Edition: U.S. / Global

A Final Clear-Cut, and Goodbye to Logging

Published: March 30, 1992

Loggers don't say "timmmmmmber," when a 200-foot Douglas fir comes crashing down, severed by chain saw from its centuries-old anchor to the ground. They never did, as far as anyone on the Olympic Peninsula can remember.

Instead, after the pop and snap of wood fiber crumbling into the arms of gravity, Gary Phillips takes a deep breath. "Smell that?" says Mr. Phillips, a third-generation logger who is cutting his last stand of timber. "That's the smell of dying trees."

It wasn't so long ago that the Olympic Peninsula, home of the only temperate rain forest in the contiguous United States, called itself the logging capital of the world.




Increasingly, wood for new American homes comes from Canada, the South or the big Northwest tree farms owned by companies like Weyerhauser. Less than 15 percent of the nation's wood comes from the national forests, and some critics would like to see all logging halted on Federal lands. Farmers, Not Villains

These men do not see themselves as land rapists or villains. They say they are more like farmers, harvesting a crop. Nature, Mr. Phillips said, has downed more trees through fire and wind than any logger.

"A salmon fisherman once asked me if I felt bad, cutting down all these big trees," Mr. Phillips said. "I said: 'No, sir. Have you ever felt bad taking in a big salmon?' "

But these men concede that most of the really big trees are gone, and in many ways, the loggers still working in the last years of the 20th century are paying for the sins of others.

"I cut a tree once, 18 feet in diameter, but have not seen anything like that for many years," said Bob French, who has spent most of his 57 years in the woods.

They gather on this day in darkness, an hour before dawn, at a restaurant along Highway 101 called The Logger's Landing. Everyone wears spiked boots, and suspenders because belts don't hold the pants up just right. They consume enough eggs and bacon to shock a heart surgeon into palpitations. On the walls are pictures of the glory years, a dozen or more loggers standing proudly atop a single tree stump. 70 Acres of Timber

Mr. Phillips, who has a bearskin rug over the couch at home, elk trophies on his walls and antique rifles displayed in a glass-topped coffee table, started H & P Logging with his partner, Pat Handly. They are contract loggers -- meaning they cut trees on contract for the purchaser of the timber. Their final timber harvest is a 70-acre piece of land owned by the state. Logging on Federal land on the peninsula has come to a virtual standstill because of restrictions to protect the northern spotted owl.

In all the years that Mr. Phillips's crew has been logging, not a man can remember seeing a spotted owl. Although a few dead owls have been found nailed to posts here in the Olympics -- a sign of the intense bitterness some men feel -- the loggers on Mr. Phillips's crew say they respect wildlife more than the average city dweller.

The Olympic Peninsula, a Massachusetts-sized shank of land in the far northwest corner of Washington State, can get heavy rains -- up to 180 inches a year -- on its western side, while the eastern side basks in sun. The interior of the peninsula is the Olympic National Park; it is bordered by the Olympic National Forest, two-thirds of which has been logged. The remaining land is private or owned by the state of Washington. Much of the private land has been severely cut, leaving vast stretches of stumps and brown earth.

Clear-cutting, considered the most economical way to cut trees in the thick forests of the Pacific Northwest, is the only way most of the men on the H & P crew have ever logged. In a typical clear-cut, the land is cleared of every tree, the logs gathered into neat piles, the brush burned and the ground replanted.


Deer, black bears, mice, coyotes, and numerous birds may live in this particular 70 acres, just above a saltwater inlet of Puget Sound. After the chain saws start up, the prime concern is wood. A single large tree can yield lumber worth as much as $30,000. When all the trees are felled from this section, they will provide enough wood to build about 230 houses. Much of this wood, after being cut into framing timber, will go to Japan.