The Nooksack Trek: A Local Expedition to Glacier
A group of Lynden men recount their journey into the Cascade foothills to scout for coal and game.
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.
Thinking perhaps a write-up of our trip to the hills of the famous Nooksack might be of interest to some of the readers of the Tribune, so here goes. On the morning of Oct. 5, the party consisting of A. E. Baldwin, S. S. Goodrich and two sons, Earle and Vernon, Bert Ferrington and V. F. Randall boarded the train at Lynden with our camp equipage and guns, billed for Glacier. After a short ride we reached Everson, where we had to wait for the return train from Bellingham to Sumas. We reached Sumas about 10 o'clock A.M. and waited until 6:10 P.M. when we boarded the train for Glacier, arriving at 8:30 P.M. The grade was so steep the train was nearly stalled many times; it seemed as though the train had transformed into an airship. We camped in the park near 16th St. in Glacier, lulled to sleep by the roar of Glacier Creek. The next morning, the party set out looking for game, but eventually decided to climb Church Mountain. Three of our group reached the summit and enjoyed a splendid view. Later in the week, we paid a visit to the great coal claim the papers have published so much about; it is immense, far beyond my comprehension. While bear were reported to be numerous, we found that those brought into town for shipment were actually killed 15 to 30 miles away. We returned home feeling well repaid for our trip.
“It seemed as though we had left the rails and the train transformed into an airship and we were going up through the air.”
Early 20th-century travel logs to the North Cascades capture the same 'booster' enthusiasm for regional resources—like coal mining—that we see in modern economic development discourse. While the coal boom of 1908 didn't lead to the massive industry predicted, the allure of the backcountry for weekend recreation remains a cornerstone of Lynden’s relationship with the mountains today.
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