The biographies on this web site are just simple sketches of a few explorers and entrepreneurs who played a role in the European "discovery" of northern California and in the history of logging in Mendocino County. The early logging pioneers are particularly relevant, of course, to the history of MRC ltimberland.but our interest in them goes beyond the logging industry itself. Clearly, there was a mental and physical toughness in the pioneers that built the United States. The first trails that they walked were barely visible, carved out by Indians and, before them, by wild animals, like migrating buffalo, deer, and mustangs. These early trails led to water and grass, through mountain passes and along rivers, toward safety and away from predators. The first pioneer shelters were tents, wagons, and the spreading branches of trees; their "permanent" houses were spare and drafty, built with basic tools and their own two hands. Food was limited to what they could hunt. Water and sometimes breakfast and supper came from the same stream. They patched their wounds as matter-of-factly as they patched their trousers, and sometimes with the same needle. If we want to understand these individuals, we have to realize that they were people just like us, with fears and hopes, trials and dreams, joys and failures. They faced challenges and devised solutions based on their own vision of the world, their own ingenuity, and their own moral perception. While some may disagree with their motives and methods or despair at their lack of environmental consciousness and cultural sensitivity, we will never understand them if we cannot get beyond our own knowledge, experience, and world view. We must become, in a real sense, explorers ourselves of a human context different from our own. To do so will, in some cases, reveal a determination and resilience in these early Americans that is almost breathtaking.

Author: DMS