The Daily News from Port Angeles, Washington • Page 14

THE DAILY Port Angeles, Dec. 5, 1976 weekly bicentennial page of The Daily News n' tl lttl Chapter 49: The forest: the Peninsula's mainstay to an oblique way, World War II brought a number of latter-day frontiersmen to the Peninsula. Many servicemen, 36 flrst thne a Uttle to 0 1 and still unexplolted part of their country, found it challenging and returned to Uve here when the war was pver. Some of the qualities that had drawn the first settlers were still here i tS of the olvm ic Peninsula are, as they were in the 1850s, its greatest single absolute. Then they stood as they had been for those thousands of years before the white man came.

Occasional lightning-started fires and the Indians' se of cedar for canoes and P'ante had scarcely dented the surface of the vast, still growing, land cover. The early settlers had only two ways of looking at the forest, First, they could chop down the trees and use them for lumber or firewood. This inclined them to think of the trees as having some value, except for those too large for their axes. Second, and more generally felt, trees were- an obstruction to everything they wanted to do. In order to build a house, plant a garden, make a road, pasture the family cow, they had to chop down trees.

Even then, within a stone's ttirow of the patch of land they cleared, was a solid wall of dark untouched forest within which might lurk animals or savages or dangers the worse for being yet unnamed. At best the forest was a labyrinth in which the unwary might be lost forever. "Don't go into the woods!" was the pioneer mother's equivalent of "Don't cross the street!" A sense of the forest's menace and mystery was not limited to those who drove it back from their doorstep. As late as 1891 a Capt. Richard Falkenberg was recruiting a party in the east to explore, at great risk, the "Olympic forest of Washington State." In eastern papers, articles apparently meant to recruit followers mentioned cannibals and a vast high-altitude lake with underground passages to the sea But, whether it was to be hacked rWn and burned, or sawed into lumber, or regarded as the ultimate challenge to be defied in proving manhood, the forest was the enemy Our grandfathers' wildest and most unlikely dream must have been a distant Utopia when all the trees would be gone and the sun could warm the earth.

A residue of that old fear-hate attitude survives today, Wlth hunger for the money trees brll In. Against this is the concern of another group who feel an empathy for the land, and who wince in actual pain when they see its surface wounded. In between are men with steel tapes and 'surveying instruments, or computers, who tell us what we must or must not do with the forest we have left. Solutions of the dilemma have varied with the years Policies have been advanced for the handling of publicly owned land, along with arguments for increasing or decreasing its area, each new move backed by logic. But no amount of argument changes gut feelings, and the argument goes on as do changes in policy.

In 1891, the same year Capt. Falkenberg was gathering his forces for an assault on the Olympics, an important piece of legislation was put through Congress. Titled the Forest Reserve Act, it gave a president power to designate areas of public land as national forest, though at the time no one was quite sure what that entailed. Six years later, just before leaving office, Cleveland declared a little over two million acres of the Peninsula a national forest. McKinley reduced this area, and Theodore Roosevelt increased it.

Roosevelt, using the Cleveland ploy of acting just as he left office, in 1909 also designated 610,560 acres in the West End a National Monument which Wilson, later, cut in two. Ridiculous as it now sounds, much of the hoorah over this monument centered around elks' teeth. In those days any self-respecting member of the BPOE wore an elk's tooth on his watch chain. Many non-members objected to sacrificing an elk for a watch fob. A state law was passed protecting elk, and soon West End farmers were complaining the elk were eating them out of house and home.

After some years of protection, an eight-day season was opened in 1937 to such an enthusiastic response that cows, horses, and fellow hunters fell before the attack. Eight hundred elk were shot, and eight of them fatally. By this time elk teeth watch fobs had gone out of style and the issue was back to preserving wilderness land versus harvesting whatever was on it as well as reducing it in size. Among other alterations, monument status was changed to that of national park. Details of the struggle are repetitious and, no matter which side gained momentary advantage, the opponents yelled, "Foul!" The largest gain for the pro-wilderness side occurred in 1938 when FDR, after a well-publicized visit to the Peninsula, signed a bill putting more than 800,000 acres inside the park boundaries.

It would be naive to think there will be no other pressure- induced changes in park and forest boundaries. Logic can be summoned to support either faction, but the issue is emotional and unresponsive to logic. Meantime the National Park continues to draw travelers from every part of the world. The early opponents of the park who insisted that no one wanted or would appreciate a wilderness area would be astonished to know that two million people a year come to visit Olympic National Park and Forest. The unique Rain Forest and the Hurricane Ridge ski area are special points of interest for the tourists who have become a major industry on the Peninsula.

Not only tourists who visit the forest, but the forest itself and its products continue to dominate Peninsula industry. More next Sunday A History of the North Olympic Peninsula by Patricia Campbell Bottled history Mr. and Mrs. John Gossett dug these bottles up on his father's homestead near Joyce. At left is a pint whisky bottle from the old Commercial Hotel in Port Angeles, when whisky was bought by the barrel, bottled and sold over the bar.

Center bottle is from the Sol Due Hot Springs Co. when it sold "natural spring water." The canning jar at right dates prior to 1900 and is a "Ffaccus Bros. Steer Head Fruit Jar." Daily News photo by Virginia Keeling Crossing of the Delaware last major re-enactment New Jersey and Pennsylvania are preparing to focus on George Washington's daring midnight crossing of the semi-frozen Delaware River in the last major re-enactment commemorating the nation's Bicentennial. On Dec. 25, the New Jersey Bicentennial Commission will open its "Festival of the Ten Crucial Days" and join the Washington Crossing Park Commission, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Washington Crossing Foundation and the Bucks County Historical-Tourist Commission in the 24th annual reenactment commemorating the 200th anniversary of Washington's crossing of the Delaware.

The ceremony will begin at the Old Ferry Inn, Washington Crossing, Pa. After the call to colors and retreat, the 13-star flag will be lowered and presented to "Lt. James Monroe" in the person of Assemblyman John S. Renninger of Newton, Pa. Then to the accompaniment of "The White Cockade," Washington, portrayed by St.

John Terrell who originated the re-enactment, will lead his staff and men to the Memorial Building where a brief memorial service for the men who died before the crossing will be observed. Approximately 250 men will cross the Delaware River in Durham boats similar to those used by George Washington and his troops. New Jersey's bicentennial holiday package celebrating the "Festival of the Ten Crucial Days" will continue through Jan. 3, the bicentennial of the battle of Princeton. The celebration also will commemorate the first and second battles of Trenton on Dec.

26 and Jan. 2. "The events of those days turned the tide of the American Revolution from defeat and despair to hope and victory," says former Gov. Robert B. Meyner, chairman of the New Jersey Bicentennial Commission.

"We in New Jersey intend to demonstrate to the nation how proud we are of that heritage." The New Jersey Festival will feature what is expected to be the largest series of historical reenactments, in numbers of participating troops, of the entire Bicentennial. Approximately 1,500 volunteers from Revolutionary War re-enactment units in New Jersey and 17 other states will act as American, British and Hessian troops in recreating the historical events of the 10 days. However, re-enactments will be only one phase of the festival. There will be a series of major cultural and artistic events throughout the 10 days. Times From Great American Savings Loan Association gggSgi by permission of THE BP.TTMANN ARCHIVE The 1840's: Making tracks on the long trails.

We've spread ourselves to the edges of Indian territory. And we're still restless to move on. We must cross the "prairie ocean" and make our long, slow way to the Pacific coast. Independence, Missouri, becomes our jumping-off place. We gather there to form covered wagon trains.

We learn to live with perfect strangers, because our very lives depend on it. We elect a captain. Make rules for the journey. Pledge ourselves to stand by each other to the death, through the perils of the wilderness, Indian raids, the cruel elements. At our stops, we form our wagons into a square to protect our "townspeople" and corral our animals.

The journey takes months. At the Snake River Canyon, we separate. Some of us continue on the Oregon Trail. Others begin the California Trail. Soon, more than 1,000 people a year will follow us.

We're building a stronghold in the West. Savings Accounts We're kind of a farm. You plant a few dollars with us on a regular basis, and in no time they sprout into enough to have a field day with. Open a Green Pastures savings account at The Money Growers Association. We pay acres of interest, compounded daily.

IMLIVW Mr MONEY Passbook GROWERS rw HMHIIIM pW PIMMWH Port loon Ann. 101 w. front, Port An 9 215 Ttylor, Port SAVINGS IIOAN "We look to your future with interest." BJi Loon Caknlck me.