History
This article was originally published in the March 1952 issue of Outdoor Life magazine. Used with permission.
Clarence A. Carlson, J. W. MacDonald, H.K. Butler, and Hill Adler started the club two decades ago, when they got together informally to exchange information and ideas on fishing, hunting, and back-country phtoography. Soon seven other sportsmen joined them, and the associates began to call themselves the Trail Blazers. The first formal meeting was held December 27, 1933. Soon other hunters and anglers heard about the club and were taken into it. "We've never had to look for members," says John R. McKail, 1950 president.
Throughout the years the Trail Blazers have restricted their program to
This interesting article has won the seventh Outdoor Life Conservation Award—a handsome bronze-and-mahogany plaque—for the Trail Blazers, of Seattle, Wash. With the award goes a check for $100 in furtherance of the club's work.
The article is the seventh in a series on conservation in action that will appear in Outdoor Life and for which other awards will be made. Any person or organization engaged in work that gives dynamic meaning to America's Conservation Pledge is eligible for an award. Authors who submit acceptable articles describing such work—written in lively, readable fashion—will be paid our regular rates.
surveying and stocking mountain lakes and streams not accessible to state fisheries men. Admittedly this is a specialized job, but members feel it's better to concentrate on one desirable project and do it well than to dabble in a number and accomplish little. Their work becomes tougher each year as they push higher and deeper into the mountains, but with characteristic humor they quip: "Out of 450,000 people in Seattle, only thirty-five are foolish enough to join the Trail Blazers."
A much more flattering opinion is held by Stephen J. Morrissey, a member of the Washington State Game Commission. He says" "Knowingly or unknowingly, countless fishermen who have enjoyed the pleasure of fishing Washington's alpine lakes can be grateful to the members of this truly outstanding organization of enthusiastic fishermen who are doing something substantial to see that this foremost type of outdoor recreation is maintained."
I know that in order to keep a healthy bank account I must put in at least as much money as I take out. But I never applied that reasoning to fishing or hunting. I just kept withdrawing from an account into which I never deposited anything. Until I met these chaps no other course occurred to me. The Trail Blazers summarized the whole philosophy of their work in this way: "You can't expect to take 'em out if you don't help put 'em in." THE END