On Haines Wharf and Meadowdale:

I spend innumerable hours on Haines Wharf, Meadowdale Beach, and walking “in the stream’ on a little walkway in the rectangular tunnel under the Great Northern tracks, up into Lund’s Gulch.
I can see Haines Wharf clearly in my mind, of walking across the heavy creosote-soaked deck planks from the shore. Cars’ tires crossing on the beams made a distinctive clacking sound. On the Northwest corner of the dock was an enclosed fishing area where you could cast out a line and sit on a bench. Many days of my youth were spent there. I never caught salmon, but many a flounder and rock cod, and too many bullheads that were not edible. Occasionally a dogfish shark, which we released, and occasionally a dungeness crab would get caught on the baited hook. When I was in elementary school, I participated in a Boy Scout Salmon Derby that went out in the kicker boats from Haines Wharf. I won third prize with a 3lb 6 oz silver salmon. The prize was my first camera, a red plastic Kodak Brownie camera with attached flash that used flash bulbs. I am still a professional photographer today because of that event. I can trace my photo career directly to Haines Wharf. My father and I would occasionally take boats out for salmon fishing, but mostly I fished from the pier. As I recall, there was a cafe there, which was a great place to get breakfast in the pre-dawn darkness before taking out a boat.
My family lived on the crest of the Meadowdale Hill at 15908 68th Street West. Mailboxes were on posts up at the corner. Our first Meadowdale mailing address was Route 2 Box 2375C. Route 2 came out of the Edmonds Post Office, but Meadowdale was not part of Edmonds at the time. In fact, many people don’t know that Meadowdale was the first incorporated city in Snohomish County. Del Caryl’s book “With Angels to the Rear” is a great historical document of Meadowdale’s past. The Caryls were still living in the former grocery/post office, and the school house was by then a private residence on the road by a little creek from the Meadowdale Community Club at the top of the hill down to Haines Wharf.
We lived north of the Community Club, of which my father was president for a year or two. It was public and open to any neighbor who wanted to join. Five other families lived within a half a mile of us: The Ferrills, the Minors, the Krafts, the Steeles, and the Teagues. The Ferrills ran the auto wrecking yard and had a palomino horse and about a two-acre pasture, the Minors were early residents who owned a lot of the vacant land nearby. The Krafts were Alaska natives originally from Nome. The Steeles were a large family with a father away most of the year in the Merchant Marines. I played with the Ferrill, Kraft, and Steele kids.
The Teagues were the oldest residents. Mr. Teague had retired to Meadowdale from the Seattle Fire Department. He hand-built his house and ours in the 1930s. In our house, two of the main upright supporting beams in the basement were tree trunks with bark still attached. He brought his favorite fire wagon pulling horse with him. The lower part of our property had a log barn with a horse stall and manger and a wagonport, where my sisters raised chickens for the 4H Club. In the horse stall was a very old covered gray buckle labeled “Axle Grease” with a drawing of a wagon wheel, which we donated back to the Seattle Fire Department for their fire wagon exhibit. Mr. Teague had built a very large corral next to the barn by attaching horizontal rails of tree logs attached to the 100+ foot tall second growth pines and hemlock trees in the grove. Mr. and Mrs. Teague lived next door. They cooked and heated with a wood stove and cut all their firewood from downed trees. I can still visualize Mr. Teague in his mid-90s wearing denim coveralls, carrying on his shoulder about a foot thick, eight-foot long log, up the hill from the property below.
We still had deer when I was young and mountain beavers burrowed into hillside slopes on the lower parts of our property. An occasion coyote, skunk, or possum might be found. My father had the local squirrels trained to come up our back stairs into the kitchen and take walnuts from off his knee. East of our house was thousands of acres of second growth timber with huge sad silent cedar stumps 15 feet tall and 10 or more feet in diameter left as ghosts from the original forest. The loggers had to cut footholds in the bark to climb up to a place where the tree was narrow enough to get a two-person saw across. Where 68th West ended over the hill north of us was a narrow trail we could take down the slippery, muddy slopes of the south bank of Lunds Gulch. I would go down alone or with friends with flies, salmon eggs, or worms and a fishing line wrapped around a foot-long branch with the bark removed. Lund’s Gulch creek had trout, mostly tiny fingerlings, but occasionally you might get lucky and pull a 5- or 6-inch rainbow out of the stream. The north bank of the Gulch still had the ruins of a few spread-out cabins that we explored. We kids might have fights throwing 18-inch spears at each other fashioned from the root and main stem of bracken ferns, or the large spiny horse chestnut pods that delivered a good sting when it hit you. You had to be very careful hiking down because of stinging nettles, sharp thorny blackberry vines, and devil’s club. On the way, we would collect and eat huckleberries, blackberries, and my favorites, called redcaps, that were similar to raspberries but softer and finer grained. They grew on thorn-less bushes and would pop right off into your hand.
When a private company came in and enclosed the Lund’s Gulch’s delta for the Meadowdale Country Club, it ruined Lund’s Gulch for everyone else, and made it an exclusive playground for rich people. It cut off the upper Gulch from the beach. We were all happy when the Country Club went bankrupt and Mother Nature finally returned Lund’s Gulch to the neighborhood. Many of my happiest hours were spent on the point of Meadowdale Beach where the stream empties into Puget Sound. We collected rocks and clam, scallop, and blue-black mussel shells and sand-etched glass and interesting oddities that drifted ashore. The mineral-soaked driftwood from the beach made the most beautifully colored flames in our fireplace. It was great for beachcombing, picnicking, and hanging out with kids and family. Sunsets can be fabulous from the point, looking out at ships passing on Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula on the other side. You had to park in the dirt parking lots on the beach at Haines Wharf and hike half a mile with your picnic basket north on the beach below the train tracks. You could see freight trains and the Great Northern Empire Builder pass just a few yards above. When we would see a train coming from the South, we would rush up and put coins on the tracks. After the trains passed, it was usually easy to find the totally squashed coins. Another fun pursuit for kids was to try to throw beach boulders through the open doors of fast passing freight cars. I remember one time when we barely missed hitting two hobos who were riding the rails in an open box car. Sometimes we would end up down by the beach or the wharf on Halloween night. I can vividly remember one Halloween night hanging out with Jiggs Haines when we almost got into some real serious trouble. I will forever be thankful to my parents from making Meadowdale the place where I grew up.