NORTHERN FEVER
One day in spring, Joan asked me what we should do this summer.
Normally, this would not have been much of a decision as the Federal government would have scheduled me quite handily for most of the summer
However, having retired, this summer would be my responsibility (unlike other summers in my past, this one would be permanent: Going out for American Legion baseball or working at the Dairy Queen would not be an option).
There was of course, no question on what must be done.
"We must buy a road barn and do the Alcan." I said.
"Buy what and do what?" Joan inquired.
"A road barn! One of those motor homes that are big as a greyhound bus and cost nearly as much! They are completely self contained. Theoretically, you never have to leave your motor home for the entire 3 month trip. It's sort of like a fiberglass womb.
"Three month trip!" How can it last three months?" said Joan, sounding like Capt. Ahab was trying to sign her up for a journey on the Pequod.
"It's the Alcan!" I said, portentously. "The last great road adventure!
"But what is it?" Joan was driving toward the crux of meaning, like a true academic.
It's a 1,390 mile long highway through Alaska and Canada. That's why they call it the Alcan. (I imagine they considered calling it the "Canal" since you have to go through Canada first, but that would be confusing and people would be forever asking when the next boat left)
"But where does it end up?" Joan asked.
"Fairbanks, Alaska" I replied. (Actually, Delta Junction, for nitpickers)
"What's in Fairbanks?" Joan inquired.
"The end of the Alcan. You're there!
"You mean that's all?" She cried, incredulous.
Clearly she was missing the philosophical point. It was like asking a through hiker on the Appalachian Trail what, exactly was so special about Mount Katadin in Maine? Was the view that sublime? No, achieving Mount Katadin_means you're done. You don't have to walk anymore.
"Then what do you do?" The inevitable, dreadful question.
"Well, it used to be, you just turned around and went back down the highway, but now you have some options.
"Like what?" (Once suspicious, Joan was not easily convinced)
"Well, the Dalton Highway has recently been opened to the public. It goes due north from Fairbanks all the way to Deadhorse.
"Deadhorse? There can't be a town called Deadhorse!"
"There is in Alaska!" I said authoritatively.
"O.K. I'll bite. What's in Deadhorse?"
I was tempted to describe the world renowned Deadhorse ballet, The Deadhorse Opera, The Deadhorse Museum of Modern Art. The internationally acclaimed Deadhorse Summer Festival of the Arts, the University of Deadhorse and so on.
But that would be lying.
"Deadhorse is the Gateway to the Arctic Ocean!" I said emphatically.
"If one collected Oceans, which we do not, why stop in Deadhorse? Why not just go on to the Arctic Ocean?" Joan inquired.
"Because Deadhorse is literally the Gateway to the Arctic Ocean. There is a gate there. The oil companies won't let you go to the Arctic Ocean unless you are under supervised escort." I answered.
"Do the oil companies own the Arctic Ocean?" Joan said, alarmed.
"Not yet, but they do own the road and they don't want people wandering around loose, asking questions and getting lost. That's why they chose Dick Cheney as our vice-president. He will not let you get off track!
"Oh" said Joan (things are clearer when I explain them)
"On the other hand, if you want to see the Arctic Ocean and don't want to deal with the Friends of EXXON, we can take the Dempster Highway."
"The Dempster Highway?"
"Yup" I explained, "It's an 456 mile gravel highway that runs from Dawson City in the Yukon Territory to the First Nation town of Inuvik in the Northwest Territory. (First Nation People used to Indians and Eskimos, but they are now Dene and Inuit respectively, or "First Nation People" is you want to lump them (Frowned upon by some.) Canadians are even more anxious and self-conscious about what to call the Native Americans than us gringos.) "Anyways, once we get to Inuvik, we can hire a First Nation bush pilot to fly us to a picnic on the beach of the Arctic Ocean which is about 60 miles down the Mackenzie River from Inuvik."
"Do we have to?" asked Joan plaintively
"See the Arctic Ocean? No, if seeing the Arctic Ocean is not on your Lifetime Achievement List, we can simply continue on up the Alcan to Fairbanks in the traditional manner.
"No, I mean doing the Alcan Highway. It seems like an unusually stupid waste of time and money." Joan said, forthrightly.
I was dumbstartled. (Editors note: "Dumbstartled" is a Thunderbear dictionary word designed to replace a standard English word that when you think about it, doesn't make any sense. Thus "dumbstartled" replaces "dumbfounded."
"A waste of time!" How can you say that!" I exclaimed.
"You travel from a nowhere town in Canada to a nowhere town in Alaska through a scrub forest full of mosquitos the size of pigeons for a month and then you turn around and do the same thing backwards! It sounds about as interesting as being a cue ball on a pool table!
"But we have to do it!" I protested, "It's the custom of my People!"
"Say again?" "When a Midwesterner retires" I said solemnly "He buys a motor home and does the Alcan Highway with his spouse: It is the high point of their lives!"
"You've got to be kidding!" Joan said, incredulously.
"It's a quasi-religious rite of passage" I explained. "Moslems make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Mormons go to Salt Lake City, Midwesterners do the Alcan Highway. It's just done!" I said with finality."
I recall growing up in South Dakota and the local newspaper would always be interviewing some guy who had spent 30 years pulling the guts out of hog carcasses at the John Morell Meat Packing Plant, then he retired and did the Alcan Highway. His name was always something like "Norman Schieb". (Tip to park managers: If you have a chance to hire a guy named "Norm", do so! "Norms" are good with tools, always show up on time, don't gossip or make trouble, don't abuse sick leave and will not seduce your wife)
"Norm" or his equivalent was always photographed beside his "rig", a modified station wagon with a roof rack that held two spare tires and five jerry cans of extra gasoline. The station wagon's headlights had sort of wire grids across them to deflect gravel (Alcan drivers always left them on for a spell after they came back, so people would ask them what they were for, and they could brag about their trip) There was also a steel grille that went across the windshield, again to protect against flying rocks. (That was removed after return as it looked like the wagon's occupants were rabid or were convicts being transported.)
The newspaper reporter would ask our generic "Norm" how he liked the trip.
"Norm" would reply that "It was pretty interesting" (Readers should be aware that "It was pretty interesting" is high emotional commitment for a South Dakotan. "It was pretty interesting" is a term a South Dakotan would use to cover a weekend with Marilyn Monroe or his own execution. Think Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle).
Anyways, the reporter would get around to asking "Norm" about an example of something interesting and "Norm" would think a bit and remark that "When we got to the Buckinghorse River in British Columbia, we found that the bridge had been swept away. This looked like it might ruin our trip, but fortunately I had brought along a chain saw and a 1,000 feet of half inch nylon rope. So, I just cut down some trees, lashed together a raft, and used the rope and river current to swing the raft and us over to the other side."
The reporter then asked "Norm" if there were any bugs. (The bug question really fascinated us South Dakotans for some reason).
"Norm" said that there were.
The reporter wound things up by asking "Norm" if he would do it again and "Norm" would reply "That it was pretty interesting". (In all fairness to "Norm", thirty years of pulling hog guts may dull your ability to appreciate nature)
I would read these narratives and file them away in my memory bank to remind me that when I was real grown up and had done everything, I would still have to do the Alcan.
Now it was time to do the Alcan. The first thing to do would be to buy a copy of MILEPOST. This is the bible of the Alcan. You can no more depart for the Alcan than a pious Moslem would set out for Mecca without a copy of the Koran. It has the format and feel of a mail order catalog and indeed, contains oodles of interesting ads on where to buy mammoth ivory jewelry, how to get to Mukluk Annie's salmon bake, where "Jesus is Lord" (p. 120: I'm not making this up) or where to buy a musk ox wool sweater. In short, ads that you wouldn't normally find in the New Yorker magazine.
Most of the text of MILEPOST is a description of each mile on the Alcan highway and its many children. (One thing that I discovered reading MILEPOST is that it is no longer the Alcan highway. It is now called the Alaska Highway and it is completely paved, thank you, and it is no longer necessary to carry two spare tires and 5 jerry cans of gasoline on the top of your car and you can even leave the chain saw, 1,000 feet of nylon rope and spare car engine at home. (That sort of takes the challenge out it, but I'm told that Murphy's law still prevails )
Like most highways, the old Alcan was not a strong believer in birth control, and has begot many connecting highways, about 29 in all, connecting each other throughout British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territory, and Alaska. Each of the 30 highways (including of course, the Alaskan, has its own chapter in MILEPOST and its own set of terse descriptions of interesting things and trivia at just about every mile. For example, milepost #391 on the Yellowtail Highway in BC tells of "Conspicuous example of Sitka spruce on the north side of highway. Aboriginal people ate its inner bark fresh or dried in cakes, served with berries." Dangerous stuff is in red ink. Milepost #110 on the Seward Highway reminds you "Warning: Do not go out on the mud flats at low tide. The glacial silt and water can create a dangerous quicksand."
MILEPOST is illustrated with small but beautiful color shots of the scenery. I assume they were all taken with NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC box cameras (For the uninitiated, this is the source of most of the pictures in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC taken in Alaska or the sub-arctic. This photographic system consists of a weather proof box that is buried at every scenic location in Alaska. Sensors in the box detect the one day of the year it is not overcast or raining, or snowing, the lid of the box pops open, a camera is extended, takes a picture, the camera retracts, the lid secures and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC is notified by radio signal that the photo has been taken. As long as you don't expect to routinely see such views in reality, I suspect you will not be disappointed.
At any rate, MILEPOST is a gloriously wonderful read!
My next task after acquiring a copy of MILEPOST would be getting a road barn. (Again, these are those vast highway passenger liners whose owners you were always contacting in the campground about running their generators after hours, when you were a 22 year old ranger, reminding yourself that you could never be so crass or philistinic to invest in such an environmental abomination)
However, time does fly, and perhaps you no longer want to sleep on the ground even with a Thermorest. So, one prices a road barn.
In my case, that's all I did. I found I could easily afford an upscale motor home if I were willing to sell a kidney to a nephritic old millionaire. These things are bloody expensive and I had no childhood fantasy of being a Trailways bus driver.
I then e mailed Old Alaska Hand, Jim Brady (Late of Glacier Bay National Park) Chief Ranger Brady recommended a more sensible 3/4 ton pick up and a pop up camper made in Iowa, apparently by an Amish community who believe that the Lord would not want them to gouge the customer and would consign them to hell if they did so.
The pickup would be a useful investment as Joan had promoted me to building & grounds foreman, and I was now compelled to haul a vast amount of cement, fertilizer, rocks, lumber, shrubs, top soil and stuff you don't normally find in a sedan. I hit upon a Toyota pickup, mainly after watching an insurance company video of a crash test where American pickups disintegrated like Dresden china at an Irish wedding.
My summer plans foundered finally on the shoals of "Not enough advance planning" (A warning to managers everywhere, neighbors!) I thought 3 months would be plenty of time for the Alaska State Ferry people to sort things out and find us a slot for the return voyage on the Alaska Marine Highway down the scenic panhandle coast of that state to Bellingham, Washington.
Very much like the patient ranger explaining to the couple who want a reservation at the Norris Geyser Basin campground or the Le Conte Lodge in Great Smokeys on the 4th of July, that they're kinda booked up and have been for like a year and possibly, you might like to think just a little bit more ahead?
Ah, but when given lemons make lemonade! This hiatus will give me the opportunity to sort through your favorite experiences and "Don't-fail-to-sees" (and "avoid-at-all-costs!") on the Alaska Highway and its children. So write or e mail me of your experiences. Much obliged!
JUST SAY NO
Readers of just about any newspaper are now aware that the Bush administration will "restudy" plans to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. "Restudying" means if you own or are willing to rent one of these eardrum ripping, smog belching winter reptiles, you can show up at West Yellowstone next January with an excellent chance of roaring down to Old Faithful.
Since it seems that they will be with us for the foreseeable future, it might be well to look back into the pages of history to understand how these exotic beasts got into Yellowstone in the first place.
I refer you to a popular administrative history of Yellowstone by William Everhart, entitled Take Down Flag, Feed Horses. In the book, Everhart rents a snow machine with the obvious intention of hating the experience as it ravishes the pristine silence of the Yellowstone winter. Au Contraire! As your editor discovered while riding its hated summer sister, the jet ski, these machines lower your I.Q. down to a comfortable reptilian level, where you don't give a damn about the Web of Life or your place in nature; you just enjoy the sensory input! Beats Valium all hollow!
Anyways, let Everhart tell the story:
"Looking at the reflection of the sun in a thousand brilliant snow crystals, I began to feel a twinge of affection for my Arctic Cat Panther. Contrary to my expectation, it was giving me reason to rejoice. I understood a little better why former superintendent Jack Anderson had worked so hard to open Yellowstone to snowmobiles. "For a long, long time the rangers had the park to themselves all winter," Jack said. "It was time to give the public a chance"When I called him at his retirement home in Oregon, he said that the first time he came through Yellowstone on a snowmobile, he decided it was an experience other people should have. "I didnšt think snowmobiles would be more of an intrusion than five thousand automobiles every day in summer and I authorized their use on a trial basis. I had one reservation. Would the noise disturb the wildlife? After the naturalists found the snowmobiles had no observable effect on the animals, I was convinced.
Merchants were elated, anticipating the rewards of year-round tourism. Conservationists, who intensely disliked snowmobiles, wanted them out of Yellowstone. Wisely Jack consulted with his boss in Washington, George Hartzog. Other Park Service directors have been canny politicians. George was uncanny, a virtuoso bureaucrat exquisitely aware that everything in Washington had a political spin. Some of us believe the Park Service hasnšt had a more effective leader. I once asked him how it was that the man he selected for the most prestigious field position had been superintendent of a Civil War battlefield only two years before. "Jack Anderson was a natural" George said. "I could always trust his instincts."
Everhart goes on to sympathetically describe the ratification of the Snowmobile Deal, (essentially a mutual back scratching symposium), with Hartzog inviting Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton, a development oriented Maryland Republican politician, to go along on a snowmobile jaunt through Yellowstone. Morton was enthralled, talked to other snowmobilers, who were also enthralled, and soon, it was a done deal.
Now neighbors, all of the above three men possessed managerial and people skills par excellance. However, none of them were trained biologists or ecologists.
The "naturalists" that Anderson consulted, were directly or indirectly beholden to him for their yearly evaluations, and it was certainly made clear which side of the argument that their superintendent was on. (In all fairness, according to one study, the wildlife seem to regard the snowmobiles in much the same way they regard the summer car--as long as the people and vehicles remain on the highway. Perversely, cross country skiers, so beloved of the Sierra Club and other purists, tended to spook winter stressed animals if they surprised them.
Anyways, the results were what any winter recreation analyst could have predicted. Everhart asked John Townsley (then superintendent of Yellowstone) what the reaction would be if he attempted to limit snowmobile use. "West Yellowstone would take hostages." Townsley replied. (Apparently, it never occurred to either Everhart or Townsley that someone other than West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce had a stake in the park, like say, the rest of the American people.)
However, the snowmobile folks have a fairly bullet proof argument against NPS and Sierra Club insistence that winter"visitors" tour the park in snow coaches. Summer "visitors" are allowed to bring their own vehicles, including noisy, pollution prone motorcycles into the park and use them to their heart's content as long as they stay on the roads. The NPS and Sierra Club are left with only two logically defensible options: ban the snowmobile on the basis of noise and chemical pollution or ban private engine powered vehicles of any type in any season in the park and go to bus transport in the summer and snow coach in the winter.
The first option is short term only. The Japanese, foremost producers of these toys, can be counted upon to shortly come up with a silent, non-polluting engine that will push the machine through the park with only the slightest hiss of runners on the snow. The second option is going to be a battle royale. It results from not saying "No" generations ago (or even asking the question) about whether it was a good idea to let cars into national parks.
I rather suspect that it was a natural process of osmosis in Yellowstone. The stage coach roads had been in place for decades. They were "improved" for motor buses and the primitive automobiles of the time, and viola! The automobile was soon part of the scene like feeding the bears at the garbage dump.
It will be possible to ban the private car from Yellowstone, but it will be immeasurably more difficult than in say, Zion, Yosemite or Grand Canyon, because of the distances involved and unlike the dead end Yosemite Valley and the South rim of Grand Canyon, Yellowstone is a "through park" where you can legitimately say you are driving through to get to somewhere else.
Of course, it need not have gone that way. Someone could have just said "No!". For example, the military superintendent of Yosemite National Park successfully opposed the entry of cars into Yosemite for a time, patiently pointing out all the adverse impacts of the automobile in the parks that we are now so well aware of. The Colonel was opposed by the nascent California Automobile Association and, of all people, John Muir, who in one of his dumber moves, believed that the automobile would "get people into every part of the park". (How right he was!)
Does the NPS and its minions ever say "No" to a recreational development idea?
Sure! and usually quite successfully! It can be done if you are willing to hold the line.
One of the best examples is Yellowstone's ban on canoes, kayaks, and other watercraft on the rivers and streams of Yellowstone. On the face of it, this prohibition may seem somewhat arbitrary. After all, the kayaks cause no noise or pollution, they are human powered, just like walking, only in a liquid environment, no?
Well, actually, not quite. Aside from the additional problems of human pollution, wear and tear on stream banks and spooking riparian wildlife, there is the problem that Yellowstone is not set aside as a water recreation area such as New River Gorge in West Virginia, where water sports emphasis is so great that care was taken to see that the NPS does not have control over the Gauley and other rivers in its jurisdiction, less we crimp anyone's style. Also, unlike Voyaguers National Park, with its several hundred year canoeing tradition, Yellowstone does not have a tradition of river use.
Finally, perhaps it would be nice to contemplate just one rapid or set of rapids in the lower 48 where John and Mary OUTDOOR magazine were not charging through in their red tupperware kayaks.
So far the ban on watercraft on the rivers and streams of Yellowstone has held, because a succession of superintendents just said "No" to persistent requests on the part of well placed kayakers such as the writer Roderick Nash and many others.
So it can be done. To do otherwise is to open a Pandora's box of little "It won't do any harms" which finally do coalesce into one big harm. Remember, only you can say "No!".
THE BEN FRANKLIN GUERRILLAS
Bill Gates doesn't know this yet(and I'm not going to tell him), but there is a substantial part of the American public that flat out don't like computers.
How do I know this? Well, you remember that letter and post card that I sent out asking if anyone had any problems accessing Thunderbear on the world wide web? We expected all sorts of technical problems which we may or may not be able to solve.
Most people had no problem in accessing the electronic T Bear. It's just that a significant number would use a computer only as a last resort (i.e. that or no T Bear) Bill Gates would assume that this was due to computer illiteracy. (Like most messiahs, Gates believes that once the Word is explained to the masses they will bow down and accept it.)
This does not appear to be the case. The folks that objected most strenuously were quite facile around cyberspace. They used it everyday of their working lives. Perhaps that was the problem.
"I have to deal with those damn glowing boxes all day long! said one veteran California Parks & Recreation division chief. "Thunderbear was an oasis of hard copy that I would find in my non electronic iron mailbox once a month. It was a relief to see it. Something that I could hold in my hands, take into the bathroom, pass on to others (admittedly this is something you can't do with a computer!) I HATE COMPUTERS! I WANT THE OLD THUNDERBEAR BACK!"
This is not going to happen, buckaroos. Progress marches on! There are simply too many advantages to the electronic Bear to turn back the calendar to a simpler, more bucolic time.
Still, I sympathize. It does seem that there is a large underground of resistance to electronic mail and information in America, a sort of "Ben Franklin Militia" that supports snail mail and the word printed on paper. That's the way it was in Ben's 18th century, all of the 19th century and more than half the 20th. Is this electronic stuff a proven technology or merely the work of the devil? Conservationists are by definition conservative and are resistant to change, so I can hardly blame you.
There have been some cases of puzzlement on the part of the readership. Some folks were not sure when and how subscription money was due in cyberspace, so they kindly sent in a check (which I returned). As noted, the $14.00 was for postage and printing, which is now no longer an expense, so why should I bother you?
"Then you are going to altruistically keep doing this? Sort of like an electronic St. Francis of Assisi?" you ask.
Well not exactly. For those of you who insist on spending money, we will bring out a paperback "BEST OF THUNDERBEAR" or some such title. Yes, we will then charge you a fair price and mail it to you via Ben Franklin's post office. You will be able to hold it in your hands, take it into the bathroom, give it away at birthdays, whatever.
My only question is what, exactly, do you think is the Best of Thunderbear? Which stories would you like to see reprinted in book form that you can give as a present or read in the bathroom?
You can make your choices known by e mailing me at thunderbear@erols.com or, if you prefer, write me at Box 2341, Silver Spring, MD 20915.
OUR CHOICE
People have been pointing out to me that Walt Dabney is not the Director of the National Park Service as your editor had predicted. This not my fault.
My eyes were focused on Texas where Dabney was Parks Director. I had completely forgotten about Florida and the pivotal significance of that state.
Ms Fran Mainella, late of the Florida State Parks, is now the first woman director of the National Park Service. She comes well recommended, having won all sorts of awards for proficiency in park management and getting along with people (Which, when you think about it, is a large part of the job).
NPS folks have often wondered out loud to me and to others as to why the NPS Director is not required to be a "Professional" like the Chief of The U.S. Forest Service. According to Federal Law, it is required that the Chief of the Forest Service be a graduate of a recognized School of Forestry.
Over the recent years, this requirement has assured that the public forests of America are chopped down in a efficient and expeditious manner for the benefit of the few and the detriment of the many.
Requiring the presence of a graduate forester at a clear cut is sort of like requiring the presence of a licensed MD at an execution; their main task is to sign off on the inevitable outcome.
Thanks mainly to dumb luck rather than clever planning, the NPS is not faced with this problem.
Literally anyone with a passing interest in the environment and/or American history can be Director of the National Park Service and that, neighbors, is the way it should be. Rather than limit the selection pool to green clad bureaucrats (We are still in the running, buckaroos, it's just that we don't have a hammerlock on the top job the way like the Forest Service brass)
This means that (theoretically) any outstanding American environmentalist could become Director of the nation's parks. That could mean Robert Redford or Terry Temple Williams if Al Gore had been elected. As "Dubya" was elected, and if he had asked me (which he didn't) I would have recommended the managerially awesome Ted Turner (I'm sure Walt Dabney would understand).
Turner is a devout Republican (Albeit of the strongly environmental Bullmoose variety) He is forceful, has plenty of money to throw around and gets things done. What more can one ask?
There is a particularly stupid cliche that goes "You can't solve a problem by throwing money at it". Turner knows that is bullcrap. There are damn few problems you can't solve by throwing money at it! The rich do it all the time! This is why Turner established a 92 million dollar environmental fund and hired the formidable Mike Finley, late of Yellowstone, to administer it. So why didn't "Dubya" hire Turner as Director of the NPS? I don't know. Perhaps he thought Ted would overshadow both he and Dick. That will not be the case with Ms Mainella, a competent bureaucrat who is expected to score several notches above the other former state park & rec director, James Ridenour, but will not be upstage the President or even the Secretary of Interior.
But what of the U.S. Forest Service? Whom did "Dubya" appoint to that position? Well now, neighbors, as that position must by law go to a "graduate of an accredited Forestry School", Dubya's hands were tied. As much as he would have liked to appoint a holistic environmentalist as Chief of the Forest Service, the law is the law.
Thus, "Dubya" appointed a traditional saw log forester, Dale Bosworth, who, according to some, was able to change clear cuts and salvage logging into "ecosystem management" while Rocky Mountain Regional Forester. Dale can be counted upon to "get the cut out " come hell or high Sierra Club complaints.
So how did Bill Clinton meet the challenge of a carved in marble statute that apparently said that the Forest Service Chief had to be a graduate of a professional program with a strong bias toward industrial use of the forests? (First let us digress a bit and point out that the National Forests of the United States have little to do with timber or livestock production--The National Forests produce only about 4% of the nation's timber and livestock needs. If Congress were to declare the sole uses of the national forests were to be yo-yo production, bird watching, and dog walking in that order, it would have little effect on the lumber and protein supply of the United States and would probably improve the water, air and overall environmental quality. As for the missing 4%, our brother Republicans, responding to supply and demand would soon make up that 4% and more on private land.)
This does not mean that the National Forests are not a source of income. They certainly are, but not from the lumber, grazing, and minerals. The greatest "resource" is the political pork that allows the existence of subsidized industries that would go broke in a trice if they required and honest profit and loss statement.
These subsidized industries, some of the last in North America, outside of Cuba, are protected by Greedhead Republican Alaskan and Western State congressional delegations. These delegations see no irony in preserving their own version of welfare state socialism at the expense of the environment.
So how does a conservation minded president get around the regulation that requires that Chief of his Forest Service be a graduate of Forestry Schools that understandably that accept money advice, and direction from the "industry".
Well now, neighbors, where there's a will, there's a loophole. The law says you must be a graduate of an accredited forestry school, but it doesn't specify that you have to specialize in timber management and sales. (I suspect that was assumed by the framers of the law).
There were those such as Gloria Flora, who was a landscape manager by specialty and who became quite a thorn in the side of Greedheads everywhere, when she noticed there was getting to be less and less landscape to manage what with clear cutting and energy "development" and became a rather outspoken champion of a holistic approach to forest management.
Another example was Pete Dombeck, whose specialty was fisheries management. The problem with being a fisheries biologist is that your clients (the fish) require clean, cold water, free of silt, pollutants and logging debris. This sort of puts you at odds with the lads and lassies who want to build roads and "get out the cut".
As a fisheries biologist, Dombeck realized early on that clean water for man, beast, and fish were the most important product of the National Forest, not a timber cut or keeping some saw mill viable.
As an "ologist", he had to walk a tight rope to protect his fish and protect himself. He succeeded and became known as someone a (relatively) environmental administration could work with and thus President Clinton appointed him as Forest Service Chief.
Needless to say, the present administration didn't see things his way or he their way, so off to early retirement.
As part of his farewell, Dombeck wrote a letter to the WASHINGTON POST in April of this year, which has some very good ideas to bring the country together on a bipartisan issue; quality of life. So we would like to share them with you.
A closely divided government reflects a closely divided populace. In such a climate, issues that do not enjoy broad public support are likely to become enmeshed in gridlock and rancor. Rarely before has our political system needed a unifying theme more than it does today. Why not conservation?In the early 1970's, in the aftermath of an unpopular war in Southeast Asia, Congress passed and Republican presidents signed a series of laws to protect our air and water, the wildlife species that define our landscapes, and the public lands that we own and enjoy.
Our quality of life is much improved because elected leaders helped to reunite a divided country by joining people in a common cause to eliminate belching smokestacks, pipes that drained sludge into rivers and threaten public health, and chemicals that killed living national symbols such as the bald eagle.
Conservation could once again provide a unifying framework, demonstrating to a frustrated citizenry that elected leaders can work in a bipartisan manner toward what Republican President Theodore Roosevelt called "common sense solutions to common problems for the common good."
This fact makes it difficult to understand why the Bush administration has chosen to advocate drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and disavow commitments to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, suspend new cleanup requirements for mining companies and rescind efforts to diminish arsenic levels in drinking water.
The administration is now poised to compromise away a Forest Service rule protecting 58.5 million acres of undeveloped National Forests--A policy that would affect only one quarter of one percent of our nation's timber supply and a fraction of a fraction of our potential (fossil fuel) energy.
Weakening protections for clean air, drinking water and open space compromises bipartisan efforts to improve human health and quality of life, and in the process pits urban against rural, East against West, prosperity against the environment. How the (Bush) Administration chooses to address legal challenges to protection of roadless areas likely foreshadows whether conservation will serve as a bipartisan rallying theme or a divisive wedge issue.
Although cast by opponents as a "last minute decision by the Clinton administration, the roadless rule is a balanced solution to a decades old controversy. Upon passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act and continuing into the 1970's, the Forest Service inventoried large, unfragmented tracts of national forests for their wilderness values. Since then, attempts to build roads or otherwise develop these areas have met with a torrent of controversy, litigation, and court ordered injunctions . For example, early in my tenure as Chief of the Forest Service, the House of Representatives came within a single vote of eliminating 80% of our road budget, largely as a surrogate to slow development in roadless areas.
This background helps explain why the Forest Service proposed a moratorium on the construction of new roads in most roadless areas of the national forest system in January, 1998. The public response and the support for the proposal were so overwhelming that in October, 1999, the agency initiated an open public process to review whether boarder protection of these wild and undisturbed landscapes was warranted.
After more than a year of analysis and scientific study, during which 600 public meetings were held in communities across the country, the Forest Service acted to prohibit road construction in 58.5 million acres of publicly owned forests and grasslands . More than 1.5 million public comments were considered. An astonishing 95 percent advocated protection of these last remaining wild areas.
The Forest Service is staggering under an $8.4 billion backlog in maintenance of its existing 386,000 mile road system. No private business or landowner would continue to build new roads into pristine forests in the face of such a liability. Moreover, between 1992 and 1997, an average of 3.2 million acres per year of forest, wetland, farmland and open space in the United States were lost--more than twice the rate of development of the previous decade.
Roadless areas occupy less than 2% of the American land base, but in an increasingly developed and urbanized landscape, they represent a tangible reminder of our banishing frontier heritage. The ecological values of these remaining wildlands is significant. Roadless areas provide a place for families, hunters, anglers and other recreation users to reconnect with the lands and waters that sustain them. They serve as a bulwark against the spread of invasive species and a laboratory for study and knowledge.
Roadless areas contain all or portions of 354 municipal watersheds, contributing drinking water to tens of millions of citizens. maintaining these areas in a relatively undisturbed condition saves downstream communities hundreds of million of dollars in water filtration costs.
The Forest Service Policy would not block any existing access to national forests for recreation. fire suppression, timber harvest or any other use. Nor would it close a single mile of existing road. It is puzzling that a policy that maintains the status quo and preserves options for future generations is painted by some as radical instead of conservative.
Well said, Mike! (I can see why the present administration found it necessary to get rid of him!) As a Bullmoose Republican, the only fault I can find with Dombeck is that he doesn't go nearly far enough! We need to close far more than a single mile os existing roads in the national forests. For one thing, in the very near future, we will not need them. Advances in modern helicopter and balloon logging may make the necessity for road building a thing of the past.
In the meantime, rejoice in the luxury that the NPS can access the general public as a source for Directors. Perhaps in 2004, the NPS can acquire Mike Dombeck.
SAFETY MESSAGE
(Ah, this and only this, is what you were using the government computer to search for, the monthly safety message!)
Summer brings on long, hot glorious days, particularly in the East and Midwest, where you really need to be floating down a river. Summer also brings on big thunderstorms by late afternoon. Keep an eye and an ear open. If you can hear the thunder, the lightning will very soon be close enough to hurt you and we are all smart enough to get off the river. However, getting off the river means WAY off the river. Your kindly editor was tubing the James in Virginia, heard thunder and dutifully got himself and party off the river, but not far enough. Sitting on the bank is still a mite too close.
A strike on the river traveled through the water and to the band and through your editor. My right hand clinched closer than Dick Cheney's mind. I was not sure it would open again (it did with no harm.) So take my word for it, taking a lightning strike is an unforgettable experience, but not one you want anyone to share. So when the thunder starts, get WELL off the river and away from big trees, if your life jackets are dry, sit on them for additional insulation. Happy paddling!