June 12, 2009
Friday

My comment is directed to Don Borders and all that may believe that just because the forests of Washington and Oregon have vegetation on the hills that all is well in the woods there. Not so. When my Great Grandfather worked in the woods of Washington they didn't use trucks to haul the logs out, they built railroads. They cut everything. They choked the creeks and dredged the rivers, dammed them up and then blew the dams so the logs would flood downstream. They messed up the hills and rivers so bad that even today the fish haven't come back and the original river channels are far from what they used to be.

What most people don't realize is that it wasn't the local folks that did this. It was the timber bosses and to this day people are still defending what they did even though the average logger was working for a living and had no choice about what was going on. Towns were made and busted overnight and the little guy and his family would have to pull up and keep pace with the work or starve.

It's a different world today and thank goodness it is. I'm glad we have some protections or the new bosses would mow down the woods like they did in Grandpa's day. Unfortunately the tree huggers have no more concept about the woods than the guys protecting the big company. It's all propaganda on both sides really.

Take a moment and seek out the old folks. Ask them how it really was and take note. They might have some good ideas about our future, how to use the woods better, and how to avoid some of the mistakes of the past.

Michael Moyer
Ketchikan, AK

Received June 05, 2008 - Published June 12, 2009

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