424 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. 4, 1913. 
The Feather River Country 
T HIS is certainly a wonderful land, this 
Feather River country. It is also a new 
land, as far as the world at large is con¬ 
cerned, although some of the oldest settlements 
in Northern California are within its confines. 
The hardy Argonauts prospected along its 
streams for gold in the early fifties, the richest 
of the valleys were taken possession of by early 
settlers, and then after the passing of the gold 
excitement, the vast mountain section lying east 
of Oroville, between the Sacramento valley and 
the Nevada line was virtually forgotten in the 
development of the rest of the State. Up to 
four years ago its beauties were unknown and 
its possibilities undreamed of from the stand¬ 
point of the sportsman, but now its canons, 
streams and lakes form one of the most popular 
playgrounds in California. It is almost unneces¬ 
sary to add that this transformation has been 
brought about by the completion of a railroad, 
the Western Pacific, whose feat of penetrating 
the Feather River canon and crossing the Sierras 
with a maximum grade of one per cent, is still 
the talk of the engineering world. 
To me this country has a particular attrac¬ 
tion, as I traversed much of it before the build¬ 
ing of the railroad, and have visited many locali¬ 
ties where even trails are lacking. Since the 
opening of the new line of travel, predictions 
have been freely made that within a few years 
the leading streams would be fished out and the 
game supply depleted, thus removing all attrac¬ 
tions for anglers and sportsmen. Fortunately 
these predictions are not being fulfilled, and I 
am glad to say that after three years of inten¬ 
sive angling trout fishing in many localities is 
better than was the case before the completion 
of the railroad. Of the work that has been 
done to make this a reality, I will speak later. 
Few have any idea of the extent of this 
wonderland, or of its possibilities as a hunting 
and fishing ground. The watershed of the 
Feather River comprises an area of more than 
ten thousand square miles, or about one-fifteenth 
of the total area of California. The States of 
Vermont or New Hampshire could be set down 
bodily in this district, and Delaware and Rhode 
Island worked in around the edges with room 
to spare. Still, there are a hundred or more 
cities in these States with a greater population 
than this vast district. Some of the counties 
in Northern California are so sparsely settled 
that almost every qualified voter is also an office 
holder. 1 he Feather River is the second largest 
stream in the State and passes through some of 
the wildest mountain stretched on the continent, 
some of which are virtually unexplored, espe¬ 
cially on the Middle and North Forks. The 
tributaries in which fishing is to be enjoyed num¬ 
ber several hundred, not to mention scores of 
lakes, some of which are of large size. 
The early history of the Feather River coun¬ 
try is rather misty, and but little was known of 
it until the great gold rush of ’49. Washington 
Irving has told us something of Northern Cali¬ 
fornia in his “Adventures of Bonneville,” and 
has led us to understand that trappers in the 
=mploy of the Hudson Bay and American Fur 
By GOLDEN GATE 
Companies visited this region in the early part 
of the nineteenth century and trapped along the 
most promising streams. 
The credit for the discovery of the Feather 
River, however, is given to Don Luis Argueilo, 
who explored the stream in 1820 for sixty miles 
above its juncture with the Sacramento, or as 
far into the canon as he could penetrate. Ac¬ 
cording to the story in our histories the water 
of the river at the season of the year when the 
Spanish adventurer made his visit was covered 
with the brilliant plumage of the myriad of 
birds that had their nests in the trees and in 
canon walls. We are cheerfully informed that 
from this circumstance the river received its 
name, “Rio de las Plumas,” the Feather River. 
This explanation will suffice for those who have 
never seen the stream, but I have never taken 
much stock in it. I have always led myself to 
believe that good old Luis Don was in rather a 
poetic mood when he named the stream. From 
what is now Oroville, where the river debouches 
upon the plain, to a point as far in the moun¬ 
tains as he could possibly have penetrated, the 
river dashes through a narrow gorge with such 
violence that in but few places would it have 
been possible to discern feathers floating on the 
surface of the water. In this stretch of the 
river rapids succeed rapids, and the water dash¬ 
ing over the rocks and throwing its spray high 
in the air seems but a feathery sheen when 
viewed from the tops of the overhanging cliffs. 
Often at twilight I have looked up the river 
from a rocky prominence and have wondered if 
the explorer had not seen the stream from the 
very spot on which I was standing, a silvery 
thread of feathery foam-flecked water singing 
softly to the forest. Rio de las Plumas to me 
is the stream of white waters, the river of foam- 
crested rapids, and I am sure that it was the 
same to Don Luis Argueilo, and that its won¬ 
derful appearance suggested its name. 
My first trip into this country was not made 
for pleasure, but so pleasing were the impres¬ 
sions created that I have been making almost 
yearly visits since. This initial trip, of which 
I speak, was made at the time that surveys were 
being run through the Feather River canon for 
the trans-continental line that has since been 
built. I had found myself in Oroville one warm 
day in May, fresh from an engineering school, 
and with but a lone quarter in my pocket. A 
week’s work in the 'nayfields bettered my finan¬ 
cial condition a bit, but I did not deem it pru¬ 
dent to spend all of this on stage fare to Quincy, 
sixty-five miles away, whither I was bound. 
Trudging out of Oroville, at the hour of 
two in the morning, in order to escape the heat 
of the day, I consoled myself with the idea that 
after all walking was the ideal way to traverse 
a new country. A train, when trains are to 
be had, takes you through it so quickly that you 
see only the big things, the sights with which 
all the other travelers are familiar, and the stage 
usually jolts you up so and raises such a dust 
that the end of the journey is about all you 
want to see. My trip on foot through Butte 
and Plumas counties was one of the great events 
of my life, although I did not fully realize it 
at the time. Since then I have made trips there 
by stage and train, but I have never secured as 
much information as I did on that initial jour¬ 
ney. 
By sun-up I was well on my way in the foot¬ 
hills back of Oroville and traversing country 
made famous by the pioneers. Had I made this 
journey sixty years ago I would probably have 
passed dozens of the camps of the gold seekers 
or found myself in the midst of a rush to new 
fields, but as it was I saw only a few evidences 
of civilization in the shape of widely separated 
farm houses and an occasional orange orchard. 
Good fortune was my lot that morning, for not 
only did I secure a splendid meal at a farm 
house, but later on was picked up by a wood- 
chopper and- given a lift on a wood wagon for 
several miles. I have reason to remember that 
ride very well, as the woodchopper proved to 
be a person of rare attainments, a splendid 
talker and possessed of a great fund of interest¬ 
ing local information. The ride ended all too 
quickly, and I was astonished at its conclusion 
to learn that I had been befriended by a woman. 
Dressed in man’s garb, with a wealth of black 
hair neatly coiled under her sombrero, this 
Amazon was chopping and hauling wood besides 
caring for a family of children. 
That morning I passed Bidwell's Bar on 
the Middle Fork of the Feather River, near its 
juncture with the main stream, and not far from 
the commencement of the Feather River canon. 
I o most people the chief interest of this place 
lies in the fget that here was the first discovery 
of gold in the Feather River country, and that 
millions of dollars of the precious metal were 
taken out in the early days, but I was more in¬ 
terested in the great orange tree in front of the 
house by the bridge. This is one of the most 
perfect orange trees I have ever seen, fully thirty 
feet in height, and symmetrical as a pine. It is 
the oldest orange tree in California, the fore¬ 
runner of the beautiful groves that are trans¬ 
forming the bare foothills of Northern and Cen¬ 
tral California into spots of wondrous beauty. 
It stands to-day in perfect health and vigor 
upon this spot so well known to the pioneers, 
its branches laden with golden fruit, and its 
roots firmly anchored-in the gold-bearing chan¬ 
nel. The tree has a history that is a story in 
itself. It tells of a thoughtful miner bringing 
a couple of oranges from the States to please 
the few children of the camp on Christmas 
morning, how the seeds were planted, and one 
lone seedling survived. 
Bidwell’s Bar and the country nearby clearly 
show the work of the pioneers. Great heaps 
of water-washed cobbles are on hand, traces of 
flumes and ditches are to be seen, and on the 
hillsides can be discerned great scars where 
hydraulic monitors tore their way to bedrock 
through the gold-bearing strata. It is very deso¬ 
late looking now; the cabins are deserted and 
cattle graze over what were prosperous villages 
in the early days. 
My walk for the first day ended at a regular 
stopping place for travelers just at the edge of 
