Lake States Forest Experiment Station in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wilbur [Bill] Farr, a graduate of New

York State College, went back to school at Oregon State University for about a year in 1962,

continued his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1964-65 school year, and

returned to work at the Juneau Lab between 1 965 and 1 968, when he again resumed his studies,

this time at the University of Washington. Jim LaBau returned to graduate school in 1965 at

Oregon State University, where he wrote a master's thesis on the application of Bitterlich's point

sampling techniques to the inventory of coastal forests in Alaska. Swanston, meanwhile, continued his graduate work with Michigan State University, where his doctoral dissertation explored

the geology and slope failures in the Maybeso Creek Valley, and he earned a Ph.D. in geomorphology-engineering geology in 1967.46

Of all the staff and personnel changes

introduced at Juneau after 1961, the addition of Fisheries Biologist William

Meehan to the watersheds project in

1966 had, perhaps, the most far-reaching implications. Meehan was the first

fisheries biologist employed with the Research Branch of the Forest Service, and

he was an established scientist with

nearly a decade of experience in Alaska

when he joined Helmers and Swanston

on the watersheds project in Juneau.

Meehan, a native of Buffalo, New York,

had earned an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Buffalo, an M.A. in biology from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. in fisheries and wildlife from Michigan State

University by 1958. He also served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War.

Meehan worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from the time he finished graduate

work at Michigan State University until he joined the Juneau office. With the Alaska Department

of Fish and Game, he served as senior biologist and director of the Kitoi Bay Research Station,

then as supervisor of the Sockeye Salmon Research Project, and finally, as research supervisor of

the Westward Region and director of the Kodiak Research Center.47

The addition of Meehan to the watershed project marked the beginning of a gradual shift over

more than two decades from the study of logging and its effect on streambeds and waterflow to

the study of fish in the streams and their biological requirements. Meehan began some fisheries

work between 1966 and 1971, but his work in the biological aspects of streams began in earnest

Bill Meehan inspects an egg-rearing basket in 1971 downstream

from a footbridge previously constructed at Young Bay

Experimental Forest. (Meehan collection)

46 Protession.il Biography Files, Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station; Communication

from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1 995.

47 Interviews with William Meehan 22 December 1992 and 9 August 1993; Professional Biography

Files, Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station.

99

This file was created by scanning the printed publication. 

Text errors identified by the software have been corrected; 

however, some errors may remain. 
One of the many temporary homes of the Juneau FSL, the

Federal Building in downtown Juneau was ill-P(juipped for

laboratory research because of the risk ot exposing other federal

office workers to chemicals and other hazards. (Fair collection)

after Helmers transferred to Fairbanks in

1971 and Meehan took charge of the

watershed project. Meehan recalls that

his work with the watershed project from

1966 to 1971 fell into three rough categories: the effects of logging and other

land uses on fish habitat, habitat requirements of salmonids, and methods for enhancing fish habitat. As Meehan recalls,

when he arrived in 1966, fisheries aspects were "implied" from after-logging

studies and there was "no solid fisheries

investigation." What passed for fish habitat studies mostly involved studies of

sedimentation and erosion with limited

understanding of the biological requirements of the fish. Before 1966, studies of habitat requirements focused mainly on pink and chum

salmon, with little work on coho salmon and cutthroat trout—species that remained in the streams

for one or more years. Meehan notes that habitat enhancement was the lowest priority for research and remained so over the next two decades.4"

When Meehan joined the Forest Service in 1966, the facility in Juneau was located in the

Federal Building, and the lab had no facilities geared toward fisheries work, such as hatcheries,

experimental laboratories, or artificial stream channels. Meehan spent much of his time lobbying

for new laboratory facilities in Juneau, but was mostly unsuccessful. Instead, he was forced to

pursue his work in the field where conditions were very difficult to control, and where the exCravel-washing

operations at Half-Mile

Creek on the Maybeso

Experimental Forest in

1956. The cumbersome

expense of this process

for restoring gravel

spawning beds

encouraged scientists to

seek more cosl-effective

alternatives during the

1960s and 1970s.

(Juneau 718)

Washing gravel in Half-Mile Creek in 1956. (Juneau

719)

4 8 Ink'rui'v v wit h Willia m Meeha n 9 August 1993 .

100
pense of research was as much as three

times higher than elsewhere in the

United States. Among the projects he

worked on during this period was the

attention-grabbing "riffle sifter," which he

describes as a "monster" that was supposed to stir up the gravel, suck up the

fine sediments, and kick them out on the

bank. In practice, the riffle sifter blew

some sediment out on the bank, but

some was flushed downstream, and the

sediment blown out on the bank easily

washed back into the stream. The idea

for the riffle sifter, which Al Harris describes as more of an engineering design

Forest Service boat, the Tongass Ranger, towing a riffle sifter out

of Tenakee Inlet. An example of the "can-do" spirit and

optimism of the early 1960s, the riffle sifter was an experimental

prototype designed to restore salmon habitat in logged-over

watersheds, but it suffered from repeated technological

breakdowns. Later fisheries habitat experts discounted the

theoretical basis behind this technological solution to systemic

problems. (Meehan collection)

project than a research project, apparently was based on research by Bill McNeil, of the University of Washington Fisheries Research

Institute (FRI), who argued that sediment in streambed gravel interfered with oxygen flow to

buried salmon eggs.49

Helmers describes the riffle sifter somewhat differently than Meehan, arguing that it was a

"pretty good idea" that may have been influenced by his off-hand speculation in a casual conversation with a representative of Ketchikan Pulp Company:

One of the things that led to it, I suppose, I remember one time I was up in

Fairbanks for some meeting, and Art Brookes was there. At the time he was in

charge of log production for KPC [Ketchikan Pulp Company]. So we were sitting

around having a meeting one night, and I had this idea, you know how inviolate

streams are to logging, you don't dare touch it, and I said to Art, "you know," I said,

"if we could get you guys to do some yard logging across these streams at the right

time of year, you know, we could clean up these rapids quite a bit."(laughs) Well he

said "nothin doing—I got enough trouble as it is." (loud laughter) I said "we could

do this as research, purely experimental, you know, and we're the ones that are

asking you to do it," and he said "nothin doing" (laughs) "By the time the public got

ahold of that," he said, he didn't want any part of it (laughs), so then we went out

and came up with a device to do the same thing.50

Helmers' tongue-in-cheek proposal also seemed rooted in the long-standing quandary that

scientists in Alaska had faced since the time of Steller: how to balance the boundless potential for

49 Interview with William Meehan 9 August 1993; Correspondence from Al Harris 14 March 1995.

50 Interview with Austin Helmers 4 August 1993.

101
scientific inquiry with the reality of limited resources and funding. Helmers contends that yarding the logs across the stream might have created an opportunity for determining "...the amount

of streambed sediment reduction, gravel redistribution and stability." Without support from the

FRI, he continues, the Fairbanks Lab would not have had "...adequate capabilities for determining effects on streambed biota."51 In short, Helmers had proposed a scheme by which Ketchikan

Pulp Company logging activities would subsidize research that otherwise would not have been feasible with resources at the Fairbanks Lab. It was an innovative and resourceful idea with undoubted

potential as a public relations nightmare, but it was also an effort to accomplish, on a shoestring

budget, research in keeping with the new theories of habitat-salmon interaction emanating from FRI

laboratories. The riffle-sifter was simply a more technology-laden variation on the same theme.

Wanigan 13 under

tow to a work site in

1961. Photo taken

from the deck of the

MV Maybeso.

(Helmers collection)

Wanigans provided a mobile research

platform and housing for staff and supplies at

remote sites. This view of Wanigan 13 was

taken in 1959 at Young Bav on Admiralty

Island (Juneau 1959)

Forest Insect Research wanigan at MacKenzie

Inlet in July 1971. (Wright collection)

Torolf Torgerson on his way to a plot near

MacKenzie Inlet in southeast Alaska in 1971.

(Wright collection)

51Correspondence from Austin Helmers 10 March 1995.

102
Postmortems on the outcome of the riffle-sifter experiment reveal the shifting perspectives

that redefined the direction of fisheries and watershed research over the next two decades. As

Helmers recalls, the riffle-sifter prototype, which he witnessed in operation for only about half an

hour at Montana Creek, had "quite a few little mechanical breakdowns, so every day, why, the

thing was down for some problem or the other, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the

concept at all..." Meehan argues, however, that the problem with the riffle sifter was as much

conceptual as mechanical because it failed to address the question of where much of the sediment would settle further downstream. In other words, restoration of habitat upstream may well

destroy habitat further downstream.52

As Meehan struggled with inadequate laboratory facilities in fisheries, the insect research

project in southeast Alaska moved ahead with new laboratory facilities acquired in 1962 and a

growing faculty of entomologists with advanced graduate degrees. The laboratory and crew

quarters were located on a wanigan designed and built by Werner in 1961. It consisted of a steel

barge 52 feet long and 15 feet wide with a wooden frame structure designed for laboratory and

living quarters. Helmers recalls that he arranged with the GSA (Government Services Administration) in Seattle to visit various shipyards, initially looking at old landing craft. Finally, at the

Duwamish Shipyards, they located and purchased a "fairly new steel barge" that was modified as

the support structure for the new research wanigan. The wanigan was self-contained, with a

generator, two-way radio, propane gas utilities, and freshwater storage. Torolf Torgerson also

Don Schmiege and Skeeter Werner at

Limestone Inlet, 20 miles south ot Juneau, in

1962. This site was used for research on the

black-headed budworm and hemlock sawfly.

(Portland Office History Files)

Don Schmiege inspecting a Pacific silver fir in 1969

on the Red River Research Natural Area, which

includes the northernmost stand of this species.

Ken Wright was instrumental in securing RNA

designation tor this site, and the Chief Forester

attended its dedication. (Juneau 4164)

lnterview WIth William Meehan 9 August 1 993; Interview with Austin Helmers 4 August 1993.

103
Karl Hegg sets a compass bearing in

1967. (Juneau 3145)

Al Harris at a regenerating clearcut on the Maybeso Experimental

Forest in 1965. (Juneau 1810)

joined Schmiege and Hard on the project in 1965, shortly after Werner left for the Southern

Station. Torgerson was a graduate of Syracuse University with a degree in forestry, and he pursued an M.S. and Ph.D. in entomology from the University of Wisconsin, where Schmiege served

as Visiting Professor of Entomology in 1 966. Most entomology research in the mid-to-late 1 960s

focused on the black-headed budworm and hemlock sawfly, which were most common in the

spruce-hemlock forests of southeast Alaska. The outbreaks of the late 1950s had left enormous

areas of dead and top-killed timber, and fears of another flareup spurred research and monitoring

efforts in the mid 1960s. Investigations at Limestone Inlet, a Research Natural Area located about

20 miles from Juneau, focused on the life cycle of the budworm in an effort to identify factors that

contribute to mortality.53

As Schmiege recalls, his research often was driven by requests for information from Region 10

and consequently focused mostly on providing basic information, or counting what was out

there. Schmiege argues that entomology "research," as such, really was not feasible, given the

scale of management activities, and he noted the best that could be expected was to make predictions about insect response to those activities. Nonetheless, he notes that Limestone Inlet,

where the wanigan was located, was "just great" as a research site. Methods developed for

studying the budworm included examining egg-bearing needles during winter and spring by

erecting 40-foot steel towers adjacent to the tree, then climbing the tower to study the budworm

eggs in their natural setting in the tops and middle crowns of the trees. Studies of the hemlock

sawfly were accomplished by placing muslin sleeve cages around hemlock branches to isolate

the prepupae and facilitate studies of predators and parasites that might affect the life cycle of the

insect54

53Hurd, 1 962 Annual Report, 6-9; Professional Biography Files, Central History Files, Portland Office,

PNW Station;

54 Hurd, Annual Report 1963, 1-3.

104
The research camp at Hollis, seen here in 1962,

remained an important base tot regeneration growth

and yield studies on the Maybeso Ixperimental Forest

through the 1970s. (Helmers collectioni

Al Harris examines a second-growth

stand of 40-year-old hemlock-spruce at

Howkan in 1966. (Juneau 4007)

Other scientists at the Juneau Lab produced a series of reports and research notes on forest

regeneration and inventory methods and findings. Karl Hegg produced a photo-identification

guide for forest and land types in the interior, Harris studied natural reforestation on the large

clearcuts on the Maybeso Experimental Forest, and Farr examined growth and yield on wellstocked stands of white spruce in the Interior. Farr also cooperated with Meehan, Daniel Bishop,

and J.H. Patric to produce a report on the effects of clearcutting on salmon habitat in 1969, and

Swanston issued several reports on mass wasting and debris avalanching in shallow till soils of

southeast Alaska.55 The scientists who undertook these studies did so in a climate of increasing

uncertainty and day-to-day speculation about the future of forest research in Alaska.

Administrative Agendas and Research in Southeast Alaska

Administrative control over Forest Service Research in Alaska gradually slipped away from the

Juneau office while the Fairbanks Lab pursued its cooperative agreements and research programs.

The mid 1960s was a period of enormous turmoil for the Forest Service nationally and in Alaska.

Between 1 964 and 1971, the agency faced challenges from wilderness advocacy groups, Alaska

Natives, and other state and federal agencies concerned about Forest Service administration of

public lands. The intense scrutiny focused on the Forest Service during this period also coincided

with planning for the 60-year anniversary of the establishment of the agency within the DepartKdri Hegg A pholo identitication guide lor the kind and forest types of interior Alaska, (Juneau: U.S.

Deparlmen! of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Fores! Experiment Station, NOR-3, 1966); A.S.

Harris, Natural reforestation on a mile-square clearcut in southeast Alaska, (Portland: U.S. Department of

Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, PNW-52); Wilbur A.

Farr Growth and yield of well-stockeel white spruce_s_tands in. Alaskta, (Portland: U.S. Department of

Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, PNW-53); William

R. Meehan. W.A. Farr. D.M. Bishop, and J.H. Patric. Some effects of clearcutting on salmon habitat of

two southeast Alaska safmon streams, (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific

Northwest Forest ,and Range Experiment Station, PNW-82); Douglas N. Swanston, Mass wasting in

coastal Alaska, (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and

Range Expeiiment Station, PNW-831; Douglas N. Swanston, Mechanics of debris avalanching in shallow

till soils of southeast Alaska. (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest

Forest and Range Experiment Station, PNW-103).

105
Ken Wright, Assistant

Director at PNW

Station, displays the

"first salmon of his life"

at McKenzie Inlet in

July 1971. Wright held

responsibility for

administering research

programs in Alaska

longer than any other

assistant director in

Portland, and he

earned the moniker

"Mr. Alaska " for his

unflagging commitment

to secure support for

those efforts. (Wright

collection)

Bill Farr measures d.b.h. from the

downhill side of a tree on the Kenai

Peninsula, (Juneau 1406)

merit of Agriculture. In this context, the Washington Office initiated a review of operations in

1 963 (just as the landslide studies on the Maybeso got underway) to assure that its house was in

order, and an inspection of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska at mid-decade yielded a recommendation that Alaska research should be administered by the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range

Experiment Station (PNW Station) with headquarters in Portland, Oregon.56

Responsibility for research in Alaska reverted back to the PNW Station as part of a $4 million

Congressional allocation in 1966 that also covered construction funds for expanding research

facilities in Corvallis and La Grande, Oregon. Hurd briefly continued as administrator in Juneau

with responsibility for the various facilities, experimental forests, and research progress in southeast Alaska and the interior, but his budget came through the Portland Office rather than the

Washington Office.1" At the time of the transfer of authority, Hurd directed a total of seven

projects staffed by 1 7 professional researchers. Four of the projects were located at Juneau: Al

Harris was project leader for Culture of Coastal Forests—Alaska, Austin Helmers was project

leader for Erosion and Sediment Reduction—Alaska Coastal Forests, Don Schmiege was project

leader for Forest Insects—Coastal Alaska, and Keith Hutchison was project leader for the Forest

Survey—Alaska. Three projects were located at Fairbanks: Bob Gregory was project leader for

Ecology of Subarctic Trees and Forests, Dick Barney was project leader for Fire Control Methods—Alaska, and Roy Beckwith was project leader for Forest Insects-Interior Alaska.58

56Covvlm, "Federal Forest Research," 471-48.5; Interview with Kenneth Wright 13 July 1993 in the

Portland ( mice, PNW Station.

57Cowlin, "Federal Forest Research," 484; Interview with Kenneth Wright 13 July 1993.

58Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Annual Report 1 967 (Portland: U.S. Department ot Agri( ulture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1968), 5.

106
"Mr. Alaska" Ken Wright on Adak

Island in June 1986. (Loopstra

collection)

As the PNW Station and the rest of the Forest Service

scrambled to keep pace with new legislative initiatives and administrative changes during the late 1960s, PNW Director Philip

Briegleb re-shuffled assignments and program responsiblities

throughout the Station. Between 1967 and 1970, he reorganized the Institute of Northern Forestry as the Forestry Sciences

Laboratory, Juneau, and he restructured the Forestry Sciences

Laboratory, Fairbanks, so that it was administered directly from

the Portland Office rather than through Juneau. Projects and

personnel at these two facilities were distributed among the five

major divisions of the PNW Station, each headed by an assistant director (AD) in the Portland office: Timber Management

Research (AD David Tackle), Forest Environment Research (AD

Robert W. Harris), Research Support Services (AD Charles

[Chuckl J. Petersen), Forest Protection Research (AD Kenneth

H. Wright), and Resource Economics, Products, and Engineering Research (AD Donald F. Flora). In addition, Floyd A. Johnson headed the Biometrics division

at Portland as principal biometrician.59

In a sweeping realignment, researchers in Alaska suddenly found themselves reporting to

several administrators in Portland rather than one person in Juneau; meanwhile, they lost from

their own ranks two experienced leaders with nearly two decades of combined experience in

Alaska. Richard M. Hurd, who had served as Director of the Institute of Northern Forestry for

nearly a decade, was suddenly stripped of his adminstrative responsibilities in 1967. He served

3 more years and then retired from the Forest Service in 1970. Donald Schmiege, who had

directed the forest insects project in Juneau for over a decade, also left Alaska for a new position

at the Pacific Southwest Experiment Station at Berkeley, California, in 1 970. At Juneau, the Culture of Coastal Forests in Alaska project, with Al Harris (Project Leader) and Bill Farr, fell under the

purview of AD Tackle; the Erosion and Sediment Reduction—Alaska Coastal Forests project,

with Austin Helmers (Project Leader), Bill Meehan, and Doug Swanston was AD Harris' responsibility; the Forest Survey, with Keith Hutchison (Project Leader), Karl Hegg, Jim LaBau, Tom

Laurent, and Ronald Dippold, came under AD Flora's administration; and the Forest Insects—

Coastal Alaska project, with John Hard and Torolf Torgersen, was administered from Portland by

AD Ken Wright. Wright, who was tagged with the moniker "Mr. Alaska" by Flora and others, also

directed two projects at Fairbanks: Forest Insects—Interior, with Roy Beckwith (Project Leader),

and Fire Control Methods—Alaska, with Richard J. Barney (Project Leader) and John Dell. The

other project at Fairbanks, Ecology of Subarctic Trees and Forests, with LesViereck (Project Leader)

59Cowlin, "Federal Forest Research in the Pacific Northwest," 512-528. Pacific Northwest Forest and

Range Experiment Station, Annual Report 1970 (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest

Service, Pacific. Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1971), 1-2, 9-12.

107
and John Zasada, also was included under AD Tackle's

division.60 With these changes, by 1 970, three different

assistant directors in Portland administered the five scientists at Fairbanks, and four assistant directors in Portland were responsible for the 13 scientists at Juneau.

Assistant Director Ken Wright, who directed programs at both Fairbanks and Juneau, soon established

himself as a hands-on administrator with a keen interest

in Alaska, as his nickname (Mr. Alaska) suggests. Wright

embodied in one person several established traditions

of leadership in the administration of programs at Juneau and Fairbanks. Like Taylor, Wright was a product

of the academic hierarchy of eastern institutions of higher

education (Duke University, 1950). Like Helmers, he

was a transplanted native of the Midwest (North Dakota) with academic training in the Pacific Northwest

(University of Washington B.S. in 1948 and graduate

work at Oregon State University). Like Hurd, he was a

Navy man and a veteran of World War Two with an eye

for detail and a penchant for orderly planning, and he

had accumulated considerable administrative and professional experience with the Navy and

two federal agencies in Portland, Oregon (the Bureau of Entomology and PNW Station, which he

joined in 1 953), before his involvement with Alaska. Wright's graduate studies in forest entomology, finally, helped narrow the gap between earlier generations of administrators with training in

forest management and the "third-wave" scientists who joined the Forest Service research faculty

in Alaska in the late 1 960s and early 1 970s with interests and graduate preparation in areas other

than forest science or forest management. These characteristics and others complemented a

personal style that rapidly established Wright's reputation as a Portland administrator who was

"good for Alaska." The administrative priorities, scientific training, and personal networks that

Wright brought to bear on his responsibilities significantly reshaped the community culture of

scientists who worked with the Research branch of the Forest Service in Alaska after 1968. His

broader view of scientific priorities coincided with an expanding federal mandate to explore the

environmental implications of economic development and administrative realignments on public lands in Alaska over the next two decades.61

Ken Wright's background as an entomologist

contributed to a broader, more interdisciplinary

emphasis in forest-related reseaich in the

years he served at PNW Station as lead

administratoi for Alaska programs. Here,

Torolf Jorgerson examines insects under a

hemlock tree on Prince ot Wales Island.

(Portland Office History Files)

60Cowliu. "federal Forest Research in the Pacific Northwest," 512-528; Pacific Northwest Forest and

Range lixperiment Station, Annual Report 1 970 (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest

Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1971), 1-2, 9-12. Communication from

Don Flora to Ken Wright 6 June 1995.

61Don Schmiege credits Wright for improving administrative support for scientists in Juneau after his

appointment, observing: "Ken was good for Alaska." Interview with Don Schmiege 22 December 1992.

Cowlin. 'Federal Forest Research," 484; Interview with Kenneth Wright 13 July 1993.

108
The administrative shuffle at PNW

Station produced a mixed bag of functional and geographic assignments for

assistant directors like Wright, whose

responsibilities included, but were not

limited to Alaska programs. This diffusion of responsibility might have been a

disruptive influence, if the new administrators had not struggled to rapidly reestablish lines of communication and develop a firsthand understanding of the

situation in Alaska. That process was not

always easy, and it occasionally included

some gentle prodding from those more

familiar with the traditions of Forest Service involvement in Alaska. Don Flora, for example, also

was assigned responsibility for numerous programs in Seattle and Portland. Flora recalls an early

lesson in the "political realities of Alaska" and the "budgetary facts of life" in relation to Alaska

during a visit with Staff Director H.R. (joe) Josephson, of the Washington Office, shortly after

assuming his new position as AD with PNW Station. Josephson, who had managed the economics/survey portfolio (including Alaska) for many years, reportedly demanded of the neophyte AD

an explanation of why he intended to spend limited Forest Survey funds in the "economically

barren timber region" of interior Alaska instead of devoting those resources to the "prime timber

country" of Washington and Oregon. Flora recalls that at the time, he "hadn't a clue," and

decided to take the matter up with PNW Station Director Phil Briegleb. Briegleb, as Flora recounts the story, soon straightened him out, pointing out that for political reasons, "...there was no

way we were going to move Forest Survey funds away from Alaska, and Joe, of course, knew it."62

Flora's account of his first visit to Alaska as an assistant director similarly illustrates the impact

of the administrative changes on the clients of Forest Service Research in Alaska, as they struggled

to adjust to the new chain of command through Portland. Flora had lived in Ketchikan for a time

as a child and was very familiar with the Alaska environment, but he met with a chilly reception

in Juneau that was not simply the result of the weather. Flora recalls that he was the first person

from Portland to meet with Hurd after the Director of the Northern Experiment Station at Juneau

and Fairbanks was demoted and his responsibilities parceled out to people like Wright and Flora.

Alaskans clearly favored their own research organization, and Flora recalls that Hurd, himself,

was somewhat frosty in their early meetings. Hurd reportedly refused to accompany Flora on

introductory visits with cooperators and research clients, and Flora, who notes he was "...hugely

sympathetic to [Hurd's] situation..." recalls "...getting cold reactions everywhere."63

62 Communication from Don Flora to Ken Wright 6 June 1995

63 Correspondence from Don Flora to Ken Wright 6 June 1995

109

Keith Hutchison, seen here on the Porcupine River, exemplified

the commitment to professional expertise and managerial

efficiency characteristic of the forest inventory unit In the 1960s.

(Farr collection)
Karl Hegg interprets aeial photos for the

Upper Tanana Study in 1974. (Juneau

3375) The frontiersmanship ethic of the Taylor era fostered a

community culture of male camaraderie among scientists

that could be difficult for women to join. Most male

scientists recall women who served in various clerical

support positions, but women also increasingly gained

employment as Research technicians and scientists. Here,

Chris Andrew prepares insect larvae for dissection at the

Institute of Northern Forestry in juneau. (juneau files)

The research staff at Fairbanks and Juneau, however, seemed more congenial, and Flora reports they "...generally liked the change." Hurd, who was relatively successful in his dealings

with outside agencies and other administrators in the Forest Service, apparently lacked the easy

rapport with other scientists that was more characteristic in the brief administrative tenure of

Helmers, who was well liked by fellow researchers but occasionally abrasive in his dealings with

bureaucrats in and out of the Forest Service. Hurd had a reputation for being somewhat more

aloof and abrupt in his dealings with researchers, and Flora recalls that he had a way of telling

people "...what they needed to know, rather than what they wanted to know...." This characteristic, which may have had its uses in formal administrative matters, often left close associates

"...feeling out of touch."64

Personnel matters aside, the transfer of authority from Juneau to Portland may have had some

side benefits. PNW Station's larger support staff partly alleviated the continuing need for support

services from Region 1 0. The Regional Forester's office, while not unsympathetic to the needs of

Research, clearly had other priorities that often took precedence over the concerns of scientists at

Juneau or Fairbanks. The first priority of PNW Station, on the other hand, was research, and

Station personnel offered greater flexibility and faster turn-around, in some areas, than the Region could accommodate within its federal mandate. The trade-off, of course, was that decisions

on funding allocations and other administrative concerns were further removed from the day-today activities of the people most affected by those decisions."65

64 Correspondence from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995; Correspondence from Don Flora to Ken

Wright 6 June 1995.

65 Cowlin, "Federal Forest Research," 483-484; correspondence from Don Flora to Ken Wright 6 |une 1995.

110
The Forest Survey and the Environmental Challenge

The merger of the Northern Station within PNW Station also came at a critical point in the

ongoing effort to define the variety and potential uses of forest resources in Alaska. Coincident

with the transfer of authority from juneau to Portland, Keith Hutchison's Forest Inventory—Economics unit published Alaska's Forest Resource (1967) as a resource bulletin of the PNW Station.

This major publication provided the completed results of the inventory of Alaska's forest resource,

begun in 1954, and as such, it represented more than a decade of work aimed at defining and

describing forest resources in Alaska and their potential for development. By 1967, however, an

ongoing national dialogue to establish appropriate management and development goals for the

Nation's forest resource had shifted gears to more directly address issues of environmental concern that were creeping into the national consciousness. As the culmination of survey efforts

begun under Taylor's administration, continued under the administrations of Helmers and Hurd,

and completed in the era of consolidation with PNW Station, Alaska's Forest Resource is an

excellent example of how basic research (just finding out what's out there) establishes the context

within which subsequent research questions are framed. Those subsequent questions, however,

often do not head off in directions anticipated by the scientists involved in the initial research.

Publication of Alaska's Forest Resource, for example, helped fuel a national debate over the

priorities of multiple use and sustained yield, and it helped bring Alaska forests to the center of

controversy in ways that began to shed light on forest resources not included in Hutchison's

report.66

Hutchison, who came to Alaska from the Central States Forest Experiment Station (CSFES) at

Columbus, Ohio, to head the survey in September 1959, took the position as the better of two

alternatives offered him when the CSFES was dismantled: a job in the Washington Office or

Project Leader of the Forest Survey unit in Juneau. Once in Juneau, he reported primarily to the

Division of Economics in the Washington Office, while seeking minimal support and assistance

from the Northern and PNW Stations. Hutchison's 13 years of experience in the Forest Service

before his arrival in Juneau provided him with important contacts throughout his tenure with the

Inventory unit, and he reportedly enjoyed strong support from H.R. Josephson in the Washington

Office, who seemed to take a personal interest in the project.67 This network of support and

relative independence made Hutchison an important figure in the effort to define the terrain over

66This statement is not meant to impugn the work of Hutchison or his unit; rather, it refers to the

tendency for solid research to raise many new questions even as it answers questions relevant to the

concerns that prompted the initial inquiry. O. Keith Hutchison, Alaska's Forest Resource (Juneau: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station,

Institute of Northern Forestry, U.S. Forest Service Resource Bulletin PNW 19, 1967), 1-2; Cowlin,

Federal Forest Research," 493.

67Dave King, a personal friend and former colleague of Hutchison's at CSFES who was working for H.R.

Josephson in the Washington Office in 1959, made the offer as an either-or proposition: he promised

Hutchison a 'good job in the WO," warning that if Hutchison rejected that position, he would be "...sent

to Juneau..." Hutchison recalls that he told him on the initial call that he would go to Juneau, but King

argued lor the WO job and insisted Hutchison discuss the move with his wife. Hutchison recalls that he

did just that, and then called King the next day to confirm the move to Juneau. Communication from

Keith Hutchison to Jim LaBau 23 May 1995.

111
which future research would travel, and he contributed to the changing characteristics of the

community of scientists at the Juneau lab.

Despite the independence of Hutchison's unit at Juneau, which included Hegg, Laurent, and

LaBau, the survey group worked in close proximity with other scientists at the lab and kept them

informed of their future plans, work program, and progress. As with other units in Alaska during

the administrations of Helmers and Hurd, moreover, Hutchison brought in scientists from a broader

array of disciplines and many with graduate and undergraduate training from colleges and universities in the West. The particular challenges of survey work in Alaska inspired innovative

solutions to problems of scale, access, and sampling. Among others who made significant contributions in these areas, James Kimmey's "cull tables," developed during his stint with the inventory unit in the late 1950s, served as the standard through most of the 1960s and 1970s before

they were supplanted with work by Laurent, Farr, and LaBau. Similarly, the wood utilization

tables, volume tables for Sitka spruce and hemlock, and mill studies to evaluate defect and grade,

which were developed for the inventory unit by Jim Bones between 1961 and 1963, were instrumental in harvest and management decisions over the next two decades. Hutchison also hired

Arlie Hamar as clerical support specifically for the Forest Survey unit. Hutchison credits Hamar

as an indispensable member of the survey team who was critical to its success. Her contributions

in the office ran the gamut from receptionist to clerk/typist, time keeper, and telephone operator,

and she served a vital role as editor for reports generated by the unit.68

Alaska's Forest Resources, then, was the culmination of a program largely built and directed

under the administration of Hutchison in accordance with the research standards shaped by his

college training in the mid 1940s, his experience with the Forest Service from 1946 through

1 967, his interaction with colleagues in Juneau and Portland, and the priorities and support of the

Washington Office. Hutchison observed, in the 1967 report, that Alaska contained 1 6 percent of

forest land in the United States, or 119 million acres. This figure equaled the combined acreage

of forest land in Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California. Of that 119 million acres, however, Hutchison reported only 28.2 million acres of "commercial" forest capable of producing a

minimum of 20 cubic feet of industrial wood per acre annually. This report specified an allowable cut of 864 million board feet in southeast Alaska and 358 million board feet for the interior.

The criteria Hutchison used to establish an allowable cut included availability of existing markets, accessibility for logging as determined from aerial photographs and sample field observations ("...a minimum of 16,000 board feet per acre must be available in the area that can be

yarded to a protected beach or truck road."), and net volume minimums per tree. At the time of

the report, the timber cut from Alaska's National Forests amounted to about 400 million board

feet per year, or less than 50 percent of the allowable cut in Hutchison's report.69

68Communication from Keith Hutchison to Jim LaBau 23 May 1995; Communication from Jim La Ban

to Ken Wright March 1995.

69

 O. Keith Hutchison, Alaska's Forest Resource (Juneau: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Institute of Northern Forestry, U.S. Forest Service

Resource Bulletin PNW 19, 1967), 1-2, 18-19, 38-40.

112
Hutchison observes, in retrospect, that he made the mistake of "over-simplifying the definition and discussion of allowable cut" in Alaska's Forest Resource. The allowable cut he cited in

the report, he notes, was intended only as a "benchmark for discussion," and was not intended to

be binding in individual forest management, where Hutchison suggests, more precise determinations of the allowable cut could be made. Hutchison argues that his failure to clarify this point in

the 1967 report contributed to "misunderstandings" and "opened the door for critics."70

By the time the Hutchison report hit its second printing in 1 968, several groups in Alaska and

outside the region argued that the allowable cut was already too high and were mounting challenges to existing management practices of the Forest Service. By the end of the decade, research

scientists with the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station operated in a political

environment in which "ecology" and "environmentalism" had become household words. These

issues figured prominently in Forest Service research plans developed over the next two decades

in Alaska, and the Hutchison report contributed to that process by forthrightly explaining the

priorities and assumptions underlying the assessment of forest resources by the Forest Service,

thus encouraging a vigorous debate as various groups questioned those priorities and assumptions and demanded answers to questions not previously addressed.71

 What the report did not

include, moreover, was as important in the looming national debate as what was enclosed within

its covers.

70Communication from Keith Hutchison to jim LaBau 23 May 1995.

71Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1969 Annual Report: Toward Better Environment, (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range

Experiment Station, 1970), 1.

113
CHAPTER FIVE:

The Push for Integrated

Forest Research in

Alaska

The title and contents of Hutchison's 1967

report on the first forest inventory in Alaska

defined the terrain fora battle of wits that raged

over the next two decades among Forest Service administrators, Native claimants to forest lands, other residents in Alaska, industry lobbyists, environmental advocacy groups, numerous state and federal agencies,

and legislators at regional and national levels of government. Cover graphics for the bulletin included the

Forest Service logo superimposed over scenic photos,

ringed by the words "wood, water, forage, wildlife,

recreation", but the contents of the report emphasized

trees and timber to the virtual exclusion of other considerations.1 Wildlife, fisheries, and recreation were

1This observation should not detract from the commitment, effort,

insight, or innovative methods of those who worked on the forest

inventory in Alaska or compiled the final report with Hutchison. The

mission, intent, and focus of the forest inventory, as discussed in earlier

chapters, was defined by the Forest Service hierarchy and implicit in

Congressional legislation allocating funding for the study. At its

inception, the inventory was intended to promote the identification and

development of timber resources, and it was spurred by efforts to

develop a pulpwood industry in Alaska in the late 1940s and early

1 950s, amidst concerns that the timber resource should be wisely

managed to accommodate the objectives and principles of sustainedyield forestry. These goals were admirably addressed in Hutchison's

report.
George A. "Jim" Jones lot the Port Orford Experimental Forest)

examining a Sitka spruce near Sitka, Alaska, in 1962. The Forest

Service managed 92 percent of forest lands on the Tongass and

Chugach National Forests in the southeast and south-central

regions of Alaska. (Helmers collec lion)

conspicuously absent from the table of

contents, which included as major headings "Sawtimber volume", "Log quality

and tree diameters", "Timber losses and

risks", "Allowable cut", "Timber processing and marketing", and "Forest area by

stand-size classes".2

The Hutchison report was a classic

illustration of a not-uncommon perception in the Forest Service of that era that

"the forest resource" meant timber, first

and foremost. It spelled out, in succinct

and readable prose, who controlled the

timber and where it was located: The

federal government controlled the vast

majority of forest lands in the state, and

92 percent of the forest lands in the southeast and south-central regions were managed by the

Forest Service on the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. As various groups emerged to

challenge this situation, forest researchers in Alaska found themselves at the center of controversy

and on the periphery ot control over the administrative framework that directed funding and

review of their work. This twin reality initially promoted a greater emphasis on interdisciplinary

work in juneau and especially at the Fairbanks Lab, but it ultimately fractured the community of

Forest Service researchers in Alaska along administrative lines and scientific disciplines, even as

the need for integrated studv of forest ecosystems increased during the 1970s and 1980s.3

Completion of the forest inventory within little more than a decade was a remarkable achievement accomplished with limited resources and personnel under difficult conditions, but the results of that effort were released at a wrenching moment in American history when long-held

beliefs were under attack. Public confidence in government administrators, scientific research,

and the basic premise of incremental progress rapidly dissipated in the political chaos of the late

1960s and the cultural conflicts ot the Vietnam War. The discovery of the vast Prudhoe Bay oil

field in I968, and the ensuing debate over the economic and ecological implications of developing an infrastructure to extract that resource, also focused national attention on Alaska at this

volatile moment in history. Alaska's newly elected Republican Governor, Walter Hickel, came

1Hutchison concededes that in hindsight, "...we should have at least acknowledged these needs [the

relations and dependencies of water, forage, wildlife, and recreation on the forest]. Perhaps I expected too

much, I had hoped that those trained in management of wildlife, fisheries, and recreation would draw

upon the survev statistic s to speak to the needs for forest cover." Communication from Keith Hutchison to

Jim LaBau 25 May 1995. O. Keith Hutchison, Alaska's Forest Resource, (Juneau: U.S. Department of

Agricuture. forest Service, Institute of Northern Forestry, Resource Bulletin PNW 19, 1967), iii-v,

2Hutchison Alaska's Forest Resource, iii-v, 1-7, 60-61.

116
under intense pressure from all sides to settle Native land claims that threatened to impede economic development in much of Alaska,4 and Hutchison's report facilitated settlement of this issue

with information on the economic potential and timber resources on forest lands.

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

(ANCSA) and Forest Research

Efforts to settle the issue of Native claims placed a premium on information about the value and potential of forest lands and the effects of various methods of timber management, and forest researchers came under heavy pressure

to supply answers to questions posed by government agencies, Native groups, Congress, and other concerned citizens.

Hickel had campaigned on the theme of economic development, and the business community in Alaska as well as

the Alaska Federation of Natives urged him to move toward

a final settlement of Native claims early in his administration. Hickel proposed a draft outline of a settlement that

would grant Natives full title to some lands around their

villages and surface rights to a larger area, and he appointed

a 37-member lands-claim task force (later redesignated as a

commission) to prepare a lands-claim measure for consideration in the United States Congress. Alaska Senator Ernest

Gruening introduced legislation derived from the

Gene Fiend standing before a crossseation cut of a spruce log at Mirror lake,

[he Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

of Dacember 1971 ushered in a land-rush

scramble in the early 1971s, as villages

organised into Native Corporations

selected land, and liquidated resorces to

accumulate operating capital. Schmiege

collection '

commission's report in the Senate in 1968 and initiated the

process that eventually led lo the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) signed into law

by President Richard Nixon on 18 December 1971. This legislation extinguished Native claims

based on aboriginal title in Alaska in return for legal title to 40 million acres and federal compensation in the form of cash and revenue sharing from mineral royalties amounting to a total monetary settlement of $962 million. It abolished existing Native reserves, except for Annette Island,

and all United States citizens with ancestry of 25 percent or more from Alaska Indian, Eskimo, or

Aleut peoples qualified as Natives eligible for shares in village and regional Native Corporations

established to own and manage Native lands. This act initiated a land-rush scramble during the

early 1970s, as Native villages organized Village Corporations and Native Corporations, selected

land, and liquidated resources to accumulate operating capital.5

4One of the most spectacular examples of this conflict revolved around a proposal to construct a 530-

loot-high and 4700-loot-long dam at Rampart Canyon on the Yukon River to generate cheap hydroelectricity thah it was hoped, would attract investment and industry to east-central Alaska. The dam would

create a reseivoir that would take more than 20 years to fill, and the artificial lake would cover an area

larger that I ake Erie. It was strongly supported by Alaska's Senator Ernest Gruening, and adamantly

opposed by Nutive groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and conservationists in the United States

and Canada, Naske Alaska. 197-1 98, 241.

5Naske, Alaska, 198-20; Rakestraw, Forest Service in Alaska, 148.

117
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act wound its way through the legislative process in the

company of other landmark measures and ecological events that forced the Forest Service to

broaden the focus and scope of its research program in Alaska and elsewhere. The Public Land

Law Review Commission (PLLRC)6 released, in 1970, a report on the results of its 5-year investigation of public land laws. The report emphasized the need for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority to manage public lands, and it accused administrative agencies of withdrawing

and reserving public lands without adequate consultation with Congress. The report specifically

argued that Congress should review all National Forest lands to determine which should be

reserved to the federal government and which should be transferred to state or private control.

The report proposed a "best use" policy that was heavily slanted in favor of timber production,

favored an accelerated program for building access roads, observed that "conservative cutting

practices" had resulted in over-mature forests, and concluded that the National Forests were not

particularly valuable for uses other than timber production. The report also called for a joint

federal-state resources board in Alaska.7 It was a virtual declaration of a three-front war on the

Forest Service, the principle of multiple-use management, and resurgent preservationists who

feared the implications of "best-use" management on National Forests.

Environmental Activism and the Transformation of Research

The PLLRC report landed with a thud in the midst of Earth Day preparations, passage of the

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and Nixon's pronouncement in January 1970 that this

would be the "environmental decade". As public enthusiasm surged in support of environmental

legislation such as the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), NEPA (1970), and the creation of the

Environmental Protection Agency (1970), the Forest Service was preoccupied with PLLRC proposals to move the agency into the U.S. Department of the Interior and create a new Department

of Environment and Natural Resources, and it was blind-sided with a series of lawsuits that the

Sierra Club filed in a counter-offensive on the PLLRC proposals for "best-use" management on

National Forest lands. The Sierra Club strategy was to use legal challenges in a vigorous defense

of the widest possible reading of multiple-use legislation to secure and expand wilderness designations on the National Forests and to place wilderness on a footing equal or superior to other

economic or productive uses.8

6Congress established the PLLRC in 1964 at the insistence of Congressman Wayne Aspinall and as part

of a compromise that facilitated passage of the Wilderness Act of that year. The commission was

composed primarily of members of Congress, chaired by Aspinall (who also chaired the House Interior

and Insular Affairs Committee), and it studied laws and policies pertaining to all public lands except

Indian reservations. Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy, 231-233.

7

 Public I and Law Review Commission, One Third of the Nations Land (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1970);

Roy M. Robbins, Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776-1970 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 1976), 466-469: Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy, 232-234; Philip Berry and Michael

McCloskey, "The Public Land Law Review Commission Report: An Analysis," Sierra Club Bulletin 55

(October 1970), 18-30.

8

 Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy, 221-222, 241-242, 311-315; Steen, U.S. Forest_Service,

328-329; Naske, Alaska, 225-226.

118
Sitka pulp mill in 1974. The Sierra Club initiated a series of legal

challenges to federal management of the forests of southeast

Alaska in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in an effort to place

wilderness on a tooting equal or superior to other economic or

productive uses of those forests. (Sehmiege collection)

Requirements of the National

Environmental Policy Act ot 1970

significantly broadened the range of

research needs in Alaska. Here, Francis

Palmer works with a small-mammal trap

in an old-growth stand on the Maybeso

Experimental Forest in 1975. (Juneau

Three Sierra Club lawsuits specifically focused on the region of southeastern Alaska and challenged Forest Service findings in cases spanning the years from 1968 through 1979. These cases,

ironically, provided the Forest Service with a public forum to reaffirm the agency's commitment

to multiple use and defend its record at a time when the agency was under attack from advocates

for "best use" management on public lands. Some members of the research unit at Juneau gained

an opportunity to showcase their work in court deliberations, but the trials imposed a heavy

burden on their time, and research findings were repeatedly scrutinized. Hutchison's unit, in

particular, was forced to expend significant energy and resources preparing court briefs and responding to interrogatories. The first case (1968), for example, involved a challenge to a longterm timber sale to support a proposed mill at Berner's Bay north of juneau, and Hutchison's unit

faced Sierra Club charges that the Forest Survey had over-estimated the amount of available

wood by 797 percent. The charge reportedly originated with figures from a private study commissioned by the ALP at Sitka as part of an attempt to gain cutting access to a contingency supply

of timber. LaBau notes that the Survey unit had refuted those "highly biased" figures on the basis

of studies he conducted with Bob Mattson. The District Court in Anchorage ruled in favor of the

Forest Service in the 1969 case, but that decision was later overturned by the Circuit Court in

California. LaBau recalls that the Sierra Club's repeated accusations that the Forest Survey had

over-estimated available timber by 797 percent were based on figures taken "out of context", and

this accusation was "one ot the most frustrating situations" for Hutchison's unit.9

Two more Sierra Club challenges in the 1970s kept the pressure on Hutchison's unit and

spotlighted research by other scientists at )uneau. The Sierra Club's move to halt timber sales on

Admiralty Island in 1973, for example, resulted in a Forest Service victory at the District Court in

9Communu ation from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995; Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range

Policy, 22 I -222, 241-242, 3 1 1 -31 5

119 CONTINUED