Uncles worked for Weyerhaeuser and although I grew up in Seattle, my father bought a 40-acre stand of timber when I was in second-grade.  Dad’s shift schedule with the Seattle Fire Department allowed for many days at The Acres, as we called it. Over the years, Dad logged enough timber from the property to pay for it several times over.  When I was growing up, many weekends and most school holidays were spent in those woods.  Here’s an old photo of Dad, my sister and me with a load ready for the mill. I’m the short one. (I don’t get to say that very often.) (And don’t worry, as children, we were never actually allowed anywhere near active logging operations.)

Dad and Mom moved to The Acres after Dad’s retirement from the fire department. I actually helped Dad fell a couple of big trees at The Acres the spring of the year he died (of leukemia). I cherish the time I spent with him in the woods during his last year.  He was still harvesting a tree here and there at the age of 82. He was lucky to be where he wanted, doing what he loved, almost to the end. And, in spite of all the trees removed from The Acres over the years, much of it was still forested when we sold the property…. Balance.

The personal little patch of forest I share with Griz is bounded on two sides by a thousand-acre, well-managed tree farm.  There are few days when I don’t see fully-loaded log trucks on the road. But even with all those logs on the way to the mill, visible or expansive clear-cuts are a rare site. Washington State’s Department of Natural Resources and the timber industry itself do a pretty fair job now of managing the timber harvest and preventing blatant environmental abuse. As with all resource management – balance is the key. Not even private land owners are allowed to fall more than several trees a year without a permit now.  Replant criteria and watershed protections are strictly enforced, too.

Yes, there are still abuses around the edges. Timber theft occurs – it’s one reason we have a locking gate and security system. There are independents who complain about and circumvent every regulation. But things have monumentally improved (perhaps thanks to those fanatical tree-huggers).  The environmental rape that occurred as little as 50 years ago (and which extended back 100+ years before that here) is, fortunately, rapidly becoming just a sad memory.

If you’ve ever walked through a clear-cut area (or tried to) as I have, you’d understand that it really is impossible to clear-cut without creating devastation and tragic habitat destruction. But in the loggers’ defense, I understand why clear-cutting is (at least in some areas) the only economically feasible approach. Just getting logging equipment into the forest and moving big logs out once the trees are down creates a significant amount of devastation.  Once you’re there, taking everything and finishing the destruction as rapidly as possible makes some sense. But carefully monitoring and restricting how many acres can be clear cut at a time is important  – habitat preservation within a certain range of the cut is critical for recovery of refugee species after the timber harvest. Rapid replanting and environmental regeneration benefits everyone, including the timber industry.

Having an innate fascination with all things tool, Griz watches the History Channel’s Axmen periodically. Perhaps it’s because I only see those sections of the show that Griz calls to my attention, or perhaps it’s the way the show is edited in general; but in my opinion, the show should be subtitled “the world’s stupidest loggers.” And I don’t mean to diminish the risks loggers face moving all that weight around in unpredictable conditions (which Axmen actually emphasizes very clearly or perhaps over-emphasizes for dramatic effect). (Logging consistently comes in statistically as the most dangerous [fatalities per capita] profession over fishermen and firefighters.) But I have to file TV logging right up there with other “reality-TV” FUBARs – another sad example where selling the video is probably more profitable than the activity itself. And just like the other “reality” stars, there seems no shortage of loggers willing to voluntarily make fools of themselves for a few extra bucks.

But one thing you definitely won’t see on Axmen is reverence for the trees.  Trying to give commercial loggers the benefit of the doubt, I suppose it’s almost impossible to work that hard and fast trying to turn a profit and still have time (or any inclination) for reverence – for anything – let alone for each tree that falls.

I, on the other hand,  have only been involved in the felling of a few trees. I have always participated in single tree projects – diseased trees, leaners that were threatening buildings, that kind of thing.  I’m sure the commercial loggers would consider it almost recreational cutting -  arborist type work.  I wasn’t even the cutter – I was a cable puller or wedge driver, maybe a choker setter after the fact.  But each case for me demanded a certain reverence. It was always obvious from beginning to end that there was a death involved.  The death of the big old tree was always the final outcome.

There’s a distinctive sequence in the planned death of a big old tree. There’s the long clear droning of the chainsaw as the cuts are made; sometimes there’s the driving of wedges to create the final imbalance; and then there’s the moment when the tree gives in. There’s an agonizing stillness, almost imperceptible cracking noises at first, then slightly louder cracks – a noticeable shudder when the tipping point is reached. As the tree finally topples there’s a groaning sound – almost a death sigh – sometimes the echo of branches breaking (the death tree’s and any collateral damage), then the earth shakes with a distinctive thud when the big tree hits the ground.

This is the one opportunity James Cameron missed with Avatar. He should have depicted a quieter cutting of the big old tree. Rather than all that fire power, the stroke of a laser and then the awesome and devastating impact of a more true-to-life tree death would have been more dramatic. He could have even had the tree fall toward the audience in terrifying 3D. But perhaps, James Cameron has never really watched a big tree die.

I browsed YouTube for a video of what I’m talking about.  This is the closest I could find:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uh-oh. I feel my logger tolerance waning as I write.

Here’s the thing: The death of a big, old tree is a tragic, awesome and memorable event. At the very least, appropriate reverence should be required every single time.