The Mountains of Oregon — Reading Notes

A Failed Spectacle and the Voice of the Mountain

Steel recounts two attempts to illuminate Mount Hood with red fire. The first, in 1885, relied on clockwork and acids, but an avalanche at four in the afternoon set the whole thing ablaze prematurely. The second, in 1887, was managed by Portland’s Celebration Committee. Steel’s telling is matter-of-fact, yet the episode reveals a desire to transform the mountain into a civic monument. He calls Mount Hood “a monument of beauty, and the pride of Oregon,” a phrase that echoes through the book as he balances awe with boosterism.

The Grunts Behind the Name Tacoma

In a remarkable passage, Steel describes an 1882 interview with twenty elderly Indigenous men from the White River, Puyallup, and Squally bands. He sought the original name for Mount Rainier. The men, who disdained Chinook Jargon, communicated through “syllabic utterances” and pantomime. Steel insists that no word as euphonious as “Tacoma” could have come from their “half-uttered nasal grunts.” His account is ethnographically detailed but culturally dismissive, framing Indigenous language as “poverty-stricken” and reliant on gesture. The episode is a striking example of late-nineteenth-century attitudes toward Native speech.

Alpine Club Records as Geographic Evidence

The volume includes the constitution and department reports of the Oregon Alpine Club, founded by Steel. These sections list officers, outline rules for exploration and game protection, and include a bibliography of Oregon. The club’s Photographic Department suggests an early effort to document peaks visually. Steel’s inclusion of these records blurs the line between travel narrative and institutional archive, offering a snapshot of how amateur naturalists organized to study and promote the region’s mountains.

Crater Lake and the Shape of Description

Steel’s description of Crater Lake, though not fully excerpted here, is positioned as a core reason for the book’s existence. Based on the preface, he wrote it in response to repeated requests. The lake’s formation, color, and surrounding cliffs likely receive the same direct, observational treatment he applies to Hood and Rainier. Steel’s method is to compile newspaper-like accounts into permanent form, as he states, aiming to “amuse, entertain or instruct” rather than to produce a systematic scientific treatise.

Steel’s book is best approached as a period document of Oregon’s mountain culture in 1890. Readers interested in the history of exploration, early alpine clubs, or the politics of place names will find raw material here. The author’s voice is that of a booster, a collector, and a sometimes uneasy ethnographer. The excerpts suggest a work that is less a unified narrative than a portfolio of interests—a reflection of one man’s effort to fix fleeting knowledge in print.

Steel’s Oregon feels so far off now, those old names and alpine clubs. When I set the book down, my mind wandered north to another wilderness, and I found myself reaching for Alaska Days with John Muir — Reading Companion. Same longing for places that barely exist anymore, just a quieter hand on the page.