Category Archives: Logging histroy

The first big environmental battle in Oregon’s brewing timber wars.

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Jim

If you rummage around the Internet like so many of us do, you might stumble across the website for the Alsea Clinic, a modest community health care provider for a remote logging community deep in the Oregon Coastal Forests. Listed … Continue reading →

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Lumberjack Legacies 3 – The unstoppable meets the impenetrable

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Jim

When the first loggers arrived in Oregon they were daunted by the overwhelming vastness of the forests that they beheld. The pine forests of Maine and Minnesota had not withstood their onslaught, but here before them lay a swatch of … Continue reading →

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Lumberjack Legacies 2 – Dr. McLoughlin’s Hawaiian lumber trade.

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Jim

No doubt it was a blustery winter day, with the cold drafts seeping through the chinks in the log cabin walls, when Dr. McLoughlin decided that Fort Vancouver needed a sawmill to produce proper planks and board.  Since it’s establishment … Continue reading →

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Lumberjack Legacies 1 – Letting Light into the Swamp

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Jim

In the words of one 19th century  pundit, “You have to let daylight into the swamp before corn and potatoes can grow.” Through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Americans idolized loggers as symbols of the rambunctious American determinism … Continue reading →

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When Bullwhackers reigned supreme

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Jim

If you drive out of Portland headed north towards Scappoose and the Oregon side of the Lower Columbia, you are likely to travel along Yeon Avenue. The pronunciation of this road is usually a foolproof way to tell longtime Portland … Continue reading →

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You may never appreciate a clear-cut, but…

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Jim

You may never appreciate a clear-cut, but there is more to this practice than merely wanton violence perpetrated upon nature. For many people the sight of denuded hillsides is both depressing and incomprehensible. I won’t disagree, though I take a … Continue reading →

Posted in Indian lore, Logging histroy, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Wishing for a mattress sandwich on a hot August day…

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Jim

In pre-contact days our nature was stable, clean and nurturing… Finally, it’s getting decently hot in Oregon! This is the time of the year when our landscape begins to burn up around us. So far this year we’ve been blessed … Continue reading →

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Gyppo logging

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Jim

In the summer I often get out into the woods during the work-week which occasionally finds me having to contend with the loggers that make their living in these same forests. As you have probably realized by now, this writer … Continue reading →

Posted in Logging histroy | 5 Comments

The hazards of Northwest Forests

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Jim

In the middle of winter my explorations seem to slow down partly because of the cold drenching rains, partly due to the family festivities, and further slowed by the seasonal sniffles and colds that make one loath to forsake the … Continue reading →

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The Senator Gordon Smith tunnel for deer!

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Jim

Typically I try to use the outdoors to transcend the inanities of urban life, and usually 30 miles of rough terrain is enough to shield me from reminders of how ironic our existence can be. But this morning, the ridiculous … Continue reading →

Posted in Logging histroy, Railroads | 2 Comments