Bark Shanty Bridge, Olympic National Forest

Greetings to all our friends: This email begins a slightly different slant of our on-going Blog. For years, Nancy has sent out periodic emails announcing new printed products to our customers, clients, family and friends. While this has worked well, there is much more we’d like to share, such as published articles, fine-art paintings and special interpretive projects for many parks. So, here’s our first ‘edition.’
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Bark Shanty Bridge
Here on the Olympic Peninsula, it’s called the Big Quil River. And this little bridge is called Bark Shanty because many years ago there used to be a squatter’s cabin nearby made of big slabs of Doug-fir bark, probably the easiest building material he could have found here. The shanty is long gone but the bridge remains.

Thirty miles south of our home in Port Townsend, we hiked the two miles from road’s end, a flat and level trail along the Big Quilcene River. The entire trail was in an emerald-green tunnel beneath enormous old-growth firs and hemlocks. This is national forest land, and past administrations have left it pretty much butchered up by a forest industry that cared little for our national legacy. However, here and there you can still find the old lowland forest, and here along the Big Quil life goes on much as it has for centuries. The trail eventually crosses two beautiful wooden bridges, and this one is the second, probably installed in the 1930’s by WPA crews. After 80 years, the two old-growth logs that make most of it are still in fine shape. We stood on these rocks and listened to the rush of clear water. A winter wren competed with a very loud dipper as they both tried to overpower the crash of the river. It was as pure a scene as could be imagined. As a painter, I especially liked the swirling mist beyond the bridge, indicating more whitewater upstream. It intrigued us to go farther.

We have eight-color Giclee prints either unframed or framed, between $39.95 and $239.95 available of this painting and the original painting is available for $700 unframed. Email us.

Link here to the Bark Shanty Bridge print on our website

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