Man who saves larch gets axed

If the early history of Seeley Lake is intertwined with the lumber industry, the rise of the United States Forest Service is incontrovertibly intertwined with Seeley Lake and in particular with the Big Blackfoot Timber Sale of 1907-1910. Historian and member of the Camp Paxson Preservation Board Gary Williams has been researching that sale. The Seeley Swan Pathfinder will be bringing some of the interesting bits of information he has discovered about logging in the Seeley Lake area and also about the fledgling U.S. Forest Service.

SEELEY LAKE – By March 1909, the Forest Service and Big Blackfoot Milling Company apparently had settled their scaling controversy dispute. But evidently Ambrose Norton, the forester in charge of the on-site operations for the project, remained a source of irritation for General Manager Kenneth Ross.

The last log drive of the Seeley Lake timber sale's second season was over in early June 1909. An estimated 33,000,000 board feet had been cut, leaving 17,000 to be harvested the next season per the original contract. That season would start in early August and, according to the June 19 issue of the Missoulian, Norton was expected to return Aug. 10.

On Aug. 18 the Missoulian carried the news that Norton was recovering from an operation in a Seattle hospital. Expert Forester James W. Girard was supervising the work until Norton's return, which was expected to be Sept. 1.

Apparently Norton did return and resume his role as on-site lumberman forester because a memorandum from Silcox, who was now Acting District Forester read, "Mr. Ross feels very keenly that the Service has been severe in its treatment of the Big Blackfoot Milling Company by having retained Norton on the sale area after it was clearly shown that his scaling was too close and that he could not get along with the representative of the Company."

On Oct. 3, the Missoulian reported Norton had been reassigned.

The article said Norton was to head a crew working along the US-Canadian border. Their job was to estimate the amount of timber along the right-of-way of the proposed Blackfoot branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound railway. Forest Expert J.W. Girard was to replace Norton at the Seeley Lake site.

Piecing together some comments about Norton among the plethora of correspondence related to the 1907-1910 timber sale provides more insight into the reassignment.

In one of the earliest letters dealing with the scaling controversy, Inspector Paul Redington's 23-page report to his superior F. A. Silcox who at that time was Acting Chief Inspector, Redington described Norton in glowing terms: "That he is a careful and painstaking man, with the interests of the Service at heart, but also with the strongest kind of a desire to avoid anything that smacks of partiality, must also be admitted by those who have talked with him and seen his work. He is an economist in his theories, scales very closely, and believes in a strict construction of a contract."

Redington also noted Norton was "quiet and unofficious" and that he had avoided controversy with representatives of the company. Silcox undersigned the report, indicating his agreement.

Expert Lumberman E.S. Bruce relayed a different side of the story to The Forester in Washington D.C. In his report dated Nov. 30, 1908, he wrote, "Mr. Harrison who was in charge of the Company's scalers in the beginning of the operations in 1907 very plainly told Mr. Norton, the Forest Service official in charge, that he did not want him to talk to any of the men about the work..."

Bruce went on to document that Ross told the logging foreman to discard timber that appeared defective, including ones marked merchantable by Norton. The foreman not only did so but told his lumbermen to ignore anything Norton said and encouraged them "to belittle both his authority and ability."

According to Bruce, Norton made several attempts to discuss scaling issues with the foreman and with the head scaler, to no avail. Ultimately, Norton stopped trying to intervene when timber was discarded, knowing the contract, signed by both parties, gave him the right to make a final decision on cutting and removal of the timber. There were stiff fines associated with any breach of the contract. Bruce's interpretation was that Norton felt if the company would not cooperate the first season, perhaps the fines would compel them to be more cooperative the second.

Obviously, Ross preferred to try to get rid of Norton. Silcox's continuation of Ross' complaints read, "The scaling, he [Ross] says, has shown no improvement and they are still required to take material which is clearly unmerchantable. A check scale, he says, has been made and has clearly shown that the Company's scale considerably under runs that of the Forest Service."

As an example of the unmerchantable lumber, Silcox cited, "... six-inch spiral twisted lodgepole pine logs which would not saw out any merchantable timber and logs which had a rotten core."

C. H. Gregory performed the check scale Ross mentioned. Gregory corroborates that too many defective logs have been sent to the mill, though he blames both the Service's scalers and the carelessness of the company's lumbermen.

Gregory ends, "I might add that the work done on the forest by lumber man Norton is as good as I have ever seen in any forest, with the exception that, in my opinion, as stated above, he has been a little too zealous that nothing be wasted."

Nevertheless, in an undated note to the forester, District Forester William Greeley wrote, "I feel this Company has suffered serious loss through the over-zealousness of Lumberman Norton...[and his] impracticable and unreasonable methods in handling the sale in the woods."

Perhaps Bruce hit closest to the mark when he wrote, "...this point should be taken into consideration. This Company has been on this stream for years; the Superintendent and his subordinates have been autocrats of their logging operations, cutting what they pleased and leaving what they pleased, without let or hindrance; and it was inevitable that the first party attempting to regulate or bring such an outfit to do their work according to contract or under any system of forestry, would have plenty of trouble."