The Western United States: A Geographical Reader

by Harold W. Fairbanks

As the cañon widens, the trail leads farther from the river and through dense forests. The woods are so silent that they become oppressive, and the air is damp, for the sunlight is almost excluded. The tall trees, fir, hemlock, and spruce, with now and then a cedar, stand close together. Shrubs of many kinds are crowded among them, while mosses and ferns cover the ground. The fallen trunks are wrapped in moss, and young trees are growing upon them, drawing their nourishment from the decaying tissues. In the more open spots grow the salal bushes with their purple berries, the yellow salmon berries, and the blue-black huckleberries.

It is difficult to get an idea of the density of a Washington forest, or of the character of the streams, unless one has actually taken a trip through the region. If one wishes to escape the forest by following the streams, he will find the path blocked by fallen trees. It is necessary continually to climb over or under obstructions, and the traveller is fortunate if he does not fall into the cold water. Upon the banks it is even worse; one must struggle through dense prickly bushes and ferns, and be tripped every few rods. Though the forest may appear at first to offer an easier way, it will soon be found that creeping and crawling through the undergrowth of bushes and young trees is exceedingly tiresome, and one will gladly return to the muddy trail, thankful for its guidance.

The mountains become less precipitous and the cañon widens to a valley, until at last the trail comes out at a clearing where the Cascade River joins the Skagit. At this point, known as Marble Mountain, there is a ferry, also a store and several other buildings. The cleared fields seem a relief after many miles of dense forest, but such openings are infrequent, for few settlers have yet pushed far into the forests of the Skagit valley. To make a clearing of any size, tear out the stumps, and prepare the land for cultivation, requires many years of hard labor.

How silently and yet with what momentum the river sweeps on! The water is clear in summer, but in winter it must be very muddy, for the Skagit is building one of the largest deltas upon Puget Sound.

FIG. 56.—SKAGIT RIVER IN ITS MIDDLE COURSE

At Marble Mountain the traveller may, if he wishes, leave his horses, hire an Indian canoe, and float down the river to the nearest railroad station. The ride in the cedar canoe, with an Indian at the stern carefully guiding it past snags and boulders, is one of the pleasantest portions of the trip. The winding river is followed for nearly fifty miles. There is mile after mile of silent forest, the solitude broken only here and there by camps of Indians who are spending the summer by the river, fishing and picking huckleberries. Now and then a call comes from one of these camps, and in spite of the danger of being swamped by the swift current, the canoe is turned toward the shore, but the stop is only for a moment.

At last a new railroad grade comes in sight, with gangs of men at work. The valley of the Skagit contains one of the finest bodies of timber in Washington, and the railroad is being built for the purpose of reaching this timber. There is little other inducement for the building of a railroad; for beside a few summer visitors, the only inhabitants are the scattered prospectors and miners.

We enter the train at a little town in the woods and are soon speeding down the valley toward the mouth of the river. Clearings appear in the forest, and at last the view opens out over extensive meadows which stretch away, almost as level as a floor, to the waters of the sound. Here and there the meadows are broken by forest trees or irregular groups of farm buildings. Rich lands form the delta of the Skagit River. The value of these natural meadows was quickly recognized by the early settlers, for not only was the land exceedingly fertile, but it did not have to be cleared in order to be transformed into productive grain-fields.

For centuries, ever since the melting of the great glaciers which once descended the Cascade Range and crept down the sound, the river has been building this delta. It grew rapidly, for immense accumulations of gravels and clays were left by the retreating glaciers. The delta has already spread westward into the sound, until it has enveloped some of the smaller islands. The forests growing upon these islands, which rise from the surface of the delta plain, are in picturesque contrast to the fields dotted with stacks of grain.