Olympic Mountain Exploration
May 26th, 2007 @ 2:32 am by Cliffe | Sorted Photo Exposure
A friend of mine from work recently recommended a really good book called Exploring The Olympic Mountains: Accounts of the Earliest Expeditions 1878-1890. In the late 1800’s many Seattle’ites were obsessed with what exactly was to the west in the mountains. There are some pretty interesting accounts from the Press Party’s expedition (including the Native American tale of the great Seatco, chief of all evil spirits, who guarded the area, was taller than the trees, louder than the ocean, could fly, trampled war parties, could change the course of rivers with his breath, and basically swallowed up passers-by). Even though they had no run-ins with Seatco, the Press Party had their own bad luck: their boat sank, the whiskey ran out, their mule fell over a ledge (died), but they eventually returned with many stories. Check the book out if you see it. Here’s part of the description from the back of the book:
No one knew what lay only fifty miles to the west. Politicians speculated. Wild myths circulated. Charlatans made their claims. Finally, the Seattle Press mounted an official expedition to uncover, once and for all, the mystery of the mountains. The floodgates into the wild Olympics were opened.
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| Seattle Press Staff. Photograph courtesy Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington, Seattle. | Press Party in the wild. Photograph courtesy Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington, Seattle. |