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“The Mountains which we passed to day much worst than yesterday
the last excessively bad & thickly Strowed with falling timber
& Pine Spruce fur Hackmatak & Tamerack.” -- William
Clark
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Struggling through the thick forests near Lolo Pass, Lewis
and Clark didn't always appreciate the majestic trees that
dripped snow and blocked their path. But Lewis still noted
the arbor vitae, or western red cedar, and imagined turning
them into long and elegant boats. Private Joseph Whitehouse
also saw them along the Lochsa River and wrote of "Some
tall Strait [cypress] or white ceedar." As the explorers
descended down the Columbia toward the ocean, the cedars grew
larger and more prominent.
By the time they reached Fort Clatsop at the Pacific,
the captains came to see the fragrant tree as the centerpiece
of a complex culture. The Chinook Indians incorporated
it into almost every aspect of their lives, from wooden
bowls to bedding and clothing made of bark. Other tribes
carved totem poles and canoes from the massive trunks.
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Though logging cut huge swaths through old growth, pockets of ancient western
red cedar still exist throughout the Northwest, towering over a
lush understory of ferns, devil's club, salal, and huckleberry.
These few remaining giant groves are at risk of being cut or burned.
Logging companies that continue to harvest giant red cedars are
comparable to the last of the renegade buffalo hunters of the Great
Plains.
The Forest Service is planning several timber sales in Idaho's Clearwater National
Forest, including an area with 1,000 acres of old growth. Other
sales, along the North Lochsa slope, are within sight of the route
Lewis and Clark traveled and include the last roadless piece of
the explorers' trail in Idaho. Another home to ancient cedars, the
Dark Divide roadless area in the Washington's Gifford Pinchot National
Forest, needs permanent protection as wilderness.
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