Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 4

TIMBER CRUISING ON THE KANIKSU FOLLOWING THE BIG FIRES OF 1926
By Sam Billings

Here are a few of my recollections of the cruising party that cruised the burned timber following the big fires of 1926 on the old Kaniksu Forest.

There was so much acreage burned on that forest that year they called it "The Lucky Strike Forest" after the cigarette of that name (it was toasted). Some of the finest Idaho white pine stands that ever grew were burned that year in Harvey, Grave, and Kalispell Creeks. And I guess, because of lack of a road system in those drainages, but little of it was salvaged.

Floyd Cossett was chief-of-party and we worked out of Sullivan Lake Ranger Station and out of the Cresent Lake Guard cabin up near the Canadian line and also out of tent camp on the Priest Lake side. We camped in a cabin up in the burn in Harvey Creek (I think that was the creek). By some miracle the cabin hadn't burned although fire had burned within a few feet of it all the way around and it was crown fire because the heavy stand of white pine was black clear to the tops. The cabin had a dirt roof and some of the crew said there were so many packrats in the cabin it couldn't burn. Art Bowman had a Colt 22 automatic and shot packrats every evening for a while after we had gone to bed and the gas lantern was turned out. The rats would come out almost immediately and some one would point them out with his flashlight and Art would shoot them.

The camp cook did his cooking under a tarp that was stretched and fastened to the front of the cabin. He had a little mix-up table directly under the glassless window at the front of the cabin.

One evening, as usual, a packrat was heard scrambling around, some one turned his flashlight on it just as it went through the window onto the mix-up table and Art took a quick shot at it. He missed the rat but he sure didn't miss the three nested aluminum kettles that were on the table. The cook was fit to be tied.