Cruiser Was a Logger’s Dog

[Bob Smalser]

"Cruiser" was 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.  Originally coated with whitewash and pine tar to imitate marble, father found it planted in a woodsy hollow some decades ago. We wondered who and why someone would bury their dog so deep in the forest, and with all the scenic vistas of mountains and beaver ponds nearby, why in such an unremarkable spot.  It wasn't until we recently thinned the thick Huckleberry and Salal undergrowth for floral greens that I knew the answer.

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 from 1928 to 1936, 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, "misery whip" crosscut saws, and the steam-powered winches on skids called "donkeys" that moved the logs. We can still see the ruts in the ground and cable damage on the trees where the McCormick donkey was positioned next to their long-gone Shay-locomotive railway, just a middlin walk from Cruiser's grave.

I hope that our faller and I would have been friends, and that my friend doesn't mind that I cleaned off the old whitewash and tar, and applied the best varnish I could obtain. I hope that 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.

[Papa1stuff]

Awesome  He would be proud !!

[WDH]

No good deed goes undone.  I applaud you.

[Warbird]

Well done, sir.  That kinda choked me up.  I think that any man who has lost a good dog would be proud of what you have done here.  Thanks for that and for sharing it here.

[fishpharmer]

Thank you for sharing that.

[isawlogs]

 That was nice to read , thanks.

[Don K]

Very nice indeed.

Don

[sprucebunny]

Thank you.

[Roxie]

Bob, that was a really respectful thing you did there.  Thank you!

[SwampDonkey]

Very nice Bob. Someone from above is smiling from your good deed. 

From back in 2006. I guess you had forgotten you already posted it Bob. But, the photos back then disappeared.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,18447.msg266349.html#msg266349