Odd, Old News: Logging the Bay in the Company of Grizzlies

From HSU’s Humboldt Room in the Louise Lima Collection,  “The first ox team using in logging operations by John Vance Co. in the early 1880’s (written in pencil on back of print)”

Nuggets of old news served up once a week by David Heller, one of our local historians.

Odd Old News goes into the woods this week with a story of the early days of logging inland from the Humboldt Bay, and the challenges facing the early lumbermen, and their hard working beasts of burden, the oxen. Recounted some twenty plus years later, the narrative relates yet another encounter with grizzlies.

Whether tall tale or true, we cannot say.

(For those who appreciate reading old tales of bear encounters, here is a wonderful collection of California Grizzly stories.)

West Coast Signal

April 3, 1877

A CALIFORNIA REMINISCENCE

In the year 1853 we lived in Humboldt County, Cal., on the shore of the bay of that name, which is about 20 miles North of Cape Mendocino, the most western land in the United States. This bay is about ten miles long and from one to three miles in width, and is divided from the great Pacific Ocean by a succession of low sand hills, from a quarter of a mile to a mile in width.

We were engaged in lumbering and our camp was in the unbroken forest some 7 miles from Eureka, then a small town on the bay, but now a city of considerable importance we cut the lofty pines, magnificent spruce and majestic redwoods upon the plateau, hauled the logs with oxen, attached to a primitive timber truck, to the brow of a hill, where, with a sluice, we ran them into a small creek that emptied into the bay.

We had no forage for our cattle, and after a hard day’s work they were turned out to find whatever of food the creek bottoms afforded. Sometimes they strayed miles away into the unexplored forest, and days were often consumed in recovering them. These “hunts” were not exactly boy’s play, neither were they devoid of danger, for beside the risk of getting lost, or encountering unfriendly Indians, the festive grizzly bear was often seen, and his presence was sometimes peculiarly unwelcome. To be sure, we never stirred from camp without our rifles, and we prided ourselves that, as shots, we were hard to beat.

On one occasion the writer and “Joe” —— were returning from a fruitless hunt for our oxen, when we came to a thicket of underbrush which seemed impenetrable.—Upon examining carefully, we discovered a sort of avenue leading through it, and, although we knew this path was made and kept open for Mr. Grizzly’s benefit, we resolved to avail ourselves of its advantages without asking permission.

We could not walk upright in the path, so in a half crouching position, and in single file, we commenced our explorations. We had gone but a few rods when, from a cozy nest in the densest part of the thicket Mrs. Grizzly and her two cubs confronted us. The cubs we should have gobbled at once for broiling purposes, but the mother didn’t look much like that kind of a hairpin and, as discretion the was, and now is, the better part of valor, we precipitously retired from the scene, without even apologizing for our intrusion. Fortunately for us we were allowed to depart in peace.

During the day it began to rain, and having no compass, we lost our way and were compelled to camp in the unknown forest somewhere between the headwaters of Jacoby and Freshwater creeks. We did not go to bed hungry however, for our rifles procured a fine deer, which we knew how to cook in a manner which would make Delmonico turn green with envy. We made a bed of leaves in the hollow body of an enormous redwood, building a bough fire to keep off wolves, cougars, and other small insects as might felt inclined to make a meal of us without our consent. When it is known that this bedroom of ours was at least ten by twelve feet in area, it can readily be seen there was no danger of being crowded for room. We kept watch, however, not for fear of the wild animals, but for the wilder and more to be dreaded Indian….

The next morning was rainy, and the sun obstinately refused to show himself. We could not tell east or south from a pile of slabs, but we could hear the faintest roaring of the ocean and by that uncertain sound we laid out our course. Towards noon it began to clear up, and in an hour or two we found ourselves on familiar ground.

As we were leisurely making our way along, sometimes through thickets and then an open stretch of forest, we came to the bank of a ravine and, looking down, we saw three enormous grizzlies drinking from a spring, a short rifle shot from us. They observed us at the same moment, but probably deeming us too insignificant for their notice, they resumed their lapping as unconcernedly as if we had been a couple of squirrels, barking at them from a neighboring tree. “Joe, what say, let’s have some fun!” “All right, bill, take the chuckle headed chap and I’ll introduce myself to the old boy just behind.” No sooner said than crack went the rifles and the dull thud, heard the same instant told that the aim had been unerring. Shooting grizzly bears, with round bullets, is not as safe an operation as catching rats in a trap, and we found it so in a surprisingly short space of time. A yelp of pain, an angry growl, and three bears came charging up the side of the ravine. Hastily reloading our rifles, we opened fire upon them and one of them rolled to the bottom, a defunct bruin. The other two had arrived nearly to our level by this time and were raging and furious. Before we could reload, they were close upon us and retreat was the net thing up on our order of exercises. A grizzly bear will outrun a horse on broken land, and we knew it; so we made for the nearest trees. Alas for us, they were all too large to climb, and we had no time to lose. One stroke of the huge paw, one crunch of the powerful jaws, and there would be two missing lumbermen.

It seemed to us as if we ran a thousand miles to reach a tree sufficiently small to climb, when really we did not go a hundred yards. None too soon, however, did we reach our tower of safety. Joe lost one boot, which his bear had insisted on pulling off as a keepsake, and the writer lost the biggest half of the patch on the seat of his pantaloons, which his bear took to make into lint, to dress his wounded head. This patch was labeled “self-rising” being the face side of a flour sack, and to this motto we attribute our escape.

“Well, Joe, now we are in a nice pickle.” “Dog-gone the luck, bill, I wish I was in camp and those bears in —-.” “Well, Joe, from present appearances, we have got to roost in these trees to-night” “Corrrect Bill, but I don’t feel qualified as a rooster—my feet don’t fit these limbs, exactly, and dog-gone my skin if there’s a bit of crow in me.”

We had to remain in the trees all night; but at daylight the next morning the bears left for parts unknown, evidently concluding that we would be tough eating anyway, and they could do better elsewhere—the same old story of sour grapes repeated. We didn’t follow them, but descending from our uncomfortable perches, hungry and cold, we picked up our rifles, which fortunately had remained unmolested, and made the best possible time back to camp, thoroughly impressed with the fact that grizzly bears were not safe things to tool with.

 

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many more, but here are the most recent:

• Odd, Old News: Plea in 1911 for Saving the Big Tree of Canyon Creek Located Near Blue Lake
• Odd, Old News: Humboldt Bay…’one of the sweetest spots in creation’
• Odd, Old News: Pride Went Before a Fall in Fatal Hot Air Balloon Accident
• Odd, Old News: “Buzz Buggies”