“To Worship Devoutly at the Shrine of Beauty”: Artistic Productions of the Seattle Mountaineers Club, 1910-1935

By

Arabella Matthews December 2019

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts in History

Dual-Degree Program in History and Archives Management Simmons College

Boston, Massachusetts

The author grants Simmons College permission to include this thesis in its Library and to make it available to the academic community for scholarly purposes.

Submitted by

Arabella Matthews

Approved by:

______ Frances Peace Sullivan Steven Berry Assistant Professor Associate Professor

Acknowledgments I’d like to thank my advisor, Dr. Frances Sullivan, for her endless support and guidance, the staff of the University of Washington Special Collections for their miraculous holdings and assistance, the Mountaineers Club at large, Jeff Eisenbrey for his commentary and advice, both in middle school and today; Mom, Dad, Isadora, Jenna, Savannah, Josh, Melanie, Siena, Gabriel, Pelham, Katie, Rachel, Maddie, Natalia, and everyone else who listened to me talk about Pacific Northwest regional culture for hours on end.

Abstract

This thesis discusses the artistic productions of the Mountaineers Club from 1910-1935, and the impact these works of art had on Pacific Northwest regional identity, combining the study of Pacific Northwest regional culture, nature in the American West, and the impact of outdoor recreation societies during this period. The Mountaineers Club is a western Washington-based outdoor recreation society formed in 1906. It was fundamental in building the outdoor community in the Pacific Northwest. Mountaineers Club members during the Progressive era through the Interwar period defined their identity by connecting artistic endeavors and outdoor recreation, producing works of art ranging from photography to hymns to stage productions. Records of the Mountaineers Club, including photographs, illustrations, scrapbooks, poetry, songs, as well as ephemera from the Kitsap Forest Theater reveal sentiments such as closeness and a special relationship with nature, anti-materialist and anti-industrialist sentiments, and an emphasis on hard work and perseverance, using art, club and civic participation, and their perceived privileged relationship with nature.

Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Historiography ............................................................................................................................. 5

Chapter 1: “My Soul has Climbed to Your Highest Peak” – Photography and Albums .............. 18 Chapter 2: “Mountain-Mothered Refuge” – Poetry, Songs, and Singalongs ............................... 32

Chapter 3: “This Garlanded Ampitheatre” – Kitsap Theatre and the Mountaineers Players ..... 44 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 54

Bibliography .................................................................................................................................. 57

1

Introduction

During the summer of 1911, Anna Newman, a young woman and close cousin to several

members of outdoor recreational society The Mountaineers Club, traveled to Washington state

from her hometown of Evanston, Illinois. She went to travel with her cousins and other members

of the Mountaineers through the Cascade Mountains. In an extensive essay she mailed out to

friends and family upon her return, Newman detailed her trip: where they hiked, what she

brought along with her, what she saw in this “time rich with the present and the future.” Newman

chronicled each element of her trip in meticulous detail, striving to remember. When she

returned to her hotel in downtown Seattle, still clad in her short skirt and hiking boots, she

remarked, “when you’ve wrestled with responsibilities, mosquitos, and a’that, and have stood on

the heights, you pity and forgive the well-groomed civilian.” Newman’s experience was

transformative, as much for the sublime beauty of the land she encountered as for the physical

trials she encountered. She remarked that she “found a new heaven and a new earth in

Washington,” characterizing the state as a kind of paradise.1 Newman was not alone in her

revelation: the Mountaineers themselves promoted this vision of their home state as a land of

heavenly nature.

In this thesis I will examine several forms of artistic expression in which members of the

Mountaineers Club participated, their various forms, and how they impacted both club and

Pacific Northwest identity at the time of creation and over time. The arts have always been an

important aspect of mountaineering in particular and outdoor recreation in general, particularly

in the American West where the landscape would come to inform European-American settlers’

1 Anna Newman, “My Summer with the Mountaineers”, Mountaineers Society Records, Box 1, University of Washington Special Collections.

2 cultural identity as westerners. The shared values that would come to make up this identity

include spiritual appreciation for ‘untouched’ nature, an anti-materialist philosophy and fear of

urbanization, and an emphasis on hardworking, ‘pioneering’ spirit. Essentially, the urge for the

city dwellers to get out and into nature eventually became the foundation for their regional

identity. The people who created that identity would come to define many ideas about

regionalism, outdoor recreation, and the connection between the two in the Pacific Northwest.

By looking at their creations we can gain a better understanding of the ways that art and the great

outdoors influenced each other and the effect that has on both modern-day Pacific Northwest

cultural identity and popular perception of the region in general.

The Mountaineers, a western Washington-based outdoor recreation society, was founded in

1906, initially as a branch of the Oregon-based Mazamas Club. It has put its name on a number

of artistic productions during its century long existence. I have chosen to focus on those artistic

productions primarily from the period from the founding of the club to the Second World War,

focusing especially on the interwar period. Recreational societies were an important part of civic

life during this period, and participation in a group of this nature built community and shared

values among its members. In the case of the Mountaineers, the group has since outgrown its

initial purpose. It is safe to say it has consistently played a large role in the outdoor culture of the

Pacific Northwest. It exists today with a broader scope and more members and influence than

ever, with many branches and lodges, and a publishing house. Members of the Mountaineers

founded companies like REI, and the club founders included individuals prominent in the city of

Seattle and Washington state at large: mayors, university professors, photographers,

3 businessmen. The club’s focus remains on the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, though now

the group devotes more energy to conservation and climbing safety than it did a century ago.2

While the Mountaineers were descendants of the Victorian mountaineering tradition, the club

also made serious attempts to separate themselves from that tradition. These were not hunting

trips, a practice at which many members of the group chafed. Instead, they represented a form of

early conservation in the vein of John Muir and the Sierra Club. American conservation comes

from a history of attempting to create and then preserve an idealized mythological past, an empty

wilderness that never truly existed. It relies upon the idea of the Americas before European

colonialism as a largely empty and undeveloped wilderness, an idea that most modern historians

know to be untrue. The elements of fantasy that seem at odds with the perceived masculine and

harsh nature of outdoor recreation are not opposed to one another after all. The version of an

uninhabited, silent old growth forest that these societies promoted was as imaginary as Oz or

Wonderland. 3

During this period, mountaineering was seen as a community concern. Mountaineering never

has been truly individual, relying heavily on community and group training. Particularly in the

twentieth century, however, outdoor recreation in the American west was a method of

constructing community and identity. This period of rapid industrialization and urbanization led

to increased antimodern impulses. Among Americans with the luxury to indulge these, this

meant there was a community of like-minded individuals seeking the perceived simplicity of an

earlier time.4 By characterizing themselves as deserving, caring heirs to the remaining

wilderness, Mountaineers bound themselves to each other and to the land. Historians of the past

2 “History,” The Mountaineers, accessed December 14, 2019, https://www.mountaineers.org/about/history. 3 Roderick Frazier Nash and Char Miller, Wilderness and the American Mind: Fifth Edition, Fifth edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). 4 T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920.

4 often characterized the pre-colonial United States, and the American West in particular, as a wild

land free from human influence and beyond modern comprehension. Mountaineers of this era

strove to return to an ‘untouched’ land. This was a white supremacist fantasy, to be sure, but one

that shaped history and identity for many whites that dwelled out west. The collective nature of

this fantasy made it both exclusive enough to be interesting and expansive enough to apply to

any white American.5

I have primarily chosen to focus on works of art that might be deemed ‘low culture’—rather

than, for example, landscape painting or professional photography—for their personal nature,

their mass appeal, as well as the elements of play and fantasy present in some less serious works.

I will begin with a brief overview of roughly three areas of related scholarship: that regarding

Pacific Northwest regionalism and regional identity; the history of the sublime, the picturesque,

and art about mountains and the American West; and the history of mountaineering and outdoor

recreation as it developed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century.

I have also divided the artistic works into three parts. I will first focus on amateur

photography, primarily snapshot photography, in order to understand how the Mountaineers

visualized and depicted their environment in the service of establishing the ethos of the club and

recording an organizational history. In terms of written works, I have chosen to examine nature

poetry, camp songs, and hymns, primarily for their function in community-building and as a

form of expression of the lived experiences of the writers in nature. Finally, I will discuss the

history and productions of the Kitsap Forest Theatre/Mountaineers Forest Theatre and the ways

in which these provided an outlet and a purpose for fantasy, costume, and play—as well as how

5 Jason E. Pierce, “The Politics of Whiteness and Western Expansion, 1848–80,” in Making the White Man’s West: Whiteness and the Creation of the American West (University Press of Colorado, 2016), 123–50, https://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.simmons.edu/stable/j.ctt19jcg63.11.

5 the theater and its productions developed over time as a method of promoting the club’s culture

and the regional identity of its members. The club promoted a series of shared principles—

closeness with nature, a distaste for industrial development, and an admiration for pioneering

spirit—through its artistic productions, due to the spread and influence of the Mountaineers,

these became central to the greater Pacific Northwest identity as a whole.

Historiographical Contribution

In writing about the artistic productions of the Mountaineers Society and their attempts

to define Pacific Northwest regional identity through these works, I have chosen three areas of

history which inform my writing. Regional identity of the Pacific Northwest in general, a

complicated and oft-ignored field, is necessary to understand in writing about Western

Washington, where the majority of my work is focused. Additionally, the place that mountains

occupy in thought and art about the American West as a whole is another major facet. Much of

the culture and art of American West is centered around the landscape, particularly the

mountains. Thirdly, outdoor recreation, particularly in this region and involving the Cascade and

Olympic mountains, was a major part of life and regionalism in the era on which I am focusing:

the 1910s through the early 1930s. Skiing, hiking, mountaineering, the areas in which these

activities occurred, and the groups that made them happen are key to understanding how the art

produced by a mountaineering club could inform regional identity in a substantive way.

Pacific Northwest Regionalism

The Pacific Northwest has long been a region defined by outsiders, ignored on the

national stage and viewed as a place without any substantive history. The evolution of

6 scholarship in the region mirrored the evolution of the region itself. The earliest scholarship on

the subject is defined by some timidity in the actual definition of the Pacific Northwest as a

region at all. Scholars writing in the field had and still have the difficult task of proving

regionality before being able to determine what that looks like. Steiner and Wrobel, in 1997, in

writing on regional identity in the American West, asked the question of whether there was a

defining set of features that made up the identity of the American West, arguing that American

regionalism can find its fullest expression in the west. Robbins in the early 2000s argued for the

Pacific Northwest as a region in transition, in need of more complex stories with which to define

the place.6

The field of Pacific Northwest regionalism and history began to develop seriously in the

middle of the twentieth century, as the region grew economically during and after the Second

World War. During this period, historians were primarily focused on growth of the region:

namely economic and physical expansion. In looking towards the past, histories published during

the postwar era tended to focus on the industries that laid the groundwork for the ultimate

wholesale industrial development of the region. In searching for regional identity, many works

tended to tie that regional identity to early white settlers of the region: Northern European

farmers and fishermen, miners who struck gold in the Yukon, and nineteenth century pioneers

who founded the cities that had begun to boom during wartime. Frykman stresses the importance

of interconnectedness within the country, each region drawing upon the history and

understanding of other regions to construct its own identity. Essays in Robbins, Frank, and

Ross’s Regionalism and the Pacific Northwest cover a great deal of ground, including

6 David M Wrobel and Michael Steiner, Many Wests: Place, Culture & Regional Identity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997); William Robbins, ed., The Great Northwest: The Search for Regional Identity, 1st edition (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001);

7 McClelland’s “Our Pleasant Condition, Surrounded by Fewer Acres of Clams”, a conservative

fantasy of optimism and regional potential.7

As the century wore on and civil rights came to the forefront, authors integrated women’s

history into the preexisting narratives of Pacific Northwest regional history, though it was an

uphill battle. Much women’s history of the Pacific Northwest discusses the ways in which labor,

deliberately gendered, weighed heavily in the minds of Northwesterners. Industry, as always,

dominates history. Lumber was the star of the show for its enormous impact and visibility, but

other forms of labor were highlighted—those that extract resources from the land in particular.

Despite gradual acceptance of women’s history as part of the greater narrative, history of the

Pacific Northwest was still viewed as a largely white endeavor. Mercier, in her 2001 essay on

gendered labor and the Pacific Northwest discusses the perception of value assigned to different

forms of labor through the lens of gender, questioning how different forms of labor became

associated with different groups. Armitage in 2015 challenged the status of women as footnotes

in history with her comprehensive history of women’s roles and hierarchies of power in the

region.8

Civil Rights movements meant slow gains in racial justice, but the scholarship shifted

nonetheless. By the end of the twentieth century and entering the twenty first century, most

historians had embraced the place of women and people of color in Pacific Northwest history

and scholarship in general. Friday writes about Asian-American cannery workers of the Pacific

Northwest, as well as their labor organizing, an important aspect of Asian-American history in

7 George A. Frykman, “Regionalism, Nationalism, Localism the Pacific Northwest in American History,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 43, no. 4 (1952): 251–61; Robbins, William, Robert Frank, and Richard Ross, eds. Regionalism and the Pacific Northwest. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1983. 8 Laurie Mercier, “Reworking Race, Class, and Gender into Pacific Northwest History,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 22, no. 3 (2001): 61–74, https://doi.org/10.2307/3347241; Susan H Armitage, Shaping the Public Good: Women Making History in the Pacific Northwest (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2015), http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4416708.

8 the region. Other scholarship covers an earlier era, of Chinese miners and laborers in the Pacific

Northwest—a substantial population until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Chung wrote

about Chinese miners in the Pacific Northwest their impact on the region’s infrastructure,

culture, and history. Friday’s 1995 work on Asian American labor in the canning industry—a

massive industry in the days when fish were plentiful—discusses the particularly Filipino labor

organizing and culture.9 Oregon was formed as a white supremacist state and did not allow black

settlers until 1926, but in larger cities in Washington, like Seattle and Tacoma, black Pacific

Northwesterners formed a substantial population. Early black settlers shaped the region, and later

migration and settlement in urban areas, like Seattle’s Central District would come to shape

cities and activism in those few cities that did not resist the development of a black community.

Taylor’s monograph on the formation of the black community in Seattle discusses neighborhood

boundaries and community building in the then-segregated city, arguing for the importance of

these spaces. Taylor and Ravage, in 2009, wrote about early black pioneers on the western

frontier, a largely and shamefully ignored group of settlers who nevertheless shaped the

frontier.10 The Pacific Northwest, and Washington state in particular, characterizes and

characterized itself as a particularly ‘Indian’ place, cribbing place names, land, and aesthetics

from Natives in the area. Native identity and activism came to the forefront of politics in the

1960s and 70s with the establishment of the American Indian Movement, the occupation of Fort

Lawson in Seattle, and fish-ins in the southern Puget Sound that led to reaffirmation of Indian

fishing rights. Through these events and greater general awareness of lived experiences of

9 Sue Fawn Chung, In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West (University of Illinois Press, 2011), https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/638085; Chris Friday, Organizing Asian-American Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942 (Temple University Press, 1995). 10 Quintard Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District, from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era, 1994, http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4305909; John Ravage and Quintard Taylor, Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier, Expanded, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 2009).

9 Washington Natives, historical scholarship began to accommodate their narratives and

incorporate them into broad experiences of history. Harmon’s 2000 work on Indian identity in

the Puget Sound region discussed the ways in which Natives around the sound formed identity in

the modern day, across and within tribal lines. Thrush’s Native Seattle deals specifically with

Natives in the Seattle area, questioning conventional separation of Native and urban history and

the ways in which the city of Seattle used that identity to its own ends while essentially

abandoning its Native citizens.11

Though environmental history only rose to prominence in the later part of the twentieth

century, the majority of Pacific Northwest regional culture is dictated by the land and human

relationships with it. In the earliest days of defining region, history regarding the land was

limited to exultation of the ways in which man had shaped it and extracted resources, and wealth

from it. As the environmental movement came into the mainstream in the 1970s and 80s,

however, historians came to lament the boundless development that had ecologically devastated

the region it built. White raised these issues in “The Altered Landscape: Social Change and the

Land in the Pacific Northwest,” a particularly environmentally minded look at the development

of the region, questioning the validity of an environmentally-based identity in a region whose

wealth comes from stripping the land of its natural resources.12 For better or for worse, then,

shaping the story of the land around development of that land and shaping the story of the region

around how it could best provide raw materials, power, and glory to the states and nation became

the only story. The Pacific Northwest was still characterized as an ‘ecotopia’, a term invented for

11 Alexandra Harmon, Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.03488.; Coll-Peter Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-over Place (University of Washington Press, 2007). 12 Richard White. “The Altered Landscape: Social Change and the Land in the Pacific Northwest.” In Regionalism and the Pacific Northwest. edited by William G. Robbins, Robert J. Frank, and Richard E. Ross. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 1983. 113

10 Ernest Callenbach’s 1975 novel of the same name that dealt with a fictional utopian society—

though much of that northwestern natural beauty was changed in irreparable ways over the

course of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.13 Historians of the late twentieth and twenty

first century came to challenge and affirm these assumptions in their writing. Lang raised these

points in his 2003 essay on the topic on the ways in which Northwesterners have tied their

environment to development and extraction. Robbins and Barber’s comprehensive environmental

history of the twentieth century Pacific Northwest is in many ways a defining work for the field

and expands upon many earlier works, arguing that the social inequalities of the Pacific

Northwest developed alongside and in conjunction with its resources.14

Sublime Beauty and the American West

Just as the landscape shaped thinking in and about the Pacific Northwest, iconic

mountains and ranges also shaped thinking in the rest of the American West. The ideas of the

picturesque and sublime beauty of the American West encompass the dichotomy of fear and

reverence, and nothing inspires the kind of awesome emotions that captured Western American

art better than the mountain peaks and ranges that dot the West. The place that mountains have in

people’s hearts and minds is a vital component of not only Pacific Northwestern identity, but

also the identity of the American West as a whole. More than just aesthetically, mountains

represent something nearly religious in their glory. Nicolson and Cronon raise this point in their

1997 work that examines the shift in consciousness that made Europeans begin to exalt the

13 Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (Random House Publishing Group, 2009). 14 William L. Lang, "Beavers, Firs, Salmon, and Falling Water: Pacific Northwest Regionalism and the Environment," Oregon Historical Quarterly 104, no. 2 (2003): 150-65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20615317; William G. Robbins and Katrine Barber, Nature’s Northwest: The North Pacific Slope in the Twentieth Century (University of Arizona Press, 2011).

11 beauty of the mountain. Debarbieux, Rudaz, and Price’s history of the mountain and how we

understand it culturally argues for the mountain as an idea, as a social construct.15 The American

West, then, defined as a place of great natural beauty and mystique, whose craggy peaks were

reserved for mountain men, voyageurs, and hardy pioneer folk, retained a major spiritual aspect

in its grand sweeping vistas. Scholarship from the end of the 20th century onward makes no

secret of this, with historians writing on the ways the landscape informed tourism and advertising

of the area, as well as how it informed the actual development of religion in the west. The land

itself is culture, religion, aesthetics, and lived experience rolled into one. Hyde discussed how

Americans gradually ‘Americanized’ their understanding of the landscape of the west, no longer

comparing it to European landscapes. Allen’s 1992 article on the romanticism of the American

West argued the ways in which pastoralism and scientific thought combined in the early period

of colonization of the American west, paving the way for later artists. Schrepfer wrote about

mountains and their role in American environmentalism through the lens of gender. Bell and

Lyall discussed the ways in which tourism and the American landscape influenced each other—

and ultimately American culture as a whole. Berry’s 2015 work argues that the roots of the

modern American environmental movement are based in religion, that it is the central

ingredient.16

15 Marjorie Hope Nicolson and William Cronon, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite, Reprint edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997) ; Bernard Debarbieux, Gilles Rudaz, and Martin F. Price, The Mountain: A Political History from the Enlightenment to the Present, trans. Jane Marie Todd, 1 edition (Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 16 Anne F. Hyde, An American Vision: Far Western Landscape and National Culture, 1820-1920, 1st Edition edition (New York: New York University Press, 1990); J.L. Allen, “Horizons of the Sublime: The Invention of the Romantic West,” Journal of Historical Geography 18, no. 1 (January 1, 1992): 27–40, https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-7488(92)90274-D.; Susan R. Schrepfer, Nature’s Altars: Mountains, Gender, and American Environmentalism (University Press of Kansas, 2005); Claudia Bell and John. Lyall, The Accelerated Sublime : Landscape, Tourism, and Identity (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002).; Evan Berry, Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism (Univ of California Press, 2015).

12

In the Pacific Northwest in particular, individuals attempting to find and define an

identity were attracted to the mountains that surrounded them. In the Puget Sound region

specifically, Mount Rainier is touchstone and marker, protector and ever-present threat (it is one

of many active volcanoes in the Cascade Range.) If Pacific Northwestern identity is based

around a natural feature of the land, the mountain is a remarkably stable one. If the uniting factor

of the Pacific Northwest as a region is constant growth, then perhaps the mountains are

comforting. They will always be there. Despite inevitable change, like the 1980 eruption of

Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier looks, at least from a distance, much the same in 1906 as it did

in 1932, in 1960, in 1991, in 2019. The mountains are a close and constant companion,

something to be conquered, to be admired, to be cherished above all things. Smith’s ethnography

of Mount Rainier National park deals with Native inhabitants of the area in particular and the

history of what made and makes this area special to those living around it. Wonderland is an

administrative history of the creation of the park, which aims to tell the stories of Mount Rainier

National Park’s development in conjunction with one another, not separately.17

Boosters, photographers, and Mountaineers like Asahel Curtis influenced what Seattle

would become—as well as depictions of what the region looked like. It is natural, then, that the

mountains are a near constant in art in and about the region. Photography, painting, poetry, and

many other forms of artistic expression relied on the natural beauty that surrounded their creators

to depict identity. Scholarship on art of the Pacific Northwest is admittedly lacking, as for much

of the previous century it was not only a region barely worth mentioning, but seen as a cultural

black hole. Despite having produced many artists, many in major cultural hubs perceived the

17 Allan H. Smith, Takhoma: Ethnography of Mount Rainier National Park (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2006).; Theodore Catton, Mount Rainier NP: Wonderland:An Administrative History (Table of Contents), 1995, https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/mora/adhi/contents.htm.

13 actual art produced in the region as having less value than that from artists back east.

Nevertheless, artistic productions in the region would be incorporated into the greater genre of

Western American art as a whole, and the great emphasis on the sublime that comes through in

mountain art of the American West can easily be applied to the upper left corner of that larger

region. Hassrick dealt with Western American art through a new lens, discussing the meaning of

that art. DiStefano discussed the ideas of transcendence and the sublime in the American West,

and the way the landscape transformed for settlers from foreboding to beautiful over time.

Whiting looked at the way these themes appear in photography specifically, in the postwar years,

and how the war transformed the way people visualized the west. Wilson’s work on Asahel

Curtis does not deal only with photography, but examined how Curtis has been memorialized as

a part of the Pacific Northwest, and the broader impact of his work.18

Depictions of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism in the West

Nature is a vital part of the identity of individuals in the Pacific Northwest. It is perceived

as something of an ‘ecotopia’, a region where ecological and environmental concerns, if not

taking precedence, are at least at war with development in a substantive way. Actually spending

time outdoors in that fabled natural beauty is an important component of this pervasive

environmentalism, and in the early twentieth century, when recreational societies thrived,

organized climbing, hiking, and general outdoor societies or clubs were highly influential in how

outdoor recreation developed. The intersection between American environmentalism and outdoor

18 Peter Hassrick, Redrawing Boundaries: Perspectives on Western American Art (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007); Diana L. Di Stefano, “In Search of the Sublime: Finding Transcendence in the Mountain West, 1880–1920,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 64, no. 3 (2014): 3–88. Cécile Whiting, “The Sublime and the Banal in Postwar Photography of the American West,” American Art 27, no. 2 (June 1, 2013): 44–67, https://doi.org/10.1086/673109.; William H. Wilson, Developing the Pacific Northwest: The Life and Work of Asahel Curtis (Pullman, Washington: Washington State Univ Pr, 2015).

14 recreation was broad and came early on, with scholarship from the 1970s and the beginning of

the environmental movement addressing how individuals in the early twentieth century thought

about and interacted with nature. In the twenty first century, advanced analysis of the Great

American Outdoors became the order of the day, with a number of scholars focusing on what

nature, specifically, means for Americans. Cronon’s seminal work, Uncommon Ground,

questions the human role in nature, and the usefulness of idealizing a version of nature without

people in it. Nash and Miller also deal with the relationship between American culture and the

great outdoors, examining the transformation of perception of the land from a horror to

something to idealize, all within the confines of the human experience.19

The history of who led the charge to develop or ‘protect’ parcels of national land is an

important part of the history of these states and regions. In the states of Nevada, Utah, Idaho,

Alaska, Oregon, Wyoming, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, and

Washington, an average of roughly 48% of the land is owned by the federal government.20

Nationally owned land—whether Bureau of Land Management land or National Park land, is a

part of life in these states. For seasoned outdoorspeople especially, the question of who these

spaces are for and who led the charge to develop them affects the way Americans interacted with

their environment and their relationship with nature. Federally owned land as a major aspect of

conservation has always been the purview of white settlers. Much of that land was obtained

through displacement of Native people in particular, and the histories written reflect this.

Scholarship on development of National and State Parks and wilderness areas in the Pacific

Northwest has grown over time to accommodate more than just the environmental narrative of

19 William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, 1st edition (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996).; Nash and Miller, Wilderness and the American Mind. 20 “Printable Maps - Federal Lands.” Accessed October 21, 2019. https://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/printable/fedlands.html.

15 Federal land management as an abject good. Numerous warring forces and opinions dominate

the debate: a strong libertarian streak that opposes any federal management; Native activists

seeking restoration of their traditional lands; environmentalists attempting to preserve ‘virgin’

forests and rivers; developers who’d prefer access to the resources of the land rather than any

unspoiled wilderness. Cox discusses the development of state parks in the Pacific Northwest,

from the early days to the work of activists in establishing these parks, asking what is so

important about the fights for and against government land. Kirk and Palmer talk about Yosemite

National Park and what it came to symbolize as a manifestation of the romantic impulse in

California. Marsh and Cronon wrote a very comprehensive history of wilderness areas in general

in the Pacific Northwest, discussing the ways in which these were designated, and the battles

over what would happen to this land.21

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a golden age for organized

recreational societies and civic life in general. The earliest climbing and mountaineering

societies in the United States were formed roughly during this period, beginning with the

Appalachian Mountain Club in 1876 in New Hampshire. But with greater white settlement out

west and an ever-increasing middle class with more leisure time, more mountaineering clubs

cropped up—The American Alpine Club in 1902 in Colorado, the Sierra Club in 1892 in

California, the Mazamas in 1894 in Oregon, and the Mountaineers in 1906 in Washington.22

21 Thomas R. Cox, The Park Builders: A History of State Parks in the Pacific Northwest (University of Washington Press, 1989).; Andrew Kirk and Charles Palmer, “When Nature Becomes Culture: The National Register and Yosemite’s Camp 4, a Case Study,” Western Historical Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2006): 496–506, https://doi.org/10.2307/25443418.; Kevin R. Marsh and William Cronon, Drawing Lines in the Forest: Creating Wilderness Areas in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press, 2010). 22 “The American Alpine Club,” The American Alpine Club, accessed November 22, 2019, https://americanalpineclub.org; “Home | Mazamas,” accessed November 22, 2019, https://mazamas.org/; “Sierra Club Home Page: Explore, Enjoy and Protect the Planet,” Sierra Club, accessed November 22, 2019, https://www.sierraclub.org; “Latest Updates from the Blog,” The Mountaineers, accessed November 22, 2019, https://www.mountaineers.org/front-page.

16 Histories of hiking, climbing, and skiing in the United States, then, are tied to these

organizations. The makeup of these clubs was largely local, but despite rivalries like that

between the Mazamas and the Mountaineers (originally an offshoot of the Mazamas), the clubs

were tied together, and tied to tourism of the American West. Early histories focused on the

social impact of camping and organized mountaineering clubs, rather than their environmental

impact. Burch’s sociological work on the playful elements of camping from 1965 discusses the

way modern American camping is acted out, acknowledging that it only could have developed in

its current form. Manning’s history of the Appalachian Mountain Club, the first in the country,

goes over the history of the United States’ first mountaineering club. Hansen’s essay on

Victorian era mountaineering in the United Kingdom provides necessary background for the

roots of American mountaineering, arguing for a shared climbing heritage and showcasing

similarities in experiences of nature.23

Much of the history of mountaineering specifically is focused on European

mountaineering, the spiritual parent of American mountaineering. In the west, where the slopes

were more dramatic and the mountains more isolated, skiing caught on in most states, and the

histories of skiing cropped up along with more comprehensive mountain histories that covered

more of the American West. In short, civic life, mountaineering and outdoor recreational

societies, and tourism were all deeply tied together, a fact that modern scholarship on

mountaineering recognizes, despite its complexity. Allen’s history of American skiing is

comprehensive and discusses the development of skiing among young, affluent individuals

23 William R. Burch, “The Play World of Camping: Research Into the Social Meaning of Outdoor Recreation,” American Journal of Sociology 70, no. 5 (1965): 604–12; Robert E. Manning, “Men and Mountains Meet: Journal of the Appalachian Mountain Club, 1876-1984,” Journal of Forest History 28, no. 1 (1984): 24–33, https://doi.org/10.2307/4004789; Peter H. Hansen, “Albert Smith, the Alpine Club, and the Invention of Mountaineering in Mid-Victorian Britain,” Journal of British Studies 34, no. 3 (1995): 300–324.

17 searching for a romantic, strenuous life. Dawson also discussed skiing, though not in the

academic realm, his guide to ski mountaineering is useful. Pomeroy and Deverell’s history of

tourism in the American West analyzes the development of the west through tourism, and how

those who came west with romantic notions ended up shaping the region. Hansen’s The Summits

of Modern Man argues that mountain climbing was one of the practices that defined modernity,

rather than springing from it.24

Each of these fields of study ties into the story of creating a Pacific Northwest identity

through organized outdoor recreation and art produced because of that outdoor recreation. Over

time, the narrative has shifted from a simpler history that elevates westward expansion and the

pursuits of wealthy white men into a more nuanced story that attempts to encompass the variety

of perspectives and experiences that come to shape Pacific Northwest regionalism, art of the

American West, and organized forms of outdoor recreation in the region. My work attempts to

unite these three areas of study. Regional culture does not develop without concentrated effort in

that direction, nor does artistic understanding. The Mountaineers and other groups like them

were the product of a developing American West, and were both shaped by and instrumental in

shaping its future. The kinds of works I discuss here are largely seen as frivolous, but in fact

reveal serious intent on the part of their creators. By focusing on a small group largely operating

in a single city, I draw conclusions about the ways that these individuals understood their own

identity and region, experiencing nature through organized group recreation, using the landscape

around them as a focal point.

24 John B. Allen, From Skisport to Skiing: One Hundred Years of an American Sport, 1840-1940 (Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1996); Louis W. Dawson, Wild Snow: A Historical Guide to North American Ski Mountaineering : With 54 Selected Classic Routes, 214 Photographs, and 10 Maps, 1st edition (Golden, Colo: Amer Alpine Club, 1997); Earl Pomeroy and Bill Deverell, In Search of the Golden West: The Tourist in Western America, Second Edition, Second edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010); Peter H. Hansen, The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering after the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).

18

“My Soul has Climbed to Your Highest Peak” – Photography and Albums

The Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection contains hundreds of albums from 1907 to

1951, a sizeable collection of photograph albums filled with tightly clustered sets of snapshots,

captions, and ephemera. The commemorative outing albums that members of the Mountaineers

produced during the period from 1915-1936 are unique in that they were neither outward facing

nor entirely private. These photographs were amateur and not necessarily intended for public

consumption. Instead, they showcase attempts on the parts of the photographers to define their

identity to themselves and produce a historical narrative. Many of the albums depict group

outings, meticulously detailing the order of the trip through captions and photographs. In the

spirit of conservation, snapshot photography was a method both of capturing ephemeral things

and making them permanent—parties, hikes, meals—as well as a method of documenting

permanent things—mountains, valleys, the sky. Depictions of spirituality, play, and establishing

an exclusive and prestigious identity all served to cultivate the ethos of the club. Snapshot

photographs expressed emotion even when they did not feature a human presence, and can be

understood to represent increased anxiety about urbanization, a desire on the part of their

creators to distance themselves from capitalist endeavors, and an early expression of intent

towards conservation.

Here, I examine images from many albums, focusing particularly on four albums

commemorating four group summer excursions: the 1915 and 1919 excursions to Mt. Rainier,

the 1920 trip to the Olympic Mountains, and the 1936 trip to Glacier National Park. The majority

of the photographs and photograph albums discussed here can be separated into the loose

categories of nature or mountain photography and photographs of individuals. These amateur

photographs represented the photographers’ desire not only to stake a claim on a cohesive Pacific

19 Northwest identity, but to define what that identity looked like. These were chronicles of outings,

hikes, climbs, and other events. They were produced by club members, for club members.

Photograph albums were a method of writing the history of the club, establishing organizational

and personal culture, and asserting identity. Photograph albums and individual prints from the

Progressive era and the Interwar period can shed light on the ways in which photographers used

the camera to create images that reinforced their concept of identity and their ties to nature, be

that in snapshots of scenic vistas that highlighted the land they saw as virgin and unoccupied, or

the photographs of campsites to demonstrate the close bonds between Mountaineers.

Mountain photography was a means of connecting to the past, particularly for whites in the

Pacific Northwest. Extreme changes to and exploitation of the land characterized the Pacific

Northwest's development as a region during the twentieth century. Yet individuals’ attempts to

assert a regional identity during this period were focused on natural elements that were

unchanged or, at least, appeared unchanged. With the aid of photography, Progressive era and

Interwar Mountaineers expressed the developing ethos of the club as well as their own identity as

Pacific Northwesterners. Though not without history and connection, individuals outside of the

region had little interest in its history or culture, especially after the end of the Klondike Gold

Rush. The Gold Rush, reported nationally, had doubled the population of Seattle from 1890 to

1900.1 Even as the city grew during this time, it was still viewed as a largely remote and wild

area, particularly to those living east of the Mississippi. Establishing a cohesive identity for the

Pacific Northwest—one that was functional, meaningful, and appropriately exclusive—was

something that inhabitants of the region would have to do themselves.

1 Kathryn Taylor Morse, The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush (University of Washington Press, 2003).

20

As the century and the narrative continued, the meaning and purpose of these photographs

shifted. Average photographers were able to access more sophisticated photographic techniques,

and ultimately express more complex emotion through the lens. By the early twentieth century

and the advent of truly portable cameras, photography had become a more widely available

pastime for ordinary people. Photography was well-established by this time already, and within

the state of Washington, boosters like Asahel Curtis, a founding member of the Mountaineers

and well-known photographer, used photography as a method of promoting the region at large

and Washington state in particular. Though there was a divide between Washingtonian amateur

and professional photography, there were also commonalities in some of the imagery. These

appear most notably in mountain photography—particularly that surrounding the Cascade

Range, and its tallest peak, Rainier.

Urban Anxiety and the Great Outdoors

Mountaineers saw hiking and climbing as a way to escape urban society—if only

temporarily.2 Individuals living in the still-remote Pacific Northwest during the first few decades

of the twentieth century were not immune to the increasing anxiety that many Americans felt at

the prospect of a rapidly urbanizing country. Participation in mountaineering clubs and other

forms of outdoor recreation represented an attempt on the part of the Mountaineers to assert their

identity as Northwesterners outside of industry and capitalist development. In the vein of

Progressive-era Protestantism, by participating in recreational activities, Mountaineers could

renew their spirit and become closer to God. Escape from the constraints of urban society was

surely easier said than done, but the addition of religious and fantastical elements to the realm of

recreation allowed the Mountaineers to remove themselves from society as much as they desired.

2 Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920.

21 The albums are filled with photographs that emphasize this escape—a photograph of a preacher

delivering a sermon out in the sun, backed by a curtain of handkerchiefs, facing a crowd of

worshipers; a series of photographs of a man and woman on the beach near Seabeck,

Washington, wearing costumes made from fern fronds; photographs of an early “phantasy” near

Kitsap Cabin of “The Shepherds in the Distance” encircled by an informal but enraptured

audience.3

Photographs in the albums serve as actual commentary on urban anxiety of this era. A

snapshot (Figure 1) from the Mountaineers’ 1915 annual outing to Mount Rainier, in which the

group encircled the mountain, depicted Harry Weer making a call from a phone mounted in a

sizeable evergreen tree. The caption reads, “On the trail Harry Weer, the leader, took advantage

of his last opportunity to communicate with the outside world.”4 Mt. Rainier National Park had

been created 16 years earlier, in 1899, an act which had both established the park as a wilderness

free from commercial enterprise and cemented the intrusion of modern society into the park.5 In

a party of the size that encircled Mt. Rainier in the summer of 1915, the outside world was both

far away and too close. Many of the Mountaineers counted themselves among conservationists

rather than those who sought greater development of the state’s natural resources. If developers

were unable to deforest or mine the park for resources, then its greatest value was as a draw for

increased tourism. By installing features like roads that allowed for more casual use of the park

and phones like the one pictured in the photograph of Harry Weer, park management decreased

the distance between the ‘secluded’ and fantastical alpine world and the human world below. If

parks like Mount Rainier National Park became too developed, too accessible, this could threaten

3 Album 66, Mountaineers Photograph Collection; Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, University of Washington Special Collections. 4 Album 6.19c. Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, University of Washington Special Collections. 5 “Mount Rainier NP: Wonderland: An Administrative History.”

22 the special relationship between serious outdoorspeople like the Mountaineers and the mountain.

Though opinions within the club varied, a society dedicated to preserving and exploring nature

requires that that nature be undisturbed and unexplored to begin with.

Figure 1. "On St. Andrews Trail." Album 6.19c, 1915. Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, University of Washington Special Collections.

Summitting and Prestige

The Mountaineers contributed to a certain amount of posturing associated with the act of

mountain climbing, beyond a feeling of being the protectors of unmarred nature. Actual

mountain climbing, out in nature, was difficult, fraught with genuine hardship, and served as an

example of the emphasis that Mountaineers placed on hard work followed by a well-deserved

reward. Below is a photograph (Figure 2) of two beaming women clad in “peak graduate attire”.

There were numerous celebrations for “six peak graduates”, those who had summitted six of the

23 more notable peaks in Washington state. This album, of a 1926 summer outing to the Olympic

Mountains, contains a number of photographs of individuals wearing graduation costume—from

mortarboard and robe to frothy white dresses. In the 1926 issue of “The Mountaineer”, the author

describes graduation costume: “A bit of cheesecloth, a bunch of thistle blooms, a card-board and

wash-basin cap, and the conventional graduation attire was emulated, or even outdone.”6

Graduation was both serious and playful, a genuine accomplishment that was celebrated with

lightheartedness. The women depicted here were adorned with leaves and flowers and in the

shade of what appears to be a particularly majestic tree. They are also clad in hiking boots,

despite not wearing clothing for hiking, a practical decision that could mean either that the site of

these photographs was remote enough to require a significant walk, or an attempt to highlight the

physical ruggedness of the women’s accomplishment. Other “graduation” photographs depict

similar costuming to that of the two women: formal attire, except the shoes, with the added

addition of true costume pieces, often organic in origin. Some photographs of six-peak graduates

show them wearing conventional mortarboards. The idea of graduating as an expression of

summitting a peak is prevalent within the bulletins of the Mountaineers as well. The list of

individuals present on this 1926 summer outing lists which mountains they summitted, if any at

all.7 The trips were meant to be all-inclusive, but there was a certain amount of prestige

associated with summitting, a sense that this act of conquest cemented the uniqueness of the

Mountaineer’s relationship with nature.

6 The Mountaineer, vol. 19, no. 1 (1926): pp. 15, Mountaineers Collection, University of Washington Special Collections. 7 The Mountaineer, pp. 14.

24

Figure 2. Two women climbers in graduation attire, August 13, 1926. Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection. Album 33.089c.

Race and Racism

American mountaineering societies were the direct descendants of the Victorian era

European mountaineering tradition, a tradition focused on conquest and classification as much as

the more recreational aspects of climbing.8 But American mountaineering clubs could be

separated from their European forefathers and counterparts most notably in their attempts to

define their identity as Americans through the landscape. Northwestern mountaineering clubs,

8 Hansen, The Summits of Modern Man.

25 then, focused on constructing the dominant identity of A Pacific Northwesterner as a white,

upper class person who engages with the great outdoors in a substantive way—but only as a form

of recreation. In this way, the individuals who built this identity were able to subtly exclude

those who relied on nature for their livelihood, including those who dwelled in rural areas, or

who relied on subsistence hunting, fishing, or gathering to survive.

The club’s photographs document this kind of racism more effectively than many other

mediums. A number of photographs from personal albums documenting a trip to the Olympic

Peninsula in 1932 depict their Indian guide, who goes unnamed in the photographs, holding a

freshly caught fish. These images are paired with another of one of the women on the trip, a

companion of the photographer, in her cutoffs and boots, posing with the guide and his fish as an

accessory. Another personal album, Mabel Vanderpool Nash’s album entitled “Photos in the

Great Wet” from an excursion to the Kitsap Peninsula in 1923-1924, includes several seemingly

candid photos of a group of unnamed S’Klallam children. These are labeled simply as “Clallam

Indian children” with little other indication as to the source or purpose of the photo other than,

presumably, the novelty of the sight of Native children for a white city dweller like Nash.

Photographs like these demonstrate the fetishization of Natives in particular that was and is a

cornerstone of white Northwestern identity.

Less direct objectification of indigenous communities was also prevalent in photograph

albums. A pair of photographs (Figures 3 and 4) from a 1912 excursion to Mount Rainier taken

at camp featured wooden skeletons of buildings at the site. In the caption for the images, the

author writes of the “many evidences that this beautiful camping ground had been used by the

Indians. Among them, on the bank of a small creek, was found the framework of one of their

sweat-houses. On the morning of July 23rd, the “Lunch Committee” held its session under some

26 teepee poles left standing by the aboriginal campers”9 Several things are notable about these

images and their captions in particular: the language the author uses to relegate Natives to the

past tense, a lack of familiarity on the part of the author with the architectural styles at play, and

near-giddiness at the prospect of camping on this same site that had been occupied by Native

campers in the near past. In this way white, urban-dwelling Pacific Northwesterners were able to

narrow down Pacific Northwestern identity as belonging to them and them alone. By forming an

identity that was essentially exclusionary in particular of people of color, they cemented their

place in the great narrative of the American West.

Figure 3. Temporary kitchen for Camp 3 showing tentpoles for Native American teepees in background, Naches Valley, July 23, 1912. Photographed by Anna L. Benedict, Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, Album 1.12a.

9 Caption, Anna L. Benedict, Album 1.12a, Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, University of Washington Special Collections.

27

Figure 4. Frame of Native American structure. Naches Valley, July 23, 1912. Photographed by Anna L. Benedict, Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, Album 1.12b.

Spirituality and Group Identity

The markedly liberal and urban politics of the Mountaineers found free expression in the

mountains, where they could enjoy and record more ‘natural’ relationships. Surely, if they could

summit these peaks, they had as much of a place in the mountains as the mountains had in them.

In the image below (Figure 5), the individuals are pictured as almost an afterthought against the

mass of the glacier in the background. The group contained both men and women. Nearly half of

the 1906 founding members of the Mountaineers were women, and women are a common sight

in the Mountaineers’ outdoor photographs of this era.10 Women’s participation in the

Mountaineers was neither an afterthought nor a fluke, even if it was not always harmonious.

10 Mountaineers Photograph Collection. University of Washington Special Collections.

28 Mountain climbing, particularly summitting, remained a man’s game.11 Nevertheless,

photographs like the image below (Figure 5) of mixed-gender hiking and climbing parties are

cheerful, entries in a historical record that highlights the recreational nature of the club.

The spiritual nature of the group was evident in the largely low barrier for entry and

reverence with which members photographs the mountain views and scenic vistas. Nature was an

escape from the godlessness of urban society, but it was also a uniting factor within the club and

a method of assuring the Mountaineers’ place. There are few photographs of religious services

on the outings of the Mountaineers, but such services were certainly prevalent. Instead, one can

fill in the gaps in the record with other images of aspects of daily life, and ultimately with the

reverence with which the group chronicled their own organizational story. Creating a regional

identity was much the same as writing history. In a compiled album or scrapbook—anything that

was not meant only for its creator—a narrative was a necessity. In the fantasy world that

photographers created with these snapshots, there was space for complex emotions, particularly

if those emotions sprung from the natural beauty of the greater Northwest and her mountain

ranges.

11 Peter L. Bayers, “Frederick Cook, Mountaineering in the Alaskan Wilderness, and the Regeneration of Progressive Era Masculinity,” Western American Literature 38, no. 2 (2003): 170–93.

29

Figure 5. "Some of the crevasses of the Nisqually" Fairman B. Lee and some hikers next to crevasses on Nisqually Glacier, June-August 1919. PH0341. Mountaineers Photograph Album

Collection, University of Washington Special Collections.

Photography represented a means of preservation of a particular scene or moment or

memory. Snapshots of trail life, nature shots, posed portraits, picturesque photography of natural

features—all were efforts to stop time. The amateur nature photographers of this period, besides

their role as documentarians and chroniclers, were focused looking to the past and to the world

of fantasy to represent themselves and decide who and what they were representing.

These were truly personal images that did not showcase any sweeping views in the backdrop,

instead focused only on camaraderie and the preservation of memory. The image below (Figure

6) depicted a cheerful group of Mountaineers indulging in a feast of watermelon on a 1920

excursion to the Olympic Mountains. It serves as an excellent example of the most casual

photography in these albums. There is no costuming in watermelon-eating image, but costumes

30 were a relatively common presence in a number of the more personal albums and snapshots.

There are a number of other photographs in this vein: masked individuals on top of a hill in full

witch costume, a series from a ski race in drag, any number of photographs of Mountaineers,

inebriated and celebrating, at a Christmas, New Year’s, or anniversary party.

There type of shots were commonplace, especially in the albums. The man second from the

right with a ring of watermelon rind circling his face and his comrade peering out from between

his legs is clearly pictured in a moment of levity and of joy. They serve to highlight the truly

fantastical nature of the outdoors through lighthearted antics and rejection of social norms,

particularly on less physically strenuous excursions. Close up shots like this one express

emotion, but they also preserve that emotion as a memory, as a form of more personal history

than can be told with a scenic view.

Figure 6. "Men and women eating watermelon at Taholah", August 21, 1920. Album 31.79, Mountaineers Photograph Album Collection, University of Washington Special Collections.

31

If individuals of the early twentieth century decided to base their identity around a natural

feature of the land, the mountain was a remarkably stable choice. If the most constant factor of

Pacific Northwest regionalism was constant growth—big business, extraction of raw materials

from the land—then perhaps the unchanging faces of the mountains were comforting. The old

growth forests may be cut down, the rivers overfished to depletion, but the mountains remained.

Mount Rainier looked, at least from a great distance, much the same in 1906 as it does in 1932,

in 1960, in 1991, in 2019. The mountains were a close and constant companion, something to be

conquered, to be admired, to be cherished above all things. The land itself united high and low.

The act of photography was a means of preservation and creation at once. Photographs and

photograph albums established the ethos and belief system of the club, as well as displaying

distinct aspects of that belief system: fear of encroaching modernity, an exclusive and prestigious

identity, spiritual relationships with the outdoors. Photographs expressed a cohesive culture

within the ranks of the Mountaineers as well as to the outside world beyond. The elements of

connection to the natural world, costuming and celebration, and reverence for nature all became

important elements when it came to creating a community. By becoming the chroniclers of the

story through albums and photographs, Mountaineers staked a claim on an exclusive Pacific

Northwest identity and egalitarian spirit that was able to stand opposed to development while

simultaneously benefitting from it, modernizing the dichotomy that still defines the region today.

32

“Mountain-Mothered Refuge” – Poetry, Songs, and Singalongs

The 1915 summer outing group of Mountaineers is alleged to be “the first company of

men and women to encircle Mt. Rainier and view it from every point.”1 It was a large and lively

party. It is clear from this dedication that the club, or at least its publications, emphasizes that

natural beauty was a prime motivation of mountain climbing, and an achievement in and of

itself. Outings of this kind stopped mid-century as the group’s membership increased and they

shifted their concerns to newer forms of conservation. Large numbers of people tramping as a

group through what was meant to be a pristine, unspoiled wilderness did not make for good

forest stewardship. But in the earlier part of the twentieth century, this type of large group hike

was a standby of many mountaineering clubs. Through the writing and recitation of poetry and

songs, group outings served a greater purpose than to merely experience nature with like-minded

individuals. The camaraderie brought about by hiking together was heightened by lectures,

religious services, and the far more informal sing along.

The Mountaineers, in their various chapters, published books of poetry and song, which

run the gamut from booklets of camp songs meant for singing along to booklets of nature poetry

that emphasize the sublime beauty of the forests and sweeping vistas of the mountains. The

books contain a mix of old standards, popular music of the time, patriotic songs, hymns, and

rewritten versions of these aforementioned songs. The songbooks and poetry books I have

referenced here span from 1913 to 1922 and include the work of a variety of authors. If

photography was a method of establishing and recording the ethos of the club, writing history,

and creating identity, then verse—meaning both poetry and song here—was a means of

1 “A Souvenir of Mountain Poems”, by F.W. Greiner. 1915, Box 1, Folder 21, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections.

33 affirming that identity and building a cohesive community. Themes of pure spirituality, an

emphasis on hard work and perseverance, and condemnation of development of the land and

materialism show up consistently throughout these works. Elements of religion and spirituality

were as important as the more concrete aspects of daily life on the mountain, such as camp

cookery or sudden rainstorms. Combined, the metaphysical and the earthly made for a solid

identity, and one that the Mountaineers tied to their rambling across the land.

The presence of religion on these treks was not a secondary concern, but rather a major

element of mountaineering in the Progressive era. The Mountaineers held several “Mountain

Services” from the period between 1913 and 1930, presided over by the Rev. F. J. Van Horn,

with an emphasis on the spiritual power and glory of the mountains.2 Services of this nature

emphasized what the Mountaineers believed to be the power of outdoor recreation to bring them

closer to god. Fast paced, modern, urban life was a direct threat to spirituality. Thankfully, the

ills of society, the Mountaineers believed, could be remedied with the aid of outdoor recreation.

Sermons aside, the published poem and songbooks of the Progressive-era Mountaineers contain

a number of hymns and poems that call for devotion to god and the natural world in equal

measure.

Hymns

The 1915 book of poetry inspired by Mt. Rainier, by F.W. Greiner, includes poems

entitled “The Friendship Fire”, an ode to “men who love each other in a manly way” while

sitting around a campfire; “The Call of the Mountain”, which characterized the mountain as the

lover of the writer; and “I Like The West”, which lauded the bigness, newness, blessedness, and

pure air of the American West.3 F.W. Greiner’s “The Mountaineers’ Hymn” was an adaptation

2 Ephemera, Mountaineers Society Records, University of Washington Special Collections. 3 “A Souvenir of Mountain Poems”, by F.W. Greiner.

34 of the well-known “Nearer My God to Thee”.4 In many cases he implies that god and nature are

one and the same. “The Mountaineers’ Hymn” was printed on a leaflet, something to be handed

out to individuals. The Mountaineers, at least in this period, were not a secular group. The 1913

group that crossed over the Olympics included not only Greiner, but also a Rev. Hugh E. Brown,

who “looked after [the group’s] spiritual needs in a manner that made all feel that ‘the groves’, in

truth, ‘were God’s first temples’.”5 During this period, the connection between worship and the

great outdoors was not merely implied or unspoken, but an explicit fact. If the groves were god’s

first temples, then those who worshiped in them must have been entitled to a privileged

relationship with him.

Greiner’s rewritten hymn equates the mountain views of the greater Northwest with the

wonders of heaven: “On winding forest trail,/Or mountain side,/Unfold Thy wonders Lord/Like

vistas wide…”6 As in his booklets of poetry, nature was not a replacement for religion. The two

were not in conflict, but existed side by side. If American conquest of the West was ordained by

divine power to begin with, then surely those natural wonders were included. The conquest of

each new peak was more than just a material accomplishment; it meant climbing closer to

heaven. Greiner’s hymn also likened returning home from an excursion, a climb, or a hike to the

soul’s ascension: “When life’s long outing ends,/No more to roam,/Guide Thou us o’er the

trail/That leads us home…”7 To extend the metaphor, mountain climbing was a dangerous sport,

one which entailed walking the razor’s edge between life and death, braving genuine danger. The

4 Mountaineers’ Hymn, by F.W. Greiner, 1915, Box 1, Folder 24, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections. 5 Issue 2. “Mountaineers’ Outing in the Olympics”. Page 71. 6 “Mountaineers’ Hymn”, by F.W. Greiner. 7 “Mountaineers’ Hymn”, by F.W. Greiner.

35 sublime beauty of the mountain range was heavenly, but the climber’s closeness to death was

what inspired religious fervor.

In another rewritten hymn, this time by then-club president Edmond Meany, the

hardships that camp songs discussed in goriest detail served a greater purpose. Meany’s hymn

was to be sung to the tune of “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep”, written with absolute gravity.

“Climbing the Mountain’s Rugged Steep”8 was a method of salvation for Meany, who in

addition to his tenure as club president served in the state legislature in 1891 and 1893 and a

professor of history and botany at the University of Washington.9 Being a Mountaineer in the

world of Meany’s hymn was not merely a hobby, but a metaphor, a way of being for the soul.

The mountaineer ought to be as brave as trees left standing after a storm, or heather growing in

the snow.10 Keeping the faith allowed for the physical body of the climber to ascend to the

summit, as well as for the soul of the climber to ascend to heaven.

Capitalism and Anti-Materialism

Mountaineer Nina Moore’s “Monte Cristo”, written and pasted in the back of a 1929

photograph album that depicts multiple ventures, discussed the virtues of hiking rather than

mining. Moore’s poem is of particular significance in that it took a stance of opposition to

mining and other industrial development, specifically highlighting the difference between

peaceful hiking and exploration and resource extraction. Moore characterized the town of Monte

Cristo as a ghost town, implying that reckless pursuit of wealth was what brought an end to the

town. Moore likely wrote the poem following a trip around the region, paired with a series of

8 “Climbing the Mountain’s Rugged Steep”, by Edmond S. Meany, from “Mountaineers’ Songs of the Camp Fire and Trail, compiled by the Everett Mountaineers. 1915, Box 1, Folder 24, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections. 9 “Edmond S. Meany,” The Mountaineers, accessed September 26, 2019, https://www.mountaineers.org/locations-lodges/meany-lodge/history/edmond-s-meany. 10 “Climbing the Mountain’s Rugged Steep”, by Edmond S. Meany.

36 photos of her and her traveling companions posed in front of a series of abandoned mineshafts.

Monte Cristo is an abandoned settlement in Snohomish County, the remnant of a failed gold and

silver mining town. By the time Moore wrote the poem, likely 1929, Monte Cristo was a resort

town built on the bones of the old mining town. The resort operated until 1983, and the town is a

ghost town again today.11 The mines shuttered for good and the town was more or less

abandoned by 1907, which was recent enough for the story of the failed mining operation to be

common knowledge. Moore, after visiting the town, wrote: “But as for me, my wealth I’ve

found/In each forest and mountain and lake/For the wealth I’ve gained is richer far/Than the

miner will ever stake.”12 The poem represents Moore’s attempt to assert an identity outside of

industry and capitalism in a place that is often characterized only by those things. The anti-

materialist elements of Moore’s poem emphasize the importance of retaining the land unscathed.

Instead of plundering the earth for minerals, the Mountaineers “pray the God of Nature/May

reveal his treasures rare.”13 The spiritual world and the conceptual rewards of nature were worth

more to poets like Moore, Meany, and Greiner than material goods gleaned from the land. The

realms of the physical, grimier aspects of mountain life were not separate from the hymns and

poetry that take a more high-minded approach. The mountains themselves ground the hymns and

poetry and uplift the camp songs. Both accomplish the shared goal of building community

among the party and solidifying the culture of the organization.

Community Building

But the importance of both camp songs and poetry did not stop at the time of writing. For

camp songs in particular, it was the act of the singing that gave them meaning. Many of the

11 “Monte Cristo -- Thumbnail History,” accessed November 18, 2019, https://www.historylink.org/File/8404. 12 “Monte Cristo”, by Nina Moore. 1984-13: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988. University of Washington Special Collections. 13 “Monte Cristo”, by Nina Moore.

37 songs contained in the songbooks I discussed here were old standards, either preserved in their

original form or rewritten for the purposes of the club, generally with a mountain-living twist.

The latter half of the Tacoma Mountaineers 1922 Songbook was composed primarily of old

standards. The songs ranged from serious hymns to nature to tongue in cheek songs poking fun

at mountain life. Presumably, all of these were group songs, meant for sing-alongs to foster

community and praise the joys of group travel. Even in the less serious of the songs, which often

focused on the miserable realities of outdoor recreation—bugs, mud, hunger, the constant

presence of one’s travel companions—they were meant to bring levity to a situation that could

easily have been wet and miserable without a little camaraderie.

The Mountaineers’ Songbooks, collections of fairly typical, largely secular and universal

group songs, display the everyday nature of song and performance. The song “Cheechoko’s

Dream”14 was an excellent example of the kind of material to be found in the Mountaineers’

Songbooks. There is a great deal of duplication and crossover between the two songbooks,

though the Everett songbook has the added advantage of many of the songs being credited to

their writers. This song appeared in both songbooks. “Cheechako”, here misspelled as

“cheechoko”, is a Chinook Jargon word roughly meaning a tenderfoot or a novice15, but the

songwriter used it here specifically to refer to a newcomer to the mining districts of Alaska and

northwestern Canada.

Chinook Jargon developed as a trade pidgin borrowing from a variety of indigenous and

European languages. It was commonly used in the greater Pacific Northwest throughout the late

nineteenth century, and faced near-extinction, though has undergone a revival in recent years. By

14 “Cheechoko’s Dream”, from “The Mountaineer Song Book”, compiled by the Tacoma Mountaineers, 1922. Box 1, Folder 25, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections. 15 “Definition of Cheechako,” accessed September 26, 2019, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheechako.

38 1922, the Chinook Jargon was no longer widely spoken in the urban Puget Sound area, and the

word cheechako would have primarily been understood as Yukon Gold Rush slang. Gold Rush

was recent, and a great number of individuals who were living in and around the Puget Sound

area at this time were tied to the Gold Rush in some way, be it as miners or merchants. In

particular, a great number of wealthy and powerful people in the Seattle and Tacoma areas were

former miners, likely those who had successfully made some kind of fortune in the gold fields.16

“Cheechoko’s Dream” may have harkened back to the Gold Rush, but despite its use of

Gold Rush slang, it was not a miner’s song, referring as it did explicitly to the trappings of a

backpacking or mountaineering trip: alpenstocks, hobnails, calks. It did not extoll the natural

beauty of its surroundings, but rather longed for the comforts of home and of city living—the

“happy land/way down on Puget Sound”17, contrasting the civilization of electrically-lit Tacoma

with the biting flies, a monotonous diet, sleeping on hard earth, and hiking up the mountains

themselves. Nevertheless, the title was almost tongue-in-cheek. It could be construed to be half

mocking the newcomer who had not yet realized that the discomfort of a climb was worth the

hardship. Many of the songs were good natured jabs at the madness of the mountain climber, an

inside joke meant to soothe climbers and build community spirit in a lighthearted way. Like

hymns and nature poetry, camp songs described and reaffirmed the organizational culture of

Progressive-era mountaineering clubs.

Hard Work and Perseverance

This was not the only song that refers to the company of climbers as cheechakos.

Mountain climbing, for these city dwellers, was a leisure activity, but one that took hard work

16 George Gibbs, Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon, 2005, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15672; George Lang, Making Wawa: The Genesis of Chinook Jargon (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008). 17 “Cheechoko’s Dream”, from “The Mountaineer Song Book”, compiled by the Tacoma Mountaineers, 1922.

39 and dedication. “Cheechoko’s Song” (To the tune of “Buy a Broom”) discussed rock chimneys:

“easy, hemlocky and squeezy”, and sung that “Rocks may roll o’er us from sourdough’s big

feet./They lead us o’er heather in all kinds of weather/Oh we’re a bunch of cheechokos…”18

Such hardships might have befallen climbers, especially newcomers, but that was part and parcel

of the climb. In “Oh We’ve Come to Climb Mt. Baker” (To the tune of “Polly, Wolly, Doodle”),

the song lamented that “the switchbacks make us dizzy,/And our blisters keep us busy”19 with a

refrain of “Sing the glory of the mountain all day”. The glory of the mountain views was the

conceptual reward for braving the trek to get there. Climbing was suitably harsh for people who

considered themselves to be the descendants of the pioneers and involved the kind of hard work

and perseverance that appealed to the Protestant work ethic. Upon summiting Mt. Baker, the

song reminded the singer, “Oh the things that really please us/Are the peaks where breezes freeze

us…” Without a certain amount of suffering, there could be no real pleasure. These elements of

the verse highlight the inherently exclusionary aspects of the Pacific Northwest identity that the

Mountaineers strove to occupy.

The theme of hard work and perseverance ties all the verse of the Mountaineers together.

“The Mountaineers”, by H.B. Hinman (to the tune of “The Marlborough Volunteers”), discussed

the variety and scope of the various “outing clubs” in existence: baseball, tennis, golf. But it

noted that the Mountaineers differed from all of these, claiming, “it’s worth it, when you’ve tried

it for a year…” Despite the hardship, the inevitable rewards of nature were certain to win out.

Oh, there are some little drawbacks, and distinctions may be made ‘Twixt the rainy days and dry ones, ‘twixt the sunshine and the shade, You must do the sum yourself—and the method’s pretty clear—

18 “Cheechoko’s Song”, from “The Mountaineer Song Book”, compiled by the Tacoma Mountaineers, 1922. Box 1, Folder 25, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections. 19 “Oh, We’ve Come to Climb Mt. Baker”, from “The Mountaineer Song Book”, compiled by the Tacoma Mountaineers, 1922. Box 1, Folder 25, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections.

40

You should work it out by practice as a Mountaineer.

As a recruitment song based off of a school song, “The Mountaineers” emphasizes the

friendliness and community elements of the club over their outdoorsiness. As it mentions in the

last verse, “For where everyone is willing, there’s a lot that comes by drilling.” The hardships of

nature notwithstanding, the club was presented through these kinds of songs as a welcoming

community, the equivalent of a regular sports club, but with the added advantage of real

adversity, an enemy and an ally to be found in nature.20

The Pacific Northwest as a Region

“Let’s All Sing!” was far less specialized, being a songbook of preexisting songs rather

than original compositions or rewrites meant to be sung in the mountain air. The vast majority of

the songs included in this particular songbook were patriotic, American standard, or popular. It

was not a publication by the Mountaineers, in great contrast to the other booklets mentioned

here, though the inclusion of the “The Old Settler’s Song” cemented it firmly as a Pacific

Northwestern songbook.

The Pacific Northwest was depicted as a heavenly place, but that heaven was hard won.

“The Old Settler’s Song” was once a popular folk song, likely dating from the 1870s, which

enjoyed a resurgence in popularity a century later. The lyrics detail the life of the titular old

settler, who arrives “flat broke in midwinter” and finds the land “enveloped in fog” and “covered

all over with timber”.21 After adjusting to the weather, he comes to love the land he arrived in out

of hardship for its natural bounty. “No longer a slave of ambition,” the settler realizes “that Eden

20 “The Mountaineers”, by H.B. Hinman, from “Mountaineers’ Songs of the Camp Fire and Trail”, compiled by the Everett Mountaineers, 1915, Box 1, Folder 24, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections. 21 “The Old Settler’s Song”, from “Let’s All Sing!”, 1922, Box 1, Folder 24, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections.

41 is on Puget Sound”.22 For the Mountaineers, this characterization of the Northwest as heaven was

an integral part of the organization. Whichever side of the great and terrible conflict between

development and conservation an individual fell on, the heart of the matter was that Washington

was a special place.

The pieces of regional identity are all present in the song in the ways that matter—the

land as both an enemy and an ally, the darkness of the cloudy sky, the inclination towards hard

work and characterization of the Puget Sound region as a place to escape the life of ambition.

Though not an original composition or even tangentially related to twentieth century outdoor

recreational societies, The Old Settler’s Song was wildly popular in the early days of the Pacific

Northwest, regarded by many as an unofficial state song. Specifically, the song emphasizes the

denseness of the undergrowth: in one verse, the pioneer is unable to dig past the underbrush to

reach arable soil in order to plant his crops. The gloom that surrounds the protagonist of the

song—upon arriving in Washington, he feels that he has reached “the end of a jumping-off

place”—is related to the majesty of the land. The Old Settler’s Song depicts the Pacific

Northwest, and the Puget Sound area more specifically, as a place of both boundless life (the

“acres of clams” mentioned in the last line) and inevitable death. Coldness and darkness, in this

case, revealed inner peace below.23

Many of the songs refer to the hardships of climbing without mention of the rewards that

lay beyond. Of course the mountaineer knows and desires the rewards of the view of the peak. A

camp song is concerned with the physical and the immediate, not the divine. Fight through the

mosquitos (detailed in “Citronella”), streak yourself with greasepaint, (The central figure of “My

22 “The Old Settler’s Song”. 23 “The Old Settler’s Song”; Linda Allen, Washington Songs and Lore (Spokane, Wash. : Melior Publications, 1988), http://archive.org/details/washingtonsongsl0000alle.

42 Beauty Was Lost in the Mountains” was “despoiled by the snow and the sun”), suffer the long

wait for the pack train carrying dunnage (“One, Two, Three, Four”), and the rewards of a hot

meal await (“Pancakes and Bacon”). 24 The material and the ephemeral were separated in verse,

but to the climber it was obvious that they existed as one. What would be the reward of the

climb? Would it be like the rewards of the kingdom of heaven? The character of the Pacific

Northwest, or what was perceived to be the character of the Pacific Northwest, is ever present in

each piece of verse. Even if it is not mentioned directly in the song, the singer knew to expect

some kind of intangible renewal of the spirit as the result of the climb.

Figure 7. Handwritten poem about the summer outing to the Olympics by Elizabeth Sander Lily, 1920, Album 29.77a, University of Washington Special Collections.

24 “Citronella”, “My Beauty Was Lost in the Mountains”, “One, Two, Three, Four”, and “Pancakes and Bacon” from “Mountaineers’ Songs of the Camp Fire and Trail”, compiled by the Everett Mountaineers, 1915, Box 1, Folder 24, 1984-013: Mountaineers Society Records, 1885-1988, University of Washington Special Collections.

43

Elizabeth Sander Lilly’s poem (Figure 7), included in a photographic album made to

commemorate the 1920 summer outing to the Olympic Mountains, laments “the end of a perfect

trip,” and describes the place “where the cataracts roar and foam” and “the Dolly Vardens

roam”.25 Like many of the other poems in this vein, Lilly’s poem is amateurish and sentimental,

but it highlighted the heightened emotions and importance of recording memory that impacted

the way Mountaineers built community. By experiencing the transcendental beauty of nature

together, and reminiscing about it around the campfire, Mountaineers became more than just a

club.

By writing and rewriting songs, poetry, and hymns, Mountaineers accomplished several

tasks in the service of affirming a Pacific Northwest identity and their right to that identity. This

ingroup-versus-outgroup dynamic applied not only to club members and nonmembers, but also

to white, able-bodied urbanites and those who could not conform to this standard. On a purely

practical level, group events like singalongs or church services brought about a greater and

deeper level of camaraderie, something which was both beneficial to the club as a whole as well

as a necessity when it came to the genuine danger of the great outdoors. They also stated their

right to be in this particular land on a spiritual level through verse. God intended that their

forefathers go west, and god intended that they conquer this new country. The beauty of this land

could only be like the beauty of heaven. By reiterating their right to nature through verse,

Mountaineers of the 1910s and 1920s were able to claim a privileged status as Northwesterners,

as people with a special relationship with the land.

25 “The Trails End”, by Elizabeth Sander Lily, 1920. Album 29.77a, University of Washington Special Collections.

44

“This Garlanded Ampitheatre” – Kitsap Theatre and the Mountaineers Players

The crowd of about 300 Mountaineers sat on logs embedded in terraced earth, overlooking a

stage that “seem[ed] to have grown up out of the virgin forest,”1 surrounded by stands of old

growth forest, rhododendron bushes (the state flower), and ferns and mosses flanking the stage.

The 1926 construction of the Forest Theatre was the culmination of a long organizational history

not only of performances on this particular plot of land, but of costumed “fantasies”, plays, and

parties of all sorts across the state, of photography, of poetry and song, of illustration and

cartoons. That summer, club President Edmund Meany formally dedicated the theater, and the

Mountaineers put on their first production on the new stage. Rainald and the Red Wolf, set in the

12th century, was a proper fantasy, with a hero (the titular Rainald), a villain (the Baron

Waldemar), and a fair lady in need of rescuing (Ysobel, the Countess of Lavayne).2 The

performance was fully costumed and produced, featuring a masked morality play within a play,

with actors playing the characters of Greed, Fear, and Sloth.3 It was an appropriately fanciful

choice for a theatre that one newspaper described as “The only real forest theatre in the United

States.”4 The birth of the Kitsap Forest Theatre sprung from a long history of playacting and

performance among the Mountaineers. It was difficult to define the purpose of such an emotional

act as performance. Acting and theater certainly functioned as a form of community building, but

were also a method of projecting the identity of the performers to the outside world. In this case,

1 Arthur Loveless, The Mountaineer, 1917. 2 Rainald and the Red Wolf; being the masque of the pilgrims and the townsfolk of Lavayne, and how they played their Shrovetide miracle before the Lord Waldemar, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman and Thomas Wood Stevens, 1914. 3 Lynn Moen, Nedra Slausen, and Betty Jensen, eds., Theatre in the Wild: A Pictoral History of the Mountaineers Forest Theatre (Mountaineers History Committee, 1999). 4 Moen, Slausen, and Jensen.

45 the Mountaineers used performance to display the aspects of Pacific Northwest regionalism they

cultivated: spirituality in nature, fantasy and play, exclusivity based on hard work.

The Kitsap Forest Theatre began its life as Hidden Ranch: the Paschall family purchased

the land upon their move from Minnesota to Washington in 1907, and began to live and work

there. The Paschalls began their association with the club when, in 1909, the club stumbled upon

the ranch on one of their local walks around the Chico area. Several members of the family went

on to join the Mountaineers, and they began a long and fruitful relationship. Beginning in 1915,

the club purchased 74 acres of land next to the Paschalls’ land—the Rhododendron Preserve, the

Mountaineers’ oldest property. In 1919, the club purchased an additional tract of land adjacent to

the Rhododendron Preserve. This would be the land on which the Forest Theatre was situated.

After the construction of the Kitsap Cabin in 1918, the land became a popular destination for

Mountaineers, particularly in the spring to see the rhododendrons bloom.5

History of Performance

At the time, the Kitsap property was a remote area. There was no highway in the area

until 1923 and the construction of the Seabeck Highway.6 Transportation around the Puget

Sound for the first half of the twentieth century was largely water-based, and for Seattle or

Tacoma-based Mountaineers this would have meant a boat ride across the sound to Chico,

followed by a two-mile hike to the site itself. Sites like the Kitsap property were genuinely

remote. The land surrounding the Kitsap Cabin was an isolated and beautiful area, replete with

old growth forest and sprawling rhododendron bushes. Large groups traveling out to the property

would have to entertain one another, and theatrical acts around the campfire were a perfect way

to do so. Outdoor theatres are relatively commonplace, but even at the time there was nothing

5 Moen, Slausen, and Jensen. 6 Washington State Highway Map, 1931, AR115-A-3, Washington State Archives.

46 equivalent to the Forest Theatre, which seemed “to have grown up out of the ground as a very

part of the virgin forest.”7 Theatre for the purposes of community building was a natural

conclusion to this tradition of performing for other members of the hiking party out in nature.

“Dramatic diversions” were an important element of outdoor recreation and outdoor

living. One of the more entertaining anecdotes from the early days of the Mountaineers’ tenure at

Kitsap Cabin was the christening of the Paschalls’ cow, showcasing the kind of Progressive-era

Protestantism imbued with pagan elements that was so present in the religious practices of the

Mountaineers. In 1918, Mountaineers on the ‘Kitsap Trip’, astounded at the namelessness of the

new cow, decided to christen it “Christine Guiding Star Pershing Liberty Belle Irving Mount

Rainiering Kitsap Cabinatta”—Genevieve for short. In reality, the cow was called Cris. But

Genevieve/Cris received her name in an elaborate, costumed christening ceremony presided over

by Pastor Carl Croson. Additionally, the christening of the cow marked the escalation of

performances by the Mountaineers in the Kitsap Cabin space. Even inward facing performances,

by this time, had become elaborate affairs.

Whatever performances were put on, the content of the show was always entwined with

the “green depths of the woods” and the richness of the land surrounding the players.8 During the

First World War, in particular, Mountaineers sent photographs and reports of these events to club

members serving overseas meant to raise their spirits. These can be viewed as early

performances for far away audiences. As early as 1916, Mountaineers put on casual

performances in the vicinity of Kitsap Cabin. A 1917 performance of Robin Hood traveled

through the woods from scene to scene, followed by the audience. The “staid trees had doubtless

never witnessed such a gladsome frolic as took place in the shade of their ongoing branches.”

7 Elizabeth Kirkwood, The Mountaineer, 1930. 8 Arthur Loveless, The Mountaineer, 1917.

47 Even prior to these proto-performances, Mountaineers behaved so theatrically at Kitsap Cabin

that building the theatre seemed almost pre-ordained.

Nature in Theater

What became legitimate theater began as playacting for the Mountaineers, a method of

self-expression and of becoming one with nature. Natural beauty induced a desire to play, to

enact fantastic visions for a crowd. Much of the literature surrounding the Kitsap property, the

productions enacted there, and the formal theatre is uninterested in answering the question of

why “a red-blooded hiking club” might want to act, to dress up, and to perform. Instead, articles

in issues of The Mountaineer sidestep the issue entirely, not deigning to answer such an obvious

question. Modern articles about the theater point to community building as the primary factor in

establishing a theater run by an outdoor recreation society.9 The outdoorsy, hardworking,

spiritual identity that the club established both internally through visual and literary works, and

externally through performance would become a major factor in the way the Mountaineers

presented the land and the theater to the outside world.

Mountaineers elevated their expressions of devotion to the landscape of the Pacific

Northwest and broadcast them to the world with these performances, the final act in what had

been a century, thus far, full of attempts to express pure love and devotion to the land. The

American relationship with nature had shifted in the last several decades, and many had begun to

view mother nature as more of an ally than a boogeyman. Mountaineers discussed Mary

Paschall wrote, in a passage about the ever-present wildlife on the Kitsap property: “[The water

ouzel] sings whenever he is lucky enough to find a salmon egg, sings in the hope of another,

sings because of the downpour, and sings because he simply must sing in a world so full of

9 Suzanne Gerber, “A Short History of The Mountaineers Players,” n.d.

48 motion and light.”10 The water ouzel, more commonly known as the American dipper, is the only

aquatic American songbird. Both males and females sing all year round. The water ouzel also

held a hallowed spot in the canon of American conservation and outdoor living, as it was famed

conservationist and author John Muir’s favorite bird. Muir wrote fancifully about the water

ouzel, describing it in great detail in The Mountains of California:

For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells. While water sings, so must he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sure accord; low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, but never silent.11

It is no surprise that outdoorspeople who considered themselves the descendants of Muir and the

conservation traditions he spearheaded would exalt the water ouzel as highly as did Muir. There

are many similarities between the values the Mountaineers and other outdoor societies of this era

promoted and the values that Muir and Paschall assign to the water ouzel: resilience in the face

of weather events or disaster, cheerfulness, independence. Paschall, for her part, was focused on

the beauty of the Kitsap property and the presence of wildlife in the area, but she was not simply

enraptured by the bird. The passage named the bird, but the bird was a metaphor for the artistic

creations—particularly the performances—of the Mountaineers.

Religion and Ritual

Like the written word and visual arts, stage performances retained a religious aspect even

when the material itself was secular. “Those who came to scoff remained to pray…. If you have

taken part in a production you have, in your small way, labored shoulder to shoulder with the

Great Workman in the creation of beauty.”12 There is some connection between actual religious

service and material performed at the Kitsap Theatre, at least in the earliest days. The christening

10 Mary Paschall, The Mountaineer, 1916. 11 John Muir, The Mountains of California (New York: The Century Co., 1894). 12 Harriet K. Walker, The Mountaineer, 1942.

49 of the Paschalls’ cow was tongue-in-cheek, but it was also performed by an actual member of the

clergy, and carried out with as much deliberation and attention to detail as had it been a more

serious service (even if the cow’s name did not stick). Evidently, Progressive-era Mountaineers

felt the freedom to include pagan and fantastic elements in their otherwise mainstream Protestant

Christianity.13 We see this in their mountain-themed services and hymns honoring nature

discussed earlier in this paper, but costumed playacting was an entirely different method of

expressing similar ideas. It meant a certain freedom from the tyranny of modern life:

timekeeping, everyday dress, capitalist society. Godliness could be found in nature, not in the

confines of the cities and the workday. By further removing themselves from everyday life while

on the Kitsap property, Mountaineers cemented their reprieve from the more sinful aspects of the

world.

Other rituals and private plays were also orchestrated with great attention to detail. A

May Day celebration, though performed by male members of the club in drag and clearly meant

to be silly, was nevertheless fully costumed and choreographed. Mountaineers performed a

‘gypsy’ dance to Romani music around the campfire with similar gravity. Mock weddings, mock

trials, and gold rushes were also elaborate and frequent enough to be mentioned in the annals of

The Mountaineer with little fanfare. This was not everyday life—far from it—but these costumed

events were nevertheless important. They marked the departure from ordinary life that made an

escape to nature so appealing, enhancing the most fantastic elements of the surrounding

environment. The Mountaineers’ performances had not yet graduated to the truly external

projections they would become, but though they were not fully outward facing, they were still a

form of performance and expression.14

13 Berry, Devoted to Nature. 14 Moen, Slausen, and Jensen, Theatre in the Wild: A Pictoral History of the Mountaineers Forest Theatre.

50

The Forest Theatre

The performances that the players selected were clearly chosen for their ability to not

only succeed, but be enhanced by the forest setting. The first true performance for a real

audience was Robin of Sherwood in 1923, followed by The Shepherd in the Distance, an

“Oriental pantomime” in 1924, and The Little Clay Cart, a “colorful Hindu Drama” in 1925.

Orientalism aside, these performances included themes of fantasy and beauty. The Forest Theatre

in its current form opened in 1926, and put on its first production on the new stage that June.

Around 300 Mountaineers saw the performance of Rainald—performances at the Forest Theatre

were still primarily delivered to an internal audience. The next few performances at the venue

were similarly fantastical. Alice in Wonderland in 1927, Robin of Sherwood in 1928. The vast

majority of these early shows took place in a fantasy or historic setting, playing on the

impressive ability of the wooded theater to induce fantasy and imaginative play in those who

passed time there.15

The theater, pictured below in 2019 (Figure 8), looked much the same after immediately

after its construction in 1926. The path that leads down to the site of the stage and theatre seating

was carved from what had once been a deer path. The natural world was a constant presence.

Before the region had been built up and truly industrialized, areas like the Paschalls’ ranch and

the Rhododendron Preserve were remarkably more surrounded by nature than they are today, or

would be even twenty years on. In any case, an outdoor theatre was certainly at the mercy of the

elements. Fears of peninsular rain showers were such that one Mountaineer wrote a song about

the issue entitled “It Ain’t Gonna Rain This Year” (to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the

Republic”).16 But the space was remarkably secluded and domesticated. The Kitsap property was

15 Moen, Slausen, and Jensen. 16 Moen, Morris C., 1956, From Moen, Slausen, and Jensen.

51 not atop a tall mountain, or really on the rugged Pacific coast. The actual built environment of

the theatre, cabin and associated structures took its cues from the camp and cabin architecture of

the era. The original cabin, constructed by mostly-women volunteers during the First World War,

was an appropriately rustic structure.

Figure 8. A performance of Mamma Mia at the Kitsap Forest Theatre. August 2019.

Mountaineer William Darling was the brains behind the design of the Forest Theatre,

which volunteer Mountaineers shaped into a sloped amphitheater. The seats were terraced into

the hillside, studded with logs. The stage, which sat at the bottom of the hill, was surrounded by

greenery: massive cedars, strategically placed ferns to act as organic footlights, wings of the

stage covered with tree bark and moss. The intended effect, that the theater appear to be a natural

and native part of the forest, was ultimately successful. The set design of Alice and Wonderland

52 in 1927 included giant mushrooms surrounding the stage, which “some Eastern tourists believed

to be the real thing.”17 Whether or not anyone was fooled by the construction is a mystery, but

this particular detail reveals two important aspects of the performance: that audiences were no

longer entirely internal by this point, and that Washingtonian Mountaineers perceived marked

differences between themselves and visitors from back east. People dwelling in the western

United States used the grandeur of their environment to draw a dividing line between themselves

and their eastern countrymen. The built environment of the Forest Theatre was meant to

highlight this, surrounded by enormous evergreens. The mushrooms that flanked the stage in

Alice may have been set dressing, but were inspired by the actual surroundings, an exaggeration

that came from the actual fungus-covered country.

Just why the Mountaineers established the Kitsap Forest Theatre in the first place is not

such a mystery as it seems at first blush. Establishing community as a group, projecting their

identity, cementing their status as rightful owners of the land were all suitable reasons for a

mountaineering club to make a foray into the dramatic arts. The Mountaineers purchased this

land with no intention of entering the dramatic arts, but in creating the theater gained the ability

to express the identity (both institutional and regional) that they had spent the previous years

building.18 Today, the theater still exists, and still puts on summer productions. They are one of

the oldest nonprofit theater groups in the United States. Even modern-day literature on the

theater highlights the space’s ability to transport those entering the property, to represent fantasy

and beauty. Theater was the ultimate cumulation of the years spent building, stretching, and

trying to understand what Pacific Northwest identity would look like. The theater served as a

17 Elizabeth Kirkwood. The Mountaineer, 1930. 18 Moen, Slausen, and Jensen, Theatre in the Wild: A Pictoral History of the Mountaineers Forest Theatre.

53 bridge uniting the more conventional, outdoor elements of the club and the artistic, romantic, and

religious elements as expressed in poetry, song, and the visual arts.

54

Conclusion

The Mountaineers grew in popularity over the years, and today have larger membership

numbers and a broader reach than ever before. The tradition of group outings ended in the 1950s,

due to the strain a large group tramping through the forest caused on the environment. This

meant no more albums or poems dedicated to group outings, though the arts remained a part of

outdoor recreation. The Kitsap Forest Theatre still puts on performances each summer. The

artistic legacy of the Mountaineers, both in the more community oriented and amateur efforts

represented here, as well as in the realm of ‘high art’, remains intact. Unfortunately, as many of

the works analyzed here were primarily inward facing, there is little evidence of what the greater

public reaction was. The legacy that Seattle-area Mountaineers built in the early decades of the

twentieth century is certainly still relevant. Through the arts, the Mountaineers both secured their

place as an organization and secured a privileged relationship with nature. Members forged

individual relationships with nature as well as community relationships. Over the years,

mountaineering clubs became part of the fabric of the Pacific Northwest. Nature already was, for

many, the most important element of the Pacific Northwest identity, but organized recreation

gave more weight to this relationship.

Mountaineers during the early twentieth century attempted to create an identity that fit

them specifically, often to the exclusion of the many others who inhabited the land they felt such

a spiritual bond with. The Pacific Northwest is often cited as the least religious region of the

country, or “unchurched”—in 2005, 63% of a surveyed population claimed no affiliation with

any one particular religious community. Many point to a near-religious affinity for nature as

55 replacing the need for a more traditional spiritual setting.1 The root cause is ultimately

conjecture, but the fact remains that the relationship Northwesterners believe they have with

nature is serious enough to warrant such speculation. The lasting effects of the early twentieth

century emphasis on outdoorsiness have continued for a century.

In the second decade of the twenty first century, the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area is

undergoing its largest population boom since the Klondike Gold Rush more than a century prior.

Since 2010, the population of the city of Seattle has grown by 20%, and the surrounding areas

mirror that population growth.2 Many of the issues that people in the early twentieth century

were dealing with are the same issues that plague the region today. In particular, questions of

human relationships with nature rage, much as they did a hundred years ago. Stories of attempts

to define regional identity, to prove authenticity, to ‘get back’ to nature and what appeared to

urbanites as a simpler life were the order of the day in the early twentieth century just as they are

in the twenty first. Fears of urbanization, overpopulation, and environmental destruction still

rage. If the legacy of the early twentieth century outdoor recreational societies can be understood

as any one thing, it can be understood as environmentalist, paving the way for modern American

conservation.

In 1980, Mount St. Helens, one of the crown jewels of the Cascade Range and formerly

one of the tallest peaks in Washington, erupted. Ash rained down like snow, even in Seattle, 98

miles north.3 It was a disaster on a highly visible scale. The landscape changed permanently. The

crater, from the eruption is visible as a scar on the earth. Every photograph of St. Helens taken

1 Seattle Times staff, “The Unchurched Northwest,” The Seattle Times, October 11, 2005, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-unchurched-northwest/. 2 “About Seattle - OPCD | Seattle.Gov,” accessed November 22, 2019, https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/population-and-demographics/about-seattle. 3 “1980 Cataclysmic Eruption,” accessed November 22, 2019, https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount-st-helens/1980-cataclysmic-eruption?qt-science_support_page_related_con=2#qt-science_support_page_related_con.

56 before May of 1980 is outdated, a relic of an earlier time. Art—photographs, paintings,

illustrations—depicting St. Helens before the eruption is only an accurate representation of the

memory of the peak, not the peak as it exists today. Mountains are not unchanging colossi.

Northwesterners live in the shadows of volcanoes, which by nature will erupt—they are change

personified. Yet conventional wisdom treats them as gods, as permanent, unchanging visions of

greatness. Creating a regional culture formed around man’s relationship with nature is an

ultimately futile goal. Yet this was the goal of the twentieth century Mountaineers.

Still, questions remain. Who is outdoor recreation for? Who is nature for? Who gets to

take ownership of nature as an identity and who doesn’t? Who gets to decide what a Pacific

Northwest identity looks like, and who is excluded from that definition? Outdoor recreation,

historically and today, is designated to be for a specific group of people, and not for others

outside of that. The hardworking eco-spirituality viewed as the dominant identity of the greater

Pacific Northwest is often reserved for wealthy, white city dwellers. Identity is an important

factor, particularly when it comes to establishing a group relationship. Today, there is a broad

sense of recognition that Pacific Northwest regional identity should encompass all people. Is this

even possible? There are few answers to these questions. The Mountaineers built and expressed

an identity of the Pacific Northwest as an area of great natural beauty, the home of outdoorsmen,

through their artistic productions. In this, they were successful. The hypocrisy inherent in this

identity is evident. The same people who most love untouched nature, work to keep it that way,

and despise the ugliness of capital development are those who built their wealth through the

destruction of the very land they have staked their identity upon. Nevertheless, the set of values

that The Mountaineers promoted through their works of art lasted: a deep love for nature, distaste

for materialism and development, emphasis on self-reliance and hard work.

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