Second Clear-cut

“The timber stands so thick that the tops form a perfect canopy and the heavy shade retards the underbrush to a minimum height. The trees stand in solid masses and in clusters and occasionally a single massive trunk seems to monopolize the area around it. While many of the trees seem to rise with a minimum of taper, the occasional spreading roots of the big Sitka Spruce trees seem almost to interlock and among them there is not a diseased or dead tree. Were it not for the Sitka Spruce and hemlock saplings, and their foliage, the view would show only massive tree trunks…”
Pacific Spruce Corporation. 1924. Series of articles from the Lumber World Review.
The above is a description of the forest the white settlers found when the Siletz Tribe occupied the coastal area where my beach house is located. They logged that remarkable forest. This photo shows my brother and I standing on a tree stump which is nothing compared to the girth of the trees in the first logging. This clear cut was just completed las tmonth. Devastation.