Do you ever read books about the pioneer days, and really stop to wonder what it would be like to be a pioneer, to be one of the first people to view an uninhabited land?
I've been re-reading Edmonds: The First Century, which talks a lot about when George Brackett, as well as his predecessors, first arrived in Edmonds, in the Puget Sound region of Washington, in the mid- to late-1800s.
As it is now, most of Edmonds (the portion that I think most people think about when they think of Edmonds) is beautiful, with the dazzling Puget Sound--and the ferries, smaller boats, seals, and other images that accompany waterfronts--on its western side, islands and mountains in the distance to the west, railroad tracks on the waterfront, and lots of very tall trees. When I think of Edmonds, the vision I have in my head always has sparkling blue and lush green.
But, of course, the city has roads and houses. And even though it has tall trees, they're probably nothing like the trees were when the first people were in the area, whether the Native Americans who trekked through the area on their journey to fish and dig for clams, or the white settlers who came and made Edmonds (or Port Edmund) their permanent homes.
Edmonds: The First Century opens with the paragraph "In 1870 the forest formed a solid wall that began just behind the beaches of Puget Sound. Predominantly red cedar, the forest was often too thick to walk through because the floor was littered with remains of the trees that had fallen over the centuries. ... This mass of timber covered millions and millions of acres..." It continues later: "The trees had stood along the Sound since the last Ice Age, growing for decades and centuries, falling back to the earth to rot and nourish the next generation of trees."
Too thick to walk through? That's a lot of trees. Centuries-old trees? That's old.
There's a road in Edmonds that takes you from Edmonds' northeast border to the bowl region of the city. It's a very winding road, hence the nickname "Snake Road." The road is often dark and almost gloomy because there are so many tall trees that they block out the light. But it's beautiful, and seems so peaceful, and the wall of trees kind of makes you forget that there's a world outside. On sunny days, the leaves project shadows onto the road and sidewalk, and on rainy days, you feel like you're in a forest in a fairy tale (or maybe that's just me). The west (and I have to use loose directions, since it's so winding it's hard to tell if you're facing north or east, etc.) side of the road drops into a gulch, with plenty of very tall trees, and a view of Puget Sound between tree trunks; the south/east side of the road has even more tall trees, standing closer together, and has the Southwest County Park. Along this road, whether you look to the right or left, you see a thicket of trees. Nothing but tall trees, a gulch with a creek down below, and a few houses. I can't even properly describe how many trees there are. Okay, think about that -- words can barely describe how many trees there are. Got that picture in your head?
Now, as I was going to Edmonds for some Christmas shopping the other day, I thought about this: Those thickets are nothing compared to what George Brackett and the others saw when they first came to Edmonds. As that paragraph from Edmonds says, there was so much debris on the floor of the forest that one would hardly be able to walk. Now, of course, there are trunks and leaves and ferns and whatnot that it's probably difficult to walk through the park, but not impossible. And even though it seems like there are a lot of trees, they by no means form "a solid wall." There's a road and houses in the thickest "forest" left in Edmonds, and the seeming isolation of the road is an anomaly compared to the development in the rest of the city. And "millions and millions of acres" of trees? Not hardly!
As I read the book, I kept coming back to that vivid image from the first page, and the times when the author talks about the number of timber mills that eventually lined the waterfront. I mean, there were enough trees, and thick enough trees, that the waterfront had mill after mill (14 in all) there to process the wood from the forest. Enough to keep *14* mills in business, all at the same time? Wow.
What would it have looked like to Brackett, the Native Americans, and the others as they looked at the vast forest? Literally more trees than you could count. Nothing but thick, centuries-old trees everywhere. Tree trunk after tree trunk at eye level. I look at the trees now and think they're so tall, and I look at places like Southwest County Park and think there are so many trees, but those are nothing compared to what was here just 150 years ago (I know, we're the baby of the country). What was that "solid wall" of trees like? What did it look like? How amazing and awesome was it?
The next time you're out, running through your day, do the historical version of stop-and-smell-the-roses: stop and imagine what it looked like to the first person who ever walked on that land. Think of what it looked like five minutes before the first tree was cut down in the name of "progress." Think of what it would be like to be the first person to see a new countryside.
George Brackett on HistoryLink
Edmonds city website
Edmonds: The First Century
Southwest County Park
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