MOHS SURGERY

 My appointment was at 9 am on Monday to have skin cancer, the size of a dime removed from my lower right leg.  The biopsy, taken a month earlier, showed it to be basal cell cancer.   After checking in at the front desk of the Advanced Skin Center in Roseburg, I was instructed to wait in the second waiting room until my name was called.   Most the patients in the waiting room were old men, some with bandages on their noses, faces, arms and God knows where else.   It looked like a room filled with the walking wounded.   Mohs surgery involves cutting out the tissue with cancer, having it examined by the pathologist and if the edges of the tissue is free of cancer cells they stitch you up.   If it is not clear of cancer cells more cutting is performed until it become clear.  Some people could be in here all day.   I have been through this procedure before and never had to go back for a second cutting.  Medical staff personnel walked through the waiting room carrying towels, garments and other medical supplies.  Soon a young woman, who was a  medical assistant appeared calling out a name.   Not getting a response she yelled out the name and an elderly man responded and off he went following the young woman.   I got the impression some of these gentlemen had a hearing problem in addition to skin cancer.   After waiting a half hour my name Mike was called out, and off I went to an examination room where the medical assistant introduced herself, asked a few question and proceeded to injecting a numbing substance around the area that would be removed.  After a couple minutes she poked around the area asking if I could feel anything?   It was totally numbed and off she went to get the surgeon.   The surgeon looked like a man that had been up most the night, in desperate need of coffee with those big telescope lenses fasten to his glasses, like the ones a dentist wears.   He was a man of few words as he put on rubber gloves, picked up a scalpel and quickly did his business placing the chunk of flesh in a glass container the medical assistant was holding.   As he left the room he told me it would be an hour before he would have the pathology results done.   I asked the medical assistant if he was the pathologist too, and she replied yes.   He was a busy man and no wonder he looked tired.    The medical assistant applied a pressure bandage to my wound after cauterizing it to stop the bleeding and took me back out to the waiting room.  

While sitting in the waiting room for the results, an older couple sat down next to me.  The man told me they had come all way that morning from Port Orford on the Oregon Coast.   We got to talking as he told me they lived up Elk River, which I was very familiar with when I worked for the Forest Service in Gold Beach back in the 1980's.   He mentioned a few names of people that I had known including some loggers.   Soon his name was called and off he went.  Then another man sat next to me asking if he was in the right room.  I asked what he was here for and he did not seem to know.   He had come from Cottage Grove and said he had been here before to have something on his face looked at.   As we were talking I heard a man call out William, my first name which I usually don't respond too.  Everybody looked around as nobody responded, until I asked what is the last name and he said Burke, and off we went to another section of the facility where I was told to my relief the tissue was clear of cancer.  Here I was stitched up and a large compression bandage was applied from my knee down to my foot to keep the leg from swelling.  I was instructed to keep the leg elevated for a few days and not to get the bandage wet for week.   A real challenge for taking a shower.   After going to the front desk for scheduling appointments for the bandage removal in a week and in two weeks for the stitches to be removed, I walked out the front door with a new lease on life or at least until next July, when I'm scheduled for my six month full body exam.   I still wonder if that man from Cottage Grove ever found out what he was there for?     

COUNTRY DOCTORS

 When I lived in Orleans in northwestern California from 1971 to 1977 the nearest doctor was 40 miles away in a medical clinic in Hoopa Valley on the Hoopa Indian Reservation.     

This doctor did it all from setting broken bones, stitching up cuts and digging bullets out of people.   If major surgery was required or the birthing of a child we had to drive 85 miles to the hospital in Eureka.  I do not remember any ambulance service.  If there was a medical emergency you were at the mercy of neighbors to provide first aid and get you to Hoopa.  Some vehicle accidents, usually caused by excessive drinking were fatal and it could be days before somebody noticed a vehicle down off the road near the Klamath River below the highway.   Those that survived had to crawl up to the highway in hopes somebody would stop and take them into Hoopa.  

When we lived in Gold Beach on the south coast of Oregon, there was one doctor for the town of about 1500 people.   He worked out of the hospital doing everything from emergencies to clinical work.   To see the doctor you just went to the hospital emergency room and waited your turn.   When I developed an  infection on the side of my waist that prevented me from keeping my pants up it was time to wait my turn in the emergency room.    Once I was called into the exam room the doctor had me lay down on a table where he proceeded to cut open the infection in order to drain it.   Afterwards he told the nurse to pour peroxide on it and bandage it up.   I was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and instructions to soak in the bathtub daily with Epson salts.  During the cutting procedure I was not given any local anesthesia.  There was a water pipe on the wall adjacent to the table that I hung onto thinking I might break it while dealing with any pain.   It all reminded me of the wild west.  

NEIGHBORLY ADVICE

While living on the Gold Beach Ranger Station in 1980, the neighbor's wife living in the house below us asked me to take a look at the engine in their car to see if she had put water in the radiator correctly.   She showed me where she had filled what she thought was the radiator to the top.  In shock I saw she had put water where the oil went.   She had completely filled the engine crankcase with water.   I advised her not to start the engine and  have it drained and flushed out with oil and replace the oil filter a couple of times.   Later her husband returned home and was not pleased.   He apologized to me and was thankful I advised his wife not to start the engine.  

THE JET BOAT EXPERIENCE

 This story was told to me by a contract timber faller by the name of Lester (Les) Olson.   Les had been a contract faller for South Coast Lumber Company (SCL) out of Brookings that purchased many timber sales on the Gold Beach Ranger District.    Les and his crew had been responsible for cutting many of the clearcut units on the District over many years from the 1970's through the 80's that had been sold to SCL.

As a timber sale contract administrator on the District from 1979-88, I got to know Les and his crew.  While inspecting his operation for required fire equipment and falling practices Les told me about his recent jet boat trip up the Rogue River with his elderly parents.   He said his dad had a hard time of hearing and spoke loudly, especially in the jet boat with the roar of the engine.    There were very few visible clear cut units from the river, except in certain side drainages where you could look up and see a distant unit ranging in size from 20 to 40 acres.    The jet boats could carry up 20 to 30 people, mostly tourists that had very little knowledge of clearcutting on National Forests at the time.    In one of these side drainages Lester's dad yelled out, "Les did you cut that unit!?" pointing up the hill.    Les looked at his dad in shock placing his index finger over his mouth in hopes his dad would be quiet as many of the people on the boat turned to look at Les in disbelief.    Les said his dad got the message after that, seeing all the heads turning.  

FLOATING THE ROGUE RIVER

Allen Wilson was a neighbor and friend when we lived on Hunter Creek outside of Gold Beach in the 1980's.   He had been a river guide on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and few other rivers, including the Rogue River.   To float the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River requires a permit between May and October, and sometimes you need to apply a year in advance for the time period you want.   The permit covers a certain number of people in the group and I don't remember the limit.    Allen had a permit for a summer float trip and asked me if I would be interested in going since he had a vacancy in their permit.   The reason for the permit was to insure each party of a place to camp, since there is only so many sand bars available in the wild and scenic portion to spend the night, plus try to make it a wilderness experience without bumper to bumper traffic going down the river.   The permit required all trash and human waste to be removed.  Allen had a bucket that we used to deposit our daily waste into after placing it in plastic bags.   To go up behind a rock to do our business we could see toilet paper and more behind every big rock.   During the high water in the winter all this got flushed down river.  No wonder it was common to get giardia from the Gold Beach water source.   

To start the trip we had to drive over Bear Camp Road toward Grants Pass and check in at the BLM Visitor Center at Rand to be issued a permit to be displayed on the raft.   It was a 3 or 4 day trip down to Foster Bar where we ended our trip.   Allen knew the rough rapids and where we had to pull the raft from the river and portage around, such as Black Bar falls.   On our second or third day we reached the Rogue River Ranch, a national historic site at Marial administered by BLM.   We spent a few hours looking at the ranch and the old house, used as a museum as  I recall.   There is a BLM road coming into the ranch from the north.  Beyond Marial we entered the Siskiyou National Forest where the old Mule Creek Guard Station was utilized by the trail crew that maintained the Rogue River trail.  The last dangerous rapid is at Blossom Bar.   Allen was experienced at getting a raft over this rapid, but many others have tried this, some have failed and some drowned.   This is the upper limit where jet boats coming up river from Gold Beach can go.   Many of these jet boats bring people up to the lodge at Paradise Bar, just below Blossom Bar.   In many ways this is where the wilderness experience ends.  

   

COTTAGE GROVE RD

                                             Cottage Grove Ranger District

                                                  Umpqua National Forest

                                                               1988-1995

In the spring of 1988 I took a transfer to Cottage Grove to be closer to my children, who were living with their mother in University of Oregon housing in Eugene.   This transfer came about by an agreement between the District Ranger of Gold Beach and the District Ranger of the Cottage Grove District.  It is a transfer I will always be grateful for.   The previous sale administrator was burned out on doing sale administration work and was given a job in silviculture doing mapping under the geographic information system (GIS) and his position of lead sale administrator was given to me.  

During the first month I lived in motels until a lady in the office informed me of a small house for rent on Lynx Hollow Road, north of Cottage Grove.   I lived there for three years until I bought a house in Eugene, where my children could live with me part-time.    In some ways I was hoping to get back together with my wife after moving to Cottage Grove, but it did not happen and we mutually agreed to divorce in 1990.  

All District personnel were in one big office building east of Cottage Grove, whereas in Gold Beach people were in four different buildings.  It was the smallest District I had worked on and seem to have the most people, maybe 30 to 40 permanent positions.   It was one big happy family under one roof.   There were seven or eight permanent people in the timber department and all under the supervision of Wayne, the Timber Management Assistant (TMA),  he was also the Forest Service Representative (FSR) for timber sale contracts.   We had the biggest room on the south end of the building with its own door by my desk, where loggers could enter the building without going through the front office.   The annual timber cut (ASQ) was about 40 million board feet, I think, much smaller than other Districts I had worked on.   There was another contract administrator, by the name of Jerry, who was financed part-time in sale administration and sale planning.    The District takes in the Layng Creek and Brice Creek watersheds that are part of the Coast Fork of the Willamette River system.    The south end of the District includes the Bohemia Mining District, where much mining took place in the 1860's to the early 1900's.   The only access was by trail to the mining town of Bohemia City at over 5000 feet in elevation, where an estimated 10,000 people lived at one time, and survive the cold winters.   

For the most part timber operations functioned like a well-oiled machine with presale and sale administration in the same department.    There were more commercial thinning sales here than what I experienced on other Districts.   A portion of the north end of the District had been logged in the early 1900's using a railroad system up Prather Creek and much of this area was ready for thinning.   Now roads replaced the the old train system.  When I arrived on the District there were three commercial thinning sales in progress up Prather Creek.   Much of my time was spent on these sales agreeing to tractor skid trails, skyline corridors, landings and spur roads.   Most logging south of Prather Creek was clearcut logging.  The biggest clearcut sale I remember was the Jumbo Sale with an estimated 12 million board feet of timber on the Noon Day Road in the Brice Creek drainage.    The Noon Day Road is located near what was the trail to Bohemia City.   The Jumbo Sale was purchased by the Bohemia Lumber Company, that had a large mill at Culp Creek, a saw mill at Saginaw with a laminated beam plant adjacent to it.   Bohemia was sold to Willamette Industries, which was bought out by the Weyerhaeuser Company.   The Bohemia mills are gone now.  The only remaining mills are the Starfire Mill in Cottage Grove and the large Weyerhaeuser Mill south of Cottage Grove.  

The listing of the Northern Spotted Owl in 1990 put the brakes on future timber sale planning on National Forests in the Pacific Northwest, especially west of the Cascades.   By 1994 the Forest Service started offering buy-outs in order to downsize personnel, especially road engineers, foresters and technicians that were working in the timber management program.   In March of 1995 I took a buyout after 27 years with the Forest Service.

Today the Cottage Grove District office is located in the Dorena Tree Improvement Center with a skeleton crew compared to what it used to be..   There is no longer any timber people on the District

GOLD BEACH RANGER DISTRICT

 

                                                GOLD BEACH RANGER DISTRICT

                                                          Siskiyou National Forest

                                                                     1979-1988

In the spring of 1979, we traveled from Greenville, in northern California to Gold Beach, on the southern Oregon coast for a job interview.   I had applied for a vacant position here in timber sale administration.  It would be a lateral transfer at my present grade of  GS-9.   The interview was with the acting District Ranger and the Timber Management Staff Assistant (TMA) by the name of Bill, who would be my supervisor.    During the interview, they informed me of two recent personnel changes involving the removal of the last District Ranger, who had been here 16 years, and my predecessor, who was transferred to a remote duty station in eastern Oregon, at Heppner, I think.   I could sense some serious management problems but did accept the job right after it was offered to me at the end of the interview.   Later I learned nobody else had applied for the job and I could see why.   It would be the greatest challenge of my career with the Forest Service.   There was a government house available with the job, where a monthly amount was deducted from my pay for rent.  I don't remember the amount.  My wife and I, with our two young children, lived in this house until 1981 when we purchased our first home south of town on two acres next to Hunter Creek.  (There is a separate story titled Living on Hunter Creek about life there) 

Most of the buildings on the ranger station were originally constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930's and the station is recognized as a historical site.   There are two large warehouses, three office buildings, and five houses.    There was a permanent staff of about 25 people with an additional seasonal workforce of 15 to 20 more people.  North of Gold Beach was the Zone II Westside Engineering office that served all three of the westside ranger districts, including Gold Beach, Powers, and the Chetco District in Brookings.   There must have been 40 to 50 people working in this office doing road survey and design, road construction administration, and road maintenance.   The Zone I Engineering office was in Grants Pass serving the Galice District and Illinois Valley District.

At the time Gold Beach had a population of about 1500 people and Highway 101 is the main street through town with motels, gas stations, and restaurants all catering mostly to tourists, that come to fish or take the jet boats up the Rogue River into the Scenic Rogue River Wilderness Area.   Compared to Orleans and Greenville, Gold Beach was a big city to us.   There was even a grocery store within walking distance of the ranger station and the ocean was just across Highway 101 from the station. 

My desk was located next to another sale administrator, by the name of Clay on the ground floor of a two-story office building.   Two ladies, the resource clerk, and a log scale clerk had their desks nearby.  They were all smokers and it was another year before smoking was not allowed in the office.   In an adjacent room was Bill, the TMA, our supervisor.   Upstairs was the presale crew of eight people, including a planning forester, a timber appraiser, NEPA coordinator, logging engineer, and three field technicians under the supervision of a lead presale technician, and it was all under the supervision of Bill, the TMA. 

During my first morning on the job, Clay went over a list of sales that had been assigned to my predecessor and now were mine.   As he went down the list of about 10 or 12 sales, he informed me of those sales that were active and those that were not active.   On some of the non-active sales, he would say to me," you will have problems with that one" and later he was right as some required contract modifications mostly for inadequate protection of fish-bearing streams.   Clay was pushing 60 years of age and was going to retire within a year after 20 years of service.  He had started work with the Forest Service as a log scaler at the age of 40 and before that had been a timber faller.   For the first week, I rode around the District with Clay learning the road system and location of some of my active sales that Clay had been watching over, in addition to his own sales.   This would be the biggest District I would work on during my career with the Forest Service.    Due to the steep terrain, most logging was done with big yarders using long-span skyline systems and there were a few sales requiring helicopters.  It was all clear-cut logging with a few salvage sales of mostly windthrown trees using small yarders.       

While driving around with Clay in his Forest Service pickup, he would spend a good amount of time on the two-way radio talking to loggers about work needing to be done, non-compliance with branding of logs or how soon somebody would be moving to a new landing, and when he would be able to meet with a logger on a sale to inspect this or that.   This was the first District I worked on where administrators had multi-channel radios to communicate with loggers and other sub-contractors doing slash work, road maintenance, or constructing hand fire lines around clear-cut units.  During my travels with Clay, he filled me in on what happened to my predecessor and how the former ranger of 16 years was told to retire or be fired.  It had something to do with a timber trespass by a timber operator and how the ranger had tried to cover it up.   Clay confided in me that he had a problem with the lead presale technician telling me he would do as he pleased with getting all the timber he could get into a unit when locating cutting boundaries on the ground, especially in riparian areas that should not have been included, which I experienced later.    Clay said Bill did not spend enough time supervising the presale crew and spent more time in the sale administration end of the business.   

By my second week on the job, I was on my own without getting lost too much.   Over the next few years, there were times I was assigned sales in the Elk River drainage of the Powers Districts since this was closer to Gold Beach than to Powers.  Some days I spent more time driving from sale to sale on both Districts than being on the ground inspecting operations.  The workload was too much at times and upper management was made aware of the problems, including the presale layout problems.

By the end of my first year Clay retired, Bill resigned by request from upper management for poor supervision of the presale crew and a new District Ranger took over leadership of the District.   The presale crew was made a separate department under the supervision of a new TMA and sale administration became a separate department under the supervision of a sale administrator from the Chetco District, by the name of Earl, who was promoted to the GS-11 grade and given the authority of Forest Service Representative (FSR) under the timber sale contract.   This authority was usually held by the District Ranger.   Another sale administrator was hired to replace Clay and a year later a third administrator was brought in to help handle the workload.  In 1985 Earl had to transfer to Grants Pass in order to be closer to Medford where his wife could get treatment for cancer.    The District Ranger temporarily promoted me to acting FSR at the GS-11 grade for 90 days until the position could be filled permanently.   The ranger asked me to apply for the job, but the Regional Office in Portland filled the position with an unfunded person from a Forest in Washington.  After that, I was moved into the presale department as lead technician at the GS-9 grade to supervise the field crew.    In August of 1986, my wife and two children moved to Eugene where she was going to attend the University of Oregon.    In the spring of 1988, I was given a transfer to the Cottage Ranger District on the Umpqua National Forest to be closer to my family and our house on Hunter Creek was sold a few months later. 

Today the Siskiyou Forest is combined with the Rogue River National Forest and the Chetco and Gold Beach Districts are under one District Ranger.    There is no zone engineering offices anymore since there is very little new road construction anymore due to very little harvesting of timber.  

PS:   The following stories are included in this blog that go into more details about specific events while working on the Gold Beach District:

The Logging Fire,  Laird Logging,  Chaos in the Woods,  Turn Back Timber Sales,  The Christmas Party of 1981,  Mountain Fir Lumber Company,  The Silver Fire,  Paper Work and Living on Hunter Creek. 

Turn Back Timber Sales (TB)

The attached is a short narrative of the TB sales caused by speculative bidding in the 1980's.    During my career with the Forest Service, this was very prevalent on both the Gold Beach and Cottage Grove Districts where I worked.   

How many of you know about this?

THE GOVERNMENT BAIL-OUT OF THE TIMBER INDUSTRY

 

In the 1980’s there had been much speculative bidding on National Forest timber sales.  Most of the large timber sales had a five-year contract period depending on how much volume (board feet of timber) on each sale.    Bidding on these sales was very competitive because of the number of mills dependent on government timber to stay in business.   Many purchasers acquired these sales by biding more than what they could get for the price of their finished products but were hoping that the market would go up during the contract period.   The first couple of years they would construct the roads on these high-priced sales, deck the right-of-way timber for later removal and utilize the earned road credits for payment of timber removed on other cheaper sales.  

Over the next three or four years the housing market went down and many purchasers were sitting on timber sales they could not afford to log with only a year left to complete their contracts.  Some purchasers requested contract term extensions, but did not qualify under terms of the contract. 

They lobbied their Congressional representatives for the government to buy back these sales.    The government agreed under certain conditions.   First, the right-of-way log decks would be put up for sale and any defect caused by delay in their removal would be paid for by the original purchaser.   The original sale volume was reappraised and put up for a second bid and called “turn back volume” (TBV).   This “turn back volume” would count toward that District’s annual allowable cut again, which the timber industry strongly disagreed with, but to no avail, keeping the Forest Service from putting up additional new sales to meet their allowable cuts.   Plus it cost the Forest Service money and time to reappraise, modify and prepare these “turn back” sales for auction again.  

Many of these “turn back” (TB) sales were purchased a second time at a lower bid rate by the original purchasers.  To prevent speculative bidding in the future the Forest Service allowed only a two year contract period for most sales.      

Living on Hunter Creek

This story has been in the works for awhile.    Looking back I can see some humor, but at the time it was anything but humorous, more stress than anything.    

Took a look on Google Earth to see what the place looks like today.  All the outbuildings are gone, including the big Willow tree that was out front.   It is just a memory now of long-long ago.

                                              1981-1988

 

There were chickens, a goat, a black sheep, a dog, a cat, two young children, my wife and I all on two acres with a big garden and creek frontage.    It was the first home we purchased when conventional home loans had interest rates peaking at 18%.    We bought the place with seller’s financing at 10% and a balloon payment due at the end of ten years.    We had no idea how we would come up with the balloon payment and at the time didn’t give it much thought.  We were so excited to have a place of our own after living in a government house for two years where gardening or any kind of alterations to the landscaping was not permitted, because the Gold Beach Ranger Station is on the National Register of Historical Places, since it was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1937.     

It was a three bedroom house with a fireplace where we had a woodstove insert installed.   There was a variety of  outbuildings consisting of a small three-sided barn, a pump house, a chicken coup, a greenhouse attached to a building that had been added on to the back of the house with a garage attached to that and a woodshed attached to the garage.   I’m sure none of it was constructed in accordance to the local building codes, which was typical of many country places in Oregon at the time.    There were neighbors to the east and west of us, but only a forested hill across the county road to the north of the property and Hunter Creek boarding the south end.   We were two miles south of Gold Beach outside the city limits, but the city did provide water to the homes in the area.  There was a small community of homes scattered along Hunter Creek, including a small store, tavern, lumber yard with a hardware store on the old highway off Highway 101, just a mile south of Gold Beach.

My wife’s first priority was to have a goat for milk.   This was a learning experience for us both, especially when goats are herd animals and do not care to be left alone.   The first night the young goat considered us part of the herd and would whine if left alone.  This troubled my wife and the goat was brought into our bedroom for the night.   It did not work out and I don’t remember much after that episode.   One of those things that has been blacked out of my aging memory.   Eventually we got a black sheep my wife wanted for the wool to supply her with material for weaving.   The goat and sheep stayed in the back pasture with the small three-side barn for shelter from the rain.   The company of the sheep seem to satisfy the goat.  

In order to have a goat that produces milk it must be bred once a year and have an offspring.   This became a yearly event.  We had to load the goat into the bed of the pickup and drive her up a dirt road in the hills east of Gold Beach.   It was always at night as the four of us sat in the front of our 1975 Ford pickup and made our way up a muddy road to an isolated goat farm where an old lady would charge us $20 for having our goat mate with her Billy goat.    All I can recall is driving up to a rustic looking shack with a light coming from a door window and a wooden fence and barn with a variety of goats enclosed within it all.    The old lady would bring her Billy goat out to the truck where we had unloaded our goat and the procedure happened quickly since the Billy goat was more than ready.   It had to have been a learning experience for our two young children.   After a few months and the birth of the new goat the milking procedure started twice a day.   The baby goat would be sold a few months later.    This process continued for the next four years.   

Over the course of the first year we suffered some setbacks.   First the well went dry.   It came down to either drilling a new well or tap into the city water line that was out under the county road 100+ feet in front of the house.   We decided on the city water source knowing there would be a guarantee of water.  This cost us $1000 to have a meter installed off the road.  Getting the water piped to the house with all the required values was our responsibility and subject to inspection.   I did all this work myself and it even past inspection.

During the first winter Hunter Creek flooded the back 40 or the one acre where the pasture, barn and chicken coup were located.   Early in the morning I had to rescue the goat that was in the barn up to its belly in water.   We kept the goat and the sheep in the room attached to the back of the house until the water receded.  The chicken’s survived by staying in the rafters of the coup.    With the wet pasture during the winter the goat developed hoof rot, which required constant care by trimming and applying a disinfectant.    It also became necessary to supplement feed the goat and sheep with alfalfa hay during the wet season.   This required a yearly trip to a feed store in Langlois, 40 miles north of Gold Beach for all the hay bales we could load on the pickup.    We stored the hay in the back room behind the house.   This room also was where we milked the goat during the wet season on a milking stand.    There may have been a half of a gallon produced every day.     

There were the never ending projects to do.   I remodeled a couple of the rooms of the house.  There was an old fuse box in the utility room that kept blowing fuses on a couple of circuits that were overloaded.   We hired an electrical contractor to install a breaker box and rewire the place to code.  The house was on two septic systems, one for brown water and one for gray water and both were in need of overhaul.    There was a large Willow tree in the front yard where the drain field was located and the Willow tree roots had invaded the one and only leech line.   Cutting and hauling firewood from the forest involved many weekends.    In addition to everything else I constructed a split rail cedar fence along the property boundary on the eastside.   After some weekends I looked forward to going to work on Monday.  

It was an ideal place for children to grow up with the best swimming hole in the neighborhood during the summer, a forest to build a fort across the county road and a garden to pick veggies from.    There were summer days when many of the nearby young children would spend more time at our place than at their own homes.   At times we had to feed some of them and drive them back to their homes where their parents didn’t even know they had been gone for the day, or didn’t care. 

When the new McKay’s market opened in Gold Beach we entered a drawing for a freezer full of food.   We were shocked when we found out we had won it.    Most the food included was frozen meals, ice cream and some meat.  

When our children entered school my wife went to work as a teacher’s aide for a handicap class at the Ophir School 12 miles north of Gold Beach.   She also took extension classes at night in Gold Beach from Southwestern Community College in Coos Bay.    Going back to school and getting a degree in education was something she always wanted to do.    In the summer of 1986 she enrolled at the University of Oregon in Eugene and she and the children moved into university housing that September.    Every other weekend I would make the four hour trip to visit them.    With the family gone I thought I would have more free time to tackle all those uncompleted projects on the place.   During the summer months I rented out the bedrooms for two seasonal Forest Service employees to stay, since rental housing was scarce in the community.     There was a young man and woman that became tenants.  The woman did her fair share of housekeeping and cooking.  The young man did very little and always wanted to go to the tavern after work and drink beer.    This caused friction between the two and heated discussions on who should being doing what.   On weekends the young woman had her boyfriend from Corvallis come visit her.  

In the spring of 1988 I transferred to Cottage Grove to be closer to family.   The Hunter Creek house was put up for sale with a real estate broker and a young couple rented it while it was on the market.    About two months later it sold for the same price we bought it for in 1981, which was a financial loss considering all the improvements.    The goat and sheep ended up being moved to farms near Eugene where my wife wanted them to reside.   The poor chickens became a meal for some critters, except for the rooster that escaped to the rafters.   I don’t know where he ended up in the end.   The dog came with me and I don’t remember much about the cat that may have strayed off or died before the last year on the place.    Best of all we did not have to worry about coming up with a balloon payment after 10 years and my weekends were much less stressful.

The Christmas party at the Gold Beach Ranger Station 1981

 It was the Friday before the Christmas week and most employees were taking the next week or two off to be with family and friends.  That morning Earl, our supervisor with his office upstairs, told the three of us sale administrators in the downstairs office to come to his office at 4 pm, which was a half hour before quitting time.    At the end of the day we ventured up stairs where Earl proceeded to pull a bottle of Jack Daniel's from a deck drawer and we all had a drink or two from paper cups.   It didn't take long to get into the holiday spirit with that stuff.   At quitting time the rumor was that the party would continue in the upstairs office over the fire warehouse near the back of the compound.   At the time my wife, two young children and I lived in a government house on the station, so driving home was not a problem.  As we walked from our office building back to the warehouse we were feeling no pain and the festivities were well under way.   It was turning dark as some of our wives showed up to persuade some of us it was time to come home.   It was good my wife came to get me as I don't think I could have found my way in the dark.  It was the last Christmas party of this magnitude I remember on a ranger station.   Every Christmas party after that was family oriented minus the alcohol.  

AUDITS, INSPECTIONS & CERTIFICATION

Being a timber sale contract administrator meant working independently with Purchasers, logging contractors and sub-contractors.   You were always subject to audits and inspections, sometimes scheduled and sometimes when you least expected it.    It was important to have all agreements, minor contract changes, acceptance of work items and notices of non-compliance documented.  Most inspections were performed by my immediate supervisor, who was either the District Timber Management staff assistant or designated Forest Service Representative and sometimes the District Ranger.    They usually rode with me out to whatever sale(s) I was going to that day.    Comments would be made about logging problems, why did I approve this or that and sometimes there were surprises that were beyond my control.   One such case was on a salvage sale on the Cottage Grove District of the Umpqua National Forest.   My supervisor, Wayne, was riding with me on a timber blow down salvage sale, don’t remember the sale name or the number of units.   After visiting a few of the units, some with completed work and a unit where logging was still in progress I turned onto a road to show Wayne one more unit where wind thrown trees had been removed above the road.   Wayne said there should be no units out this road since it was in spotted owl territory.   I showed him the unit on the contract map and he was totally caught off guard.    He said he would to talk to Jim, the presale technician about this.   In reality the mistake was Wayne’s for not reviewing the completed contract package before it went up for bid. 

One of my first inspections by a forest review team under the Region 5 certification program was when I worked on the Orleans District of the Six River National Forest in the 1970’s.  It was a large sale purchased by Sierra Pacific Industries out of Arcata.    It was during fire season and the operators were required to have all the necessary fire tools and equipment in place and in good working order.   While inspecting the fire truck and hand tools on a landing where yarding and loading was in progress the team focused their attention on a D8 Cat that was parked off to the side and used to construct landings.   This piece of equipment was required to have a fire extinguisher, an axe and shovel mounted on it, which it did.    A member of the team tried to pull the shovel from the bracket, but only the wooden handle came out of the shovel blade--not good.    In addition to that the purchaser was hauling logs over a segment of uncompleted road reconstruction which is not allowed under the contract, unless otherwise agreed to, which it wasn’t.   Simply put I failed and had no idea about the road with uncompleted reconstruction requirements.   A letter was sent to the District Ranger by the Forest Timber Staff officer on items in need of improvement.

While working on the Greenville District of the Plumas National Forest the District Ranger would make surprise visits on an active sale to see what was going on.    On one occasion he drove up to the Davis Timber sale where they were hauling 60 loads a day from three tractor sides on a 20 million board foot partial cut sale purchased by Louisiana Pacific.   He came across the logging supervisor and asked if he had seen me lately.   The logging supervisor jokingly replied that he had not seen me in weeks.   The Ranger was not amused. 

Some Forest inspections were made for log accountability.   One such inspection was on a sale being hauled off the east side of the Gold Beach District of the Siskiyou National Forest to a mill in Grants Pass.   The Forest Check Scaler and my supervisor were with me as we were stopping log trucks at a wide turnout along the haul route to inspect load receipts, number of logs on the load, painting of logs for export control and branding of logs.   One truck driver for Ireland Trucking did not stop and yelled out the window he did not have time to f**k with us.    We got the truck number and reported it to the Purchaser.  An apologetic letter was received from the Purchaser and the driver was told to apologize to us, which he did.   We learned he was the son-in-law of the owner.

The forest timber staff assistant for contract administration on the Siskiyou was named Don and he would make early morning visits at the Gold Beach office when we usually came to work at 7 am.   He must have left Grants Pass at 4 am to make the three hour drive.   He showed up one morning asking where I was going that day.  I told him I was planning on staying in the office, just to give him a bad time.  His reply was no, we are going out to look at some of your sales.   Don was an intense character and non-compliance with fire precautionary requirements got his attention.   On one sale we walked down to check the clearing around cable blocks where a 10 foot radius clearing was required in case of sparks flying from the moving cable.   When we got down to the block the hook tender was busy scraping the clearing to achieve 10 feet and we suspected he saw us coming and did not want to get in trouble.   Don got into a rampage, telling the hook tender how important fire prevention is and how it did not matter if they had 1000 men on the landing with the best fire tools that still would not prevent a fire.  The hook tender had dealt with Don before on this subject and quietly listen.

In 1981 I went through the Region 6 certification program, which required passing a written test on the contract and passing a field inspection of an active sale.   The inspection team was made up of a team leader, the Siskiyou Forest Timber Staff Office, who was also the Contracting Officer, a soil scientist, a couple of people from other Districts with a back ground in timber management.   The clear-cut units on this sale were very steep and required full log suspension to reduce soil disturbance.   This required the logger to rig tail trees at the bottom of the units at least 20 feet up the trees and to guy the tail trees back to keep them from being pulled over.    There was no way to obtain the necessary deflection by going to the opposite slope because of the distance and lack of big trees.  Due to the shallow soils and steep angles it was impossible from not pulling over the tail trees, even by guying them back   I had the forest logging engineer come to the sale to verify the impossibility of obtaining full log suspension.    An agreement was written up allowing the operator to yard with only one end suspension.  On some skyline roads they did obtain some full suspension.   Water bars were required to be constructed by hand as designated by myself where needed.  Grass seeding was also required during the fall seeding period in October.   I received a conditional certification pending acceptance of the seeding and fertilization requirements. 

The Purchaser hired a sub-contractor to apply the seed and fertilizer during the seeding period.   This contractor called me to inform me they had completed the seeding and needed my acceptance in order to get paid by the Purchaser.   I went up to inspect their work and noticed seed and fertilizer on the cut and fill slopes of all the landings.   When I walked down into two of the steep units I saw no seed where it was needed.    I inform the sub-contractor of this and he replied that they thought I would not go down there to look and said they would go back and do those disturbed areas.   A week later it was inspected again and accepted.  I became the first certified sale administrator on the Siskiyou. 

Mountain Fir Lumber Company

 This story deals with log utilization standards of what the Forest Service required and what the Purchaser wanted.  It may be a little technical to some readers.   It also shows that those of us on the ground did get some support by those in management at the forest level instead of the usual chewy out.

                                           Gold Beach Ranger District

                                           Siskiyou National Forest

 

Mountain Fir Lumber Company had purchased the West Indigo Timber Sale on the eastern portion of the District, off the Burnt Ridge Road.    Their mill was located in Williams, south of Grants Pass, and their specialty was long dimensional Douglas-fir lumber, normally 20 feet in length.   Utilization standards in all Forest Service timber sale contracts are the same; minimum diameter of 6 inches, minimum length of 8 feet and all logs with at least one-third net scale had to be removed from the sale and presented for scaling to determine how much the purchaser would pay the Forest Service based on their bid value.   There was a flat per acre rate charge for special cull logs and utility cull logs.   These were logs that could be utilized as cull peelers or utilized for chips.   A provision in the contract did allow these logs to remain on the landings if no market was available in the vicinity of the Purchaser’s mill.  

There were two contract loggers operating on this sale.   Sherman Brothers from Nesika Beach was logging on one road system and Warren Cook from Grants Pass was operating on a separate road system.   Loggers and truckers are paid by the Purchaser based on gross volume as determined by a third party scaling organization that also determines how much the Forest Service would receive based on net scale.    As each unit was completed it was my responsibility to check if all logs meeting utilization standards were removed.   As work progressed during the summer I noticed the loggers were leaving special cull and utility logs decked on the landings.    The loggers told me that Mountain Fir had instructed them to leave these logs on the landings as there was no market for them.   This was documented on a timber sale inspection report with a copy that went to the Forest Supervisor’s Office in Grants Pass.   Soon thereafter I received a phone call from Don, the assistant forest timber staff in charge of contract administration.   He informed me there was a market for those cull logs at the Medford Corporation (Medco) cull log processing facility south of Grants Pass.   I informed Mountain Fir of this and they told me they could not afford to pay their loggers to remove this material.    I relayed that to Don, who said Mountain Fir had a reputation for doing this and only wanted logs that met their product specifications.   A meeting on the sale area was scheduled with Don, Pete the District Ranger, Dwight the acting District Timber management assistant and myself to see how much of this material was being left.    The day we drove up to the sale from Gold Beach it was an Industrial Fire Precautionary Level 3, which means all logging operations must shut down by 1:00 pm.     We arrived on the sale after 1:00 pm, driving out the road system that Sherman Brothers operated from.  They had shut down and were gone, except for their fire watchman.   As we got out of the vehicle we could hear logging equipment operating across the canyon where Warren Cook was working.   We immediately got back in the vehicle and drove over to the other road system where yarding and loading of trucks was still in progress.    Everybody in the Forest Service was shocked as I approached the loader operator asking why they were still operating.   He said they did not know it was a level 3 closure.  They stopped operations and were given a notice of non-compliance.   Back in the office a phone call was made to Mountain Fir of this serious breach of contract, which states the Purchaser cannot resume work until authorized by the Contracting Officer.    This time another meeting was held on the sale with all parties involved, including the Purchaser’s representative, Warren Cook, the logger, Don, the timber staff assistant, the District Ranger and myself.    The purchaser’s representative (don’t remember his name) said they do not condone any violations of the fire precautionary provisions of the contract.   Warren Cook said it was his fault for not paying attention to what the fire precaution level was, even though it is broadcast over most two-way radio systems the day before and posted on road signs leading onto the National Forest.    Don told the representative from Mountain Fir to send the Forest Service a letter ensuring this would not happen again and by the way get these special cull and utility logs out of here since there is a market at the Medco plant.   A letter from Mountain Fir was received by the Contracting Officer addressing their intent not to violate the fire precautionary requirements and under protest would remove the cull logs in question.   A few years later Mountain Fir closed their mill at Williams.   

Don, the timber staff assistant from the Supervisor’s office was one of those people in management that would stand up for us grunts on the ground.  He retired after I transferred to Cottage Grove in 1988 and shortly thereafter died of brain cancer. 

Ocean Adventures

 The ocean treats everybody equal, for those not prepared it shows no mercy.    In the years we lived in Gold Beach, along the southern Oregon coast we heard about a number of incidents and a few fatalities out at sea.   Two Forest Service co-workers went fishing near the mouth of the Pistol River, south of Gold Beach.    One turned his back to the ocean for a minute to discipline his dog.  A sneaker wave came in behind him taking him and his dog out to sea.  The other co-worker looked on in horror not able to do anything to save them.   Their bodies were never found. 

North of Gold Beach along the coast there are hidden coves that were used by smugglers using small boats or zodiacs to bring in drugs from larger ships out at seas.   One night law enforcement got wise to what was going on.   In a panic much of the cargo, high grade marijuana wrapped in waterproof packages, was dumped into the ocean and washed ashore near Gold Beach.  The next day the beach was filled with beach combers collecting the debris and there was much doubt how much of it was turned over to the authorities. 

My boss, Earl, had a small boat with an outboard engine and would go out over the Rogue River bar into the ocean where he would fish whenever conditions were right.   There was a seasonal Coast Guard station at the mouth of the Rogue River that would respond to any bar crossing that did not go well.    This bar was notorious for sediment building up on the south end of the opening between the jetties, and the only way was to enter on the north end which could be narrow at times.  Earl told about one time he was out at sea fishing and the fog came in, restricting his view of the jetties.   He knew to find the buoys and follow a compass course from each ocean buoy to make it to the river.    The only problem was, would the compass bearing from the last buoy take him over the south entrance or north entrance?   He put full throttle to the engine and luckily made it through the north entrance of the bar. 

Earl would invite me to go fishing with him, but I was reluctant hearing all the incidents with small crafts on the ocean.   During the fall the ocean would settle down and some days looked like a big pond with no white caps or swells.   On one of these days Earl persuaded me to go with him and off we went with a few beers for enlightenment.   Earl was a knowledgeable sailor, had been in the Navy and his boat was well equipped with all the necessary items in case of an emergency.   He had a CB radio with a base set at his home where his wife could be called about our whereabouts.   We made it over the bar with no problems and made our way out to some rocky outcrops where there was good bottom fishing for red snapper and ling cod.   These rocks were covered with sea lions.   While fishing Earl had to make sure the boat did not drift into the rocks, so he would move it out until it would drift again.   Some of those seas lions looked like they would eat us if we ended up on the rocks.   At the end of the day we made it home in one piece with all kinds of bottom fish to fill our freezers.

There was another co-worker that had bought a jet boat, which are intended to be used on the river, not the ocean.   One day he and some other Forest Service people took it out on the ocean to fish about a mile south of the mouth of the Rogue River.   They had no problems getting over the bar and the sea was fairly calm.   Within a few hours the north wind was blowing and the swells getting bigger.   They headed back toward the river with full throttle, bouncing over the swells and at times the suction pump could not take in water due to rise and fall of the boat.   It only took them 20 minutes or less to get to their fishing spot, but the return trip took two hours as they fought the wind and swells.   Some on board were tempted to jump ship and try to swim to shore, which was just beyond the breakers or less than an eighth of a mile.    All stayed with the boat and eventually made it back.  It was something they never repeated. 

When I worked for the Forest Service at Cottage Grove, I volunteered for a work detail to the Tongass National Forest in Alaska in September of 1993.   We worked out of the Rowan Bay logging camp on Kuiu Island.   There was a Forest Service boat there we used to access sections of the island where roads had not been constructed.  After work hours we were allowed to use the boat for fishing as there was not much other entertainment there and it was a dry camp—no alcohol allowed.    One evening after dinner the crew leader Don and I took the boat out to catch halibut in the channel outside the bay.   We were fishing about an eighth of mile from shore where some Orca whales were also going after fish.   They were not happy with us in their waters as they bounced against the boat and surfaced under the boat, making us fear they could overturn us.   The thought raced through me of having to swim to shore and could I make it as 20 minutes in these waters was about the limit for a human to survive.    One of the whales got snagged by Don’s hook and the fishing line, a small cable was racing off his reel as he was trying to hold on to the pole in fear of losing it all.  He told me to get my pocket knife out and try to cut the line which I was able to do.   During all this the whale was actually pulling the boat away from the shore line.    We made it back to camp with no fish, but were content with surviving the ordeal. 

Today I feel lucky to have made it this far, and for me the ocean is there to look at and admire from a distance, while standing on solid land.

Chaos in the Woods

 In the winter of 1983-84 there was a big wind storm on the Gold Beach Ranger District of the Siskiyou National Forest.   Many leave strips and isolated timber stands were blown down.   There was a big push to get all this timber designated for salvage harvest and made available for sale by the spring of 1984 in order to get it removed before the bugs would start doing damage.   It was done quickly under a Categorical Exclusion that exempted the need for an environmental analysis. 

Most of the small sales were set aside for bidding by small loggers only, a few of the larger areas were made available for the large mills to bid on.    The pre-sale crew ran around the woods like mad men marking trees, posting unit boundaries, cruising and getting the timber appraised for the auction block.   Mistakes were made.   If I remember correctly there was a total of 13 sales put up for bid with units ranging in size from less than 1 acre up to 30 acres with one year contracts to remove the timber.   Depending on the extent of blow down trees, some units had clear-cut boundary posters, other had partial cut boundary posters where trees within the boundary were marked for removal.    These posters had a space where the sale name and unit number could be written in, but usually only the posters near the road or corners of the unit had the sale name and unit number filled in.  Each sale had its own sale area map showing each unit, road system and contractual requirements for each unit.   Sales were sold based on their geographical locations to avoid any overlapping of sale area boundaries.   Number of units per sale ranged from 10 to 20 units, mostly accessible by existing roads.  

The District had three contract administrators to oversee the logging on these sales, plus their assigned standing green sales that were being logged.    At the time I had two large green sales operating and was assigned four of the salvage sales.   I don’t remember the sale names, but do remember the names of the loggers since I had dealt with them before on other sales.   There was Zuber Logging from Port Orford, Ellis Logging from Powers, Keith Smith from Brookings and Westbrook from Coos Bay.   As soon as these sales were awarded cutting started immediately because of the one year contracts.    As soon as units were cut tractors or small yarders were moved in to get the logs to the roads for loading onto to trucks.   Many units required slash cleanup either by machine piling or hand piling, plus erosion control requirements.   Loggers did not want to move equipment, including fire equipment from one unit to the next without getting Forest Service acceptance of work to avoid moving equipment back to complete whatever was not found to be acceptable.   Loggers would call me at home in the evenings, asking if I could be at a unit in the morning to accept cleanup work as they wanted to move to the next unit.   One morning as I was driving from Zuber’s sale to Ellis’s sale when I noticed Zuber’s cutting crew bucking logs in a unit that was part of the sale belonging to Ellis.  I stopped and informed the cutters that was not their unit.  They did not have a sale map and saw no writing on the boundary posters and assumed it was Zuber’s unit.   I drove back to where Zuber was loading logs to inform him.   It was a breach of contract due to poor supervision by Zuber for not directing his cutters to his units or providing them a map.   A meeting took place in the office with the District Ranger to allow his operations to continue.   It was like misbehaving in school and going to the principal’s office.   Ellis had no problem with it and paid Zuber for the cutting expenses. 

In the meantime Westbrook had hauled out more logs than what was covered by his payment bond for that 30 day period and he was late paying for his scaled volume removed from the last 30 days which was another breach of contract, resulting in their shut down until payment was received and payment bond increased.   They hand carried a check to the Supervisor’s Office in Grants Pass and operations were allowed to resume. 

Keith Smith called me at home one evening to see if I could make it the next day to his sale and my wife had answered the phone to tell him I was not available.  Afterwards she told me enough is enough, you have a family to spend time with.  I did make it to his sale a day or two later and he did understand my wife’s concern, enough was enough!

Job Hazards with Logging

 Today was a wet cold day, so got back to my writings.  Came up with this one attached hereto, about the hazards I and others had to put up with on logging jobs and the fear of wrecking a Forest Service vehicle.

While working for the Forest Service as a timber sale contract administrator for 20 years, I saw a few injuries to loggers and almost had a couple myself.   Logging is considered one of the most hazardous jobs there is, involving the falling of trees, yarding or skidding of logs to a landing, loading logs onto trucks and driving those log trucks to the mills.   For myself, working alone most the time there was always the daily challenge of being safe.   Driving forest roads with logging traffic was always a hazard.  Knowing the location of turnouts was critical to avoid a collision while driving to a logging operation. Listening to the CB radio was important to know where the next loaded truck was or it was best to follow an empty truck to the job.   There were always the usual hazards, running into a hornets nests while walking in the woods or falling and breaking a leg or arm.   I had my fair share of stings from hornets and had one bad fall down over a rocky ledge while posting a cutting boundary on the Orleans District of the Six Rivers National Forest.  Took me a while to walk back up hill to the truck with an injured knee as it was starting to snow.

  When walking downhill in a unit being cut from the bottom up it was vital to yell out to let the timber fallers know my position.  Once on the Gold Beach District of the Siskiyou National Forest in 1985 the logging manager for the Champion plywood mill in Gold Beach and I walked into a unit where the fallers were jacking trees away from a protected stream.   We did not hear saws running and thought the two fallers were taking a break.   As we got closer we noticed a tree top moving in our direction and realized they had been jacking the tree to fall alongside the tree we were walking on.   We both turned and ran, but I knew I would never out run it, so jumped off the down tree and took cover under it as the big old growth fir fell along side of it shaking the ground.  Something I will never forget.   The logging managers came running back yelling my name thinking I had been hit and was glad to see me crawl back up from under the tree.   Afterward the four of us discussed our mistakes, especially not yelling out to let the fallers know we were coming and the fallers for not yelling out “Down she comes or timber!”   On another job where log cutters were bucking blow down trees into logs a log above rolled over a cutter breaking both his legs in a couple of places.   His cutting partner walked to their truck to call for help on the two-way radio.   An ambulance arrived from Gold Beach when I got there and I assisted with five other people transporting the injured cutter on a litter over down trees to the road below where the ambulance was waiting.   He would yell out in pain as we made our way over the logs.

My first encounter with an injured logger was on the Orleans District of the Six Rivers National Forest in 1975.   While driving past a unit being cut a timber faller had walked up out of the unit to his truck, so I stopped to talk to him.   He was bleeding from the mouth and was missing some teeth.   He told me he had looked up while falling a tree and a small branch came down hitting him in the face.   He was headed home to Happy Camp, about 80 miles away and said he could make it.   The next day he was back on the job.   One of the most tragic incidents, that I did not see was a cat operator clearing logs from a road right-of-way job and setting his own chokers in order to skid the logs to a deck.   While taking chokers off the winch behind the cat it began to roll backwards, pinning him to a tree.  He was found dead at the end of the day by his foreman.   The cat engine was still idling. 

It was important to know where cables were located when inspecting a unit during the yarding operation, usually to check if required fire tools and clearings around cable blocks were being complied with.   All movements of cables is under the direction of the rigging slinger, supervising the choker setters or the hook tender doing layout of a new cable road.   One whistle means stop, two means go back on it, three means go forward, usually with a load of logs.  There was a small quarter inch diameter cable called the ‘hay wire’ used to pull the bigger cables during a road change.   Sometimes it was hard to detect where this cable was as it was usually laid out over down logs or in the brush.    Once on the Orleans District I walked over this cable as I heard a series of whistles and shortly after crossing it the cable jumped up in the air six feet and was moving faster than I care to remember.

During my career from 1988 to 95 on the Cottage Grove District of the Umpqua National Forest there were two accidents.    One involved a small logging contractor, who was branding logs while they were being loaded onto the truck.  A small log rolled off the truck killing the man instantly.   The other was on a thinning operation when a guy line on a small swing boom yarder broke and the yarder fell on its side pinning the operator’s foot under it.   An ambulance was called for from Cottage Grove and I had to guide it up a maze of logging roads to where the accidents happened.   They had to dig the man’s foot free to get him out of the machine.

There were other accidents and fatalities that happened on other jobs I was not associated with.   Usually two or three times a year the state OSHA inspector would make a visit to our office and wanted to know where any logging operations were happening and get a map of their locations.    When the word got out some small loggers would just shut down for a day or two to avoid getting any citations for safety violations, usually for using frayed or worn out cables, faulty safety equipment or personnel not wearing proper safety gear.   

One of the most memorable accidents was when a Forest Service employee in the silviculture department at Gold Beach was assigned a new Ford pickup and drove it onto a landing to inspect a plantation.  He looked back at his truck to see it roll over the landing and tumble down to the bottom of the unit.   He had left it in neutral and forgot to apply the brake.   He was walking back toward Gold Beach when my supervisor picked him up and asked what happened to his truck.   Even   my boss had a hard time digesting what had happened.  The cost of that new truck was deducted from the employees pay for many years. 

At least in all my years I never wrecked a Forest Service truck, but had my fair share of close calls.   I do recall the gear shift stick coming out of transmission on a return trip to Cottage Grove and had to leave it in 3^rd gear all the way back to the station.   Looking back I feel lucky to have made it this far.  

A Brief History of Logging on the Tongass NF

 

While working for the Forest Service as a timber sale contract administrator for 20 years, I saw a few injuries to loggers and almost had a couple myself.   Logging is considered one of the most hazardous jobs there is, involving the falling of trees, yarding or skidding of logs to a landing, loading logs onto trucks and driving those log trucks to the mills.   For myself, working alone most the time there was always the daily challenge of being safe.   Driving forest roads with logging traffic was always a hazard.  Knowing the location of turnouts was critical to avoid a collision while driving to a logging operation. Listening to the CB radio was important to know where the next loaded truck was or it was best to follow an empty truck to the job.   There were always the usual hazards, running into a hornets nests while walking in the woods or falling and breaking a leg or arm.   I had my fair share of stings from hornets and had one bad fall down over a rocky ledge while posting a cutting boundary on the Orleans District of the Six Rivers National Forest.  Took me a while to walk back up hill to the truck with an injured knee as it was starting to snow.

  When walking downhill in a unit being cut from the bottom up it was vital to yell out to let the timber fallers know my position.  Once on the Gold Beach District of the Siskiyou National Forest in 1985 the logging manager for the Champion plywood mill in Gold Beach and I walked into a unit where the fallers were jacking trees away from a protected stream.   We did not hear saws running and thought the two fallers were taking a break.   As we got closer we noticed a tree top moving in our direction and realized they had been jacking the tree to fall alongside the tree we were walking on.   We both turned and ran, but I knew I would never out run it, so jumped off the down tree and took cover under it as the big old growth fir fell along side of it shaking the ground.  Something I will never forget.   The logging managers came running back yelling my name thinking I had been hit and was glad to see me crawl back up from under the tree.   Afterward the four of us discussed our mistakes, especially not yelling out to let the fallers know we were coming and the fallers for not yelling out “Down she comes or timber!”   On another job where log cutters were bucking blow down trees into logs a log above rolled over a cutter breaking both his legs in a couple of places.   His cutting partner walked to their truck to call for help on the two-way radio.   An ambulance arrived from Gold Beach when I got there and I assisted with five other people transporting the injured cutter on a litter over down trees to the road below where the ambulance was waiting.   He would yell out in pain as we made our way over the logs.

My first encounter with an injured logger was on the Orleans District of the Six Rivers National Forest in 1975.   While driving past a unit being cut a timber faller had walked up out of the unit to his truck, so I stopped to talk to him.   He was bleeding from the mouth and was missing some teeth.   He told me he had looked up while falling a tree and a small branch came down hitting him in the face.   He was headed home to Happy Camp, about 80 miles away and said he could make it.   The next day he was back on the job.   One of the most tragic incidents, that I did not see was a cat operator clearing logs from a road right-of-way job and setting his own chokers in order to skid the logs to a deck.   While taking chokers off the winch behind the cat it began to roll backwards, pinning him to a tree.  He was found dead at the end of the day by his foreman.   The cat engine was still idling. 

It was important to know where cables were located when inspecting a unit during the yarding operation, usually to check if required fire tools and clearings around cable blocks were being complied with.   All movements of cables is under the direction of the rigging slinger, supervising the choker setters or the hook tender doing layout of a new cable road.   One whistle means stop, two means go back on it, three means go forward, usually with a load of logs.  There was a small quarter inch diameter cable called the ‘hay wire’ used to pull the bigger cables during a road change.   Sometimes it was hard to detect where this cable was as it was usually laid out over down logs or in the brush.    Once on the Orleans District I walked over this cable as I heard a series of whistles and shortly after crossing it the cable jumped up in the air six feet and was moving faster than I care to remember.

During my career from 1988 to 95 on the Cottage Grove District of the Umpqua National Forest there were two accidents.    One involved a small logging contractor, who was branding logs while they were being loaded onto the truck.  A small log rolled off the truck killing the man instantly.   The other was on a thinning operation when a guy line on a small swing boom yarder broke and the yarder fell on its side pinning the operator’s foot under it.   An ambulance was called for from Cottage Grove and I had to guide it up a maze of logging roads to where the accidents happened.   They had to dig the man’s foot free to get him out of the machine.

There were other accidents and fatalities that happened on other jobs I was not associated with.   Usually two or three times a year the state OSHA inspector would make a visit to our office and wanted to know where any logging operations were happening and get a map of their locations.    When the word got out some small loggers would just shut down for a day or two to avoid getting any citations for safety violations, usually for using frayed or worn out cables, faulty safety equipment or personnel not wearing proper safety gear.   

One of the most memorable accidents was when a Forest Service employee in the silviculture department at Gold Beach was assigned a new Ford pickup and drove it onto a landing to inspect a plantation.  He looked back at his truck to see it roll over the landing and tumble down to the bottom of the unit.   He had left it in neutral and forgot to apply the brake.   He was walking back toward Gold Beach when my supervisor picked him up and asked what happened to his truck.   Even   my boss had a hard time digesting what had happened.  The cost of that new truck was deducted from the employees pay for many years. 

At least in all my years I never wrecked a Forest Service truck, but had my fair share of close calls.   I do recall the gear shift stick coming out of transmission on a return trip to Cottage Grove and had to leave it in 3^rd gear all the way back to the station.   Looking back I feel lucky to have made it this far. 

Don't remember many dry days, usually some form of rain most the time.  At the end of my tour toward the end of September it started snowing.  Most logging prior to WW2 (1920's-30's) was done by permit with the FS.  A good book about this is called, 'Handloggers.'  It is a story about a married couple who lived on a boat and during the day the man would take his hand saw and axe and search the steep slopes along the ocean channels for a large spruce that would fall into the waters below.  They would use the boat to gather up the logs he would buck up, usually in the water and make a raft that they pulled to the mill at the end of the season.   Some trees would hangup and not make it to the water, so he would use jacks to free up the tree.   Sometimes the tree would let loose like a freight train just a few feet from him--talk about dangerous work... 

On one of my 4 day off periods in Petersburg, a friend of mine, who had been the recreational staff person there got me a tour guide job for a day on a small tour boat.   Lunch was provided and there was no cost to me for doing it, so I agreed not really knowing much about the ecosystem.   She said, "just wing it" and I did.  Told the people about the trees, animals (mostly eagles, ravens and bears) and the glaciers.   People were happy about what I told them.   Thank God nobody asked what my real job was.