A History of The United States Forest Service in Alaska

I am indebted to a large number of people for aid on this project—so many that a listing would resemble Homer's Catalogue of Ships. Five people deserve special mention in this connection. They are W. Howard Johnson, retired regional forester of the Alaska Region; D. Robert Hakala, retired head of Visitor Information Services, Alaska Region; John A. Sandor, current regional forester; Robert A. Frederick, former executive director of the Alaska Historical Commission; and Ronald J. Fahl of the Forest History Society.

Howard Johnson and I became acquainted during the 1940s when he was an assistant ranger on the Wind River Ranger District in Washington State and I was a lowly forest guard. Our trails crossed again in 1968 in Juneau when we discussed this project and got it implemented. He gave me strong support and also a long taped interview that is of great historical significance.

I had used Bob Hakala's historical work while doing historic site studies on Isle Royale National Park, before I met him in 1968. He got me the assignment of reporting the history of Forest Service work in the preservation of totem poles, as part of the Alaska State Museum's totem pole retrieval project. This study, not yet published, should be of great use to those interested in historic preservation.

John Sandor, on becoming regional forester in Alaska, pressed for updating and publication of this manuscript. I had become acquainted with him at the Washington Office of the Forest Service in 1969, while checking on Alaskan sources, and we discovered a mutual interest in history and pinochle. I later visited with him when he was deputy regional forester in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Robert Frederick and I have shared a common interest in natural resources history for many years. Our trails crossed in 1965 when I taught at an NDEA institute at the University of Alaska and again, later, when I was invited to Alaska on NEH projects. To him is largely due the fact that this work is carried to publication.

Ronald J. Fahl, editor of the Journal of Forest History, has done editorial work on the manuscript. He asked the necessary questions that saved the writer from egregious errors; he corrected typos and grammatical errors and did a great deal to make this manuscript readable.

Others who deserve mention include Ted C. Hinckley, professor of history at San Jose State University, who made his own researches on Governor John G. Brady available to me and allowed me to make his home my headquarters for a long spell of research; Morgan Sherwood, professor of history at the University of California, Davis, with whom I have had many profitable discussions; the late Martin Schmitt, who, as curator of Special Collections at the University of Oregon Library, steered me to many useful sources; Orlando Miller and Herman Slotnick from the faculty of the University of Alaska, with whom I have discussed much of this work; and Robert N. De Armond of Juneau, to whom most of those who work in Alaskan history are in debt.

My wife Mary has played the role of unpaid research assistant, trail partner, and typist during all of this project. We have shared the high adventure of work in natural resources conservation and history for nearly forty years now, from the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes cutovers, the John Steinbeck country of California, and the coastal forests and taiga of Alaska. The partnership has been a rewarding one.

L.R.