Big Trees and Sagebrush
Although the following was written specifically for those in the Wenatchee, WA area, it's a safe bet that the area where you live has seen much the same sort of changes. Do a little observation, ask a few questions: you may be surprised.
A few weeks ago, I was in a group of people and the conversation briefly touched on a large tree stump that had been in the Cashmere area. One of the participants in the conversation commented that he was surprised that there were any trees that big around here, and that he thought the area had always been filled with sagebrush. I have long been interested in what effect we Euro-Americans might have had on the local area, and have done a bit of research and study on this, but before I had a chance to get my two cents worth in on the subject, the conversation moved along to another topic. Today I wrote down my two cents worth, maybe a quarter's worth, and emailed it to my friend who thought that there were no trees and that the area was always filled with sagebrush. It occurs to me that some of you might also be interested in this, so here it is:
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First of all, there wasn't much sagebrush in the area. In Washington state, sagebrush grows primarily where the ground has been disturbed. The disturbance of the ground can be from several different causes; among the most common are logging, grazing, agriculture and the plowing associated with it, and mining. Nearly everything in Washington that can be logged, grazed or plowed has been logged, grazed or plowed. As you drive around North Central Washington, look along the sides of the road, and on the hillsides. You'll often see areas that have no sagebrush next to areas that are covered in sagebrush. And you'll often see that the boundaries of the sagebrush covered areas have straight sides and 90 degree corners. (Next time you're in South or East Wenatchee, have a look up at Burch Mountain to the North.) If you get your map and/or your GPS device out, you'll find many of these divisions are on section lines - the imaginary lines we use to divide up the land into one square mile chunks. Only now the lines aren't imaginary, they're real - they're fence lines. These sagebrush covered areas are the areas that were fenced and overgrazed, or plowed, planted and abandoned, and the disturbed land has been taken over by sagebrush. The adjacent relatively sagebrush-free areas were either not grazed or farmed, or were not fenced in so that there were too many grazing animals in too small a space.
In the 1930's the Cashmere area had several flooding episodes - not from the Wenatchee River, but from out of the canyons surrounding Cashmere, Mission Creek and so on. Much soil and debris was washed into town by these floods. The cause of this flooding? The surrounding area had been overlogged and overgrazed, leaving little plant life in the soil to hold the water and check erosion. The flooding of Cashmere in the 1930's was largely caused by the activities of man.
The first white men to enter the Wenatchee area recorded that the valley floor was covered in prairie bunch grass, which grew waist high, even head high. Seen any prairie bunch grass lately? I do know where there are a few patches of it, but most people in the area have never seen it, or even heard of it. There are a few small patches in Number Two Canyon, alongside the road. This area was heavily grazed, but in the small corridors between the fenced grazing land and the road, you can still find small patches of it.
As the population grew in the Wenatchee valley, the prairie bunch grass was slowly replaced with wheat, then apples, pears and cherries, and finally, houses. You can still find wheat growing alongside the roads in many places, sometimes in patches only a few feet square. There are a lot of local areas where wheat hasn't been planted in over 100 years, but wheat is persistent, and it has come up again year after year. You can even find it in the alleys downtown. Next time you're in Wenatchee, go look behind Adam's swap shop; there's a small patch of it there. I don't know how long it's been since there's been any wheat planted there, but I do know that the Johansen's Machine Shop building has been there for more than 80 years. So the wheat growing there was probably last planted over eight decades ago.
As fruit trees began to replace wheat as the major crop in the area, boxes had to be made to pack the fruit in. The fruit boxes were made from pine trees cut from the local hillsides. I read an article from the early 1900's that said that it was not unusual for a pine tree to be cut in the morning, and by evening to be a box packed with apples, in a railroad car headed east. The same article said that if they kept cutting trees at the same rate, there soon would be no trees left in the Wenatchee area.
I have seen a picture of Twin Peaks above Wenatchee taken in the late 1800's or early 1900's. There appear to be no trees on it. Either the trees on Twin Peaks now are the first trees to ever grow there, or they are what has grown back since the area was logged. You will find many places in the area where all the trees appear to be about the same age. You'd think there would be trees of all ages there, wouldn't you? Fifty year old trees, hundred year old trees, two hundred year old trees? But the trees you see there now are all about the same age - they are what has grown back since the area was logged years ago.
The hillsides in the Chelan area have also been heavily logged. The first "Lady of the Lake" boat, built around 1900, burned 10 or 12 cords of wood per trip. Regular boat traffic on Lake Chelan started about 1880, and that boat was also wood powered. Being smaller than the Lady, it probably burned somewhat less wood, but I haven't been able to find figures on its wood consumption. They were cutting trees in the Chelan area a long time ago.
In some areas you will find straight lines between the wooded and non-wooded areas, or between areas containing nothing but young trees and areas containing trees of all ages. Again, these are old property lines, and often on section lines.
I've been told that much of the lower portion of Number Two Canyon, which is now mostly treeless, was logged years ago. I have been looking for cut stumps, and have found a few. I have noticed that the trees growing in the Canyon now are mostly the same age, and there are no really old trees. I do know of a Ponderosa Pine within the city limits of Wenatchee which I would estimate to be over 200 years old, so apparently they missed a few.
Have you been to the Columbia Basin? These days, you'll see lots of agriculture in the area, enabled by the building of Grand Coulee Dam, and the pumps and canals that bring Columbia River water to the Basin. Much of this used to be sagebrush, too, and it was covered with sagebrush for the same reason that much of the greater Wenatchee area is covered with sagebrush - overgrazing. Ranchers started grazing cattle in the Basin in the mid 1850's, and the sheepherders soon followed. By the 1870's, the cattle ranchers and sheepherders were warring with each other, each claiming that the other had made "their" land unsuitable for further grazing. As more and more of the land was grazed bare, ranching started to die out in the Basin in the 1880's.
I know a man who spent his entire career in the Forest Service. (He is now retired.) We often talked about the effect Euro-Americans have had on the area. He told me that the closest place to Wenatchee that he could think of that hadn't been logged, grazed or plowed was the top of Steamboat Rock on Banks Lake. You can't get a tractor or a cow up there, so it was left alone. Unfortunately, you still can't call this "pristine", since seeds have blown in from the adjacent overgrazed and over-farmed lands, and Steamboat Rock is now covered with sagebrush and other formerly unknown or uncommon plants.
You probably now know more about what we've done to the local area than just about anybody you know.
A few weeks ago, I was in a group of people and the conversation briefly touched on a large tree stump that had been in the Cashmere area. One of the participants in the conversation commented that he was surprised that there were any trees that big around here, and that he thought the area had always been filled with sagebrush. I have long been interested in what effect we Euro-Americans might have had on the local area, and have done a bit of research and study on this, but before I had a chance to get my two cents worth in on the subject, the conversation moved along to another topic. Today I wrote down my two cents worth, maybe a quarter's worth, and emailed it to my friend who thought that there were no trees and that the area was always filled with sagebrush. It occurs to me that some of you might also be interested in this, so here it is:
***********************************
First of all, there wasn't much sagebrush in the area. In Washington state, sagebrush grows primarily where the ground has been disturbed. The disturbance of the ground can be from several different causes; among the most common are logging, grazing, agriculture and the plowing associated with it, and mining. Nearly everything in Washington that can be logged, grazed or plowed has been logged, grazed or plowed. As you drive around North Central Washington, look along the sides of the road, and on the hillsides. You'll often see areas that have no sagebrush next to areas that are covered in sagebrush. And you'll often see that the boundaries of the sagebrush covered areas have straight sides and 90 degree corners. (Next time you're in South or East Wenatchee, have a look up at Burch Mountain to the North.) If you get your map and/or your GPS device out, you'll find many of these divisions are on section lines - the imaginary lines we use to divide up the land into one square mile chunks. Only now the lines aren't imaginary, they're real - they're fence lines. These sagebrush covered areas are the areas that were fenced and overgrazed, or plowed, planted and abandoned, and the disturbed land has been taken over by sagebrush. The adjacent relatively sagebrush-free areas were either not grazed or farmed, or were not fenced in so that there were too many grazing animals in too small a space.
In the 1930's the Cashmere area had several flooding episodes - not from the Wenatchee River, but from out of the canyons surrounding Cashmere, Mission Creek and so on. Much soil and debris was washed into town by these floods. The cause of this flooding? The surrounding area had been overlogged and overgrazed, leaving little plant life in the soil to hold the water and check erosion. The flooding of Cashmere in the 1930's was largely caused by the activities of man.
The first white men to enter the Wenatchee area recorded that the valley floor was covered in prairie bunch grass, which grew waist high, even head high. Seen any prairie bunch grass lately? I do know where there are a few patches of it, but most people in the area have never seen it, or even heard of it. There are a few small patches in Number Two Canyon, alongside the road. This area was heavily grazed, but in the small corridors between the fenced grazing land and the road, you can still find small patches of it.
As the population grew in the Wenatchee valley, the prairie bunch grass was slowly replaced with wheat, then apples, pears and cherries, and finally, houses. You can still find wheat growing alongside the roads in many places, sometimes in patches only a few feet square. There are a lot of local areas where wheat hasn't been planted in over 100 years, but wheat is persistent, and it has come up again year after year. You can even find it in the alleys downtown. Next time you're in Wenatchee, go look behind Adam's swap shop; there's a small patch of it there. I don't know how long it's been since there's been any wheat planted there, but I do know that the Johansen's Machine Shop building has been there for more than 80 years. So the wheat growing there was probably last planted over eight decades ago.
As fruit trees began to replace wheat as the major crop in the area, boxes had to be made to pack the fruit in. The fruit boxes were made from pine trees cut from the local hillsides. I read an article from the early 1900's that said that it was not unusual for a pine tree to be cut in the morning, and by evening to be a box packed with apples, in a railroad car headed east. The same article said that if they kept cutting trees at the same rate, there soon would be no trees left in the Wenatchee area.
I have seen a picture of Twin Peaks above Wenatchee taken in the late 1800's or early 1900's. There appear to be no trees on it. Either the trees on Twin Peaks now are the first trees to ever grow there, or they are what has grown back since the area was logged. You will find many places in the area where all the trees appear to be about the same age. You'd think there would be trees of all ages there, wouldn't you? Fifty year old trees, hundred year old trees, two hundred year old trees? But the trees you see there now are all about the same age - they are what has grown back since the area was logged years ago.
The hillsides in the Chelan area have also been heavily logged. The first "Lady of the Lake" boat, built around 1900, burned 10 or 12 cords of wood per trip. Regular boat traffic on Lake Chelan started about 1880, and that boat was also wood powered. Being smaller than the Lady, it probably burned somewhat less wood, but I haven't been able to find figures on its wood consumption. They were cutting trees in the Chelan area a long time ago.
In some areas you will find straight lines between the wooded and non-wooded areas, or between areas containing nothing but young trees and areas containing trees of all ages. Again, these are old property lines, and often on section lines.
I've been told that much of the lower portion of Number Two Canyon, which is now mostly treeless, was logged years ago. I have been looking for cut stumps, and have found a few. I have noticed that the trees growing in the Canyon now are mostly the same age, and there are no really old trees. I do know of a Ponderosa Pine within the city limits of Wenatchee which I would estimate to be over 200 years old, so apparently they missed a few.
Have you been to the Columbia Basin? These days, you'll see lots of agriculture in the area, enabled by the building of Grand Coulee Dam, and the pumps and canals that bring Columbia River water to the Basin. Much of this used to be sagebrush, too, and it was covered with sagebrush for the same reason that much of the greater Wenatchee area is covered with sagebrush - overgrazing. Ranchers started grazing cattle in the Basin in the mid 1850's, and the sheepherders soon followed. By the 1870's, the cattle ranchers and sheepherders were warring with each other, each claiming that the other had made "their" land unsuitable for further grazing. As more and more of the land was grazed bare, ranching started to die out in the Basin in the 1880's.
I know a man who spent his entire career in the Forest Service. (He is now retired.) We often talked about the effect Euro-Americans have had on the area. He told me that the closest place to Wenatchee that he could think of that hadn't been logged, grazed or plowed was the top of Steamboat Rock on Banks Lake. You can't get a tractor or a cow up there, so it was left alone. Unfortunately, you still can't call this "pristine", since seeds have blown in from the adjacent overgrazed and over-farmed lands, and Steamboat Rock is now covered with sagebrush and other formerly unknown or uncommon plants.
You probably now know more about what we've done to the local area than just about anybody you know.
posted by Jim Allyn at 5/25/2005 10:08:00 AM
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