Orleans

                                                     Orleans Ranger District

                                              Six Rivers National Forest

                                                           1971-1977

 

Orleans is located along the Klamath River in northwestern California.  In the gold mining days of the 1850’s it was known as Orleans Bar when the only access was by horseback.  Today state highway 96 goes through this small community, and if you don’t have to stop for food, gas or information at the Ranger Station you might not even notice the posted speed limit. 

In the spring of 1971, I accepted a job with the Forest Service as a GS-4 Forestry Aid on the Orleans Ranger District.  Without any knowledge of this community I loaded up my old 1963 Ford pickup and made the big move.   It was an eight hour drive from Stockton, California up through the Klamath Mountains to Orleans.  As I drove up highway 96 the sun was setting.  When I arrived in Orleans it was dark, and I could only see a few lights from houses scattered along both sides of the highway.  I looked for a place to spend the night, like a motel or a side street where I could park and sleep in my truck; there was neither.  I ended up in a campground just outside of town.  The next morning I reported for work thinking there might be temporary space to stay in the bunk house until I found a place to stay permanently.  The bunkhouse was full.  Somebody informed me there was a small house for rent next to the tackle shop.  After work I made contact with the owner, who lived next door to the small house for rent.  Since I quickly saw there was not much to this town, I decided to take it for $70 per month.  Half of this house was an old trailer making up a bedroom and kitchen attached to a wooden structure containing the bathroom and small living room, maybe for a total of 200 square feet of living space all under one roof.  I spent four years living in this place until I was promoted to a position that included a government trailer to live in located in a community trailer park. 

In addition to the Ranger Station, Orleans consisted of two gas stations, two stores, a post office, an elementary school, a veneer mill, three trailer courts, three bars, a hotel and a church.  The population was about 600 people in the summer, including all those that lived within a ten mile radius and a seasonal work force of contractors and their employees.  The Ranger Station was made up of an office, seven homes for the staff, a shop, warehouse, bunk house and a small house for a crew foreman.  There were about 14 permanent people assigned to this station and a seasonal work force of about 20, including a fire crew, a brush disposal crew, a silvicuture and timber crew . 

The local economy was based on logging, road construction, recreation, and the cultivation of marijuana.  It was not uncommon to come across marijuana plantations while working out in the forest or seeing shifty looking characters in town showing off their big rolls of cash.  Social events consisted of floating on inner tubes down the Klamath River, fishing, potluck dinners on the Ranger Station, baseball games with local loggers, drinking beer and fighting.   The nearest law enforcement officer was a deputy sheriff 30 miles away in Hoopa and was never known to patrol after dark in or around Orleans.   There were some citizen deputies appointed to keep a watchful eye on any local mischief, especially at any community functions.  In most cases some of these people were in no better condition than the local Indians in regard to their alcohol consumption

There was an Indian population here that had a hard time controlling their use of alcohol, which usually led to fights in one of the drinking establishments called the Ishi Pishi Bar.  Some of these fights resulted in the death of some people over the years I lived here.  Sometimes it was closed down by the state, but usually opened again in a few weeks.  Seems the windows to this place were always covered with plywood.  Most white people stayed away and gathered at the Orleans Hotel Bar across the highway or the Fisherman’s Inn across the river. 

The first three years of my career here involved doing a little of everything from performing plantation surveys in the spring, timber cruising and mapping in the summer, falling hardwoods and burning logging slash in the fall, planting trees and assisting with timber sale appraisals in the winter.  Within the first year I was promoted to a GS-5 Forestry Technician after becoming a certified timber cruiser and by the end of my second year was promoted to a GS-7 Lead Forestry Technician in charge of timber sale layout.   By the spring of 1975 I was promoted to a GS-9 Forestry Technician doing timber sale administration which became a year-round job.   This District had a hard time recruiting people due to the remote location which made it not that attractive to many professional people with families.  In the six years I worked here I saw three District Rangers come and go.   It was relatively easy to get promotions as a technician, plus it was a good way for management to keep you from looking for transfers in order to get a promotion.   

This District had an annual timber cut of 80 million board feet, mostly in the form of clearcuts.  Most timber sales were purchased by Fortuna Veneer that had the mill in Orleans, Humboldt Fir Lumber Company in Hoopa or Sierra-Pacific Lumber Company in Arcata.  Many of the logging and road construction contractors came from out of the area, such as Willow Creek, Hoopa or Happy Camp and one as far away as Medford, Oregon.  The three trailer courts in Orleans were filled in the summer where many of the employees of these contractors took up residence.   After the first fall rains District personnel, except the clerical staff were divided into two slash burning teams.  One team was assigned all completed logging units south of the river and the other everything north of the river, about 800 acres for each team to burn.  It usually took a week of 12 to 14 hour days until the job was done in preparation for tree planting contractors to begin their work on the many clearcuts ranging in size from 10 to 80 acres.   

The biggest project on the District was the construction of the Gasquet-Orleans Road, better known as the G-O Road that was to open up the timber supply in the Klamath River to mills in Crescent City where much of their timber supply was cut off by the formation of the Redwood National Park in the 1960’s.  The G-O Road was designed as a two-lane paved highway from Orleans up over the summit of the Siskiyou Mountains and down into the Smith River to state highway 199.  Much of this road was financed by timber sales along the proposed route.   In addition to construction from Orleans toward the summit road construction was also in progress from the Gasquet District up the south fork of the Smith River toward the summit. 

The local Indians protested the proposed route through their sacred grounds near a high peak called Doctor Rock located along the summit ridge.  Because of the concerns of the Indians, environmental groups and a ruling by the Supreme Court the G-O Road was never completed.  Today parts of the uncompleted road is included within the Siskiyou Wilderness Area as a very expensive walking trail. 

In the winter of 1975 a young woman by the name of Christine was hired on as a receptionist.  One thing I had learned in my four years before she appeared on the scene was there was a definite shortage of single women here and a man had to move quickly because of the many available bachelors.   By August of that year we were married and in October of 1976 our son Jason was born in Eureka, the largest city, a two hour drive from Orleans.  We lived a small cabin that we rented a few miles out of town until we moved.

It was common to look at the Forest Service vacancy notices posted in the main office from time to time and dream of working in a location that was a little more civilized, and not so steep and brushy.  In the spring of 1977, I applied for two job vacancies that I qualified for, one in Prairie City, Oregon the other was in Greenville, California.   After visiting Prairie City and scoping out that community Christine was not too excited about moving there, so we agreed on Greenville.   The Orleans District Ranger informed me he did not want me to transfer due to the heavy work load.  About a week later, after much thought and a few personal tragedies, like my dog getting run over, I confronted the Ranger one Saturday morning in front of his residence on this issue.   Without me getting too confrontational, he could tell I wanted this transfer and agreed to it. 

After living in Orleans for six years, I learned the following—there were no ugly women here, all the local natives were related to one way or another, so if you had a disagreement with one you better be ready to deal with the others and the end of the world was not far away. 

Today the Orleans Ranger Station is combined with the Ukonom Ranger Station which is a district on the Klamath National Forest to the east of the Orleans District.  There is much less logging now, the veneer mill is gone and the Ishi Pishi Bar has passed into history liked many of us who worked there.