger's station nor of a trapper's winter
home. A few yards away, where a little creek enters the lake, a rather
elaborate dam adds to the mystery.
"It's a fish station," explained Mac cryptically.
Later I heard arrangements made for the transportation of half a ton of
grub to the cabin--a matter of fifty miles of wagon haul, twelve by
pack-horse, and five by boat. The supplies were to be brought in before
the snows came in the Fall, and buried beside the cabin so that the
canned stuff and the potatoes would not freeze. Then the occupants who
were to eat the rations would put in their appearance about April 1st,
when the trails were hidden beneath many feet of snow and packing would
be nearly an impossibility.
For the cabin represented the first link in the work of trout
propagation, as conducted by the State Fish and Game Commission. Two
experts go to it when the first spring thaws attack the drifts and the
little creek grows restless beneath its winter quilt of snow and ice.
The first year they waited too long, and when they came and built their
dam the female fish already had gone up the creek to lay their eggs. But
this year they dared the rear-guard of winter, and arrived in time to
trap hundreds of trout fat with roe. For six weeks they labor collecting
the eggs which later are sent to the State hatchery at Bonneville to be
hatched. Later the fingerlings are distributed where most needed
throughout Oregon.
The fisherman who pays his license fee often enough knows next to
nothing of the good work that is being done for him by those who aim not
only to keep the streams from being "fished out," but also to improve
the fishing. This cabin by the lakeside represents the start of the
work, and bitter hard work some of it is, too.
[Illustration: An Oregon trout stream
From a photograph by Raymond, Moro, Ore.]
The fish car, "Rainbow," with its load of cans filled with trout fry,
reaches the railroad point selected for distribution. There the local
warden has gathered a legion of volunteer automobiles in which the cans
are rushed to the streams and lakes near by and their contents planted.
That is the easy simple "planting." The difficulties come when the
streams or lakes are scores of miles from a railway or even a road, and
the carrying must be done by pack-train. In 1912 and 1913, for instance,
one hundred and sixteen lakes scattered throughout the Cascade Mountains
were stocked; that is, waters suitable for trout culture but hitherto
without fish were prepared for the fisherman of next summer, and an
ever-increasing number of desirable fishing places provided. And in the
cases numbered here, every can of fry used was carried many miles on
pack-horses; one trip occupied eight days, and even then, thanks to many
changes of water, out of ten thousand fry only fifty died!
Hunting is an out-of-door pursuit all to itself. The man who at home
would lift a beetle from his garden walk rather than crush it becomes an
ardent murderer when he camps. Probably there are no adequate apologies.
And yet we all get the fever at some time or another, and taste the
fascination of pitting our wits and woodcraft against the native cunning
of the wild thing we stalk. Your ethical friend--who probably is a
vegetarian to boot!--here at once objects. He says the contest is
cruelly uneven; that the odds of a high-powered rifle spoil the
argument. Which, in a way, is quite true. But Heaven knows we would
never taste venison or have bear rugs before our den fires if their
capture was left to our naked hands!
However, this is dangerous ground, and most of us brush past it when
vacation time comes, and take out our hunting license as automatically
as we make up our order for corn-meal and bacon. From our rods we expect
full creels, and hope for game from the guns.
"Any luck?"
That is the first question when you get home, and a negative answer
implies defeat. Unless you get something, be prepared for the
I-thought-as-much expression when your friend sympathizes with you. An
incentive and a temptation it is--some of the worst of us and some of
the best of us have nearly fallen (nearly, I say) and offered gold to a
small boy with the basket which was full of fish when ours was empty.
And the game laws--there, in truth, is where sportsmanship at times is
forced into tight corners!
We had hunted deer for two solid, leg-wearying days. But the woods were
very dry, and the deer heard us long before we saw them, except for a
doe or two, uncannily aware of the safety of their sex. On the morrow we
hit the homeward trail, and were disconsolate at the prospect of a
venisonless return.
Crackle!
Something moved in the thicket below me. Another stir and the
"something" resolved itself into a deer. Up came the light carbine--the
weapon _par excellence_ for saddle trips--while I sighted across seventy
yards of sunshine at the brown beast moving gracefully about, nipping at
hanging moss and oblivious of danger.
But the carbine did not speak. Conscience and familiarity with the game
laws battled for some thirty seconds with inclination and desire for
venison. Then conscience won, and the doe continued her dainty feeding,
undisturbed.
In days gone by, our copy-book mottoes told us that "Virtue is its own
reward." As a general thing such automatic recompense is unsatisfactory,
so when really first-class examples of more tangible returns for virtue
arise, they deserve recording. And this was one of them. For no sooner
had I formed the good resolve, and acted on it, venison or no venison,
than there came another soft _crack-crackle_ of dry twigs, and a second
brown animal appeared.
Bang!
The first shot hit just abaft the shoulder and the fine buck lay dead
before he knew his plight.
And if that was not immediate reward for virtue, I defy explanation!