Pinchot Journal: Sleeping under a Spruce with One Blanket to Share

Gifford Pinchot, who later became chief of the U.S. Forest Service, was working for the National Forest Commission in 1896 when he traveled south through the Swan Valley with Jack Monroe, a trapper and guide. In the first installment of the 7-part series, they had arrived at a cabin inhabited by a trapper named Wood, who sent them on their way with venison and a sketch map to a deserted cabin where they could find flour.

That night we spent with another trapper, who took us, in the morning, across the river on a jam of trees, roots and all the woody wreck which a mountain river in flood someti...