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Olympic Battleground: Creating And Defending Olympic National Park,2nd Edition
A shocking revelation . . . . No one vitally interested in the past, present, or future of the national parks can afford to ignore this work of historical dynamite.
*This is the first comprehensive history of Olympic National Park
*A case study of the need for citizen action to protect our natural areas As a seasonal ranger in Olympic National
Park early in his career, Carsten Lien discovered the shocking truth. Flouting the law, and contrary to public expectation, the National Park Service was logging the very land it was supposed to preserve. Lien vowed to uncover the story behind the destruction. In Olympic Battleground, Lien documents more than one hundred years of political chicanery, citizen activism, bureaucratic failure, and the loss of primeval forest. This classic in historical investigation is now updated with a new chapter on the most recent preservation challenges confronting the park.
*This is the first comprehensive history of Olympic National Park
*A case study of the need for citizen action to protect our natural areas As a seasonal ranger in Olympic National
Park early in his career, Carsten Lien discovered the shocking truth. Flouting the law, and contrary to public expectation, the National Park Service was logging the very land it was supposed to preserve. Lien vowed to uncover the story behind the destruction. In Olympic Battleground, Lien documents more than one hundred years of political chicanery, citizen activism, bureaucratic failure, and the loss of primeval forest. This classic in historical investigation is now updated with a new chapter on the most recent preservation challenges confronting the park.
464 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2000
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November 4, 2022
Olympic National Park is my backyard. It’s what I see from my living room and anywhere you go in Port Angeles. This book has been recommended to me since I moved here in 2008 and I finally read it.
Why was the Park being logged in the 1950s? Why did the Park Service protest the creation of Olympic National Park? These questions led Carson Lien to write this book, primarily the first question. Then he quickly learned about the second surprising story. In the authors words, what the story is about: “Here then is the hundred-year-long story of efforts to preserve trees on the Olympic Peninsula and the National conflict that was generated as powerful forces moved to prevent that from occurring”(p.x, Preface).
No tree was safe. “There are trees in heaven that are safe from politicians and fire, but there are none here”(John Muir, p 28).
Protecting elk is what was the precursor for creation of what is now Olympic National Park.
It took decades, but a Park bill finally passed. The Park Service repeatedly sabotaged their own Olympic National Park bill, caving to local timber interests and wanting to avoid conflict.
“It had been nearly fifty years since the first Olympic National Park proposals had been made in 1890, and thirty-four years since the first park bill appeared in 1904. In that period, the timber industry had put everything it had into the park battle and had lost massively. But it almost won by default in the end. The following year, war broke out in Europe and Congress became obsessed with defense. It is entirely likely that the moment the Olympic National Park bill passed was truly its final opportunity, the last moments of the last war-free Congress”(p198-199).
“The timber industry had always controlled the Pacific Northwest. It made certain that the right state legislators got elected, that the congressional delegations voted what the industry wanted and that administrative agencies like the Forest Service were allies. Before the Park battle began, there was public discontent over the miles of burned and unrestored stump land that the timber industry had left as the forest heritage of the Pacific Northwest…”(p209). “ After the Olympic National Park battle, the industry would never again have the public on its side”(p210).
It was the Emergency Conservation Committee - Willard Van Name, Rosalie Edge and Irving Brant - that roused the public interest and is the reason why legislation finally passed. Irving Clark of the Mountaineers joined the ECC and was their Pacific NW presence who knew all the legislators. If not for the ECC, timber industry interests would have prevailed.
Logging was between 1941 and the end of 1958, and in that time about 100 million board feet was sent from the Park to the mills of the Olympic Peninsula. Probably much more was sent. All under the guise of the insect proviso or that a tree might fall and be a danger tree.
And just because it’s a national park doesn’t mean that the forest won’t be logged in the future. Oh no. “The existence of Olympic National Park today represents only the temporary triumphs of the preservationists over the economic-utilization value system that generally drives the actions of government in the private sector and our society. Even when all the dedicated, oft-times outstanding employees in the Park Service are taken into account, the organization in which they work is so fundamentally flawed the individual commitments to the preservation task at hand is not organizationally supported. Because the presence of Olympic’s magnificent old growth forests is a temporary phenomenon (they are always available for cutting at the whim of Congress) and probably always will be, the kind of Park Service which administers them will always be of desperate concern to those who harbor preservationist values and are ready to fight for them”(p368-370).
“Can the national park system itself survive as the United States moves from being a resource-surplus society to being a resource-scare society?”(p370). In the final sentence of the book, Lien encourages “readers should schedule a trip to Olympic National Park’s rainforest wilderness while it’s still exists”(p380).
There’s a lot more to the story, but that’s a little taste.
I am giving this book 5 stars for what it is. Carson Lien meticulously researched the little known story of the many decades of battling the Park Service, the Forest Service and timber industries to enable creation of Olympic National Park, and not just the rock and stone but the forests of the Olympic Peninsula too, and to truly protect the trees too.
This story opened my eyes about the truth of the Park Service and Forest Service, neither of which truly, on an organizational level, is focused on preservation. Surprised?
It was not an easy read. For one, it made me really angry. It’s also chock full of facts on every page that make it a slow read, and at times I just wanted Carson Lien to summarize parts of the battle to conserve Olympic National Park and not cater to the timber industry. But they are things I should know. It was a worthy slog. A 5 star slog. :)
Why was the Park being logged in the 1950s? Why did the Park Service protest the creation of Olympic National Park? These questions led Carson Lien to write this book, primarily the first question. Then he quickly learned about the second surprising story. In the authors words, what the story is about: “Here then is the hundred-year-long story of efforts to preserve trees on the Olympic Peninsula and the National conflict that was generated as powerful forces moved to prevent that from occurring”(p.x, Preface).
No tree was safe. “There are trees in heaven that are safe from politicians and fire, but there are none here”(John Muir, p 28).
Protecting elk is what was the precursor for creation of what is now Olympic National Park.
It took decades, but a Park bill finally passed. The Park Service repeatedly sabotaged their own Olympic National Park bill, caving to local timber interests and wanting to avoid conflict.
“It had been nearly fifty years since the first Olympic National Park proposals had been made in 1890, and thirty-four years since the first park bill appeared in 1904. In that period, the timber industry had put everything it had into the park battle and had lost massively. But it almost won by default in the end. The following year, war broke out in Europe and Congress became obsessed with defense. It is entirely likely that the moment the Olympic National Park bill passed was truly its final opportunity, the last moments of the last war-free Congress”(p198-199).
“The timber industry had always controlled the Pacific Northwest. It made certain that the right state legislators got elected, that the congressional delegations voted what the industry wanted and that administrative agencies like the Forest Service were allies. Before the Park battle began, there was public discontent over the miles of burned and unrestored stump land that the timber industry had left as the forest heritage of the Pacific Northwest…”(p209). “ After the Olympic National Park battle, the industry would never again have the public on its side”(p210).
It was the Emergency Conservation Committee - Willard Van Name, Rosalie Edge and Irving Brant - that roused the public interest and is the reason why legislation finally passed. Irving Clark of the Mountaineers joined the ECC and was their Pacific NW presence who knew all the legislators. If not for the ECC, timber industry interests would have prevailed.
Logging was between 1941 and the end of 1958, and in that time about 100 million board feet was sent from the Park to the mills of the Olympic Peninsula. Probably much more was sent. All under the guise of the insect proviso or that a tree might fall and be a danger tree.
And just because it’s a national park doesn’t mean that the forest won’t be logged in the future. Oh no. “The existence of Olympic National Park today represents only the temporary triumphs of the preservationists over the economic-utilization value system that generally drives the actions of government in the private sector and our society. Even when all the dedicated, oft-times outstanding employees in the Park Service are taken into account, the organization in which they work is so fundamentally flawed the individual commitments to the preservation task at hand is not organizationally supported. Because the presence of Olympic’s magnificent old growth forests is a temporary phenomenon (they are always available for cutting at the whim of Congress) and probably always will be, the kind of Park Service which administers them will always be of desperate concern to those who harbor preservationist values and are ready to fight for them”(p368-370).
“Can the national park system itself survive as the United States moves from being a resource-surplus society to being a resource-scare society?”(p370). In the final sentence of the book, Lien encourages “readers should schedule a trip to Olympic National Park’s rainforest wilderness while it’s still exists”(p380).
There’s a lot more to the story, but that’s a little taste.
I am giving this book 5 stars for what it is. Carson Lien meticulously researched the little known story of the many decades of battling the Park Service, the Forest Service and timber industries to enable creation of Olympic National Park, and not just the rock and stone but the forests of the Olympic Peninsula too, and to truly protect the trees too.
This story opened my eyes about the truth of the Park Service and Forest Service, neither of which truly, on an organizational level, is focused on preservation. Surprised?
It was not an easy read. For one, it made me really angry. It’s also chock full of facts on every page that make it a slow read, and at times I just wanted Carson Lien to summarize parts of the battle to conserve Olympic National Park and not cater to the timber industry. But they are things I should know. It was a worthy slog. A 5 star slog. :)
September 19, 2021
A MUST READ for environmental types who are not familiar with the tenuous past of Olympic National Park, and continuing threats to it from the US Forest Service and possibly from within the National Park Service.
A MUST READ for environmental types who aren't familiar with the largely dirty history of the NPS, and not just in association with Olympic.
This is a fascinating, hugely informative and often HIGHLY infuriating look at the effort to create Olympic National Park, to make sure it was run by the Park Service and NOT the USFS, and then the battle to force the Park Service to act like the people then thought the Park Service would act.
As for the realities of the National Park Service? Having read one book about its history long ago, I had already known that Ken Burns presented a sanitized, even highly sanitized, history in his PBS miniseries. (What’s new? That’s de rigueur for him.)
But, I didn’t realize it was THIS bad. Stephen Mather and Horace Albright not only were development-first people, including hotels, roads, etc. inside parks, and shoot the omnivore and carnivore wildlife if they’re not made to do entertainment, but that they both internalized the Forest Service’s philosophy of “cut the damn trees,” including not wanting old-growth forests in national parks as not being worthy enough. This mentality infused the service for decades.
In addition, many of their underlings didn’t think USFS-run Olympic National Monument was worth of national park status. Others thought it would “compete” with Rainier.
Indeed, NPS FOUGHT AGAINST a “large park” when FDR was committed to making Olympic a national park, making it a large one, and taking it out of the hands of the Forest Service. It finally lost due to a public pressure campaign that was arguably even better than the one Dave Brower organized against BuRec to stop the Echo Park dam in the 1950s.
Meanwhile, hacks continued to run the NPS. Cammerer and Drury were both hacks. So was Connie Wirth.
AND, using a misinterpretation of the 1916 Organic Act, they let Olympic’s superintendent during the 1940s-1950s, Fred Overly, allow logging, and extensive logging, inside the park. At the same time, NPS leaders as well as the majority of folks at Olympic continued to entertain ideas of getting rid of one southeastern corner of the park, then building a road connecting Quinalt and Dosewallips rivers.
Yes, you read that right.
Other hacks, or worse?
The “Senator from Boeing,” Scoop Jackson, while still on the House side, never met a tree he didn’t think needed cutting, or a lying lumber company he didn’t think needed more trees to cut. He comes off as a serial liar on anything related to Olympic National Park when not being a hack. (Disgustingly, Wikipedia touts him as an environmentalist.)
It didn’t stop there. In the 1960s, Scoop Jackson, via his flunky Fred Overly, made another run at the west side trees. (Overly had been “exiled” to Great Smokies after the 1950s incident, but eventually got on top-level staff of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, an agency within Interior created in 1962 for rec planning for all Interior agencies. Why Jackson later was a co-author of NEPA, I have no idea. Guilt?
Sadly, the assaults continued even after the coastal strip was added. Overly, and others, tried to get a road built through it. Later, the offshore lands and tidewater were turned over to Fish and Wildlife, with its less restrictive regulations, and with a past and present history of hackery almost as bad as USFS and BLM.
After that? The Park Service opposed original wilderness preservation for most the park. It wanted 20-acre carveouts for hostels and food on a regular basis.
Also a hack, and for something besides Japanese internment? When Newton Drury was fired as NPS director, word leaked that Earl Warren was looking at hiring him to run California parks. All the people that did the initial PR push to protect Olympic in the 1930s and get FDR to make it a park, and that revived themselves in the 1940s against NPS’ attempt to give part of the park back to USFS, wrote Warren. He ignored them.
Near the end, Carsten Lien shows that the “F” management of Olympic by the NPS carried into the 1980s and beyond. In 1988, the idea of breaching and removing the Elwha dams was first raised. The Park Service refused to back it, until the public pushed enough that NPS flipped, as part of what Lien calls its conflict avoidance management strategy. Overall, he says between the lines it looks good only because it stands in comparison to USFS, BLM and FWS.
Lien concludes the book with both fears and recommendations for the future. The recommendations have generally not been followed. There’s still no ranger station marked on maps in the Bogachiel Valley. As far as I know, dual-use NPS/USFS visitor centers still exist.
A MUST READ for environmental types who aren't familiar with the largely dirty history of the NPS, and not just in association with Olympic.
This is a fascinating, hugely informative and often HIGHLY infuriating look at the effort to create Olympic National Park, to make sure it was run by the Park Service and NOT the USFS, and then the battle to force the Park Service to act like the people then thought the Park Service would act.
As for the realities of the National Park Service? Having read one book about its history long ago, I had already known that Ken Burns presented a sanitized, even highly sanitized, history in his PBS miniseries. (What’s new? That’s de rigueur for him.)
But, I didn’t realize it was THIS bad. Stephen Mather and Horace Albright not only were development-first people, including hotels, roads, etc. inside parks, and shoot the omnivore and carnivore wildlife if they’re not made to do entertainment, but that they both internalized the Forest Service’s philosophy of “cut the damn trees,” including not wanting old-growth forests in national parks as not being worthy enough. This mentality infused the service for decades.
In addition, many of their underlings didn’t think USFS-run Olympic National Monument was worth of national park status. Others thought it would “compete” with Rainier.
Indeed, NPS FOUGHT AGAINST a “large park” when FDR was committed to making Olympic a national park, making it a large one, and taking it out of the hands of the Forest Service. It finally lost due to a public pressure campaign that was arguably even better than the one Dave Brower organized against BuRec to stop the Echo Park dam in the 1950s.
Meanwhile, hacks continued to run the NPS. Cammerer and Drury were both hacks. So was Connie Wirth.
AND, using a misinterpretation of the 1916 Organic Act, they let Olympic’s superintendent during the 1940s-1950s, Fred Overly, allow logging, and extensive logging, inside the park. At the same time, NPS leaders as well as the majority of folks at Olympic continued to entertain ideas of getting rid of one southeastern corner of the park, then building a road connecting Quinalt and Dosewallips rivers.
Yes, you read that right.
Other hacks, or worse?
The “Senator from Boeing,” Scoop Jackson, while still on the House side, never met a tree he didn’t think needed cutting, or a lying lumber company he didn’t think needed more trees to cut. He comes off as a serial liar on anything related to Olympic National Park when not being a hack. (Disgustingly, Wikipedia touts him as an environmentalist.)
It didn’t stop there. In the 1960s, Scoop Jackson, via his flunky Fred Overly, made another run at the west side trees. (Overly had been “exiled” to Great Smokies after the 1950s incident, but eventually got on top-level staff of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, an agency within Interior created in 1962 for rec planning for all Interior agencies. Why Jackson later was a co-author of NEPA, I have no idea. Guilt?
Sadly, the assaults continued even after the coastal strip was added. Overly, and others, tried to get a road built through it. Later, the offshore lands and tidewater were turned over to Fish and Wildlife, with its less restrictive regulations, and with a past and present history of hackery almost as bad as USFS and BLM.
After that? The Park Service opposed original wilderness preservation for most the park. It wanted 20-acre carveouts for hostels and food on a regular basis.
Also a hack, and for something besides Japanese internment? When Newton Drury was fired as NPS director, word leaked that Earl Warren was looking at hiring him to run California parks. All the people that did the initial PR push to protect Olympic in the 1930s and get FDR to make it a park, and that revived themselves in the 1940s against NPS’ attempt to give part of the park back to USFS, wrote Warren. He ignored them.
Near the end, Carsten Lien shows that the “F” management of Olympic by the NPS carried into the 1980s and beyond. In 1988, the idea of breaching and removing the Elwha dams was first raised. The Park Service refused to back it, until the public pushed enough that NPS flipped, as part of what Lien calls its conflict avoidance management strategy. Overall, he says between the lines it looks good only because it stands in comparison to USFS, BLM and FWS.
Lien concludes the book with both fears and recommendations for the future. The recommendations have generally not been followed. There’s still no ranger station marked on maps in the Bogachiel Valley. As far as I know, dual-use NPS/USFS visitor centers still exist.
June 9, 2022
A sad and all too common tale of greed, corruption, and the exploitation of public resources for private gain. Meticulously researched, dense, and comprehensive, this book is a heavy slog to read. I was too depressed to finish it.
I give this book four stars because of it's historical significance; it should probably get five stars for that reason, but it's too hard to read.
I give this book four stars because of it's historical significance; it should probably get five stars for that reason, but it's too hard to read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews