A Frontier of Timber and Sea The frontier in the Pacific
Northwest was, in physical terms, a frontier of tall timber and
water: the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound, the many rivers and
streams. These physical aspects profoundly affected the shape of
the society that immigrants created. |A Pacific Northwest
counterpart of the sod house of the Great Plains: a house made
from the stump of a cedar tree. Loggers felled the tree high
above the ground to obtain the straightest wood for lumber and
shingle| Timber was both an obstacle to agricultural settlement
and a natural resource that established an industry. Since so
many immigrants came West with the intention of farming, they
viewed the trees as something to be removed. They also,
mistakenly, viewed the huge size and robust strength of the
trees as indicators of the fertility of the region's soil. As a
result, in the Puget Sound country, extractive industry soon
supported more immigrants than did farming. Mills supplied masts
for sailing ships, and timber to build h