Tag Archive for David Douglas

“Finding David Douglas” film now on YouTube

June 2, 2020 blog, personalities No comments

I’m happy to share a link to “Finding David Douglas,” now on YouTube. I wrote the script for this documentary film, which was initially released in 2012.

David Douglas

David Douglas

My friend from childhood (we met at Girl Scout camp and then were high school classmates), Lois Leonard, invited me to be the writer for her film. She said she always liked my writing and that we shared so many interests, including history, the outdoors and all things Hawaiian.

Lois Leonard (facing camera) and film crew

The last part of the 55-minute film takes place in the Hawaiian Islands, on the islands of ‘Oahu and Hawai’i. David Douglas, a 19th-century botanist-explorer from Scotland, spent time on both islands before his untimely death on Mauna Kea on July 12, 1834. He was just 35.

Douglas was, in fact, the first non-native to climb both Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the snow-capped volcanoes on Hawai’i Island. He did so for the purpose of collecting native plants, most of which were then unknown to European naturalists.

As he was walking across the lower elevations of Mauna Kea on his way to the town of Hilo, he had a fateful encounter with a wild cattle trapper named Ned Gurney. Many accounts blame Douglas’s death on one of Gurney’s trapped bulls; most of our film crew came to believe that Douglas was murdered by Gurney and his body thrown into the trap, already occupied by an innocent bull.

Bronze plaque from 1934 memorial

Some beautiful scenes were filmed in a grove of Douglas fir trees (imported from the Pacific Northwest) that were planted next to the pyramid-shaped stone memorial that marks the site of Douglas’s death. David Douglas is buried at the Kawaiaha’o Church Cemetery in Honolulu.

Douglas firs and koa trees

I hope you’ll take the time to view the “Finding David Douglas” video so you can appreciate Douglas’s accomplishments as a plant collector. For one thing, the seeds from Douglas fir and spruce trees that he sent home to London resulted in the re-growth of depleted forests in the UK and Europe.

My advice for anyone who wishes to visit the David Douglas Memorial on Mauna Kea: Make the trip in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle. The road is pretty rough. Keep in mind that the hardy Douglas was making the entire trek on foot.

Writing for Hana Hou!

November 7, 2014 travel, writing No comments
David Douglas

I checked a publication off my wish list by snagging a great assignment from Hana Hou!, the inflight magazine of Hawaiian Airlines. My story, about the David Douglas memorial on Hawaii Island, and my friend Lois Leonard’s addition of a new plaque to the monument, will run in the December-January issue.

Lois is the director and producer of a documentary film about Douglas, “Finding David Douglas.” She and I first met as children at Camp Wind Mountain, a few miles upstream from where the Scottish botanist David Douglas “discovered” seeds of the tree that would bear his name after his untimely death in 1834. At camp, Lois and I would join the other little campers in singing:

‘Neath the whispering firs of Wind Mountain, Girl Scouts learn the way of the woods.

Douglas fir

Douglas fir

Back then, Lois and I never imagined that we’d both be working on a film about the man for whom those whispering firs, Douglas firs, were named. It was my great fortune that Lois invited me to write the film’s script. In 2009 I traveled with her and other members of the team for filming in Hawaii, including at the site of Douglas’s death on the Big Island. Later in the year we all traveled to Scotland for a visit to Douglas’s hometown of Scone and a screening of an early version of the film. The film was completed in 2012 and is available through the web site on DVD.

I thought our Douglas adventures were over until Lois told me of her plan to affix a new plaque to the memorial that was built on the slopes of Mauna Kea to honor the famous botanist on the centennial of his unfortunate and mysterious demise. (He is thought to have been either murdered and thrown into a bull trap, or the accidental goring victim of a trapped bull.) The pyramid-shaped, lava-rock cairn has stood unchanged in a secluded grove of Douglas fir trees since 1934.

But Lois realized that the year 2014 was the 180th anniversary of Douglas’s death, as well as the 100th anniversary of the publication of his journal. She studied the plaque that was laid in 1934 to perfectly copy its style and ordered a plaque from a Portland foundry. Lois’s plaque reads:

Honoring the life of David Douglas on the 180th anniversary of his untimely death and the 100th anniversary of the publication of his journal. “To no single individual is modern horticulture more indebted than to David Douglas.” Gardeners Chronicle, 1926. Placed by the Finding David Douglas Project, October 2014.

Lois & Doug

Lois & Doug

Of course, she first got permission from the Hawaii state forestry division, and a forester was present to oversee the work of Lois’s husband, Doug Magedanz, as he drilled into the ancient lava and mortared the new plaque into place. Photographer Jeff DePonte, who actually appears in Lois’s film, captured the moment for the magazine.

On October 22 we gathered at this peaceful place at the 6,000-feet level of a volcano and dedicated the plaque.

Lucy Douglas

Lucy Douglas

A special guest, David Douglas’s great-great-great-great niece, Lucy Douglas of Yakima, Wash., did the unveiling.

To write the article for Hana Hou!, there was a lot of history to condense, beginning with David Douglas’s work in the Pacific Northwest as a plant collector and his botanizing expeditions across Hawaii Island; the fascinating forester (L.W. Bryan), who erected a monument to a man whom he idolized and emulated, and Lois’s dogged dedication to a 20-year project that ultimately brought David Douglas’s life to the screen. In fact, my first draft contained such a hodgepodge of information that the editor sent it back to me for a rewrite.

After completing nearly every article, the thought crosses my mind: “I could have written a book!” Or, in this case, a film. In February and March, I hope Hawaiian Airlines passengers find this brief introduction to David Douglas to be interesting and enjoyable.