Nels Bruseth (August 1, 1886 – March 24, 1957) was an American

mountaineer Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, an ...

, naturalist, author, and painter. He was a

forest ranger A ranger, park ranger, park warden, or forest ranger is a law enforcement person entrusted with protecting and preserving parklands – national, state, provincial, or local parks. Description "Parks" may be broadly defined by some systems in thi ...

employed by the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

from 1916 to 1951 at a ranger station in

Darrington, Washington Darrington is a town in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located in a North Cascades mountain valley formed by the Sauk and North Fork Stillaguamish rivers. Darrington is connected to nearby areas by State Route 530, which r ...

, where he was a civic booster.

Biography

Bruseth was born on August 1, 1886, to Norwegian immigrants who moved from

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

Stanwood, Washington Stanwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The city is located north of Seattle, at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River near Camano Island. As of the 2010 census, its population is 6,231. Stanwood was founded in 186 ...

. He had two brothers and two sisters. Bruseth attended schools in Silvana and took over his father's farm after his death in 1905, but sold it in 1913 and spent the following two years in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Bruseth returned to Washington in 1916, taking a position with the

at their Darrington station, where he would be employed for 35 years. He served as the

fire lookout A fire lookout (partly also called a fire watcher) is a person assigned the duty to look for fire from atop a building known as a fire lookout tower. These towers are used in remote areas, normally on mountain tops with high elevation and a ...

Mount Pugh Mount Pugh (or Pugh Mountain, or native name Da Klagwats) is a peak near the western edge of the North Cascades, in Washington state. It is located west of Glacier Peak, one of the Cascade stratovolcanoes. It rises out of the confluence of the ...

and settled on a homestead in the Darrington area. Bruseth made the first recorded ascent of Whitehorse Mountain in 1909 and Mount Pugh in 1916. According to local legend, Bruseth courted Beate Staff Falk, a recent Norwegian immigrant to the area, by making the descent from Mount Pugh once a week to take her to the town's

dance hall Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in ...

. The two were married on May 10, 1921, and had two children. As a forest ranger, Bruseth developed mountain trails in the

North Cascades The North Cascades are a section of the Cascade Range of western North America. They span the border between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington and are officially named in the U.S. and Canada as the Casca ...

and was active in civic affairs for the Darrington community. He volunteered as the head of several local improvement committees, including those organizing the Timber Bowl festival and other events, and taught children to ski. Bruseth was also a noted local historian, photographer, botanist, guitarist, geologist, and author. He wrote a weekly column in '' The Arlington Times'' and published several books, including a compilation of indigenous legends from the Stillaguamish and

Sauk-Suiattle Sauk-Suiattle ( lut, saʔqʷəbixʷ-suyaƛ̕ʔbixʷ), or ''Sah-Ku-Me-Hu,'' is a federally recognized Native American tribe in western Washington state in the United States. The tribe historically lived along the banks of the Sauk, Suiattle, Cas ...

. For his contributions to Darrington, local residents honored Bruseth as "Mr. Darrington" in 1950, following an attempt to make him the newly-incorporated town's first mayor, which he turned down as a federal employee who was ineligible to hold a civic office. Bruseth retired in 1951 and spent much of his retirement painting local landscapes, which were donated to causes in Darrington. He died on March 24, 1957, at a hospital in Arlington, one year after a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

. Bruseth's life story was told in the play ''Common Wealth'', which adapted the history of Darrington and performed by local residents. Nels Bruseth Memorial Garden in Darrington is named in his honor.

Works

References

External links

Nels Bruseth collection
at

University of Washington Libraries The University of Washington Libraries (UW Libraries) is the academic library system of the University of Washington. The Libraries serves the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell campuses of the University of Washington and the university's Fri ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruseth, Nels 1886 births 1957 deaths Historians from Washington (state) People from Snohomish County, Washington People from Stanwood, Washington 20th-century American writers American mountain climbers