Forest Service Stories

AN IMMIGRANT & THE USDA FOREST SERVICE

by Ranachith  (Ronnie) Yimsut

(Note from Sharon: I don’t have a date for this story, but it’s probably 1997-ish). Here’s a link to a January 2020 article about him and some of his work.. it begins.  “Ronnie Yimsut – American-Cambodian author, activist, NGO worker, retired senior landscape architect for the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, official influential person, orphan and Khmer Rouge survivor – had a dream.”  He is the author of a book, Facing the Khmer Rouge: A Cambodian Journey.  At the end of  his FS story, I added a review of his book.

This is a story that need to be told as part of the celebration of the USDA Forest Service proud culture and tradition.  It is a story that very few can associate with, but certainly understood.

I emigrated to the U.S. from a refugee camp on the Thai‑ Cambodian border in early 1979 as a young 15 years old‑‑orphaned, lost, and alone.  I first arrived in Washington, DC.  Within a few weeks, I got to meet the Chief of the USDA Forest Service, whose name I can’t recall, during a tour of the Washington Office.  Of course, I did not speak English then and the Chief did not know Khmer, my native tongue, either.  So a translator was brought in to get our communication going more effectively than just body language.

For about an hour we communicated through a translator on wide-ranging topics.  I did most of the asking as I was very curious.  I recalled asking the Chief if I, as an Asian immigrant, can be the Chief of the Forest Service some day.  My simple question stunned him momentarily, but he quickly responded with a great big smile “NO!”  Then he quickly added, “Not unless you are a U.S. citizen first!”  I told him that I would be happy to just working as a “Ranger” (an employee) of the prestigious and world renounced USDA Forest Service.

By the winter of 1987, while I was spending my fifth year at the University of Oregon, I met a Hispanic employee of the Willamette National Forest.  He was on a recruitment drive for the Forest Service.  I met him accidentally on the campus ground and got his business card, which eventually led to an interview. After the first interview, I was a “perfect” candidate (being a minority student) for the Forest Service’s Cooperative Education Program; so he said. We met five more times after that first interview.  The wheels were in motion, my dream of working for the Forest Service was becoming a reality.

At the same time, I did not at all want to leave school as I was about to finish and get my hard-earned science degree.  The man essentially had to drag me into the Forest Service system through this innovative program.  He must had called me a hundred times in his attempt to recruit me.  With his persistence and compromise, I gave in and I eventually was hired as a Coop Student.

I worked part of my time for the Willamette NF and continued my schooling in between.  The Forest Service paid for my school tuition and salary, what a great deal!.  I thought I got a great deal until I ran into all the acronyms that I had to learn and learn well.  At first, I couldn’t tell the term “WO” from an “RO”, the term “DR” from an “SO” and so on.  Eventually, I mastered almost all of them.  However, as I learned one acronym others were being introduced or invented faster than I could absorb.  It was overwhelming and still is today.  There should be a guide book about Forest Service acronym for all new employees!

After graduation and a full year of practical work with my mentor, Mr. Frank Hunsaker, a Forest Landscape Architect, I was more than ready.  I was later hired by the Deschutes National Forest, a neighboring forest to the east. With the new job and title, I was at last became a full-fledged USDA Forest Service employee, if not a “Ranger” or the “Chief” as I had dreamed very earlier on.

Central Oregon was well known for its harsh winter and “Redneck” country.  I understoond “harsh” winter, but I did not know what  the term “Redneck” meant.  I learned very quickly.  Being one of only few Asian‑American in the area, both the community and Forest Service were a very hostile place.  The acceptance was not there and I felt rejected.  My resignation letter was prepared and ready to turn in to my boss (now called Team Leader), but my immigrant and Asian stubbornness keep me going and going despite of everything.

I worked very, very hard to gain acceptance within the Forest Service and eventually succeeded.  I later got involved with just about every aspect of community activism in Central Oregon.  I felt like I was a pioneer struggling through a harsh and difficult environment, but by golly, it  got better and better after more than seven years later.  Today, I can’t really complain as I and my family (four and all) are well known, respected, and accepted within both the Forest Service family (no longer just a community) and the Central Oregon community itself.  I am no longer a pioneer but in fact a full-fledged, proud, and productive member.

I have come a long way from my native Cambodia to be a successful professional in the USDA Forest Service.  And yes, I now speak English well enough and became a proud American citizen since 1984.  I know that I won’t be a “Ranger” (let alone a Chief) anytime soon, but the possibility is there, if I really, really wanted and willing to work extra hard toward it.

The Forest Service gave me ample opportunities for both personal and professional growth, but there is always room for improvement especially in the Civil Rights area.  And that is where my next concentration shall be.  As an American citizen, it is my utmost duty make the rough road that I had traveled on a much smoother one than ever before; so that others like me can traverse it with less difficulty.  It should be every American utmost duty to make the road smoother for ALL Americans, in my humble opinion.

******************

And here’s a quote from a book review…

“Facing the Khmer Rouge is beautifully written, informative and heartbreaking. Ronnie Yimsut’s prose reads like poetry, vivid and captivating; and chock full of crisp details and imageries. With each turn of the page, Yimsut pulls readers deeper into his emotional and spiritual journey through his years of war and horrors. Yet, his story of love, family, and country, told in a soft, meditative voice—also breathes of forgiveness and healing. Facing the Khmer Rouge is a courageous memoir, and one that undoubtedly will leave Yimsut’s readers believing in the best of man’s humanity to man.”

–Loung Ung, activist and author, First They Killed My Father

(Note from Sharon: the first paragraph may not make any sense until you read the original request for stories I posted two weeks ago. Like all the stories, it’s from 1997 or so.  Here’s a link to the document the team produced, front page in the image above.)

by Cathy Dahms, Southwestern Region

I’d like to tell you about my team. Sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it “my” team, as if a Forest Service team was like a baseball team that has an owner. But I’m the team leader have been for 3 years now and when you’re working with folks that long, you tend to get personal about it. My team is mostly a Southwestern Regional Office/Rocky Mountain Station team. As a team, we haven’t gone on long rides in green rigs (or even short rides together in our own personal vehicles). We haven’t had lunches in the woods; I don’t even recall us eating lunch together in local restaurants. This isn’t going to be a story of any “on the ground” experience, so I’m not going to be insulted if you decide that a paper pushing team of RO/Station folks isn’t representative of Forest Service culture. But the team cared enough to get the job done, and gave it their best. There’s a lot of teams in the Forest Service that aren’t working in
the field: in regional teams, in interregional teams, in national teams, in interagency teams. The story of my team is the story of their teams, too, and that’s why I want to share it with you.

My team was given the charge of consolidating all the information that was floating around on forest ecosystem health in the Southwest into one report. We had documents on fire and forest health, insects and disease and forest health, analysis of changing conditions from forest inventories, etc., but each document was typically used only by folks in that specific functional area. Our report was to give folks the bigger picture. This report was to provide “one stop shopping” for resource managers of any discipline wanting to know more about forest ecosystem health in the Southwest.

Initially, we had each resource staff put together a report on forest ecosystem health. We batched them up into one document and sent it out for review. Most of the reviewers didn’t have any heartburn over the contents, but they didn’t like how the report was structured. There was too much duplication of material between chapters and the document was too functional. My team had a hard decision to make we could publish the document as is, or we could completely rewrite the document as a holistic ecosystem health assessment rather than a collection of individual reports. It was not an easy decision. A year had passed, and most of my team members’ supervisors had, by this time, other projects that they wanted their staff to work on. It would mean doing a lot more work than the first document: researching additional references to fill in gaps in characterizing historic and current ecosystem health, addressing the human dimension of forest ecosystem health, developing scenarios of possible management strategies, pulling together a cohesive strategy for improving forest ecosystem health in the Southwest, and meeting guidelines for Station publication. Even more daunting was that each section of the report would ultimately need to be a team effort, since each section needed to be written as
an integration of all disciplines.

The team voted unanimously to rewrite the report. Thus began a two year cycle of meetings, research, writing, and cycling through the process over and over again. Meanwhile, some team members retired or moved from the Southwest and were replaced by others who had to be brought up to speed with the project. The technical advisor from the Station moved to Alaska; with his departure, the team recruited Brian Geils, from the Flagstaff office, and Dale Brockway, from the Albuquerque office. Dale contributed his ecological expertise to the scenario

development and in various sections throughout the report. Brian started out acting as a consultant to the team, but ended up writing sections of the report and serving as technical editor to the entire effort. John Shafer, Ron Moody, Doug Shaw, and Bryce Rickel were on the team from its inception. David Conklin, Lorene Guffey, Jill Wilson and Rod Replogle became members of the team during the second rewrite. All team members worked together in the assessment process. Even though at times it seemed that the assessment would never be finished, their enthusiasm never waned.

Keeping the project moving forward was always a challenge. Team meetings had to worked around full schedules and unexpected events like the furlough and health emergencies. In a typical team meeting, we would work through lunch and continue working long after most people had gone home for the day. We also kept discovering additional information that was needed to improve the assessment. Often that meant going to other forest and Regional Office specialists for help. Even though everyone had an overflowing plate of work already, they always made time to provide the information requested. Judy Propper and Frank Wozniak even offered to review the entire document from a human dimensions perspective and suggest appropriate additions and clarifications. At one point, we had to go outside the Forest Service for help; Raymond Lee from the Arizona Game and Fish Department and Wally Haussamen from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish volunteered to research information on game populations through time.

Team members made many personal sacrifices to get the assessment completed. The agency doesn’t give medals to employees who give up their weekends to work on a project because there simply isn’t enough time otherwise, or to someone who works late and ends up sleeping in the office overnight because they’re too tired to drive home. Employees don’t work because they expect a reward: they work because they believe in a shared vision, because it is the right thing to do, because it may make a difference. That’s what it means to be on teams in the Forest Service. We work together; we help each other out; we are persistent. As Calvin Coolidge observed, “Nothing takes the place of persistence.”

One of my most fun times in the Forest Service was working on the Ochoco Pilot in the 80’s. My team recommended that the FS be able to write checks. It was a novel idea at the time (I am not making this up). Anyway, the quote from Tom Peters in my email below reminded me.

I was about to post a story this morning and realized that the author’s introduction would make more sense if the reader understood my original Folktales request.
Due to the wonders of the Internet, I was able to access Dave Iverson’s Ecowatch blog and found my original request.

TO: Everyone
WANTED: Stories That Depict Aspects of Forest Service Culture and Values
WHY: For a book about the culture of the Forest Service — past and present — as told through stories

Stories are important and powerful. As management improvement guru Tom Peters put it: “People, including managers, do not live by pie charts alone — or by bar graphs or three inch statistical appendices to 300 page reports. People live, reason, and are moved by symbols and stories.” (Thriving on Chaos, p. 506)

The stories that leaders tell, and their implied values, are shared widely through the official networks. My interests are with the values and cultural expectations that are shared informally among people not usually heard from — the folk tales that share some kind of message about organizational values and desired and undesired behaviors. I was fortunate to be steeped in such examples through many years of long drives in green rigs and lunches in the woods. By having a variety of such stories compiled, I hope that new people would be able to get a flavor for past and current FS culture — as experienced “on the ground” and from the heart.

Please consider sharing your Forest Service stories that illuminate aspects of Forest Service culture with me for the FS Folktales Project. I would also like a couple of paragraphs from you talking about what the story told you about FS values, and why it is/was meaningful to you. I plan to see what themes come across and arrange them by theme, with an introductory section for each group of stories. I plan to put out the completed work in book form and, hopefully in the future, on the Internet.

Ideally, I would like to have your name, the real names in the story, together with your region and the time period the story is from. I understand that, in some cases, you might not want to use real names and your privacy will be respected and protected. Stories are requested about the Forest Service — but they can be submitted by current employees, retirees, or anyone else who has a story to tell. Please try to limit the length of your story to about 2 pages, single spaced.

Perhaps we will also be able to see the different cultures and styles and to explore the values shared in common and those that are different — not through technical discussions or disputes over management practices, but by what kinds of stories we tell.

Some of the stories may be uplifting or morale building, like a Forest Service version of the series Chicken Soup for the Soul (Elk Stew perhaps?). If your story is humorous, or heartwarming, so much the better. If you have a story, please write it down or tape it on audiotape (videotape, even) and mail it to me at:
(my old home address)
My e-mails are … and S.Friedman:W01C on the DG.

Thank you for listening to this request. Please consider sharing your favorite stories as a gift from you to the Forest Service community and to others who want to learn about the culture of the Forest Service, and distributing this message far and wide..

Sincerely, and greenly, yours

Sharon Friedman

Note:
To clarify my previous message about the Folktales Project:
This is not an “official FS effort”. That means that FS time should not be used. I am doing it as a volunteer, and that’s why my home address and e-mail are on the request.

I’m sorry if there was confusion- I wrote the same request for those outside the FS and retirees and guess I did not get specific enough for current employees.

The other clarification is that I am really interested in collecting stories and anecdotes that reveal some aspect of organizational culture, and please add your own reflections on what you learned about organizational culture from the story.

Thank you for your patience and stories.
Sharon

This is more history than story, but here goes…

From: Steven W. Coady:R06F18A

Date: ## 02/28/97 10:57 ##

A lot of this information came from our forest history book, written by Lawrence and Mary Rakestraw in the late 1980’s, including the last two sections. What has changed this, I feel, is mobilization, cars.  In 1909, when McFarland first came to this forest, one of the rangers from McKenzie area wrote that it took two days of hard riding with a pack animal to reach Eugene, OR. Today, you can make that journey in an hour. McKenzie R.D. and Oakridge R.D. are about the same distance.

Another factor is people are more global now. In the early days, communities were small and semi‑isolated if for no other reason because of roads or lack of roads. Rangers and their wives were a PART of those communties. Any anger or resentment towards the government that those residents felt were directed towards the RO or WO, not the ranger. Also, what I’ve found is that a lot of the problems we face now, such as group(s) wanting to take back government  lands for the counties, grazing issues, timber theft, wilderness issues, district consolidations, etc. Not a lot has really changed in 100 years! sc

I’ve selected some paragraphs from the document that Steven sent that I personally found interesting, and the entire document is linked here. The Rakestraw book has fortunately been uploaded in its entirety by the Forest History Society here.

Depression Ideas

In 1931, McFarland & Axel Lindh (RO), studied ways to alleviate some of the distress of the Depression. The  report stated that even though the F.S. could supply the timber sales that could potentially keep employment up, stagnation in the lumber industry would make for periods when sales were not made. A proposal of McFarland &  Lindh was that some 2,500 acres in T.21 S, R.3 E (Oakridge area), be surveyed for residential tracts. To be divided into small homesites of one‑quarter to one‑half acre each. Leased at $10 per year, larger ones at $3 per year. This program received additional endorsement from President Roosevelt in 1934. This evolved into the Resettlement Administration & in turn into the Farm Security Administration under Rexford Tugwell.

In April 1935, Regional Forester C.J. Buck wrote to the Forester recommending the proposal & suggesting that an initial 143 acres be set aside for industrial homesites.  CCC labor could be used for clearing & surveying the lots, homes built using local lumber at $2,500 per unit.  And with the increased number of WNF employees, 25 or 30 units could be leased to F.S. employees.

Roadless Areas

Beginning in the 1920’s, the Forest Service began to set aside roadless areas. By 1930, there were 52,300 acres  set aside near Mt. Jefferson, 47,500 acres around  Diamond Peak. Three Sisters was added later.

Treaty Rights

Native American treaty rights were protested in the early 1920’s due to their harvesting of huckleberries.   Native Americans traveled by horse and it was deemed by stockmen that it was unfair that they had to pay for grazing rights and Indians didn’t. C.C. Hall brought this up in 1922, but soon the dependence on the automobile soon ended this when all began to travel to the berry fields by car.

Role of Ranger and Wife

As rangers, we were key men in mobilizing support for the Forest Service, living as we did, as members of the community, and working with all kinds of local and regional‑‑Obsidians, Grangers, 4‑H groups, Boy Scouts, county grazing associations, lumbermen’s guilds, representatives from the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, and last but not least, church groups. We put in a lot of “coal oil time” working with the community‑‑locating section corners, giving talks to a variety of groups, carrying on search expeditions for lost children, arbitrating disputes over a variety of matters, listening to complaints about forest policy, and giving advice and guidance to visitors.

The role of rangers wives was no less important. They offered hospitality to visiting brass‑a gallon of hot coffee and a huckleberry pie were always on hand if the Supervisor came visiting. If he was accompanied by the fire control chief, two pies were appropriate. She counseled employees on marital problems, administered first aid to the injured, and ministered to the indiscreet, who had been overcome by hospitality at a meeting of the Stockman’s Association, or the “Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo”; took over the telephone  system in cases of fire; and worked with a host of     community associations. Much of the strength of the Forest Service came from the fact that rangers and rangers’ wives were highly respected members of the community; and criticism of the Forest Service was more often directed to the “Swivel Chair Foresters” of the Washington Office or the “Swedes in green pants” in Portland, than to the local organization.

Raven’s lomatium (Lomatium ravenii Mathias; Constance), a plant previously thought to be extirpated from Oregon, has been discovered growing in six locations on the Malheur National Forest.  Specimens collected on the Prairie City Ranger District were verified recently by Dr. Lincoln Constance, Professor Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley, a noted expert in North American Apiaceae.  According to the Oregon Natural Heritage Program, this plant, endemic to the northern Basin and Range in California and Nevada, was believed extinct in the Oregon portion of its historical range in Harney and Malheur counties.  The new discoveries are located in southern Grant county, well separated from the Nevada populations, growing in stiff sagebrush communities characterized by low plant cover and very shallow soils.

This noteworthy datum was not the result of a cavalier field identification during the course of an afternoon’s serendipitous botanizing.  In fact, the challenging taxonomy of Lomatium had concerned botanists fumbling with this plant’s identity for nearly four years.

In 1989, Greg Lind, botanist with the Malheur, observed this curious umbel growing in two locations on the Prairie City Ranger District.  The plant was collected, pressed, and labelled, for the moment, as “Lomatium sp.” to be dealt with more seriously later. (Greg later explained that the winter provided ample time for such challenges).

In 1990, I joined the Prairie City District staff and was the beneficiary of Greg’s vast knowledge and guidance while learning the flora of the Blue Mountains.  Greg had an insatiable appetite to know all the plants he encountered in the field and Lomatium was no exception.  One day that summer the mysterious lomatium (Lomatium x) was again collected and that evening we both took a crack at identifying it.  I had little success after repeatedly going through the floras.  In Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, it would key fairly well to L. nevadense, but the description in the text did not match too close, nor did it bear much resemblance to what we had been calling
nevadense locally. Greg noted that if one could ignore the white color ofthe petals, the yellow‑flowered L. foeniculaceum was a decent fit.  Neither of us were comfortable with these identifications, though.  Despite numerous references, one stereomicroscope, and a hand‑honed micropoint tweezers, the identity of this plant still eluded us.  Perhaps better minds than ours could help.

The following winter, Greg sent specimens of Lomatium x to Oregon State University and Eastern Oregon State College.  Both replied that identification was difficult due to insufficiently mature fruits, an important character for distinguishing Lomatia.  However, the material was tentatively identified as L. nevadense, a morphologically variable species.  This we haughtily dismissed for reasons stated above.  Yet, we were no closer to the solution.

The 1991 field season was lost to me to pursue this question further as the fickle nature of Forest Service budgets had me working a nonetheless memorable summer for the Deschutes NF in Bend, Oregon.  But, the following autumn, I was back on board the Malheur and I had not forgotten this plant.

At this point, I should state that some of our frustration with this plant’s identity could be traced to the tools we employed to pry it from the ground. Our small “dandelion weeders,” which offered light weight, portability, and reasonable utility, proved less capable in the shallow, stony soil where Lomatium x is found.  Root material is generally favored when collecting
botanical specimens, and we had been gathering, as best we could, what seemed a representative portion of an apparently slender taproot with our mysterious umbel.

Enter Dr. Dale McNeal, Professor of Botany at the University of Pacific, Stockton, CA.  In May of 1992, Dr. McNeal was passing through eastern Oregon forests collecting wild onions (Allium sp.) to help resolve taxonomic confusion in the genus for the Forest Service.  I was fortunate to guide Dr. McNeal to collection sites on the Malheur.  I took him to one area that also happened to harbor the mysterious Lomatium x.  Dr. McNeal was not a timid plant collector; he carried with him oversize plastic bags that would accommodate a sizable volume of material, and to help fill these bags, a large (some 30 inches long) pick‑like implement, which he affectionately referred to as “The Terminator.”

Dr. McNeal presented quite a formidable image wielding The Terminator in one arm above his head as he poised his 6’‑4″ frame over the unwitting onions.

Opportunity is seldom a lengthy visitor.  “Would Dr. McNeal kindly liberate some specimens of that curious little umbel yonder?”  Obliging, Dr. McNeal set to work.  When the debris settled, I beheld an astonishing sight; deeper in the substrate below the “taproot,” Lomatium x was equipped with tubers!

Now, for those readers unaccustomed to navigating the fog‑shrouded seas of Lomatium taxonomy, the morphology of the underground portions is one character used to distinguish groups of species in dichotomous keys.  Some species have a slender taproot, as I thought to be the case in Lomatium x, while others have variously thickened, shapeless or globose, fleshy “tubers.”  I had been
following, erroneously, the “taprooted” leads in the keys.

Armed with this essential new datum, fresh material, and envigorated resolve, I dashed back to the arsenal of floras at home.  Following the “tuberous” leads in the key, then, led me to a small group of species, none of which, unfortunately, bore any resemblance whatsoever to the material at hand.  I was shipwrecked on the damn genus’ reef of seeming taxonomic futility.

“A salmon,

Green‑black, mottled white,

Hook‑jawed, and eyes pecked out,

Lay washed up onto a riverbank

Lapped by the waters of the wrong stream.”

Once my attitude was again sailing the clear blue waters of optimism, I reasoned that my plant [I was becoming quite possessive (obsessive?) by now] might not be included in Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, that perhaps it was a Basin and Range species that had sloshed up onto the slopes of the adjacent southern Blue Mountains.  The Intermountain Flora had not yet published the volume dealing with the Apiaceae, the plant family containing Lomatium, and I had no other references that dealt with southeast Oregon.  So on a recommendation, I mailed some material to Dr. Lincoln Constance at Berkeley.

Dr. Constance’s prompt, friendly reply was very encouraging, if not entirely conclusive.  He offered two possibilities: Lomatium ravenii or an undescribed relative in the L. foeniculaceum‑L. nevadense group.  A new species! Wow! What a development that would be.  When my pulse slowed I researched the former alternative.  L. ravenii was not recorded in Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, nor was it mentioned in Peck’s A Manual of the Higher Plants of Oregon, nor Abrams’s Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States.  Out of curiosity, I looked into the Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Plants and Animals of Oregon to see if it was a species of concern tracked by the Oregon Natural Heritage Program.  To my astonishment, it was listed as possibly extirpated from the state, having once occupied sites in Harney and Malheur counties.  To discover an “extirpated” species seemed nearly as thrilling.  But the final answer would have to wait.  Dr. Constance’s uncertainty was the result (again) of immature fruits.  It was September and I wouldn’t be able to collect properly‑fruited material until the following summer.  Imagine the winter‑long suspense.

With the utmost conviction, excellent material was gathered this past June and sent to Dr. Constance with the results announced at the outset of this article.  For several days, Dr. Constance thought he might be handling a new species before settling on Lomatium ravenii.  In the end, he could not distinguish my plant when compared to L. ravenii material from locations other than the type.  Of note, he found the tuberous habit of L. ravenii more interesting than what “just another Lomatium” find might have been.  Dr. Constance remarked that both the describers and Mark Schlessman, the monographer of the tuberous Lomatia, had overlooked this character of the plant’s subterranean nature.

What lesson, then, can be learned from this story?  Don’t let the curious and unknown slip through any cracks in your botanical integrity, even when confronted with chronic taxonomic setbacks; and, when concerning Lomatium, perhaps it is best to “speak softly and carry a big pick.”

Note from Sharon: any randomness in italicizing should be attributed to me, not the author; while hunting for a photo I ran across a more recent paper on the taxonomy here.

“I like a Ranger Station in white and green occasionally instead of all that tobacco-brown we go in for so much,” the forest supervisor of the fictitious Ponderosa National Forest commented to
the ranger of its fictitious Barlow Ranger District in George R. Stewart’s 1949 novel Fire.

When the dust cleared, I stood alone by U.S. Highway 395, squinting after the Greyhound bus rapidly disappearing to the southeast. A broad grassy valley, rimed by sagebrush-covered slopes
studded with pinyon and juniper, shimmered in the brilliant sunlight of a June afternoon. A light, fresh breeze carried the scents of grass, sagebrush, and pine. An occasional unfamiliar bird call broke the silence.

And, across the highway, a small brown sign promised I would find the Bridgeport Ranger Station just beyond a slight rise. I shouldered my sea bag and crossed the highway toward whatever that promise held. That turned out to be five summers in wildfire prevention and control that saw me through college and into the Navy.

About fifty yards along the dirt road, I topped the rise and saw it: a ranger station in white and green! Just like in Stewart’s novel! Gravel crunched beneath my boots as I strode toward a small building marked “office” flanked by an antenna.

Four decades later, during a kitchen table conversation with Bob Boyd, then Curator of Western History at the High Desert Museum south of Bend, Oregon, two ideas were hatched. The first, for a U.S. Forest Service centennial exhibit at the Museum, was realized when “A Century of Service: The U.S. Forest Service on the High Desert” opened in June 2005 for a two-year run.

The second idea took a little longer.

Bob mentioned the Museum’s evolving plan for outdoor interpretation of the relationships between life and natural resources in the Intermountain West, the Museum’s interpretive turf. This would include a small, old-time U.S. Forest Service ranger station. He was interested in “a little old Forest Service building out in the middle of Nevada that might be available” for this purpose.
“Is it on the Toiyabe National Forest?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is it south of Austin on the Reese River?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I know the building!” I exclaimed. It was the one-room 1933 Bridgeport Ranger Station office building in which I’d signed on for my first Forest Service job in June 1962. Later that year, it had been moved to the later-abandoned Reese River Ranger Station—another old ranger station in white and green—forty miles south of Austin where the district ranger needed an office. A new, modern, “tobacco brown” office building had replaced the white and green office building of my first Toiyabe summer.

Bob and I had a project! I reconnoitered the structure in September 2004 and found it sound and moveable. Bob and I visited the structure in March 2006 to further evaluate it and begin serious negotiations with the Forest Service for its acquisition. We began working with the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest (the two Nevada national forests had been consolidated) and the  Intermountain Region of the National Forest System to acquire the historic ranger station office structure to serve as the centerpiece of the planned exhibit.

Projects cost money. Most of that came from the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Association of retired Forest Service people as both an organization and as individuals who sponsored the effort.

By early 2008, with the assistance of officials in the Forest Service and other concerned agencies, approval for transfer of the structure to the High Desert Museum on a “long-term loan”
basis was secured. Bob and I spent four days in March 2008 making on-site preparations for moving it 550 miles north to the Museum. We returned with a couple others in June to complete
the process that culminated in the structure’s arrival at the Museum at 11:00 a.m. on June 26, 2008, and its initial restoration in white and green completed on August 2, 2008.

Restoration—internal as well as external—continued through spring 2009 to prepare it for a gala dedication on June 30. Beginning the next day, Bend area Forest Service retirees George Chesley, Dick Connelly, and Stan Kunzman joined me in staffing what is called the High Desert Ranger Station every day through Labor Day. The four of us welcomed hundreds of High Desert Museum visitors with whom we shared the story of forest rangers who worked out of stations such as this to manage the resources of the National Forest System for the benefit of the people of the United States.

This has continued with strong volunteer teams every summer since. “What were all those ranchers and farmers and miners and loggers whose stories the High Desert Museum tells so well doing as the Old West became the New West?” we ask visitors. “Building a civilization based on natural resources. Forest rangers working from ranger stations such as this helped to sustain the natural resources on which the West’s economy continues to evolve and thrive,” is the answer we’re fishing for and provide.

To this day, every time Bob and I see each other, we share “We did it!” grins.

From: Alan McGuire Dale:R6/PNW
Date: ## 02/28/97 10:31 ##

During the first day on the job during the summer of 1974, I encountered one of the most enduring icons of a field forester’s standard equipment, the Stanley Thermos.  Everyone had one.
Evidently some for many years.

Although the thermos was basically unchanged even to this day, a cultured eye could tell the relative age by the subtle changes in the design of the spout, those that still used corks, and of course, the accumulated battle damage.  I have seen serviceable thermos that have fallen off the trucks at highway speeds, those that have been run over by bulldozers, and some that survived intense forest fires.  To this day, I still have my original thermos.

Although the desk has caught up with me, the various dents and other assorted damage that bathe my Stanley, carry me back to those events that range from mundane to terrifying.  All of which is necessary to put the intense issues and controversies which surround daily, into a very healthy perspective!

It’s been forty years since Susan Marsh and I worked together for the Forest Service on the then-Fremont National Forest in Lakeview, Oregon.  We always joked about the Fremont combining with the Winema and become the Fre-inema. Fortunately, though the Forests did combine, they go by the more professional-sounding Fremont-Winema.  Susan spent much of her Forest Service career as a landscape architect, and is also an accomplished writer, with several published books including War Creek, the winner of the May Sarton award for contemporary fiction. Here’s her website for more information.

here is a link to the whole story.

Abandoned Trails by Susan Marsh

Near Spread Creek, on the northern edge of Jackson Hole, I happened onto an abandoned trail.  Ancient blazes marked the route, each closed into a pitchy fist.  Logs cleared long ago lay dark with moss.  Pale conches billowed from their sawn ends.  The trail was so overgrown I stayed on it only by squinting for blazes as I shouldered through buffaloberry and climbed over fallen trees.  Drawn to whatever is abandoned, I followed the trail to where it vanished, at a ridgetop logging road.

The blazes led into a land made wilder by neglect.  Though I enjoyed having it to myself, it felt like a place forgotten.  The trail seemed to welcome my feet as if it missed the company of travelers.  I wanted to assure the trail that it was not abandoned after all, to bring it offerings of appreciation.  “Hiking is praying with your feet,” a friend once told me.  On that old trail, I prayed.

I brought my memories as offerings.  Memories of respite from the square-cornered, stay-in-the-lines world.  Memories of winding forest trails, with their wildflowers and smell of sodden leaves on an autumn day.

As I walked, I wondered how many decades had passed since the blazes on that trail were freshly cut and hoofbeats drummed along its tread.  The first forest ranger in the Spread Creek country, Rudolph “Rosie” Rosencrans, arrived in Jackson Hole in 1904.  He surveyed and drafted the first maps of the Buffalo Valley, part of the original Yellowstone Forest Reserve.  The wide switchbacks and regular grade suggest the trail was once laid out with skill and care.  Had Rosie himself, an engineer by education, defined the tread I followed?

Rosie left a record of his daily work, glimpses of a ranger’s life a century ago.  His diaries are on display in the historic Blackrock Ranger Station at Moran.  I spent a day last winter looking through them, entranced by the stack of lined yellow pages that once passed through Rosie’s hands. On his frequent trips from Blackrock to Antelope Springs, Rosie must have used the long-abandoned trail in Spread Creek, a shortcut through the foothills.  In his diaries I searched for mention of the trail.

Rosie wrote with a fine-nibbed fountain pen in elegant formal script.  He wrote of boundary marking, fence-building, trail-clearing, and backcountry patrols.  He recorded each day without embellishment or emotion, regardless of what happened.

“April 14, 1908.  Started for the upper Yellowstone country, made camp at 3 p.m. on Two Ocean Pass.  Started again at 6 p.m. and arrived at Shoshone Cabin on Throughfare at 11 pm.”  Thirty miles that day, on skis.

“July 9, 1907.  Started in the afternoon for my district [from the Supervisor’s Office near Jackson].  Crossing Grovont found mail driver drowned, thus helped to hunt for him and also to save one of his horses.  Being wet, stopped with Ranger Lee for the night.”

The wild frontier of Rosie’s day has now been rendered safe.  Technology has left little chance of such a drowning; mail arrives by electron.  The rivers are contained by dams and dikes.  We have tamed those parts of the world we use, and have left the wilderness to reclaim abandoned trails.

In 1912, Rosie exchanged his fountain pen for a typewriter.  By 1919, he traveled mostly by automobile instead of on skis or horseback.  Over the years, his diaries recorded more days of filing reports, fewer dramatic rescues and marathon patrols.  Work, even for an early forest ranger, was on its way to becoming what it is today–time at the telephone and computer, attending meetings, keeping files.  Safe, civilized, indoor work.

I first worked for the Forest Service in the summer of 1974, drawn by the romance of a job outdoors.  My first season, I went into the office for about an hour a week.  There I posted my time and picked up equipment for my work in the woods.  Now, after many moves and so-called career advances, I attend meetings, talk on the telephone, and sit in front of a computer.  Now when I clear trails, I do so on my own time, as an unofficial volunteer.

here is a link to the rest of the story.
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If you are interested in Rosie Rosencrans, here is a video that talks about Rosie and his life and his work, with Ranger Thomas Matza.

This is another story from my 1990’s collection of Forest Service stories. It’s by Connie Mehmel, and I tried to track her down and get a photo, but was unable to locate her. It’s been another 20 years or so since she submitted this story, so time enough for another generation.

My name is Connie Mehmel. I’m a silviculturist on the Methow Valley Ranger District of the Okanogan National Forest, tucked in the rainshadow of the North Cascades, where I’m now in my 21st year with the Forest Service. Like most Forest Service folks I started my career as a seasonal employee.

In the 70’s I worked in the northeast hardwood forest, from whence my story comes. In the spring of 1977 my husband, Dale, and I arrived at the Northeast Forest Experiment Station in New Lisbon, New Jersey; a region known at the Pine Barrens, though we had nearly as much oak as pine. It was my second season (and Dale’s first season) on a project designed to study the effects of fly parasites on the gypsy moth. Although New Jersey is a densely populated state the New Lisbon station was surprisingly remote. My project employed six seasonal employees, and we would go for days without seeing another soul. The permanent employees were all stationed in Connecticut. When I had left the job in September of the previous year I was about six weeks pregnant, so when I reported to work in April the change in my shape was quite evident. My supervisor was not surprised, but wanted my assurance that I planned to work through the season. I told him not to worry, that I was committed to counting parasites until winter.

However, the parasites did not seem to be flourishing that summer. During those first four weeks we went many days without finding even one fly. May 9 was our first really good day. Although it was Saturday, we still went out to check our traps (an activity we found mildly entertaining), and actually found five flies. And that was not the end of the day’s excitement. That evening I started labor. The following morning, with a midwife in attendance, my son, Ian, was born in the bunkhouse. My husband cut the cord (a gesture I found highly symbolic), and our roommate Stan, the only other employee to be brought on that early, took pictures. We had met Stan just a month earlier, but he became an important part of our lives.

Monday morning I stuffed Ian into a snuggly pack and brought him over to the office. My supervisor exclaimed in surprise, “Well, you people had a productive weekend! Five parasites and a baby! Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” We did, but that was all the time off we allowed ourselves. Ian rode on my back constantly that summer as we monitored gypsy moth populations and surveyed the various parasites that lived on or in them. We found a metal sign to put on the door of his room that read “Forest Research Experimental Area. Please Do Not Disturb.” It seemed appropriate.

That was twenty years ago. Last year I had the thrilling experience of taking a fire crew to eastern Oregon with Ian as one of the crew members. While we were there, I met a young woman from New York who told me that she had a six year old daughter. She said this was the first time she had left her daughter for an extended time, and she was surprised how much she missed the little girl. I told her I knew exactly how she felt, since I’d been through it too. I also told her about my son being with me now. “On fires you sometimes see fathers and sons, and I once saw a father and daughter” I told her. “To my knowledge we are the first mother and son. Next I would like to see a mother and daughter.” She shook my hand warmly after we talked, and told me she was happy we’d had this chance to talk. Maybe she and her daughter will be the first, but I expect it will happen before her daughter is old enough to swing a pulaski.