Stories of the Past
Revisiting the Great Depression era in the North Cascades
STORY AND PHOTO BY BAILEY BARNARD
Papers cover nearly every inch of a small kitchen table. Photocopied black and white photos of the North Cascades are scattered among typed memos. Two “Everybody Reads” bookmarks sit atop a small wooden box that is almost totally submerged in paper. Books mingle with the loose leafs and one red cover entitled “Tree Solider” stands out among the mess.
The author, Janet Oakley, was standing in the family room while a football game blared out of a small television beside her. She has lived in Bellingham for 38 years and has written two award winning historical fiction novels.
“Tree Soldier” was a quarter finalist in the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, and won the Chanticleer Book Reviews’ Blue Ribbon Grand Prize in 2012.
The book was published in 2011, and gives the reader a look into the world of the Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 1930s.
Otherwise known as the CCC, the Corps was established nation wide by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to give young men a chance to make some money. Men came from across the country to the Pacific Northwest to work for $30 a month, most of which would be sent to their poor families back home. CCC workers would make trails, plant trees and build outdoor structures like the warming hut at Mount Baker and the framework for the Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, says Oakley.
By 1935 over 500,000 men had worked in the CCC and contributed to over half the reforestation, both public and private, done in the nation’s history, according to the University of Washington Libraries’ article the “Civilian Conservation Corps”.
Her historical fiction novel gives the reader a look at at how life was for the men in the Depression era North Cascades; all while telling a compelling fictional story says Kathryn Brown, President of Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media.
Oakley’s inspiration for writing the novel came from her mother’s tales of the CCC in Idaho in the 1930s.
After interning with the Smithsonian in her second year of college and graduating with a degree in history, Oakely went on to get her Bachelor of Fine Arts in textiles and weaving.
After school, Oakley knew she wanted to work with the public and gain a better understanding of the history of the Pacific Northwest.
By interviewing “the CCC boys,” as Oakley calls them, all of whom are now in their 80s and 90s, Oakley brings the reader into the lives of the men of the North Cascades CCC work camps.
When writing a historical fiction novel a lot of authors tend to tell a story based on their research, Brown says, Oakley though, uses her research to show the reader a vivid sense of what the past was like through first hand interviews with the CCC boys.
“I’m trying to listen to them and tell their stories as accurately as I can,” Oakley says. Although her characters are fictional, she strives to make their lives and scenarios as realistic as possible.
“You have to let go of your own thoughts … sometimes these things that happened in history are not going to be very comfortable, but you have to relay that it actually happened,” Oakley says.
The combination of Oakley’s writing and research skills work together to give her a unique style, Brown says. She takes somewhat dry historical notes and research and makes them into something much more.
Speaking about and teaching history is a passion for Oakley, and as new generations read her novels she is able to help pass on the legacy of the CCC.
Oakley sets a high bar for historical fiction, Brown says. “I believe that authors are magical beings, because they can create characters and worlds out of nothing, it really is magic,” Brown says.
“She’s really obsessed, in the best way, and spends a lot of time on her work,” Brown says.
With two published novels and four unpublished manuscripts, Oakley plans to continue writing, and carry on her legacy of historical storytelling.
Oakley’s novel not only gives the reader a look into the Great Depression era Pacific Northwest in a unique and compelling way, it also passes on the legacy of the CCC through the eyes of the men who helped shape the nation.