Carver captures North Bend history
June 25, 2009
By Laura Geggel
If the entire history of North Bend was illustrated from left to right, it might be taller than Mount Si itself.
Still, North Bend resident Adi Hienzsch managed to condense the city’s 100-year history onto a slightly shorter distance: a seven-foot rectangle of basswood from a linden tree. He will showcase his creation during the North Bend centennial celebration June 27 and during August at George’s Bakery & Deli on North Bend Way.
The basswood carving starts with an American Indian woman picking hops in a field. Beside her, an American Indian man prepares to spear a salmon in the Snoqualmie River. Time accelerates as a pioneer’s covered wagon appears on the scene, and next to it, a lumberjack chopping down a Western red cedar tree with his ax.
Adi Hienzsch’s carving for the North Bend centennial.
The timeline continues with the house of Uncle Si, surrounded by a herd of deer and, finally, a team of oxen helping to transport a pile of logs. Finally, Hienzsch carved a motorized truck carrying lumber out of North Bend.
“It was all his own idea,” Eva Hienzsch said of her husband.
Hienzsch started his project by researching North Bend at the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum in the early spring. He learned American Indians had traveled from as far as Eastern Washington and Oregon to pick hops in the Snoqualmie Valley. The local tribe also had connections with timber products before the pioneers arrived. According to the museum, American Indians felled trees, but the newcomers’ steel axes and handsaws sped up the process in the 1850s. Water-powered sawmills sprung up in the 1870s, abetting the process.
Spending his time in his workshop at Edelweiss-Chalet Alpine Paintings and Woodcarvings, Hienzsch said he easily spent 150 hours carving the scene. Cataract surgery interrupted his project, but he returned with renewed vision once an eye surgeon removed his cloudy lens.
Hienzsch said he enjoyed researching and carving North Bend’s roots and said he wished he could have fit even more onto the wooden panorama.
“The important thing is the history,” Hienzsch said. “You could make a lot of pictures in between.”
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