Peeling Back The Bark
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The Fall of Timber Sports?
By Eben Lehman on July 29, 2009This past weekend saw the Lumberjack World Championships take place in Hayward, Wisconsin. The annual event of sawing, chopping, climbing, and log rolling contests celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. While the golden anniversary is cause for celebration, signs of the sport’s decline in popularity seemed to be more evident than ever. A New York…
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July 20, 1822: "Father of American Forestry" Born
By Eben Lehman on July 20, 2009On this date in 1822, Franklin B. Hough was born on the western edge of the Adirondack Mountains in Lewis County, New York. Hough would become the first forestry agent of the U.S. government, the first chief of the Division of Forestry, and one of the most influential figures in early American forestry. Gifford Pinchot…
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Visiting Mann Gulch 60 Years Later
By James Lewis on July 10, 2009I just returned from a trip to Montana, where I conducted an oral history interview with the 15th chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Dale Bosworth. While there, I took the opportunity to visit Mann Gulch, site of the first smokejumper tragedy. There, sixty years ago next month, 13 firefighters (12 were smokejumpers, 1 a…
