Saving the trees…
Friday, July 13th, 2007 by Nigel
I’ve just read this lovely article in this week’s New Scientist, about Charles Kellogg, a successful music-hall performer who loved the Californian Redwood forests. Kellogg’s bizarre specialism was birdsong impressions. He was known as “the Nature Singer”, taking sounds from the western wilderness into the American cities. He had a remarkable - if somewhat strange - ability and claimed to have a range of 12-and-a-half octaves. Well, he was a showman…
The story isn’t available online, but there’s a version of the same story on the NPR site. Kellogg, a Californian, loved the sequoia forests. After finding fame in New York he returned west to find logging was destroying these ancient trees.
So in 1917 he created a the world’s first mobile home - hewn out of a giant sequoia trunk - all 36 tonnes of it. He mounted this on the back of a Nash Quad, an early military truck, fitted a bed and sink inside and called it his Travel Log.
He spent the next few years crossing America campaigning to save the forests, setting up a group called Save The Redwoods, and helping to turn the country against the worst excesses of a logging industry that was cutting a swathe though what were the most ancient and remarkable trees in the world. California has sequoias that are 3,200 years old.
The Travel Log has been recently restored by the Humbolt Redwood Interpretive Association.
… it is now rolling again, and can be seen at the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The forest that surrounds it is much diminished since Kellog’s youth - but not as much, perhaps, were it not for the journey of the Travel Log.
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July 20th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Hello Nigel,
I have just stumbled across your website after reading about Charles Kellogg in New Scientist mag, and doing a Google search on him. The article on him was great. I thought I’d say hi and let you know that your website looks really good and it is good to see someone doing something positive to help. I wondered if you would like to look at my website, I am an artist who paints trees, and I sell cards and prints to shops. Trees are my friends and I love animals and birds. I’m not really trying to drum up business but it is nice to share my art with people of a like mind.
Best wishes and keep up the good work
Sam *
July 28th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I too read your article on Charles Kellogg when I came across it while researching information on this remarkable gentleman. I am hoping to find more information on him prior to 1917. You see in 1904 he operated a bird sanctuary in Maine. Mr. Kellogg purchased the property from the Wight family, who, in later years, purchased it back from Mr. Kellogg when the main lodge burned down. A number of the cabins still remain and my husband and I own one of them. We have been fixing up the cabin for our own use and I’ve become very interested in the bits and pieces of information about the former bird sanctuary that I’ve received from some of the town’s elders. I researched this gentleman on the Internet but only found information about him beginning in 1917 when he returned to CA from NY and no mention of the bird sanctuary in Maine was made.
If you or anyone else has information on Mr. Charles Kellogg’s bird sanctuary I would love to hear from you at mygoldponies@aol.com
Thank you.