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The Dirty Hands People - Twenty-one-year-old Dennis Walter pauses beside a skidder he was operating for a logging company in Maine in the summer of 1998. Mr. Walter said he hoped to make logging his life's work. But the Northeast's pulp and paper industry now faces the worst market conditions in anyone's memory. Hundreds of loggers have lost their jobs or parked their equipment in hopes of better days.
Twenty-one-year-old Dennis Walter pauses beside a skidder he was operating for a logging company in Maine in the summer of 1998. Mr. Walter said he hoped to make logging his life's work. But the Northeast's pulp and paper industry now faces the worst market conditions in anyone's memory. Hundreds of loggers have lost their jobs or parked their equipment in hopes of better days.

The Dirty Hands People - Montana logger, Ron Meeks, is a graduate of the Montana Logging Association's Accredited Logging Professional [ALP] training program. ALP loggers are well schooled in the regulatory aspects of logging in a mountainous state that many consider to be the most beautiful of the lower 48 states. Logging in Montana is difficult under the best of circumstances because the terrain is so steep.
Montana logger, Ron Meeks, is a graduate of the Montana Logging Association's Accredited Logging Professional [ALP] training program. ALP loggers are well schooled in the regulatory aspects of logging in a mountainous state that many consider to be the most beautiful of the lower 48 states. Logging in Montana is difficult under the best of circumstances because the terrain is so steep.
The Dirty Hands People - This Timberjack bundler is collecting and baling very small trees on a Forest Service biomass thinning project near Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Timberjack, now owned by John Deere, pioneered this technology in Sweden, where biomass-fired powerplants are very common. Yet despite their impressive capabilities, these machines have had trouble breaking in to the U.S. market, in large part because they are very expensive [about $600,000] but also because most of the work they should be doing is on federal lands where very little harvesting of any kind is done today. Loggers have rightly refused to buy in these machines because the federal government cannot assure them of sufficient work to make the costly investment advisable.
This Timberjack bundler is collecting and baling very small trees on a Forest Service biomass thinning project near Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Timberjack, now owned by John Deere, pioneered this technology in Sweden, where biomass-fired powerplants are very common. Yet despite their impressive capabilities, these machines have had trouble breaking in to the U.S. market, in large part because they are very expensive [about $600,000] but also because most of the work they should be doing is on federal lands where very little harvesting of any kind is done today. Loggers have rightly refused to buy in these machines because the federal government cannot assure them of sufficient work to make the costly investment advisable.

The Dirty Hands People - If you've spent as much time in the woods as we have, it's easy to convince yourself you've seen just about every logger-inspired innovation there is, but this Minnesota logger surprised us with a rubber-tired circle saw he'd built for sawing pulpwood logs to the right length for his truck. It may not look like much, but it works very well in the flatter farm country where this young man was working when we took his picture in the summer of 1999.
If you've spent as much time in the woods as we have, it's easy to convince yourself you've seen just about every logger-inspired innovation there is, but this Minnesota logger surprised us with a rubber-tired circle saw he'd built for sawing pulpwood logs to the right length for his truck. It may not look like much, but it works very well in the flatter farm country where this young man was working when we took his picture in the summer of 1999.
The Dirty Hands People - There aren't any more dangerous jobs in the woods than this one: hooking logs beneath helicopters. Here a logger scrambles to get away from cables he's hooked to logs that are about to be lifted by a helicopter working on a fire salvage job on northern Arizona timberlands owned by the White Mountain Apache tribe. The harvest occurred following the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire, which destroyed almost half of the tribe's highly prized forest.
There aren't any more dangerous jobs in the woods than this one: hooking logs beneath helicopters. Here a logger scrambles to get away from cables he's hooked to logs that are about to be lifted by a helicopter working on a fire salvage job on northern Arizona timberlands owned by the White Mountain Apache tribe. The harvest occurred following the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire, which destroyed almost half of the tribe's highly prized forest.

The Dirty Hands People - This empty Timberjack forwarder is working on a Tree Farm north of Roseburg, Oregon. Forwarders move through harvested stands picking up trees which they then deck at centralized locations for later reloading on logging trucks that haul the trees to nearby sawmills. Note the almost complete lack of soil disturbance. Despite its size and weight, this machine has a lighter footprint - measured in pounds per square inch - than that of a walking man.
This empty Timberjack forwarder is working on a Tree Farm north of Roseburg, Oregon. Forwarders move through harvested stands picking up trees which they then deck at centralized locations for later reloading on logging trucks that haul the trees to nearby sawmills. Note the almost complete lack of soil disturbance. Despite its size and weight, this machine has a lighter footprint - measured in pounds per square inch - than that of a walking man.
The Dirty Hands People - A logger ties down a bundle of choker cables moments before they were picked up by a Columbia Helicopter working on the White Mountain Apache Reservation following the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire. These cables are used to lift bundles of logs which the helicopters then fly to log landings where they are loaded on trucks - in this case for delivery to Union Pacific Railroad sidings in Globe and Snowflake.
A logger ties down a bundle of choker cables moments before they were picked up by a Columbia Helicopter working on the White Mountain Apache Reservation following the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire. These cables are used to lift bundles of logs which the helicopters then fly to log landings where they are loaded on trucks - in this case for delivery to Union Pacific Railroad sidings in Globe and Snowflake.

The Dirty Hands People - This Timberjack bundler is working on private forestland near Missoula, Montana. The bundles it assembles from trees and brush are headed for a nearby pulp mill that will burn them in their power plant. The slight orange tinge in this photograph is the result of sunlight filtering through a smoke-filled sky. The smoke was coming from one of western Montana's all too common forest fires - fires that will continue to burn with increasing ferocity until the Congress musters the political will to fund thinning and standing projects on physical scales large enough reverse the ecological collapse that has enveloped the region's overstocked and dying national forests.
This Timberjack bundler is working on private forestland near Missoula, Montana. The bundles it assembles from trees and brush are headed for a nearby pulp mill that will burn them in their power plant. The slight orange tinge in this photograph is the result of sunlight filtering through a smoke-filled sky. The smoke was coming from one of western Montana's all too common forest fires - fires that will continue to burn with increasing ferocity until the Congress musters the political will to fund thinning and standing projects on physical scales large enough reverse the ecological collapse that has enveloped the region's overstocked and dying national forests.
The Dirty Hands People - Good natured Paul Uken is a safety coordinator with the Montana Logging Association. Safety training is a top priority for every logging association in North America. One small lapse in judgment or loss of concentration can cause accidental injury or death. A number of years ago Montana loggers started the state's first helicopter rescue service because they wanted to be able to airlift injured workers from remote locations that were by road hours away from local hospitals
Good natured Paul Uken is a safety coordinator with the Montana Logging Association. Safety training is a top priority for every logging association in North America. One small lapse in judgment or loss of concentration can cause accidental injury or death. A number of years ago Montana loggers started the state's first helicopter rescue service because they wanted to be able to airlift injured workers from remote locations that were by road hours away from local hospitals

"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."
P.O. Box 1290, Bigfork, MT. 59911 • Tel: (406) 837-0966 • Fax: (406) 258-0815 • Email: