Simpson Timber Company and Camp Grisdale

[Music] we're young South Simpson came out west to land by the rolling sea [Music] Saul said I can log this land and you made him a company well a friend said so I like you fine but I don't know about this your company Sol said red you can just pressed your old head cuz that company is nothing but you and me there the company is UA it ain't nothin but you and me the company Saul Simpson founded in 1890 has grown with the times this is a story about Simpson people [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] camp Grizedale is one of the last of the resident logging camps in the Pacific Northwest set in the rugged Olympic Peninsula of Washington State it is a living reminder of an older time as in Sawle Simpsons day the forest is still the foundation the beginning [Music] Frank Bree Meier is logging Foreman at Camp Grizedale he has been working out of this camp since 1946 Frank is the third generation of his family to work these woods I got my top and father I used to talk by hand hanging up from the wall in the in the white utility room and I'd like to look at it was the wild lectures I wouldn't wouldn't want to go back and do it again too green comin on used to be you know it was an 18 shirt and two hat and here you went but now it's you gotta use a little brain so these young fellows that we got coming up now or three to pretty much of a more Y skilled longer in me I'm quite invested a lot of [Music] search the highway with me for one thing to get the logs out in a safe and you know expeditious manner and this is the thing that I I do that I figure if Simpson makes nothing other than I make money but I'm doing something I like and something I believe in we've got the world's worth ground I mean it everybody talks about rough ground like come up here and take a look at it oh my god by the the most of the of the guys physical exit effort now he's actually getting in and getting out sometimes if they get over the hump you know it might fall them up how much they got left on this road Chris you know one snag is where it comes up it's busted up they've been right there all day just down and they've just bought of course everything here to run right down in there yeah [Music] you know what we not Simpson but I know a lot of guys that work brother outfits and I feel that the missing loss inserted through that Simpson takes care of their own people Frank and his crew are logging in the famous Shelton cooperative sustained yield unit this unit is a unique agreement between government and private industry in 1946 a hundred year contract was signed between Simpson timber company and the United States Forest Service over three hundred thousand acres of public and company land are combined into a single unit jointly managed by Simpson and the Forest Service this agreement has proved so successful that the allowable timber harvest from this land has nearly doubled in the first three decades of operation harvesting and reforestation are perfectly balanced assuring that there will be perpetual timber crops I was here when the sustain unit first went to Congress you know and now the older this unit gets the better everybody likes it especially the Forest Service Monday when you get there so these people here have the power to make decisions on the job and I think this has made it much better for both you know because the the on-the-job decision a lot of times is a limit that makes money for both sides I've been around here long enough I can see this is staying here at Max and when you can see the second growth you can see that a system of block cutting and how it works this was the hardest thing I remember when I first started with for me to proceed that couldn't see any way that that stuff could grow that fast [Music] although this area was clear-cut 40 years ago today it is covered again by a healthy second-growth forest the primary purpose of the sustained yield unit is to provide a stable economy for local communities without such a plan many small towns McCleary Elma Madison Oh perhaps even Shelton would have become ghost towns as timber resources ran out [Music] today Shelton is one of the largest wood products manufacturing centers of the Pacific Northwest [Music] so that's quite a few different classes [Music] [Music] [Music] there's some of the last logs coming out of the Grizedale some of the old zip they're so used to see it in the past [Applause] [Applause] this is looking up the ride away towards Grizedale got about eight inches of snow [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] there she goes the last of an era [Music] what old Saul Simpson came out west and he made him a company [Music] with a few good horses and a few good men and a love of the life it's free [Music] well the seed he planted sure grew tall there's near 6,000 of us now in all and also he saw what we all can see the company is nothing but you and me and nothing but you and the company is UN [Music] those trees we're looking at right now was part of the buck house area years ago and they took out about book houses and planted trees [Applause] we're looking right now at where the lucky Shack was and the tree is you see right in the middle there is where the dinky set for many years and it's now restored in operation [Applause] [Applause] like to point out that the early days of Grizedale this timber you're looking at right here was not there at all it was just totally bare they're standing right in my old office area on the slab of the truck shop and we're looking out towards the main entrance through Vale down towards the family area the ball field [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Rusty Grapple

Views: 13,101

Rating: 4.9361701 out of 5

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Id: tWvH237F1KU

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2018