60

blackheaded budworm crisis. At the peak of the crisis in 1953, Congress approved funds for

forest insect surveys in Alaska, and entomologist William F. McCambridge from the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station joined the Center in Juneau to direct the project that

year. Under continuous pressure from the timber industry, Congress formally transferred responsibility for forest insect and disease work from the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine to

the Forest Service in 1 953, and responsibilty for Alaska shifted to the Division of Forest Entomology of the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station in Portland and then to the

Center in Juneau the next year. In Juneau, McCambridge faced an uphill battle as the lone forest

entomologist responsible for survey-oriented work to detect forest insects, make biological evaluations, and appraise their potential effects on forests in Alaska through 1956.30

Forest Survey Methods and Technology

Forest insect flareups also increased the pressure from industry and other state and federal

agencies to complete a forest survey in Alaska,

and the Center formally assumed responsibility

for the forest survey in 1954 with cooperative

support from Region 10 and other federal agencies. The Center staged a pilot program, of sorts,

with a re-inventory of the Ketchikan Pulp Company allotment on Prince of Wales Island from

1952 through 1954, apparently in response to a

disagreement between the company and Region

10 over the amount of timber actually on the

allotment. Taylor's unit was in the thick of the dispute, if only because Center researchers had

identified major discrepencies between extensive pulp-timber surveys made in 1944 and Research maps compiled in 1949 and 1950. The Center's subsequent resurvey of the Twelve Mile

Arm Block in 1952 had suggested the amount of timber actually on the allotments had been

seriously overestimated. Taylor's report warned that the allowable cut on those allotments had

been set too high, and he argued that available timber resources could probably support less than

half as many mills as previous studies had indicated. He concluded with a call for "...an accurate

forest survey of the entire Tongass National Forest, and he suggested oblique photographs be used

as the basis for such a survey. John Sandor, who later became Regional Forester for Region 10,

reportedly headed the operation, and Taylor also added a young field assistant, A.S. "AI" Harris,

to the Center's staff that year.31

30Robbins, American Forestry, 216-220; Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 282; Taylor, Annual Report

1954, I; Taylor, "Fifth Annual Report [1952|," 25-26; Taylor, "Forest Research and the State of Alaska

Forests,' 15. Communication from Bill McCambridge to Ken Wright 3 December 1995; communication

from Ken Wright to Max Geier December 1995.

31Taylor, "Fifth Annual Report |1952[," 1, 3-9. Communication from Al Harris to Ken Wright 14 March

1995; Communication from Jim LaBau to K.H. Wright March 1995.

Al Harris (at rear of skiff), shown here in 1956, began

his long career in Alaska as a seasonal crew worker,

and he eventually gained permanent appointment as

Research Forester, (luneau 1072)

This file was created by scanning the printed publication. 

Text errors identified by the software have been corrected; 

however, some errors may remain. 
To/77 Laurent and Paul Haack on test plot in

1959. (Juneau 1069)

The experiences of some participants in the pilot

survey program on the Ketchikan Pulp Company allotment in 1954 suggests that Taylor's revision of earlier,

more optimistic estimates of pulp timber had contributed to slightly more tense relations between Center

personnel and pulp industry representatives. Harris recalls that he was assigned in 1954 to a joint, six-member survey team designed to "avoid bias" in air checks

of survey plots on the company's allotment. The survey

team consisted of three representatives from the Forest

Service and three from Ketchikan Pulp Company. In a

working agreement designed to "avoid bias," guidelines

required each air-check party (usually consisting of two

men) to include at least one member from the Center

and one from the company. One of these two-man check parties reportedly matched up Tom

"Jonesy" Jones (representing the Center), who was formerly a pilot in the Air Corps, and Tom

Kelley (representing the company), whose reputation for airsickness saddled him with the nickname "Cast Iron Kelley." Harris recalls that Jonesy usually was the first to identify the plot and

call out the timber type, and if Kelley disagreed, Jonesy would ask the pilot to move closer in,

with a tight turning-radius, until Kelley came around to his way of thinking.32 Friendly rivalries

notwithstanding, Center involvement in the company survey laid the groundwork for methods

applied in the later, more detailed inventory of southeast Alaska.

As defined in Taylor's reports for the period, the 1954 forest survey initially was designed to

find out "...how much timber there is, where it is, what condition the forests are in, and to keep

this information current by periodic resurveys."33 The survey provided information on the volume, species, quality, and location of standing timber; the ownership of forest land; rates of

timber growth and mortality; and prospective requirements for timber products. This information

was valuable to the timber industry, and Taylor lobbied strongly for comprehensive survey work

throughout the 1950s. Early on, the vastness of the task in Alaska and the relatively small staff

available for the inventory led to a heavy reliance on aerial photography. The aerial photos that

Taylor had obtained from the U.S. Navy in 1 949 provided the basis for a two-phase survey system

during the late 1 950s. In the first phase, photo interpretors examined plots systematically placed

on each airphoto, classified each plot according to vegetation type and land use, and calculated

the size, location, and density of timber stands on the plot. In the second phase, field crews,

usually consisting of two men, traveled to randomly selected samples of photo plots for on-theground examination to monitor the accuracy of the photo interpretation and to gather informa32Communication from Al Harris to Ken Wright 14 March I995 ; Communication from |im LaBau

March 1995.

33Taylor. Annual Report 1954, 1-2.

61
tion not discernible from the photos. Data gathered by the field crews during the summer were

compiled and analyzed during the winter to check on the accuracy of type-mapping from the

airphotos.34

The two-phase system economized on the amount of field work necessary for conducting the

survey and allowed for extrapolation of data to encompass broad expanses of inaccessible terrain, but it required field crews to land at randomly selected locations seldom accessible by boat

and almost never accessible by land only. Innovative use of air transport facilities quickly became the hallmark of forest inventory efforts in Alaska, although the survey initially made extensive use of water craft. The hardships of life on the boats doubtlessly encouraged Center innovations in study designs that could incorporate alternative transportation systems. The survey team

primarily relied on three boats through 1957: the Chugach, the Langille, and the Stikine, respectively skippered by Spencer Israelson, Harold Gallant, and Bob Mervin. Center staff assigned to

the boats worked 10 days on and 4 off, including time for reprovisioning the boats. Harris recalls

this schedule was particularly hard on their families in Juneau because radios frequently malfunctioned, leaving crews out of touch for extended periods.35

The administrative changes of 1954 that transferred authority for the survey to Research brought

new personnel who proposed innovative solutions to the problem of difficult access on the massive expanses of forest lands in Alaska. A.P. "Cappy" Caporaso joined the Center to take responOld stumps suggest a stark contrast

between the historical stands ol coastal

Alaska and the second-growth forests that

researchers like Tom Laurent (shown

here) surveyed from these lofty vantage

points. (juneau 1220)

Forest Research and inventory crews began using helicopters to

access remote field sites as early as 1956, and early scientists in

Alaska fondly recall pilot Jim Sweeny, at the controls here with

passengers Karl Hegg and Tom Laurent at Humpback Bay in 1956.

(Juneau 1162)

34Interview with Jim LaBau 5 August 1993; Taylor, Annual Report 1954, 3-4.

35Harris notes, however, that being out of touch "wasn't all bad." Al Harris to Ken Wright 14 March 1995.

62
The MV Maybeso underway in September 1956.

(Juneau 351)

sibility for the forest survey in 1954, and he was

among the first to recognize the potential for delivering field crews to ground sites by helicopter.

Caporaso's suggestion came in November 1955 in

response to a visiting administrator from the Washington Office of the Forest Survey, who suggested

that field work in Alaska might be replaced with

observations from low flying planes circling above

the ground plots.36 By 1 956, small planes and a helicopter supported the Center's field work on the survey of the Tongass, and by 1957, field crews with

the Center routinely used float planes and helicopters to access areas that otherwise would have required 3 or more days of overland travel by foot from

the nearest point accessible by boat.37

Disparities in the resources available for forest survey, as compared with other research activities by the Center, soon became apparent, but the Center gained visibility and influence as the

agency responsible for the survey project in Alaska. Federal appropriations flowed in to support

the forest survey as McArdle made the nationwide Timber Resources Review a top priority in his

administration after 1 953. Aside from defraying the expense of airplane and helicopter support,

this funding created employment opportunities for field workers and brought a greater number of

seasonal employees into the circle of Center employees. This increase enhanced the visibility of

the Center as a career opportunity in the Forest Service, and some of the field workers eventually

joined the permanent staff as professional foresters. Harris, for example, began his career in

Alaska as a field worker in 1954 and published a technical note with the Center by 1957. Others

who arrived during this time include Karl Hegg, Thomas Laurent, and Paul Haack, all of whom

were active in subsequent research to devise methodologies appropriate for application when

the forest survey moved on from coastal regions into the interior. Haack's work is particularly

notable for his tests of color, panchromatic, and black-and-white infrared photography.38

The Center managed three and sometimes four field crews each summer for the survey of

southeast Alaska, but the expanded operation used only one boat to support operations in the

36Marginal note by A.P.C. in memo from R.D. Carver, Director Forest Survey to H.R. losephson, Chief

Division of Forest Fconomics Research 15 November 1955; located in the Central Files, Anchorage

Office, PNW Station.

37Harris recalls that the first helicopter that Caporaso chartered for the survey was a Bell helicopter from

Alaska Coastal Airways, which eventually became Alaska Airlines in a later merger. The pilot who flew

the c hartered craft, |im Sweeney, also reportedly flew Alaska Air's first jet aircraft. Al Harris to Ken

Wright 14 March 1995. Taylor, Alaska Forest Research Biennial Report for 1956-1957, Station Paper 9

(Juneau: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Alaska Forest Research Center, 1958), 2.

38Haacks work eventually led to the decision to adopt the black-and-white infrared for the interior

survey. Correspondence from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995; Interview with Al Harris 22

December 1992; A.S. Harris, The quick cruise circular slide rule, (luneau: U.S. Department ol Agriculture, Forest Service, Alaska Forest Research Center, Technical Note 37, March 1957).

63
View ol the MV Maybeso at Cat Island anchorage of the Maybeso

Fxperimental Forest with skiffs in the foreground and clearcuts in the

background in 1957. (Helmets collection)

Aircraft provided the primary link

between scientists in the field and the

outside world, and it required no little

amount of faith in the pilot's

navigational skills for scientists who

relied on this combination of

technology and human artistry to

access remote field sites. Here, Bill

Farr poses, in 1962, next to an airplane

at a site 30 miles north of the Arctic

Circle. (Juneau 1278)

field and relied almost exclusively on small planes and helicopters by the end of 1957. Aircraft

and helicopter support and large field crews, however, generally were prohibitively expensive

under the reduced funding available for most other areas of forest research at the Center, and

research vessels such as the Maybeso (designed by Harold Anderson and launched in Seattle in

1954) remained a mainstay of operations well through the next three decades.39

The forest survey team's working plan for extending the inventory from coastal Alaska into the

interior, drafted in September 1956, divided the interior into forest survey units in decreasing

order of priority according to potential for timber production. At the top of the list, the first three

units covered the region served by the Alaska Railroad: the Susitna-Matanuska unit covered the

most developed area northeast of Anchorage, the Kenai-W. Cook Inlet unit covered the Kenai

Peninsula west of the Chugach National Forest from Seward north to Anchorage, and the TananaFairbanks unit covered the Tanana River drainage in the vicinity of Fairbanks in the mining districts at the northeast terminus of the railroad. Units 4 and 5 (the Upper Tanana and Copper River

units) were also given high priority because they were deemed the only remaining units with

"prospects for significant wood utilization in the near future."40

The forest survey in Alaska covered massive expanses of unpopulated terrain and the surveys

were planned to economize on labor, maximize speed, and optimize the utility of the survey for

forest managers concerned with industrial development. Field crews completed their work on

the Juneau unit of the coastal survey by 1955 and the Sitka and Petersburg units by 1956, and

39Inteniews with Bill Fair 22 December 1 992 and 9 August 1 993; Taylor, Biennial Report for 1956-57, 2.

40Bnef of Tentative Working Plan—Forest Survey of Interior Alaska, September 1956," located in the

Central Files Anchorage Office, PNW Station.

64
funding for the forest inventory of the interior began in 1956. By 1957, the Center had acquired

aerial photographs of the Chugach and had completed fieldwork on the Yakutat and Ketchikan

units. The next year, the Center contracted for aerial-photography of the interior in strips flown at

low altitude every 25 miles at right angles across the major river drainages. This strategy provided

black-and-white infrared airphotos of about 300,000 acres at a scale of 1:5000 that were the

basis tor inventory work in the interior between 1959 and 1961.41 The strip-photo method provided detailed information on forest stands along major river drainages where commercial development most likely would occur.

As the interior inventory got underway, administrative shuffles expanded professional networks and brought new personnel and skills to the Center's survey teams in Juneau. Caporaso

transferred to the Intermountain Station in 1959, assumed control of the Forest Survey in that

region, and recruited Vernon "Jim" LaBau and Wilbur "Bill" Farr. Under the tutelage of Karl

Moessner at the Intermountain Station, LaBau and Farr learned photo-interpretation techniques

useful in Alaska, and then transferred to Juneau in 1960 to work with Caporaso's former subordinates, Haack and Hegg.42 In an effort to cope with the vast distances and remote conditions of

interior Alaska, the inventory devised a three-phase system that added an "air check" as an inThe dramatic setting of Alaska forests could

make field research an addictive pursuit, as

this view of Bill Farr's 1962 camp on the

Yukon River below the Tanana River suggests.

(Juneau 1962)

Bringing the tools and methodological rigor ot

modern science to remote Held sites recjuired

elbow grease and professional dedication. Karl

Hegg, who photographed this scene in 1961,

described it as "Jim LaBau Boring Tree— [Jim]

Bones Recording." (Juneau 1407)

41Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1993 in Anchorage.

42The training at Intermountain Station included techniques using aerial stand-volume tables and

parailax measurements with stereo photos to determine tree heights. They also studied similar methods

for niensuiation studies with aerial photos. Correspondence from |im LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995.

65
Hick Hard and Al Harris with a floatplane at Whitewater

Bay. Aircraft linked Alaska forest researchers with

remote areas from the earls survevs of the 1950s

through the programs of the 1990s. (Farr collection)

Breathtaking scenery notwithstanding, the floatplane

was a lifeline to be firmly grasped at this spruce-yield

plot 331 on the Porcupine River. (Farr collection)

terim phase between the analysis of airphotos and field work on ground plots. LaBau describes

the air-check as a grueling process in which the biggest challenge was to avoid becoming airsick.

The pilot and the observer flew in a small aircraft at about 1000 feet and circled points clustered

on 1 0-mile-long transects selected to provide a 10-percent sample of the flight strips covered by

the airphotos. The plane would fly about 30 miles to one of the segments, check 30 points at that

segment, then fly on to the next segment. LaBau recalls, "...you were sitting in a fairly bumpy

aircraft as you go around in fairly tight circles...these points were one-third of a mile apart and

you'd just barely get out of one circle, get your next point picked out, then circle again, and you

had to turn your photos the opposite way the aircraft was circling..." and this process continued

for 5 to 8 hours a day.41

Another admininstrative shuffle in 1956 brought entomologist George L. Downing to Juneau

from the California Forest and Range Experiment Station to replace McCambridge, and after his

arrival, forest entomologists increasingly adopted aerial survey methods similar to those developed for inventory work: low-level insect damage surveys from small aircraft followed by ground

checks. The forest insect aerial-survey program included annual flight strips over some of the

more remote and less frequently visited timber lands. The flights were primarily intended as

sample strips geared toward detecting extensive infestations and as a guide to yearly changes in

insect conditions.44

Fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters improved access and reduced the time required to reach

medical help in case of emergency, but the new technology could also put field workers farther

afield where equipment failures or human error could be disastrous. Float planes flew ground

crews to staging areas for helicopters that flew the crews farther in and dropped them at randomly selected ground plots, often where likely no one had ever been before, and without raInterview with |im LaBau 4 August 1993.

Tavlor, Biennial Report for 1956-57, 9-10; Communication from Ken Wright to author June 1995.

66
dios. The ground crews remained on the ground until the helicopter pilot returned to pick them

up. The Center initially contracted these services from the lowest bidder, and former crew members recall their concern that a cut-rate pilot with a decrepit airship was their only lifeline to

civilization.45 The first helicopters used for this purpose were cumbersome, underpowered airships with limited lift that could not maneuver in heavily wooded areas and could not get out of

very deep depressions or gullies. Aircraft radio nets of the 1 950s and 1 960s were often poor, and

in remote areas, inaccessible except at high elevations. Aircraft that landed remained out of

touch until they took off and regained a high altitude. If any problems developed during takeoff

or landing, radio contact usually was not possible unless another plane flew overhead. LaBau

recalls that three of the five pilots who flow with him during this period were killed in accidents,

but surprisingly, no one working with the forest survey was ever injured in a crash, despite several

forced landings and near misses.46

Airborne crews working on the inventory of Chugach National Forest, which included Afognak

Island, encountered several particularly nerve-wracking experiences that illustrate the hazards of

working with aircraft and in remote locations. LaBau recalls that Afognak was especially interesting as a worksite because trails broken in by the huge Kodiak bear were virtually the only paths

available once the crews reached the ground. Once, a bear rampaging through the dense underField work in the interior could mean

extended stays at remote sites, such as

this 1962 campsite that Karl Hegg and

Bill Farr called home during their work

at plots 108 and 109 near Lake

Minakokosa. (Juneau 1276)

Standing on shore watching the floatplane take off could be a

sobering experience for field crews whose only contacts with the

outside world were through the pilots of these craft. In many

locations of interior Alaska, radio coontact was only possible at

higher altitudes. (Farr collection >

45Pilots, occasionally, would forget where they had dropped the crew. LaBau's crew was once stranded

near a plot on the upper Kuskokwim when the helicopter pilot ran low on fuel while searching for the

crew at the end of the day. LaBau's group was stranded overnight until the next day, when Karl Hegg,

flying a fied-wing aircraft, led the helicopter to the site indicated on a camp map. Interview with |im

LaBau 4 August 1993.

46LaBau and others credit good fortune, more than any other factor, for this injury-free record in the

earls vears of air travel by researeh personnel. Interview with Bill Farr 9 August 1993 in Juneau;

Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August I993; Correspondence from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March I995.

67
brush startled LaBau and Hegg. LaBau clambered up a tree while Hegg struggled to draw a bead

on the bear through the dense foliage. As the bear charged, Hegg found his front sight obscured

by leaves. Luckily for Hegg, the bear rumbled on past him and disappeared into the forest,

leaving Hegg searching for a target amidst the leaves at the end of the rifle barrel.47

Dangers caused by human error and mechanical failure often surpassed hazards from wildlife

or conditions in the field. One pilot with the Chugach inventory in Kodiak reportedly tore up a

Widgeon aircraft when he made a water landing with the wheels down; then, only a few weeks

later, the same pilot landed another aircraft at Anchorage airport with the wheels up, tearing the

belly out of the plane. In that case, the pilot was reassigned as a radio dispatcher, but LaBau

recalls that inexperienced members of ground crews also endangered pilots and other aircraft

passengers. In one incident, LaBau recalls, he, Tom Laurent, and two other people boarded an

aircraft with chain saws and fuel cans that began venting fumes into the cabin area as the plane

Camp established by Austin Helmers and

Robert Gregory on the Yukon River in

1961. (Helmers collection)

Helmers operating a skiff enroute to work in Mitchell Bay on

Admiralty Island, with Al Harris (back to camera, on left) and Bob

Emery (back to camera, on right) in 1962. (Helmers collection)

Robert Gregory

negotiating the

Tatonduck River, a

tributory of the Yukon

River, below Eagle in

1963. (Helmers

collection)

47Correspondence from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995.

68
gained altitude. Apparently oblivious to the danger, one of the other passengers lit a cigarette

while LaBau and Laurent braced for an explosion that, luckily, never materialized.48

Ground crews on the interior survey worked 10 days on and 4 days off in a pattern that left

them completely isolated from outside contact for 5 days at a stretch. Aircraft would fly the crews

in with camping gear and leave them there for 5 days with no radio contact, while the crews

checked ground plots against airphotos. After 5 days in one camp, the pilot would return to

collect the crew and move them to a second site, where they would spend another 5 days checking ground plots. After 10 days in the field, ground crews were allowed 4 days leave in Fairbanks,

Anchorage, or wherever they happened to be, before they went back out to begin the next series

of ground checks. The 4 days leave usually amounted to only 3 days off, in practice, because the

fourth day was spent buying food and gear for the next 10-day work period.49

From Alaska Forest Research Center to Experiment Station

With the forest and insect surveys well underway, Taylor and his colleagues at Region 10

lobbied the Washington Office to broaden the designation of the Alaska Forest Research Center

to a full-fledged Experiment Station.30 Studies of forest regeneration and watersheds continued

on the Maybeso Experimental Forest, but new personnel began to expand the range of expertise

at the Center and extended their focus to include areas of the Chugach National Forest and the

Kenai Peninsula. Austin Helmers arrived in 1957 to replace Harold Anderson on the salmon

habitat and watershed studies. Robert A. Gregory began work for the Center that same year with

silvicultural studies in southeast Alaska and studies of seed dispersal on a mile-square clearcut

established on the Maybeso Experimental Forest for that purpose in 1957. Gregory also developed cooperative relations with scientists at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he began

preparation of growth and yield tables for white spruce, aspen, and birch with destructive sampling and stem analysis in 1957 and preliminary work on white spruce seed production in 1958

on sites that eventually became part of the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest 5 years later.51

Gregory's work came at a crucial time in the transition from research center to experiment

station because it began in the heat of the campaign for Alaska statehood and at the peak of

concern about potential problems with forests in the interior. A flareup of forest damage from the

spear-marked black moth near Fairbanks and from the Alaska spruce beetle on the Kenai Peninsula in 1957 and 1958 raised serious questions about the condition of forests in the interior that

had an important bearing on congressional debate over the Alaska Statehood Act. The Statehood

Act entitled Alaska to select about 105 million acres of land for transfer from federal to state

49Interview with |im LaBau 4 August 1993; Correspondence from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995.

50Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1993.

51Memo 5 July 1956 from H.R. Josephson to Region 10, located in the Central Files, Anchorage Office,

PNW Station.

52Research on the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest. A review of past and present research," Memo 7

October 1969 from Les Viereck, Project Leader, to Richard M. Hurd.

69
control in the largest land transfer of its kind in U.S. history. Much of that land was forested, and

the potential damage from insect flareups on those forests increased pressure for the Forest Service to supply the federal and territorial governments with accurate information. President Dwight

Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act 7 July 1 958 and officially proclaimed Alaska in the

Union on 3 January 1959. With national attention focused on the problem of incomplete forest

research in Alaska, Taylor decided to intensify his efforts to have the Center reclassified as an

experiment station. He drafted Station Paper 11 as an informal report on the state of Alaska

torests and past and current forest research in Alaska, and he intended the report as a primer for

potential allies in his campaign for experiment station status.52

These changes came as Congress began to recognize the growing importance of recreation in

American society and appropriated $2.5 million to fund the Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission in 1958 to inventory and evaluate outdoor recreational resources. The Forest

Service and McArdle moved quickly to participate in the Commission and have a say in how

those resources were allocated. The Commission's discussions identified wilderness as a recreational resource, about the time that the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act became law in 1960

with support from McArdle and industry leaders who were involved in timber, mining, and grazing activities on National Forests and viewed multiple use primarily as a guarantee of future

access. Nevertheless, the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act directed the Forest Service to give

Research gained a broadened mandate with the Multiple Use

Sustained Yield Act of I960, which directed the Forest Service

to give equal consideration to outdoor recreation, range,

timber, water, and wildlife and fish. This act also included the

caveat that "establishment and maintenance of areas of

wilderness are consistent" with multiple use. (Schmiege

collection)

Salmon-counting tower at Twelve-Mile Creek in

1957. (Meehan collection)

52Memo 17 December 1958 to Pete Hanson from Ray Taylor, located in the storage room, Juneau

Forestry Sciences Laboratory, USDA Forest Service; Rakestraw, Forest Service in Alaska, 147-48; Naske,

Alaska, 155-57; Steen, The U.S. Forest Service, 311-313;

70
Austin Helmers absorbed the frontier

spirit of earlier scientists like Rav Taylor

and helped pass that ethic forward into

the next generation of researchers in

Alaska. Here, he studies spruce coming

in beneath alder on a cut-over site at the.

south end of Wrangell Island in 1960.

(Juneau 344)

equal consideration to outdoor recreation, range, timber,

water, and wildlife and fish, and in a compromise designed

to thwart potential opposition from conservationists, the Multiple Use Act also included the caveat that "establishment

and maintenance of areas of wilderness are consistent" with

multiple use. Wilderness legislation was also proposed in

Congress about the time debate began on the Multiple Use

Act and 4 years before it became law, but the Wilderness

Act did not become law until 1964, when it gave new meaning to the industry buzzwords "multiple use" and "sustainable forestry."53

Forest Service Research in Alaska gained new impetus

and direction as a result of the changes accompanying statehood and the Multiple Use Act in 1959 and 1960, and leadership at the Center transferred from one generation of scientists to the next during this formative period. Statehood

eliminated the artificial distinctions governing Forest Service responsibilities in territories and

states, and federal-state cooperation as mandated under the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 opened

new areas of funding and support for forest research in relation to forest protection and fires. Ray

Taylor resigned from the Forest Service in 1959 and Austin Helmers became Acting Forester in

Charge at the Center. Under Helmers' direction, Keith Hutchison became project leader for the

forest survey for Alaska in 1 959 and joined the forest survey team at Juneau. Gregory moved to

Fairbanks to establish an office from which he conducted studies on the growth of interior forests,

and forest entomologist Richard "Skeeter" Werner joined the research staff in Juneau to study the

behavior and ecology of forest insects in southeastern coastal Alaska. Helmers also initiated

negotiations with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to locate a Forest Service research facility

on campus, and he acted on Gregory's idea to establish an experimental forest in the Interior.

Gregory and Helmers worked together in the field to decide on the boundaries, and Helmers

followed through with the administrative process required to arrange a lease agreement with the

state of Alaska and establish an experimental forest on the Bonanza Creek drainage near Fairbanks.54

In his 2 years as interim director with the Center, Helmers had a powerful effect on the future

scope and focus of Forest Service Research in the interior a decade before he moved to Fairbanks

to establish a multifunctional work unit in 1971.

54Rakestraw. Forest Service in Alaska, 147-48; Naske, Alaska, 155-57; Steen, The U.S. Forest Service,

311 -.313, Samuel Trask Dana and Sally K. Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy: Its Development in the

United Slates, Second Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980), 196-199, 200-206,

217-221

53Memo 2.5 June 1959 from Austin Helmers to Manager, Land Office, Bureau of Land Management;

Memo 15 July 1960 from Austin Helmers to C.C. Carleson, Regional Attorney, Office of the General

Counsel, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Portland.

71
Generational Change and The Young

Bay Experimental Forest

The interim administration of Austin Helmers

as Forester in Charge of the Center marked a transition from the Yale-influenced, productionoriented traditions of forest research under Ray

Taylor55 to a new era in which ecological concerns relating to "natural" disturbances and

legal action increasingly set the agenda for

research. The establishment of the Young Bay

Experimental Forest in 1959, however, demonstrates that this process was gradual with many

false starts and pitfalls. While initial planning

for the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest was

getting underway during Helmers' brief administration, the Center finalized the establishment

of the second experimental forest in Alaska

(Maybeso Experimental Forest was the first). The

Center established the Young Bay Experimental

Forest to accommodate watershed research on

6,425 acres of western hemlock-Sitka spruce forest in southeast Alaska. Helmers selected two

streams on steep terrain on the northeastern shore of Admiralty Island as sites for studies of

spawning habitat for pink and chum salmon in 1958, and the area was designated an experimental

forest the next year. As with the Maybeso, the Young Bay Experimental Forest was established on a site

where it was possible to clearcut one drainage and maintain an adjacent drainage as a "control."56

Logging that began on the Maybeso forest in 1952 had run its course by 1958 to the point

where it was no longer possible to continue with the parallel watersheds program of research,

and this sparked the search for another site with comparable watersheds. Helmers reportedly

selected the Young Bay region because it contained two similar watersheds close to town. Fisheries biologist William Meehan and hydrologist Douglas Swanston, both of whom worked with

Helmers at the Juneau Lab in the early 1960s, observe that this selection process unavoidably

involved some assumptions that did not stand the test of time. Swanston observes that the notion

View of the Harris River tide flats in August 1961. Note

the extensive clearcuts in the background and log rafts

in the toreground (Juneau 892)

55One influential professor of the Yale school was H.H. Chapman, whom Taylor cites with admiration in

his autobiographic al account (apparently written in the late 1950s) of faculty he came in contact with as

a graduate student at Yale in the 1 920s. Chapman, who had trained 1 5 academic generations of scholars

at the torestrv school by the time Taylor retired from the Center, advocated during the late 1950s the

extension of logging into National Parks, wilderness, and recreation areas, and he ridiculed as "utterly

ignorant' National Park advocates who claimed that old forests and decaying trees were a healthy

component of the natural environment. Paul W. Hirt, A Conspiracy of Optimism: Management of the

National forests Since World War Two (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 164.

56Young Bav Experimental Forest Establishment File" Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW

Station

72
Gravel quarrying on Twelve-Mile Creek in I960.

The watershed research program for Young Bay

Experimental Forest in the early 1960s included plans to

quarry gravel from other areas and then transport it in

barges to an artificial stream channel constructed at the

Young Bay site. This channel was designed to allow

researchers to model different sreambed materials and

conditions, (Juneau 507)

that two watersheds are discrete and not affected

by events on an adjacent watershed is an unfounded assumption with serious ecological implications, and Meehan notes that the choice of

comparable watersheds failed to take into consideration significant differences in the soil characteristics of each drainage—i.e., in some significant aspects, they were not comparable.

Swanston also notes that the comparable watersheds were selected on the basis of tree types

and the significant issue of soil types simply was

not a consideration in the context of watersheds

research in the late 1950s.57

Helmers, who acknowledges that the watersheds at Young Bay are different in many respects,

emphasizes that he was primarily concerned

with locating a site easily accessible from Juneau for studies of spawning habitat. He first considered streams on the mainland near Juneau, but acreage on public land in the Mendenhall Valley

with an adequate water supply was not available. At the time, the Center planned studies on

three major types of spawning gravels. The site at Young Bay did not include all three types, but

Helmers planned to barge gravel in from other areas to construct an artificial channel useful for

the spawning studies. Forest Service researchers constructed the artificial stream channel and

used the site from 1 966 to 1976 for studies of spawning habitat with controlled discharge, velocity, gradient, gravel composition, and type of sedimentation in an effort to refine and extend

research completed on the Maybeso Experimental Forest during the mid 1950s.58 This research,

and the Young Bay Experimental Forest itself, is a monument to the hidden assumption that has

governed scientific research since the age of enlightenment: the idea that any system can be

understood by isolating and dissecting discrete parts to arrive at an understanding of the whole.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, that idea gradually came under attack in forest research.

57Interview with William Meehan and Douglas Swanston 22 December 1992; interview with Austin

Helmers 4 August I993.

58Young Bar Experimental Forest Establishment File" Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW

Station.

73
George A. "Jim" lones who heacded the PortOrford-Cedar I penmental forest near

Coquille. on an early trip to explore the

location tor the Young Bav l\perimenlal

lorest on Admiralty Island in 1962 Helmers

(collection)

Bill Wdlkolten (seated) and Austin Helmers wait for aircraft

pickup on Young Bay Experimental Forest, Admiralty Island,

in 1969. (Helmers collection)

Construction of a gabion dam at fast Creek on Young Bay

Experimental Forest in 1969. (Swanston collection)

Doug Swanston wrestles a sheet of plastic

into place during the construe lion of the

collection basin for the flume at Young Bay

Experimental Forest. The flume provided

watershed research with a stream bed that

could be manipulated to simulate a variety

of conditions. (Median collection)

Bill Walkotten (on tractor) and Doug Swanston (on

toot) hauling flume sections for the experimental

stream channel under construction at the lab site on

East Creek in 1969. (Helmers collection)

74
Bill Meehan (standing) and Bill Walkotten (seated]

during construction of the lest flume at East Creek.

(Swanslon collection)

Flume and collecting pond on Young Bay Experimental

Forest. (Schmiege collection)

Bill Walkotten developing and testing a

liquid CO, gravel sampler on the flume at

Young Bay Experimental Forest in 1974.

(Swanston Collection)

Flume at Admiralty Island study site. (Schmiege

collection)

75
CHAPTER FOUR:

Forest Research With

the Northern Forest

Experiment Station

The Alaska Forest Research Center disappeared

from the Forest Service organizational chart on

1 July 1961, when it was reorganized as the

Northern Forest Experiment Station (the Northern Station) with headquarters at Juneau and Richard M. Hurd

as Director. This move ended the administration of

Acting Forester-in-Charge Austin Helmers and stood

as a monument to the ambitions of former Center Director Ray Taylor and the political logrolling that followed Alaska statehood. This particular monument

lasted less than 6 years, however, before the Northern

Station was placed under the administrative control of

the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment

Station (PNW Station) and renamed the Institute of

Northern Forestry (the Institute).1 Aside from Taylor,
only one other person directed Forest Service

Research in Alaska longer than Hurd,2 who continued as director of the program in Juneau for

four years after the merger with the PNW Station. Hurd's administration continued the transition, begun under Austin Helmers, from a Forest Service research center that largely addressed

questions arising from the production-oriented

decisions of forest managers to a facility that increasingly focused on research questions arising from broader concerns that required the expertise of a multidisciplinary research staff. That

transition was made with considerable legislative and litigative prodding from outside the Forest Service. Ken Wright replaced Hurd in 1967 as the assistant director responsible for most

Alaska programs, and Hurd retired from the Forest Service in 1 970, just as a series of Sierra Club

lawsuits and the National Environmental Policy Act of that period began to change the context

within which research questions were framed. Together, Hurd and Helmers (who continued with

the Institute of Northern Forestry in Fairbanks from 1971 to 1976) left a legacy of a research

program that in many ways was a reflection of their personal and professional lives spent in the

Western United States working with the Forest Service.3

Austin Helmers examines a raised marine terrace with

shells dating more than 9,000 b.p. on Indian Creek,

Prince of Wales Island, in 1965. Swanslon collection)

Administrative Personalities and Expansion Into the Interior

Station Director Richard Hurd brought an impressive array of academic credentials and experience as a professional administrator to the Northern Forest Experiment Station in 1 961, but his

predecessor in office, Austin Helmers, who embodied the frontiersmanship, or "can-do" spirit of

researchers in the Taylor years, transmitted that occasionally problematic outlook into the Hurd

78

2The Noiihein Forest Experiment Station was reorganized in 1966 as the Institute of Northern Forestry

under the direction of the Pacitic Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station in Portland, Oregon.

There after, the Fairbanks office was known as the Forestry Sciences Laboratory and the Juneau office was

known as the Institute of Northern Forestry. By 1972, however, the nomenclature was reversed, and

PNW Slalion Reports of that year reler to the Institute of Northern Forestry at Fairbanks and the Forestry

Scienes bmatorv (FSL) at luneau. The tacilities at Fairbanks, ironically, were constructed as a

resean h laboratory, while scientists at juneau have never had the benefit of a building constructed for

the purpose of laboratory research, despite the official designation of the Juneau office as an FSL after

1971 Scentis at luneau came close to securing funding for construction of a laboratory in the mid

1980s but the project failed to gain final approval. Instead, Juneau scientists have worked in a series of

office buildings poorly suited to controlled, laboratory research. In succession, researchers in Juneau

were housed in the former C C C rewhouse, the Federal Building, the Johnson Building, and the current

structure near the airport (the Rhinoceros Building).

Assisiant Director Ken Wright, of the PNW Station, was responsible for Alaska Research from 1967

through his retiremenl in the late 1980s.

3Professional Biography Files, Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station; Forestry Research

News, 11 Aug I970; Richard M. Hurd, Biennial Report, 1960-61 (Juneau: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Fores! Ser\ ice, Northern Forest Experiment Station, 1962).

CONTINUED