A History of The United States Forest Service in Alaska

Primary Sources: Written

This book was written largely from manuscript sources. The papers and other materials used included official and unofficial records of the Forest Service, National Park Service, and other governmental agencies; Alaska state records; personal papers; interviews (some transcribed); and photographic records.

Forest Service records (RG 95) at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., were rich in material relevant to Alaska and to the national scene. Of particular value were the Research Compilation File on Alaska; records of the Ballinger-Pinchot Affair, which cast new light on that controversy in its regional focus and geographical setting; inspection correspondence; material on Civilian Conservation Corps activity; and boundary records. National Park Service records (RG 79) were of particular value for the Admiralty Island and Glacier Bay controversies and on Sitka National Monument (now Sitka National Historical Park). The Federal Records Center in Seattle also provided a wealth of material. Of special interest were inspection reports, legal records, boat logs, records of cooperation with the Alaska Game Commission, and records relating to logging and milling operations.

One type of source that deserves special mention, both in the National Archives and in the Federal Records Center, is ranger diaries. These have probably been undervalued in the past as sources for historical work. However, as interests shift from political and administrative history to ecological concern, Native American claims, and historic preservation, these diaries are sources of information that cannot be found elsewhere. There is need for a national program of screening ranger diaries, evaluating and preserving the worthy and discarding the worthless, and compiling bibliographies. The Forest History Society or the Forest Service's History Office could well take the lead in promoting such work.

Forest Service records in Alaska have had a mixed and checkered history. Some sources have been lost. The Navy took over the marine station used by the Forest Service in Ketchikan during World War II, dumping a great deal of material. The log of the Forest Service vessel, the Tahn, was saved. More recently, a ranger at Sitka hauled the historical material in his office to the dump to make room for his files, despite objections from the local historical society. The loss was particularly grievous because the records allegedly contained land-use information on Baranof and Chichagof islands, areas of present land-use controversy.

Two other factors should be noted that called forth the ability of the historian as detective. One was that the search period 1969-1972 coincided with two unusual activities in Alaska—the legal case of Sierra Club v. Hardin, and the cooperative work of the Forest Service with the Alaska State Museum to recover and rehabilitate totem poles. The consequence was that many files ordinarily housed in the Federal Records Center in Seattle had been shipped to Alaska. It took a great deal of search to locate the various documents and to borrow, copy, and return them to the Forest Service officer or lawyer who had them.

Second was the fact that numerous files and miscellaneous papers had not been shipped to Seattle but remained in Alaska—squirreled away in various filing cabinets, cupboards, nooks, and crannies. These unexpected windfalls added much to the excitement of the search. Will Langille's letterbooks, for example, were preserved in Juneau, though badly deteriorated. A secretary has transcribed the legible portions. His timber sales record book for 1905 also has survived. In the Chatham Warehouse, a wooden building apart from the main office, a room is filled with old file cabinets loaded with such materials as Langille's reports on reconnaissances in the Kenai, boat logs, blueprints from engineering projects, maps of mining claims, fox island records, records on Indian possessory rights, CCC materials, and timber sale records. Files in the regional office at Juneau included valuable papers on the totem pole project and archeological explorations, the Alaska Spruce Log Program (with a magnificent set of pictures), a taped interview with B. Frank Heintzleman, and more timber sale records. Henry Graves's photographic album of his Alaska trip is located in the library, as is Raymond F. Taylor's manuscript history of the region.

The Ketchikan office had some particularly valuable material on lands, as well as much information on totem poles. The Anchorage office had a number of ranger diaries and a guide to them prepared by a seasonal employee. It also had good material on boundary revisions (1913-1924) and on oil placer claims in the Katalla area. The Cordova ranger station had a very good album of clippings. The office of the Kenai Moose Range had some material of limited value.

A critical bibliography on totem poles and related antiquities is to be found in my manuscript, "A History of the Forest Service Role in Totem Pole Restoration and Preservation" (1972), copies of which are available at the Alaska State Library, the regional office of the Forest Service in Juneau, and the Forest History Society in Santa Cruz, California.

The Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, holds an abundance of material in the papers of Henry S. Graves and B. Frank Heintzleman. At Grey Towers in Milford, Pennsylvania, I examined the Gifford Pinchot diaries on microfilm. I utilized the resources of the Forest History Society at Santa Cruz; its Forest Service clipping files were particularly valuable to my research. The Special Collections at the University of Oregon Library in Eugene include the papers of Fred Ames, Melvin Merritt, Asher Ireland, and Will Langille. The papers of John E. Ballaine were utilized at the Manuscripts Section of the University of Washington Library in Seattle, as were the papers of Anthony Dimond at the University of Alaska. The Alaska State Museum in Juneau made its records on the totem pole project available to me. In Ketchikan the Tongass Historical Society provided lumber company records and some miscellaneous material on old-timers. Angela Burke of St. Petersburg, Florida, provided me with her personal record of the Alaska Spruce Log Program.

Primary Sources: Interviews

A considerable part of this book is based on interviews with people who were too busy making history to write it. Some were taped, some not. Taped interviews are designated with an asterisk (*) and those of particular value with two (**).

Two of Will Langille's daughters, Mrs. Webb Trimble of Seattle and Mrs. Ivan Langley of Portland, gave me material on family history and on Langille's own life that I could not have obtained elsewhere. Among the old-timers, Harold Lutz, Hugh Brady, Lyle Blodgett, George Drake*, Roy Barto*, and John Smith shared their experiences with me. For the middle period of Forest Service history, Raymond F. Taylor**, Linn Forrest**, Claribel Rakestraw, C. M. Archbold, Pearl Peterson, and W. A. Chipperfield** were interviewed. To these should be added Viola Garfield*, who assisted Forrest on the totem pole project. For the later period, P D. Hanson*, W. H. Johnson**, John Sandor, John Emerson, Barney Coster, Sig Olson, Lee Kester, D. Robert Hakala, and a host of others were interviewed. Conversations with these people saved me from making a host of mistakes and provided me with much good material.

Primary Sources: Photographs

Official Forest Service photographs are located in the Audio-Visual Section of the National Archives. They are indexed and machine retrievable. There are also scattered photographs in the various files of the Forest Service's Washington Office. Both the Ames and Langille collections at the University of Oregon contain good photographs. The Forest Service offices at Ketchikan and Juneau have excellent collections. I located some fine photos of logging practices in the interior at the University of Alaska. The Alaska State Library has a miscellaneous collection, including 125 taken by Langille. The Tongass Historical Society holds several collections of photos showing Ketchikan as it was in the old days.

There are also a great number of private collections. Lyle Blodgett, for example, showed me a magnificent collection of boat pictures. Angie Burke made available her pictures of the Alaska Spruce Log Program, and Linn Forrest, Viola Garfield, and Jane Wallen provided a host of photographs dealing with totem poles. Some private collections, as well as prints from those of public agencies, have found their way to the Forest History Society, where I was able to view them and make some selections.

Field Investigation

Natural resource history requires investigation in the field as well as in archives. I was able to get a firsthand idea of forest conditions, logging practices, and fire ecology of interior Alaska by driving through the country. We traveled in a 1967 three-quarter-ton pickup with a camper body. It had ample space for beds, cooking facilities, archival storage, and a typewriter; it was our home much of the time for three years. We traveled over the Alaska Highway to Fairbanks in 1968 and over portions of the highway on later trips. We also drove through the Kenai Moose Range and over substantial areas in the interior at various times from 1969 to 1972. Once we traveled by train from Fairbanks to Anchorage.

We also covered coastal Alaska by ferry six times between 1969 and 1972. By checking old timber sale records (dating back to 1906) with the modern appearance of sale sites from the ferry, I was able to make judgments on regeneration. We flew over much of the southeastern area by commercial and charter plane, and we went by Forest Service boat up to the Tracy Arm area. In the Cordova area, Ranger Wally Watts took us on a "show me" trip up the route of the railroad. Field investigation of this sort added dimension to conventional archival research.