[Gutenberg 39334] • Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound

Excerpt from Blazing the Way: Or True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound and Other Pioneers

In the early days when a hunter, explorer or settler essayed to tread the mysterious depths of the unknown forest of Puget Sound, he took care to blaze the way. At brief intervals he stopped to cut with his sharp woodman's ax a generous chip from the rough bark of fir, hem lock or cedar tree, leaving the yellow inner bark or wood exposed, thereby providing a perfect guide by which he retraced his steps to the canoe or cabin. As the initial stroke it may well be emblematical of the beginnings of things in the great Northwest.

I do not feel moved to apologize for this book; I have gathered the fragments within my reach; such or similar works are needed to set forth the life, character and movement of the early days on Puget Sound. The importance of the service of the Pioneers is as yet dimly perceived; what the Pilgrim Fathers were to New England, the Pioneers were to the Pacific Coast, to the nations yet to be, who, follow ing in their footsteps, shall people the wilds with teeming cities, a human sea, bearing on its bosom argosies of priceless worth.

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