Francis Palmer at work in the Maybeso Valley

in 1975. (Schmiege collection)

Anchorage. Again, that decision was followed by a reversal at the Circuit Court in California. In this case,

Doug Swanston's soils research on mass wasting reportedly played an important role in court deliberations, and

the findings of the inventory unit again came under close

scrutiny. A third case, in 1979, originated with concerns over harvest practices on the Haines State Forest.

The suit involved the Forest Service because inventory

work at Haines in 1964 was the basis for a report that

included a determination of the allowable cut. That

earlier work by LaBau and Dave Born brought

Hutchison's unit into the 1979 case, which followed the

familiar route of defeat for the Sierra Club in the Anchorage court, followed by a reversal of that decision in the California court.10 As these cases

wound their way through the legal system, Forest Service scientists at Juneau and Fairbanks also

struggled to stay abreast of a bewildering array of political initiatives and legislation that influenced the kinds of research questions requiring most immediate attention.

The NEPA requirement for advance studies of the potential environmental impact of federal

legislation and agency programs11 significantly broadened the scope and focus of research needs

throughout the United States, including Alaska. Taken together with the Native Claims Settlement Act, NEPA created a sudden demand in Alaska for information relating to methods of forest

management from a variety of interest groups outside the Forest Service and expanded the range

of issues that the Forest Service, by statute, was required to investigate. The result was an expansion of existing research programs and the development of new programs to address concerns

related to the environmental legislation. As the definition and perception of forest resources

changed during the late 1960s and 1970s, scientists scrambled to address questions and problems with new methods and disciplines not previously considered within the scope of the Forest

Service mandate. The PNW, for example, initiated a new, multiproject research program known

as Forest Residues Reduction Systems. The Station revved up its programs in recreation research

and its study of biological methods for controlling forest insects. The PNW Station also initiated

a study of "conservation-preservation" groups and their members in an effort to reconcile their

conflicts with the "conservation-utilization" priorities of the agency.12

10Communication from Jim LaBau to Ken Wright March 1995.

11Officially known as an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

12 Quotations are from Covvlin, "Federal Forest Research in the Pacific Northwest," 512-528; Dana and

Fairfax, Fores and Range Policy, 221-222, 241-242, 311-315; Steen, U.S. Forest Service, 328-329; Naske,

Alaska, 225-226.

120

This file was created by scanning the printed publication. 

Text errors identified by the software have been corrected; 

however, some errors may remain. 
Administrative Changes at PNW Station

Personnel changes at the Station Director's level and in the Regional Forester's office also

contributed to an era of administrative adjustments for Alaska Research during the late 1960s and

early 1970s. On the eve of PNW Director Phil Briegleb's retirement in 1970, the Washington

Office conducted an administrative review of the Station with a study team that included Associate Deputy Chief for Research Merle Dickerman, along with Robert Harris, and the future Director of PNW Station, Robert Buckman, whose previous experience with the Forest Service included 10 years at the lab in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and 5 years in the Washington Office.13

The review team identified a need for a stronger administrative presence in Alaska, and upon his

appointment in 1971 as PNW Station Director, Buckman addressed that concern with a plan to

establish multifunctional research units at Fairbanks and Juneau. Buckman, who held graduate

and undergraduate degrees in forestry, silviculture, and public administration from the University

of Minnesota, University of Michigan, and Harvard, had served on the Alaska component of the

review team, and he recalls that Alaska was a very high priority in his first years as Station Director. Oil discoveries, Native claims, and other interests were fueling an ongoing, national debate

over the disposition of federally controlled lands in Alaska. These issues threatened to strain the

limits of Research funding, and Buckman notes that he hoped to compensate by "building bridges"

with the new Regional Forester, Charles Yates, whose tenure with Region 10 began about the

same time as Buckman's at PNW Station in early 1971. As a result of these twin appointments,

Buckman believed that potential for developing stronger working relations and cooperation with

the Region was good. With these goals in mind, he shifted personnel and restructured administrative responsibilities for Research in Alaska.14

Buckman highlighted Alaska Research in the PNW Station's Annual Report for 1971, and he

worked with Wright to garner support in Congress for developing research programs in Alaska.15

Both Wright and Buckman identify Republican Senator Theodore [Ted] Stevens, the ranking minority member on the Senate appropriations subcommittee for Interior and related agencies, as

their most important ally in Washington during this period. Buckman notes, however, that Stevens'

main concern was funding for Region 10, and only peripherally for Research. He recalls, moreover, that Stevens seemed increasingly suspicious that environmentalist concerns were gaining

undue influence over research scientists in Alaska during the 1 970s. This concern, together with

unexpectedly tense relations between Yates and various scientists at Juneau through the mid

13

 Buckman, who was named Director when Briegleb announced his retirement a few months after the

review, recalls that he was unaware, at the time of this review, of his impending appointment to replace

Briegleb at PNW Station, and he notes that his inclusion on the review team was consistent with the

Forest Service practice of "bringing along" people identified as having leadership potential. Interview

with Robert Buckman by Max Geier 13 July 1995 at Peavy Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis,

Oregon.

14Interview with Robert Buckman 13 July 1995.

15

 Buckman recalls he initially considered locating Wright in Juneau as A.D. responsible for Alaska, but

given the limited number of contact points in Alaska, he decided that Wright could effectively administer

programs there with regular trips from Station headquarters in Portland.

121
1970s, complicated efforts to establish multifunctional units at Juneau and Fairbanks,16 but

unusual circumstances at Fairbanks carried the concept past temporary setbacks related to

personnel or politics.

Wickersham Dome and the Multifunctional

Work Unit in Fairbanks

The station-wide restructuring that Briegleb had initiated in

the last 4 years before his retirement had, ironically, disrupted

earlier structures of administrative responsibility for research in

Alaska at a moment of great opportunity for developing an innovative strategy for conducting research in the interior. A natural

event (fire) provided the focal point for a multifunctional work

unit at Fairbanks built around the increasingly popular concept

of studying natural systems from an interdisciplinary perspective. Ever since Lutz published the results of his study of fire in

the interior,17 Bureau of Land Management efforts to suppress

fires in that region proceeded from his conclusion that "uncontrolled wildfires have no place in either forest or wildlife management." In 1971, however, the Wickersham Dome fire near

Fairbanks provided an easily accessible field laboratory for forest researchers studying the effects of fire on the taiga forest,

and their studies called into question the assumptions under

which BLM formulated fire policies for the interior. Among the concerns they raised was the

realization that fire-control lines carved into the permafrost to contain wildfires might wreak

more havoc with the forest ecology than fire itself.18

The Wickersham Dome fire was a relatively small blaze that flared up in the second year after

one of the worst fire seasons on record. Two years earlier, in 1 969, over 4 million acres of forest

and rangeland burned in interior Alaska. Some of the blazes exceeded 500,000 acres, and smoke

from the fires reached as tar south as Washington and Montana, showing up on the records of

weather satellites. Nearly half the blazes in 1969 were caused by lightning, and these fires

accounted for the vast majority of acreage burned.19

Charles Cushwa examines erosion

on a tire line constructed oxer

permafrost on the Wickersham

Dome fire area northeast of

Fairbanks in July 1971, less than

one month alter the burn. (Wright

collection)

16 Wright ie( alls that the key staffer with Stevens' office who facilitated good relations with the Senator

also visited with sc ientists at field research sites and was instrumental in securing Stevens' support for

Research funding. Wright notes that since the staffer has since been reassigned, Research scientists in

Alaska have fewer opportunities for direct communication with the Senator's office. Interview with

Robert Buckman 13 July 1995. Interview with Ken Wright 13 July 1993.

17 H.J Lutz, Ecological effects of forest fires in the Interior of Alaska, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department

of Agriculture, Technical Bulletin 1133, March 1956).

18 Stephen |. Pyne, Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1982), 505-509.

19PNW Station, 1969 Annual Report, 15; Memo 1 July 1969 from Richard J. Barney, Project Leader to

Tongass National Forest Central Files (located in National Archives—Alaska Region, Records of the

Forest Service. South Tongass National Forest, Record Group 95, Box 6).

122
Pathologist Keith

Shea, entomologist

Bill Waters (of the

Washington

Office), and

Charles Cushwa

examine the

Wickersham

Dome fire area in

July 1971. (Wright

collection)

The Wickersham Dome fire of 1971 provided scientists in Fairbanks

an easily accessible field laboratory for studying the effects of fire on

the taiga and provided a locus for the multifunctional unit. Here,

Charles Cushwa examines an unburned "hummock" in a black

spruce stand on the burn northeast of Fairbanks. (Wright collection)

The record-setting fire season of 1969 fostered support for research in the interior just before

the Wickersham Dome fire. By 1970, Briegleb had placed Richard Barney's Fire Control Methods—

Alaska project at Fairbanks under the direction of Assistant Director Ken Wright, who headed the

Forest Protection Research division from Portland. Wright had several years of experience with

Alaska under his belt by I 970, and he recognized the political and public support for fire-related

research in the wake of the previous year's conflagration. Barney's research team maintained

three permanent weather stations on the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest and had established

fuel moisture-analog plots and fuel volume plots associated with each weather station by 1970.

At the time, Wright had just approved Botanist Les Viereck's application to study in Norway under

the Government Employee Training Act program, the Caribou-Poker Creek Watershed was just

getting underway, Viereck and Silviculturist John Zasada-20 were researching the ecology of subarctic trees and forests, and Beckwith was responsible for the Forest Insects project for the interior. Under Wright's direction, these projects were assembled in 1 971 as a multifunctional work

unit entitled Ecology and Management of the Taiga (Subarctic Forests—Interior Alaska).21

The multifunctional work unit was headed by a program leader with an unconventional background by the standards of previous Forest Service administrators in Alaska. Charles T. Cushwa

would commit himself to only a two-year appointment in Fairbanks, beginning in 1971, as Program Leader and principal wildlife biologist for research on forest and related ecosystems of

interior Alaska. Cushwa's previous research focused on the effects of prescribed burning on

20 Zasada hold an undergraduate degree in biology from Macalaster College and graduate degrees in

forestry from Yale University and the University of Michigan. Professional Biography Files, Central

History Files, Portland Office, PNVV Station.

21 PNW Station, Annual Report 1970, 1 1; Interview with Les Viereck 30 July 1993; Interview with Ken

Wright (13 July 1993) Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, PNW Annual Report 1972

(Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1973). 8, 16.

123
Before assuming control of the multifunctional

work unit at Fairbanks in 1974, Ted Dyrness

had already gained valuable multidisciplinary

experience in his work with lerry Franklin on

the H.I. Andrews Experimental Forest near

Blue River, Oregon, during the I960s. Shown

here in 1979 measuring permalrost depth on

forest floor manipulation plots, Dyrness notes

that many of the plots he started at the

Andrews in the early 1960s remained in use

through the mid 1990s. (Dy/ness collection)

wildlife habitat in the piedmont pine forests of the southeastern United States, but his background included valuable experience as the assistant leader of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit with the U.S.

Department of Interior, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and

Wildlife, at Pennsylvania State University from 1969 to

1971. This background was good preparation for

Fairbanks, where Cushwa coordinated research efforts

at the Forestry Sciences Laboratory with the priorities of

the federal and state agencies that dominated land management in the interior, and with University of Alaska

faculty and graduate students, who provided the manpower desperately needed for effective research in the

interior. Under Wright's direction, Cushwa's unit at

Fairbanks focused on the impact of wildfires, insects,

and diseases on wildlife habitat; timber and forage production; landscapes and recreation quality; and soil and

water relations on the taiga.22 Cushwa, however, came

to Alaska with no prior experience in the state, and he

was unwilling to make a long-term commitment to the

position. Buckman, who brought Cushwa into the position, viewed Cushwa as a "strong leader"

who carried himself well and spoke forcefully, but he concedes the appointment was a "... failure,

Cushwa just didn't work out." Buckman arranged a transfer to the Washington Office for Cushwa,

who left Fairbanks "the day his commitment ended," and after a brief interim period with Austin

Helmers as acting program leader, C. Theodore (Ted) Dyrness assumed control in 1 974 as project

leader of the multifunctional work unit.23

Dyrness, a native of Wheaton, Illinois, was more rooted than Cushwa had been in the

midwestem and western traditions and academic networks that typically brought forest researchers to Alaska after World War Two. He was also more deeply committed to interdisciplinary

research, even before he accepted the appointment to head the multifunctional unit at Fairbanks.

Like Helmers, Dyrness had developed a voracious appetite for things Alaskan while growing up,

reading the Alaskan Sportsman magazine and anything he could find about the 1898 gold rush.

In later years, as a college undergraduate, he became interested in botany, and his major professor eventually steered him toward the graduate program in forest soils at Oregon State University,

where he studied soil-plant relations and forest ecology. He began working with PNW Station

22 Forestry Research News 24 June 1971.

23 Viereck observed that Cushwa accepted the appointment primarily as a stepping stone to the

Washington Office, where he transfered in I 973. Interview with Les Viereck 30 July 1993; Interview

with Ted Dyrness by Max Geier at the Dyrness home in Albany, Oregon, on 1 7 July 1 995. Interview

with Rob Buckman 13 July 1995.

124
Administrative leaders

agree that family matters

were a leading concern

they faced with any new

recruit to Alaska, and

Dyrness recalls that he and

his wife Clara were wellestablished on a farm near

Corvallis, Oregon. For

them, the move to Alaska

meant uprooting their three

daughters from their

schools, friends, and

established routines. Seen

here in summer 1974, the

Dyrness family includes

Clara and Ted (back row)

and their three daughters

(from left) Christina (age

5), Cynthia (age 10), and

Cheryl (age 8). (Dyrness

collection)

scientists at the Corvallis Forest

Science Laboratory while still an

OSU graduate student in 1 959, and

he continued his career at the lab

after he finished his Ph.D. in 1960.

By 1962, Dyrness had begun to lay

in plots on the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest near Blue River,

Oregon, where he soon linked up

with Jerry Franklin, a plant ecologist at the Corvallis Lab who also

worked at the Andrews. Dyrness

and Franklin collaborated on a descriptive summary of the natural

vegetation of Oregon and Washington in preparation for an international botanical conference in Seattle in 1969, and they also

worked together to establish the Andrews as one of the pre-eminent sites for the western coniferous biome project in the (multidisciplinary) International Biological Program (IBP).24

Dyrness, who gained valuable experience in locating outside funding in his work with Franklin

and the IBP, also developed a penchant for long-term studies that, he notes, occasionally seemed

to frustrate some administrators seeking a more immediate payoff on the funds invested in such

research. His collaboration with Franklin also led to an early involvement in the Research Natural Area program, and he served with Franklin on the Research Natural Area Committee at PNW

Station, beginning in 1970. In 1973, he collaborated with other scientists on the committee to

compile a guide to Research Natural Areas with the aim of educating scientists and educators

about the sites and their potential for conducting research, partly to counter claims that no one

ever used the sites for research. As Dyrness recalls, "What we were facing, you see, was land

managers [who] would say, 'gosh, you guys run around, set up these things, withdraw them from

mineral entry and logging, and nobody ever goes to them, that we can see."25

Given his commitment to interdisciplinary team research and his abiding personal interest in

Alaska, Dyrness was pleased to learn in 1 973 that PNW Station Director Robert Buckman wanted

him to lead one of the first multifunctional units in the Forest Service. Dyrness recalls, however,

that Buckman was concerned that Ted's family would also support the move. At the time, Dyrness

and his wife were well established on a small farm near Corvallis, and the move to Alaska meant

uprooting their three daughters from their schools, friends, and established routines. Their preliminary introduction to Fairbanks, moreover, took place in January 1974, during "the first really

24 Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July 1995; Communication from Ted Dyrness to Ken Wright 19

June 1995-

25 Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July 1995.

125
Ted Dyrness said that though he and Clara

cherished their lite in Alaska, they returned to

Corvallis, Oregon, when he retired from the

Forest Service. Their daughters, however,

grew up in Alaska and now consider it their

home. Here, the family gears up at the start of

the Chilkoot Trail in July 1979. 'Dyrness

collection)

cold snap of the year, 40 below zero," and Dyrness recalls they hadn't brought clothes sufficient for that

weather and had to borrow parkas and other coldweather gear. Despite those concerns, Dyrness came

away from his initial meeting with the staff at Fairbanks

with a sense that "...it was a really good crew up there...

John Zasada had us over, and all the people at the lab

were there, and there was such a feeling of camaraderie

and community that you really don't get down here,

...because adversity welds people together." Dyrness,

moreover, recalls his excitement at the prospect of leading an interdisciplinary team of researchers: "...wow, I

was already sold on interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary

approaches to research, and I thought, man, this would

be great, to try to lead a project of everybody from entomologists to hydrologists, etc., in a common goal." Dyrness consulted briefly by telephone with

Franklin, and then committed himself to a minimum of 3 years as Project Leader, little expecting

that he would remain in Fairbanks for the next 1 6 years.26

Dyrness recalls that publication of the results of previous work on Wickersham Dome became his first priority as program leader at Fairbanks. He called all of the scientists at the lab

together and proposed they report the results of their studies in a single publication. That report

of work begun in 1971 finally was published in 1979,27 which serves as one illustration of the

problem Dyrness and the PNW Station often faced in sustaining the idea of a multifunctional

unit: Ongoing, interdisciplinary work may not yield immediate dividends, but Congressional

allocations often depended on the ability to address short-term, politically timely questions as

posed by staffers who were often interested in achieving politically beneficial results within a

time frame dictated by electoral politics, rather than the conditions of research in interior Alaska.28

Dyrness worked closely with Keith Van Cleve, the soil nutrient specialist at the University of

Alaska, and together, they put together a proposal for the NSF to fund a "mini IBP-program" for

interior Alaska. Van Cleve had been trying to cooperate with the IBP, and the two scientists had

met from time to time at earlier IBP meetings. Dyrness recalls that when he moved to Fairbanks,

Van Cleve "...just welcomed me with open arms," and they began a period of collaboration that

combined the resources of the University of Alaska and the newly designated Institute of Northern Forestry at Fairbanks. Dyrness observes that their timing was good because Franklin was

26 Interview with Ted Dyrness I 7 July 1995.

27 L.A. Viereck and CM. Dyrness, eds., Ecological effects of the Wickersham Dome fire near Fairbanks,

Ajaska, (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range

Experiment Station, General Technical Report PNW-90, 1979).

28 Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July 1995; Interview with Robert Tarrant 11 July 1995 at Tarrant's home

in Corvallis, Oregon; Interview with Robert Buckman 13 July 1995.

126
The National Science Foundation

approved a 3-year cooperative study

involving Dyrness' multifunctional unit at

the Fairbanks lab and Keith Van Cleve's

soil-nutrient program at the University of

Alaska, beginning in 1975. Here,

scientists get ready tor the first day of the

cooperative research effort at Washington

Creek in March 1975. Dyrness

collection)

working with the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., and was "begging for proposals." The NSF approved their project for a 3-year period, beginning in 1975,

and they embarked on a study of "The structure and function of a black spruce forest in relation to other fire-affected

taiga ecosystems." The project strengthened relations between the lab and the university, and it provided a focus for

the multidisciplinary unit, culminating in joint publication of

the study's results in a special issue of the Canadian lournal

of Forest Research in 1983 (Vol. 1 3, No. 5) and a book published in 1986.29

The mini-IBP program initiated a new era at the INF

during which Dyrness and the multifunctional unit pursued

more cooperative agreements and devoted more attention

to studies of black spruce and other ecosystems previously

neglected by the Forest Service because they were of marginal value for timber production. Wildfire and related research had demonstrated that effective

management strategies for more marketable species would require a sounder understanding of

black spruce and the fire ecology of the taiga of interior Alaska.30 Dyrness concedes that before

he went to Alaska, he had the attitude that "...well, gee, the resource values are not there, so we,

the Forest Service, shouldn't put a lot of money into research in interior Alaska." Once at Fairbanks,

however, he realized that "if ever the Forest Service has a chance to say what, really, multiple use

is all about, that it wasn't just timber, it's in interior Alaska."31

Dyrness credits Station Directors Robert Buckman

flowering of the multifunctional unit at Fairbanks during

failure to establish a National

Forest in the interior during

those years probably eroded

support for the INF after 1979.

The annual budget for the multifunctional unit steadily increased during the first 6 years

of his tenure at the INF, to the

point where 12 scientists were

and, particularly, Robert Tarrant for the

the mid 1970s, but he also notes that the

This region of the Porcupine River,

shown here in 1976 at a point

between white spruce plots 326 and

328, was a leading candidate for

designation as a National Forest.

Ken Wright recalls it was valued tor

its timber and for its scenic qualities.

The National Forest designation,

however, failed to materialize, as

environmental groups and other

interests favored plans to transfer

control over the region to state and

federal agencies other than the

Forest Service, (Juneau 5014)

29 Correspondence from Ted Dyrness to Ken Wright 19 June 1995; Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July

1995; K. Van Cleve, F.S. Chapin III, P.W. Flanagan, L.A. Viereck, and C.J. Dyrness, Forest Ecosystems in

the Alaskan Taiga: A Synthesis of Structure and Function (Springer-Verlag, 1 986).

30 Professional Biography Files, Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station; Interview with Les

Viereck 50 |uly 1993; Interview with Keith Van Cleve 18 December 1992.

31 Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July 1995.

127
on staff by the end of the decade.

Dyrness and others at the INF were hopeful that several National Forests would

be established in the interior, and those

hopes escalated when a staffer with Senator Stevens' office who seemed sympathetic to their concerns visited the lab

several times during the late 1970s.

Dyrness recalls, however, that Buckman

advised the scientists at the lab to maintain official neutrality on the issue of

National Forests in the interior, and he

voices a sentiment common to many scientists in the Forest Service of that era, when he asserts:

"...I can't say I ever got involved because that's not my thing, ...I'm not a politician..."32

Caribou-Poker Creeks Watershed Project

Dyrness also worked closely with Austin Helmers, who joined the multifunctional unit at

Fairbanks in 1971 to coordinate development of the watershed project with other agencies working on the Caribou-Poker Creeks project. Helmers, who served as acting program leader from the

time Cushwa left in September 1973 until Dyrness arrived in July 1974, recalls that for all the talk

about a multifunctional unit focused on fire effects, direction of the program was pretty vague

when he first arrived in 1971, and in his efforts to draft a problem analysis for the watershed

project,

...it occurred to me, I'm looking at water, water and its various effects, permafrost

and so forth, and it occurred to me that there's no way that you're going to be

able to do any meaningful work on the hydrology of some little plot of soil

without taking into account all of these other factors surrounding it...you've gotta

look at everything, so I guess that's the first time that the whole realization of this

concept of multidisciplinary research really hit me, and so I re-wrote my report

and took the tack of multidisciplinary research—I just figured you can't do

watershed research as an isolated package, you're going to have to relate it to

everything else....33

32 Buckman, reportedly, told Dyrness that in view of the fact that the INF served multiple clients,

including the BLM, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and State Forestry, scientists at the lab could not

afford to go out on a limb to openly advocate the creation of National Forests in interior Alaska, because

if they did so, and National Forests were not forthcoming, they might be in "tough waters." Dyrness

recalls that at least one member of the Forest Service planning team for the proposed forests told him:

"Ted, if you don't get any Interior National Forests...your program is doomed." Interview with Ted

Dyrness 17 |uly 1995.

33 Interview with Austin Helmers 4 August 1993.

128

Dyrness echoes a

sentiment common to

many scientists of his era

in Alaska with this

observation about various

proposals to establish

National Forests in the

interior: "I can't say I

ever got involved,

because that's not my

thing, ...I'm not a

politician..." Here, he

takes a break on the

Chilkoot Trail in July

1979. (Dyrness

collection)
Military Sikorsky 5-64 sky-crane delivers

fiberglass road matting used to stabilize

vehicle trails on permafrost terrain in

1979. Note that the second mat on the

ground is caught in the downdraft from

the helicopter rotor. (Helmers collection)

Richard "Skeeter" Werner, who assumed the adminstrative reins

at Fairbanks after Ted Dyrness stepped down, recalls that the

opportunity for field work was the primary attraction of

assignment in Alaska. Shown here in October 1988, Werner

enjoys the fringe benefits of his job. (Dyrness collection)

Helmers worked with personnel from the National Weather Service and the Cold Regions

Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) on the Caribou-Poker Creeks watershed, where he

developed an appreciation for the complexities of permafrost in his efforts to improve access

routes onto the site. He recalls how he "pioneered" a new route into the watershed from the

lower end that was a "nice smooth ride over this moss and stuff," but he discovered that after

about a year, the mud was so deep it was in the tire well and almost up to the passenger compartment. Helmers worked with the Army to engineer a solution to the quagmire that resulted from

increased traffic into the watershed. The Army contributed portable buildings that Helmers and

his crew dismantled into 4- by 8-foot panels that they hauled out to the site on an Army truck and

laid down over the damaged areas of permafrost. As Helmers recalls, it was a good temporary fix

until the plywood panels began to separate and warp in the mud. Forest Service researchers

mostly used tracked vehicles, including a Sno-Cat with aggressive traction, but Helmers argues

that much of the damage was caused by scientists like himself who walked across the watershed

in vibram-soled boots that concentrated the impact and motive force of the human body on a

relatively small surface area.34

Integration with the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station encouraged more

frequent mobility among people assigned to work in Alaska. Personnel working with the multifunctional unit in the mid 1970s were a diverse group that included long-term members of the

research community, recently reassigned veterans of the Northern Forest Experiment Station, and

new recruits from other regions of the Forest Service. Joan Foote was promoted from technician

to general biologist in 1 973 and continued her work with Viereck and Zasada. Helmers worked

with the Fairbanks unit until he retired in 1 976, and he brought an element of the old spirit of

34 Interview with Austin Helmers 4 August 1993.

129
frontiersmanship to the community of scientists with the multifunctional unit, but the focus at the

lab remained solidly on interdisciplinary research and cooperative arrangements with other agencies and the University of Alaska through the late 1970s. Beckwith moved, in 1974, to the PNW

Station's Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, where he served as principal insect

ecologist in the Integrated Pest Management Research Work Unit for the next two decades. Flareups

of the spear-marked black moth in the birch forests of the interior coincided with the first year of

a 20-year-long series of spruce beetle outbreaks in south-central Alaska that same year, and

Beckwith was replaced in Fairbanks by entomologist Richard [Skeeter] Werner, who returned to

Alaska after nearly a decade with the Southeastern Station, during which time he completed his

doctoral program at North Carolina State University.35

Werner recalls that the opportunity for field work was the primary attraction of work in Alaska.

He spent most of his time in the southeastern United States working with chemicals in laboratories, and he found himself missing the outdoor studies of his years in Alaska during the early

1960s. Most of his work in Alaska, Werner notes, involved cooperative work with other agencies

who requested information about insect outbreaks on land they managed. It was interesting

work that changed constantly as the land went through various successional stages, and different

insects lived in association with the vegetative cover at each stage, with incredible diversity from

site to site. Under these conditions, Werner observes, getting bored with his work was impossible. In contrast with his earlier work out of Juneau, Werner seldom found his field studies in the

interior thwarted by the weather, and he found a unique challenge in unraveling the strategies of

insects that go into dormancy during the long winters of interior Alaska. The continuing series of

spruce beetle outbreaks in south-central Alaska also caused Werner to expand his field work into

the Kenai Peninsula at the request of forest managers with Region 10 on the Chugach National

Forest during the latter half of the 1 970s.36

Spruce beetle outbreaks

in south-central Alaska

led Werner to expand his

fieldwork into the Kenai

peninsula. Here, Werner

removes bark beetles

from a pheromone trap in

1979. (Dyrness

collection)

Skeeter Werner checks a study site for

research on the overwintering strategy of the

spear-marked black moth in 1975. (Dyrness

collection)

35 Professional Biography Files, Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station; PNW News 10 )une

1974; Interview with Richard Werner 30 July 1993.

36 Interview with Richard Werner 30 July 1993.

130
More scientists were attracted to the lab from various agencies and other research stations

during this period, and the sudden press of work also led to innovations in data processing. Bob

Wool lard, a graduate of Oregon State University, joined the Fairbanks office in 1 974 as a research

technician responsible for handling computer-related data processing. Austin Helmers' retirement in 1 976 left an opening for the addition of another scientist who, like Werner, had a previous history of work with the Fairbanks Lab. In his position at the CRREL, Charles Slaughter had

worked with Helmers in establishing the Caribou-Poker Creeks watershed, and as late as 1975,

Slaughter served as chairman tor the Research Coordination Subcommittee of the Inter-Agency

Technical Committee for Alaska and listed Helmers as the alternate contact for correspondents

interested in the watershed. In 1976, Slaughter went to work for the Forest Service as Helmers'

replacement at Fairbanks.37

Wildfire research on Wickersham Dome provided an early focus for the multifunctional unit

at Fairbanks, but these studies lacked data on what the burned sites were like before the fire.

Scientists at the lab decided that the best solution would be to set in plots on unburned areas, and

then burn them to their own prescriptions. To that end, Dyrness recruited Rod Norum from the

Fire Lab in Missoula, Montana, in 1976; Norum's specialized skills added a powerful new dimension to the multifunctional unit at Fairbanks. Dyrness, for example, identifies Norum's prescribed fire study in black spruce at Washington Creek in 1 978 as the first controlled experiment

Dyrness recruited Rod

Norum from the Fire Lab

in Missoula, Montana, in

1976, after scientists with

the multifunctional unit

decided they needed to

establish plots on

unburned areas and then

burn them to their own

prescriptions to garner

base-line information

useful for their studies of

wildfire in the region.

Here, Norum examines an

experimental burn on

Washington Creek in

1978, which Dyrness

identifies as the first

controlled experiment on

fire effects ever conducted

in interior Alaska.

(Dyrness collection)

Les Viereck examines an experimental

burn on Washington ('reek in 1978

(Dyrness collection)

37By this time, the Forestry Sciences Laboratory at Fairbanks was officially known as the Institute of

Northern Forestry, and the facilitv in Juneau was officially known as the Forestry Sciences Laboratory.

This distinction was ironic , considering that the staff in Juneau lacked access to adequate laboratory

facilities. and the unit in Fairbanks not only operated in a relatively new laboratory facility, but also had

access to research facilities on the University of Alaska campus. Letter 16 April 1975 from Charles W.

Slaughter, Research Hyclrologist, Department of the Army, U.S. Cold Regions Research and Engineering

Laboratory Fort Wainwright, Alaska, to Brian Bediord, EER Project Manager at The Institute of Ecology,

W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (located in Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station);

Interview with Austin Helmers 4 August 1993; Interview with loan Foote 15 December 1992; Interview

with Les Vieieck 30 July 1993.

131
Forest Insect Reseach scientists Torolf Torgerson and John Hard

on Held research wanigan at McKenzie Inlet near Ketchikan in

1971 (Wright collection)

on fire effects ever conducted in interior

Alaska. Norum also continued the

Fairbanks tradition of cooperating closely

with other fire experts in the interior.

Norum worked with fire management

crews as a fire-behavior expert during the

burn season each year, and he worked

with other agencies to develop fire management zones for the state of Alaska,

identifying unpopulated areas for which

a "let it burn" policy was the preferred

management alternative. Norum's work

on developing these management zones

incorporated the findings of Barney and other scientists with the multifunctional unit who had

demonstrated that tire was an essential, even beneficial component of the interior Alaska environment.38

The successful extension of the research program to include controlled experiments with fire

sustained the heady atmosphere of scientific inquiry at the Fairbanks Lab through the late 1970s,

but external politics and budgetary concerns began to impinge on that mood by the end of the

decade. Viereck recalls that the multifunctional unit of the early 1970s was "fairly exciting...!

kind of liked that work we did together...that kind of interaction together, but it just didn't hold.

The Washington Office just couldn't envision all of their line-items being put into one pot...we

never really got a lot of support."39

Forest Ecosystem Research and Personnel Changes in Juneau

The Multifunctional Work Unit concept at Fairbanks also was instituted at Juneau in 1972, but

the program for southeast Alaska lacked the singular focus that wildfires provided in the interior.

The unit at Juneau continued to focus on the effects of logging on forest regeneration and salmon

habitat in the Southeast, but it continued with essentially the same staff of scientists who had

worked there during the late 1950s, minus a few important departures. One exception to this

trend was Don Schmiege, who returned to Alaska from Berkeley, California, to become Program

Leader for the multifunctional unit formally entitled "Ecology of Southeastern Alaska Forests".

This unit was included in the Forest Environment Research—People and Forest Resources division headed by then Assistant Director Robert Tarrant in Portland, rather than Wright's division.

The juneau multifunctional unit included silviculturist Arland [Al] Harris, fisheries biologist

38C.J. Dymess and Rodney A. Norum, "The eltects of experimental tires on black spruce forest floors in

interior Alaska. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 13 (1983): 879-893; Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July

I99S; Commaniation from Ted Dyrness 19 June 1995.

39Interview whenles Viereck .30 July 1993.

132
Don Schmiege [sans beads] with

rifle kneeling over his recent

"kill." Regional Forester Charles

Yates reportedly perceived

Schmiege as a long-haired radical

with environmentalist leanings,

and that perception poisoned the

atmosphere between Research

and Region 10. (Schmiege

collection)

40Interview with William Meehan 9 August 1993; Interview with Don Schmiege, Wilbur Farr, and Al

Harris 22 December 1992; PNW Annual Report 1972, 4-9.

41Interview with Robert Buckman 1 3 July 1995; Communication from Ken Wright to Max Geier 28

August 1 995).

133

Bill Meehan prepares a gravel basket used

for fry-survival studies at Young Bay

Experimental Forest in 1971. (Swanston

collection)

William Meehan, geologist Douglas Swanston, mensurationist Wilbur Farr, and entomologists

John Hard and Torolf Torgerson. As one example of the new focus on forest ecology, Meehan

assumed responsibility for watershed research when Helmers left for Fairbanks in 1971, and he gently

nudged watershed research in Juneau toward a stronger emphasis on fisheries biology, although he is

reluctant to suggest that would not have happened if Helmers had remained in Juneau.40

Buckman's decision to recruit Schmiege from the PSW Station at Berkeley and make him

Program Leader for the multifunctional unit at Juneau was part of his general strategy to "bring

along" people with strong leadership potential, and Buckman recalls that he was satisfied with

Schmiege's performance in that regard. Wright recalls, however, that Schmiege had absorbed

much of the counterculture prevalent in Berkeley during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his

long hair and beads reportedly caused quite a stir among the more conservative foresters with

Region 10 when he arrived in Juneau. Buckman notes that "[Regional Forester Charles] Yates'

first reaction was 'tell that s.o.b. to cut his hair.' Those were his first words."41 The cultural

conflict evident in Yates' comments about Schmiege poisoned the atmosphere between Research

and Region 10 and stymied Buckman's hopes for a closer working relationship throughout Yates'

tenure. The tension between Schmiege and Yates flared up in a dispute involving Al Harris'

regeneration studies on Afognak Island. When Harris learned about a Region 10 proposal to log

the area, he warned Yates that regeneration would present serious problems. When Yates dismissed his concerns, Harris brought the matter to the attention of Forest Service Chief John McGuire,

who met with Buckman in Washington to discuss the issue. Shortly thereafter, McCuire selected

John Sandor to replace Yates, who retired as Regional Forester for Region 10. In contrast to Yates,
both Buckman and Tarrant identify Sandor as very supportive of Research. Wright recalls, however, that the Regional

Forester's office continued to view Schmiege and his

cohorts at Juneau as somewhat "left of center" and overly

sympathetic to environmentalist concerns, and Schmiege

remains convinced that "the disingenuous work of several

R-10 people—especially Sandor" undermined the credibility of some of the most significant research accomplished in

southeast Alaska.42

In addition to coping with external conflicts with the

Region, Schmiege struggled to surmount internal problems

involving shortfalls in personnel and funding that threatened

to undermine morale and impede progress with research.

Schmiege and Dyrness tried several times to develop a sense

of community between scientists at Juneau and Fairbanks,

and they communicated fairly regularly with each other to

commiserate about their problems and concerns. Dyrness

recalls a sense that "We were fighting for Alaska together...."

Early on, they organized field gatherings every year, in which

scientists from Fairbanks conducted tours of their field sites for their counterparts from Juneau,

who returned the favor the following year. Those field exchanges, however, died out after a

couple of years because the expense of travel placed too much of a strain on the budgets allocated each unit. Keeping a lid on expenditures was a constant headache for Schmiege and

Dyrness, both of whom were expected to be productive scientists in addition to their administrative duties. Dyrness recalls that Ruth Murphy, administrative assistant for the Fairbanks Lab,

made his job considerably easier with her talent for maintaining "cuff accounts" (on expenditures) that were more current than the monthly reports generated from Portland. "The trick was,"

Dyrness notes, "to always end up in the red, not too far so you really gain the ire of the bosses, but

you would want to spend your budget, that's for sure, and maybe just a little bit more...." That

strategy, Dyrness recalls, backfired at least once on Schmiege, who called him on the phone one

day and announced, "Geez Louise, I just found out, we overspent our budget by $500,000...you

got any extra money you could give us?" Dyrness, who was "out in the red" with his own

accounts at the time, wasn't able to accommodate Schmiege, and he recalls, "...oh man, Don

was so sick, he was just so sick..."41

forest regeneration studies in southeast

Alaska included this Douglas-fir

successtully planted near Virgin Bay and

shown here next to a beaming Bill Farr.

(Farr collection)

41Interview with Robert Buckman 13 July 1995; Interview with Robert Tarrant 11 July 1995; Interview

with Ken Wright 13 July 1993; Communication from Ken Wright 28 August 1995; Communication

from Don Schmiege to Ken Wright 1 2 August 1995.

42 Interview with Ted Dyrness 17 July 1995.

134
Torolf Torgerson's insect trap at

a site on McKenzie Inlet in

1971. (Wright collection)

Art Bloom and Steve Elliot measure fish.

(Schmiege collection)

K Koski examines fry at the

Harris River. (Fan collection)

Despite the best efforts of Schmiege and Dyrness to develop a sense of community and common cause between the two labs, the multifunctional work unit at Juneau apparently failed to

ignite the same sense of excitement that Viereck described for the early phase of multifunctional

research in Fairbanks. Rather than working together more closely as a cooperative unit, scientists

at Juneau seemed to spiral off in different directions.44 Project Leader Keith Hutchison and the

Forest Survey for Alaska were divorced from the multifunctional unit and placed under the administration of Assistant Director Donald Flora, who headed the division of Resource Economics,

Products, and Fngineering Research in Portland.45 Geologist Douglas Swanston left Juneau for

Corvallis that same year (1972) to study slope stability in the Coast Ranges of Oregon. Helmers

had already left to begin the watershed program in Fairbanks the previous year, Meehan left

Juneau for the Corvallis Lab in 1973 to coordinate the development of a fisheries program for

California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, and in 1 974, Torolf Torgerson transferred to

the Integrated Pest Management Research Work Unit at the Forestry Sciences Laboratory in

Corvallis. This hemorrhage of talent out of Juneau in the formative years of the multifunctional

unit, together with the lack of a compelling central focus, resulted in a research group that was

certainly multifaceted but never really functioned as a distinct unit. Individually, however, forest

researchers in Juneau made significant advances in the scope and nature of their studies during

the 1970s.46

44 Meehan spent one month in 1971 at the Washington Office, where he worked to prepare prospecti for

fisheries projects throughout the United States. His reassignment to Corvallis was an outgrowth of that

effort. Professional Biography Files, Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station. Interview with

William Meehan 9 August 1993; Interview with Bill Farr 9 August 1993.

45 It should be noted here that this was due to administrative and personal career moves, and is not a

reflection on the abilities of Don Schmiege or the motivation of individual scientists. Meehan notes, for

example, that researt hers in fisheries and watersheds were "really a very closely knit group...it was one

big study area," and the two groups "...worked closely from 1971 to 1991." Interview with William

Meehan 9 August 1993.

46 Interview with William Meehan 9 August 1993; Interview with Don Schmiege, Wilbur Farr, and Al

Harris 22 December 1992; PNW Annual Report 1972, 4-9.

135
Integrated research efforts at luneau

yielded a series of reports between

1974 and 1978 entitled Forest

Ecosystems of Southeast Alaska.

Here, two contributors to those

reports, Bloom and Schmiege, view a

stream on the Kadashan watershed.

(Schmiege collection)

Several new recruits joined the staff at Juneau in the mid

1970s to fill the gaping holes left by the departure of scientists

like Helmers, Meehan, and Swanston. Meehan hired Fisheries

Biologist K Victor Koski in 1973 to study the effects of logging

on fish habitat. Koski came to Juneau from the Fishery Research

Institute at the University of Washington, and had studied the

effects of logging at Hollis before joining the Forest Service. He

held undergraduate and graduate degrees in fisheries from

Oregon State University and had also worked with the Oregon

Game Commission. Meehan also brought in Fisheries Biologist

Arthur Bloom, who began studies offish habitat in small tributary streams during the mid 1970s. Bloom brought specialized

training in genetics (he had earned an M.S. in genetics from McGill

University in Montreal) to the work unit, and his work in Alaska

ranged beyond fisheries to include studies of winter range for Sitka

black-tailed deer.47

Perhaps the most significant result of the integrated research

effort at Juneau was the publication between 1974 and 1978 of

a series of 10 reports under the combined title Forest Ecosystems of Southeast Alaska. These

reports were authored and edited by former and current staff members at Juneau, and they were

published as PNW Station General Technical Reports at the direction of Station Director Robert

Tarrant. The reports summarized the results of nearly three decades of forest research in southeast

Alaska. The format of a series of 10 sequentially numbered reports also emphasized the management concept of multiple use, although the late publication date of the tenth and last report,

"Outdoor Recreation and Scenic Resources," also lent credence (however inadvertent) to criticism from the Sierra Club and other environmental action groups that these uses of the forest

resource remained relatively low on the scale of Forest Service priorities.48

Forest Ecosystems of Southeast Alaska was billed as a summary of published and unpublished

reports and data presented with additional observations from resource scientists and managers

with years of experience in the region. The intent of the series was to provide a first-source

reference for managers of forest resources in southeast Alaska to help them estimate the consequences of various management alternatives.49 The first report in the series (I) was a synthesis of

47Arthur M. Bloom, "Sitka black-tailed deer winter range in the Kadashan Bay area, southeast Alaska,"

Journal of Wildlife Management 42 (1978), 55-56; Professional Biography Files, Central History Files,

Portland Office, PNW Station.

48 Roger N Clark and Robert C. Lucas, The Forest Ecosystem of Southeast Alaska. X. Outdoor Recreation and Scenic Resources (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest

Forest and Range Experiment Station, PNW-66, 1978.

49 Robert E. Buckman, "Preface," in William R. Meehan, The Forest Ecosystem of Southeast Alaska. III.

Fish Habitats (Portland: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and

Range Experiment Station, PNW-15, 1974).

136
View of blowdown

damage from the

1968 Thanksgiving

Day storm. Farr

found himself reevaluating his

earlier work when

evidence emerged

in the 1970s

suggesting that

blowdowns and

other past events

influence growth

rates in trees on

similar soils.

(Schmiege

collection)

the physical "setting" of southeast Alaska,

and was compiled by a team of seven authors and editors. Hard wrote the report

on forest insects (II), Meehan wrote the report on fish habitat (III) and the report on

wildlife habitat (IV), and Swanston wrote

the report on soil mass movement (V).

Laurent wrote the report on forest diseases

(VI); Harris and Farr wrote the report on

forest ecology and timber management

(VII); and Schmiege, Helmers, and Bishop

wrote the report on water (VIII). One year

later (1975), Hutchison and LaBau teamed

up for the report on timber inventory, harvesting, marketing, and trends. Then, in 1978, Roger Clark and Robert Lucas produced the final

report in the series, which covered outdoor recreation and scenic resources.30

Meehan continued to be a major figure in fisheries research in southeast Alaska despite his

move to Corvallis. He worked with Logan Norris in Corvallis and Howard Sears at the Auke Bay

Fisheries Lab of the National Marine Fisheries Service to publish a paper in 1974 detailing the

results of their study of how the forest herbicide 2,4-D affected salmonids in southeast Alaska.

This paper, together with 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and

rising public concerns about forest chemicals in general, led to revisions in Forest Service policies on aerial spraying of the chemical and encouraged efforts to identify alternatives to spraying,

including biological controls.31

Regeneration and other torest management studies at Juneau also branched out to include

uses other than timber production during the mid 1970s, although the effort to collect basic data

for timber production still preoccupied forest researchers. Regeneration studies on the Maybeso

Experimental Forest focused on early detection of possible insect and disease outbreaks that

threaten young stands, and a cooperative study begun in 1974 studied the effects of thinning

practices in the Maybeso Valley. Farr and Harris established plots in areas clearcut in 1954 and

thinned the regenerating stands from 4,000 stems per acre to stand densities of 680, 300, and 170

stems per acre. In 1976, private landowners and government land managers began to request

3 0 "Forestry Sciences Laboratory Publications List, 1963-1982," located in the Library, Juneau Office,

P N W Station.

3 1 Willia m R.Meehan, logan A. Norris, and Howar d S. Sears, "Toxicity of various formulations of 2,4-D

to salmonids in southeast Alaska," Journal of the fish Resouces Board of Canada 31 (1974), 480-485 ;

interview wit h Al Harris, 22 Decembe r 1992 ; Research Progress 1974 , 3-5, 12-14 ; Steen, U.S. Forest

Service, 329: Dana, Forest and Range Policy, 255, 257.

137
Getting there was half the fun, as this view of Ken

Winterberger (rear) and companion on pressing

business in 1976 might suggest For all the recent

emphasis on planes, helicopters and satellite

photos, the "explorer" with boat and paddle still

got the job done, (Juneau 3384)

information about alternatives to natural regeneration, and Harris joined Zasada in a 1976 meeting at

Juneau to advise state and federal foresters studying

the feasibility of producing containerized seedlings

in greenhouses for replanting in cutover areas.32

Farr also found himself re-evaluating his earlier work when evidence that emerged during the

1970s suggested that past events, such as

blowdowns, logging, and landslides influence

growth rates in trees on similar soils. This realization that sites differed not only by vegetation

and soil types, but also by historical events far in

the past led to a search for more reliable models

that could be used for estimating growth and yield.

Farr focused particularly on locating plots on

logged-over areas to limit uncertainty over past

events that might be influencing growth on managed plots. He spent the late 1 970s locating

plots on sites known to have been logged or burned on a specific date.33

Forest Inventory Priorities, Methods, and Personnel

Scientists with the Forest Inventory unit at Juneau operated independently of Schmiege's multifunctional unit, but they operated in the same work environment and contributed to the evolution of the community of researchers in that office. They also scrambled to assimilate state-ofthe-art knowledge of Alaska's forest resources as they developed new techniques for meeting the

shifting priorities and administrative edicts filtering down from the political arena of Congressional debate and through the various levels of the administration. Forest survey work during the

1960s and 1970s initially focused on the first survey of the interior, beginning with the river

drainage transects of the early 1960s geared toward timber production, then moving toward a

broader re-survey that included other forest resources as well as timber during the late 1 960s and

early 1970s. The first survey of the interior was completed by the early 1960s, and the results

appeared in Hutchison's 1967 report. Over the next 3 years, agitation for the Alaska Native

Claims Settlement Act heightened interest in resources other than timber, and a proposal to locate

National Forests in the interior produced demands for more-detailed inventories in that region.

During the mid to late 1970s, these demands led to a joint effort among personnel with the Forest

32 Mavbeso Experimental Forest Establishment File," Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station.

33 Interview with Bill Farr 9 August 1993. Farr died from cancer in late 1995, just as the results of the

research he had conducted with Harris over the previous two decades began to yield results with

practical significance for forest managers. His death, coupled with Harris' retirement, creates serious

doubt whether this promising avenue of research can be continued, in view of declining station budgets

and stalling. Communication from Ken Wright to Max Geier December 1995.

138
Service and the Soil Conservation Service who aimed at developing a multiresource inventory,

first introduced with the Susitna River Basin inventory in 1978. The resulting system, implemented in 1981 as the Alaska Integrated Resource Inventory System (AIRIS), included several

phases of data collection and examined timber, shrub, and herbaceous vegetation; soils; water;

wildlife habitat: and related, integrated information.34

The Forest Inventory crews went back to the coastal survey in the mid 1960s and began resurveying areas that had been inventoried the previous decade. Initial plans had called for a

resurvey every 10 years, but the vast scale in Alaska made that impractical for areas that were not

a high priority. Despite the official rhetoric about multiple use during the late 1960s, timber

remained the primary concern of the Forest Service inventory, and the National Forests of southeast Alaska consequently received more attention than did the interior forests. The re-surveys

served as a check on the methods and skills of the original crews, and suggested the need for

revisions in how the later surveys should be conducted.35

The forest inventory project also began to explore alternative sampling methods during this

period in an effort to contain costs and conserve staff time. In the mid 1960s, survey crews laid

in exhaustive, 3.5-acre, stem-mapped plots in southeast Alaska near Petersburg, Juneau, Haines,

and Sitka, where they measured every tree three inches or larger for use in a study of sampling

designs for inventorying old-growth forests in coastal Alaska. The inventory unit was able to

implement these methods during the mid 1 960s because newly available computing capabilities

in Alaska permitted more powerful analysis of the data.36

Paul Haack, a product of the Yale graduate school, who had worked with Caporaso and

Hutchison since the late 1950s, wrote the field and photo-interpretation manuals for the inventory unit, tested various forms of photography for the interior inventory, and developed aerial

stand-volume tables. He also wrote a program for stem-mapped data that was designed to run on

the computer owned by the Alaska Highways Department. Haack transferred out of Alaska in

about 1964, but LaBau debugged his program and ran it on the Highways Department's 1620

IBM card-driven machine. Earlier inventory work with IBM punch cards had been tabulated with

34

 Les Viereck notes that researchers at Fairbanks came under fire from Region 10 for failing to aggressively lobby in favor of the proposal for National Forests in the Interior. He and other scientists at

Fairbanks resisted pressure from the Region to lobby for the designation: "We said our role is research,

not promotion--that was the Region's job. They felt we weren't promoting interior forests..." Instead,

the areas wound up as wildlife refuges and parks. Viereck and his colleagues at Fairbanks and Juneau

concede the Fairbanks lab would have been better off with a National Forest in the interior, but Viereck

argues that overall, the region is better off with the land in refuges and parks. Interview with Les Viereck

30 JuIy 1993 Interview with Richard Werner 30 July 1993; Interview with Bill Farr 9 August 1993;

Interview with William Meehan 9 August 1993; Frederic R. Larson and Delbert R. Mead, "Designing a

Comprehensive Multi-Resource Field Inventory for Alaska," in John F. Bell and Toby Atterbury, eds..

Renewable Resource, Inventories for Monitoring Changes and Trends: Proceedings of an International

Conference August 15-19, 1983, Corvallis, Oregon (Corvallis: Oregon State University, December 1993),

313-317.

35

 Interview with Fred Larson 5 August 1993; Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1993.

36

 Interview with Fred Larson 5 August 1 993; Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1 993; Communication

from Jim LaBau March 1995.

139
an antiquated machine in Berkeley, California, but access to the Alaska Highways Department

computer by the late 1960s enabled Hutchison's inventory team to implement more sophisticated analytical methods lor the reinventory of Alaska forests over the next decade.37

The reinventory during the late 1960s and early 1 970s was based on new aerial photography

that essentially reverted to a two-phase sampling system and dispensed with the air-check component of the three-phase system developed for the first survey of the interior in the early 1960s.

This process began on the Porcupine Unit, an area proposed for National Forest status and an

area with numerous Native holdings. By the late 1960s, these factors stimulated a lot of interest

in the whole range of potential resources in that region, and the inventory unit responded with an

updated two-phase survey involving a photo inventory based on a grid system with systematic

ground plots to verify photo analysis.38

By the late 1 970s, a proposal to move the Alaska state capitol to Willow prompted interest in

development proposals for the Susitna River basin, and the forest inventory unit surveyed the area

in four big blocks: Willow, Talkeetna, Beluga, and lastly, the upper Susitna. From there, the focus

shifted back to the Tanana Valley, another area with rapid development that was central to the

issue of Native land claims and proposals for National Forest lands in the late 1970s and early

1980s. By the time of the survey on the upper Susitna block, innovations in aerial and satellite

photography allowed for experimentation with a four-phase system incorporating satellite

photography, high-altitude photos at 1:60,000 scale, low-altitude photos at 1:3,000 scale, and

finally, ground plots. This system, known as the AIRIS design, was an expansion of the two-phase

system used for the first coastal survey in the 1 950s, but it dispensed with the air-check phase of

the three-phase system developed for the first survey of the interior in the early 1960s. Innovations in satellite imagery and high-altitude photography also provided color infrared photos that

facilitated identification of ground cover and associated vegetation, but logistical problems with

weather initially limited the utility of that technology for much of Alaska.39

Administrative Moves in Portland and Implications for Alaska

Organizational restructuring of PNW Station at mid decade and individual retirements reshuffled administrative assignments in Portland and responsibility for Alaska Research just as the

national political spotlight began to focus more intently on issues related to southeastern Alaska

forests. Near the end of the decade, the multifunctional unit at Fairbanks gradually became

somewhat less of a priority in the context of other pressing demands for new research needs

37

 When the Forest Service finally provided a computer tor the inventory in 1974. it was in Portland, and

LaBac would fly down with IBM cards in his suitcases, run the data through the computer, and then fly

back to luneau with the printouts. Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1993; Communication from Jim

LaBau March 1995

38

 Interview with Fied Larson 5 August 1993.

39

 Overeat skies limited visibility for high-level photography and restricted light needed for low-level,

folo infrared. Interview with Fred Larson 5 August 1993; Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1993.

140
posed by challenges to Forest Service management of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests.

The PNW Station remained well connected with the administrative hierarchy in the Washington

Office, but some of the new faces in Portland were less familiar with Alaska than their predecessors. Director Robert Buckman, who reorganized the PNW Station as part of the Forest Service

restructuring of 1 974, placed the Station's 24 projects under the control of two assistant directors

and three program managers. Less than a year after approving these changes, Buckman transferred from the PNW Station to Washington, D.C., in June 1 975, where he served as Deputy Chief

for Research over the next 11 years. Robert F. Tarrant, who followed Buckman as Director of

PNW Station, was a graduate of Oregon State University and a Navy veteran from World War Two

and the Korean War. Tarrant, a soil scientist with 29 years of experience with the Research

Branch of the Forest Service at the time of his appointment to head the PNW Station, was well

acquainted with Alaska and placed a high priority on Research programs there throughout his

tenure as Station Director. He had served as Assistant Director and Deputy Director with Buckman

at PNW Station since 1971 and had worked closely with Senator Stevens' office before his appointment as Station Director in 1975. When Tarrant retired from the Forest Service four years

after his appointment, he moved to Corvallis, accepted a "standing offer" to join the faculty at

Oregon State University, and resumed his earlier career as a soil scientist. Tarrant's replacement,

in September 1979, was another Buckman recruit, Robert Ethington, who recalls, "Before that, I

had no involvement in Alaska programs at all, even from afar."40

Direct responsibility tor Alaska Research temporarily shifted away from Ken Wright during

these critical years of transition, and Assistant Director for Research John Grantham assumed

control of the multifunctional unit in Fairbanks and other operations in Juneau under the stationwide reorganization in 1974, Wright remained nominally involved in Alaska Forest Protection

Research, but he was assigned as Program Manager for the Department of Agriculture's DouglasfirTussock Moth Expanded Research and Development Program, reporting directly to the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. for the duration of that program. Wright later resumed

responsibility for programs in Alaska during the late 1 970s,41 but his temporary assignment with

the tussock moth program deprived Alaska Research of its most experienced administrative advocate in the Portland office at a crucial, transitional stage for the concept of multifunctional work

units at Fairbanks and Juneau.

40

 Ethington, it should be noted, does not view his lack of prior involvement with Alaska as hindering his

efforts as Station Director. He was appointed Station Director in September 1979, but he did not arrive

in Portland until January 1980. Forestry Research News (Internal memo) 15 Aug 1975; Pacific

Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Research Progress 1974 (Portland: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1975), 1-3; 17;

Interview wilh Robert Buckman 13 July 1995; Interview with Robert Tarrant 11 July 1995; Interview

with Robert Fthmgton by Max Cieier on 13 July 1995 at Ethington's home in Corvallis, Oregon.

41Communiation from Ken Wrighi to Max Geier January 1995; Forestry Research News (Internal

memo 15 Aug 1975; Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Research Progress 1974

(Portland. U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, 1975), 1-3:17; Forestry Research News 10 Dec 1979.

141
Transfer of the Inventory Unit From Juneau to Anchorage

The massive scale and difficulty of access to forest sites in Alaska encouraged innovations that

placed the Juneau inventory unit on the cutting edge of remote sensing, but these methods were

prohibitively expensive and required a nightmarish tangle of logistical support and critical-path

coordination with other government agencies and private contractors. The inventory unit worked

closely with cooperating agencies, including Region 10, the Soil Conservation Service, the U.S.

Geological Survey, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and military air

bases. NASA supplied U-2 photography during the late 1970s and early 1980s that required

funding from virtually every agency in Alaska, state as well as federal. This dependence on other

agencies became an important consideration during the late 1970s as the Native land claims

process moved into high gear with proposals to reclassify federal lands in the interior for parks,

wildlife refuges, and other state and private uses. These proposals increased pressure on the

Forest Service to expand the inventory and supply more complete information on nontimber

resources. The need for close cooperation with other agencies to accomplish that objective led to

relocation of the inventory unit from Juneau to Anchorage.42

The move from Juneau to Anchorage took place during Tarrant's tenure as Station Director,

when Buckman was Deputy Chief for Research in Washington, D.C. Buckman recalls that he had

long supported, in principle, the idea that the PNW Station should have a presence in Anchorage,

but he notes that he wanted to use the lure of an Anchorage office to secure Stevens' support for

additional Congressional allocations to Research, thus playing on the Senator's suspicion that

scientists at the Juneau Lab had developed environmentalist leanings. Tarrant had other reasons

for establishing a PNW Station presence in Anchorage. He notes that Juneau, like many other

laboratory sites for Forest Service Research established after World War Two, had always been a

weak location because it lacked a university community that could provide the libraries, contacts, and intellectual interaction vital to scientific inquiry. He cites the decision to relocate Meehan's

fisheries unit from Corvallis to Juneau as a statement of intent to Stevens that the PNW Station

was committed to Alaska, but he argues Anchorage was a more appropriate site for a lab, given

the presence of liberal arts colleges and its closer proximity to the coastal forests. Fairbanks,

despite the presence of the University of Alaska, he notes was too remote from coastal stands,

where more intensive development had created a high demand for research.65

Philosophical considerations aside, the most compelling issues that led to the relocation of

the inventory unit to Anchorage were the enormous cost of travel in Alaska and the political

considerations that influenced the prioritization of forest survey work. The Alaska Native Claims

Settlement Act included a controversial provision originally inserted to gain the support of con64

 Larson ,ind Mead, "Designing a Comprehensive Multi-Resource Field Inventory for Alaska," 31 3-31 (S;

Interview with Ken Wright 1 3 July 1 993; Interview with Fred Larson 5 August 1993; Interview with Jim

LaBau 4 August 1993; Interview with Bill Farr 9 August 1993; Interview with LesViereck 30 July 1993.

65

 Interview with Robert Buckman 13 July 1995; Interview with Robert Tarrant 1 1 July 1995.

142
servation forces in the United States, and that provision ultimately provided the flashpoint for a

wholesale redistribution of federal lands in Alaska with the 1 980 Congressional legislation known

as the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). Section 1 7(d)(2) of the Native

Claims Act authorized the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw up to 80 million acres of federal

lands for possible addition to the national systems of parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and wild and

scenic rivers. Congress, however, reserved to itself authority for final disposition of those lands.

This reservation was the origin of the "6-2" controversy that raged across the political landscape

throughout the 1970s and culminated with ANILCA in 1980. Conservation groups across the

country and in Alaska lobbied for the creation of national parks, wilderness areas, and refuges,

while development interests in Alaska and elsewhere pressed for National Forests open to multiple use (including timber production, mining, and grazing). The first proposal from the Department of Interior in 1 973 called for three new parks, nine new wildlife refuges, expansion of the

Chugach National Forest, and the addition of three new National Forests in the interior. These

proposals raised a firestorm of protests when it became evident that they were based on precious

little information on the nature, range, and quality of aesthetic, cultural, or economic resources

on those lands.64

Escalating public and political demands for detailed information about both timber and

nontimber resources filtered down through the Forest Service to Hutchison's inventory unit in

Juneau by the mid 1970s and contributed to the decision to relocate in Anchorage. The national

debate over Alaska lands made inventory work on federal lands in the interior a high priority, and

Hutchison's unit consequently gained access to U-2 aerial photography. These photos provided

the basis for inventory work in Alaska over the next 1 5 years, although they seldom were used for

the original purpose of providing information for the debate over the disposition of federal lands.

The lands issue, however, did concentrate the emphasis of inventory work on the Interior at the

request of numerous federal agencies based mostly in Anchorage and with support from state and

federal agencies with offices in Anchorage. National Forest Service policies, meanwhile, shifted

responsibility for inventories on National Forests from Research to the Regions after 1973, thus

eliminating a primary reason for locating the inventory unit in Juneau. By 1977, the inventory

group in Juneau seemed unnecessarily remote from the primary focus of operations, and the

Station Director (Tarrant) ordered the unit moved to Anchorage the next year.65

64

 Naske. Alaska, 224-235; Dana and Fairfax, Forest and Range Policy, 304-306.

65

 Ken Wmterberger, who worked on remote sensing for the inventory unit during this period, recalls that

the dispute over allocation of lands led to enormous expenditures on satellite and U-2 photos, most of

which were never really used for the intended purpose of supplying information that would serve as the

basis for determining the final disposition of the land in question. This expenditure did, however,

provide the inventory unit with aerial photographs that otherwise would not have been available, and

those photos provided the basis for multiresource inventories over the subsequent 1 5 years. Interview

with Ken Winterberger 6 August 1993 in the Anchorage Office, PNW Station; Interview with Fred

Larson 5 August 1 993; Interview with Ken Wright 1 3 July 1 993; Interview with jim LaBau 4 August

1993.

143
Keith Hutchison and the inventory project had always operated independently from other

units at Juneau, and the move to Anchorage had minimal impact on other programs. The move

did, however, cause problems for the people in Juneau who were asked to move their families,

and several people in the unit transferred or resigned before the move. Hutchison, who had

directed the forest inventory since 1959, routinely communicated directly with the Washington

Office to secure approval and support for his program of operations, but he notes that he was not

included in discussions leading up to the decision to relocate his unit in Anchorage. Hutchison

recalls, however, that H.R. Josephson, the Director of Forest Economics Research in Washington,

knew that Hutchison opposed the move and gave him the option of directing the unit from

Juneau. Hutchison initially commuted to Anchorage from Juneau for 10-day stints, but he did so

only until he had assembled a crew with people he considered qualified to lead the project. He

made a surprise announcement of his retirement on 7 December 1979, just 1 week before his last

day on the job.66

The team of scientists Hutchison assembled at Anchorage included Theodore Setzer, with a

B.S. and M.S. in forestry from Iowa State University; Delbert Mead, with a B.S. in biology from

Albright College and an M.F. in forestry from Duke University; Gary Carroll, with a B.S. in forestry

from Iowa State University; Kenneth Winterberger, with a B.S. in forestry from the University of

Montana; Frederic R. Larson, with a B.S. and M.S. in forestry from Northern Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in systems ecology and operations research from Colorado State University, and

Jim LaBau, with a B.S. in forestry from Colorado State University and an M.S. in forestry from

Oregon State University. Winterberger was the only holdover from Juneau. LaBau had been with

the inventory team during the 1960s and early 1970s, but had transferred to the Rocky Mountain

Station at Fort Collins from 1975 through 1979, when Hutchison asked him to join the unit at

Anchorage. Larson transterred to Anchorage from the southwestern United States, where he

worked on the Beaver Creek Project with the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment

Station out of Flagstaff, Arizona. Setzer, like Carroll and Mead, transferred to Anchorage from the

Intermountain Station. Setzer served as Acting Project Leader from 1979 until 1980, when LaBau

took the helm. Conspicuously missing from the roster in Anchorage were Karl Hegg and Thomas

Laurent, who had worked with Hutchison through most of the previous two decades. Hegg left

Juneau for a short tour of duty in Rosslyn, Virginia, and Laurent completed his career in Juneau,

where both he and Hegg eventually retired.67

66

 Bill Fan, who worked with Hutchison in his early years at Juneau, recalls "Keith was a good guy to

work tor." He was known for his sense of humor, and no one seemed surprised that he sprang the news

of his retirement with no prior indication to his staff in Anchorage. PNW News 1 7 Dec 1979; Interview

with Jim LaBau 4 August 1 99.5; PNW News 1 8 Feb 1 980; PNW News 28 May 1 982; Memo 1 2 Dec

1979 trom K.H. Wright, Assistant Director/North, to Deputy Director Glenn Cooper (located in Central

History Files. Portland Office, PNW Station); Communication from Keith Hutchison to Jim LaBau 23

May 1995.

67

 PNW New-, 17 Dec 1979; Interview with Jim LaBau 4 August 1993; PNW_News 18 Feb 1980; PNW

News 28 May 1982; Memo 12 Dec 1979 from K.H. Wright, Assistant Director/North, to Deputy

Director Glenn Cooper (located in Central History Files, Portland Office, PNW Station). Communication

from Fred I arson to Ken Wright 28 April 1995.

144
Jim LaBau, shown here in 1960 counting the rings on a

100-year-old spruce slump on BLM land, was known

for his methodical, meticulous records and filing system

as he guided the inventory unit into the 1980s,

(juneau 1120)

LaBau, who served as project leader for the

Forest Inventory and Analysis Program for the

decade of the 1980s, was known for his habit of

maintaining detailed files on virtually everything

in the office, most of them organized with the

numbering system used in Forest Service manuals. This fondness for order, bordering on compulsion, was an asset in pulling together a systematic program of forest inventory that would

address the need for a detailed profile of all forest resources, including but not limited to timber. LaBau's unit in Anchorage brought together

a diverse crew of innovative specialists at the

cutting edge of inventory methods and technology. All of them came to Anchorage with extensive experience in the Western United States,

where they were accustomed to dealing with vast

expanses of territory. Setzer brought a strong background in data analysis, Winterberger specialized in remote sensing applications, and Larson brought logistical savvy honed in the forbidding

terrain of the American Southwest. Carroll also brought valuable expertise in computer systems,

programming, analysis, and data management, and Mead added his experience in field leadership and analysis. This combination of skills and the strong focus on forest inventory forged a

particularly cohesive work unit with a completely different character than the groups at Fairbanks

or juneau.68

During the 1 980s, LaBau's unit developed an inventory method that merged high technology

with ecological theory and current research in forest science, wildlife, fisheries, vegetative analysis, systems modeling, and sampling methods. Mead worked with John Yarie, of the University of

Alaska, to develop a unique vegetation profile system for coastal and interior Alaska with coefficents

to measure biomass for everything from mosses and lichens to trees, grasses, forbs, and shrubs.

The result was a multiresource inventory that provided a detailed profile of vegetation along

vertical and horizontal axes with data on tree, shrub, and herbaceous vegetation; downed wood

and ground cover; wildlife habitat species composition; soil, water, and geographical characteristics; dead trees or snags; fuel buildup and fire danger; browse availability; biomass estimates;

species diversity, distribution, and composition; as well as timber resources and quality.'69

68 Interview with |im LaBau 4 August 1993; interview with Ken Wright 13 July 1993; interview with

f red Larson August 1993; interview with Ken Winterberger 6 August 1993; interview with Ted Setzer

6 August 1993; interview with Bill Farr 9 August 1993.

69 Larson and Mead. 'Designing a Comprehensive Multi-Resource Field Inventory," 313-315.

145
Transportation costs tor ground crews in Alaska consumed more

money than all other costs. Here, j charter plane leaves

McKenzie Inlet near Ketchikan in 1971. (Wright collection)

The multiresource inventory built on

the four-phase system beginning with

Landsat (satellite) imagery, small-scale

(1:60,000) aerial photography, large-scale

(1:3,000) photos, and finally, a systematic

ground inventory of sample plots to crossreference with the photographic sources

and facilitate airphoto interpretation.

Ground crews established circular plots

covering eight hectares, interspersed

with detailed sample points for different

levels of the inventory (trees, shrubs,

herbaceous vegetation, ground cover,

etc.). The field workers ran transect lines

across each ground plot to estimate dead and down woody debris, and they measured visibility

through the stand at various levels. They also measured height and diameter, quality, defects,

growth, crown characteristics, and tree damage for timber within the plot. Crews collected data

on signs of animal activities, including browsing, grazing, nests, trails, fecal material, food caches,

and bedding sites. Aerial photos provided information on distance from water, hiding cover,

edge, or human activity. The Soil Conservation Service assigned a soil specialist to each ground

crew, and with their help, soil pits dug at each plot yielded soil descriptions in association with

vegetation and drainage characteristics. These sample plots provided data for computer modeling programs that applied the information across the area covered in the airphoto phases, yielding a composite horizontal and vertical profile of the area.70

Computer-generated reports based on the multiresource inventory provided standard tables

for forest surveys, including commercial and noncommercial forest lands, timber volume per

acre by species, and timber growth and mortality, but they also provided information on plant

associations, wildlife, and noncommercial resources valued for their aesthetic, recreational, or

ecological appeal. The detailed forest profile provided public land managers with information

useful in predicting the presence of specific wildlife species, based on other studies of their

habitat requirements and behavior patterns. The inventory system that LaBau's unit developed

provided, for the first time, the kind of inventory that fulfilled the evolving interpretation of multiple use as including noncommercial and ecological uses, but the process was still driven by the

demands of the various end-users of the inventory, including the timber industry, state and federal

70Larson and Mead, "Designing a Comprehensive Multi-Resource Field Inventory," 31 3-315.

146
agencies, conservation groups, private landholders, and Native villages and corporations. It

remained a time-consuming, expensive process, requiring a lot of logistical planning for field

work and the difficult conditions of work in roadless areas remote from human contact.71

Persistent cloud cover over much of Alaska interfered with efforts to acquire large-scale photography for use in the inventory, so Larson and Winterberger teamed up with systems analyst

Willem [Bill] van Hees during the mid 1 980s to develop a new sampling design that could better

reflect the entire satellite image, instead of zeroing in on the labor-intensive, eight-hectare plots

implemented with the AIRIS design. The new design separated satellite scenes into five subpopulations, including forest, woodland, shrubland, herbaceous lands, and barren lands that also

included ice fields, snow, and water. The design then provided for a standard two-phase aerial

photo and ground-truth system with smaller ground plots that could be tied back to the satellite

scenes and provide, for the tirst time, a mapped base-inventory, which included all the understory vegetation and wildlife habitat measurements from the AIRIS design to continue the enumeration of multiple resources.72

The research unit at Anchorage developed close cooperative relations with a broad array of

state and local agencies that helped defray the costs and supplied personnel for the ground

crews. Transportation costs tor ground crews consumed more money than all other costs, including salaries, equipment, data processing, and logistical support. Only a high degree of support

from other agencies permitted implementation of the multiuse inventory program during the

1980s. The inventory system also drew heavily on the work of Les Viereck and Ted Dyrness at

Fairbanks, who were instrumental in developing a vegetation classification system for Alaska that

went through numerous revisions between 1978 and 1992.73 The multiuse forest inventory system was a continuation of the Congressional mandate to inventory the Nation's renewable resources and an outgrowth of the fierce debate over how federal lands in Alaska should be distributed. It was driven by competing demands from various groups, including industry, state and

federal legislators, private and public land managers, conservation and preservation activists,

recreation advocates, Native corporations, representatives of Native interests, and local citizen

groups. In this sense, it was a major departure from earlier traditions of forest research in Alaska

that primarily were driven by initiatives for timber production or concerns about the devastating

effects ot natural events, but it was also a continuation of the premise that forest research should

serve utilitarian purposes as defined by interests other than the detached curiosity of scientists.

147
CHAPTER SIX:

Forest Research in the

Shadow of ANILCA

The sudden demand for information about federal lands in the interior of Alaska during the

late 1970s and early 1980s forged a cohesive

unit in Anchorage that moved beyond timber values in

its assessment of forest resources, but the lasting legacy

of this era of stagnating federal support and budgetary

cutbacks was a fragmentation of the various research

facilities into discrete groups of scientists who often

operated independently of their colleagues at each

office. This process accelerated during the 1980s, as

industry leaders and their allies in federal and state

governments launched a counterattack on the concessions preservationists had secured during the preceding decade. The 1 980s was an era in which vociferous

criticism of federal authority yielded political dividends

for a neoconservative movement espousing a "new

federalism" for the West. Leaders of this "sagebrush

rebellion" targeted symbols of a "bloated" federal

bureaucracy for reorganization, staff reductions, and
privatization. As a large federal bureaucracy with

a high-profile presence in many areas of the

country, and particularly in the Pacific Northwest, the Forest Service was vulnerable to attacks from preservationists and neoconservative

utilitarians, and both factions greeted agency initiatives with skepticism.1

In this climate of suspicious animosity, federal support also eroded for integrated study

units, and Forest Service Research in Alaska

drifted more in the direction of stand-alone,

grant-driven programs. Individual scientists employed with the Forest Service shared office facilities at Juneau, Fairbanks, and Anchorage, but they increasingly were forced to compete with

other scientists in Alaska and elsewhere to secure sufficient funding for their operational expenses and staff support from the limited funds budgeted for Forest Service Research in the Congressional allocation process in Washington, D.C., and at various levels of the administrative

hierarchy of the agency. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980

and the availability of Tongass Timber Supply Funds counteracted this trend in Juneau, but it also

redirected priorities away from the interior, shifted the research focus back to southeastern Alaska,

and proscribed the range of studies eligible for funding in ways that often excluded the programs

of research developed by scientists at Fairbanks and sometimes Anchorage.2

Mensurationist Don Demars at work in the Juneau FSL

Persona/ computer technology enabled scientists in

Alaska to expand their range of regular contact with

experts in their fields beyond Alaska during the 1980s.

(Loopstra collection)

Communications Technology and a New Corporate Culture3

New technology accelerated the centrifugal forces that political developments imposed on

the corporate culture of Forest Service Research in Alaska and elsewhere in the United States

during the early 1980s. Innovations in long-distance communications and computing systems

150

'The sagebrush rebellion and the neoconservative movement of the 1980s have been the subject of 

considerable scholarship and debate. See, for a few pertinent examples, Daniel Faber and James 

O'Connor, "The Struggle for Nature: Environmental Crises and the Crisis of Environmentalism in the 

United States," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 2 (Summer 1989), 12-37; and C. Brandt Short, Ronald 

Reagan and the Public Lands: America's Conservation Debate, 1979-1984 (1990). 2

This discussion is based on numerous interviews and conversations with scientists at each office in 

Alaska and in Portland and recent scholarship on the history of the environmental movement in the 

1980s, as cited above. For the effects of ANILCA on forest research in Alaska as viewed by PNW Station 

administrators at the beginning of the decade, see Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment 

Station, "Planned Forest and Related Research to Meet Requirements of the 1980 Alaska National 

Interest Lands Conservation Act," (internal policy statement 14 July 1981, in the storage room, Juneau 

Forestry Sciences Laboratory, USDA Forest Service).

3

This section is based on a series of interviews and informal discussions between the author and Forest 

Service personnel in Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Portland, and Corvallis between 1992 and 1994. 

Those who have contributed particularly valuable insights on the topic of computers and networks in 

relation to research and interaction among scientists in the Forest Service, and particularly in Alaska, 

include Nancy Bonstedt, Ruth Murphy, Mary Lewis, Ken Winterberger, Bill Farr, Bill Meehan, John 

Alden, Joan Foote, Martha Brookes, Bernard Bormann, and Ken Wright.

CONTINUED