"A Ridge Too Far."

Goltz-Murray Building 808 25th St Bellingham 98225-9123 cpnws@wwu.edu https://library.wwu.edu/center-pacific-northwest-studies

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-11-26. Finding aid written in English. Finding aid based on DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard), 2nd Edition. Center for Pacific Northwest Studies Lage Wernstedt photographs Wernstedt, Lage, -- 1878-1959. XOE_CPNWS0259Wernstedt 1 linear ft. approximately 1916-1935 Lage Wernstedt photographs include photographs and glass plate negatives of mountains, glaciers, rivers, and lakes in the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Wernstedt was a surveyor and cartographer for the U.S. Forest Service in the early and mid twentieth century. English .

Lage Wernstedt, born in 1878 in Sweden, attended the Royal Technological School in Stockholm before immigrating to the United States in 1902. He earned a master's degree in Forestry at Yale University and then moved to the west coast and took a job in 1908 with the United States Forest Service. For 25 years he worked as a surveyor and map-maker throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Almost single-handedly he mapped the Columbia National Forest (now the Gifford Pinchot). He also did mapping in the Willamette, Umpqua, Mt Baker, Deschutes and Chelan Forests and the Pasayten Wilderness. While engaged in his employment he became a noted photographer and mountain climber who was the first to summit many peaks in the Pacific Northwest.

In addition, Wernstedt was proficient in photogrammetry, silviculture, geography, botany, horsepacking, and parachute-assisted firefighting. He also invented aerial stereoscopic photography to produce contour maps.

Wernstedt married Adele (Dot) Wilcox in 1919 with whom he had one son, Frederick, and one daughter, Doris. The Wernstedts lived in Portland, Oregon until Lage's retirement in 1942 when they moved permanently to their summer home on Waldron Island and then Guemes Island. Wernstedt died in 1959 at the age of 81.

References: Geof Childs, "A Ridge Too Far," Northwest Mountaineering Journal [accessed 6/18/07 http://www.mountaineers.org/nwmj/06/061_SilverStar.html ]. Lewis A. McArthur and Victor H. Flach, "We Present: Lage Wernstedt: Pioneer in Photogrammetry," Journal of Forestry, Vol. 43 (Feb. 1945).

The Lage Wernstedt Photograph collection documents some of the mountains, glaciers, rivers, and lakes in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska from 1916 to 1935. The collection primarily consists of glass plate negatives, although there are three photographs. The locations of the majority of the images are unknown; however some have been identified. They include Multnomah Falls, Oregon; the Columbia River Gorge; Reid Glacier and White River Glacier, Oregon; Mt. Hood, Oregon; Mt. Baker, Washington; Adam's Glacier and Mount Adams Wilderness, Washington.

The Lage Wernstedt Photograph collection is organized in accordance with the following series arrangement:

Series I: Photographs and Negatives, approximately 1916-1935.

This collection is open to the public.

[item/date], Lage Wernstedt photographs, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Archives & Special Collections, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA 98225-9123.

Donated by John Scurlock, 2006

Archival TIFF images were created by scanning images at 300 dpi.

Images from this collection have been digitized and can be accessed online as part of Western Libraries' Digital collections. See: https://mabel.wwu.edu/islandora/object/wwu%3A32664.

To learn more about problematic content in our collections, collection description and teaching tools (including how to provide feedback or request dialogue on this topic), see the following Statement About Potentially Harmful Language and Content.

Childs, Geof. "A Ridge Too Far." <emph render="italic">Northwest Mountaineering Journal.</emph> http://www.mountaineers.org/nwmj/06/061_SilverStar.html. Accessed 18 June 2007. McArthur, Lewis A. and Victor H. Flach. "We Present: Lage Wernstedt: Pioneer in Photogrammetry." <emph render="italic">Journal of Forestry, Vol. 43.</emph> 1945 February.

Baker, Mount (Wash.) -- Photographs. Hood, Mount (Or.) -- Photographs. Multnomah Falls (Or.) -- Photographs. Columbia River Gorge (Or. and Wash.) -- Photographs. Mount Adams Wilderness (Wash.) -- Photographs. Cascade Range -- Photographs. Mountains -- Northwest, Pacific -- Photographs. Mountains -- Northwest, Canadian -- Photographs. Mountains -- Alaska -- Photographs. Glaciers -- Washington (State) -- Adams, Mount -- Photographs. Glaciers -- Oregon -- Photographs. Alaska Photographs Washington (State) Photographs. Photographs and Negatives Series I approximately 1916-1935 Original glass plate negatives and photographs English.

Images from this collection have been digitized and can be accessed online as part of Western Libraries' Digital collections. See: https://mabel.wwu.edu/islandora/object/wwu%3A32664.

Sixty-one glass plate negatives of the North Cascades circa 1930s 1 Mt. Baker 1935 MC_L04 1 Mt. Baker 1935 MC_L04 2 North Cascades including description 1929 MC_L04 3 Scanned Images Aerial photographs on two CDs 1928-1935 MC_L04 4