A BRIEF HISTORY 61 



all day long and beg jobs or stand in line for a hand-out or relief. They did 

 not have to do such things merely to fill their stomachs, to support their 

 hearts, to clothe and shelter from the weather themselves and their young. 

 They had learned as a race long before we came here to carry themselves 

 with a certain natural freedom, to govern themselves in respect to codes of 

 individual dignity. It is one of the ironies of American history that the idea 

 of relaxation, sport, and release from care, along with worship in the open, 

 was rather widely and generally practiced among the Indians that we whites 

 set out with such ferocious zeal to dispossess and civilize. 



Indians, then, were the first users of our forests and wide spaces for 

 developing purposes of civilized recreation. Small family groups or even 

 whole tribes moved from one section of the forests to another with the 

 seasons to pick berries, to fish, to gather wild rice, or to hunt wild game; 

 and while they were on such outings they would often combine sports and 

 diversions with the practical job of getting enough to eat. 



Even in recent years on the Columbia National Forest in southern 

 Washington as many as 1,500 Indians from 9 different tribes have gathered 

 at the Twin Buttes tribal grounds to pick and dry wild huckleberries and 

 at the same time enjoy horse racing and other native games. This has been 

 an annual event "since the days of my grandfather's grandfather," one old 

 chief said. The Crow Indians hold annual games and conclaves. In the 

 Southwest, the Indians often have dances and fiestas. 



The whites were for the most part a shrewd, dry, earthy, practical 

 people engaged in soil-bound occupations. For 300 years they pushed 

 ever westward through forests and over plains and mountains, seeking 

 new lands, new wealth, new homes. Such pioneer diversions as there were 

 did not separate people but drew them together. They worked alone. 

 They had their social fun together. They hunted and fished, not altogether 

 for pastime but often in deadly earnest for food, and their methods were 

 more notable for death-dealing than for sporting qualities. 



Forest use by the white man for general recreation dates, naturally, 

 earlier in the East than in the West. By 1803 recreation travel in the forest 

 areas now embraced in the White Mountain National Forest became so 

 heavy as to warrant the building of a pleasure resort near Crawford Notch, 



