Sitting with Stumps 2

Mark Twain Stump photomontage by Ruth Wallen, using historical photos in public domain by C. C. Curtis

Finally, here I was, in the national park where the sequoias thrived, excited to spend time with these living, splendid trees. But instead, my drive to the park brought me directly to their stumps. After a brief look out over the valley below, I turned to other side of parking lot to take the Big Stump Trail. 

My immediate feeling was utter delight to be in forest, to be bathed in greenery, to be walking with trees, especially after having spent so much of the last several months indoors. I was excited that despite my first glimpse at all the dead trees down the mountainside, initially most of the trees along the trail’s edge were cloaked in verdant needles amid a dense undergrowth of chaparral and ferns.  Surrounded by greenery, was a most special treat in very late August, by which time all of the hillsides closer to my home had been brown for months. Nestled among the pines, firs and cedars, I even came upon a few living sequoias.

The trail was organized around the stumps.  Here and there were huge stumps, many of them taller than me, most with a circumference that would take several people, maybe ten, perhaps even more, to hold hands in a circle around the base of the tree.  Each stump was different.  Most flared towards the base, the wood forming a series of sensual bulbous curving shapes as one walks around the perimeter of a stump.  Many had cave like openings, some even hollows that extended through the diameter of the tree, undoubtedly carved by old lightning strikes. Still here a hundred and thirty years after having been cut down, each stump emanated a different graceful presence.  

At one point, I passed what looked like an entire shattered sequoia on the ground, the pieces piled upon each other almost like slabs of slate.  Countless generations of children, and undoubtedly many adults too, must’ve delighted in scampering across the remains.

There was also a huge pile of sawdust.  I had no idea what to make of it, and wondered if there was any insect that could’ve generated that kind of pile.  It wasn’t until later, that I read that the sawdust was from the timber mill that was located here when the sequoias were reduced to stumps.  Even their sawdust remained for well over a century….

Then I came to the meadow.  Requiring lots of moisture, sequoias are often found ringing a meadow, so I wasn’t surprised to see stumps around the periphery.  There were also remains of a few downed trees scattered about the grass. 

One huge stump stood out from all of the rest.  There was an interpretive sign nearby and eight wooden steps leading up to the top.   I climbed up the steps, walk around the top of the stump amazed at its size.  It was mostly flat, slightly sloping, with deep fissures near the center and a slightly raised portion near the steps.  The interpretive panel stated that it had a circumference of ninety-one feet!  I tried to photograph the whole top but ended up taking pictures of sections, as even using a wide-angle lens, I couldn’t fit the entire surface into my viewfinder. Eventually I sat down to take in the scene as undoubtedly so many have before me.

Sequoias are notoriously decay resistant. Their stumps are living museums. Some type of chemical compound, deemed “extractible,” that is deposited at the time of heartwood formation confers resistance to fungi. Sequoias are not only the sentinels of the forest during their lifetimes, but even in death they continue to bear witness, resisting decomposition and calling upon the viewer to take in the travesty of their demise.

As explained in the interpretative panel nearby, this tree, deemed the Mark Twain tree, later the Mark Twain stump, was felled in 1891 for exhibition purposes. It was said to be a “a near perfect specimen,” lacking the fire scars common to most sequoia, even though it was well over a thousand years old.  A feather-bedding trench was dug to prevent breakage when the tree fell after eight or thirteen days, depending on the source, of boring and sawing the tree.  The basal section of the tree still lies in the American Museum of Natural History, and the next section up, in the British Museum in London. The rest was said to have been used for grape stakes and fence posts as were all of its neighbors that were felled.  The interpretive panel is titled, “The Ultimate Sacrifice,” asserting that, “through this huge tree’s sacrifice many people far from California could marvel at the immensity of sequoias.  Some vowed to preserve remaining giants to living, growing monuments.” 

This narrative leaves me unsettled. True, a year before this tree was even cut down, many sequoias were sparred the saw, “preserved” in Sequoia National Park, the second national park that was created in the US, which had since been gradually enlarged to include more sequoia groves including these in Kings Canyon.  A striking species, confined to a narrow range with limited economic use, setting aside the giant sequoia in a park was perhaps an easy choice, as opposed to their coastal cousins, where logging of old growth forests continues to this day.  

But what about the urge to preserve only the majestic and awesome? What are the implications of marveling at the size of a tree? Does this awe inspire reverence, in the sense of respect, or does the very astonishment of the massiveness of the tree, the wonder of peering up at its enormous form, lead to a blindness of its surroundings, of all that has nurtured the tree to grow to such heights? Most of logging operations in this grove occurred during the previous decade when the Comstock sawmill stood in the meadow. At the time, the Mark Twain tree was left standing in deference to its immense stature. It was too hard to cut trees with a base of more than twenty feet in diameter. But soon enough, the yearning for a “perfect,” massive specimen lead to its demise. The celebratory photo on the interpretive panel that accompanies this felled stump, shows over fifty loggers in smiles, many with axes or saws still in their hands, standing around the circumference of this tree. I think of the rituals of the native peoples, vanquished so brutally in the decades of the settler’s arrival. The native peoples give thanks when killing an animal or eating their flesh. Does marveling allow for gratitude, for praise? Did the loggers give thanks when cutting down this tree?

Sitting on top of the stump, gazing out to the valley, I can’t help but recall the photographs I had seen of five couples dancing on top of a stump with musicians lining the edge, or a second image showing a cotillion party of thirty-two. These photos were taken of another stump of similar size in the Calaveras grove. The Calaveras grove was the first grove of sequoias whose “discovery” was telegraphed to east coast and Europe in 1852.  A year later a three-week effort was mounted to fell the stump immortalized in the photos that I saw.  In addition to serving as a dance floor, part of the trunk was made into a double bowling alley eighty feet long.  Since my trip, I’ve seen similar photographs of dancing on another stump nearby to where I now sat, taken during the decade when the Comstock sawmill stood in this meadow.

To my twenty-first century sensibilities the image of carefree celebration, dancing on top of a tree stump, inspires outrage. Even in the nineteenth century there were those who penned their opposition to the desecration of these giants. But sitting here I wonder, what did the people feel who participated in felling the tree who perhaps brought their partners to dance on its remains? European settlers arriving in 1850s must’ve gone on a perilous journey to reach the Sierra Nevada, most on wagon trains, if not on a long arduous sailing voyage around the tip of South America, or punctuated by a grueling overland journey through mountainous jungles of Panama. If they couldn’t make a fortune panning gold, then perhaps these giant trees would offer the opportunity they were seeking? What memories did they carry of poverty or prosecution that fueled the daring to undertake such a journey? How did these memories constrain their perceptions of these colossal beings?

A few decades later the journey west was a bit less perilous, bringing even more settlers and their dreams of a better life. In 1888, three summers before this tree was cut down, the photographer C.C. Curtis built a studio on another nearby stump and photographed many of those who flocked to the mountains in the summer months—the loggers, who came to work at the mill accompanied by their families, as well as settlers living in the valley below who made their way up to the mountains to enjoy the delights of summer.  Curtis was able to make a good living selling photographs of families posing in front of the majestic sequoias.

I recall Curtis’s photo of several couples dancing on a neighboring stump, and wonder if they also danced on the stump where I sit.  I imagine the music of the fiddlers crowded together on one side of the stump.  Their twelve hour days of working in the saw mill or felling trees left behind, I imagine the revelers in lighthearted joy, amid the fresh scent of the trees, their sweat cooling in the crisp clean evening air. In the photograph, a man and woman at the front of the stump gaze at each other with expectation. I imagine the moments after this photograph--feeling the pulse of the music, the surge of passion, stealing a kiss and perhaps later in the evening planting the seeds of a future generation…

But now I sit alone on the stump, in the stillness of the late August warmth, the freshness of the mountain air tinged with the smell of ash.  Dare I lie down, where so many have trod, and allow my body to rest in the full support of the wood beneath me?

My oldest grandfather was born the year before this tree was cut down. He too was born into a family that journeyed across much of Europe and then to America. When he arrived on these shores a decade later he was put to work in a cigar factory at ten. A harsh start for their eldest son, but I’m sure that his parents dreamed of so much more for his future. I know that he loved to sing, and somehow at some point found some money for voice lessons, although ended up starting a business selling dresses. If not singing opera, he was able to be his own boss and comfortably support his family.

I rub my hand along what I expect to be the roughness of the wood, which is actually quite smooth.  A living monument.  There is still the possibility of connection, to really feel this tree, the remains of this tree.  The sides of the stump are remarkably soft.  Although not as soft as a living tree, whose bark, while stalwart in protecting the tree from fire, is gentle to the touch.  A stump much smaller than this one was big enough to serve as a floor for the summer home of a family.  A home on this stump would’ve been quite stately.  I imagine a tree holding a human family.  I imagine all of ways that this tree nurtured families—all of the families of chickarees, vireos, kinglets and warblers that once found a home in this tree.

Glancing over to the interpretive panel, I imagine all of the ways that I might rewrite it.  I might start by inviting the visitor to lie down on the stump, to sink into the wood and feel one’s being held between the tree below and the vastness of the sky above, to let oneself relax, to exhale fully into this immensity, to let go, held in nurturing space between earth and sky, to gaze into space, to gently open one’s heart, to allow whatever sensations arise, to let go into space….

On the day that I laid down, I inhaled with hesitation, not daring to breathe to deeply.  I couldn’t shake the images of the chocking orchards I’d driven through just a few hours earlier.  A lump formed in my throat as my thoughts drifted to my own daughter, about to leave home and follow her dreams of becoming a midwife, ushering in the life of the next generation. The knowledge that her mother was always photographing dying trees has been no help to her anxious stomach.

Slowly, my thoughts turned toward appreciation. Judging from the scenes on the interpretive panel or other photos that I’ve seen subsequently, it was much more beautiful now than it was a hundred and thirty years ago when the Mark Twain tree was cut down, when the meadow had been turned into a dirt field littered with branches, logs and shattered bits of sequoias. Gradually I was able to settle, let go, and release into the fullness of the moment. I felt such deep gratitude to lie on this stump looking up at the blue-grey immensity of sky streaked with wisps of whiteness.  Starring upwards, I smelled the verdant cedar growing in a dense clump next to the stump. Breathing in the stillness, relaxing into the immensity, the life force present in the forest began to enter my being. I felt so grateful to held by the tree, to be held in this lush meadow surrounded by tall green pines, cedar and firs. Cut down over a century ago, the stump was still giving.  My heart swelled with thanks, a soft warmth spread throughout my body—a vibrant energy to be present to the many challenges that were causing the sooty air.