An Epitaph for Cruiser, a Dog.

[Bob Smalser]

"Cruiser" was most likely a logger's dog, and a tough-looking Bulldog at that. In the forests along Hood Canal where he died 75 years ago, he could have been little else, for a timber cruiser is the woodsman who ranges out ahead of a logging crew to select and mark the trees to be harvested.

His grave marker was carved from a fine plank of red cedar. A superb piece of design and craftsmanship, it must have literally taken "a month of Sundays" for a logger of that era to carve, and in itself is a remarkable epitaph to a faithful friend. Originally coated with whitewash and pine tar to imitate marble, Father found it planted in our woodlands some decades ago, deep in a forest hollow. Ever since we've puzzled with who and why someone would bury their dog so far from civilization, and with scenic vistas of mountains and beaver ponds so close, why in such an unremarkable spot. It wasn't until a recent thinning knocked down the thick undergrowth there that I was confident I had the answers.

I don't know who Cruiser's master was, but he likely worked for the McCormick Logging Company who logged this forest for the first time during that period, based out of nearby Camp Union. He was probably a Scandinavian who moved West with McCormick and other men of his trade from Wisconsin. I suspect he was a tree faller…and a faller from the backbreaking days of long-handled falling axes, springboards to raise the fallers above thick root buttresses, "misery whip" crosscut saws, and the steam-powered winches on skids called "donkeys" that moved the logs. You can still see the ruts in the ground and cable damage on the trees where the McCormick donkey was positioned next to the overgrown roadbed of their Shay-locomotive logging railway, just a short walk from Cruiser's grave.

I hope that our faller and I would have been friends, and that my friend doesn't mind I cleaned off the old whitewash and tar to apply the best varnish I could obtain. I hope when this gentleman looks down from heaven, he approves of the simple stand I made to keep his craftsmanship out of the weather. After all, I did make sure it got back to where he placed it in 1936……

......where our faller buried his beloved Cruiser next to the tree that killed him.

 

[TACC1]

Thanks for posting, must have been heart-breaking..
TACC1

 

[Dan M]

Cool Story,

I spent my childhood living at Lake Tahuyah back when there was only around 15 houses on the lake, went to Seabeck Elementary school. Where abouts was the sign,epitaph found? I used to walk all the woods from Tahuyah to Holly in search of Bigfoot, Deer, and when it happened DB Coopers treasure

I miss the old Growth & 2nd growth that used to be everywhere.

Dan

 

[Lt JL]

That was a fine thing you did, Friend. Bless Cruiser, that old faller, and you, too. John

 

[Bob Smalser]

Cool Story,

I spent my childhood living at Lake Tahuyah back when there was only around 15 houses on the lake, went to Seabeck Elementary school. Where abouts was the sign,epitaph found?

http://www.kitsapgov.com/gis/maplibrary/transportation/transportation_features.pdf

Vicinity Sprague Pond, about a mile NNE of Camp Union. In your youth it was a half-section hunting camp with 2 cabins and 2 barn/outhouses on the 6-acre beaver pond, plus a horse corral. Access was originally from the north off Larson's Lane before Lake Symington was built. A caretaker couple name of Carpenter lived there through around 1970.

The two lads with their feet dangling over the floats are Delbert and Albert Sprague, who we bought the property from in 1975, when these boys were in their 80's. The photo is of their floating logging camp near the Robinwood Cove Girl Scout Camp south of Brinnon, around the turn of the century.

There are still excellent sea-run Cutties every spring in Sprague Pond.

 

[BarbC]

I don't know which impresses me more - your caring enough to maintain the honor of a faithful friend, your story telling, or your detective skills to find out what had happened to Cruiser.

Very well done all around.

 

[Dan M]

Bob,

I remember the shacks and Barns (I think) My Brother and I spent many a day wandering. He still lives out in the Holly area. We used to find so much old cool Logging equipment just left out in the woods. My Dad would sometimes take his old 53 Ford Truck back into the woods on the old logging roads and help us drag it out. I remember when they built/Dug Lake Symington we couldnt believe that it would ever amount to anything. It sure has grown up out there, the last time I was there was probably 12 years ago.

thanks for sharing your story and bringing back some great memories

Dan

 

[Bob Smalser]

It sure has grown up out there, the last time I was there was probably 12 years ago.

But as the paved public roads like Holly, Seabeck Hwy, and Seabeck-Holly remain in grids 4-8 miles apart, the development largely remains along the roads and lakes, with sizeable swathes of both private and state-owned forest remaining in between all that edge-effect. There are more deer, bear, Bobcat, Marten and cougar here now than there were during Cruiser's lifetime. And the original homesteading families remain, now in the third and fourth generation....and mostly still in the logging trade...names like Hintz, Hite, Christopher, Just, Lewis and Emel.

Looking at Sprague Pond from the old corral site at the north end. The cabins (and a hand-dug well in between) were at the pond's edge, the outbuildings were back around to the right, and Cruiser's grave is at two o'clock at a hundred fifty yards. One ca1940 outhouse sheathed in tin was in restorable condition, and I stabilized and left it for a future project. The unimproved road from Camp Union (open only in summer), ran along and forded the exit stream at the opposite end of the pond. There was an old boat there hidden in the brush.

While I sold some 5-acre lots carved off of the original parcel, I left Sprague Pond and its surrounding wetlands in a single, 22-acre parcel and except for a spot for our retirement home, put the land into a conservation trust to eliminate the taxes on it.

The amusing irony is that since we were her first, we now have a tree farm and small sawmill operation in the middle of a toney, gated community of doctors, lawyers and California retirees. But the lots are huge, the people are nice, and I try not to run noisy machinery or engage in target practice after six and on Sundays.

 

[smith revolver cop]

Wow... my beloved dog's name is Cruiser. I'll miss her when she someday crosses the "Rainbow Bridge," but I'm really worried about what it will do to my wife! Thanks for sharing the posts.

 

[Onomea]

Thanks, Bob. It's a neat thread. Love the story, and the photographs.

 

[venomballistics]

Bob .... I regret to inform you that you are going to be accused of having class

 

[Dan M]

Hi Bob,

My Brother & I dragged our Fishing Poles up and over Green Mountian and went down to Sprague Pond (never knew what its name was back then) and fish 1 or 2 times. never did catch much that I can remember. The biggest Trout I ever caught was a 22" Rainbow out of Lake Tahuyah back around 1963 or 64, I have tried to beat that one for the rest of my life and still come up short. I remember I think 1964 we had 4-5 feet of snow that year, it was the most I had ever seen in Washington. It made it tough on our walk down to Camp Union to catch the school bus.

Dan

 

[Bob Smalser]

My Brother & I dragged our Fishing Poles up and over Green Mountain and went down to Sprague Pond (never knew what its name was back then) and fish 1 or 2 times. never did catch much that I can remember.

Someone in the 1940's or 50's had built a log-and-rubble footbridge to cross the egress stream that blocked fish migration in all but the wettest spawning seasons.

We simply knocked a 3-foot gap in the rubble, and now the pond gets spawning Coho and Cutties every Nov-Jan during the spawn. The Cutties follow the spawning Coho to prey on their eggs and spawn atop the Coho nests. As the creeks dry up during July, and Symington's bulldozers eliminated most of the deep pools the fry require for survival, we seine up about a thousand fry in the creek every year and transplant them into the pond. There are plenty of fish these days.

 

[PALADIN85020]

Beautiful story, and very touching. You are indeed a gentleman to restore the marker, replace it, and protect it. Cruiser's owner obviously cared for and loved his dog. As a man entrusted with the care of great dogs over the years, I do understand that.

Thanks for posting.

John

 

[Indiana George]

A tip of the hat to you, kind sir.
What a honorable gesture of kindness.