Mills and Markets by Thomas R. Cox

Author:Thomas R. Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 1974-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

Bar Harbors and Outports

WHILE large firms that were to dominate the lumber industry of the West Coast were growing around the quiet waters of Puget Sound and while the area of Portland was moving in directions of its own, sawmills were also springing up at many other spots along the long, forbidding coastline between the sound and San Francisco Bay. Development came to some of the tiny bays and inlets scattered along this coast sooner than it did to others, but in time it came to nearly all of them.

It was not easy to succeed on such a coast. From the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the north to Humboldt Bay in the south, anchorages were, almost without exception, bar harbors, the entrances of which had been clogged with sand by ocean currents moving along the coast. Ingress and egress were often impossible and always dangerous. Many a vessel was lost on the sand-choked entrances even after steam tugs were put into operation to aid sailing vessels over the bars.1 A letter reprinted in the Oregon Statesman indicates the conditions at the mouth of the Umpqua: “The Ortolan arrived a few days since, other vessels are now due. The Ortolan came up in four days from San Francisco. Various may be the opinions as to her entering the river, hence, a remark in point. She came in safely, but how it happened I cannot tell; the better opinion, however, is that she came in on wheels. . . .”2 Many other bars were worse.

Along California’s redwood coast the problem took on a different, but not less dangerous, aspect. Here so-called outports dominated. Though these anchorages presented no dangerous bars to cross, they provided scant protection from storms and surf; if vessels were to receive their cargoes, they had to put in close to the rocky shoreline, where a slight miscalculation on the part of the captain, an unanticipated swell, or a sudden lull or shift in the wind might spell disaster.3 At most of the anchorages on the redwood coast it was impossible to load from a dock or even from lighters. Long apron chutes were extended from rocky headlands and lumber plummeted down them to waiting vessels. Loading from these chutes, like calling at these harbors, was fraught with risks, as an account left by Captain Carl Rydell of the steam schooner Navarro makes clear:

The lumber is sent down the chute, near the end of which a man operates a brake to check the force with which the lumber descends. The seamen stand ready to catch the lumber as it leaves the chutes. As each man gets a piece of timber he runs with it, lays it down exactly where it belongs, and returns to the chute. [It is] difficult for a man below to catch a timber at the right instant and to get the right hold. If he makes a single slip, or if the man at the brake does not apply it in time, he may be injured or killed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.