Paul Bunyan Digs Puget Sound (Campfire Story)

After PAUL BUNYAN had logged most of the north woods, he and BABE the Blue Ox headed west, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. There they found the biggest, tallest trees they had ever seen: Douglas firs as tall as clouds and cedars as wide as houses. Paul rubbed his hands together. 'Babe,' he said, 'this is logging country.'

But there was a problem. Those giant trees grew far inland, and the only way to get logs to market was to float them out to the ocean. There was no water anywhere near the forest. Just miles and miles of hills.

'Well,' said Paul, 'if the water won't come to the trees, we'll bring it.'

So Paul built a scraper, a giant scoop of iron and timber as big as a barn, and hitched it to BABE. And together they started to dig.

SCOOP! Paul and Babe dug a long channel in from the ocean. SCOOP! They dug a wide bay off to the side. SCOOP! They dug inlets and coves and harbors, wherever Paul thought a sawmill might need one. Babe's hooves pounded and the WIND whistled off the ocean, and every time Paul tipped the scraper, he dumped the dirt in one big pile behind them, so it wouldn't be in anybody's way.

They dug for a week. They dug for a month. Then Paul stood back, wiped his forehead, and gave a shout. The ocean came rushing in, SPLASH, SPLASH, filling up every channel and bay and inlet they'd made, all the way to the edge of the forest. Now the logs could float right out to sea.

The people who came later named that great body of water Puget Sound. Cities grew up along its shores, Seattle and Tacoma and Olympia, with ferry boats crossing back and forth all day.

But what about all that dirt? Remember, Paul had dumped every scoop in one big pile. And it was a big pile. By the time the digging was done, it had grown so tall that its top was covered in snow all year round, and clouds got stuck on it when the WIND blew.

Today we call that pile Mount Rainier.

And they say BABE liked the view from the top so much that he climbed it every evening to watch the sun go down over the water he and Paul had dug. If you're ever in Seattle on a clear night and you hear a faraway moo drifting down from the mountain, now you'll know why.

'BABE!'

Storyteller tips: get everyone digging together on each SCOOP, and make it a little bigger each time. Mount Rainier is real, 14,410 feet tall and covered in glaciers; it's a volcano, not a dirt pile, but don't tell Paul.