In 1293, the poet Dante completed his book of verse La Vita Nuova, a new King of Sweden ‘unchristianized’ his nation, Kublai Khan sent a Chinese fleet to the islands of Southeast Asia and Spain’s oldest university was founded.
And a seed, a cone, was dropped in a forest on a volcano by a Douglas fir tree, long before it had its name. A tree grew from the seed, and 670 years later, it was cut by a paper company in a forest adjoining Mount Rainier National Park.
A section of the tree, in the title image, is mounted next to the small museum at Longmire in the Park, with labels marking some of the events that passed it by, only a few of the many changes in such a long span.
