An Ordeal in the Quinault Wilderness
A father's desperate, eighteen-mile trek through the night to secure medical aid for his son.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Walking 18 miles during the night with his 3-year-old son on his back and taking a stage for another 18 miles early the following morning in order to reach Aberdeen to secure the services of a physician for the child, who had cut off the little finger of his left hand with an axe, was the harrowing experience of R. E. Voorhees, a well-known rancher of the Upper Quinault country.
“Walking 18 miles during the night with his 3-year old son on his back.”
This story highlights the extreme isolation of rural life in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the century, where even a routine farm injury could become a life-threatening crisis due to geography. Today, while medical access is vastly improved, the rugged nature of the Quinault region remains a reminder of the vast distances that still define life in remote Washington state.
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