Customer Reviews

From Copenhagen to Okanogan

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From Copenhagen to Okanogan is a 437-page memoir written in the early 1940s by Ulrick Fries, who was born in Denmark in 1866 and came by himself to America in 1884. After earning money as a farm laborer in Illinois, a general laborer in northeast Oregon and working on a railroad tunnel in Washington's Cascade Mountains he homesteaded a cattle ranch in Okanogan County, WA in 1887, one year after the region officially opened to non-Indian settlement.

After establishing his ranch he first had a sister come to be his housekeeper and then in 1891 convinced a cousin from Denmark, who he had met only once shortly before emigrating, to come to marry him and live in that remote location. One of his brothers came from Denmark and established his own ranch but returned to the old country in 1898.

Over the years Fries did a lot of different things to finance his ranch and support his family: cutting wood to fuel river boats, seasonal labor, ranching, dairy farming, wagon freighting and working as a contract Post Office mail carrier covering a 2-3 day weekly route over a mountain range by horseback. He regularly interacted with local Indians, some of whom also raised horses and cattle in the vicinity, participated in local civic affairs and was peripherally involved in an incident where local cattle ranchers violently drove sheep ranchers off public range land.

The text is well written in a straightforward, fast moving manner; apparently Fries son, Emil, was a ghostwriter. Since many chapters are centered on topics (e.g., Schools, Freighting, Indians) sometimes the chronology of events is a bit confusing in places as characters who leave the region or pass away at one point reappear when a different topic is covered. Virtually nothing is written about post-1920 events, probably because the author didn't consider them "historic" when the text was initially written. And it would be fascinating to learn more about what happened to this pioneer ranch and Fries' children down to the current time.

There are numerous fascinating black and white photographs of many of the people and locations described in the book and the endpapers have an excellent sketch map showing the locations of towns and landmarks.

It's hard to imagine how hard most people worked in those days to make a living and how truly primitive, by our standards, their living conditions were in a time that's hardly two generations before the Baby Boomers. The Fries family is to be commended for having the foresight and perseverance to have Mr. Fries document his experiences - which are probably typical of his time and location - before they were lost. Unfortunately Mrs. Fries passed away in 1932 so we don't have her version of events.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the American West in general and North Central Washington in particular as well as anyone looking for a good example to emulate of a family biography. It's thought provoking and the large number of photographs help readers relate to the people and events.

This book was written by my great great grandfather so I'm a little biased, but I found the book to be a facinating read, a real window into a firsthand pioneer experience in the late 1800s. It also allowed me to "know" my grandfather since I never met him in person.

My family is from the Okanogan region, so I was particularly taken by the author's detailed descriptions of pioneer life in the early days of settling the great Northwest. The book is written in a manner that draws the reader in, because it's mainly about daily life punctuated with more dramatic events. The reader gets real tuned in on what hardy, tough, and tenacious people these were. Life was simpler, and life was much more difficult -- but I guess everything is relative.

I read the book over the Christmas week, and I couldn't put it down. If you like non-fiction, if you like reading memoirs style writing, if you like history, if you like reading about people and their interactions with their environment, then you'll love this book.