Frissell, George
From Lane Co Oregon
A Day with "Uncle George" Frissell
Excerpts from A Day with "Uncle George" on the McKenzie
By Annie Laurie Miller
Lane County Historian Vol. XXX!, No. 1, Spring, 1986
OREGONIAN, Sept. 27, 1908
"Uncle" George and "Auntie" Melvina.
.... I asked "Uncle George" (Frissell), who has lived 27 years at McKenzie Bridge, about the early settlers on the McKenzie. There was Ole Man Pepiot, a Frenchman who kept the eatinghouse at Gate Creek. He is dead and so are "Ole Man" Belknap and "Ole Man" Sims, who lived far up the river in the big timber. "Andy" Hickson, tall and gaunt, a great hunter in days gone by, has retired now from the life of the trail and works at the Salmon Hatchery, while "Pood," his dog, and "Mouser,' the little blue pony, grow fat and lazy with inaction. "Ole Man Finn, the greatest liar on the McKenzie still lives in a lonely big white house with "Finn's Hotel" painted in long letters on its side. As we went up the river the stage driver pointed out to us the rock that Mr. Finn pulled out of the road with his pair of stout little black mules. To prove the story the rock stands there "big as a meetin' house" immovable since time began.
Uncle George arises early in true mountaineer fashion. This morning when we came down to breakfast he was driving the cows out of the barn to pasture. He is some 60 years old,. . but he covers the ground like a boy, and behind his round spectacles are keen eyes that can see a fish far down in the water where untrained eyes see only the rocky river bottom. He wears sad-colored clothes in deference to the fishes' feelings, an old gray felt hat, a brown sweater coat, gray trousers and a blue flannel shirt.
"Uncle" George fishing.
After breakfast I saw an eight pound Dolly Varden on the back porch, and as Uncle George was in the garden below I went to ask him the where and the why of the fish. Uncle George said he had caught the Dolly in the garden walking among the cabbages. There is a beautiful big pool just beyond. The garden is the pride of the his life. . but the love of his life is "Auntie,' his sweet old wife, a plump little old lady who walks with a cane. She was... the postmistress at McKenzie Bridge. . . Next to Auntie in his affection comes Brutus, the old asthma-smitten white terrier.
We carried some lettuce to the chickens.
"I've got 150 young chickens," he said, "not big enough to fry yet. An' I tell you I don't like to kill 'em. Do you know that? They know me and come runnin' to me"
We picked up a bucket of fallen apples and carried them to pigs fat to bursting with frequent meals.
"See where the limbs are broke on the trees," he said as we went through the orchard. "Where the high water came some of those big redsides roosted on the limbs. That's what broke 'em off"
Then we went fishing.... in the edge of the forest Uncle George uncovered his head.
"I always take off my hat when I go into the woods," he said. "Reverence" For three quarters of a mile we followed the trail. . We came to a place where Horse Creek went to pieces and ran this way and that in many small streams seeking the river through a jungle of vine maple.
"There's some pools up there on Horse Crick that nobody knows and there are big speckled fellers there that have never seen a white man nor woman," Uncle George said.
We passed an old abandoned cabin and went through an opening, scaring up a bevy of quails. Uncle George went rapidly ahead gliding through the woods more like a brook than a two-legged human being. At his heels was a string of four dogs and I followed shouting questions.
"Uncle George, aren't you ever sick?"
"No, and I'll soon be livin' on borrowed time too. Oh, a person hasn't hardly got time to be sick. If you want to be well, just keep going and don't sleep in the daytime. Some folks don't know how to live. They never learned how to eat. They'll get up with a headache and set down and eat a meal that a logger hadn't ought to put away... When I hear people begin to talk about their pains, I don't say anything, but I just sneak off~' Then we went over the bank to the first fishing hole.
I'm proud of the two redsides I caught there...
"You see," Uncle George said, "That's where they live. They're at home now." A two pound whitefish took the hook. . .Uncle George... threw him back in the river. Then came a whale of a redside who fought until he was done. But just as I was about to land him he floated away on the top of the water too tired and dazed to swim while I sat down heavily on the rocks... and wished myself a man so that I might swear. Yet a man is on record at the Bridge who lost a huge redside fish, hook and leader at one swoop, and stood looking at the pool and then, "You sassy thing," he gasped.
No more fish came out of that hole.
"I guess he squealed," Uncle George said as we went on down the ~ When the basket was heavy and it was mid-afternoon we started back.. .. In the edge of the clearing Uncle George said, "It's good to go into the woods, and it's good to come out of the woods," and I felt like adding, "Blessed be the woods."
After supper all the people thereabouts began to gather for the mail; The trapper who lived across Horse Creek; three of the cattleman's children; the old mountaineer who is a living botany book; the homesteader's wife, very picturesque in a short skirt, blue flannel shirt and felt hat, with a revolver by her side; the summer boarders and a wiry dark man who is the most fearless hunter in the forest reserve. I asked Uncle George about the hunter.
"Afraid? He ain't afraid of nothin'. He'll climb right up in a tree and shake out a wildcat or cougar...
The four-horse stage came jingling in from Eugene... and Uncle George took the mail sack in to Auntie.
Just now as I sat on the upper porch watching the stars come out above the rugged mountain tops I saw him starting out patiently with a lantern to find the straying cows.
Under dateline Sunday OREGONIAN, November 7, 1909 Laura told of a pack trip through the Cascade Mountains. Excerpts of that report follow.
.... We took a trail trip in the Cascade Mountains and were gone... ten days. On the morning of the 16th of August we left Belknap Springs, and we were several hours leaving for only one pack horse was obtainable, instead of the promised two. Stout old Dan was so heaped with camping outfit that only his face and tail were visible. And what was left from his pack was tied on our riding saddles in such fashion that it took great agility to mount. Even then we discarded the tent and took in its stead a tarpaulin. We were soon across the bridge and away, following the lonely river until the trail made one Z after another on the steep mountain side. The horses went lunging upward stopping often for breath while we sat in the high backed saddles as comfortable as if we were in rocking chairs doing the week's mending. Dan's pack worked loose and the sack of tinware tied on top rattled and banged like cymbals.
Ready to go fishing.
"Bill" Yale, our guide led Dan, a husky plodding farm animal in mind and form, and Dan led the team at the sober gait of two miles an hour.
Were you ever in a yellow jackets' nest? It is an experience so common to mountaineers and so dreaded by them that the bravest would rather face an angry bear than be stung. We were going along at peace with the world in a beautiful spot where the trail ran on a narrow shelf between a high mountain and the river when Dan stirred them up. One horse bolted, flourishing her tail wildly. Another unwittingly held by his terrified rider exactly over the tree root from which the jackets were swarming, bucked before, bucked behind, whirled madly around and kicked with all his might until his rider's glasses fell off and she herself fell under his nose, while the third horse, safe in the distance, looked on disapprovingly. . We had collected stings enough amongst us to agree that a sting on the side of the head hurt the worst, while one under the eye looked the worst, and one on the hand did the most damage to one's usefulness. Several days afterward we were able to laugh at the suggestion of the rider whose horse had bolted (she was unstung) that the whole incident would have made a good series of moving pictures.
That night we made the abandoned camp of the Southern Pacific Company, a little pioneer clearing of rude houses a mile and a half from the main trail. There was a spring of icecold water, a stove built of sheet iron laid on big rocks, a table and some... chairs... Darkness fell on us almost as soon as supper was eaten and our bough beds made against the side of the shanty...
I lay looking at the stars above the big black fir trees. . when the dog... he was a shepherd with a strong leaning toward bear hunting....... aroused the camp by his growling. Mr. Yale said, to calm our fears, "Only a skunk~' But the next morning after breakfast the fact came to light that an old she bear with two cubs had passed through camp.
We had turned aside from the main trail because we wanted' to see the lower falls of the McKenzie, so soon after breakfast we packed a lunch and started. For more than a mile we toiled over a stream of lava that had hardened and cracked as it flowed years and years ago.. .We tried to follow the path but it was so indistinct in the rough rock and the blazed trees so infrequent that we abandoned it altogether when we heard the roar of the fall. Following up the river bank we came to the fall. It is 80 feet high and a fine sight...
It was late afternoon (of the next day) when we came at last to Fish Lake. Fish Lake in the spring is three miles long, but the thirsty summer sun comes up from Eastern Oregon to drink it almost dry and when we saw it except occasional pools and streamlets in a field of high grass... it was almost dry but extremely picturesque as we rode across it to the hotel on the other side... .The next morning we went on over the two-mile trail to Clear Lake. Here we struck camp and remained for two days while the horses reveled in the lush grass and the society of their kind at Fish Lake.
Reading the weather, 1919.
Those were pleasant days. We women emerged from a dressingroom made of the tarpaulin and walked through the dewy fern to the wash basin which was the lake itself, sparkling in the morning light... Cooking in that particular camp was unpopular. The "stove" left by former campers was a simple hole in the ground, with a draft that blew smoke into our faces making us all cry. How the biscuits burned before they were done in the frying pan, and how the ham grew cold and was rescued just in time from the dog while the fish refused to brown and ashes fell into the beans. Our beds, in spite of the fir bough mattresses, were very down hill at the foot, and had to be padded at night with our walking boots and extra clothing and fishing tackle. We might have added our hats, but combs and hairpins would have been forever lost had they not reposed at night in our hats beside our pillows. The second night we had a rain scare and made a tent of the tarpaulin.. That night a young buck made himself at home in our kitchen, but our bedrooms were widely scattered and the dog was dreaming of bear, so he escaped unharmed.
One of our greatest pleasures was boating on the lake, for its waters are so clear that except in the deepest parts one sees the bottom. .. and the boat passes over petrified trees.
On the return trip we camped where Smith Creek flows into the McKenzie because there is a rock there with a famous pool beneath it full of redsides... Nine of them found their way into our frying pan...
The next morning we arose, oh so early, and at 7 had everything packed and were sitting on rolls of bedding waiting for Mr. Yale to come with the horses. (He had gone for them before breakfast to their pasture a mile and half away.) The day wore on; we unpacked our lunch and ate it.. .Toward evening Bill Yale came back. He had arisen while it was still night, met a timber wolf in the trail by the camp, and then trudged on and on back the 13 miles between us and Fish Lake where he had found the horses feasting on the grass they liked so well...
But that night we forgot our troubles while our guide yarned to us. All wild animals, he said, follow man-made trails, but most of all wolves, and they have regular hunting rounds. Every two weeks they came by his place where he lives under Bald Mountain. He showed us on his gun scratches wild cats had made, and many were the tales of tracking cougar to their lairs, and of catching deer and bear alive. One cub he kept until it grew to be a bear so big that his wife was afraid the great beast might kill the children. So when it came time for the bear to "hole up" for the winter; Mr. Yale took him down to the river and shot him dead with one shot of a 44 revolver. "Oh, I shot him decent," said Bill Yale. "I reckon he thinks he's standing there yet."
The next noon we were back at McKenzie Bridge.
