Grant Hadwin

[McGuarantee]

Interesting thread. I just read the golden spruce this past summer after visiting the PCW on a family vacation. Was a very interesting read as an arborist. It made me feel an interesting balance of extreme admiration for those crazy hard working loggers and extreme sadness for what we have let happen to the environment.

 

[cory]

Wow, Squish. Some people just don't get it. Good on you.

 

[chris_girard]

I totally agree Squish. It must have been hard seeing that kind of crap going on.

 

[squisher]

Yah, you gotta remember I graduated at 17 and went straight to the coast that summer. I was the snot nosed punk kid on the crew(s) 'sneaking' into the bar that we met at in the mighty CR(Campbell river) to receive my pay cheque. By my early twenties I had seen a lot of destruction. I worked in places where we had landslides that were huge that rolled down right into the ocean, entire bays looking like mud puddles. Sad to watch entire landscapes/ecosystems changed, but I was there doing my small part too. Partially why espescially in my hood I lol about people getting bent out of shape over residential removals. I wonder if they notice ever the hundreds of loads daily rolling around the local highways into the local mills.

It's why I can get ranting about big business totally screwing up the woods. Bigger, faster, more for less. I sure didn't change anything, I just got out.

 

[chris_girard]

Sounds like the same frustration that Grant Hadwin felt. He got out as well after no one would listen to him, only he was so not in the right frame of mind that he cut down the Golden Spruce as a show of his frustration to the waste that was going on around him. In his defense though, he did say that if he knew what an iconic symbol it really meant to the native Indians than he wouldn't have cut it. His fight wasn't with them but with the "big business" timber owners and the Gov for allowing the cutting to go on.

Don't get me wrong, I AM NOT against clear cutting...if used properly. When I was logging, the forester would have certain areas on our strips where a clear cut would be marked for cutting due to the fact that the trees were such low quality, or in poor shape, that we felt it was best to clear out the old, leave some good large quality specimens on the perimeter of the clear cut area and let mother nature return the clear cut with good quality trees. We never tried to do any hand planting, as around here, it just isn't necessary.

I just feel that it was such a waste that Grant never got a chance to have his day in court and speak his mind. Would have been interesting to hear what he had to say. It was pretty ballsy of him to try and cross the Hecate Straight in an ocean canoe knowing how violent those waters can be.

 

[cory]

I worked in places where we had landslides that were huge that rolled down right into the ocean, entire bays looking like mud puddles. Sad to watch entire landscapes/ecosystems changed,

That is mind blowing.

 

[chris_girard]

That is mind blowing.

Can you imagine if that happened in the US?

 

[squisher]

You figure it hasn't?

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

we had major flooding closing I-5 just south of me, a couple years back due to flooding from landslides, from clearcutting.

 

[chris_girard]

You figure it hasn't?

Oh for sure it has in the past, but a blatant disregard for EPA regulations these days by a logging company will cause fines and media coverage of resulting in very bad publicity.

 

[chris_girard]

we had major flooding closing I-5 just south of me, a couple years back due to flooding from landslides, from clearcutting.

What happened to the contractors who did the clearcutting?

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

Who knows? It was legal, I think. I don't know much about it. Cumulative effects of major cuts, in logging country. Maybe some mud slides into the river exacerbating the heavy rainfall.


It was when I first moved to Washington, and didn't have my feet under me.



http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/flood-damaged-i-5-to-stay-closed-until-this-weekend/

 

[cory]

Im surprised micro soft and google don't buy up all the remaining timber for a place for their outings.

 

[cory]

more grim reading here: http://www.straight.com/blogra/5425...rees-are-facing-axe-bcs-walbran-valley-photos

This is the company slated to nuke the old growth in Reg's link above.
http://tealjones.com

 

[chris_girard]

This is directly from their website. Do they know something that we don't?

"Sustaining Our Customers and Our Future

In accordance with today’s stringent, environmentally sound harvesting practices, The Teal-Jones Group consistently exceeds the highest standards of responsible harvesting, maintaining, and reforesting of public timberlands, area-based tree farms, open-market licenses, privately-acquired properties, and log-trade contracts."

They sure won't be able to sustain the stands of old growth.

 

[cory]

Yeah, its BS, judging from what has been pieced together in this thread.

 

[squisher]

I went to school with one of the owners sons.

I will add that nothing I said in this thread had anything to do with their operations and I've never worked directly or indirectly for them. I did go to school with the sons of one of the owners and was quite good friends with them and their family at times in the past. Really nice people fwiw.

 

[cory]

I got the vibe from their website that they seem like a quality company in most all respects, and their home base looks well put together and impressive. But I personally don't feel they are doing the right thing to nuke remaining stands of old growth, and doing so doesn't jibe with their verbiage in post #65.

 

[squisher]

I have no doubt it's a crying shame.

But it's hard to log without cutting down trees and whether you're doing it or buying it. One things for certain. It's still gonna happen.

 

[cory]

Nobody said log without cutting trees. Just suggesting log without cutting irreplaceable old growth. Cutting those trees will likely result in both a small positive blip in Teal Jones income for the year and yet another (hopefully relatively small) further insult to...The Biosphere. Put enough of those insults together and some folks say the Biosphere will quit supporting our daily life like we're used to.

 

[squisher]

One day for certain it will. I have no hope that mans legacy on earth will be anything more than a parasitic blip in planetary timelines.

I guess I feel numb to it because I see gorgeous timber constantly going to mills, hundreds of loads a day everyday. My whole life.

 

[cory]

You still see fat timber going for the ride? I was under the impression that, in the US at least, the vast majority of timber is relatively skinny 2nd and 3rd and 4th growth.

 

[squisher]

Lots of small stuff but plenty of good sized fir and spruce around here too 2-3'+. I'm in the interior of BC. On the coast it was exciting when we got into 6'+. Cedar always goes big and plenty of bigger ones are still out there being cut regularly. My old employee is still doing coastal falling off and on and has told of plenty of creamy patches of fir.

 

[squisher]

I will try and get a couple of pics of the mill just minutes from my house. I've often thought I should to add some perspective to where I live. There are huge lumber mills everywhere here. Every time I drive anywhere I constantly pass logging trucks, chip trucks, and lumber trucks going here there and everywhere. It is by far the main industry around my locale.

 

[Mick!]

I will try and get a couple of pics of the mill just minutes from my house. I've often thought I should to add some perspective to where I live. There are huge lumber mills everywhere here. Every time I drive anywhere I constantly pass logging trucks, chip trucks, and lumber trucks going here there and everywhere. It is by far the main industry around my locale.

Do that, If like to see that. Lot of mills round here as well, I'll post some pics of interest.