Taming a Wild Forest 



327 



created in its present form in 1933, 

 when the Santiam National Forest 

 (created in 1911) and the Cascade 

 National Forest (created as such in 

 1908) were combined. 



At the time of President Cleveland's 

 proclamation, and for 20 years there- 

 after, the territory was the real un- 

 tamed, wild, virgin forest practically 

 as untouched by man as it had been in 

 1804 when Lewis and Clark first ex- 

 plored the Oregon country. Indeed, 

 practically the only change had been 

 the one inflicted by fires. Trees that 

 had sprouted from seed at the time of 

 William the Conqueror still flourished 

 as primeval giants in the humid valleys 

 and canyons ; deer wandered over trails 

 that Indians had always used for hunt- 

 ing and fishing; the white man's only 

 marks on the wilderness were three 

 wagon trails through Cascade Moun- 

 tain passes and three small settlements. 



As in the rest of the Douglas-fir 

 region, the forest reached mile on mile 

 across mountains and canyons. The 

 mantle of trees was unbroken but for 

 the ghosts of past fires. The stately 

 Douglas-fir was king, and the king's 

 girth was so large that a 10-foot meas- 

 ure would not cover the distance across 

 a fallen giant's stump. Many of the 

 trees were clear of branches to 150 feet 

 above the ground. As the timber ap- 

 proached higher elevations at the Cas- 

 cade summit, the Douglas-fir grew 

 smaller in size and gradually merged 

 with upper-slope and subalpine types 

 mountain hemlock, alpine and silver 

 fir, and Engelmann spruce, which now 

 are valuable chiefly for watershed pro- 

 tection and recreation and as a reser- 

 voir of pulp for the future. 



So vast was the forest that the first 

 national forest administrators them- 

 selves did not know how much resource 

 had been put in their custody or what 

 the growth habits of the trees were. 

 Whatever was known in those days of 

 the art of forest management could 

 hardly apply to those forests. The tech- 

 niques and doctrines of forest manage- 

 ment had been devised for European 

 forests, and seemingly no common de- 



nominator, whether economic or physi- 

 cal, was at hand for managing forests 

 that differed as much as these did from 

 European forests. The only logical 

 thing that the early rangers and super- 

 visors could do was to use their own 

 judgment, and to wait and see what 

 would happen. 



Things did begin to happen. Timber 

 claims and homestead entries brought 

 people to the more accessible parts of 

 the forest. Their activities and the dry 

 summers and the lightning storms soon 

 made it apparent that something would 

 have to be done about forest fires or 

 there would be no forest left to admin- 

 ister. It was apparent also that the bulk 

 of the forest land was valuable princi- 

 pally for protecting the watersheds and 

 for growing timber, but that streams 

 and lakes should be preserved for fish- 

 ing and recreation and the alpine 

 meadows near the summit could be 

 used for grazing cattle and sheep. 



THE FIRST MANAGEMENT PROCE- 

 DURES developed on the Willamette 

 National Forest were for fire protec- 

 tion. The reason was simple: If fire 

 were not kept out of the forest, there 

 would be no need to devise complicated 

 sustained-yield plans. Fires here were 

 endemic a recurring phenomenon. 

 Since the beginning of time, lightning 

 had struck the high ridges and fires 

 had burned unchecked until autumn 

 rains put them out. In wet years, the 

 fires were small. In dry years, the fires 

 were catastrophic. In the high coun- 

 try, when fires did not occur naturally, 

 the Indians set their own fires once in 

 a while in the belief that old burns 

 made the best grounds for hunting and 

 huckleberry picking. Even the early 

 miners and settlers considered it proper 

 to touch off a few thousand acres of 

 forest land if they thought any personal 

 advantage would accrue. 



In 1902 Forest Examiner Fred G. 

 Plummer looked over the part of the 

 reserve that is now the Willamette Na- 

 tional Forest and said: "From all 

 points on the . . . divide the views 

 are grand. On a clear day the pano- 



