Drawing Lines in the Forest: Creating Wilderness Areas in the Pacific Northwest

Acknowledgments

A lthough I have spent countless hours alone on this project, I have never been lonely in the process; my thoughts often wandered to the many people who have shaped my understanding of the Cascades, wilderness, and the study of history. Many of the questions pursued here arose during countless trips into the backcountry of the Cascades, often alone but most enjoyably with friends and family. I have climbed every step of the way with them in my thoughts. Much of my personal experience with wilderness and the Cascades comes from my ten years working as a wilderness ranger for the Skykomish Ranger District. Although I reserve my strongest criticism in the following pages for the U.S. Forest Service, I am deeply grateful to the extraordinary individuals, particularly John Robinson and Katijo Willig, within the agency with whom I had the pleasure to work and who gave me the opportunity to know enough to write this book. I thank my academic mentors for their great patience, guidance, and support. John E. Kicza, David Coon, and Laurie Mercier were very helpful, and I admire each of them as scholars and teachers. Paul Hirt has helped me through this project for many years, and his influence on my work is extensive. His input has made the final product far better than it otherwise could have been. He has taught me much about xiii acknowledgments the process of writing history, and I am grateful to have him as a friend and mentor. The greatest joy of my time as a graduate student at Washington State University was the lasting friendships that came from sharing several years of difficult work with other students. Many of my fellow WSU graduate students have seen various early stages of this book emerge over the years, and I want to especially thank Jeff Crane and the environmental history writing group that he initiated for their comments. Jeff, Andrew Duffin, Michael Egan, Sara Ewert, Greg Hall, Brenda Jackson , Mee-Ae Kim, Liza Rognas, and Steve Shay are all great friends and fine scholars. I’m glad to have played on their team. I received research assistance from many archivists, but none more so than Cheryl Oakes at the Forest History Society. I am also grateful for the financial support of the Bell Fellowship, which sponsored my research there, and the Boeing Fellowship for Environmental Studies at WSU. Thanks also to Lauren Giebler for her careful archival research and to the Undergraduate Research Initiative at Boise State University, which funded her work. The field of wilderness history continues to be rich with fine scholars . I owe many debts to those whose work I have tried to build on, but I am particularly grateful to the close readings that Paul Sutter and Michael McCloskey both offered on earlier drafts. I hope I have effectively absorbed enough of their fine advice. Among the scholars I most admire is William Cronon, and I am deeply honored and grateful to him for generously including my work in the Weyerhaeuser book series that he edits. I am thrilled that the University of Washington Press decided to publish this work, and I thank Julidta Tarver, Beth Fuget, and Mary Ribesky for their support. Pam Bruton improved the book with her copyediting. Among the pleasures of this project was the opportunity to conduct oral-history interviews with various influential individuals who appear in the following chapters. I thoroughly enjoyed the many hours of discussions—both formal and informal—with Polly Dyer, Brock Evans, Andy Kerr, Michael McCloskey, and Doug Scott. I greatly admire them for their knowledge and for the passion that they bring to issues of wilderness preservation. I thank them for taking time to meet with xiv Acknowledgments oject MUSE (2024-04-24 17:52 GMT) an unknown scholar, but far more so I am deeply grateful to them for their many years of service. It is my great pride to have completed this book as a faculty member of the History Department at Idaho State University. It is a wonderful place to work. I both respect and enjoy my colleagues. They have all given me great opportunities, and I hope this book reflects positively on our institution. My family is a wonderful influence and inspiration in everything I do, and this book is no exception. It is certainly a product of so much they have taught me. Aunt Dot took me to the Cascades at a young...