What People Say

So I'm sitting there in the Makah Marina at Neah Bay (see previous post), eating snacks and waiting for the talk to begin; and we're sharing stories about the rainy drive, about how many log trucks we had seen heading east along the lake as we were driving west— mid-afternoon they are just swarming, barreling enormously past in the other lane of the narrow road. A woman who had come 'over the hill' from Forks said, "Yes, the Park is adding big chunks of land, so they are cutting everything they can before that happens."

Map Showing Proposed Park Additions (only the red-dotted bits, you'll have to look closely at the full PDF image), as of July, 2010 (Click for larger image.)

Sigh. Reality rarely figures in what people believe. They are cutting everything they can all over the Pacific northwest, from BC down through Oregon and into California, yes it sure looks like it. Not for any local reasons, but because there is a market for logs in China, something I have been reading a lot about as I try to understand the log ships loading down in the harbor. And if the proposed expansions (proposed by the Wild Olympics Campaign, not by the Park, and lord knows not 'big chunks', nor certain to happen) are to be from willing sellers, those sellers won't be shaving off the trees first, for spite...

I will have to ask someone who knows about the present state of the proposed Park expansion.