Deadfall - Generations of Logging in the Pacific NW - James Lemonds

Click image to not go to Amazon

Category: Documentary Acquired: Christmas 2008 Read: February 2009 Briefly: 100 years of dramatic changes in Washington's logging industry - as experienced by four generations of the author's family, just trying to adapt and make a living.

Comments: Logging and the Pacific Northwest have always gone together - it's part of our history, it employs our friends and neighbors. You can't drive more than half an hour without passing either a sawmill or a log truck. However, if you've lived here for more than 10 years, you also know that the industry has shrunken dramatically as an element of our culture and economy. (It used to be only five minutes between log trucks).

That makes the story worth digging into. There are plenty of books and articles around that tell it from the forest's point of view, so to speak, and I've read my share. But this book is different - it's the story of four generations of loggers, relating their experiences and struggles in very human terms, often via first-person quotes.

It begins at the turn of the last century, painting vivid pictures of the difficulties and dangers of 'brute force' logging (my term) - old growth tree harvesting based on raw human and animal strength, augmented with ropes, pulleys and maybe a steam donkey here and there. It follows this thread through a century of improvements in working conditions, power machinery and forest management practices.

But there were other forces at work - competitive pressures to cut costs, insatiable foreign markets for limited old-growth timber, and constant intervention by the federal government, usually well-intentioned but often accomplishing little, at tremendous human cost. And don't forget our little volcanic episode in 1980, which created an urgent need to harvest almost a billion board feet of blown-down timber, causing a huge but very short-lived industry boom.

Against all of these forces, the loggers just try to stay afloat. They move constantly between jobs at major timber companies (OK, the major timber company), or independent logging contractors, or self-employment. Automation reduces the number of jobs available, competition reduces wages and decades of logging reduce the harvest size. By the end of the book, most of the characters are earning less money than 10-20 years ago, and have no idea where they'll be working this time next year. Retirement is a distant dream, and they're pleading with their children to look for other careers.

Along with this poignant history, the book presents a lot of gritty, earthy, interesting detail about life in the woods. The jargon is all there (with a glossary), the logging techniques, the descriptions of camp life, and insights into the kinds of people willing to put up with all the danger and grief.

My thinking is that this is the ideal book to read if you're frustrated about your job and your chances for career advancement. After reading about these folks, you'll thank your lucky stars that you weren't raised in a logging family and logging town, and weren't weaned on expectations that a job in the woods was all you needed for a comfortable, secure life.