Coming to a Mailbox Near You: Forest History Today
If you’re a member of the Forest History Society, the latest issue of Forest History Today will be hitting your mailbox this week. If you join now, you can still get this highly sought-after, limited print edition of the magazine. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait awhile to read it online. After all, membership has its privileges.
As always, there’s a little bit of something for everyone. We have some biography: our first article is on forest researcher and lovable crank and socialist, Raphael Zon; the “Biographical Portrait” is of Estella Leopold, a research scientist whose work has helped preserve many different landscapes and regions around the world. We have some history of plants in isolated landscapes: there’s a look at the endangered conifer species Fitzroya cupressoides, found in Chile and Argentina; another article looks at a thriving species, the rough-stemmed goldenrod, and why it’s found in higher elevations of the Catskills; and a third looks at efforts to restore the Seeley Lake larch, which is found around Seeley Lake, Montana.
Are you a fan of industrial art? In this issue, we define it two different ways: there’s the art of making wood charcoal at the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site (documented in “History on the Road”), and there’s the art of photographing industrial tools that we’re exhibiting here in what I’m calling a “handheld-photography exhibit.” The photos are by Kenneth S. Brown and can be found in our online photo collection.
For those interested in U.S. Forest Service history, we’ve got you covered: there’s a history of Company 3670, an African-American company in the Civilian Conservation Corps in Missouri; and we’ve published “CSI: Madison”—to date our most popular blog post—to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the agency’s Forest Products Lab. It includes photos not included in the original blog post.
Finally, I’ve also penned an appreciation of William “Bud” Moore, an outstanding conservationist in the vein of Aldo Leopold and a highly entertaining teacher and storyteller. I had the privilege of spending several days with him in 2010, so I wanted to offer some thoughts on Bud and his legacy. Bud devoted the first half of his life to working in fire management for the Forest Service and dedicated the second half to working out and sharing with visitors and readers his own land ethic on his private forest in Montana. Like Aldo Leopold, he leaves behind land he lovingly restored that we can visit as well as a moving and personal meditation about that land that can guide and inspire us. His inscription in my copy of The Lochsa Story says, “Stay close to nature.” Wise words from a sage man.
