Campbell 1899

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Address
Author Douglas Houghton Campbell
Editor
BookTitle
Chapter Number
Cross Reference ID
DOI
Edition
eprint
How Published
Journal The American Naturalist
Month May
Note
Number 389
Organization The American Society of Naturalists
Pages 391-401
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
ReferenceType article
Reference Key Campbell 1899
Reference Tags Travel, Natural History, Historical, Cedar Decline, Sitka, Flora
Regional Relevance Moderate
School
Series
Title The North Pacific Coast
Type
URL http://www.jstor.org/pss/2454669
Volume 33
Year 1899
Summary Of interest primarily for the window it provides into another time, this article is a travelogue relating some observations and reflections made by the author (head of the botany depart at Stanford at the time) on a two week vacation to Sitka in June 1898. Travel was by steamer-ship trip from Tacoma through the inside passage with northbound stops at Wrangell, Juneau, and Skagway, and a brief visit to Glacier bay on the return trip.

The first three pages describe the trip from Sacramento to Tacoma and the area around Tacoma. After a description of the trip north, the bulk of the remainder of the article is spent discussing the landscape and flora he observed in while in Sitka.

One paragraph from the section about the trip stuck out as seeming to describe Cedar Decline:

"Everywhere the shores are heavily wooded to the water's edge -- indeed, the whole coast from Puget Sound to Sitka is covered with an almost unbroken forest, where the trees stand so close together that the dead trees are held upright by their living companions. These bleached skeletons, seen everywhere in the forest, give to it a very peculiar aspect." (page 394)