Saddle and Canoe

Rating:
Summary: A Canonical Book of Pacific Northwest History
Review: Theodore Winthrop went off and got himself killed in the Civil War before he could ever fully develop the raw brilliance of his writing talents. Luckily, however, he did leave us this invaluable diamond-in-the-rough peek into daily life in the Pacific Northwest on the eve of the Euro-American subjugation of this beautiful region.

Modern historians have turned their backs upon Winthrop, largely because he refrained from exercising their politically correct terminology and sensitivities. Winthrop's work expresses all the grit and honestly one would expect from an adventure traveler's diary, where a man chose to travel alone amongst the native populations and immerse himself in their culture. Winthrop also had a tremendous vision of the fateful changes that were soon to befall the region, for better or for worse, and he expresses them with a magnificent range of vocabulary and fluidity of composition.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Winthrop was awed by the incredible natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. He was, not unlike the better known John Muir, an early convert to the worship of wild wilderness that is the origin of the modern environmental movement. Winthrop's descriptions of the Pacific Northwest volcanoes are without parallel in any other written source. The famous Mountaineers of hiking-book fame would have done better to follow his advice and respect the indigenous names of geographical features. Indeed, the greatest crime of those who ignore Winthrop is certainly the fact that they have buried his ardent pleas to respect those indigenous appellations.