Chapter L: A. Thurston, of Honolulu, appears to have first proposed this Park, (1)

and he did much toward its acquisition.

XII

THREE NATIONAL MONUMENTS

1. THE OLYMPIC NATIONAL MONUMENT

The territory embraced in the Olympic National Monument is now proposed for use as a National Park. It occupies the extreme northwest corner of the United States, a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound. It is dominated by the precipitous and heavily snow-capped Olympic Mountains. These snowy summits attracted the attention of the explorer Vancouver, who named the mountains the Olympics. Their lower slopes are heavily forested with gigantic trees, and beneath these there is an undergrowth of almost bewildering luxuriance. This undergrowth is a jungle in itself. Many of the trees are heavily and picturesquely roped and bearded with moss. The openness which characterizes the Sierra or Rocky Mountain forests is absent. Gigantic tree-trunks lie scattered over the forest floor. Many of these fell centuries ago and are water-soaked, half-rotten, and covered with moss a foot thick. Here and there a living tree, a century or more of age, is standing upon a fallen one. Others are lost in the tangle of vines, huge ferns, and vigorous wild flowers that crowd the floor of the woods. Even at midday the forest reposes in twilight.

The region is extremely difficult to penetrate and explore. The streams, even during the period of low water, are almost too swift for boats, and the tangled jungle-growth, produced by abundant moisture and a mild climate, compels the explorer to chop every foot of the way he advances. Until recent years trappers, who were supposed to go everywhere, were content to work around its outskirts. Even the adventurous prospector passed it by, and searched the earth over for gold before seeking in the heart of the Olympics. Through the combined efforts of government agents, individuals, and organizations, the region has at last been pretty well explored. Both in exploring this Olympic region and in endeavoring to have a part of its primeval scenes saved in a park, the Mountaineers Club of Seattle has taken an aggressive part.

Up to the altitude of about four thousand feet the mountains are wrapped in dense green and heavy forest gloom. Then come the scattered grassy, flowery, snowy openings. Timber-line, kept low by the excessive snowfall, is at about fifty-five hundred feet altitude, one thousand feet lower than in the Alps, and six thousand feet below the forest frontier on the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The summit slopes are a broken array of snow-fields, ice-piles, and glaciers. Above the timber-line, vast, deep snow-fields cover much of the area. These white summits show from far out at sea.

Mount Olympus, with an altitude of 8250 feet, is the highest peak. Among the other commanding peaks are Meany, Cougar, and Seattle.

The climate, tempered by the warm sea, is mild. Probably no other region in the United States has a heavier rainfall and snowfall. From sixty to one hundred feet of snow is deposited over it each winter. The only comparatively rainless months are July and August. The rain, and the water from the ice- and snow-fields, supply numerous steeply inclined streams, which descend in roaring waterfalls and in long, leaping wild cascades.

This region excels in the number and crowded conditions of large tree growth, and the impenetrable luxuriance of undergrowth. Hemlock, cedar, spruce, and fir predominate. While the hemlock is the most common tree here, the cedar is the most striking. The latter is a strangely stiff and mysterious tree of rather stocky growth. In this moist, mild clime it finds conditions for development almost ideal. The two kinds of cedar are the Alaska and the red. Thousands of acres here may be seen crowded with tall trees that will average five feet or more in diameter and one hundred and fifty feet in height. Trees twelve feet in diameter are not uncommon, and the United States Geological Survey reports one with a diameter of twenty-eight feet! Thousands of acres of red fir trees may also be found in which the average height of the trees is two hundred and forty feet!

Wild flowers are everywhere. They edge the snow-fields, cover the breaks in the cliffs, line the streams, and bank with bloom the fallen forest patriarchs. Among the common blossoms are the lovely cassiope,--white heather,--mountain anemone, phlox, and "Indian basket grass."

This is the home of the gigantic Olympic Roosevelt elk, and among the other common animals are the bear, deer, wolf, fox, lynx, otter, and beaver. The streams are simply crowded with trout. Bald eagles are found, and there is an array of flickers, woodpeckers, warblers, jays, sparrows, and hummingbirds. The solitudes of this sylvan park are cheered with the melody of the water-ouzel, the Alaska hermit thrush, and the winter wren.

But the mountain summits are significant as view-points. From them one commands the sea, islands, and the broken shore of the Pacific. Bright Puget Sound, with a scattering of dark islands and ragged edges, fills the foreground. Looking toward the southeast across the darkly forested mountains through which rolls the Columbia, one enjoys a view vast and imposing. The dark forest cover is pierced by three snow-laden and steaming sleeping volcanoes. The most impressive one of these is Mount Rainier, with a score of enormous glaciers covering head and shoulders. Another one is Mount Adams. But the most exquisitely beautiful of all the peaks which the summits of the Olympics command is Mount St. Helens. The head and shoulders of this mountain rise a perfect snowy cone above the purple forest robe and stand as perfectly poised as a Greek statue of marble.

The Olympic National Park should include about three hundred square miles. What a splendid attraction if this area of primeval scenes and forests were kept in a state of nature!

2. THE NATURAL BRIDGES AND RAINBOW BRIDGE NATIONAL MONUMENTS

Utah has the four grandest natural bridges in the world. Three of these are in the Natural Bridges National Monument, and the fourth in the Rainbow Bridge National Monument. There are natural bridges elsewhere in Utah, and in the Yellowstone and the Mesa Verde National Parks; also in Virginia and various other places. But so far as known, the four in these two National Monuments excel all others in size, in impressiveness, and in wildness of setting.

These National Monuments embrace desert regions in southeastern Utah which are made up mostly of rock-formations. Standing out on the strange desert, the fantastic forms and weird sandstone figures exhibited give the whole region a peculiar impressiveness. There are countless statuesque forms and groups that are surprisingly faithful in their resemblance to figures of birds, animals, humans, and temples; and all are of heroic size.

The bridges in the Natural Bridges Monument are known as the Sipapu or Augusta Bridge, the Kachima or Caroline Bridge, and the Owachomo or Little Bridge. The former of each of these names is of Indian origin and is the official one.

These three bridges are all within a small area. The Sipapu is 260 feet long on the bottom; the span is 157 feet high and 22 feet above the creek-bed. Its road-bed width is 28 feet. The Kachima Bridge has a span of 156 feet, a total height of 205 feet, and a width across the top of 49 feet. The Owachomo Bridge has a light, graceful structure. Its span is 194 feet and its surface 108 feet above the bottom. The arching part has a thickness of only 10 feet.

The Rainbow Bridge, whose official name is Nonnezoshie, is more of a magnificent rainbow arch than a bridge. It has splendid and striking proportions. Its great graceful arch is 308 feet high and 274 feet long.

These bridges are of sandstone of reddish cast, stained in many places with blackish or greenish lichens and rust. Like any other rock-forms, they are the product of various erosive forces--illustrating the survival of the fittest. Their material, being slightly more durable than that of the now vanished rocks, or possibly less severely tested, has endured while the other material has been dissolved and worn away. In the fashioning of the surface of the earth Nature sometimes makes beautiful and imposing statuary. She has done so here. In the surrounding country are turrets, cisterns, wells, conelike and dome-like caves and caverns, and nearly complete arches. In fact, arches and bridges showing every degree of completion and past prime condition may be seen. Near by are numerous deserted cliff dwellings. These unusual structures leave a lasting impression on every visitor. Plans are already under way to make these wonders easily accessible to the public.

3. MUKUNTUWEAP NATIONAL MONUMENT

The Mukuntuweap National Monument, Utah, has as spectacular a cañon, and as stupendous an array of vast rock-forms, as is to be found anywhere in the world. This territory is often spoken of as "The Little Zion River Region." The Mukuntuweap Cañon has some of the forms shown in the Grand Cañon, and an array of colors not equaled in any other cañon known. In width it varies from half a mile to only a few rods across. It does not all tend in a straight direction. It curves. The cañon walls in places are sheer and rise from two thousand to three thousand feet. One of its most startling features is shown in the overhanging walls, which the water has undercut so that in places the walls prevent a person in the bottom from seeing the sky.

In a recent report on this cañon, T. E. Hunt, of the Department of the Interior, wrote:--

At the south end, the cañon is about twelve hundred feet wide, but
gradually narrows for a distance of seven miles, until a point is
reached where with outstretching arms the finger tips touch the
walls on either side. In a number of places the walls of this
cañon rise vertically to a height of more than two thousand feet,
thus exhibiting a plain surface of extremely hard, pink sandstone.

The vast barren areas of the walls are broken by figures in relief, and statuary on the summits--all the carving of Nature. On the terraces and in the niches are growths of ash and oak, maple and spruce and other trees. In a number of places these walls are further enlivened and glorified by waterfalls that plunge grandly over them into the cañon. We thus have in this region an unexcelled variety of the best-known cañon effects--the vast sweep of vertical walls, the walls that are undercut so that they appear to lean, and extreme narrowness between the walls.

But, enlivening and glorifying all these, is the color! Here you will find immense spaces of chocolate, red, crimson, magenta, and maroon, with touches of silver and gold. It is doubtful if Nature has anywhere covered such immense areas with such deep and contrasting colors as in this cañon.

This region is little known, but probably in a short time it will be easily accessible. It was made a National Monument in 1912. The people of Utah now want it for their National Park.

XIII

OTHER NATIONAL PARKS

1. WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK

The Wind Cave National Park consists of about sixteen square miles of pine-covered hills in the southwestern corner of South Dakota. It is about twelve miles north of the town of Hot Springs and about the same distance southeast of Custer. The altitude is between four thousand and five thousand feet. It was created in 1903. The scenery is typical of the picturesque Black Hills region, which the Indians especially loved.

The Park's special attraction is a large natural cavern. This has recesses said to have been traced for ninety-six miles, but never thoroughly explored. Its name is due to the strong air-currents noticeable at the entrance, which sometimes blow one way and sometimes another. Bridges, stairways, landings, and paths through the cave's mysterious passageways permit visitors to reach its natural splendors, which are seen by the light of burning candles or magnesium ribbon.

The cave was discovered in 1881. Its temperature varies only between forty and forty-seven degrees the year round. Some of its known passages are almost five hundred feet below the surface of the earth, and wind over, under, and around one another. The formations are mostly of limestone. Among the features of this interesting underground world are a spring and a miniature lake, beautiful calcite crystals, exposed geodes, boxwork forms, and other attractive natural formations.

The Park is the permanent home of a herd of buffaloes, presented to the Government by the American Bison Society. Herds of elk and antelope are also found in an inclosed section. Many white-tailed deer running wild in the region annually seek shelter within the Park from the attacks of hunters. Grouse and quail are increasing in numbers under National-Park protection.

2. SULLY'S HILL NATIONAL PARK

Sully's Hill National Park was established in 1904. Its area is only seven hundred and eighty acres. It is on the south shore of Devil's Lake, in northeastern North Dakota, near Fort Totten.

Lack of an appropriation for the care and protection of the Park makes it necessary (1917) for the Superintendent of the Government Industrial School for Indians, which is about one mile east of Fort Totten, to act as Superintendent of the Park. It is badly in need of conveniences--as roads, trails, clearings, etc. Although money has been appropriated for the establishment and maintenance of a game preserve on the tract, not a cent has ever been set aside for development and improvement.

It is well wooded and has many rugged hills, including Sully's Hill. Another of its natural beauties is Sweet Water Lake. The Park is popular as a picnic-ground and Devil's Lake affords a good bathing-beach and fine opportunities for yachting. It is one of the beauty-spots of North Dakota, and its scenery is of the restful and delightful character.

3. CASA GRANDE RUIN RESERVATION

The most important prehistoric Indian ruin of its type in the Southwest is now protected and preserved, for the study and enjoyment of the people, in the Casa Grande Ruin Reservation. This contains four hundred and eighty acres, set aside in 1892. It is near Florence, Arizona, about eighteen miles northeast of Casa Grande railroad station. The ruins are of undetermined antiquity. A Jesuit missionary discovered them in 1694. As excavated so far, a great house built of puddled mud moulded into walls and dried in the sun is the main structure of the group. As it is of perishable character, the walls have been gradually disintegrating, and a corrugated iron roof has been put over the ruins to protect them from the elements so far as possible. Considerable more repair and protection work is needed.

The main building was originally five or six stories in height and covered a space fifty-nine by forty-three feet. Surrounding Casa Grande proper is a rectangular walled inclosure. A number of buildings or clusters of rooms have been excavated in this, and others as yet unexcavated are known to be there. One hundred rooms with plazas and surrounding walls now open on the ground floor of the reservation. These ruins are of great historic and scientific interest, and have strong claims for archæological study, repair, and preservation.

4. HOT SPRINGS RESERVATION

Although the Yellowstone was our first scenic National Park, the honor of being the oldest national recreation place falls to the Hot Springs Reservation, in the mountains of central Arkansas. It was created in 1832. Forty-six springs of hot water possessing radioactive properties, and also some cold-water springs of curative value, are embraced within the tract of nine hundred and twelve acres, fifty miles west by south from the city of Little Rock. The waters flow from the sides of Hot Springs Mountain. Rheumatism and other bodily ills are relieved or remedied by the waters. Eleven bathhouses on the reservation, and a dozen more within the little city of Hot Springs, are under government regulation.

As early as 1804 the power of the waters was known to white men, and a settlement had already begun there at that time. Tradition says that the Indians knew of the springs long before the Spanish invasion, and that they warred among themselves for their possession. Finally a truce was made, and thereafter all the tribes availed themselves of the healing waters.

5. PLATT NATIONAL PARK

The Platt National Park contains many sulphur and other springs possessing medicinal value. It includes one and a third square miles in southern Oklahoma, and was created in 1906.

6. MOUNT McKINLEY NATIONAL PARK

The Mount McKinley National Park, Alaska, was established early in 1917. It is in the approximate center of Alaska and embraces twenty-two hundred square miles. Mount McKinley is known to many Indians as "The Great One." Its summit is 20,300 feet above sea-level. On the north this stupendous mountain is exceedingly precipitous and rises 18,000 feet in a distance of thirteen miles. It is doubtful if there is a peak in the world that rises so high above the limits of tree growth. And no mountain that I know of has slopes so completely snow-covered. Its snow-line is at the altitude of 7000 feet, and from this altitude upward only a few crags and rocky ridges show. The upper 14,000 feet of steep slopes appears a vast towering white mass of glaciers and snow. The largest glacier is the Muldrow. It is thirty-nine miles long. The summit of this peak and a part of its slopes are embraced in the Mount McKinley National Park.

This Park is a wild-life refuge. Its slopes are the greatest known big-game range on the continent. Here are mountain sheep and caribou by the thousand. Moose are common. Beaver are plentiful. And there are grizzly, brown, and black bear. Many kinds of birds use the region for their summer nesting-land. Brilliant wild flowers abound. Spruce, birch, cottonwood, and willow are the more common trees, but none of them grow large.

In 1902, D. L. Raeburn, of the Geological Survey, explored this territory and brought out much valuable information concerning it. Mr. Raeburn determined most of the boundary-line of the present Park. In 1903, James Wickersham attempted to scale the peak. It was first conquered in March, 1913. The creation of this Park was brought about chiefly through the efforts of Charles Sheldon. When completed, the Alaskan railroad will be within fifteen miles of the Park boundary-line.

XIV

CANADIAN NATIONAL PARKS

The Dominion, or National, Parks of Canada possess a wealth of snow-capped peaks and majestic mountains, magnificent glaciers, luxuriant forests, and peaceful, sunny valleys. These Parks are gemmed with crystalline lakes and glorified by hundreds of gardens of rare and brilliant wild flowers; they rival and surpass the celebrated scenes of Europe. Travelers who are visiting the scenic world will find in the Canadian parks a number of places of the most inspiring character and of original composition. Mental pictures of the earth's great scenes are incomplete without the masterpieces of Canada.

The Canadian people are to be congratulated on their splendid scenic inheritance. I thank them for the statesmanlike appreciation of this noble resource. They realize that scenery is a rich asset, and--what is more important--that every one needs outdoor life and great views. The Canadians already have comprehensive plans for fuller use of scenery. These include not only the saving of other scenic places and getting these ready for visitors, but also plans that will assist large numbers of their own people to visit the Parks.

1. JASPER PARK

Jasper Park, the continent's largest national playground, was created in 1907. It contains forty-four hundred square miles and comprises all the ranges east of the Divide in northern Alberta. It is reached by two transcontinental railroads.

This part of the Great North country suggests adventure, romance, and history, and brings back to mind the power, the strangeness, and the picturesqueness of the earlier days of the Hudson's Bay Company. The storied Athabasca flows through it, a band of silver in a flower-strewn valley of meadow and park land, hemmed in by glistening mountains. An important fur district a century ago, its trading-posts now are tourist resorts with railroads and hotels.

Yellowhead Pass, of historic associations, is the western entrance. Two grim peaks guard the eastern portal. Roche Miette, which dominates the surrounding country, was formerly a favorite Indian hunting-ground for mountain sheep. Perdrix or Folding Mountain has strange folds and angles in its strata.

Many roads and trails reach the beauty spots of this park. Fiddle Creek Cañon is in places only twenty feet wide, but the roaring, rushing waters are two hundred feet below. On the same road are the celebrated Miette Springs and Punch-Bowl Falls, a geological curiosity. Maligne Lake is a scenic jewel, and its river cañon displays wonderful erosion. The Park abounds in minerals. Administration headquarters are at Jasper.

2. ROCKY MOUNTAINS PARK

Indian stories of remarkable and curative hot springs probably led to the creation of the Rocky Mountains Park, the oldest and best-developed of the Dominion's national playgrounds. With statesmanlike foresight, the Government determined to retain the springs region in a National Park as a permanent health and pleasure ground for all the people. In 1889, two hundred and sixty square miles were thus set aside, and the Park has since been enlarged to eighteen hundred square miles. It lies on the east slope of the Rockies in Alberta, adjoining Yoho Park.

The springs rise in Sulphur Mountain, near Banff, the geographic and chief tourist center. On this mountain-side the Government conducts public baths. The region is a winter as well as a summer resort.

The Banff district also possesses notable scenery. It has an invigorating atmosphere and the peaceful serenity of a lovely mountain valley, with bare, rocky summits and dark, forest slopes. This was a celebrated Indian hunting-ground, and the legends and traditions of the aborigines will ever touch it with the spell of adventure and romance. Here is beautiful Lake Minnewanka. Beyond lies the strange valley of the Ghost River. It is a limestone cañon, into which a number of streams fall, but from which none are known to flow. An undiscovered subterranean outlet is supposed to account for this phenomenon.

Banff has an excellent Government museum, containing complete collections of the mountain flora and fauna, also a zoo, buffalo-corral, and moose-pasture. The town-site is owned and controlled by the Government, which makes regulations, leases ground, and issues permits for competitive business.

Laggan, another railway station in the Park, is the center for the celebrated Lake Louise district. Near are snow-capped peaks standing thickly together, with countless tumbling streams and leaping waterfalls.

High among the mountains are exquisite blue or emerald lakes, set like sparkling gems in the bold surroundings of peaks and glaciers. Chief of these is the famous Lake Louise.

Brilliant wild flowers in luxuriant profusion and of many varieties are one of the Park's chief charms. Delicate twin-flowers, adder's-tongue, false heather, and dainty blossoms of every hue are included in these wild alpine meadow displays.

A transmountain automobile road from Calgary runs through the Rocky Mountains Park and into the Yoho Park. Its route includes points of great scenic interest. This road will be extended to the Pacific.

3. YOHO PARK

Scenic allurements are numerous in Yoho Park, which embraces five hundred and sixty square miles of the west slope of the picturesque Rocky Mountains, in eastern British Columbia. Fantastic shapes and sharp points characterize it. The vegetation is rich and verdant. Many wonderful views and interesting districts in it are easily reached.

Yoho Valley in this Park was not discovered until 1897, but its unusual beauty at once attracted numerous visitors. Takakkaw Fall is the thunderous spray-shrouded leap of eleven hundred feet of a glacier torrent. The Indian name means "It is Wonderful." This valley also possesses other beautiful falls, a remarkable ice region, and other interesting alpine features.

Emerald Lake, admired by artists and nature-lovers, is said to have twenty shades of green, but never one of blue, in its crystalline mirror depths. It is reached by a straight road through dark fragrant firs that meet overhead. A dazzling white mountain at the end of the vista gave rise to the name Snowpeak Avenue.

The Natural Bridge is not far from Field, the main-line railway town that serves as a center for this national playground. The Kickinghorse River forces its way through a narrow gap in a solid wall of rock. Rocks remaining above this boiling, seething mass of water and cloud spray make a natural passageway across and give the formation its name.

Millions of trilobites have been found in the extensive fossil-bed of Mount Stephen. This probably was once the bed of an ocean. This massive, round-topped mountain, 10,523 feet high and with curiously marked sides, is probably the most frequently climbed peak in Canada. It seems to rise directly over the town, is not difficult to ascend, and affords wonderful views of the "frozen sea" of snow peaks to the north and west.

4. WATERTON LAKES PARK

Waterton Lakes Park, in southern Alberta, is notable chiefly for its glacier lakes. Although one of the smallest, it is one of the most beautiful of the Canadian scenic reservations. Since sixteen square miles were set aside in 1895, it has been enlarged to four hundred and twenty-three square miles.

For about twenty miles this Dominion playground adjoins the Glacier National Park of the United States. The two will be linked by a motor road, so that visitors to one may also enjoy the other. An enlargement of the Waterton River forms the main chain of lakes. The upper one, nine and a half miles long, extends three miles into the United States.

Prehistoric glaciers gouged out the main valleys, leaving them carved in massive proportions. Beautiful streams rush down cañons, plunge in shining cascades, or remain dammed up as superb lakes. The lower valleys are clothed with forests. Columnar peaks, fantastic rock formations, and unscalable precipices complete the imposing effects.

Fishing is a leading attraction. The Park contains many Rocky Mountain goats and bighorn sheep. Grizzly and black bears and mountain lions also are frequently found.

5. REVELSTOKE PARK

Revelstoke Park is a natural park on Mount Revelstoke's summit, near the city of Revelstoke in British Columbia. This mountain's rolling uplands are studded with beautiful groves, dainty flowers, and exquisite lakes. The wonderful views include unnamed and unclimbed peaks, wild forests, streams and falls, and a great ice-field. A motor road to reach this summit panorama is being completed. The Park has an area of ninety-five square miles. It is well adapted to ski-jumping and kindred sports.

6. THE ANIMAL PARKS

To protect its large wild animals and prevent their threatened extinction, the Canadian Government has gone to enormous expense and trouble. Two animal parks have been established: Elk Island Park of sixteen square miles, near Lamont, Alberta; and Buffalo Park of one hundred and sixty square miles, near Wainwright, Alberta. The former contains many elk and deer, as well as moose, buffaloes, birds, wild-fowl, and water-folk. Buffalo Park makes a natural home for over two thousand wild bisons, the largest pure-blooded herd in the world. The original seven hundred of these were bought from a Montana Indian. Both parks produce their own forage, and are well fenced and fire-guarded. They have many scenic lakes, woods, hills, and valleys. Visitors are admitted to study the wild life under natural conditions.

7. ST. LAWRENCE ISLANDS PARK

As a National Park for summer use by fishermen, campers, picnickers, and excursionists, the Dominion Government has a dozen islands among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River. Eleven of these were purchased from Indians and the twelfth was donated for park purposes. (Other islands in the vicinity are part of the New York State park system.)

8. FORT HOWE PARK

Fort Howe National Park is the first of a new kind of Canadian parks that will preserve historic places. An old British fort site at St. John, New Brunswick, comprises the first of these historic parks. It covers nineteen acres. Here a resort will be established, and memorials of important events connected with the spot will be erected.

Responsibility for the creation and the administration of Canadian National Parks rests upon the Minister of the Interior. Under his direction is a Commissioner of Dominion Parks, with a staff. This is absolutely separate from the Canadian Forest Service. This bureau is charged with responsibility for the administration of all park matters, under one head. The head office plans the work and the several superintendents carry it out under the inspection of the chief superintendent. Park appropriations are voted each year by Parliament in one lump sum, on estimates prepared by the Parks Bureau. Each superintendent is furnished every month with an amount sufficient to cover the cost of the work planned for the month ensuing. This system means uniformity of administration; expenditure based on a proper perspective of the needs of the several Parks; a comprehensive scheme of development; and flexibility to meet changed conditions.

Further information concerning these Parks may be had from the Commissioner of Dominion Parks, Ottawa, Canada.

XV

PARK-DEVELOPMENT AND NEW PARKS

A platform for park-promoters:--

1. Immediate appropriations for every National Park.

2. Early enlargement of a few of the Parks.

3. Prompt creation of a number of new Parks.

4. The National Park Service needs the help of your eternal
vigilance and sympathy. Keep the National Park Service absolutely
separate from the Forest Service or any other organization.

5. Concessions are a bad feature in any Park. The Palisades
Inter-State Park is run without concessions. Why should private
concerns reap profits by exploiting the visitors to National
Parks?

6. A Board of National Park Commissioners is needed. These
commissioners should act as a Board of Directors, as do the
Inter-State Park Commissioners, and have absolute control over the
National Parks.

No nation has ever fallen through having too many parks. We may have too many soldiers, too many indoor functions, too many exclusive social sets, but the United States Government, or any other, will never fall for having too many national parks.

Nearly all the large nations of the earth now have national parks or are planning to create them. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are especially thoughtful in park matters. Switzerland has a number, and is planning new ones. A number of South American countries are making investigations with the view of establishing national parks.

National parks are an institution intimately allied with the general welfare. You need this institution, and it needs your help. Every one ought to be glad to help better and beautify our land. Whittier was once asked by a young man for advice as to how best to succeed. The poet told him to attach himself to a noble and neglected cause and to stay with it till he won. The Park field greatly needs the help of young men and young women who are willing to serve a noble cause. In connection with National Parks you can be exceedingly helpful in furthering the following work:--

A number of new Parks should be at once created. A number of the old Parks need to be enlarged. Appropriations are greatly needed for the development of all. You can help the National Park Service. It is in danger of being crippled by the lack of appropriations. A number of the National Monuments should at once be made National Parks. Among these are the Grand Cañon, the Olympic, the Mukuntuweap Cañon, and others. The Sequoia and other National Parks need enlargement; and the Mount St. Elias and other scenic regions, especially the Mount McKinley region, are most worthy of early consideration for park purposes.

The Yellowstone Park needs to have the Grand Teton region added; Rainier, about twenty square miles at the southwest corner; Crater Lake, a few square miles on the west and north; Yosemite, mountainous country on the east and southeast; Rocky Mountain, small areas--east, west, north, and south; and the Sequoia, Mount Whitney and the King's-Kern region.

One of the most deserving of National Park projects, as well as one of the most unique, is that which centers about the Jamez Plateau, in New Mexico. Upon this plateau in prehistoric times stood a metropolis of Indian civilization, and the magnificent ruins which remain make this place priceless, and throw over it one of the most fascinating mysteries in the realm of archæology. A number of the buildings were stone structures of excellent and artistic architecture, and contained hundreds of rooms. The pottery and other records left by this vanished people indicate that they were a people of culture and refinement.

While the opposition is delaying the making of this Park, the despoilment of the region goes on. In this connection Dr. Jesse W. Fewkes makes this significant statement:--

Too strong language cannot be used in deprecation of the
butchering of the architectural features of our Southwestern ruins
by pot-hunters, either private individuals for gain or
representatives of institutions under the name of scientific
research.

The Cook Forest in western Pennsylvania, the greatest existing primeval growth of white pine; a splendid redwood forest near Eureka, California; the Dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan in northern Indiana; the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky; the Luray Caverns in Virginia; and a stretch of the seashore in eastern North Carolina,--all ought to be public property, though now privately owned. These places might be saved for the people for all time in State Parks, but their unique and splendid characteristics justify their becoming National Parks.

Nearly all proposed National Park areas are of territory in the public domain--still owned by the Government. The privately owned areas that are proposed for National Parks are places admirably fitted for park purposes, and are located close to millions of people.

It is important that the remaining scenic areas in the country be at once made into State or National Parks. Fortunately there still are a number of these wild places, but it will require effort to save them. Each Park proposed will have powerful and insidious opposition. The insidious opposition to National Parks will say, "There is a feeling in Congress that we should not have any more National Parks at this time"; or, "We should wait until present ones are improved."

Scenery is perishable--is easily ruined. The better parts of scenery are birds, flowers, and trees. These are easily despoiled. No work, no public service, is more noble than that of the Park extension and improvement which now presses us. Every National Park needs appropriations. It is the duty of every one to ask and urge Congress at once to make adequate appropriations.

Much is to be gained and nothing to be lost in acting promptly. It is important that new Parks be created now, a working plan made for all, and the development pushed. When all our National Parks are ready for travelers, we shall not need to shout, "See America First."

The phrase "See America First" may have done a little good, but it is now obsolete. A plain condition now confronts us. Scenic America is to be made ready to be seen. Only a small percentage of the area of our National Parks is really ready for the traveler.

Congress should not be blamed for this condition; neither should we severely blame ourselves. But we ought promptly to see that these Parks receive adequate appropriations. If we do this, in a short time the National Park Service, through its Director, will say, "Your National Parks--our matchless wonderlands--are now entirely ready for millions of travelers."

_Copyright, 1900, by W. H. Wilcox, Port Townsend, Wash._]

The plan for the development of National Parks includes three types of hotels, the luxurious, the popular-priced, and inns or shelter cabins that are clean and comfortable, and that give simple entertainment at the lowest possible cost. And all buildings should be of an architecture that harmonizes with the landscape.

Guides in Parks should be of the highest type of culture and refinement, naturalists who can impart information. Of course they must be masters of woodcraft. The wilderness is destined to have a large and helpful place in the lives of the people. This is to be partly brought about by guides and Park rangers. There should be guides of both sexes.

The ultimate development should embrace a scenic road-system, roads built so as to command scenery and to be for the most part on mountain-sides and summits. They should touch the greatest and most beautiful spots, and should follow, not the lines of least resistance, but those of greatest attraction. In places along the forested roads, openings might be cleared so as to expose near scenes and to enable travelers to see the game which may come to these openings.

Many roads should be paralleled by trails for people afoot or on horseback. Of course trails should be made to numerous high or wild places not reached by roads.

Many persons do not realize the difference between a forest reserve and a National Park. A forest reserve is primarily used for cattle-grazing and saw-mills, while a National Park is a region wholly educational and recreational for your children and yourselves. A forest reserve is a commercial proposition, while a National Park must be estimated by higher values. In a paper on the conservation of scenery, in "The Rocky Mountain Wonderland," I have said:--

We need the forest reserve, and we need the National Park. Each of
these serves in a distinct way, and it is of utmost importance
that each be in charge of its specialist. The forester is always
the lumberman, the park man is a practical poet.... The forester
must cut trees before they are over-ripe or his crop will waste,
while the park man wants the groves to become aged and
picturesque. The forester pastures cattle in his meadows, while
the park man has only people and romping children among his wild
flowers. The park needs the charm of primeval nature, and should
be free from ugliness, artificiality, and commercialism. For the
perpetuation of scenery, a landscape artist is absolutely
necessary. It would be folly to put a park man in charge of a
forest reserve, a lumbering proposition. On the other hand, what a
blunder to put a tree-cutting forester in charge of a park! We
need both these men; each is important in his place; but it would
be a double misfortune to put one in charge of the work of the
other.

In this connection Stewart Edward White recently wrote:--

If the public in general understood the difference between a
National Park and a National Forest, there could be no doubt as
to the opinion of any intelligent citizen. The distinction is so
simple that it seems that it should be easy to get it within the
comprehension of anybody. A National Park is an open-air museum
set apart by Congress either to preserve from commercial
development beautiful scenery, trees, natural monuments, or some
of the forests that are being cut commercially both in private and
national forests. The idea is not commercial development along
even conservative and constructive lines, but absolute
preservation in a state of nature. Once this distinction is
grasped, no one can doubt that these two institutions demand
entirely different management. It would be as sensible to put men
with the same training in charge of both National Park and
National Forest, as it would be to place the same men with the
same training in charge of a busy shoe factory and a museum of
archæology.

Says Frederick Law Olmsted:--

Why should there be a distinction between National Forests and
National Parks? If the public is at liberty to use both as
recreation grounds, why should they not all be under one
management, in the interest of a more economical administration?

The National _Forests_ are set apart for economic ends, and
their use for recreation is a by-product properly to be secured
only in so far as it does not interfere with the economic
efficiency of the forest management. The National _Parks_ are set
apart primarily in order to preserve to the people for all time
the opportunity of a peculiar kind of enjoyment and recreation,
not measurable in economic terms and to be obtained only from the
remarkable scenery which they contain--scenery of these primeval
types which are in most parts of the world rapidly vanishing for
all eternity before the increased thoroughness of the economic use
of land. In the National Parks direct economic returns, if any,
are properly the by-products; and even rapidity and efficiency in
making them accessible to the people, although of great
importance, are wholly secondary to the one dominant purpose of
preserving essential esthetic qualities of their scenery
unimpaired as a heritage to the infinite numbers of the
generations to come.

Because of the very fact that in the Parks, as well as in the
Forest, considerations of economics and of direct human enjoyment
must both be carefully weighed in reaching decisions, and because
the physical problems are much the same in both, the fundamental
difference in the points of view which should control the
management of the National Parks and that of the National Forests
can be safely maintained only by keeping them under separate
administration.

John Nolen says:--

The minor purposes of forests may correspond somewhat with the
major purposes of parks, and _vice versa_; but the main and
essential purposes of each are altogether different from the main
and essential purposes of the other and any confusion of them is
sure to lead to waste and disappointment.

Scenery is our most valuable and our noblest resource.

It is of utmost importance that each of these reservations be managed separately. Those who have distinguished themselves by appreciating the importance of National Parks and by helping them in every way, have been clear and emphatic in urging that National Park management be utterly separate from the management of National Forests. Among those who have taken this stand are John Muir, J. Horace McFarland, John Nolen, Mrs. John D. Sherman, and in fact every one that I know of who is an authority on parks. The National Academy of Science also made a similar recommendation in 1897.

A Park should stand alone, and stand high. If we think of the Parks separately, keep them free from the dominion of commercialism, of interests, and of organizations, we may hope in a short time to receive the best use of them.

The courts have recently made a number of excellent decisions concerning the conservation of scenery, and have gone definitely on record recognizing its higher values. In a decision concerning a waterfall, Judge Robert E. Lewis said in part:--

It is a beneficial use to the weary that they, ailing and feeble,
can have the wild beauties of Nature placed at their convenient
disposal. Is a piece of canvas valuable only for a tent-fly, but
worthless as a painting? Is a block of stone beneficially used
when put into the walls of a dam, and not beneficially used when
carved into a piece of statuary? Is the test dollars, or has
beauty of scenery, rest, recreation, health and enjoyment
something to do with it? Is there no beneficial use except that
which is purely commercial?

This decision is epoch-marking. It emphasizes the importance to the Parks of having a management that is in no way tied up with any other work.

From the time of the creation of the Yellowstone Park till 1914 there was no official head to the National Parks, but that year Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane used his right and appointed the first Superintendent, Mark Daniels.

The year 1915 was memorable in National Park history. In that year Secretary Lane appointed Stephen T. Mather Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, with authority to do all that he could for Parks. Mr. Mather, a business man, sympathetic, well acquainted with the Parks, saw their extraordinary possibilities. Having the administrative charge of these National Parks, he at once set to work upon the extremely difficult task of bringing them out of chaos into order. In the short time that he has had charge of them, he has made a remarkable advance in securing for them a working plan of development, and a simplified and businesslike management.

In 1915 Superintendent Daniels was superseded by Robert B. Marshall, former Chief Geographer of the United States Geological Survey. Mr. Marshall worked enthusiastically but resigned in December, 1916. Mr. Mather became Director of the National Park Service in March, 1917.

Automobiles were first admitted to all National Parks in 1915, and that year, too, a number of educative publications concerning them were issued.

In September, 1911, what may be called the first National Park Conference was held in the Yellowstone Park. This was called by Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher. In his opening remarks at this conference Mr. Fisher said that the purpose of the conference was to "discuss the matter of the present condition of the National Parks and what can best be done to promote the welfare of the Parks and make them better for the purpose for which they were created." This brought together a large gathering of men of affairs and distinctly furthered the creation of the National Park Service.

The National Park Service is one of the subdivisions of the Department of the Interior. The Service was created by an act of Congress in 1916, after a campaign that lasted for seven years. At its head is a Director. It gives the Parks an official standing and the care and development and administration needed.

All National Parks and twenty-one of the National Monuments are in charge of the National Park Service. As Monuments are scenic and educational reservations, it is plain that all these Monuments might well be in charge of the National Park Service. Then, too, the name "Monument" might well be changed to "Park."

Considering the far-reaching influence of the Parks on the general welfare, in a few years they might be placed under a cabinet officer who could appropriately be called the Secretary of National Parks.

XVI

THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST

The supreme forest of the world is in the Sequoia National Park. The Big Trees have attained here their greatest size and their grandest development. Here is the forest's most impressive assemblage. In these groves at the southern end of the splendid Sierra is all the eloquence of wooded wilds--the silence of centuries and the eternal spirit of the forest. This forest is to be guarded and saved forever.

How happily trees have mingled with our lives! Ever since our lowly ancestors crawled from gloomy caves, stood erect in the sunlight, wondered at this calm, mysterious world, and at last made homes beneath the hemlock and the pine--ever since then, down through the ages, through the dim, sad centuries, all the way from cave to cottage, the forest has been a mother to our good race. How different our history had this wooded and beautiful world been treeless and lonely! Groves stand peaceful and prominent on every hill, in every dale of history that encourages or inspires. If we should lose the hospitality of the trees and the friendship of the forest, our race too would be lost, and the desert's pale, sad sky would come to hover above a rounded, lifeless world. The trees are friends of mankind.

The forest that you see on the heights across the valley, that stands so steadfast upon the billowed and broken slopes, that drapes the dales and distances with peaceful, purple folds, and makes complete with grace and grandeur a hanging garden of the hills--this is the forest that sheltered our ancestors through the past's slow-changing years.

The trees have wandered over the earth and prepared it for our race. Their low green ranks encircle the cold white realm of Farthest North; they grow in luxuriance beneath the equatorial sun; they have climbed and held the heights though beaten and crushed with storm and snow; they have dared the desert's hot and deadly sand; they stand ankle-deep in bayous wrapped in tangled vines; they have breasted the surf and pushed out into the surges of the ocean; they have conquered and reclaimed the rocks on continents and islands; they have plumed with palms the white reefs of the blue and billowed sea; their triumphant masses stand where the Ice King rules; and in volcanoes' throats they have given beauty for ashes. Their banners wave under every sun and sky. Wherever our race has gone to live, the trees have given welcome and shelter.

The picturesque woodsman with his axe has helped to build nations and to improve and sustain them after they were built. He will play his part in the future. An axeman at work in the woods makes even a more stirring and romantic picture than does the reaper in his harvest home on autumn's golden fields. It is good to hear the sounds of the axe as they echo and reëcho among wooded wilds and then fade away, a melody amid the forested hills. The echoes of the axe suggest the old, old story--tell of a love-touched dream come true, of another home to be. When under the axe an old tree falls, it is the end of a life well lived, the end of a work well done. But this tree may rise, helped and shaped by happy hands, and become the most sacred place in all this world of ours--a home where lovers live--a cottage with hollyhocks and roses by the door.

But we are leaving the low-vaulted past. These trees are not to fall. They are to stand. In parks, we have provided for trees a refuge with ourselves. They are to live on, and with them we shall build more stately mansions for the soul.

Trees have trials. They know what it is to struggle and grow strong. With hardship they build history, adventure, pathos, and poetry. Every tree has a life full of incident. Aged trees are stored with the lore of generations, carry the character of centuries, have biographies, stirring life-stories. A sequoia is an impressive wonder. As the oldest settler upon the earth--the pioneer of pioneers--it knows the stories of centuries. At the dead lips of the Sphinx you listen in vain, but beneath a Big Tree the ages speak and the centuries shift their scenes. The Big Trees carry within their untranslated scrolls that which may enrich the literature of the world. Within a Big Tree's brave breast are more materials of fact and fancy than in the ocean's coral cove, or in the murmuring sea-shell on the shore.

In the forest, around the foot of a tree, rages an endless and ever-changing struggle for existence. Here from season unto season a thousand forms of life feed and frolic, live and love, fight and die. Here Nature's stirring drama is playing on and always on. Here are trials and triumphs, activity and repose, and all the woodland scenes upon the wild world's stage amid the splendors and the shadows of the pines. At this place Nature smiles and sings, and here, at times, the lonely echo seems to search and seek in vain.

I never see a little tree bursting from the earth, peeping confidingly up among the withered leaves, without wondering how long it will live, what trials or triumphs it will have. I always hope that it will be a home for the birds. I always hope that it will find life worth living, and that it will live long to better and to beautify the earth.

In spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the broadleaf forest is a picture gallery, a fine-arts hall. In winter, abloom with snow flowers or in penciled tracery against the sky, how trustfully it sleeps! Confidently and in perfect faith, it awaits the supreme day of spring, when, amid the buzzing of bees, the songs of mating birds, and the unfolding of green and crumpled leaves, comes the glory-burst of bloom. In leaf-filled summer the woodlands are a realm of rich content. But in reflective autumn, when the plaintive note of the bluebird has Southland in its tones, when the hills are golden, then the work of the leaves is done and they come out in garments of glory to die--to die like the sunset of a splendid day. Color is triumphant when autumn, the artist, touches the trees, for then the entire temperate zone encircling this rounded world is a wreath of glory. This wreath fades or falls away; and the little golden leaf that casts its lot upon the breeze and floats off in the midst of mysteries is upon a journey just as dear as when, amid the mists of sun and spring, it did appear.

The woodland world of the mountains in National Parks is a grand commingling of groves and grass-plots, crags and cañons, and rounded lakes with forest frames and shadow-matted shores that rest in peace within the purple forest. Here, in Nature's mirrors, pond-lilies, all green and gold, rise and fall on gentle swells, or repose with reflected clouds and stars. Here, too, are drifts of fringed gentians, blue flakes from summer's bluest sky. Here young and eager streams leap in white cascades between crowding crags and pines. In these pictured scenes the birds sing, the useful beaver builds his picturesque home; here the cheerful chipmunk frolics and never grows up; and here the world stays young. Forests give poetry to the prose of life and enable us to have and to hold high ideals.