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Home , Lower Skagit, Ross Lake (Washington), Skagit Range, Skagit River

Skagit Oral History Project Phase I: Final Report

Prepared by

Edward Liebow Dorinda S. Bixler Sara J. Breslow

with

Evelyn Jarosz videographer

Environmental Health and Social Policy Center , WA

December 2003

Skagit Oral History Project

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is part of an ongoing project to document through oral history some of the key events in the unfolding story of environmental stewardship in the of State and . We are especially grateful to the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission for its support of this project, and for its creative approach to international cooperation in environmental stewardship activities in the North Cascades. Tom Brucker took the initiative to work with us on the Commission’s behalf to help the project take shape. Shirley Solomon provided the initial spark and enthusiastic support for the Skagit Oral History Project. Tom Perry and John Miles provided helpful suggestions and introductions to narrators and source materials. Nikki Neuen transcribed the recorded interviews. Humanities Washington made available their video equipment.

Our most heartfelt thanks are extended to the individual narrators whose accounts fill most of these pages. They have generously made time for us, shared with us their experiences and insights, and their uniformly high standard for responsible stewardship and civic engagement serves as a lasting inspiration.

The Environmental Health and Social Policy Center was created in 1997 to work with public agencies, community-based organizations, foundations, and private industry on a variety of community-focused projects. The Policy Center’s mission is to promote public conversation about building the Next Economy in a fair and sustainable fashion.

CONTENTS

The High Ross Controversy ...... 1

Highlights – Key Themes ...... 4

Recommendations for Further Work ...... 5

Selected Bibliography ...... 5

The Interviews (April – May 2003) ...... 7 Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) ...... 7 Tom Brucker (April 29, 2003) ...... 15 Tony Eberts (May 15, 2003) ...... 23 Ken Farquharson (May 14, 2003) ...... 30 John Fraser (May 15, 2003) ...... 38 Patrick Goldsworthy (May 8, 2003) ...... 45 Ben Marr (May 13, 2003) ...... 53 Margaret & Joe Miller (May 5, 2003) ...... 66 Tom Perry (May 14, 2003) ...... 73 Bob Royer (May 9, 2003) ...... 89

SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

THE HIGH CONTROVERSY

If you ask people whether they care about the By adding to an oral history about environment, most will tell you, "Of course, I environmental stewardship in the watershed, do." But when you ask these same people our work aims to give credit to local knowledge what they think should be done to best protect of environmental history, and to offer a the environment for future generations, this is contemporary reminder of why it is so where the disagreements start. Some people important to translate the rhetoric of might tell you: "Whatever it takes" – even it environmental policy into a concrete local that means giving up some measure of reality of restoration and protection. The comfort and convenience. Or you might hear, documentation and dissemination of the "I'm doing everything I can already, so don't meanings this shared landscape has for its ask me to make more changes," or even diverse constituents aims to sweeten some of "Environmental problems – they're not my the bitter tone of local policy debate, thus fault, so why should I have to change?" facilitating joint efforts at environmental protection. We were initially drawn to the Skagit because of such disagreement, and the creditable Our first interviews had involved residents of efforts underway to resolve them. The Skagit the more densely settled lower reaches of the watershed has a rich history of environmental watershed. However, it quickly became problem solving, and we were introduced to apparent that there was an “elephant in the the area through the public debate over the living room,” a large, looming, long-standing best way to protect habitat and restore presence that everybody took for granted and the once-abundant fisheries. The Skagit nobody talked about. These were the in watershed transcends the international the upper watershed. Baker Dam is operated boundary, stretching from the Cascade crest by Energy, and Seattle City in British Columbia to the Light’s Skagit Hydroelectric Project inland waters of Washington State’s Puget consists of three dams – Gorge, Diablo, and Sound. On its course downstream, the Skagit Ross – that harness power from the Skagit. encounters pristine old growth forests, prime nesting areas, rich farmlands, and Ross Dam was completed in 1949, but City burgeoning urban growth. Native peoples Light’s original plans had called for raising its have fished these waters since time height to increase power production for the immemorial. We felt that recording a growing metropolitan Seattle region. In 1942, personalized sense of the complex history of the International Joint Commission had the watershed, from the perspectives of those approved the dam project, including the height who have lived and worked there for increase, with World War II’s outbreak serving generations, would be an important step in as justification. British Columbia officials capturing the sense of place and valuing the signed an agreement with City Light for restoration and protection efforts underway. compensation, but the province reconsidered in the early 1950s, and what had become But the path toward restoration and protection known as the High Ross project stalled. is crowded by rancorous debate over how these dangerous circumstances developed City Light’s plans were further jeopardized by historically and, hence, how best to move the movement to establish the North forward to protect and celebrate this Cascades National Park on the US side of the watershed and its widely cherished resources. border. When the Park was created in 1968, The idea of "restoration" implies a former state its authorizing legislation kept open the to which a return is desired. Of course, it is not possibility of raising the dam. Environmental possible simply to turn back the clock. What is activists on both sides of the border rallied in possible, however, is to capture and opposition to the High Ross project, and memorialize the diverse perspectives and eventually the government of British Columbia insights about place and change, to remind was persuaded to fight the project. ourselves about the values and ecological functions that are worth protecting.

1 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

History, international law, and environmental environmental activists (Bert Brink, Tom activism collided in the High Ross controversy, Brucker, Ken Farquharson, Pat Goldsworthy, which continued into the 1980s. City Light had Joe and Margaret Miller, Tom Perry), and the received permission to proceed from the US press (Tony Eberts). There are many others Federal Power Commission, and the we would like to include, and hope to invite to International Joint Commission had participate in subsequent stages of the work. determined that its original order authorizing High Ross remained valid. However, there The interviews were each about 60-90 was substantial pressure to negotiate a minutes long, and they were recorded with settlement that would help protect the upper professional video and audio equipment. . In 1984, and the US Transcripts have been produced for the Skagit signed a treaty that settled the controversy by Environmental Endowment Commission, finding another source of power for City Light, along with digital copies of the audio and video compensating British Columbia for the flooding recordings. that had already caused, and creating the Skagit Environmental Endowment In the next section, we briefly highlight a few of Commission to assure long-term the key themes that we heard in these environmental stewardship for the upper thoughtful, inspiring, and highly personalized Skagit watershed above Ross Dam. accounts of civic engagement. Then we get out of the way, and present edited versions of The current project recorded interviews in April the transcripts, so you can hear, in their own and May, 2003 with 11 individuals who had words, about the extraordinary sense of place key roles to play in resolving the High Ross and optimism that mobilized these folks in controversy. These individuals, six from their commitment to find a durable resolution Canada and five from the US, were selected and lay the foundation for further because of their roles as political officials environmental stewardship activities in the (John Fraser, Ben Marr, Bob Royer), region.

The starts in British Columbia and drains a large portion of the North Cascades

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Historical Timeline

1897 Washington Forest Reserve created, including Skagit Valley above Goodell’s Landing 1905 Skagit Power Company formed 1910 Seattle Dept of Lighting formed, Ross becomes superintendent in 1911 1917 City Light gets power permits once Skagit Power Co.’s expire 1924 Gorge Dam completed 1926 Ross sent letter to BC govt of City Light intentions to flood some Canadian land 1929 City Light buys a section of land in BC in anticipation of Ruby Creek (Ross) Dam 1930 BC Provincial Cabinet placed crown reserve of 6,350 acres in valley, which included 5,200 acres of surface area of the proposed at 1725 elev after City Light had survey completed 1936 completed 1937 Ruby (Ross) Dam construction started 1939 J.D. Ross dies 1940 Phase I Ross Dam (1365 ft elev) completed 1941 (9/12) IJC hearing on City Light application for approval of Ross Dam project 1942 (1/27) Authorized the project, with 3 conditions: (1) compensate BC adequately, (2) reserved right to review negotiated agreement and manage water levels as needed; (3) created International Skagit River Board of Control to provide technical advice to IJC 1946 Silver-Skagit Road built for purpose of hauling logs cleared from the Ross reservoir site, opening the upper Skagit Valley for recreation 1947 Phase II Ross (1550 ft elev) completed 1947 (4/3/47) BC Skagit Valley Land Act, gives City Light permission to flood the valley 1949 Phase III Ross (1615 ft elev) completed (Elevation at Intl Boundary is 1585 ft) 1952 Power House construction(1951-56), 1st generators go online in 1952 1952 Temporary cash settlement of $255,508 for damages to the valley 1954 agreement brokered by US Congressman Tom Pelly for $5000/yr cash settlement to flood 635 acres in Canada (renewed annually until 1967 final agreement signed) 1957 North Cascades Conservation Council formed 1964 Treaty and Protocol finalized 1967 Agreement: annual rental payment of $34,566.21 by the city to the province, for 99 years in exchange for an easement to inundate the valley to 1725 ft elevation (5,180 acres); also payment in the form of electrical power at the rate of US$0.000375/kwhr 1968 North Cascades National Park created, along with Ross Lake and Lake Chelan National Recreation Areas, and Area. 1969 BC Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club promote awareness of the High Ross dam controversy 1969 Run Out Skagit Spoilers (ROSS) Committee formed (December) 1970 NY Times editorial opposing High Ross Dam 1970 Seattle City Council Public Utilities Committee holds lengthy hearings 1971 Washington State Ecological Commission holds hearing (3/71) about City Light’s Federal Power Commission application to raise Ross Dam 1971 ROSS Committee Subsidiary, Skagit Defense Fund formed as means of raising money to support ROSS work. 1971 Skagit Valley Study Group study and report, The Future of the Skagit Valley 1971 North Cascades Foundation created as a 501(c)(3) to raise funds for the North Cascades Conservation Council 1971 (6/71) IJC Hearings on High Ross Dam, Bellingham and Vancouver 1971 (11/71) Final Report of IJC 1984 International Treaty signed, SEEC Established

Source: Simmons (1974)

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HIGHLIGHTS – SOME KEY THEMES

As one listens to the voices of the activists, play their roles from the grassroots. Once political officials, press, and others, one pressed to reconsider decisions that had been cannot help but be impressed by the made on the brink of cataclysmic world combination of good will, civility, and strong events, it was essentially left to the City of personal convictions that guided these people Seattle and BC provincial officials to craft a towards the High Ross controversy’s suitable accommodation. And even locally, it resolution. But beyond this impression, was a diverse range of local perspectives that several key themes resonated with us. The required accommodation. The views of Hope reader, of course, is invited to examine the residents stood in contrast with those of the personal accounts and see what other themes mostly Vancouver-based Canadian come to mind. interveners. Residents of the region were scarcely involved. The Canadian Optimism and activism – The narratives and American traditions of public participation demonstrate dramatically that public in political decision-making are quite different. participation can play a constructive role in And more generally, one finds in the narratives decisions made on behalf of the public a view of unlimited growth on the horizon interest. It was anthropologist Margaret Mead juxtaposed against the need for resource who once wrote: Never doubt that a small conservation and recovery. Wilderness group of thoughtful, committed citizens can protection is contrasted with the possibilities change the world; indeed, it's the only thing for developed recreation. Most impressive is that ever has. Although it is hard to prove the how the principals at the local level balanced impact resulting from the absence of these perspectives in arriving at a settlement, something (like raising the Ross Dam), the and when they thought to seek the efforts of committed individuals, sometimes at collaboration of their national counterparts. considerable personal expense were not just aimed against something, but in favor of Technical knowledge and civic protecting an area of regional ecological engagement – One final theme that bears importance. To sustain these efforts over highlighting is what the narratives reveal about more than a decade, expecting a favorable the role of specialized technical knowledge in outcome despite legal precedent and conflict resolution. Credentialed scientists and international momentum, is the embodiment of engineers, dedicated teachers, and outdoors optimism. In nearly all of the personal enthusiasts worked side by side to build a accounts, a clear sense emerges that the knowledge base that would withstand legal principals involved were as resourceful as they scrutiny, motivated by strong personal were cautiously respectful, and that their commitments, but also by a conviction that optimism allowed them to recognize they should contribute their expertise in the opportunities – whether a chance connection name of serving the public interest. And the to a political official’s household nanny, or an High Ross controversy was not an isolated engineer’s thorough-going knowledge of the instance in the region, or in the lives of the whole BC Hydro system – that could help narrators. These accounts strengthen our move toward a negotiated settlement. view that abstract scientific knowledge must be complemented by an experiential Local control and diverse use – Although knowledge of place. This experiential the final resolution to the High Ross knowledge is not clearly distinct from scientific controversy had to come in the form of an knowledge – the two inform and influence international treaty between Canada and the each other to create a more richly textured US, Ottawa and Washington were enlisted to public wisdom.

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER WORK

We think the environmental stewardship  Pacific Northwest Collection activities on behalf of the Upper Skagit and the holdings at U Washington, Seattle northern Cascades should be more widely  City Light holdings known. To this end, we think the Commission  Simon Fraser U. and UBC is in an excellent position to seek partnerships holdings that would help support  Provincial government holdings, - A video production that is available for Vancouver, Victoria; broadcast and classroom adoption  Cochaleetza Centre holdings, - Web site enhancements that provide Sto:lo Nation, Sardis, BC. wide access to the historical materials,  US including transcripts and audio holdings, Marblemount recordings, maps and photographs  Center for Pacific Northwest - A traveling museum exhibit / display Studies collection, Bellingham - A richly illustrated book that would - Complete additional photography and present the first-person narrated video footage accounts, accompanied by an  Aerial photography / video of the historical overview of key events in the Upper Skagit Watershed upper watershed  Beaver Valley landscape and botany Initial steps in completing this work would  7-Mile Dam on the Pend Oreille potentially involve: River - Supplementary interviews with  Native geography, as identified in additional persons whom we were not supplemental interviews able to interview in this first phase of work Subsequently, of course, video production - Discussions with museums in the would need to be completed, along with the region, for example, the Provincial traveling exhibit and book manuscript. Museum and the Burke Museum, which would have the technical At the same time, web site enhancements capacity to help organize a traveling could be undertaken as material is produced exhibit from supplemental interviews and archival - Additional archival research in key research. regional collections

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brueggeman, John J., Colleen McShane, the New Deal," unpublished Ph.D. David Every, John Knutzen, Ron Tressler. dissertation, University of Washington. 1988. Study of Skagit dams original impacts on wildlife and fish habitat and populations : Dick, Wesley Arden. 1989. "When Dams final report. Prepared for , Weren't Damned: The Public Power Crusade project manager, Richard E. Rutz. Seattle, and Visions of the Good Life in the Pacific WA. Northwest in the 1930s," Environmental Review 13: 113-153. Dick, Wesley Arden. 1973. "Visions of Abundance: The Public Power Crusade in the Dubasek, Marilyn. 1990. Wilderness Pacific Northwest in the Era of J.D. Ross and Preservation: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of

5 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Canada and the . New York: "North Cascades Dam Raises International Garland Publishing. Controversy," The Living Wilderness 34 (Summer 1970): 54. Goldsworthy, Patrick D. 1986. "Protecting the North Cascades, 1954-1983," an oral history Perry, Thomas L, Jr. 1981. A Citizen’s Guide conducted by Ann Lage, in Pacific Northwest to the Skagit Valley. Vancouver, BC: Run Out Conservationists, Regional Oral History Office, Skagit Spoilers Committee. the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Pitzer, Paul C. 1978. Building the Skagit: A Century of Upper Skagit Valley History, 1870- Hayes, Samuel P. 1987. Beauty, Health, and 1970. Portland: The Galley Press. Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985. New York: Public Law 90-544, October 2, 1968, Cambridge University Press. Established the North Cascades National Park Complex. Jarvis, Jonathan B. 1992. "Relicensing the Skagit Project: The USNPS' Approach," Rutz, Richard. 1992. "Relicensing the Skagit George Wright Forum 9(2): 19-30. Project: The City of Seattle's Approach," George Wright Forum 9(2): 11-12. Kidney, David G. 1975. "The Ross Dam Controversy: A Popular View of an Seattle City Light. 1985. The High Ross International Environmental Dilemma," Treaty: Provisions and Benefits (Seattle: unpublished Master's thesis, University of Seattle City Light, September 1985). Washington. Sharpe, Grant W. 1969. High Ross Dam: Kirn, Jacqueline Krolopp. 1987. "The Skagit Some Observations on its Impact on the River-High Ross Dam Controversy: A Case Natural Environment. unpublished M.S. thesis, Study of a Canadian-U.S. Transboundary University of Washington. Seattle. Conflict and Negotiated Resolution," unpublished Master's Thesis, University of Simmons, Terry. 1974. “The Damnation of a Washington. Dam: The High Ross Dam Controversy.” unpublished M.A. Thesis, Simon Fraser Lepofsky, D., E. K. Heyerdahl, K. Lertzman, D. University. Vancouver, BC. Schaepe, and B. Mierendorf. 2003. Historical meadow dynamics in southwest British U.S. Congress, Committee on Interior and Columbia: a multidisciplinary analysis. Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Parks and Conservation Ecology 7(3): 5. [online] URL: Recreation, Hearings on S. 1321, A Bill to http://www.consecol.org/vol7/iss3/art5. Establish North Cascades National Park, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 1967, 15. Lowry, William R. 1994. The Capacity for Wonder: Preserving National Parks. U.S. Congress, Senate, Report on Skagit Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution. River-Ross Dam Treaty, 96th Cong., 2d sess, June 21, 1984, 1-14; Treaty Between the McCloskey, Michael. 1972. "Wilderness United States of America and Canada Movement at the Crossroad, 1945-1970," Relating to the Skagit River and Ross Lake, Pacific Historical Review 41: 346-361. and the Seven Mile Reservoir on the Pend Oreille River in the Province of British Miles, John C. 1995. Guardians of the Parks: Columbia, April 2, 1984, United States- A History of the National Parks and Canada, Senate Treaty Doc. 98-26. Conservation Association. Washington, D.C.: Taylor and Francis.

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THE INTERVIEWS (APRIL – MAY 2003)

What follows are edited transcripts from the Oral History interviews. The original, unedited transcripts are in the SEEC offices, as is the complete collection of audio recordings from which the transcripts were produced.

Bert Brink, Vancouver Tom Brucker, Mercer Island Tony Eberts, Alder Grove Ken Farquharson, West Vancouver John Fraser, Vancouver

Margaret and Joe Miller, Bellevue Ben Marr, Vancouver Bob Royer, Seattle Patrick Goldsworthy, Seattle Tom Perry, Vancouver

Bert Brink (Interviewed May 14, 2003)

Dr. Vernon (Bert) Brink was born in Calgary, Alberta, and earned a BSA in Agronomy from UBC in 1934 and an MSc in 1936. Graduate work at the University of Wisconsin led to the award of a PhD in 1940. During World War II Dr Brink served in the Officers Training Corp as an instructor with the Mountain Infantry. He was a member of the UBC faculty for 35 years, serving as Chair of the Division of Plant Science. He retired in 1977 with the title of Professor Emeritus but continued his active academic career. As an ardent naturalist, he still dedicates thousands of hours in volunteer services to natural history organizations sharing his extensive experience and knowledge of the province. Long before the phrase became popular, he advocated for, and believed in, the interdependence of a sustainable environment and a sustainable economy. In recognition of his many achievements he received the Order of Canada, the Order of British Columbia and a fellowship from the Agricultural Institute of Canada.

Bert Brink (Mary 14, 2003) 7 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

My first connection with the Skagit came And on the way it encountered some other through Professor John Davidson. At that gold camps, like Rock Creek. time he was Professor of Botany at the University of British Columbia. Before he And there’s a Washington State association joined the University B.C., about 1918, he was there because when the man who became Provincial Botanist. He had been appointed to General Sherman brought U.S. troops into this that post about 1908 or 1910. And his task as side – and I’m not quite certain what the Provincial Botanist was to review the flora of circumstances were – but there were various British Columbia. One of his fairly early prospects along southern British Columbia, as expeditions was to the Skagit. And I think you you probably know. And I think it certainly will find somewhere in the literature of British followed the Cariboo Gold Rush of 1858. So Columbia a report of the Provincial Botanist on there were various activities coming in from his expedition into the Skagit. Washington side, the B.C. coast, and also from the interior – Princeton, up the It was followed with trips to other areas, Similkameen. The Similkameen, of course, notably the Kootenay, and the dry belt of the flows into the Okanagan. There was quite a interior, and so on. But we’ll concentrate on lot of activity. the Skagit. When I was still quite young, I joined the Vancouver Natural History Society. So the Skagit wasn’t exactly unknown, and I was a Boy Scout, and we were urged to go very soon after John Davidson’s summer out on the trips that the Vancouver Natural camp, which I did not attend, we had trips into History Society sponsored. Professor the Skagit – weekend trips. We could go up Davidson was responsible for many of the the present route of Highway 5, it’s nineteen trips. I first heard about the Skagit - because miles, thereabouts, to - what do they call it? this was a camp that I was not on, but he set Sunny something or other Acres – bit of a up a summer camp of maybe a week or two recreation site there today. I could digress on weeks in the Skagit with the Vancouver that, but that’s where the divide is, where the Natural History Society. waters flow to the coast and flow to the Skagit. One route was at the present route at Highway There is one man still living who was on that 5, and the other was up Silver Creek from camp, he’s 96 now. His name is Mills Hope, down the Klesilkwa into the Skagit. And Winkham. He and his wife Lois went in with that’s the present route in, the direct road into John Davidson, and had a camp in the Skagit. the Skagit. So I certainly heard about the Skagit from Professor Davidson. I was his student and he I was on several mountaineering trips. But the to some considerable extent was my mentor. enormous feature of the Skagit, at Whitworth Now then, from there… The Skagit was not Ranch came very early. And that’s valuable exactly an unknown area. As you probably natural history. As you probably know, know, there was a trail up from Washington Ponderosa Pine exists at the Whitworth State. There’d been a certain amount of Ranch. And basically it’s an interior, dry forest mining interest in the Cascades on the tree. Magnificent tree. And the only other Canadian side, as well as on the American place where it comes through the coast range side, so there were trails. There had been in the Cascades is at Ft. Lewis, south of prospecting and that sort of thing through the Seattle and Tacoma. area. There were three approaches to the Skagit. One was from the State of So here you have two trans-mountain Washington, up the Skagit River itself, in the establishments of Ponderosa Pine. And of valley – not an easy way, but there was a trail. course, that’s a big tree. It’s pretty notable. And then there was a trail built that went from But along with it, and this may be of some the lower mainland, across southern B.C. to considerable interest, are a lot of other the Wild Horse goldfield in the east species which are dry interior species, dry Kootenays. And that went through across into land species – Paintbrushes, Heucheras, jack the Skagit watershed, north of the present city pine, Blue Bunch Wheatgrass, Stipe, Clematis of Cranbrook, in the Rocky Mountain Trench. and Needlegrass. In other words, a whole list

Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) 8 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

of species established there around Whitworth the Faculty of Agriculture, but I came to the Ranch. And interestingly enough, the soil UBC in 1938-39, on a split appointment, after profile is a grassland profile there. It’s not well my graduate work at Wisconsin. And the developed, but it is chernozemic in the sense appointment was split because there was very that it had a dark, organic horizon. Now it’s little money around during the Depression been obliterated to some degree. There’s not years. There wasn’t a Faculty of Science then. much of that left, as you know, since ranching, It was the Faculty of Arts and Science. And I grazing, plowing, all the other things, destroy a had a split appointment between the Faculty of lot of that. When I when I first the Whitworth Arts and Science, and Agriculture. Ranch, there were a few people there. Notably, there was an old gentleman, I guess After the War, when the big reorganization you’d call him, I don’t know what, a ‘man of the took place, and I had several years away, it land.’ He was elderly, he had a little cabin. I was put up to me, ‘would you assist in the don’t know how on earth he lived. But he lived reorganization, and would you take there, along the trailside, not very far from the responsibility for the reorganization of the Whitworth Ranch. And when you came by Plant Sciences in the Faculty of Agriculture?’ him and his group he would play the accordion So I continued to teach in the Science Faculty for us. – basically Genetics, but some other things also. And I was also teaching in the Faculty of I’ve often thought that the Whitworth Ranch Agriculture. And then I was given the was an aboriginal campsite originally. And a responsibility of bringing some of the lot of the plants that were established there entomology teaching that was in Arts and were brought by aboriginals. I think that’s Sciences over to Agriculture, some of the plant worth noting. I don’t have much evidence for pathology over into an organized Plant it, believe me, but the little Garry Oak and Yale Science unit. Well, basically it meant that I Oak establishments in the Province were, in had to relinquish a lot of my interest in the my view, very definitely antipernetic. The Faculty of Science. And I was being paid by Indians brought acorns from Vancouver two faculties, which is not an enviable position, Island, Gulf Island, maybe from Whidbey believe me. You know, one faculty says - if Island, and that sort of thing. And I think they there’s a question of a raise coming up – well, had a lot to do with that space that, there was put it over from that faculty, you know just enough food for gathering opportunities in competition kind of thing. I did continue to the upper Skagit there, that I think there was a teach genetics, though. fair amount of aboriginal activity early on. Then later, the Faculty of Forestry had not The other thing I remember of those pre-war been organized, so that came on site. And I trips into the Skagit was the old mining site. was a member of the Faculty of Forestry as I’ve forgotten what the heck they called it. But well. It was not a decision of my own liking, I they must have left the site in a great hurry. can tell you quite bluntly, I was not terribly And I think you know the problem - it was a interested in administrative work anyway, and scam. The news of a gold rush was brought I had no great ambitions to be a senior to the city of Vancouver. A lot of people academic. I loved my lab and I loved my rushed up there. It was late fall, there was outdoor work and that sort of thing. But the snow cover on the ground, you couldn’t really President, Dr. Mackenzie, after the War, made tell whether there was gold there or not. They it very plain that no veteran with reasonable developed a little bit of a town site there. And qualifications would be turned away from I remember they must have departed very UBC. Well, you know what happened. We quickly when they realized that it was a scam. had a small university of maybe twenty-five They left an old piano, and it was there in one hundred students, not any larger than some of the buildings when I first went there in high schools, not much larger anyway. And World War II. Of course, since then the site’s we jumped in a single year to ten thousand, been pilfered and basically destroyed. five hundred.

I remember mainly the botany, because I Just think of what that means, in teaching – became interested through John Davidson in we were teaching around the clock, speed-up botany, and plant sciences generally. I was in sessions, inter-sessions, summer sessions, on

9 Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

and on and on. I can tell you I was never so I guess my first visit to the Skagit might have angry in my life when a dean, some years been about 1929 or ‘30. And we were in later, said, “Why weren’t you publishing more there a couple of times. There was our in those years?” Hoo, boy. I just blew my top, backpack trip to Mt. Outrim and down to the because we were trying to cooperate with Skagit. Now the other route, going through, post-war veterans and I think we – collectively after the War, up the Silver Creek - that’s a I’m speaking – did a pretty good job. straightforward logging road, that sort of thing. But very soon after the War I guess, and The dean who asked me why I didn’t write and again, I’m not very sure of my dates, but do more research in those years, did not Manning Park had already been established realize that when I was appointed to the by E.C. Manning, the Chief Forester of the Faculty of Agriculture and to the Faculty of Province. Early on, we thought that the Skagit Arts and Science in 1939, I was asked to do should be part of Manning Park. After the extension, research, and teaching, all three. War, about probably 1947, ‘48, ‘49 things Now that’s one of the things that was made began to - you know interest began to rise very clear to me, was that I had to – on my again. And when Seattle Light and Power own - get a car so I could move around the started talking about flooding, raising Ross lower mainland. And that was a big item, on Dam and that sort of thing, the Vancouver my salary. I’m telling you it wasn’t very much. Natural History Society became somewhat concerned about flooding on Canadian side. It was a sort of funny arrangement when I One of the things that bothered us was the started. I came from Wisconsin, appointed as fact that it was fairly early established that the an instructor, but with the promise that if flooding would go as far up the Skagit to the budget was reasonable in the next year I present crossing of Highway 5. And we would be an assistant professor, and so on thought that was unwarranted. you up the ladder. Well, I was very quickly appointed to an assistant professorship. But I So I was responsible for taking a Vancouver did a lot of agricultural extension work. And Natural History Society group in for a weekend you know, it was difficult. It used to take ten into the Skagit. You will find that somewhere hours to drive to Kamloops. Roads were in the late ‘40s, in the Vancouver newspaper never very good, and I used to go by way of there is a photograph on the front page of Bert Lillooet because these expensive bridge Brink standing on a stump, lecturing to the sections had been closed by the sliding people in front of me not about the sins of the mountain there. And that added a great deal Americans, but the devastation of the valley. I of time to the trip. got that picture.

I used to look over people at the English We had invited a reporter to come up with us. Department and oh, I used to envy them. April I can’t remember which paper it was. There would come, and they’d be off, and did were three papers in Vancouver at the time. whatever they pleased until September. And I Really we only you know we only have one used to think, gee, you know. And of course now. You’re having the problem in Seattle, after the War we were married and had kids. we’ve already been through it. Province and We should have been married earlier, but I the Sun are really on the same wavelength, didn’t want to get married during the War owned by the same outfit. As today, they years, there was too much hazard. I didn’t wanted a little bit of sensation associated with think it was a good idea. So we were married their story. It had to be something that was after the war. going to attract attention. I think Dave Brousson was better in getting attention My Dean of Agriculture was pretty good. Fred because he was not shy. Dave is a good Glintz. He was reasonable. He related speaker and very forceful. I don’t think I ever definitely to the out of doors. Not in the way I was. I think botanists on the whole tend to be do, perhaps, but he came from a farming kind of subdued in a way, but. You know background from Ontario. On the Arts and there were, I don’t call them demagogues, but Science side, Dean Buchanan was fairly they’re people who can just get up and go on reasonable because his son was very active in and on and emotionally involve and that sort of the Varsity Outdoor Club. thing. I can’t do that. I really can’t. I’ve got to

Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) 10 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

have my facts, and I talk to my facts. I don’t So that was an issue of concern. If it was to know if that’s a fair way of putting it, but… be flooded, then it had to be logged and There are people who can do that. It think cleaned. And another thing, logging and those of us who get into the sciences tend to cleanup would make the Skagit a lot more you know worry about objectivity and that navigable for canoeing, and things of that sort. keeps us somewhat repressed, put it that way. Logging had left a lot of widow makers on the stream. That was the first real media point, that’s I guess why Tom (Perry) and others really first At that time, though, Curley Chittenden and came to me, because it did have front-page his outfit had gone into the Skagit and had impact. And that was the earliest. I think done some clearing on the Canadian side. before Sierra Club, before everything. It was There was an arrangement made for logs to right there when Seattle Light and Power be taken out from Skagit both from the started talking about flooding, and the first Washington side and the American side. And logging was under way, and that sort of thing. they went sort of went on bond back into Washington. I don’t know what happened to Lee Straight came in on the fly fisherman side, them, but I know there was this circuitous and he was helpful because we were working arrangement they had, and I think there was with what became the B.C. Wildlife Federation some bonding or something. I think Curley at the time. We were working on other issues, Chittenden was the first logger in there on don’t forget – Garibaldi Park was one, before contract, I think, with Seattle Light and Power. Whistler. Bruce Hutchison was fairly supportive. That was a plus, just to have him I think from a public point of view, I think in all on our side. Bruce didn’t focus to any great honesty, the alarm was first sounded in the degree on the Skagit - for the life of me I can’t Vancouver area by the Vancouver Natural remember any column that he wrote - but just History Society, because we were very much to have him there in support in the newspaper in favor of a park in that area. And Professor world was a big plus. Because they did listen John Davidson was one of our first to us – our concerns about the logging, and conservationists, incidentally. So by osmosis I how it was done. became a conservationist I guess.

There was a big issue in B.C., as you I wouldn’t say this was the prevailing remember, flooding, a lot of flooding in British sentiment in the Faculty of Agriculture. I think Columbia for power generation. They just it was just emerging. I think the flooded, leaving the dead trees standing. It Conservationist Environmental movement made a mess of things. One of the issues developed rather slowly, after the War. And it here was to make sure that clearing was done. wasn’t until a few years later it splintered into Places to be flooded on the Canadian side all the groups – Sierra Club in the west, and would have to be logged and cleared. Some Audubon in the east, and we had other groups places in the lake country in the north, central coming on side gradually. But the Vancouver B.C., snags are still standing above the water. Natural History Society was certainly one of It messes up a wonderful lake. Sugar Lake - the first. And it was initiated by articles written the old dead trees are still standing, you know. by Professor John Davidson about the It makes a mess from the recreational point of watersheds and the logging, the watersheds of view. There’s a big issue to persuade people the City of Vancouver: Capilano, Seymour, to logged before they flooded, and the process and so on. that some are going through now in some of these places is pretty painful, very slow. The You will find some articles in Vancouver East River Dam you know, they’re still logging newspapers. I think the headings are up there slowly. Cowichan - still dragging logs something like this, “Handwriting’s On the out of it. It’s not easy logging after flooding. Wall.” And it went into a statement of concern Stave Lake is still pretty bad. You go up from about logging and the Capilano watershed, Cultus Lake there, and there is still a forest and the need for Vancouver to protect its standing in the lake above the water. water supply. And that was in the Twenties. And, of course, like the Seattle Mountaineers, the B.C. Mountaineering Club, and the

11 Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Vancouver Natural History Society were quite levels of the, and the impact of the High Ross closely associated. Actually the Vancouver Dam on the Canadian side - it was in error, as Natural History Society emerged from the B.C. you probably know. And Curley was the first Mountaineering Club as an organized entity. person to realize the surveying error. And In 1918 - it was formed in 1918. So I would properly so, because he was definitely say that we’re looking at a sort of steady involved in the logging, and you know, they evolution of environmental interests. But it had surveys of the road and that sort of thing. went on quickly after World War II. It was So he knew that there was something awry. there before the War, but muted, let’s put it And I’d hasten to add I don’t think it was that way. And only a few of us really very deliberate on the part of the, it was an act of, concerned. You know, the forests were an error, just a simple, straightforward error. endless. We had forest fires I can tell you. In But the error would have led to considerably the 1920s, I remember going up the Sound, more flooding on the Canadian side than was and there were nineteen forest fires burning anticipated. And so the controversy mounted along the shores of our Sound. Forests were in various ways, in various degrees. endless, the future was a long way ahead and World War II changed that very quickly. One of the things that disappointed us as environmentalists was the casual attitude of We didn’t have highways, you remember, our provincial government. In effect, they before World War II. We had a very odd kind were saying, ‘Well, if Seattle Light and Power of ferry service to Victoria. You know - one wants to go ahead with this we’re not going to car at a time going on the ferry. It had a little oppose it.’ And they weren’t even making any elevator that used to go down to load one car demands on Seattle. We thought that was a and then you would have to go up and, well, it mistake. I don’t care what people from was a one at a time, very slow kind of a thing. Victoria say, or our former Deputy Minister, the To Victoria, of all places, from the lower attitude of the government in Victoria was very mainland. So World War II made a big casual. And we thought that they should be change. And Washington, in many respects, more concerned about the area and its was a model. Your “Blackball” Ferry System potential for recreation, particularly, and even developed far before ours. perhaps for mining.

W.A.C. Bennett, our Premier, saw what was I would say that the person who had most to going on there and he said ‘go’ – and you do with elevating the public awareness was know, after World War II things went ahead. Ken Farquharson. The Sierra Club was We built highways, a ferry system. And along beginning to come into B.C. at the time. I with that came concerns about the think he was doing it largely through the Sierra environment, and our forests. We realized Club. I might to say we resented it a little bit they weren’t endless. We began to assess because our group didn’t have any funds. And what we really had. The Canada Land coming up from California, you know, they had Inventory came on site as a national effort. a journal and all the other things. The entry of British Columbia quickly picked up the the American Sierra Club into British Columbia necessity for an inventory of all resources, caused a certain amount of resentment. And including demographic resources. So for we didn’t cooperate initially and early as well about fifteen years, probably starting about as we should have. But Ken had a lot to do. 1950, we began to inventory what we had. He wanted the whole of the Cascades in And along with that developed the interest in British Columbia put under some kind of the environment. protected status from the over to the Okanagan. And Ken speaks publicly with The Skagit was very definitely part of our a great deal of force. He alerted the interest. Now then, having given you rather a community. lengthy statement about my early involvement, then it became a somewhat more official. It Quite frankly, I don’t think we knew very much was Curley Chittenden who realized that the about the Washington people at first. I didn’t measurements made - and I don’t think this know them. We got to know them when we was deliberate, don’t misunderstand me on started to have meetings at Sedro-Woolley that - the measurements made about the and one or two in Seattle. I didn’t know a

Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) 12 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

thing about them until the Sierra Club came up Now then, the other person that I would say not just to work on the Skagit, but other things was very important in the alerting of our as well. It was an invasion, so to speak. And I community to the value of the Skagit was Tom think there was a certain amount of Perry, as a student at UBC. You know, Tom resentment, if I might put it that way. ‘Darn was just an undergraduate and he mounted Americans coming up here into British the campaign on the campus at UBC to Columbia.’ We were friends, goodness only support a concern for the Skagit. So there knows I may be overstating it. You know, I were a number of ways in which this have relatives, lots of them, over the line, community became alerted to the values of some of them in the State of Washington. It the Skagit. And we came at it from different was a familial argument more than anything perspectives. Finally the IJC was involved else. But it was real at the time. And it took a and then it became international. But we had little while even to relate to Ken, because he a terrible time getting the IJC interested. You was you know, he was the first person to know here was a commission that was relate to the people in America. Part of it may supposed to be a Canadian-American have stemmed from John Davidson’s commission, but it had mainly focused in the resentment. He, as a Scotsman and Brit, past on the Great Lakes and Maritimes. really didn’t like Americans very much. The strangest part of it was, of course, both his son So it took quite a bit of effort on the part of all and daughter ended up as senior professors of us to get this into the international arena, at American universities. I’ve always thought with Seattle Light and Power on one side, and about the irony of all this, you know. I guess the environmentalists of Washington Sometimes these little resentments really are State and a few of us on the British Columbia somewhat trivial, but they happen. side. We finally got into a position of working together, making presentations to the IJC. We Among the national environmental groups in met on many occasions on both sides of the Canada, the Canadian Nature Federation had border, meetings sponsored by the IJC. not been established yet. It came a little later and I did attend those meetings in Winnipeg I made several presentations, some in the when the Canadian Nature Federation was States and one here in Canada. We were established. Some of the others, even in presenting on behalf of the Vancouver Natural British Columbia were just beginning to form. History Society. And Norm Purcell, who’s still There were three natural history society living in West Vancouver, a friend of Ken groups, one in Vernon, one in Victoria, one in Farquharson’s, they’re both engineers. Norm Vancouver. And we began to realize after the worked for B.C. Hydro. And Ken of course War that we had to work together, so that was didn’t work for B.C. Hydro. Norm was one of the beginnings of what we call the Nature our supporters. I think Norm made a Council. And then that grew to the Federation presentation. Dick Stasmith, who just lives of B.C. Naturalists, which now has about sixty over here, was quite a bit younger than we clubs around the Province. At the same time are, was also involved. And I think that he the B.C. Wildlife Federation people, rod and made a presentation on some aspect. But gun clubs were beginning to organize. You there were about three or four of us from the had a few rod and gun clubs around the Vancouver Natural History Society made Province, then they federated. All this formal presentations. happened after World War II. The evolution of the groups on the Canadian side was post- I think the focus of the presentations was very War. And it was gradual. general. We were focusing first of all on things such as the clearing of the draw-down We worked with the B.C. Wildlife Federation. area, focusing on the value of Whitworth People who became or set up the Federation, Ranch and its unique features, botanical and we were working with them mainly, and our otherwise. attention was on this side of the border, not the American side. So when the Sierra Club Seattle Light and Power paid for a lot of particularly came in, that was quite a bit of consultative work on the Canadian side. Dr. shock, somewhat. We were certainly behind Bendell, Jim Bendell, University BC, to his the times. everlasting discredit, from our point of view,

13 Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

was hired by Seattle Light and Power to do the to brown bag our lunch. One day he came wildlife management thing on the Skagit on over and he said, “Well you know there must the Canadian side. This we resented quite a be lots of lower mainland valleys over those bit, you know, we really did. Jim has now mountains.” What the hell? The guy was moved to the University of Toronto. He was a afraid to go up the Fraser Canyon by road. good wildlife biologist. But we really didn’t like I’m not exaggerating. Now he was basically in Jim from the UBC working for Seattle Light a position that became Dean. and Power, quite frankly. And if you’re asking me what it was like to try And we had to argue against the lawyers for to be a kind of an environmentalist for the Seattle Light and Power. They put up all kinds Province, I had difficulties. Even my own dean of arguments that… well one of them that I was not all that sympathetic, when I said, you remember quite vividly was, ‘well why worry know, if we do range management and that about the Skagit, when you’ve got these sort of thing, we might as well do wildlife wonderful areas like Nahatlatch Lake in the management. Because many ranges have far Fraser Canyon?’ Well, very fortunately, not more deer than they have cattle. We’ve got very many British Columbians at the time wonderful diversity; we also had difficulty, knew of the existence of the Nahatlatch Lake. quite frankly, with even with the coast, with the So I remember quite vigorously telling them to understanding of the fishery of the coast. go to the dickens on that one. Some of the people who could share my difficulties, like Ian Kahn and Peter Larkin and The fly fishermen came on our side, and that’s so on would support me a hundred percent on where John Fraser I think first came into the that. We had difficulties. Opening up the act. And Dave Brousson. And so ultimately it Province, the highway system of course came forward, an IJC settlement and I’ve helped a great deal. But the people in the always been a bit surprised at the settlement – lower mainland don’t relate very well to the the monetary settlement, the comparative hinterland. There’s justification I think for the magnitude of the endowment. I’m delighted, complaints. The people in the lower mainland needless to say. I think the settlement was a dominate the province. This is where most of fair one, let me put it that way. the people are. But I wish they were a little more knowledgeable about the Province as a When I think back on the times, I think people whole, I truly wish they were. You’re far better at the university didn’t understand, quite off in Washington State. Your people in frankly. Very few of them were what I would Seattle know quite a bit about Spokane and call environmentally conscious. And as I’ve the inland, the Columbia basin and that sort of often pointed out, a lot of people in the lower thing. Our people don’t really know. And mainland, and it was true of the faculty at we’ve got so many new people. I don’t know UBC, know more about California or Hawaii what the population of British Columbia was than they do about the hinterland of B.C. And when I went to school here, maybe a million so I had to wrestle with that. for the whole of Canada. And you know it represents a big change, no matter how you When I joined the University in 1938, it was look at it, environmentally and other ways. not easy to get to the interior. The main route to Kamloops was by rail, not by road and highway. There wasn’t very much sympathy, and not very much understanding of the nature of British Columbia and its topography. It didn’t come until after the War, when the land inventory program really got underway. And that included demographics, first look at our Indian population in a solid way, apart from its curiosity features. It was hard going actually, to persuade the university to relate to the rest of the Province. I’ll give you one good example. The Dean of the Department of Commerce used to come over, and we used

Bert Brink (May 14, 2003) 14 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Tom Brucker (Interviewed April 29, 2003)

Tom Brucker is retired from his law practice, and lives on Mercer Island, Washington. An avid climber, hiker, biker, and skier, he represented the North Cascades Conservation Council in proceedings of the Federal Power Commission as it intervened in the Seattle City Light proposal to raise the height of Ross Dam. He is an Alternate US Member of the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission

My connection with the Skagit would have to the Sierra Club, and he was also on the board be related to my relationship to the North at the NCCC. He got me interested, and I Cascades Conservation Council, which was joined the board in 1964, and I’m still on the the lead organization in the Northwest, and board. I am now the Treasurer of the probably nationally, for promoting a park – organization. But the NCCC was started in initially promoting a park - in the North 1957. Cascades. You can get all this from Pat Goldsworthy, And then in the late 1960s and 1970s, the who is just a monumental figure in Northwest Council was one of the parties that vigorously environmentalism. He started the NCCC opposed the petition of the Seattle City Light’s when the Forest Service said, “Pooey on you, to raise the height of Ross Dam about 125 ft. we’re not going to pay any attention to your wilderness proposals.” The Forest Service I joined the NCCC on the board in 1964, which evolved into an organization that was run by was four years after I came out to the timber people for timber people, and natural Northwest. I’m a carpetbagger from resources other than timber were given maybe Connecticut. But it was a very lucky thing that lip service in multiple use. But the Forest I did to come here. I got involved in the Service was really interested only in board outdoors, a lot of hiking and climbing, and met feet. a lot of people who sort of felt the same way that I did. And one person in particular, Brock And even in the Wilderness Evans, was the Northwest representative of Area, the Forest Service was not particularly

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interested in wilderness values, in Now, 125 feet, it doesn’t sound like much. preservation. I’m sighing because, you know, But, from our point of view, we perceived that there are two… Everybody’s an there would be enormous destruction, for a ‘environmentalist.’ Are you an really a small amount of power. There was ‘environmentalist’? Sure you’re an some “peaking” power that was going to come environmentalist. Who isn’t an out of the dam, as well as some “energy.” It’s environmentalist? Except maybe for some disputable about how you measure peaking legislators from . But that doesn’t mean capacity and energy capacity, and that was very much. However, there are two basic somewhat of a fight. strains of environmentalism. One is the Utilitarian variety, the best use for the most. “Energy” is the power that is needed all the The other is the Preservation type. They both time to run your basic load. “Peaking” power sort of started of around the turn of the last is what you turn off and on, depending on century, with Gifford Pinchot being the first whether people are home doing their dishes head of the Forest Service and John Muir and their laundry, and turning on their lights, being the first head of the Park Service. Very and that kind of thing. The utility has to have different strains of environmentalism. The the capacity so that when people run their Forest Service is far more inclined to the dishwasher or come home from work and turn utilitarian point of view. The Park Service is on the switch, their lights go on. Which is more inclined to the preservationist point of understandable. view. In any event, the Forest Service, which owned most of this land said, “We’re not going But it all depends how you measure the to give you very much in the way of capacity. It was arguable in this case because wilderness.” So, the organization led by you already had an existing dam, and there Goldsworthy, NCCC, began to focus on ‘how would be no more water going over the dam. do we get a National Park here?’ The Park You had more capacity, however, because, was created in 1968; it was an extraordinary with a higher dam, you had more drop in the success. Of course, we had two very powerful water, which turns the turbines. Anyway, from senators then in Henry Jackson and Warren our point of view, the additional capacity was Magnuson. Jackson was kind of an less than 1% of the perceived needs of City environmentalist; he liked to think he was Light, and we thought you could buy the power environmental. He did a lot of good. But I can cheaper elsewhere. remember very clearly hearings held in Seattle on the congressional proposals to establish a But when you talk about the destruction that park. It was three days of just throngs and would be caused by this, it was our feeling that mobs of people all clamoring to have a park. the destruction would be in the loss of natural Here and there, there would be some public resources. Big Beaver Valley, which is an officials saying, ‘Well, no.’ But they really got absolutely gorgeous valley just a few miles up drowned out. And there was really so much from Ross Dam, was a basically unspoiled, public pressure, that the park was created the uncharted... just a delightful place to visit. It first session in which the bill was introduced. was quiet. I can’t remember the first time I Now, there had been proposals for the park, I went up to the Big Beaver Valley. But it’s just guess going back years and years. But this a pleasure to walk through this broad valley. one really took off. And of course it has some rather significant cedar trees. The values that are there are And one of the struggles of course, is what do undamaged by Mankind. And that would be you do with Ross Lake. Ross Lake was flooded. created by Ross Dam, one of a series of three dams on the Skagit. City Light had it in mind But we also felt that there would be to raise the height of that dam 125 feet. The recreational losses. There would be fisheries NCCC, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness losses. There would be wildlife losses, which Society, the Federation of Outdoor Clubs, the we think we documented in these hearings Mountaineers, the whole gamut of Northwest later on. And then of course it would flood the and national environmental organizations took lower Skagit Valley in Canada. The result a very dim view of that. was, it was our feeling that the benefits of raising the dam were far outweighed by the

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damage to the values that we felt are disappointment to us, because we felt that the important. values that were present in the Park area were equally present on Ross Lake. There was not One of the things you have to understand is diminution in the scenic values, in the wildlife, what I call the “Slice of Salami Approach.” I’m in the fisheries, anything. And it should have a person of one who looks at it that way. You been included in the Park. But Henry Jackson know, you keep slicing the salami, you take is a politician, and you don’t always get what away all the wilderness, you take away all the you want. We got a lot of what we wanted, it’s valleys, and you develop all these things… a wonderful Park. But the existence of the Well, there’s still plenty of salami left. And Recreation Area meant City Light could somewhere along the way, you get to the point proceed with its applications. City Light felt where, no, there really isn’t an infinite number that the time was correct as far as its power of un-roaded wilderness values that you can demands are concerned. So it – when did it reach from urban areas. I think Brock Evans file? – it filed in December of 1970 to raise the testified to this at the hearings. There were height of the dam. It filed in front of the 160, 180 wilderness un-roaded values in Federal Power Commission, which is the Northwest Washington. There were only 18 of federal administrative agency that was created them by the time the Ross fight began. Where to determine whether (in this case) do you decide that you’ve eaten enough hydroelectric projects are in the public interest; salami? whether the project, …what is the language from Section 10 of the Federal Power Act? And it’s a fight that goes on now. Of course, “Best adapted” – something like that? it’s an unfair fight because if we beat them this time and nothing happens to Ross Dam, they All hydroelectric projects must go through can always come back again and file another what was then the Federal Power application. But once you raise the dam, we Commission, the FPC. It is now the Federal never get a second chance to say, “There, Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC. It got look at that terrible mistake. Take it away.” changed over the pathway through these So once something is built, that’s the end of proceedings. the struggle. City Light filed its application and the North In any event, when the Park was proposed, Cascades Conservation Council intervened in John Nelson, who was the head of Seattle City those proceedings. Now, it was not only the Light, lobbied very, very vigorously with our NCCC. The NCCC - I guess I’m a surrogate congressional delegation to carve out from the for a number of lawyers that participated in Park a on Ross this whole thing - the NCCC was joined by the Lake that would permit City Light to proceed Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the with its application to raise the dam. Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, the National Park and Recreation Society. And The difference between a Park and a we became known as the American Recreation Area has to do with allowable Interveners. I was a lawyer then, in private development. You cannot put a hydroelectric practice, and I represented the American project in a Park. It’s inconsistent with the Interveners, along with another lawyer by the purpose of a Park. A Park is supposedly name of Rick Aramburu, who is still practicing created when there are values that are – you in Seattle. Back then, he was a young lawyer call them the “crown jewels.” And you’re not just very shortly out of law school. So he and I supposed to diminish those by putting in man- represented the American Interveners. made projects. Now the Park Service - after the Park was created - had ideas to put a There was another organization called the tramway and a lot of classy recreational ROSS Committee, “Run Out Skagit Spoilers.” projects, but fortunately that didn’t happen. It And that organization, along with a number of cost too much money, even for the Park Canadian recreational organizations, were Service. known as the Canadian Interveners. And they were represented by Roger Leed, who was The Park was created, but the Ross Lake another big name in environmental matters. Recreation Area was also created. It was a He’s a Seattle lawyer.

17 Tom Brucker (April 29, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

I’ll sort of jump ahead a little bit here. The agreement that its predecessors had made. I State of Washington intervened, ostensibly on guess it was the Department of Parks and the side of those that opposed the dam. But Recreation that retained Marvin Durning to Charlie Rowe, who was the lawyer for the monitor very closely the proceeding of what State of Washington, is a politician. He’ll get was going on in front of the Power mad at me if I say that. I didn’t think his heart Commission. So Marvin, or somebody in his was totally in opposing the project, but he did office, was sitting in the back of the room what his boss told him to do. when the proceedings went on.

And then there was Jim Johnson, also an You have to understand a little bit about the Assistant Attorney General, who represented Federal Power Commission. There are a the Department of Fisheries. And the number of and bodies of water that do Department of Fisheries was a little more not stop at the US/Canadian border, but flow - aggressive in opposing the project. And I they’re on both sides of it. And in 1909 the guess the other Seattle lawyer that’s relevant Congress of the United States, along with the in this proceeding is a lawyer by the name of Federal Canadian government established an Marvin Durning. Now, he’s a former partner of International Joint Commission. And the IJC mine. Marvin did not officially appear in the must give its blessings on any project that has proceedings. Marvin was retained by the impacts on the other side of the border. Now, Province of British Columbia to monitor what one of the areas of attack that the NCCC took was going on. was that the International Joint Commission had not approved this project, and therefore Gosh, there’s an awful lot to say here. The the project could not proceed. City of Seattle, because the existing Ross Dam flooded into Canada a little bit, had to We lost that, because in September of 1941 pay Canada for the loss of its lower Skagit there was a meeting of the IJC. There was a valley, and it made annual payments. Finally, petition by the City of Seattle to raise the in 1967 an agreement was reached between height of the dam to 1725 feet. This was on the City of Seattle and the Province of British the basis that we’re going to need the power Columbia that would allow the flooding of for war. For which we were cranking up. It another eight miles into Canada when the dam came just a few months later. And there was would be raised, in return for $3,500,000 in 99 a one-day meeting of the IJC. I guess the years. That’s about $35,000 a year, which, official view is that petition was granted. from many people’s view, was a sellout. Therefore the international matters were taken care of. Now, I’m not an expert in British Columbia politics, but I can tell you that British Columbia Now, we said, “Oh come on, that was - here governments are either quite conservative or we are in 1970; that was in 1941. There was quite leftist. There’s not a lot in the middle. nothing ever followed up on that. There was And the government that – whether that was no need for the power. This is a whole “Wacky” Bennett – that was what the Premier different generation. We have all these was known as - I can’t remember. But, in any different environmental problems.” You can’t event, the Conservative government just gave go back to ancient history and haul out a piece away their land, which really angered the of paper and say, “Ha, ha! See, we win!” Well Canadians. Then, somewhere in the early there were... The IJC was convened, hearings 1970s, there was a Provincial election and the were held. In fact the IJC was required to liberals, the NDP, the New Democratic Party, prepare a kind of an environmental impact came in power. One name that belongs to the statement, which was a useless document Canadian Interveners is Dave Brousson. because they just relied on what others did. Dave intervened personally as part of the Anyway the IJC finally said, “Well, maybe we group of people that became known as the didn’t do a complete picture in 1941. But we Canadian Interveners. And he was a, I think have now, and we see no reason to disturb he was a liberal in the B.C. legislature. what we did. We don’t do very well with high international negotiations.” Now, the New Democratic Party was opposed to the dam. But it was stuck with this

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The IJC is a political body, it’s an independent Keep in mind, that when I went law school – I body. But they’re very rarified folks, and they went to Columbia Law School and I graduated don’t get involved in high controversy. They in 1960. When I graduated from law school, just prefer to stay out of that, and meet politely there was no such thing as “Environmental and have nice sessions. I’m a little concerned. Law.” It simply did not exist. It wasn’t a body I don’t think they pay attention to public of discipline. The first appellate decision in the interest, but that’s a different subject. We did environment was a very famous case called take on the IJC. There were public meetings. the Scenic Hudson versus the SPC. That was The IJC held public meetings, and lots of in 1965. Then you had a monumental people testified. There was a meeting in decision by Justice Douglass in U.S. Supreme Bellingham. There were meetings in Court – a case called Udall vs. the SPC. That Vancouver. Again, slews of people, was in 1967. So environmental matters really everybody opposed to it, but it didn’t make a hadn’t been seriously considered. And then lot of difference. But the effect of all that was the NEPA, the National Environmental Policy that was that City Light ultimately was held to Act, was passed in 1972 or something. And have the right to proceed in front of the Power that caused a delay, because the Federal Commission because it did have the Power Commission had to prepare an international approval that was necessary. environmental assessment, investigate the impacts on the environment from raising the Now, in my judgment, the Federal Power dam. So that took quite a while. Before, they Commission has never met an application it didn’t think they’d have to do that. Now they didn’t like - and approve. I have always have to do it. So that took, I don’t know, a believed that the Power Commission was in year or so. They did other things too. the business of licensing dams. I was also involved in another very lengthy proceeding in Now let me just say this. In these front of the Power Commission that was .. The proceedings, before this administrative body, other on was my first one. It was a proposal you’ve got the proponents; you’ve got City by a consortium of public and private Light – the people that want to get the license companies to build a dam on the Snake River; to raise the dam. You’ve got the opponents, a place called ‘High Mountain Sheep.’ That’s those in NCCC, the American Interveners, the where I got my education about how the Canadian Intervener, opposed to the dam. Federal Power Commission worked. They just There’s a third group of lawyers that are don’t say, “No.” I don’t think they’re evil or employed by the Power Commission. They’re anything. It’s just that’s their mindset. They staff. And they present witnesses too. They think that is what they’re supposed to do. are there to make sure that the record is Their mission is to make sure that all the t’s complete and that everybody is being honest, are crossed and all i’s are dotted, and all the and that kind of thing. And they put on some exhibits are correct. But they’re just not in the very interesting people, in this case. But the business of really analyzing the assumptions: staff lawyers had to prepare an environmental ‘Is this the right thing at this time to do it?’ And impact statement. City Light had to do some actually, they have thumped their chest a work in that. couple of times in the past, I don’t know, fifteen years ago, when they’ve authorized the In 1967 City Light and the B.C. government destruction of these tiny little dams in Maine. agreed on the compensation – that’s the ‘sellout.’ In December of 1970 City Light filed In any event, I was never hopeful. I never to raise the dam. In May, ‘71, in other words, expected that we would win that battle in front 5 months after the City gets around to of the Power Commission, in front of FERC. applying, the Power Commission says, “Hey, But you have to understand that these everybody! Yoo-hoo. Here’s a public notice. proceedings are not like a courtroom trial, They’re gonna do it.” You ask what they’re they’re sort of leisurely. City Light filed in doing in 5 months. I don’t know. In July of December of 1970, and it wasn’t until 1974 1971 the American interveners get in the case. that the witnesses appeared and testimony was filed, and that kind of thing. And then in 1972, and in 1973 there were these supplemental environmental studies done by staff and City Light. It was supposed

19 Tom Brucker (April 29, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

to be done in 1972, but in March of ’73 it was fought tooth and nail. It was apparent that put off; in the end of ’73 all the environmental there really would have been some significant documents were prepared. And the hearings environmental damage: wildlife, land, – there were public hearings about the fisheries. I mean the wildlife was going to lose application of the City of Seattle. There were a lot of winter range. We got the point across. also hearings in the State of Washington. The Even though City Light got its license, we won State Ecological Committee had these the war. And I feel pretty good about that. hearings. There had to be some state permits, which were issued. It was a very significant and important proceeding. And needless to say, as a good So there were a lot of different things going environmental lawyer I didn’t get paid very on. But the pace is – there’s no hurry in these much. I did a great deal of environmental proceedings. And I might as well say it now. work in my practice. For some reason, I can’t Ultimately, the Federal Power Commission explain it. I felt that protecting and defending approved the license. The way it works, there the land, the water, and the air was very is a hearing examiner who hears all the important. I was with a small firm … a small testimony and makes an initial general practice firm doesn’t exist anymore. recommendation. That goes to the full five- Law has gotten too specialized. But I just felt member commission, which then says, ‘Yes, it was important. you have your license.’ We then appealed. We hired another lawyer by the name of Bruce Now, why we had this great environmental Terrace, who is a Washington D.C. lawyer of awakening in the Sixties, I have spent a lot of renown. And we filed suit in the Appellate time looking at that and I have no answer. I’m Court in the District of Columbia, saying that sure it was youth. Maybe Silent Spring was the Power Commission was wrong. Now the catalyst that really resonated with a lot of that’s – you don’t usually do very well. We lost people. But I can’t explain why at that point that one two-to-one. But it was 1982 or 1983 many, many people felt, as I did, that we have – maybe it was as far as ’84, I can’t remember to have a different way of looking at things. - that the legal proceedings were terminated, And it’s still a struggle that goes on today, and with City Light having its license in hand. is more important than ever. But you don’t get into environmental practice because of the So we went for 13 years – it was 13 years money. You get into it because it’s important. from filing their application to the conclusion of On the other hand you do have yourself, your those proceedings. And an enormous amount employees, and your families to worry about. had changed in these 13 years. Charlie Royer So that’s what I did. was the mayor of Seattle. He didn’t want the dam. There were a lot of power matters that I can see why the High Ross controversy had changed. There was a whole new stirred so many people up in Canada. There Northwest Power Planning Council. City Light was that just ludicrous price that their was not very popular, as it isn’t now, but, provincial government had agreed to. There maybe it didn’t care that much. was the flooding of eight miles of lower Skagit Valley, which is just beautiful, with the It recognized that there really was another resulting losses of fish and wildlife. And it is a solution. And of course the B.C. government place accessible from Vancouver. was sitting there very angry. So then the political matters commenced between our Now you say, ‘why did this create such a senator and Bob Royer, the mayor’s brother, controversy?’ I mean, this was just one of who was hired. And that resulted in the treaty. many controversies that were going on. There So, I think we won. I mean ultimately there is were lots of other issues – land use issues. no dam, but I think those 13 years were The environmental matters were just very crucial. If we had not intervened in that important and Ross Dam had a lot of issues. I proceeding, they would have had their license, was going to say sex appeal, to my point of oh, four years after they applied, and the dam view. I mean the Big Beaver, the fisheries, the would have been built. But because we, the wildlife, the loss of recreational opportunities. American Interveners, the Canadian People believed City Light was proceeding Interveners, the State to some extent, really recklessly to build a project which had been

Tom Brucker (April 29, 2003) 20 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

proposed simply because it had been different answers, and they can both be proposed, when there were alternatives to the convinced that they’re correct. power that was going to be done that were available. You didn’t need to do it. You know, there are judgments in science – science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. A lot of the I don’t believe that you could seriously environmental work I did was representing propose any hydroelectric project anymore in community groups who didn’t like projects. the United States. Hydroelectric is very One of the first things I always told them was, destructive. It’s called ‘clean power,’ but it “Look, there are laws on the book you think isn’t. I mean it just does havoc with the fish. are going to be easy winners for us. Don’t There is a lot of pollution created. There are a believe it. Don’t count on your public officials lot of land values which are destroyed. to interpret the law the way you think is very clear.” It was always very discouraging. And And also keep in mind where this project was in the Ross Dam proceeding we heard a lot of proposed. It’s in the middle of the North controversies on the effect on fish. They had Cascades. Now, the North Cascades are to put on people to say that Ross Dam was pretty rugged and pretty scenic, and pretty seismically O.K. And there was some beautiful, and they don’t exist anywhere else. questions because there may be a fault And here was City Light trying to build a big running around there. But the seismologists lake, a bigger lake, right in a setting, which from City Light and the staff people said, “Oh, was not going to be made better by having a this is ok.” bigger lake. It just wasn’t. There really was going to be a lot of damage caused for not And we had a dispute on science as to what is very much power. A great political loss as going to be the increased output in both well. And fortunately it did not come about. peaking and energy. And sure, in these proceedings all the direct testimony is filed by Now I’d had absolutely nothing to do with the paper months before the witness appears and negotiations as far as the treaty or anything the only thing that goes on in the proceedings else. Nobody asked me. But there was a is cross-examination. And you always look at perception by our senators that because of the assumptions because once you start down Charlie Royer and Bob Royer, we could do the conclusions, it just follows beautifully. something. And as far as I understand, they very quickly reached an agreement. Part of We put a lot of testimony in. We had Gardner that agreement was that there would be the Brown, who is an economist from the Skagit Environmental Endowment university here. We had a retired Park Service Commission, a fund set up so they could person. And Joe and Margaret Miller know enhance the integrity of the entire Skagit more about the Big Beaver Valley than Valley. And I guess I would have to say that I anybody knows about that. And City Light put think it all worked out pretty well. But we held on Grant Sharpe, who’s a guy from the them off! We held them off when we had to. College of Forestry who said, “Eh, seen one The media paid significant attention because it cedar tree, these aren’t any different from was a major project of the City of Seattle. But thousands of other ones.” And oh, who was Joel Connelly, who is a columnist now for the the wonderful guy that the staff put, a forest P-I, he was an environmental reporter. We all ecologist. He ended up being head of the got to know him pretty well. He had some Forest Service briefly? Jerry Franklin. interesting things to say. I want to close by pointing out that I’m an I want to say again that this was very early in alternate on the Skagit Environmental the era of environmental law, and the role of Endowment Commission, SEEC. Pat science was not well established. I’m not so Goldsworthy was the first U.S. Commissioner sure something exists that is known as appointed, and we meet periodically and dole objective science. Everybody has out money and do everything we can to assumptions, criteria, viewpoint, bosses. And ensure the integrity of the valley is studied, I believe that you can have scientists looking defended, and supported. We got to SEEC at the same subject that will come up with because we held off City Light for 13 years and we had an appropriate people in power at

21 Tom Brucker (April 29, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

the right time to have a solution that we’re very best. So. And now we’re moving onto happy with. another level. There’s a retreat here in June where, instead of responding to people who The SEEC, of course, has four members from want to do studies up there, we are going to United States side, four Canadian decide what we want, what we think is commissioners, and each commissioner has important for the integrity of the valley, and an alternate. And I was appointed as an we’ll put out some RFPs to get people to alternate to Pat Goldsworthy back when this respond. I think it’s a great step forward. was first set up. Although I only attended maybe one or two meetings, because at that The Commission has $300,000 a year or so time alternates only attended when the available. City Light and B.C. Hydro both put commissioners could not, and Pat was very, in funds to keep the endowment going. And very strongly committed to the Commission we’re there to ensure the integrity of all the and he always attended. I remember getting values of the Skagit above Ross Dam and into a call from my friend, Norm Rice, who was Canada are determined and defended. We then the mayor, and he said, “Tom,” he said, have school kids that we support who go out “I’m dis-appointing you off the Commission.” I on three-day weekends and are introduced to said, “O.K.” I hadn’t done much anyway. But environmental values of the Skagit. NCI is three years ago Pat– who was then an doing just marvelous things with the fifth grade alternate – was not to be reappointed. And I of the Mt. Vernon school district. It’s not only was appointed as an alternate, which I am a two-week program, its all year around. It’s now. Now things have changed quite a bit. very… There’s a lot of things going on. We’re Paul Schell appointed me. He was the mayor trying to encourage the environmental at that point. Now the Commission meets with understanding, awareness, and protection of the commissioners and the alternates at all the the Skagit Valley. meetings. Everybody participates equally. The only difference is when it comes to a vote, It was a long, frustrating struggle. But the the alternates don’t vote. But in the three or good guys won. And that’s what counts. some odd years that I’ve been on as an alternate, very have been few controversies, and most of the decisions are fairly unanimous.

Now, the Commission has really undergone a great change just in the short time I’ve been on there. A large part of what the Commission did was to respond to entities, both individuals and corporations, that wanted to do some sort of research or some sort of good in the Valley. The Student Conservation Association has gotten money. That’s a very good organization that involves kids, nationwide, in constructing and reconstructing things. You’ve got people who are doing masters studies looking at bats or mosquitoes. Or they’ve looked at archeologist sites, grizzly bears, all kinds of things.

But what’s happened recently is that we’ve entered into what are known as partnerships with people who have been with us for a long time. There are two of them now. One is the National Park Service, and the other is the North Cascades Institute, NCI. And we give them sixty, eighty thousand dollars a year. They spend the money the way they think is

Tom Brucker (April 29, 2003) 22 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Tony Eberts (Interviewed May 15, 2003)

Tony was born and raised in British Columbia. He now lives in Alder Grove, BC, after having spent 15 years working at The Vancouver Province (1979 to 1994) as outdoors editor and environment columnist. Tony received the 1983 Public Service Award of the Federation of B.C. Naturalists. The year before, he won the National Outdoor Writers award and in 1994, the Steelhead Society Mission Award.

It was a campaign that had such a happy Curley hired on as head of a crew to clear the ending to it. Nobody was a loser, really. flood area. It started quite slowly, just the lake Seattle City Light got the extra power they where there had been some casual flooding needed from other sources, and the Skagit is before, clearing out stumps. And then as it now pretty well a catch and release fishing worked its way, some years later, up to some venue. But that was coming anyway. And it’s nice, impressive stands, I think is was a big a single, barb-less hook type fishing. So the stand of Ponderosa Pine that really upset quality as a stream should be Curley - the idea of cutting this. It wasn’t big endless, it should keep going with the Ross enough to be really important as timber, but Lake. anything growing – Ponderosa Pine doesn’t really grow this well on the west side of the It’s a sort of reservoir not just for power, but for watershed. So he objected to this. And finally trout. The person I would like to sort of, – they wouldn’t listen to him – so he quit. And played the most dramatic role I think in the just about the same time the ROSS group was whole affair, was an old logger named Wilfred formed, ‘Run Out Skagit Spoilers.’ So Curley, ‘Curley’ Chittenden. He ran various logging as it were, dropped his axe and crossed the shows along the B.C. coast. And in the early floor and took up against the idea of flooding 1950s, when Seattle City Light was planning the valley. And along with being a sort of to raise the dam and start flooding the valley, figurehead for the operation, he kept an eye

23 Tony Eberts (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

on the place. He wrote letters and he lobbied logging truck on some of these elevated the government, as he had a bit of money roads, a pretty strange operation. saved up from his logging days. When it seems that the river had been saved But he always a pretty remarkable man, as he from flooding, we had a party. It was held in had various accomplishments. He was one of what is known as Chittenden Meadows. And the main pushes behind establishing the people like John Fraser, and Tom Perry, and Abbotsford international air show, which for Curley, and John Massey, and Paul George many years has actually been one of the and all sorts of others that were involved in the world’s biggest air shows. That stems back to work, we all got together, with Curley pulling when Curley, as a coastal logger got tired of the corks on the wine bottles. He broke a traveling by tow boats and so on, and taught couple of corkscrews doing it. It was a fine himself to fly, and bought a floatplane and party and I canoed a river. I had canoed lakes buzzed around, flying bushed loggers to town. before, but the first time I’d ever canoed a river was with Tom Perry, on the morning of the day In 1948 there was very serious flooding of the we had this barbeque, and so we won fight whole Fraser Valley – came over the dikes and it was really a fine thing to do. I think and did millions of dollars of damage. And Curley went on from there to work for saving Curley and his bulldozer went into action and other places like the Stein River. He was repaired, did a lot of dike repairs. Afterward, involved in that. And he was working on a Chittenden was put in charge of repairing the couple of projects on at the time damage, and fixing the dikes and the whole of his death. upper Fraser Valley areas. Meanwhile he’s going to little dances around the smaller The Skagit controversy had been going on for communities with his little orchestra. some years. I was a feature writer and editorial writer at The Vancouver Province. In 1979, I talked my way into becoming the Outdoor Editor, the Environment writer and so on. So the Skagit was a natural to take up on. Also, being a fly fisherman I’d known the river for at least a dozen years before that as a wonderful place to fish. And back in those days, before they established the park and campground that’s there now, you simply went in there with the toughest vehicle you had. And you could camp anywhere. You could drive out on the sandbar, and camp literally on the edge of the river. You could cast a line from your truck if you wanted to.

So this got me started. As I’m sure you’ve heard elsewhere, it was a ridiculous deal. It went back to an old wartime deal in which Curley Chittenden, photo courtesy D. Clark Seattle City Light would gain by tens of millions of dollars a year, and I think the fee to Then when the upper Skagit was in danger, be paid to the Provincial government was Curley really spent the rest of his life – he died $35,000 a year for getting their valley flooded. about ten years ago in his early eighties, So it was a terrible idea. around 80 I guess – going back to old logging operations recording the history, a lot which he And we’ve got lots of lakes, but good fly was involved in personally, and trying to get fishing streams are a real treasure and a some of these once logged over areas saved rarity. But instead of just shouting at the for posterity. To keep it, to stop logging the powers-that-be to stop the flooding, to do second growth and preserve such things as something, when I was writing columns about elevated wooden roads they had in those it I would usually start out describing a fishing days. Curley used to drive a solid tired trip to the Skagit and talking about the wildlife

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and the fish and the beauty of the place. And On diverse popular opinions at the time sooner or later draw in the fact that at that I think there’s a lot of people unless they’re point it all seemed doomed. That our B.C. active outdoors people who had some government was dragging its feet; that they knowledge, personal knowledge of the Skagit chose to feel that they were bound by this say, if they read a company or government wartime agreement even though to most of us, report saying it would be lovely to have and certainly all the fishermen and naturalists another good fishing lake in southern British and campers and so on, that was ridiculous. It Columbia, and they tend to believe that. Why made no sense whatever. not? It sounded good. Put your boat in and away you go, instead of having to cross the I don’t think I ever thought of myself as an border. So people who thought that way, activist. That word wasn’t used much in those really had to be told about the fact that the days. I was never much, you know, waving valley really is a wonderful place to see deer signs or marching on Legislature or that sort of and bear and wildlife of all kinds. There was a thing. I’ve always just written a column and lot more to it than just a place to go fishing. tried to enlighten people as to what’s going on and what a lot of us thought was wrong with it On environmental science coverage in the and what might be done. outdoors section I think because environmental scientists are About Vancouver newspapers and their involved in this sort of thing, those aspects political slant certainly are woven in there, because it’s Well it wasn’t very clear-cut. I think both translated into laymen’s terms and such. But newspapers then you know pretty well saw you rarely see much in the way of technicality eye-to-eye. One was what a Canadian would other than talking about biodiversity and such. call liberal – small ‘L’ liberal. And the other And climatic zones, and biozones and this sort was quite conservative. So there was nothing of thing, which need to be explained. But if approaching, you know nothing much left of you’d like another strong point for the Skagit, center, really. No Socialist influence at all in one of the reasons was this famous grove of the news that you would notice. It was an Ponderosa Pine is found there. It was right in NDP government did come into power, a New the middle of the sort of the change from the Democratic Party Socialist administration in coastal climate and biodiversity zone to the the mid-Seventies. And it looked as though, interior. And so you had a bit of both meeting for a while, that was going to be good. But there. It meant a lot of bird life, deer, bear and they didn’t stay in office very long. And then so on. It was hard to spend a day in there we were back with the tender mercies of the without seeing a black bear or two. And I Right-wingers who saw power - literally and don’t think they ever bothered anybody. But figuratively - as something to be sought for, no it’s always been a very special area for that. matter how many valleys got drowned. It was, to me, pretty tough. Finally it went to the It’s quite funny. It was back when the dispute International Joint Commission the level that was at it’s height, a bunch of the ROSS Ottawa was talking to Washington D.C. that it Committee and clubs and so on got finally got resolved. together and they had a Canoe-In at the river in which dozens of went down all the The coverage of the Skagit was in the news way from the Twenty-six Mile Bridge where side at that point. And of course it would not the access road meets the river, all the way have happened without the support of people down to Ross Lake. And I think it was just like John Fraser, who as you know is a former coincidentally a couple of days later the Cabinet Minister and so on. Despite the fact Seattle City Light quoted some local expert as that he was a Cabinet Minister in the right- saying that the Skagit River is impossible to wing government of Brian Mulroney, he was a canoe. It couldn’t be claimed to be a dyed-in-the-wool steelheader, steelhead recreational river in that regard because you fisherman, an outdoorsman who really valued couldn’t canoe it anyway. what British Columbia had to offer, and fought very hard – not just as a politician, but as a fisherman, and a conservationist who valued the Skagit.

25 Tony Eberts (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

How often could you write a story about the on him for this as well and managed to get Skagit before it would be too often? away with that. I think he might have even gone down and had another look at the river As long as there is something new to bring before he said anything more about it. into it, some change either for good or for bad to peg, to hang a story on, you could do a fair When it was finally resolved, I reported it. This amount. But too many stories would get a lot was great stuff. There was this piece I wrote of people just fed up with it and they’d pay no here: “Conscience Obeyed. The Valley Is attention at all I suppose. That was why I tried Saved.” And I listed off as many of the people to write, if I was going to write a column about who had been involved as I could. Just to run going fly fishing, I would go to the Skagit and through them. There was of course the ROSS just describe in detail a day in the river, fish Committee who pretty well spearheaded the caught and so, and just at some point in it say whole operation. And then you had that this experience, rare enough as it is now, everything. I think this is sort of in alphabetical will soon be almost impossible as rivers order: The Alpine Club of Canada, B.C. disappear. They get logged or ruined in that Federation of Fly Fishers, The B.C. Wildlife way, or they get flooded, or populated, or Federation – which at that time was the something happens to them. And to biggest organization of outdoors people in the deliberately give one away is a terrible thing to Province. It’s now rivaled by the Western do. Canada Wilderness Committee. Paul George was the founder of the Western Canada Some stories would involve interviews with Wilderness Committee. I served as a Director other people who were fishing or hunting, or for a number of years. But it now has 27,000 else involved in some activist kinds of things. members and rivals the Wildlife Federation as Curley Chittenden was always very good for far as representing outdoors people. And the information and background and so on. But Wilderness Committee of course is not so also Ken Farquharson of the ROSS much the ‘hook and bullet’ fraternity which Committee and others were involved just supports the Wildlife Federation. They’re about every day in getting out press releases more conservation minded, trying to save old and writing reports and letters to the Joint growth forests and wildlife and keep intrusions Commission and to Seattle City Light and from Provincial parks, and that sort of thing. generally being a thorn in the side. Mostly it was just a case of going in there and just They have a lot of common goals. But they haunting the place. Since my job was the don’t often work together because the Wildlife outdoors and fishing and the environment, it Federation, which has a lot of hunters, they was pretty good way to make sure that I could don’t wasn’t to be too mean to the logging do my damnedest to keep people abreast of interests because a lot of hunters tend to be a what was happening. bit on the lazy side and they like to use logging roads, new and old, rather than their own legs In my writing, I could generally have my way. I to get into hunting areas. The Wilderness don’t think in the fifteen years I ever had a Committee doesn’t give consideration to such column canceled. By shouting at people, and things, and in fact we’ve worked for years to so on, I could generally convince them I get old logging roads closed down and sort of should be allowed to make my own choices filled in and obliterated because so many of and express my own opinion. I don’t think them tend to slide, you know, erode into they even went as far as to say that the streams and rivers. So as I say, broadly opinions of these columns are not necessarily speaking there was a common interest, those of the Vancouver Province. They never especially in a deal like the Skagit, because actually went that far. At one time we had a fishing was one of the primary things. But publisher there who was a mountain climber, they were too many Wilderness, Federation who didn’t have any use for fishing or any of Wildlife Federation people were still looking for this ordinary hiking like ordinary mortals do. places to take their ATVs or jeeps or And he allowed as how it didn’t really matter a whatever. damn whether it was a river or a lake because he’d be up on some mountaintop somewhere Anyway. On down the list: Various canoe looking down on it all anyway. So I jumped clubs, Federation of B.C Naturalists,

Tony Eberts (May 15, 2003) 26 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Federation of Mountain Clubs B.C., Langarra think as I wrote here on this “Conscience Environmental Voice – that was a college staff Obeyed,” I said, “There was a plain case of and students at Langarra Community College sound and responsible judgment prevailing in Vancouver. Recreational Canoeing over a ludicrously bad political and financial Association, and the Sierra Club of course, deal. Yet it looked for a while as if the sellout they had people working in there, the Skagit would proceed, and priceless reserves lost.” Anglers, and SPEC – Society for Promotion of And I suggested then that the whole area Environmental Conservation, University of should become a Class A Provincial Park. I B.C. Environmental Interest Group, Vancouver think it’s not a Class A, but it is Provincial Natural History Society, and the Western parkland reserve. And there’s a very good Canada Wilderness Committee. But all these campground and so on. But as soon as it things were pretty well coordinated by the Run looked as though the river was saved, then Out Skagit Spoilers outfit – Ken Farquharson you had an extra reaction of people saying, and the boys who would ask people to ‘now we’ve got to develop it for our recreation,’ participate in certain things that were coming and ‘let’s spend millions getting on with up, rather than just fall all over each other, developing a park in the Upper Skagit.’ duplicating each others’ activities. Obviously it worked in the end, but it took a lot of time and So we had to kind of try to squash that, too. I effort. mean what we wanted saved was the valley in its natural state, and it didn’t need This was before the fax and internet, of development. It just needed to be reasonable course. It would have been a lot of phoning access provided for what was already there. I and so on. And my counterpart at the said here, “To suggest, as an editor and writer Vancouver Sun was also working on this, recently did,” presumably I’d be picking on although they didn’t have one particular somebody at the Vancouver Sun, but, “a lot of person. They had Lee Straight, who is now money would have to be spent to make the quite long retired, who was their fishing Skagit Valley really a paradise that backers columnist who was certainly involved in it, and claim it is, and to speak of rehabilitation work others. But a lot of this was done through the shows a sad ignorance of the situation. papers, and on the radio and occasionally on Anyone who thinks paradise can be the T.V., although that was a little rich for the manufactured, even at considerable expense, budget, but it was my sense most of them had wouldn’t know the difference between a Vancouver connections, so it wasn’t that hard. wilderness area and a greenhouse.” It did, it I think that was probably why there wasn’t less sort of slumped over into this idea, probably rapport between American individuals and coming from people who thought, well you’ve organizations and the Canadian ones, made all this damn fuss, now let’s see if it can because of the communication factor back in be turned into the wonderful place that you the Seventies and early Eighties – there was say it is. And the argument was that all you nothing like the internet and that sort of thing. had to is go and look at it. It’s there, and it has So they used to meet I guess at the odd rally to be protected, not developed. So I think that here and there, but I don’t know if that was the has come to pass. general rule. And I think this will continue. Because, as we In my reporting, I would talk to representative move toward the time when there are going to of various American groups as well. There be more fishermen than fish, the value of a certainly were a number of them quite active. fishery like the Skagit – catch and release, and With two different countries, a little bit of barbless hook and this sort of thing – what I nationalism might have been inevitable, I think is more likely to increase and just the fact suppose. And I imagine a lot of Seattleites that it’s so relatively close to the million and a were convinced themselves that more power half to two million people of this corner of B,C., was needed, so, tough beans, but you can’t and the million or two across the border deny us the power that we need to heat our between here and Seattle, and will assure that homes and light our homes and stuff. There it’ll remain popular. But no, not too popular, would have been a certain entrenched urban because there’s no draw for the meat attitude there I think that would have raised a fishermen – you know the people who see few hackles on this side of the border. But I fishing as a way to fill up a freezer, rather than

27 Tony Eberts (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

enjoy the experience. I think it should work. campground. You can no longer camp out on And it should work in other places as well. sandbars and this sort of thing, because it was Pretty well has to, or there’ll be nowhere to damaging – pollution and this sort of thing. cast a line. But aside from that, its pretty well the same. You just have to walk a bit more to get to In the lengthy list of groups, organizations, and some of the better fishing spots. categories of people in “Conscience Obeyed,” under that headline, there’s no mention of First I last fished the Skagit just a couple of years Nations anywhere. Well, unlike the Stein, in ago, I guess. I first started going in there, which they were heavily involved, the Skagit we’ve got three children now, ranging in age doesn’t seem to touch on any native Indian from thirty-nine to forty-four, and when they reserve land or community property or were quite small we used to take them in there anything like this. I think there was some First in a car, truck or van or whatever we had, and Nations involvement, but only it was a tent and do the old camping and fishing supportive individuals. They were members of routine. So I knew it way back when and it’s some of these other organizations. But no, as still, there’s still just the main access road far as I know, there was no First Nations’ which goes in from near Hope and follows up reserve land involved. It may be a little Silver Creek and then goes on and hits the strange that this was not brought in, but I Skagit at what they call Twenty-six Mile suppose the area had been logged to some Bridge. And then this main road, which is still extent a long time ago. But the timber that we unpaved - which is also good - It keeps were saving was largely just good second weekenders out and limits the quantity of growth. The Native People are often involved broken beer bottles and that sort of thing. in areas that have traditionally been of spiritual There’s just really the one road that leads importance. And one of the proofs of this is down to Ross Lake, and provides plenty of what they call, ‘culturally altered trees.’ Which walking access to all parts of the river. of course, wouldn’t be old growth trees. These are trees that have had cuts made into The river is closed to fishing now from the first them, sometimes if you believe it, cut a hole all of April to the first of July, for trout spawning. the way through a big cedar tree before felling Fortunately, the differences aren’t that great, it to see if it was sound in the middle – things as far as the experience – you know the that would have been done centuries ago in a wilderness experience and the fishing really old tree. The Skagit didn’t have that experience is almost as good now as it was kind of timber in it. And since there was no thirty years ago. formal Native territory there, it would have been hard - almost impossible - for them to In the end, it certainly was a long and difficult prove that they had some sort of pre-historical affair. But I think now, what we’re finding claim on the land, so… no, as far as I know more and more all the time as outdoorsman none of the local bands was there. and fishermen and so on is there’s too many organizations. That we should, there should After the treaty was established and the be, probably on both sides of the border, there Commission set up, our reporting offered brief should be a much more centralized progress updates. What they were doing, the representation of all these outdoor interests. building of the campground, and they did up There must be an incredible amount of some bridges and so on. There was a duplication as the campaign to lower the limits footbridge built many years ago by Curley on trout or this sort of thing. And instead of Chittenden and his crew that around the mid- speaking in just one or two voices, you get Eighties some vandals managed to burn dozens, various fishing groups and local down. But that was quite rapidly rebuilt fishing groups and provincial and state and because it opened to trails, to interesting federal and… It makes it much easier for the features, groves of trees, and streams, and so developers and the industry – which they are forth. always united in their purpose, and speak with one main voice, whereas while we But no, I think fortunately, the view that conservationists may greatly outweigh them. development should be kept to a minimum has And naturally, we are much more pure of heart pretty well been observed and there is a good and decent than they are. And yet because

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we’re all shouting from different places and into automation and mechanization of mills different ways, it’s hard to really win a and so on. So at the height of the logging complete victory. prosperity of the 80’s, British Columbia’s forest industries managed to lay off twenty thousand And the other thing, of course, is that workers. conservation people can stop a proposal to drain a swamp or flood or valley or cut a grove I’ve always enjoyed pointing this out, and was of thousand-year-old trees, but that only lasts never contradicted, I just would say that more for a year, and then the industry interests than 20,000 jobs were carefully and involved in doing this start it all up again. And deliberately wiped out by the big corporations this is a process - I don’t think either the to increase their bottom line. Because, of Canadian or current American governments course if you can have a mill that works with a are the type that would listen too strongly to few button-pushers, well then you, inevitably this, but here it is, just the idea that once a that is a lot more money for the owner. Just battle over conservation is won by the how much that is believed, I don’t know, but a conservation side, there should be some sort lot of communities up our coast mills have of moratorium. Industry can’t just say, ok, well closed. Not because of park creation or you’ve won this year, but we’ll win next year. anything, but simply because the Because a lot of industrial interests, manufacturers, you know the timber sometimes with government backing, have companies who do get together and have a virtually unlimited financial resources, whereas central bargaining authority… one way of the conservationists – money is always a big saving money is to do all your milling in one problem. They’re constantly begging for area, so you’ve got mills in the lower mainland sponsors and funds and memberships. And and barges hauling, taking the logs down from they just can’t stand the strain, so eventually in the middle coastal communities, closing the too many cases victory is very temporary. The mills up there and running the mills down here. Skagit and the Stein River are a couple of major victories that seem to be pretty well So a lot of this has to be to counteract the permanent. We’ve sort of outlasted them. But industry propaganda that ‘We know what’s there are many others where eventually we’re good for you and don’t let those Sierra Club finding old growth timber outside of a Stanley come in here and create a park and not let us Park or something seem to be very difficult. have our trees, and...’ you know, most parks Sort of the old red flag cry of ‘protestors unite,’ are ice and rock and water and alpine and you know, ‘Cast off your chains!’ But really sub-alpine. No more than two or three percent the idea is one of strength in numbers. Unless of forested land of British Columbia is in park people really want to see something boundaries. So this is pure propaganda for conserved, they’ve got to start talking to each them to come out and say, you know, ‘no other about getting together and forming some more parks, or we won’t have enough forest to overall body that would represent. depend on. Or we’ll pull out and close all our mills and you’ll be in desperate trouble. Can’t And yet there is also the opposite side of that, say that unless all the timber’s gone. which says we don’t need these, the big old Sierra Club coming in here and telling us what to do here in our back yard. Sometimes the environmental organizations can appear to be the bully if they’re seen as trying to close down a logging operation that feeds a mill in a little town somewhere. But that’s again where a little history and information is important. Because in the ’80’s for example, when the big multinational logging corporations in B.C. were racking up very impressive profits, many of them - McMillan-Bloedel, for example, which is now taken over by Weyerhaeuser - instead of putting their money into conservation measures and so on, they preferred to put it

29 Tony Eberts (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Ken Farquharson (Interviewed May 14, 2003)

Ken Farquharson came to British Columbia in 1959 and worked for consulting engineering firms on industrial structures and hydroelectric projects. In 1968, he became interested in land use issues in the province. He was a founding member and secretary of the ROSS Committee, which was formed to prevent further flooding of the Skagit Valley. In 1971, he formed his own consulting company and has since then worked largely in the field of environmental assessment of development projects. Mr. Farquharson holds a Master of Mechanical Sciences from Cambridge and is a member of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. In 1977, he was awarded the Conservationist of the Year from the BC Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Achievement Award from the BC Ministry of Environment.

KF: I was brought into the Skagit issue by flooding of this further land had been Dave Brousson, who was a member of our envisaged. But a lot of people would have legislative assembly from the North Shore. He been interested in the terms. Well, when we drew me in because I’d been involved in an finally discovered what the terms were, they argument with the Provincial government over were so outrageous, that we sat down with the development of Cypress Bowl, up in West Dave Brousson, and with others, and Vancouver, and he knew I had an interest in determined we would oppose this. And that things environmental. was the start of the opposition.

What had happened is that one of his We formed this ROSS Committee, Run Out constituents had a cabin in the Skagit, on a Skagit Spoilers, with representation from piece of private land, or a Crown lease, and different organizations that had an interest, they’d been give notice to vacate so that such as the naturalists, the Wildlife Seattle could flood the valley. And there was Federation, the Mountain clubs, and others. no information in the public out at that time. The Totem Fly Fishers was another one The Province had just concluded this because of the value of the Skagit fishing. agreement with Seattle, which had been And this was group that had a lot of people envisaged – the raising of Ross Dam and the with good tentacles into government, with

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experienced people such as John Fraser, valued by people for recreation, for a variety of Brousson, and others. And we managed to things, so cheaply. And ultimately it was that make an impact, starting… pretty steadily. embarrassment on that one issue that turned That was the start of it. this thing around.

INT: Where did the name come from? INT: Now the group, the Run Out Skagit Spoilers group, were you principally based KF: The ‘Run Out Skagit Spoilers’? I can’t here in the greater Vancouver area, or did you remember who actually coined it. I think it was also have members in the Skagit? possibly John Massey, who was a sort of a PR man that was also a very strong fisherman, KF: No. We were all in the Vancouver area. but I couldn’t be sure of that. INT: What kind of involvement was there from people in the Hope area and nearer the INT: We’ve heard that the role the public Skagit? takes in environmental decisions here in British Columbia is – you aren’t often offered a KF: Well, the Hope area, funnily enough, at seat at the table when these decisions get times ran opposition to us. Because the made. loggers out of Hope wanted the contract to the jobs logging the valley. Hope varied, up and down. We had two or three supporters in KF: Certainly in those days one was not. This Hope, but we had a lot of opponents as well. was the very beginning of environmental activism in B.C. Up to now, because of the INT: Was this a totally volunteer effort, or did size of the province and the relatively low you raise some money to support your work? population, some bad things had happened environmentally, but equally well, people had KF: It was totally volunteer. We did get a, the feeling that there was plenty of land to some money, initially from the federal recreate on, that they could always find other government, to help us put together a legal places. But about the time of the late Sixties argument for FERC, in the U.S. But that was we began to realize that that wasn’t so. We the only money that came into the ROSS began to understand what had happened in committee. We did also raise some money the forest policy in this province, and just what through the book that Tom Perry wrote, which the implications were in the long run, in terms we sold, and items like that. But broadly, it of the denuding of places that were popular for was a volunteer effort. recreation. So people began to get informed. And the Skagit issue was one of those that INT: Sometimes in the States, when there are helped inform them. The decision-making in legal proceedings, the word of experts or Victoria was not always done with the interest specialists is given more weight than that of of the public at heart. just simply a citizen who feels strongly about some issue. Did you have access to experts? INT: So what sort of strategies did you use to try to make this issue more visible? KF: The only legal situation we had was for the appearance before FERC, in the U.S. And KF: Well, we were naïve enough to think that the academic community at UBC was very the deal that Seattle had made with the supportive, and we had many academics Province was so one-sided and so bad, that testify. And they testified virtually, as I recall, we could turn this thing over in twelve months. free of charge. Well, we started in ’69 and didn’t finish till ’83. It … INT: And how did you recruit them?

INT: Took a little longer? KF: Tom Perry, again, his father was a long- term academic at UBC, and Tom knew many KF: Yes. We were naïve. But that remained of the people there, and a lot of it was done the base of our argument the whole time: how through him. A lot of it was also done through could you sell a public resource that was so

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Bert Brink, because many of people were his rises in the States, comes north across the past students. border, comes into the Columbia, and then goes out again. And Seattle has a dam, the INT: I see. What was it that kept you going Boundary dam, just immediately south of the for the fourteen years? international line. And B.C. Hydro wanted to build a dam on the Canadian section and KF: Because we knew we’d win. Simple as because of all the fuss with regard to the that. In fairness, the Provincial government Skagit, they felt they couldn’t possibly do capitulated relatively early on. And they said, anything that would go across the line and ‘Look, it’s going take us time to work this out.’ create a Skagit in reverse. So, Hydro was Ben Marr was Deputy Minister of the going to chicken out and build this dam to a Environment at that time. And he said, ‘Look, height that would never let them flood that little the decision’s been made to try to find a bit between the international boundary and solution. Now, will you agree not to harass the boundary dam. But I worked a lot with Hydro government, provided that you, there’s at that time. I found out about this and went to confidence that we’re moving toward a the Provincial Minister, Bob Williams, who was solution?’ That was broadly how the last also a director of Hydro and said, ‘This is years went. We kept on testing with Marr that lunacy. You know, this thing is a canyon. The the government was indeed progressing. And impacts are limited. We should take that various things happened that allowed them to increment of head, if they can flood back into progress. And for that you’ve got to look at Canada, we should make this part of the deal.’ what happened within B.C. Hydro and its Williams instructed Hydro to build the dam to planning and things like that. Certain the height that would allow the flooding to go decisions were made in the province that right up to the tail water of the boundary dam. needed years to get a solution. But they were That increment in height gave about a third of made independently almost of the Skagit at the total power that Seattle would have got the time. from High Ross. Therefore we had that increment in our pocket, virtually, when a deal INT: Can you give us an example? could be made.

KF: Yes, but before that, there’s one other The second thing is that Hydro got into this thing I should say, too, that we felt would expansionist thing of dam building in B.C. And contribute to a solution. The Canadian federal this culminated in building Revelstoke Dam on government was severely embarrassed by the the Columbia River and they found when they Skagit issue. Because the International Joint built this thing and they were generating Commission, which is highly valued in Canada around 2,000 plus megawatts. Lo and behold, because Canada has equal representation on they didn’t have a market for it, so suddenly it with the U.S., dealing with boundary issues, they were very keen to have a long term dropped the ball on the Skagit. Because when market for a section of this power. And that they gave permission for the original flooding provided the other the two-thirds of the power across the border, they recognized that surge to make, if you like, a possibility to Seattle wanted to come back and have the supply power to Seattle to make up for their further flooding, and they gave preliminary giving up High Ross. The electricity was agreement to it, provided that Seattle came there. The issue then was how much Seattle back with a plan that would be approved by should pay for it. And there was what sort of the IJC. And Seattle never went back to the took all the time to bargain. IJC. And the IJC accepted the provincial deal without ever putting it to scrutiny themselves. INT: I see. Now, help us understand: How is So there was embarrassment at the federal B.C. Hydro related to the Provincial level, and we had both levels of government government? trying to work to a solution. The issue then was, well, what could the solution be? And KF: B.C. Hydro is a Crown corporation. It is a two things happened that were fundamental. utility that is totally controlled by the Provincial B.C. Hydro wanted to build a dam on the Pend government. Oreille River, which is a tributary of the Columbia, near Trail. And the Pend Oreille

Ken Farquharson (May 14, 2003) 32 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

INT: And how accountable are they to, say, to interested in seeing the Skagit spoiled. How the Legislative Assembly? did you get on with them?

KF: Ultimately, they don’t do what they’re told, KF: We got on very well with the North the director, the manager gets changed. Cascades Conservation Council. I forget just Simple as that. They take their instruction from quite how the first contact was made, but we Victoria. Hydro did not really want to be realized that we had a joint problem, and that involved because they deal with Seattle City to get success, we’d have to work jointly Light commercially, and they didn’t want to be because the solution was ultimately going to part of pressing Seattle to come to an be an international one. I’d hoped when we agreement. They were very reluctant to be started out that the Province and Seattle could drawn into the negotiations, as you could come to terms and just correct the mistake understand. But ultimately they had to be part that had been made. But Seattle was very of the negotiation, because they are the determined to hold onto the asset they thought people who understood what power costs are, they had. So ultimately it took an international so they were part of the final team that treaty. And when we realized that the thing reached the negotiation. had escalated to that point, we knew really that we had to work very closely with the INT: Let’s switch gears for just a minute. I’m people south of the border, which we did. interested in ways in which the ROSS Committee was able to call its interests and INT: And did the ROSS Committee or other activities to the public’s attention. How did you Canadians have a chance to make your case, work with the media? in say, in the Seattle media, and try to influence it down there? KF: The first media to respond really was T.V., and particularly the CBC. They had a KF: We didn’t play very much in the Seattle program there at that time, Mike Halloran, who media. We felt that the North Cascades focused on resource issues in the Province. Conservation Council knew a lot more about And Halloran picked this issue up and ran that than we did. And they certainly did. many stories. He took people in there to show There were people like Joel Connelly, who did them the river, to show them what would be take an interest, who came up and saw the lost. He had spokesmen from the ROSS Canadian side and so wrote stories about it. Committee there, talking about it. He went to But as the ROSS Committee, we really didn’t government and pressed them as to what they try to use the U.S. media. were thinking about when they could make such a stupid deal, decidedly. He was very INT: I gather that there was a point at which good. the discussions went behind closed doors to talk about the financial dimensions of the We worked with radio. We did a lot of settlement. What was the ROSS Committee interviews; there was Ted Peck, I remember. I doing then? forget his station, just on Burrard Street there, but he was a very keen fisherman. Lee KF: I guess I was the person who was the Straight was the fishery outdoor editor in the main contact with Ben Marr and sort of work Sun. The Sun gave us full support all through with him through that time. And we just made the years that we campaigned on this issue. it our business to keep on prodding Ben and And it was all basically that on the same others to make sure that they were keeping theme – that the public were losing and the their side of the bargain. In addition, any new Province had made a mistake. There was a information or concerns that we had we’d pass story there that was very plain. It was, it is a through. I’d talk to Ben often. At that point very attractive valley. There was good merit in Ben was the Deputy Minister, a relatively the argument. powerful man in this Province, and yet he never refused to take a call. I could get INT: Now, on the one hand, the Americans, in through to him any time I wanted. the form of City Light, were the spoilers of the Skagit. And there were also environmental INT: It sounds like this took a tremendous groups on the American side who were not amount of time on your part.

33 Ken Farquharson (May 14, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

KF: It did. INT: Could you talk about the formation of the Commission itself? INT: Yet you also have a day job, right? KF: As the ROSS Committee, we were not KF: Yes. I worked on the design of the big really very much involved in how the deal was dams on the Columbia and it was that struck between the Province and Seattle, and experience and all the land use issues on the the U.S. and Canada, because ultimately they Columbia that got me interested in were the four players. And I think the federal conservation. I think when you build a dam governments were really sort of on the and create a reservoir, you should certainly sidelines. They just wanted to make sure they make sure when you do you end up with could live with whatever was struck, so that something that gives pleasure to people and the main players were Seattle and the sort of fits both of them, to the extent that’s Province. As I understand it the Commission possible. But equally well, there are some and the Endowment Fund was the desire of places that should not be flooded. You know. the City of Seattle. I don’t think the Province And it’s learning to draw the difference and to particularly welcomed this sort of thing, recognize the differences between those is the because they don’t like to have citizen bodies, important part. or at least at that time, sort of reviewing Crown resources, and expenditure of public moneys, I was actually in a vulnerable position, et cetera, et cetera. So, it was bit of a surprise because I worked in the consulting when the treaty was finally made public and engineering field. I’m not a sort of a civil we saw that this was there. We thought, well, servant or a person with a secure job. You’re it’s an interesting opportunity. Why not do it? living by your next assignment. And you’re We put an enormous amount of effort into the vulnerable, to some degree. It may have had Skagit, so why not? Let’s follow through. some influence in parts of government, that someone was out there kicking them, but on INT: And what do you recall about the term of the other hand, other parts of government reference that you received in joining the thought it was not a bad thing. And I didn’t Commission at the start? really have too many problems, other than with one particular minister. I don’t think I KF: Well the terms of reference, as far as I suffered. I think I learned enormously from the remember, were really nothing more than what process and had a sense of sort of was in the agreement that had been made, achievement from the process. which were written fairly broadly. I can remember going to different places, but I don’t INT: I’m thinking that your professional have a good memory of what the key items background would give you a certain credibility were, other than to try to get a handle on the that if you were just a long-haired, wild-eyed, sort of the fish populations, and the sort of the bleed-green environmentalist that you might wildlife populations of that area. Those, not have. starting off, those were the two elements that seemed to be most important, of most interest KF: I think it did. And Ben Marr is actually an to people. The one item, which disappointed engineer by background as well, even though me a bit was that I’d hoped that through the he ended up as Deputy Minister of Forests committee the Skagit would ultimately end up and Environment. So we could talk with a trade-off system, something reasonably well about the issues, and about comparable to what you can see in the North the problem and the solution. He also comes Cascades National Park. I don’t think we have from a reasonably close part of Scotland, so that yet. I would still like to see that. that also helped. INT: We were shown a photo of the treaty signing, where a fellow named Curley INT: You mentioned that once the treaty was Chittenden was invited to attend. What can signed and the Commission was set up that you tell us about Curley Chittenden? you were one of the initial Commissioners. KF: Curley is an interesting fellow. He was a KF: Yes I was. sort of pioneer logger in the lower mainland,

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based out the and he logged out of was a time of expansion in this province. And the valleys up the Chehalis and others on the as a result of that there was a lot of migration north side of the Fraser. And when Seattle into here, such as myself and others who cleared the reservoir for High Ross, which was came in, who were bringing ideas from outside I think sort of ’42, ’43, something like that, as well. And a factor, too, that should be not because of the nature of the canyon – Skagit forgotten is the influence of people who came Canyon – all the logs and things that came out up here at the time of the Vietnam War, who from the north end had to come out through were experienced, more experienced with the Canada, and in addition there was the clearing U.S. traditions of arguing with government. into Canada. So the road had to be built in the And they brought issues in, too. People like Skagit, and contractor who did it really had to Jim Bohlen, for example, who was of the be Canadian contractors. Curley actually had Sierra Club. the contract to do that, to do that initial clearing. And it was at that time that he INT: So arguing with government wasn’t became very fond of the Skagit and was sort necessarily in the tradition here? of horrified when the prospect of the next increment of raising the dam would happen. KF: It wasn’t in the strong tradition here. I He was a member of the ROSS Committee. mean people like Bert (Brink) and the And he had, of course, an enormous amount naturalists had a very gentlemanly approach of local knowledge. And he knew a lot of to meeting with government. They would go people around Hope and things that the rest of and set up a meeting with a minister, and try us didn’t know. to persuade him that it would be a good thing to do x, y, and z. But they wouldn’t campaign INT: You know, when I listen to talk about this in public about it. These things were done, time period, I can’t help but think that there setting up a new park or something like that, was an enormous, strong sense of optimism at by gentle persuasion, rather than by the time among the environmental groups. I argument. wonder if that’s your sense as well. INT: You went off the commission at some KF: Yes. I think we were, many of us were point? sort of seeing things that David Brower had done in the Colorado Canyon, and sort of took KF: I left the commission when I went back to heart that indeed it was possible to stand up to Scotland in ’85. And that kind of broke my government and to make a point. And the association with Skagit. I’ve been in the variety of things had happened, such as the Skagit, since ’85, probably only about three Cypress Bowl, the Skagit, then the issues on times: a camping trip with my family, the with the new national park, others just a walking trip down the canyon and the setting of the boundaries up in that area, things like that. But I haven’t spent as much and things like this. A lot of people felt this time in there as I did before ’85, by a long way. was time to bring citizen opinion into it, into these decisions. Particularly when there were INT: And now you’re rejoining the interests, recreation, fish and wildlife, that type Commission, as I understand it. What of interest involved, which traditionally had got prompted that? pretty short shrift in this province. KF: Well, I think I have a lot of time and INT: Would you say the province itself as a energy invested in the Skagit. And I’d like to whole was at an optimistic time in the late see it come to a good result. I’d like to be Sixties? proud of that result. I think we’re still working toward the final result. I don’t think we’re there KF: Yes. Well, the province was. I mean we yet. What I hadn’t appreciated when we got had ‘Old Man Bennett’ in charge of things at into the Skagit issue was that, in effect, this that time. And he was a man who had a vision was sort of chapter two of the argument over of industrializing the province through the the North Cascades National Park. Because development of the hydroelectric resources, when Pat (Goldsworthy) and others, they the expansion of the local railway system, the campaigned for that, in effect they had to road system, and so forth. So economically it compromise to get it declared a Park. They

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had to accept this compromise of the National without too much light being shown on it. But Recreation Area in the middle, which retained when they’ve tried doing that, that’s where Seattle’s right to increase the level of flooding. they’ve got themselves into trouble from now And they never liked that. They almost on. Whether it’s the Clayquot argument on the choked on it. So then when the argument west coast of Vancouver Island, whether its began in Canada about Seattle’s proposals, being the issues around the Sayward and the they saw this then as an opportunity to try to killer whales going out at the north end of the win the next round on the North Cascades. island, all these they tried to handle sort of They were far farther ahead in terms of their behind closed doors. It never really worked. understanding of the politics and things in the U.S. than we were. INT: Is there opposition to this day to setting aside lands in that central, southern B.C. INT: As I understand it, they were aiming on area? the US side not just for the narrowly focused effort right on the river itself, but for this whole KF: Mike Harcourt was Premiere in this catchment area instead. I’m curious to know province, and his government decided that it’s whether there has been a parallel on the their great contribution, I think, to the British Columbia side. government in this province that they would raise the proportion of the province that was in KF: There has been a bit of parallel. As you protected areas to 12% of the province. They know, the Skagit abuts the Manning Park on selected that 12% fairly arbitrarily, but on the the east. And once we got the argument other hand it has made an enormous going, a lot of people said, well, we should contribution to the expansion of protected extend this concept going west and include areas. If you look at a map of this province the Chilliwack Valley and some of its today, as compared to 20 years ago, the tributaries to have a protected area, on the difference is astounding. People are saying, Canadian side that roughly sort of overlapped ‘oh that was a great move.’ But because of with the North Cascades Park. And that has historic patterns and restrictions on how never had the same profile, but in effect it has resources have been allocated and so forth, been achieved. We now have a protected not all of that land was allocated in the best area extending west from the Skagit, and we areas. It has tended to be allocated where it have it extending east from Manning Park, was easy. And when you start to look at with the exception of the one valley of the things like biodiversity and protection of Ashnola. You can go from Manning Park, the species, we’ve got to now start looking much Ashnola’s not protected, then you come into more specifically, and they still need to the Cathedral Lakes Park. And then the enlarge that. So present government is not Snowy Mountains Park is east of that, which very receptive to that idea, but ultimately overlaps right across to the Pasayten. So we they’re going to be pushed that way. have, really now, the Canadian section of the North Cascades pretty well covered. And that INT: On the US side of the international has been an evolution over time, just since the boundary, you sometimes hear arguments that Skagit argument. I think the Skagit helped say these are elitists, these environmental make people realize what had been folks. They just want to cordon off an area, happening on the U.S. side of the line and to keep it from being developed, so they can see the merits of complimenting it by have it for their own playground. But it’s not a protective measures on this side. place that most people can either afford to go to, or will benefit from it in any direct way. INT: And did it sensitize the B.C. Provincial government to the merits of public KF: Oh, yes. We hear that argument here, participation? too. But that hasn’t stopped Harcourt and his government from establishing many protected KF: I don’t think the B.C. government has a areas – and areas that are very remote, where got a great tradition of encouraging public very few people will get to. You look at the participation. I think they would far rather Tatshenshini Park, right up in the corner of the make their decisions as best they can in – where Alaska, and the Yukon, and B.C. all Victoria, behind whatever doors they choose, meet. And about the only way you can get

Ken Farquharson (May 14, 2003) 36 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

there is to drive the Yukon, or fly in, and then the only thing you can do is float down the river. I mean you’ve got to be relatively wealthy before you’re tackling this, but he went ahead with it.

INT: There’s been some interest in developing recreational facilities in the Skagit, which would actually develop some economic opportunities, as well as opening up the area to accessibility.

KF: The Park’s branch went on ahead, as soon as the argument was over, and developed swim beaches and campgrounds and stuff like this. Because of the roll back in our provincial park system, I suspect some of that is now not really getting full utilization. I’ve always seen the Skagit as a place that is a base for recreation. And because of the distance that it is from Hope and other places, it’s not a day use area. It’s an overnight use area, or even a week-long area. And I personally feel that this is not a wilderness area in the classic sense. I mean we all love the river, and we always used to take canoes in. And what you do is you’d canoe the river and you’d have your food and stuff for the weekend and you’d stop on a bar, away from the road where you had your privacy and you just do it. It is an area that’s close to major population; we won the argument on the basis that this should be for recreation. And I certainly believe that it should be.

INT: I understand you have been involved in other environmentalist activities in the province?

KF: Well, for example, the World Wildlife Fund has an office now in Vancouver and dedicating themselves to marine conservation on the west coast of Canada. John Fraser is leading that, and at John’s request I also sit on the advisory board for that. So, things continue.

37 Ken Farquharson (May 14, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

John Fraser (Interviewed May 15, 2003)

Raised in Vancouver, Mr. Fraser has had a life long interest and commitment to environment matters. After graduation in law from the University of British Columbia in 1954, he practiced law until his election to the House of Commons in 1972. During his 21 year history with the House of Commons (1972 to 1993), Mr. Fraser served in a number of positions which addressed environmental concerns. These included positions as Minister for the Environment, Minister of Fisheries and Speaker of the House of Commons. In the latter post, Mr. Fraser was responsible for the establishment of the House of Commons environmental program, Greening the Environment.

In 1994, Mr. Fraser was appointed Canada's Ambassador for the Environment. In this role, he is responsible for Canadian follow-up to commitments made not only at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio in 1992, but to related events and activities such as the Conventions on Biological Diversity, Desertification, and Climate Change; the ongoing discussions on forests, the United Nations Environment Program, and the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. This necessitates liaison with a variety of international bodies, federal departments, provincial governments, the private sector, academic institutions, community groups and interested individuals. Mr. Fraser also sits on a wide range of domestic and international bodies which address environment and sustainable development issues, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the UNESCO Canada Man and the Biosphere Committee, the Advisory Committee for Protection of the Seas, and the Kitlope Management Committee. Mr. Fraser is an officer of the Order of Canada (O.C.), a member of the Order of British Columbia (O.B.C.) and holds the Canadian Forces Decoration. He is also a Queen's Counsel.

To begin with, many years ago, I from time to Then we began to hear talk about the raising time would go up to the Skagit and take in a of the Ross Dam which would in consequence day’s fishing, and on some occasions I flood the Skagit River. And I began to get camped overnight. Went up the Hope- interested and concerned about this. Princeton Highway and found a place to park the car and then hiked down the stream. So I At some point about 1970, the, Brian Williams knew the Skagit, and it was a lovely place. who later became Chief Justice in the

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Supreme Court of British Columbia, who was were. But the deal was that the Province of very active in conservation matters and still is - British Columbia would be paid ‘X’ thousands he’s now retired, but someone I knew well - of dollars on an annual basis as compensation called me one day and said the International for the plan that Seattle City Light was coming Joint Commission’s come to Vancouver and up with. And I think they were already they’re going to hear public comment on the receiving that money in anticipation of favors raising of the Ross Dam by Seattle City Light. to be bestowed, to paraphrase others. So we And he said, “I’ve got a trial I can’t get out of. had to, we had the government of the Can you do it?” So I went to my partners and Province of British Columbia, which had made they said yes, this is a very worthy thing, so indications over a number of years it had no we took it on. But of course, this was pro objection to this. We had a Federal bono, as they say. When I looked at the government who probably for the most part International Joint Commission, the agreement was paying no attention to it, had probably – the Legislation set it up – I came to the never heard about it - and that’s not a conclusion as a lawyer that the Order criticism, just a fact. Yet we were starting to providing for the flooding, the raising of the hear from a lot of people that this would be the dam and the flooding, which was made in flooding of one of the last free running streams 1942, was not necessarily a concern of ours, in the lower Fraser system. but it was defunctus because, in my view, they had not followed fundamental precepts which It must have been about 1970 when Brian should have taken place before any such Williams came to me. He couldn’t appear in order was made. front of the International Joint Commission, because he was on a trial, as I said. He asked A Canadian game warden, I think, had either me if I’d do it. So as I say, we looked at what written a letter to government or gone down was the legal argument to persuade the IJC himself and said something about how it was a that satisfied the Order? We made that great trout stream, it would be a shame to argument. There’s no question that we got a have it flooded. But one has to remember that good hearing, both from the American side of public concern for these things in 1942 was the IJC, which is three, and the Canadian side. not what it later became. And, in addition to But I knew the difficulty they were going to that, we were in the middle of a war. My have in actually giving an order to reverse the generation can remember that. Some ruling, because there was no - there still isn’t - generations subsequently can remember it any real means of appealing an order under because they learned something about it in the arrangements. school. But it’s very hard for them to understand that at that point we’d have done In any event, they didn’t accept our argument. almost anything on a cooperative basis with I think they were moved by it, because they our American allies to make sure we won the could not help but be. The fact is, the order war. And power, in Washington, was very was made not surreptitiously, because there important. So there was no objection from was nothing done about it, there was no either the Federal government, or the conspiracy of silence. It was just that this was Provincial government, or anybody else for all a necessity, and let’s get on with it. But they practical purposes to this, and it was all done were moved by our argument that it certainly very quickly. hadn’t received the consideration that the public would demand it receive if it had taken Now, as it turned out nothing was done about place in 1970 or today, for instance. raising the Ross Dam for a long, long time. Again if memory serves me correct, the However, that raised the profile very Premier of the Province, sometime in the significantly in this area, and also on the other Sixties I guess – that was Premier W.A.C. side of the border. Now there’s something Bennett, and it’s important to remember that very fundamental to remember in this, and that was the father of Premier Bill Bennett that I’m is, I don’t believe that on the Canadian side we going to talk about in a minute – he made could have succeeded in eventually stopping some kind of deal with Seattle City Light and the flooding, stopping the dam and stopping or Washington. And I can no longer the flooding, without the help we got from remember exactly what, who the parties to it Americans. Now I’ve said this many times in

39 John Fraser (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

the public domain, but I assert it as an at the time was Environment Critic. But that absolute. We couldn’t have done it without isn’t really why I was given the mandate to them. And that is something that I think is pursue this. I was given the mandate to very important that goes in the record. We pursue this because Bob Stanfield, who was had people like Joel Connelly at the Seattle our Party Leader at the time, knew that I knew Post-Intelligencer. We eventually, there’s a the issue. He thought what we were trying to lawyer’s name I was reminded of today in do was right. And as a consequence, mainly talking to one of my colleagues, a Mr. Brucker, because I’d had all the background in it, I who led the campaign on the American side. became, in effect, the spokesperson on this But we had thousands of people helping. issue - even though I was on many other issues as well. But it wasn’t just because I Our immediate problem in the early 1970’s, was Environment Critic. after 1972, was that the government had changed. Premier W.A.C. Bennett, who’d Premier Barrett was elected in the autumn of made the arrangements, was no longer there. 1972, and he was defeated in an election Mr. Dave Berrick of the New Democratic Party three years later. And the new Premier of the was now the Premier. But despite efforts that Province of British Columbia, the Social Credit some of us made to persuade them to take an Premier, was Premier Bill Bennett. And that aggressive position on this, or a very active happened to be W.A.C Bennett’s son. I had position, let me put it that way, it really didn’t discussion with him, and I can’t pin the date, happen. For a number of reasons, and they but at some point he was persuaded that the can speak for themselves. government that he led was not going to do anything to discourage our attempts to get a In any event, I got elected in 1972 to the negotiated settlement of this. He did not take House of Commons. And in 1973, I guess – the position that we made a deal and we’re not remember I’m going on memory now – I made going to back out of it. He said, “Look, if a speech in the House of Commons raising everybody can be persuaded that there’s a this whole issue. Now the then-Minister of way around this thing, we’ll go along with it, External Affairs, as they were then called, was provided it’s in the interest of the Province of the Honorable Mitchell Sharpe. I was in British Columbia ultimately,” which, of course opposition, and he was in the Liberal, then he would have to say that. That was a very Federal Liberal government. And not only did important turning point. Because now, while I get a long letter back from Mitchell Sharpe, there were certainly elements within his party but I had a series of discussions with him who thought that a great lake there for speed about it. Now Mitchell Sharpe is not a young boats and water skiing would be a great thing, man any more. But although we were in he gave us assurances that he was not going different political parties we became friends, I to stand in the way of getting this thing settled have a very high regard for him. And I want to in such a way that the Ross Dam was not make it very clear that in my view it was the raised and the valley wasn’t flooded. fact that he was paying attention to this when it was raised, and saw the implications of it, So the campaign built over a number of years. that really started the long drawn out series of And finally it got back into the International discussions with the Federal government of Joint Commission. People have to remember Canada, persuading them that they had a that the International Joint Commission, when legitimate interest in the outcome of this it was established in the early 1900’s, prior to dispute. the first World War, was quite an extraordinary agreement between two sovereign countries, In the Westminster Parliamentary system, the in which they established a commission with party or parties in Opposition all have a so- equal members on both sides, to which either called “Shadow Cabinet.” And members are government could refer a dispute – a cross- paired off with the corresponding government boundary dispute – basically related to water. departments. So somebody would be, for It’s been with ingenious argument it’s been instance, the Defense Critic, or somebody else pushed a little bit beyond that, I think. But would be the Labor Critic, or somebody else basically it’s was water problems across the would be the Foreign Affairs Critic, or border, problems with pollution and other somebody else would be the Health Critic. I, things, but mostly water. So it fitted.

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The great stumbling block: it was an Order. that was the North Cascades Conservation And two sovereign countries ought not to be Council. And I think the Mr. Brucker that I lightly setting aside an Order which at least on mentioned, Tom Brucker, was the counsel, the record seemed to be legitimately arrived legal counsel for that. Now there were some at. That not only was the position of Seattle very interesting people involved. I know City Light, it was the position of others on the there’s risk in mentioning some because you American side. But it was also the position of leave out dozens, if not hundreds of others. Canadians. Not all Canadians, by any means, But Joel Connelly was one – a very, very fine but certainly some. And it was most definitely journalist, he still is a very fine journalist – took the position of the senior executives of British a credible interest in this whole issue, and still Columbia Hydro. has a great interest. The Deputy Minister in the Provincial government, and I can no longer And there’s an interesting story in this remember what department he was the because at one point there was a hearing minister of, but he reported directly to Bill convened by the City of Seattle Council. And Bennett, was a man named Ben Marr. And I some of us went down to that hearing – I no had many discussions with Ben Marr. Ben longer remember the date. But presentations Marr was instrumental in presenting the were made as to all the reasons why Ross provincial position on this. And of course he Dam should not proceed. And I remember was following Premier Bill Bennett’s position when I made some remarks, when my turn that they would do nothing to throw anything in came, I did point out that this Order had been the way of finding a negotiated settlement. given at a time when both our countries were But I think he was important. The… there was allies in a terrible war and many of the another gentleman who is very well known in considerations that would take place today did Canada today, named Norman Spector. And not take place then. And I was interrupted by Norman Spector was eventually either the a not altogether polite or civil barracking by at Chief of Staff or the Principal Secretary to least one member of the City Council at that Premier Bill Bennett. Norman Spector went time, and some who were in the audience, that on to get involved in federal politics. He was did not deter me. Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Mulroney, and he later became Ambassador to Israel. He is But to illustrate the point that we did not have now a consultant and a very widely read everybody with us on this side of the border, columnist in the Canadian media. And as the they read out a letter, or a telegram, from B.C. International Joint Commission worked out Hydro senior executives saying that they some kind of a compromise that might be thought this was a great idea, and they should acceptable, he was very much involved in that. get on with it. The relationship between B.C. Hydro and its compatriots on the American Now what is also interesting, and I wish I had side was very close, and that good neighbors all the names at my fingertips, I don’t have, demanded that the order be respected and and I apologize to them for that, but there would go ahead with this thing. Needless to were two unusual gentlemen on the say I drove all the way back from Seattle International Joint Commission – one on the privately designing very nefarious ways to American side, and one on the Canadian side. extinguish the existence of these beggars. They’re very different people. The American But fortunately, being a practicing lawyer then was more sort of middle of the road, he’d be a and knowing that the consequences of little right of center, a sort of Chamber of breaking the law would be very serious indeed Commerce enthusiast. But when he asked to for my professional future, I managed to serve on the International Joint Commission, subdue my irritation. But I just mention that as he told me one day, he said, “My because that was there. instructions were no matter what I might personally think, my job was to find a way to The ROSS Committee was formed, and you solve this U.S., Canadian issue.” And he said, may have some information about that. “I took that very seriously.” And he did. I think Interesting enough, that was Run Out Skagit his name was Keith Bulen. Spoilers, and that seemed to be a cross- border organization. And then there was Now on the Canadian side, there was a another organization which was important and gentleman who was a - oh, we thought that he

41 John Fraser (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

was pretty far out at the time. He was a great There are values here. Values that people on advocate of finding ways to bring people both sides of the border think are very together, to reason together. The real story important. So it’s not just a case of power, or was the fact that he didn’t use a desk. He sat electricity. It’s also a case of shared values on on the floor in the middle of his office, and this both sides of the border. So we’ve got to find kind of thing. And I can say this with some a way through this thing. And if we can find a amusement now. To begin with I was almost way to satisfy American energy and water dismayed because I thought, how will this needs through surplus that we’ve got, then American gentleman and this kind of far out what’s wrong with using that to do it?” But guy on the Canadian side ever get along? once we flood the valley, it is gone forever. Well for reasons which I can’t enunciate, I’m And you can’t ever get it back. And those are not a psychologist, but they did. And they values that someone’s got to fight for. There’s worked out the ultimate settlement, which a lot of people who don’t get up and wave again you’ll have to go back to the records for placards you know, who have those values. the detail, but it was a guarantee of I think water and electricity from the Columbia Again, I’m not completely sure of the year, but system over an extended period of time, in lieu I think it was 1983. I was in Washington as a of the amount of energy that would be member – we were in opposition at that point, produced if the Ross Dam had been raised. formed the government a year or so later, but at that point we were in opposition. And I was And this eventually reached a point where it in Washington with the Canada-U.S. had to be confirmed by, ultimately by the parliamentary group and I got a call from the Canadian Federal government, and of course federal government – that’s the Liberal Washington State Department. government, remember I was a Tory, saying that there’s going to be a signing ceremony, or Once we, once the momentum started to something, I think it was set for [US Secretary move toward a settlement in which we could of State George] Schultz’s office, in which this save the River, we felt that we were going to was going to be concluded, and would I like to win this thing. Now there were, I mean even be invited? Well I was quite pleased to be among my colleagues, one especially who there. So I was preparing to go. But I hadn’t was a Member of Parliament from the Fraser heard from Premier Bennett’s office for a little Valley. He got me aside at one point and said, while and all of a sudden I got a call, or else I “You know I’ve been talking to my constituents phoned, to talk to Norman Spector. And I and they’d really like a lake there. They’d like don’t think Norman will mind me saying this, to be able to take their boats and go all the because I remember it quite vividly, but way down to the mouth of the or Norman says, “You know we’ve got a deal.” some other place.” And I said, “Well, I can And I said, “I hear.” And he said, “Well you understand that. But the issue is, do we flood know I’ve been looking it over, and do you the last real free-flowing stream that’s not think we’ve got enough out of them for this? I been affected?” And he said, “Well, but part of mean, is it enough in our interest? Maybe we it’s been logged.” And I said, “Well the trees should reconsider some of the aspects of it.” will grow back, but the stream is there.” And I Or words to that effect. Now I’m, at that point, don’t know how he explained it to his own I’d been practicing law many years; I was still constituents. But once we, once the issue a pretty junior member of Parliament. But I’d was set out with clarity, and once people could been into the Skagit River thing for a long see that there was a probability of both our time, and I remember saying, “Norman, we’ve American friends and ourselves, at different got our American friends where they are.” I levels of govern…, at different government said, “I think it would be a great mistake to levels agreeing that they could come up with revisit a single clause of the accord,” or the something which everybody could live with, memorandum of understanding, or whatever it from then on it was really a question of getting was that set out what was going to be the the details sorted out and keeping it moving. deal.

You had to be able to persuade people and And I think, to Norman’s great credit, he of stand up to people, and say, “Just a minute. course had to be absolutely sure that this was This is not just a dollar and cents issue. not going to be something which the Province

John Fraser (May 15, 2003) 42 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

of British Columbia would find ten or fifteen or I want to talk for a minute about the ROSS twenty years later had been onerous and was Committee and some of the Canadians that not in their interest. But at the same time, and were involved in it. there was a young lawyer I wasn’t used at that point in my life to very then - he was young then - I think named Alan many people taking my advice, but he did. Ross, who’s last name was, interesting And he said, “All right. We’ll let it go ahead.” enough, the same as the ROSS Committee, And after that, I went to this meeting in who was very active. And there was a doctor, Washington and there it was concluded. and his name was Tom Perry. Dr. Tom Perry took an enormous interest in this issue. And Now there are lessons I think can be learned on his own, and at his own expense, he from this. And as I said at the very beginning, traveled extensively – he was in Ottawa many there was a fundamental lesson to it, I think for times. He was a key proponent of finding a everybody. I remember being asked to go to settlement, but he was indefatigable in the Columbia University during first year or two I work he did. was an elected Member, to talk about cross- border issues between Canada and the United Interesting enough, he was in my office one States. And I said at the time, I said, there is day in Ottawa. And this would be about a cross-boundary environmental constituency, sometime between 1980 and 1984 because which politicians on both sides of the border we hadn’t settled it, and we were back in will ignore at their peril. And I said it may be in opposition and he came and sat down in my its formative stages now, but it’s going to office. I don’t mind telling this story about him. become very powerful. This is a classic case He looked at me for a while, and I knew he of it. There are others - I could give you lots of had left-wing tendencies, and later became a instances since - but this is a classic case Minister in the New Democratic Party where I don’t think we’d have saved the Skagit Government of the Province of British River without, as I said, enormous help from Columbia. And he looked at me and he said, our American friends. “There’s something about this I don’t understand.” And he said, “You’re a The other lesson about this is that people are Conservative.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well very skeptical – some are cynical, but the why are you so keen to save Skagit River?” cynics have always given up. Skepticism is an And I said, “Well, a lot of political science understandable thing, and I would commend it professors couldn’t define Anglo-Canadian to anybody, but not cynicism. But the public is Conservatism if their lives depended on it. very skeptical about what the political process And what they seem to have forgotten is that can do, about what an individual within that conservation is a deeply instinctive system can do. And I think the fact that we Conservative trait. It’s not laissez-faire, devil had… As it happened I got elected; as it take the hind most 19th Century Liberalism at happened a senior minister in the then Liberal all. And he kind of scratched his head. And I Government was intrigued with the positions said, “By the way, if you get elected to the we were taking; as it happened we had the New Democratic Party and they form a International Joint Commission, which under government some day, you’ll find out that their its provisions we could take an issue back to; caucus is not nearly as Green as you are.” I and we had a federal government prepared to said, “You’ll find out something about what it do that, provided it didn’t have too much of a takes to actually get something done in row with the Province. And fortunately I was politics.” Which he learned in due course. But on good enough terms with Premier Bennett to Tom, Dr. Tom Perry was terrific. have discussed it with him, and he was sympathetic and took the position which was We were also very lucky to have an engineer key to getting it done, because he wasn’t named Ken Farquharson. Ken was a going to oppose it – provided British Columbia steadfast consistent person who never let the interests weren’t sabotaged or given away. issue die. He always kept at it. One of the And so everything came together so that the assets that he brought to it was he was an governments did what really they should have engineer. He understood what volumes of done under the circumstances, and so it was a water could do, and the amount of energy that success. they produced. So we had a technical person who was, at the same time, of course, moved

43 John Fraser (May 15, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

by very strong conservation instincts. And sometimes I know, from time to time, I needed his counsel along the way and at times his encouragement. I think we all did.

Now the great difficulty in mentioning some is there are others I’ve not mentioned and there are many of them.

John Fraser (May 15, 2003) 44 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Patrick Goldsworthy (Interviewed May 09, 2003)

Pat Goldsworthy moved to the Northwest in 1956 after receiving his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California. He taught at the University of Washington for more than 30 years. A long-time environmental activist, Pat was one of the founders of the North Cascades Conservation Council, and he was a tireless advocate on behalf of establishing the North Cascades National Park. He was the first person named to serve on the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission when it was formed in 1984.

My involvement started a long time ago, in that time it was managed by the Forest Berkeley, where I was a student in Service. But it was beautiful. And then the biochemistry. I’d heard a lot about the question came up: was the logging going to go Olympic Rain Forest. And I decided to get a, on and get further and further into the take a job, a position at the University of Cascades? I got rather concerned about this Washington, in the Department of Medicine. and talked to some people who knew the One of the first things I wanted to do was to Cascades, and they said, ‘Well, I think there’s see the Olympic Rain Forest. maybe a way we can start to work on this problem.’ Well, when I got up here, people said, ‘That’s fine. It’s a wonderful place, but there’s My friends were in the Mountaineers. And the another place you haven’t heard about, Mountaineers said, ‘We would like to form an Cascade Pass.’ – in the Cascades. And so organization that would concentrate on what’s my first trip out of Seattle was to go up to happening, or what’s going to happen in the Cascade Pass. And on my way I drove by Cascades.’ And so they initiated the formation logging operations. And we got up to of the North Cascades Conservation Council, Cascade Pass and I was very impressed. At and invited representatives from outdoor

45 Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

organizations, conservation organizations in some of the objections to the Park. The the State of Washington, the State of Oregon hunters wanted to hunt in the Chelan area, to meet and discuss this possibility. And out and Seattle City Light wanted to raise Ross of that came the ‘N3C,’ we call it. Dam in the Ross National Recreation Area. And then Senator Jackson said that we can’t The first function of the N3C was to take the get everything you would like, but we have to Forest Service to task about what they were make these two compromises. So we going to do with the Glacier Peak area. They accepted that and our original idea was to were going to create a wilderness area, which include the as part of they did – an administrative area. But we said the park. What came out of the Senate was a it wasn’t big enough. It was leaving a lot of Park that went all the way to the Canadian wonderful forest outside of the wilderness. So border and included two recreation areas, and we said, ‘That isn’t good enough, Forest in the bill was also the establishment of the Service. We want to you to change and do a Pasayten Wilderness. It was a big change better job.’ And they said, No, we’ve made from what originally we had viewed, but we felt our decision and that’s it. So then the N3C it was very positive change. The Glacier Peak decided we’d go to Congressman (Tom) Pelly Wilderness is still there. and tell him that things were not going very well with the Forest Service, is there any That park was finally created in 1968. Then I possibility we could consider another and some of my friends went on a hike into the agency… the National Park Service. So that Cascades – we were doing this every summer sort of led, bit by bit, to a study by the Forest – went up Little Beaver and down Big Beaver Service, and the Park Service, and the Bureau Creek and we saw these tremendous cedar of Outdoor Recreation, to look at the forests in the Big Beaver. And we had never Cascades from the Canadian border almost seen them before. This was our first chance. down to the Columbia River, to say, ‘Well, And we thought, my gosh, it occurred in the what should be done to this area? What hearings that Seattle City Light says we want should be left wilderness? What should be you to make this Ross Lake National Park?’ And it was just… There was a lot of Recreation area so that we can raise our dam, public input to that. And the N3C was very which we could not do in a Park. But when we active in letting people know they had an saw the cedar forests, we saw the tremendous opportunity to appear before this study impact that dam would have. It would go commission to give their ideas. about ten miles up into that valley, to say nothing about how much it would go up into Of course we urged them to suggest a park in Canada. So that started us to say, ‘We’ve got the North Cascades. And out of this study to stop Seattle City Light from raising the commission, their study went to Congress. dam.’ And that got into a big battle with a lot Congress had public hearings. Senator of public hearings and a lot of people Jackson had hearings, and they had very long responding, again, N3C got lots and lots of hearings in the City of Seattle. And people - people to comment verbally in public again, N3C got lots of people to come and meetings, in writing, in favor of establishment speak. So many people came to speak for of the Park and saving the Park from being and against the idea of a park that the hearing flooded by raising Ross Dam. went on for two days and needed simultaneous rooms to accommodate. Wayne At that point, we found that the Canadians Aspenall, I remember him saying one time were originally interested in stopping this dam, when he came down, ‘I’ve never seen so but they said - Ken Farquharson had said over many people involved in a public hearing.’ It the phone, the first time I’d talked to him – he was just tremendous. Well out of that, of said, ‘We thought you Yankees wanted that course, came the recommendation for North dam.’ And I said, ‘No way. We’re going to Cascades National Park and the Ross Lake fight it tooth and nail.’ And he said, ‘Well, if National Recreation Area, and the Lake you are going to fight it, we’ll join with you.’ Chelan Recreation Area. And so we got a joint collaboration to fight raising Ross Dam, across the border. And The two recreation areas were essential Ken Farquharson was the first person I talked because they were needed to compromise to but there were a lot of others.

Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) 46 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

That brings up a good point to say that in all of the Commission was to let people, these battles, and comments, one person, or organization, government agencies know that just a few people cannot do the job. You’ve they had money to spend on the enhancement got to get lots of people involved. Dave of the Skagit Valley in British Columbia and Brower pointed that out to us early in my upstream from the Ross Dam. They experience with the Sierra Club – that you’ve entertained ideas and suggestions and got to get lots of people commenting, and we proposals as to what might be done with this did. money, which was now being made available. There was a fair amount of politics involved in Okay, the decision was finally reached that this, too. Seattle City had a conference with the British Columbia people, a private conference under One feature that came out of the action while I Mayor Charles Royer, and Bob Royer were was still on the commission, I was on there 15 there. The press was excluded. We, as years – for a long time, and enjoyed and was conservationists who opposed to the dam, enthralled very much in what we were able to were not allowed into that conference. It was a do, and meet across the border. One of the secret, private conference where they reached great successes, I felt, was the establishment a decision that Seattle would not raise Ross of the Skagit Valley Provincial Park north of Dam, but British Columbia would provide the border, which matched our North funding to compensate for not raising the dam, Cascades National Park just south of the and provide Seattle with the power that they border. And I recall, when we had meetings, would have gotten had they raised the dam. we’d meet in British Columbia, up in Part of that agreement, was the formation of Vancouver. We’d meet in Seattle. We’d the Skagit Environmental Endowment alternate. When we were in British Columbia Commission, which we refer to as “Seek.” the agencies came, the B.C. Forestry people, And that was in, shortly after the park was and they gave us ideas of what they would like formed. to do with the Skagit Valley. They said, ‘We’d like to show you a demonstration logging Then Mayor Royer, in 1984, wanted to go to operation, how we log.’ We said in our British Columbia and meet with the people up Commission that that was not the way we there, a Minister, but he wanted to have a wanted to go. We wanted to go in the way of member of the new SEEC Committee to go preserving things. And the Forest Service felt with him. So I was the first appointee on this we were very rude and criticized us for taking side of the border. SEEC consisted of four that stand, but the Commission stuck with its Canadians, and four U.S. people. So Mayor view. And there were those in British Royer took me to British Columbia, and we Columbia who agreed, politically, that maybe had a meeting there where everyone agreed we could do this. Eventually we got the Skagit on how we would operate. The SEEC people, Provincial Park, so it was a wonderful the SEEC committee was very interesting to success, I think. And others think so, too. participate in because we had this vision of how we were going to protect, and preserve, Another success was on this side of the and enhance the wilderness features, the wild border, in the U.S. side, not far from where the features, the recreational features, all these North Cross-State Highway now is, on Granite were conditions set up in a treaty between the Creek, there was a big section of land in the… U.S. and Canada. Again, that all took place in it was wild, there wasn’t a road there, but it the Royer administration. So we had a was a big mining property. And this company responsibility to fulfill those obligations of the wanted to log it all off, and develop it. And SEEC. And this involved sitting down and SEEC was able to come up with the money to discussing what’s going on, and what’s in buy that land, give it to the Forest Service, but hazard. retain the mining rights, so that it would never be a mining problem. That’s an area that’s not There was a Chairman on the U.S. side and a a wilderness, but it’s wild and could potentially Chairman on the B.C. side. Don Campbell, be a wilderness at some time. Those are two who was retired from the Forest Service was big pieces of land operation that we were able our first U.S. Chair. And we, in our to negotiate. negotiations, did many things. The operation

47 Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

The North Cascades Conservation Council who’s no longer with us, from Eastern had been established in 1957 with a focus, a Washington, he and his wife had hiked all over geographical focus on the Cascades, from the the Cascades. Dick Brooks had hiked through Canadian border to the Columbia River. It the Cascades. These were people who knew wasn’t going to concern itself with the this country, so we had a knowledgeable Olympics and other things. There were other board. They weren’t just looking at a map organizations that did things like that. Now saying, ‘Well, we’ll do this. We’ll do that.’ there are organizations that reach across the They, we’ll do this because... if we don’t, this border, but this was one of the first. And is what’s going to happen. So we had a conservation-wise, our North Cascades knowledgeable, informed, active board, with Conservation Council, as I said just a few that idea in mind. You might say, and we’ve minutes ago, was focused on the Cascades talked to some people about this that, ‘Well, and relied on other people to advise us on the Mountaineers were already here. The what to do elsewhere. And I was a member of Sierra Club had a chapter up here.’ But they the Sierra Club, original charter member were involved in a lot of things. The forming the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Mountaineers had ski lodges. They were Sierra Club. And that chapter included a involved in many, many activities and their section in British Columbia; so again, there reason for suggesting the formation of the was a cross-border thing. But Sierra Club N3C is that this would be an organization that didn’t take the kind of action that came out of was focused on the Cascades. It would not be creation of the SEEC committee by the treaty. involved in a lot of other activity. Very similar to the Olympic Park Associates – which has When I came to Seattle I taught biochemistry been focused on what’s happening around for about ten or twelve years and spent a lot of and in the Peninsula. time at that. I’m a protein biochemistry And so, we would say that, somebody would researcher. And I will just say, frankly, that it say something about population, or oil tankers, was a decision, on my part, to get so involved. things like that. And we’d say, well, there are But the backside of that was, if I hadn’t spent other experts who work on those. We’re going all that time on conservation, I would have put to concentrate on one area. more time into my research, would have written more papers, and I would have Because I was at the University of advanced my position in the academic world Washington, and I was an outspoken, well- much further. So it was a sacrifice that I recognized person in the field of conservation, made, but I felt it was a worthwhile sacrifice. the word was out there. I would be And it just all sort of started with Dave Brower interviewed by newspapers, and I’d have saying at campfires in California, went in the articles that they’d give me a chance to write back country of Yosemite and stay at the something. People on the campus, in campfire and say, ‘You’re out here enjoying engineering, in forestry - believe it or not - in this wonderful country and it’s really beautiful other areas, where I was not academically and you’re experiencing it, but that is not the connected, they’d come to me and say, ‘We end. You’ve got to go on and act, and help appreciate what you’re doing. We would like preserve the country that you’re enjoying.’ to offer some help.’ And so my contacts at the University of Washington crossed many So that motive, from Dave Brower, is academic territories because of the common something that always stuck with me and concern for what’s going on in the Cascades. made me feel that we’ve got to do something about the Cascades. But I was not the only On working with the Press person who was concerned; there were other What we found when the Conservation people up here. Harvey Manning was Council was first formed, and we were concerned, Dick Brooks was concerned, Polly concerned with what was happening in the Dyer was concerned. When we formed the Cascades, I would write press releases and North Cascades Conservation Council, one of take them down to the Seattle Times, and the the decisions was that we would make the P-I, and some of the TV stations. And they’d board consist of people who knew the say, thank you, but nothing would happen. Cascades. They had hiked in it, they knew it. But when the controversy over whether we’re Harvey Manning knew it. And Chuck Hesse, going to have a Park or not came out, and the

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opposition started to speak up, then the press that well, we should start funding ideas instead really took it. Because the hunters didn’t want of places. Instead of funding a trail, or instead a Park; they wanted to hunt everywhere. The funding horse corrals – which was happening miners didn’t want a Park; they wanted to in B.C. – and then having SEEC put its name keep mining. So when you’ve got the on having done this, that there are other things opposition, two sides, then the press became that SEEC could put its money into – active. And the press was just very, very educational things, support of North Cascades eager to get our view, as well as the opposing Institute, which is an educational organization view. So we got, we started to get a lot of to educate youngsters, so as they grow up action. Of course, when Congress got into it they will respect and understand what and started to draft legislation, the press was wilderness and wildlife is like. And that was very interested. But it was interesting to see, also starting to happen in British Columbia, the sort of negligent: well that’s sort of interesting, same sort of thing. Getting communities we’ll see you sometime. And too, sometimes involved. So there was a gradual progression they were just after us for information. I’ve over time, from funding places and things, to had opportunities to run articles in the Seattle including ideas and philosophies. Times, and KING TV, I think it was – well, one of the television stations - did a movie. That The cultural history of the North Cascades is, Dave Brower did a movie on the Cascades, One thing that we did – you begin to help me but this was a local station, and they with my memory – we funded research by the emphasized Dave Brower in it. North Cascades National Park, on locating evidence and details on where Indian Tribal Working with the Canadians over the years. camps had been, where they… When Ross One of the proposals for spending SEEC Reservoir level was down, they’d find chips of money came from federal agencies – the where they’d made arrows, and things like Forest Service in this country, the National that. Which, no one had ever known before. Park Service, B.C. Forestry in British So, from a cultural point of view, I guess some Columbia – so we had an opportunity to go out of our funding helped find some of those in the field with the B.C. Forest people where areas. But, again, that was done through the they showed us areas that they would like to North Cascades National Park Service. protect. It was an opportunity to see what was available. One of the opportunities they I had a very good fortune of obtaining from the provided was a helicopter trip, one time. We North Cascades National Park Service a huge went into Skagit - B.C. - Skagit Valley, and photograph showing the Skagit Valley before they had a helicopter take us two or three at a there was ever any flooding – the original time and fly us over so we could get a picture Skagit Valley. It’s very, very impressive. It’s of the areas that they would like to have some one of the photographs I have on my wall in trails built, sort of areas set aside. SEEC my study at home. It’s a view we’ll never see. began to expand the view of the B.C. But somebody had taken this photograph. It’s government - what could be done up there, a shame we’ve lost that valley. which until SEEC came along, those views didn’t exist, but SEEC kept pushing them. When we originally formed the organization in And so when they began to see this, and they ’57, we had what was called a newsletter. It had an opportunity to apply for money from consisted of mimeographed sheets that just SEEC, that interested them. And I can’t tell were stapled together. And then after a while you how many of the projects we funded, but we began to realize that this wasn’t very we funded quite a few. impressive. Libraries aren’t interested in mimeographed sheets. So we decided to The SEEC members, the people on the establish our publication, called The Wild Commission – there were, as I say, four Cascades, which then was printed and stapled Canadians, four from the U.S., and there were together so that it was in a booklet form. And four alternates from each side. It was very that is where action of people gets involved. I collaborative. I can’t recall any arguments or would phone and contact people who were disagreements. The one thing that did come N3C members in Seattle, and say, “We would up at one point was, after SEEC had existed like to have you come to a work party, if for quite a while, somebody raised the point possible, and help us put these pages

49 Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

together, staple them, and address them.” it. Senator Magnuson, Maggie said - I And so we have, initially, that’s the way we did remember him telling us, ‘Anything Scoop it. And out of that we got some longtime, very wants, I’m for it.’ So, here you got two involved members who worked their way up. senators who are just working hand in glove Dave Fluharty was one then, later on became together. And Senator Jackson was very our president. But he started in by working in effective in organizing the congressional some of the work parties. Then with The Wild delegation so they all would support him in Cascades being printed in a sort of like you’d creating a Park. There were some in Eastern say, magazine form, libraries were interested. Washington who said, ‘We’re not sure about And so it is now present in many libraries in that.’ And the Senator would say, ‘Well, just the state, and it’s sent to all the congressional stay neutral. Don’t fight me on this.’ And he delegates from the State of Washington. And succeeded. He got the entire delegation to it’s a vehicle that permits the North Cascades work. And that’s not the case today. We find Conservation Council to project its views and it very questionable as to how much we can ideas, including maps sometimes, do in the way of further wilderness and descriptions, to Forest Service, to the Park legislation. We had a very successful period Service, to criticize them, to support them on there with the two senators and a number of some things, to oppose them on others. So congressmen - Pelly is another one - who that it became a vehicle to let the agencies were very helpful. know that here was an organization that had worked hard for creating a park, but it had a lot The N3C is still working on things through of views on what should happen after the park Washington D.C., but most of our efforts have was created. People would say, “You now been local. When I say ‘local,’ I’m thinking of have a North Cascades Park. Your work’s all the Park locality. There were plans to build done. You’ve got nothing else to do.” And our condominium, a huge condominium in the reply to that was, “You never have time off; Skagit Valley. And, again, we went to court on that the public has a responsibility of that. And brought up all sorts of legal monitoring the agencies.” And so the North arguments why this shouldn’t happen. We Cascades Conservation Council went so far to succeeded in that, and that threat went away. take North Cascades Park to suit because But these were things that we managed they said, the Park Service isn’t doing an through our legal efforts. And we formed the adequate job on planning, doing the general North Cascades Foundation with a realization management plan. And we got, we won that that by having a foundation associated with suit and the Park Service had to back off and the North Cascades Conservation Council, we re-do its plan, because we got some legal have an opportunity for people to make background there. donations and get tax credit. So the Foundation was able to fund the legal Tom Brucker was one of our attorneys. expenses. And some of those legal expenses Charlie Ellert, another attorney. They mount up to big figures. So the Foundation happened to be both board members. And has helped a lot in that. then we interested – this is something that happens when you get into conservation – we I still do hike. And my wife hikes with me, and interested some attorneys in Seattle who said, we cross-country ski. One of the people I we’ll give you pro bono off the action. We’ll most enjoyed hiking with, Dick Brooks, died, charge you for the administrative printing costs so I don’t see him anymore. And the group I and all like that, but we’ll give you free legal used to go with sort of dissolved, so the hiking help. That was very helpful. So the field of is something that I sort of do independently conservation generates a lot of interest and instead of group-wise. When I was in concern of people, I find. California I used to go into the High Sierra with the Sierra Club, on their hike trips. And that’s I often say to people that the optimism was where you walked all day, but when you got politically founded to a degree. I mean, into camp, all the food and everything was people felt the way they did and were willing to being taken care of. I worked administratively spend the time. But here in the State of and in the commissary on that. But yes, I still Washington we had Senator Scoop Jackson, get into the Cascades. who had been into the Cascades and he knew

Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) 50 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

One of the favorite places, it’s a little far away. your garbage out with you, things like that. Be It’s in the Pasayten Wilderness. It’s up next to very concerned about staying on trail. So, as the Canadian border and it’s great country and an organization, we feel that we shouldn’t very open. I usually go there in the summer have to pay for that. time. I’ve never done any of this hiking in the winter. It’s always been summertime hiking. I just want to say that there’s one thing I And Cascade Pass is someplace that always haven’t said, and that is I was fortunate attracts me, too. And I’d like to go out to the enough to be appointed by the mayor to be a ocean beach again. I haven’t been out there member of SEEC. And that appointment had in quite a while. But what’s happened over a little background to it. The mayor had asked time, that I’ve seen, when you first used to go the conservation community, “Who should we to , in the Glacier Peak area, you have on this new commission?” And it was didn’t have to worry about other people. the consensus of the conservation groups in There weren’t that many other people. But Seattle, greater Seattle area, Washington area now, there are restrictions on how many that I would be a logical person to be people can go in certain places. And the appointed because of my long involvement Forest Service issues permits to permit with the Park, and with Ross Dam, and all. So limitations on party sizes. All of those they thought that was fine. But the thing that limitations didn’t exist in ’57. You just, you we feel is very important on SEEC is to have a went where you wanted to go. But you didn’t continuing representative from the North meet very many people. And we did a lot of Cascades Conservation Council be a member cross-country hiking. But now, I find myself of SEEC. And when I went off the wondering, well do I want to go into some of Commission, and Tom Brucker - who is also a the areas in the Alpine Lakes where there’ll be N3C Board member - went on, that continued so many people. And the Enchantment, for that contact between SEEC and N3C. instance, the Forest Service has said that the Incidentally, Ken Farquharson was on the N3C people who come here, they love this country, Board at one time. So again, N3C is quite but they’re over doing it. In other words, the involved in monitoring and suggesting ideas to land can suffer just so much use. And I SEEC. It wants to be involved, and I think it’s respect that, and it’s a shame. I don’t know important for it to be involved, with its longtime what the statistics are, but the Forest Service, history and perspective on both sides of the and Park Service also will say that, in certain border. areas we’re seeing the evidence of overuse. And people trashing the vegetation. Not One of the things that has happened over the intentionally, just by numbers. time… I mean, people… Dave Brower was a member of the NCCC board and he’d come The N3C, I guess you might say, we’re a very up. A very, very busy person. He’d travel all local group. We don’t conduct field trips. You over the world and it was amazing to get him take the Mountaineers, the Sierra Club, the to devote some time to come to our meetings Audubon Society, and all, they have trips that here. But he had a big impact. And so, the they take people on. We’ve never gotten into Council has had a function, and will continue that. We’ve not been an activity group, we’ve to have a function. I’m just trying to think, been a political group. A lobbying group, I Brower was one of the people. And we used guess would be a better way of putting it. to have on the board people from Eastern We’re, as an organization, are disturbed, to Washington - Chuck Hesse. We had people put it mildly, at having to pay a fee to go into from Spokane, we had people, we have board wilderness area. We think that’s a privilege members from Bellingham, Vancouver B.C., that we, as people who live here, to visit our as I mentioned Ken Farquharson. So it’s been land. Why should we have to pay to visit our a broad membership of people who know the land? We take that attitude. And a lot of the Cascades. It’s not just an academic piece of land that we want to visit – I’m thinking of back paper. country area – if you go to a state park and you have to have all the toilets and all that utility, I can understand why that has to be paid for. But if you’re going into the backcountry you should be responsible – take

51 Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Treaty Signing, 1984

Patrick Goldsworthy (May 9, 2003) 52 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Ben Marr (Interviewed May 13, 2003)

Ben Marr was born in Scotland, and moved to Vancouver in the 1950s. Trained as a civil engineer, he was Chief Engineer of the BC Water Investigations Branch until 1975, when he became Deputy Minister of the Environment for the Province of British Columbia. Ben served in this post until 1990, when he was named the Regional Manager of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. He retired from public service in 1996.

My direct involvement would be around 1975, building some of these structures, and indeed, when I became a sort of negotiator for the had started building the Low Ross Dam, the province. But I was aware of the Skagit before first stage of three. And that went ahead. He that. And indeed, the history of the Skagit had authority from the Federal government in goes back quite some way, in the British the States. Columbia’s point of view. I guess Mr. Ross started, oh, in 1906 when he was He didn’t affect British Columbia at that time, superintendent of Seattle City Light and he’s well below the border. Then the second conceived of dams on the Skagit River, Gorge, stage brought him to the border. That would Diablo, and Ross. And he saw Ross as being be in 1949. But in the meantime, between the in three stages. Unfortunately the third stage start in the Thirties and 1949, they had required flooding in British Columbia, but that negotiated with the Province of British was his position back then. Columbia. The Province of British Columbia passed Skagit Valley Land Act, which gave And indeed, in 1929 Seattle City Light bought Seattle – Seattle City Light – the authority to private land on the B.C. side of the border to flood into British Columbia. And he then give them control of the flooding. However the constructed the second stage, which went to private land was only 640 acres and the total the border in 1949. flooding is 5,000 acres, the balance being current Provincial land. So in 1929 he had the The 1947 Agreement said subject to the private land and the control, but he still had to Province of British Columbia reaching a make a deal on current land, current Provincial suitable settlement with Seattle on land. By the late Thirties, I think, he’d started compensation for any harm that would come

53 Ben Marr (May 13, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

on the British Columbia side of the border. Columbia, mainly Crown Provincial land, plus Well, the first problem then became that when the private land Seattle held. they built the dam in 1949 to the border, it actually crossed the border - 500 acres. So The next problem was that this Act, which was now we’re in a situation where a dam had passed through the House, said ‘subject to been constructed to the border, which actually Cabinet reaching an agreement on crossed the border under certain high water compensation.’ So even the 1947 Act, which conditions, and caused flooding in British gave them the right to flood the land, was Columbia. This was taken care of by some subject to an agreement to be reached by discussions and some compensation. Cabinet on compensation. The 1967 decision was the compensation decision in which So then they had a dam which probably came British Columbia agreed with Seattle to to slightly across the border at the second compensation for the flooding across the stage on Ross Dam. They knew they had to border, which was around $35,000 annually do a third stage to meet its full commitments to plus for flooding, and $10,000 for land taxes the City of Seattle, so at that point they did the on the land that they owned. thing they had to do, which was to approach the government of Canada, or indeed the IJC Now this agreement was a tentative – the International Joint Commission. This agreement. And it was not signed. The commission was established in 1909 and was wording was agreed to, the agreement was established to resolve issues between the two agreed to, but it was not signed by either countries, cross-boundary issues involving party. Well, Seattle would have signed it. water. Either water that flowed across the British Columbia did not complete the border or water that was part of the border, agreement. The tangent conditions had been like the Great Lakes. So under this 1909 settled, but British Columbia had not signed treaty, Seattle then made application in 1941 the agreement. That became a very important to get authority to cross the border and flood issue, because something else was happening about 5,000 acres in British Columbia. It was at that time. There were major negotiations no longer 500 acres. It was now at 5,000 between United States and Canada, British acres. At that point they then went to the IJC, Columbia on the Columbia River Treaty. And and the IJC held hearings in Seattle. A little that Columbia River Treaty has a major controversial there, from our point of view, of component – how to deal with the downstream course, but it was during the War. Canada benefits. By building projects in British was in the War, World War II. And the States Columbia you strengthened the production of were about to come into World War II, so there electricity on the American side of the border, was a national emergency involved in getting because as you stored more water, you firmed energy and power for war purposes - Boeing, up the energy component for the American of course being down in Seattle. dams and powerhouses downstream. You also provided flood control. So an agreement At that point, the IJC approved the project, in was then signed between the two nations. 1942. They put conditions on. It was subject One of the last things that General to the two parties reaching a settlement on the Eisenhower did before he left office was to effect of this dam on rights in British Columbia. sign the treaty. Later on President Johnson So then Ed Water tried to make an come up and signed the Protocol to the treaty. arrangement between British Columbia and the City of Seattle on those effects across the That treaty concerned British Columbia. They border. And we all know how important these were afraid if they made any arrangements on effects became. At that time they were not the Skagit, on downstream effects, or the seen as particularly large effects as flooding effect of the dam, or any compensation land, Provincial land largely. So the deal was arrangements, it could set a precedent for the made. And in 1967 British Columbia did much larger negotiations taking place on the indeed sign an agreement with Seattle to allow Columbia Treaty. So British Columbia didn’t the flooding to take place. This is High Ross sign. I should also mention that a new Dam, elevation 1725 feet above sea level, and government had come into power in 1953, the it would flood about 5,000 acres in British Social Credit Government, and they were quite concerned about these negotiations.

Ben Marr (May 13, 2003) 54 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

However, by 1964, that was all taken care of, and asked them to annul and rescind the ’42 the Columbia Treaty was signed. It was no Order and the ’67 Agreement, based on the longer an issue. facts I mentioned. The hearings were during the War, during the War certainly Canada was But at that point, there was another change already involved in. The Americans were taking place. People became deeply going to be involved in it, and that was pretty concerned about environmental issues and obvious, and the fact that the environmental conservation issues on both sides of the and conservation issues had not really been border. An issue that appeared to have been thoroughly discussed at that time. The world put to bed in ’67 or shortly thereafter, suddenly had changed. And there are philosophies became a major issue. And this thing really where you can really impose old conditions on raised its head around 1970. At that time a new conditions, that these changes should be guy called Dave Brousson, who’s an MLA in recognized. This was a Canadian position, a the House, asked a question in the House B.C. position. about this particular treaty that was still high in the fire. And this raised concerns amongst a But of course Seattle also had a position. It number of groups, who established the ROSS needed the energy, this was an important Committee – Run Out Skagit Spoilers. This project, they’d been at it a long time, and they really became a very powerful voice for wished to proceed. When they announced environmental and conservation zeroing in on that they wished to proceed, this generated the Skagit Valley as being a cause celebre. much of the activity of the ROSS Committee. And out of that came a resolution of the House The real issue here now was that they had a of Commons in Ottawa opposing the flooding proponent saying ‘we’re going ahead with of the Skagit Valley. There was no legal this,’ and they were going to move and get the backing to such a resolution, but it was a approval of the American authorities. statement of principle that the nation felt was important that flooding should not be taking So B.C. at that time asked the IJC to look at it. place. The IJC was not, would not, could not rescind the Orders, but they did note that they had a I think that two reasons were put forward by continuing jurisdiction. What exactly that the ROSS Committee. First of all, in 1942 you meant, I don’t think we knew, but we certainly had an emergency, and a rushed agreement bore it in mind that there was a continuing was made in 1942. The hearings were less jurisdiction that someone had over this than usual. The representation was less than particular proposal, and that sort of satisfied usual, and was done in a way that missed us to that extent. We really wished them to British Columbia ramifications. And secondly annul the Agreement, but anyone can the world had changed. Environmental understand why they would have some trouble issues had become important. Conservation doing that. issues had become important on both sides of the border. There were fish spawning beds at Anyway, the ROSS Committee got established issue in this area, there was wildlife in this and on that committee were a number of area, there were flora and fauna in this area. people that you are aware of, or will become And it was felt by many that really, in today’s aware of. Dave Brousson, I mentioned, who is climate, this project would not have been an MLA, raised that question in the House. approved. But in hindsight, Seattle said, that’s John Fraser, who later became a Member of all right, but we have it approved. So it Parliament and became a Minister of seemed to be irreconcilable from the two Environment for Canada was on that parties’ point of view. committee. Tom Perry, a doctor at the University, who later went into politics and was The two governments, federal governments a Minister for a short time in B.C. And I think, asked IJC to have a look at this, even though above all, Ken Farquharson was on that they had approved it previously, and they did committee. I think from that point on - 1969, some studies, but they did go from 1970, until the final signing in 1984 - Ken recommendations. They took the view, I think, Farquharson was a conscience of the Skagit that they had approved something in 1942. and in a very positive way, not a negative way, However, the Province went directly to the IJC trying to find a way out of this particular

55 Ben Marr (May 13, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

dilemma. I don’t think we could speak too When they made that decision back in ’42, highly of Ken Farquharson for the efforts he environmental assessments were much more made over these years. But he was there. He limited. They had to base everything, as I kept us honest. We’d get the phone call when understand it, on the 1942 situation. And the things weren’t going right, and be urged to ’67 arrangement, which they assumed had keep at it. And we did. taken care of it, had now discovered that it hadn’t taken care of it to the satisfaction of the By that time we had a situation where the parties. One party challenging their decision, dam, the application, was going ahead to the and having to deal with it. At that point, I think Federal Power Commission. B.C. had made they were in a box in which they couldn’t its application to have it annulled, and the rescind their Order. They recognized that it negotiations were still supposed to be taking was a major problem, an international place. I would think that at that particular point problem, and didn’t want to walk away from it negotiations are very slow because we didn’t completely, so they had a continuing really understand proper negotiating. Seattle jurisdiction. certainly didn’t want to push negotiations. We had been the people who slowed it down on Okay. We now had a situation where the IJC the compensation in the earlier years, through were involved, in a way, by having a the ‘50s and up to ‘70. But now Seattle had continuing jurisdiction. And we were busy an issue to deal with. They had to get the trying to negotiate to resolve the issue. But it approval of the Federal Power Commission. was really back to Seattle and British And, of course, the ROSS Committee was Columbia. By ’74, negotiations between certainly represented there along with Seattle and British Columbia got going again, hundreds of other agencies across the States. based on the IJC refusal to annul and rescind So Seattle had to work their way through the the Order. By refusing to annul and rescind Federal Power Commission, which is rather a the Order, they caused British Columbia and slow and cumbersome process. Seattle to get back to the negotiating table. And by saying that they had a continuing In the meantime the two federal governments jurisdiction meant that they could still come had requested the IJC to investigate the late into the picture, if required. So that was ’74. recommendations to do with the environment And then between ‘74 and about ’80, Seattle on this issue. And the IJC reported back - this was busy working with the FPC (Federal is in the late ‘70s, I suppose - anyway they Power Commission) in the States. We had reported back that this, that this challenge to still this Order sitting there, and the IJC did this the legality of the IJC Order and Agreement to allow negotiations to carry on, and allowed was outside their standard reference, and the FPC to make its decision. made both their recommendations. The full assessment was outside its term of reference. As long as it was clouded with this IJC Order But they still had a continuing jurisdiction sitting there, then British Columbia and Seattle because they had to be satisfied that Seattle were not into hard negotiations, because both and B.C. had an arrangement to cover the parties wanted to know how the Order would other issues – any damage done in British proceed. And Seattle was before the FPC, Columbia because of the dam. And that was and of course it was clouded by the fact there up to Seattle and British Columbia to resolve, was still an outstanding dispute on the not up to the IJC. But they had a continuing international border. So they simply dismissed jurisdiction because they had to know that had it at that point, to allow these discussions and happened. negotiations to carry on. Even during this quiet period, when we were before the IJC, So the IJC very cleverly rejected the and Seattle was before the Federal Power application, but didn’t take itself completely out Commission, the issue was very much alive. of the picture, and that became important later It was quiet at the surface, beneath the on. It had a holding position on it. I don’t surface there was still much agitation taking know what the legalities there are, but they place, and ROSS Committee was still pushing took that position that they still had an interest, a position against flooding, as were some but not necessarily jurisdiction to change it. American conservation groups as well.

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Once those things were cleared away, the agreement. By a minor change in British FPC order had been issued. Seattle was now Columbia, with the cooperation of Seattle, free to negotiate to the full extent. I have to we’d have the ability to produce some energy say that I didn’t, and many other people didn’t, and some capacity to compensate for the High really think that we would get a resolution by Ross. Without some cheap source of rescinding or changing of the IJC Order. We compensation, we’d never reach agreement were always convinced we had to negotiate. It on a total compensation package. There had to be a negotiated settlement. And once might be something in there to sort of pad the FPC had given the approval to Seattle City these costs enough. Light to go ahead, I think they were convinced they had to negotiate. So that then brought us Raising Seven Mile Dam fifteen feet would to the negotiations for Skagit in ’74, ‘75. And cause about ten acres of flooding on Seattle that’s when I get involved in the project side of the border, and that land was actually directly. owned by Seattle City Light, which was very nice as well. And it would cause about 140 At one point, in ’77 actually, British Columbia acres of flooding in B.C., but it was steep took one initiative even during this quiet slope land, no environmental issues at all, and period, in which we raised the question of the none ever raised at any time. Pend Oreille Seven Mile Dam on the Pend Oreille River. was accepted, the Seven Mile raising was The Pend Oreille River is part of the Columbia accepted by all as a legitimate answer - a system, but it flows north across the border partial answer to the problem. It didn’t work at from Boundary Dam, which is one of Seattle that time, but it was good on the back burner, City Light’s dams, across the border to the and was brought forward again at a later date. Pend Oreille River to a dam called the Seven Mile Dam, which is controlled by B.C. Hydro, One of the little side issues to mention - in ’67 an agent of the Crown Provincial. And it was there was a verbal agreement of $35,000 a possibility that that dam could be raised annually and $10,000 land taxes. This money fifteen feet. It would flood back to the border, was paid for a while, and then the change in to the base of the Boundary Dam. government in B.C. the stronger position was taken and we returned the checks, un-cashed. Because of the circumstances to do with Finally it was all washed under the bridge in energy capacity, it could have a reasonably the final settlement. I don’t know how long the good effect. It would take care of almost half check lasted, I guess after a period of time. of what’s called the ‘energy,’ at only a quarter The change in government in the early ‘70s of the capacity. ‘Energy’ is the amount of led to making a stronger stand. They went power you produce from water flowing through back to the table and that was part of the final a turbine, on a long term basis. ‘Capacity’ is settlement. the ability to put the machines in and for short periods of time, draw down your dam to meet By that the time the IJC had sort of canvassed peaks. The High Ross Dam was built for public opinion, and recognized a pretty strong capacity. That is the ability to pull down your feeling out there on both sides of the border reservoir, get the surge through the system. on this particular issue. The IJC then sort of Meet power peaks during the winter or during picked up, continued, began to understand a the summer when they’re using air little better what they meant by continuing conditioners and this sort of thing. So it is very interest in the jurisdictional side of this issue key to their energy needs, this capacity. Not because they did retain two energy experts to really energy, but capacity. provide technical background to the negotiations and they established what they This would alleviate the problem somewhat. It called a joint consultative group. And this they would allow us to provide certain energy and found out became a very good idea. They certain capacity to Seattle. Our proposal, at brought to the table, under this joint that time was rejected by Seattle because it consultative group not only the parties, Seattle didn’t make them whole, and indeed, not by and B.C., but also the federal U.S. federal any shot would it make them whole, but it government, the Canadian federal government never left their minds. And it came back in the were also at the table. Because it was last few months and became part of the final recognized that the agreement between

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Seattle and British Columbia would have to be The negotiations were still carried on by formalized in some sense, at some other level, Seattle and British Columbia. We had to national, international level. make the agreement. But we could test out, or make sure that both governments were well And the advantages of that were that Seattle aware of what was happening. And they knew and British Columbia were able to report back what they would have to do to back it up. on their progress as this went on, and they Because ultimately it goes through the U.S. were able to use the technical expertise to Senate, with a ninety-nine to zero vote or support numbers that they had jointly agreed something. And it would have to go through to on resolving this – that is the cost of the the B.C. or the Canadian House of Commons. dam is one issue. We had an independent So they knew they'd have be, have to have group who agreed this was the cost of the hands on, at some point approve it. I think dam, that no longer became a discussion that for the fairly useful purpose of making between us. sure we’re all on the same side, their presence gave us confidence that we could move The joint consultative committee was useful in through this, there'll be no stumbling blocks at that sense. It also was useful in the sense the last minute from any other party. that things moved very rapidly at the end because the people involved in writing treaties We’d meet in Ottawa. And on one occasion on the U.S. side and the Canadian side were across the border in the States. It wasn't the well aware of how we’re doing, and certainly City of Seattle, some other resort place they appreciated the effort that negotiators were chose. But I can remember two meetings for making to resolve this issue, so there was high sure. Then I think there was probably a final comfort level with it. So the treaty was put major meeting in Seattle when we were really together pretty rapidly. At the same time, and getting down to final, final numbers. So I think the government on this side, the energy board there were four meetings altogether. on this side realized that a long term export of energy would be allowed under this particular These were not public meetings. That’s also deal, whereas Canada's generally opposed to another interesting issue of course, that in the long term energy agreements. A number of U.S. system, almost everything is public. At things were done to smooth the wheels one of our meetings in Seattle, one of the somewhat, and I think that's a very useful role Ministers was there, and suddenly he said, the IJC did. So that ‘continuing jurisdiction’ “Who is this gentleman sitting at the end of the phrase which we puzzled over, and they may table?” He says, Oh it’s a Seattle Times have been puzzling over too, I don't know, but newspaperman. Well of course we were out suddenly, in 1982, it became an important of that room so fast, that’s not the way we do issue. business. Rightly of wrongly, it’s two different ways of looking at public involvement. In On the joint consultative committee, Bob today’s system these sorts of negotiations Royer and I were on it as two parties. The IJC tend to be behind locked doors, whereas in had Keith Bulen, who is an American member the U.S. system, multiple people seem to get of the IJC. And Canada had Raymond Olsen, involved. Anyway, the consultative committee who was the Chair of the Canadian section of meetings were not open to the public. Or the IJC. So they had two key people from perhaps, since we didn’t indicate when and international field. They had members from where they would be held, that made the U.S. departments which would be probably system easy. You didn’t have to ban anyone, Energy and other departments like that. And they just didn’t turn up. Canada had Ministry of Environment people. And others sat in. I know at one point there I think one of the things that was very good were four or five U.S. State Department about the ROSS group was they trusted representatives sitting though all the meetings. negotiations. They really trusted in They would come in on financial issues, come negotiations. Because when they made in on treaty issues, and legal issues and those suggestions, they could see these suggestions types of things. So they were floating in and being built into the system. And we kept them out in these meetings. informed as to what we’re doing, but they didn’t attend the meetings. And knowing our

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system very well, they were well aware that it And here were a group talking in high- would be a wrong move to get involved in the fallooting terms about the world and the meetings. To be kept informed is what they environment and the passage of time and were after. Otherwise you’d have quite a real changing public perceptions, so that’s easy to debate going round the table. Now, I think grasp what the B.C. position really was. But they let us negotiate quietly believing that we certain things were clear: that B.C. was were really doing our best to solve this issue. opposed to the flooding of the Skagit. That At least that’s my feeling. They’ll tell you for was now quite clear, regardless of anything sure how they really felt, but my feeling was that had happened in the past. B.C. was quite that we had built up a level a trust at the clear that the Skagit Valley could not be negotiating level, that a phone call is all they flooded. And it also was B.C.’s position that needed to know where we were going, what we had to negotiate and had to reach a fair was happening. And they tended to accept settlement - one that was agreed to and fair by that. And they were very positive, and their all parties and the public. The settlement feedback as to how best they could play a would be seen out there (in public) as being a role. Certainly they played a big role in the reasonable agreement that A- stopped the public area, I mean any time a meeting was flooding, and B- did not sell the Province, a held, they’d and the news came out the media sellout. So it had to do these two things. And wouldn’t call us, they‘d call the ROSS if we exported energy, we wanted a fair Committee. They’d call us too, but essentially market value for the energy which was they also called the ROSS Committee. And exported. Again that comes back to being the ROSS Committee would always be seen as making a deal that we could live with, supportive. Maybe annoyed at the slowness, that did not harm us economically, or mad at us about developers, but nonetheless I environmentally, and met the requirements of think that essentially got a good feeling in the our colleagues in Seattle. And these seemed media, were pretty kind I think in dealing with like impossible positions to reconcile. Seattle the issue. And that was because the ROSS could not yield one inch, because of history we Committee were making the statements. I had, and we had to reach some way of being think if I was making statements, it wouldn’t seen and actually be made whole on our part have been trusted as well as the ROSS or as I said before. So that’s where Committee. It’s an unfortunate part of life negotiations started from. these days, but an official has trouble being trusted. The other thing that came up was that two levels of government didn’t see things in the The problem at that time was one of the same way, for a good reason. We went to objectives of the parties, because the State of Washington early on and said to the objectives were different. And I don’t really State of Washington, we’re the Province, speak for Seattle, but my understanding was you’re the State, I guess we’re going to have that Seattle had a very straightforward to do something about negotiating these objective, mainly to be made whole, either by agreements. And the State of Washington constructing the High Ross Dam, or by said ‘we have no position. In our system of receiving equivalent energy capacity at the government, you have to deal with Seattle.’ same price, over the same eighty-year time Seattle is almost like, well my interpretation I frame. That was Seattle’s position, very clear- guess, a city-state. It has some direct links to cut, very obvious. They felt they had the federal government, outside its links to the something, and they wanted to get it. If they state government, and indeed much, lots of couldn’t get it one way, then we had to supply land in the state is owned by the federal it in another fashion. Really straightforward. government, and we discovered later on that British Columbia had a more complex set of the federal government has a very large objective. interest in land issues. Whereas in our side of the border, ninety-five percent of the provincial Of course Seattle, as I mentioned to you land is Crown Provincial, owned by the earlier, were really negotiating what they’d see Province, and five percent is private. The as a commercial type deal. Here they were a Crown owns most of the land. So that made power utility who wanted to build something, Seattle somewhat nervous, because they and thought they had all the rights to do so. could see on resource issue a very strong

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position that the Province held, and certainly a B.C. side of the border, which gave us some strong tie of the province to the federal ability to maneuver. But remember: government because land issues were everything to them and everything to us - we provincial. Even in the Columbia Treaty the both have to win a hundred percent. federal government could stop it because you had to have an international treaty, which is I think another thing that helped at that time their jurisdiction, but the Canadian federal was that Seattle, as I mentioned, finally had government couldn’t build it because the water approval from the Federal Power Commission, belongs to the Province. So there had to be so there was nothing standing in their way of Canada and B.C. to agree on the Columbia negotiating. They had the project. It was Treaty. Whereas on the American side it was crucial to them. But that allowed them to start I think the Bonneville Authority…. So that was coming forward, and also at that point I’d a problem. come online also Bob Royer, I’d come on earlier - in ‘75. Bob Royer became their To resolve that ultimately, we had to show to representative. And I can’t say enough about Seattle that they could be comfortable, that Bob Royer, because he had a tie into Seattle what we agreed to provide, we would provide. Council. His brother was the Mayor. Bob And we did this by entering into an agreement Royer became Deputy Mayor. And a large with Canada, a Canada-B.C. agreement. And part of his function, I think, along with a guy as part of the treaty, part of the negotiations, called John Gibson, an economist, was to we’ll come to that later, but essentially that negotiate this arrangement. It’d become very was to satisfy Seattle’s deep concern about important to Seattle, because they had an how, trusting the Province after all these years agreement from the Federal Power of discussions back and forward, and sort of Corporation to go ahead with the project, and safeguarding their position. And we agreed they were being stymied. that was a legitimate issue that we had to deal with, and we agreed that we would enter into I think they knew they’d have to negotiate. I’m an agreement with Canada, to sort of raise sure that Euland and others with the IJC were their confidence that we were doing the right telling them, you know, you’d better start thing, and it would work. So these things negotiating. So I think at that point became rather important as we went through negotiations became very specific. And I think the discussions, trying to understand why they at that point negotiations became looking for a were hesitant in some areas, and why we mutual agreement that would satisfy both were hesitant in some areas. Usually a parties completely, and not lead into reason, if you think of it. contentious debates, into historical debates. Simply say: you’ve got a problem, certain Another fact that helped us in some ways, was things that appear to be allowing us to move in that the energy situation had also changed a direction of solving it. Let’s find out whether somewhat. B.C., as it built the Columbia we can bring that to fruition. I think Bob Royer Treaty projects, had a surplus at that time. had that spirit, and brought that to the table. And the export of energy was seen as in a And the IJC of course, being around, still positive light. We don’t build to export, but the having a continuing jurisdiction also, indicating way the BC Hydro System is constructed, you to them they had to. You couldn’t just go either have a feast or a famine. It takes about ahead. Even though it appeared on paper you ten years perhaps to develop a hydro system, had everything you needed. There still was design and build it. Having built it, you this international aspect that you had to be hit. suddenly get a great block of energy coming online. So you have a surplus. And over the The negotiations between Seattle and British years, as consumption increases, it draws Columbia, were very tightly controlled, in the down the surplus, it goes down to a point at sense that we minimized the amount of paper which you have to go to your next project. So passing back and forward between us. At any we were moving into a surplus time. We knew one time we tried to have only one piece of that for a number of years we were on pretty paper in front of us – what we’d agreed to so good ground. And that became a fact of in the far. And when we tried to add to it, and the final analysis, in final agreement which we’ll other party agreed and that would be added to come to. The fact that things had changed the what we had so far. So this piece of paper

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would go back and forward. Not that simple, they had their own place, but I think there was but in the sense that let’s not have all these enough trust for Royer, and enough trust I position papers being written up, let’s not thought of myself perhaps to put their mind at break the post to each other. Let’s sit down rest. I was given enough freedom, I felt, that I together, and with this piece of paper let’s could make arrangements across the table, keep adding to it, you know, different concepts knowing that they would be backed up in where we’re going to dam, about the Victoria. So that helped, because it allowed Bonneville, about the Pend Oreille, about us to really open up to each other, to try and Seven-Mile, all these things, interest rates. Of reach a solution. course all these things were agreed to. And as you agreed to any one of them, then you This trust, I think, had to be built up, but it was put that to bed, and onto other things. That’s given a big emphasis when Bob Royer came the sort of stuff we’d report back to the Joint on board. Because I think at that time Charles Consultative Committee in sort of infrequent Royer, the Mayor, and Bob Royer, and meetings. But nevertheless, we’d say ‘here’s knowing Charles Royer had a strong feeling the progress so far.’ So it was kept simple. on environmental conservation issues, realized that he was going to build that dam if For instance we both agreed up front there he had to build that dam, and he was not should be no flooding. That’s number one, going to take anything less than that. But at yes. So now what we’re doing is we’re the same time in his heart, he didn’t want to agreeing that there’ll be no flooding, what build the dam. I mean, he wanted a solution we’re trying to do is find a way to have no that was environmentally sound, and come to flooding. That’s a simple one. And others a major point he made on that, so that we had were the same way. Then we come to some a situation where it wasn’t them saying, we of the things that happened at the table. want to build a dam. It was: ‘we want to be made whole, and can’t live with our political These meetings involved only Royer, myself, constituents or anyone else if we come out of plus back-up people. We never had any this and say, we didn’t build a dam. You politicians at the table during any negotiations, know, since 1906, this dam has been part of whatsoever. Only had a politician get involved our philosophy. And even though we don’t like was on the signing ceremony at the end. building dams, we’re short of energy.’ That They were kept informed internally. Bob would have been difficult, I suspect. So I think Royer reported to the Mayor, I’m sure almost that the Charles Royer and Bob Royer were on a continuous basis, and through the Mayor, convinced of that. And I think also on our I assume to City Council, but who knows how side, with people like Premier Bennett and it functions there? My part, I reported less Steven Rochester, he was Minister, who you frequently because I had to report to Cabinet, saw in the picture, wanted the Skagit not to be and that’s not so easy to tie up the Cabinet. flooded. But on the other hand, they were not But I kept the Minister informed, and I’d go prepared to go for anything that was seen as a before Cabinet perhaps two, three times over give-away in any shape or form. No flooding, the whole course of negotiations, to make sure full stop. We’re not going to sit here and give that they were comfortable with what I was away energy or do anything that economically putting on the table, and could live with it. And harms British Columbia. So with these terms they generally gave me the freedom to of reference, don’t flood, and don’t make a negotiate as best I could, recognizing they deal that makes us not only be, but look as if would have final say on the agreement. But we have given away something. The $35,000 the Minister was kept informed, and the I mentioned - in today’s climate you can never Cabinet was kept informed. And at the table I justify $35,000 a year for a large power think there was only one occasion at which a project. I think they treated Seattle City Light Minister went down to Seattle early on, one as if they were an energy company on this occasion I can think of. Later on we met more side of the border. And cheap energy had frequently, when we were getting to signing it, been a policy in British Columbia, and has and had to arrange for signing ceremonies. driven British Columbia in large measure over So I think it was really a technical discussion the years, all the way back to the Al-Can we’re involved in here. That certainly didn’t Highway, the Columbia Treaty, the Peace lock the politicians out of it. Recognize that River. Energy had been very important

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constituent of British Columbia prosperity. transmission line to get the power from, to And cheap energy had been part of that. But Seattle. So they should pay $100,000 and we argument today is we should be moving away will deliver the power to Seattle, to the from that cheap energy and it should be Bonneville Power system. market price based, and all those things. The reason that was inflated was because it When you use the water rentals applied to would have inflated costs naturally over the British Columbia, you get numbers a might low eighty years, the full term of the agreement. of market value. That’s changing. Energy The first one lasts thirty-five years, because increased substantially since that time. But that’s when they pay off the debt. Again, B.C. nevertheless, that was a fact. And that may takes a view that that is well more, a great have caused the low number to be used at deal more than is required in the initial years that time, based on some three, three point to meet the requirement, because a chunk’s five or some (mills) per kilowatt hour. Anyway from Seven Mile, which costs almost nothing it was based on some low number at that time. in B.C. to maintain in dollars, you know, half of So October comes. The problem then one year built the Seven-Mile. So that became, if you look at the agreement, it said became an easy issue to deal with. The we will not flood the Skagit. And that’s a balance comes from a system that there was condition both of us put on it. The second an over-supply at that time. condition is that we will supply Seattle with electrical capacity energy roughly equivalent So if you start collecting twenty-one point eight to High Ross, and that’s a Seattle condition million dollars a year, after a number of years that we had to meet. you’re going to have enough in the bank to make sure that you’re all right to the end of the We then said that we will build the ‘paper eighty year period. And that’s the conclusion dam.’ How do you build a paper dam? Well that we came to, and the conclusion that the that day in December, I forget the date, we consultative group came to. Because in the took the number of just over two hundred first few years it costs you almost nothing to million dollars, which is the cost of the dam, as keep it open. As time passes and your power decided by the consultative committee’s demand and supply comes into line, it’ll cost experts. And we both agreed to that number, you more maybe twenty, thirty years from we did not dispute it in any way. Bob Royer now. But if you get enough money in the bank went and got a copy of the New York Financial to start with, and interest … Times, that publishes all the interest rates, et cetera. And that day opened it and said, if we Now, just on that issue, the costs had risen, were to go to the marketplace today, and which favored us. Interest rates were fairly borrow money for thirty-five years, at high. Over today’s climate, 10.125% is a municipal rates, it’d cost us ten point one, ten pretty good rate to be getting your money point one two five percent. It should pay this back. These things allowed us to come to the off, in equal payments over thirty-five years, conclusion, across advisors and the the capital charge the interest in the balance, consultative board itself, that the deal could that comes to twenty-one million, eight really be brokered. Enough would come in hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars. during these early years. Essentially, this That fixed the number, just over the table in made both parties whole. And the key really Seattle. And the so we now had a number on was the Seven-Mile issue, which we brought which we both agreed. That is what B.C. must up way early on. It made it very easy for B.C. be paid by Seattle, if Seattle doesn’t build the to prove, establish to the satisfaction of dam, and we give them energy. It cost them anyone I’ve ever talked to. In fact it was never that amount of money to build a dam. They really raised as an issue when the treaty was don’t build it, we give them the energy, we get signed, the question of a bad deal. And that the money they would pay to do that. was very important because the government in power at that time was committed by a And that is happening now. It goes into an previous government to an arrangement. And account in British Columbia. We also said that the biggest criticism of the arrangement, apart it would also cost Seattle about $100,000 a from an environmental criticism, was the year, which has to be inflated, to run the ‘giveaway.’ It was crucial for the Provincial

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government to be able to stand up in good agreement. But it’s pretty tough. There’s no conscience, in full support of all those sense in really, to pull out. It’d have to be a involved, including the ROSS Committee, and very extraordinary situation for either party to say, ‘This financially is a sound deal.’ In fact, pull out. But we had to put it in, because with under current circumstances we have a very, a treaty you have to have some way out under very good deal for B.C. financially. And certain circumstances. allowed Seattle to say, ‘we got everything we asked for.’ So it was a two hundred percent Now, with the Skagit Environmental deal. Mayor Royer was correct. Endowment Commission, this is where I think that Mayor Royer must be given some credit, To be able to say, they don’t build the dam, I’m sure it came from him, or probably Bob, they give us all the money to build that dam, Charles or both together, but certainly in their we supply the energy, and we can establish point of view they felt it was very important to that that is a fair deal, from our point of view. have a strong environmental component to the So from a very simple explanation, of a final agreement. And they suggested that five problem that had become rather complicated million dollars would go to a fund. And Seattle throughout the years. But there were a few would pay four million dollars, and B.C. would twists we had, we had to negotiate wheeling pay one million dollars. But the money would costs. We had to get the energy from our line be spent, in almost reverse order. Most of the down to Seattle. And our concern was: If we money would be spent on the B.C. side of the sent this energy into the Northwest power grid border, not the Seattle side of the border. The system, could at some future date the States idea was that they were further ahead in bring in discriminatory rates for power development than we were. So that it was imported, as opposed to power produced important that more money was spent on our internally? So we insisted, from our point of side of the border to bring our stuff up trails, view, that we had to be treated as if we were and this sort of thing brought up to snuff. And an American corporation for purposes of maybe some mining claims had to be paid out, moving energy along that line to the City of and this type of thing. They saw that as being Seattle. And that was agreed. So that took a good deal, from their point of view, because care of our concerns. Although they’re remote, they would see their people making greater you never know what can happen. use with an established system in place on the other side of the border. So they did that, and Also on the raising of Seven-Mile, the Seattle they also agreed that they’d make a continuing threw in the two acres on their side of the fund made some half percent or something of border as just part of the agreement, with no the energy production costs would be put into compensation, right up to their boundary. So this fund as well. I’m not absolutely certain of that was done all right. Also, I think at that that last number, but it was a matter of saying, point, we cancelled all the payments that we put a big chunk of money to start with, and were or were not making on the old Order at then keep feeding some money in the future to that time. And they actually turned back to us operate one facility, and I think his vision was the six hundred and forty acres that they to have trails running through B.C. and to owned on our side of the border. A few things other parks and this type of thing. So that like that were done to make it compatible and initiative came from Seattle, was strongly easy to deal with. It’s an eighty-year deal; supported by us, and strongly supported, of thirty-five years involves the main payments course, by the ROSS Committee, as well, that and eighty years for the line payments. And there’s a very positive environmental it’ll be reviewed certain points within the future. component. I don’t know what there is to review, and I can’t think of any changes people will make, And you also established an ongoing because the penalties of either party pulling commission. Both sides of the border were out, which they can do with five years’ notice, involved in it, and they would allocate out the penalties are such, that it’s inconceivable. research money to various groups who I mean if we pulled out, we’d have to build wanted to do research or environmental good Ross Dam, you know. And if they pulled out I things, associated with Skagit Valley. I served think they’d have to do a whole bunch of other on that for just a little while. I wasn’t on it at things as well, and they’re all outlined in the

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first, then I was asked on about a year or so, additional energy resources, and simply had to but that was a long time ago, ten years ago. have them one way or the other. And British Columbia could not face the thought, nor could Managing the Treaty Canada, I think, in the long run, of that water The government delegated much of the crossing our border. I think at that point you’d responsibility to B.C. Hydro to do the day to have a major, major confrontation between day running of it, because it sounds like a two nations, which really had to be avoided. simple deal, but it involves all sorts of As soon as that water starts crossing the fluctuations in , which are agreed to, border, things really come home to roost. So and how often they can make a call for a that was the rationale, but also was the capacity, and all these different things. So our thought that the situation had changed. Hydro, B.C. Hydro runs that. They were not Energy requirements had changed. Of course all too hot, not all that hot to have that the interest rates were right. You add all these agreement, I have to say. But they things together, plus the Seven-Mile, and cooperated very fully with any technical there you have it. information that we required. And they did that very honestly, very above board, and we An interesting thing is, and this is part of the appreciated that. Then they set up a fund in U.S. Federal system, as opposed to our B.C. Hydro. And this money goes into the system, in that there’s another document fund, and they draw on the fund the costs of around somewhere. The U.S. Senate, so they operating their system to meet the tell me, requires a second document to any requirements of Seattle, including payments treaty. There’s one that explains the rationale for the routing of the energy down to Seattle, for each clause, the same clause numbers. operating the valves, opening and closing the From our point of view, now it’s taking us back gates I guess to take care of the fluctuations in to the Cabinet, I spoke to the treaty document, reservoirs on our side of the border, to meet because that’s the legal document B.C. is Seattle’s requirements. bound by. They found out it was another document which they had, where they could Part of the agreement involved all the look to get expansion of what we say in the schedules worked out by B.C. Hydro and treaty document. Apparently the U.S. Senate Seattle City Light - how you would operate and likes this explanation document. They have a manage the system for the joint benefit for the name for it, that allows them to say, ‘Oh that’s parties. B.C. saw it as a technical deal, and why they did it.’ So what I’m verbally saying recently tacked onto the agreement as the here, I’m sure is probably in, at least in part in operating arrangements between the two the second document that the U.S. prepared. facilities. We didn’t want to get involved with day to day operations of the hydro system. I was going to finish up by saying is what I Especially since it was built into theirs. And think of the whole thing. I did mention then we don’t care where they take the energy from that, that the regional thing is important, it in their system. They just have to supply allowed us to do, to throw in the Pend Oreille energy across the border, and again to or the Seven Mile; allowed them to throw in no operate the Seven-Mile, which increases the charge for the land, allowed us to say take capacity of their system, to help them do that. back the six hundred and forty acres that we To get all the money that you need to do that forfeited back in 1929, allowed these things to going to the fund. And the fund is ample to not become complications at all. It’s take care of present and future costs, we interesting. We’ll go for this and well you put think. So that’s the way it was left for that in, and it doesn’t matter when you look at operation purposes. the big numbers of the payments et cetera. They’re not what’s worth fighting over. So that Did mention that we did have an agreement helped as well. I think the IJC were important between Canada and British Columbia, which in setting up the consultative committee. They was to take care of Seattle’s concerns? I think didn’t have any power, and they didn’t get that, as a final comment, in negotiation, timing involved in the negotiations for the agreement. is everything. And the desire to reach a But they allowed it to flow along by bringing all settlement, both parties had that strong desire, the involved parties to the table, and allowed no question on that. Seattle certainly needed outside experts to check numbers to make

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sure that there’d be no dispute over the cost of We all came together through a number of the dam, et cetera. Otherwise you’d spend a circumstances that made a happy ending, long time arguing whether it’s two hundred which I didn’t think for a long time we were million or two hundred and twenty million. going to get. I think that the only group to Well they say it’s two hundred and three really believe that it would be settled in the million, that’s it. We just said ‘that’s been long run was the ROSS Committee. Oh, they checked. That’s not even asking to be double never lost faith the issue would be solved one checked. We’ve got a number.’ It was a way or the other. The issue would be solved. simple way of dealing with the problem that Once we got a solution they could buy, we was sort of helpful, I think, as well. We did get knew they would settle. And they did. They new direction from the IJC. felt they were given a victory. And they had. We bureaucrats live to serve another day. The Treaty Signing Well I think by the time that came about, the ROSS Committee had been out in the media and had made known that they were in agreement with it, from the Provincial point of view, became initially a non-issue because an election time was coming up at that time as well. We had a brief conversation with the Premiere on it and I think he was glad this was off the table as an election issue, you know. I think he recognized that he agreed to make a deal to stand up, but he had no desire to start boasting about it and make a big issue about it. It was done and behind him and didn’t become an issue from their point of view. The Opposition didn’t make an issue of it either, because the ROSS Committee had ties not only to government, but strong ties to the Opposition. Perry for instance, Tom Perry whom you’ll be meeting, was a member of the Opposition Party, indeed just had won election for them. So we had a situation where all parties in the political level were agreed. The Feds were totally on board because John Fraser was a Minister in Ottawa by this time. So all these things created that feeling, I guess, in the media, there was no big story. But there was a big story, it’s true, a big success story and the media don’t really take as much interest in big success stories than in a bit of disaster. So all those factors made it a non-event. It was covered. Ken Farquharson was quoted for a bit in the paper. Usual issues went out. And there was good feeling all the way around at the table, and the Royers came up. Charles Royer was very generous. And Gardy Gardham was there, a generous type of guy, too, he’s always well met, wants to make it good and get the most out of it. The Federal Minister come out and signed the Canada-B.C. deal. So there’s no one out there to object, which means it became rather a non-event.

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Margaret and Joe Miller (Interviewed May 5, 2003)

Margaret Miller taught biology at the Sammamish High School in Bellevue, Washington, and Joe Miller was District Manager of the United States Railroad Retirement Board. They did pioneering field studies on the special conservation values of the North Cascades, and painstaking work to establish revegetation techniques, especially at higher elevations. In recognition of their work, the National Park Service’s plant nursery facility at Marblemount is named for them. Joe remains on the board of the North Cascades Conservation Council, and his artwork has been known to grace the pages of the Wild Cascades from time to time.

JM: When we came to Seattle in 1956 we Service was busy logging it off as fast as they were already members of the Sierra Club and could. And we thought there were a number we had lived in a number of cities in the West of areas in the upper Skagit that deserved and were interested in the activities of the protection, and the adjacent area around Sierra Club so that was how we got involved in there. So that was how we first became the Skagit. When we came here to Seattle, involved in the Skagit. we joined the local Sierra Club chapters and I even became the president of the Northwest MM: We should say to begin with, we were, Chapter, which at that time included years ago, we were mountain climbers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, , and Colorado. We lived in Denver, and we British Columbia. And had 200 members. entertained ourselves on the weekends by The Sierra Club was not a very large finding, trying what they called ‘14-baggers,’ organization in those days. But through the mountains that were 14,000 feet high. And so Sierra Club I met a group of people who were we were interested in the mountain-climbing in the Seattle Mountaineers and they had – part of it. And then we got to thinking, “Why, if the group, the Seattle Mountaineers and the we enjoy the mountains this much, that surely Sierra Club – had formed the North Cascades we could become stewards of the mountains Conservation Counsel. And this was an and mountainous areas.” And I think this was organization designed to promote a national why, when we moved further west, we joined park in the North Cascades, because at that the Sierra Club. Because we thought that time it was all forest land and the Forest some of them had the same philosophy.

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When we came here, I went back – I was a they might have. We suggested one was to teacher – and I went back to get re-tread at look at plant and animal life in the Big Beaver the University of Washington and I was Valley, the part that would be flooded. influenced by W.T. Edmondson, who taught Another suggestion that we made was to do a ecology. And he did a study on Lake plant survey at the terminus of the Ruby Washington to get the sewage out of it. He Mountain Tramway. really was responsible for the formation of Metro that made the sewers not dump into the MM: This was a proposal that had been lake. He gave them scientific reasons why. floated also. He did the big study on that. And he influenced me tremendously. JM: See, the cross-state highway was just under construction and they wanted to make JM: We, we were very active in the campaign views for the tourists, so the head of the Park to establish the park, the North Cascades Service in Washington dreamed up this idea of National Park. I became the Treasurer of building a tram up to the top of Ruby North Cascades Conservation Council in ‘62. Mountain. And people could ride up there and see the panorama of the Park spread out MM: We both were on the board. before them. We thought this was a lousy idea, but it was still quite active at that time. JM: We’re both on the board of the Council, So anyway, this was our proposal to the Park and attended the meetings and went to the Superintendent, that we were going to be free many hearings that were held. Congressmen labor, and could he use our services. So came out and held meetings in this area and what, you go on. we were really overjoyed in ’68 when the Park was established by act of Congress and MM: Well, Pat Goldsworthy also talked to signed by President Johnson. That was a Contor, the first Superintendent of the Park – major landmark, as you call it. Then in the Roger Contor - and told Roger that we were following year, we learned, to our amazement, footloose and fancy-free. I was a biology that Seattle City Light was planning to raise teacher at Sammamish and had a long-time High Ross Dam and flood a portion of the Park interest in natural history. And so we… Roger and a portion of the Skagit up into Canada. called up here and said, “Why don’t you come They also, at that time, planned to build a dam up and talk to me.” So Joe was working and I in Thunder Creek - it was called the Thunder was... It was the summer. So I went up and Creek Diversion. They would drill a tunnel talked to Roger, and he said, “I have enough under Ruby Mountain, into, behind this dam, projects to last you the rest of your life.” And and this would generate additional power he wasn’t kidding. He was not kidding. And down into the Diablo Power Station. This we had he stayed there, I’m sure would have held considered a major threat to the Park because our nose to the grindstone for the rest of our of all the destructive effects to the Park. Then, lives. He outlined what his problem was – that let’s see, the North Cascades Conservation he was losing Big Beaver and they didn’t even Council, the ‘N-3-C,’ as everybody calls it, know, because it was a new park, he had began to rabble rouse, as you might say, nobody to put in there. Heck, he only had six about this. employees. He had nobody to put in there to find out what they were losing. And he said, In the summer of 1969, a year after the Park, “This is imminent. We’re gonna lose it before I Margaret had the idea that we would devote know what it is that’s there.” So that’s the first some time to doing studies for the new thing I need done. So I came home and told National Park. I planned, or was planning, to Joe, because we had not been in Big Beaver, take early retirement from it in June of 1970 at that point. So on his vacation, the very first and she thought that doing a bunch of projects year – it was 1968… no, for the Park like that would keep both of us out of trouble and be an interesting way of having JM: ’69. a post-retirement career. So I wrote a letter to Roger Contor, the Superintendent and told MM: It was ’69. It was 1969. And on his him that we were planning on retiring, and we vacation we took two weeks and went into Big would be interested in doing any studies that Beaver to try to find what it was we had ahead

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of us. And we did some work that first two conducting a propaganda campaign, I guess weeks. But Roger told us, “You’d be better you would say. going into the valley, and do some work, and then come out. And go in again.” In other MM: This is the publication of the NCCC. words, you see it a different light, a different time of the year, perhaps, or, you’d see JM: And one of the things that Pat decided different kinds of animals, or birds, or plants on, I think he got some encouragement from that you didn’t see before. So that really sold Dave Brower down in California Sierra Club, us, because we were worried they’d want us was to devise a full-page ad to run in the local to come up and spend all summer long and newspapers on the lines of the one - the we couldn’t leave this place, with all this famous one that the Sierra Club ran: “Would garden that I have. So we said that was fine. you flood the Sistine Chapel?” You remember We’d do that. We’d go in for a week, and so when they were talking about building a dam that’s the way we established it. So we did in Grand Canyon? And it cost them their tax that on Joe’s vacation. That particular time we deductibility, but it was worth it because of its did two weeks. But we turned in what we effect. So I roughed out such an ad with Pat’s found. We carried in more stuff. We carried in help, and we sent it down to San Francisco, to plant presses, animal traps, and of course this man who was on the board of the Sierra binoculars and notebooks. Any rate, it was Club and ran a big PR firm down there. And along with tent, sleeping bags, and cooking he made this beautiful ad showing a sea of gear and all that stuff. It was a load. And we stumps that saying, “Do you wan this in your went up Valley and began to try to find out brand new national park?” And we ran it in the what it is that lived there. Seattle P-I and the Seattle Times and it just, you might say, the stuff really hit the fan. It JM: The North Cross-State Highway, or the created a really, a disturbance. Well then, all North Cascade Highway as they call it now, this was while we were getting ready for this wasn’t completed, but there was a gravel road. City Council meeting. Margaret was teaching And we had special permission to leave our and couldn’t get away, but I took a day of car in it and to hike down to Ross Lake, where annual leave and presented, along with Pat, there was a ranger station, a floating ranger the viewpoint of the environmentalists. And I station. And in about two weeks, we packed also furnished a small report to the City in about 120 pounds worth of stuff down that Council, to each member, with colored trail. pictures of some of the things we’d seen up there. That’s quite a steep trail. Very steep. The ranger would put us in his Boston Whaler and So, then they voted to go ahead with planning drop us off at Big Beaver campground. And I on raising the dam. There was one hearing concentrated on the making of photographic after another hearing. We formed the North record as best I could of what we saw in the Cascades Foundation and I became its Park, because I could see that this was really Treasurer. It was tax-exempt outfit, to raise an unusual area. What we were particularly funds to fight this proposal of Seattle City intrigued by those big cedar trees that are right Light. And we needed $50,000, we figured, to along the trail, and a bog that we found further fight Seattle City Light’s dam. And the City had up valley because it had such unusual plants given them $500,000, so we were kind of out- growing on the bog – insectivorous plants of manned there. But our hearts were pure, and various kinds, and orchids and things like that you know the old saying. Well then, that’s the that you don’t generally thing of finding in the way it went. mountains. MM: And I involved some students in this, too, As a result of what we accomplished that first I put it out on the bulletin board that we summer, we made a report to deliver to the needed some volunteers to help carry the load Seattle City Council, which was holding in and help us with the study of the Big hearings on the raising of High Ross Dam. Beaver. And I got a honey of a volunteer, And I started writing for the Wild Cascades, Debbie Clawson. She was marvelous. She along with Pat Goldsworthy - we began was our assistant. And she eventually became Habitat Biologist for Alaska Fish and

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Game. It became her lifetime interest, which this area. Anyway, this is what we did in the pleased me no end. summer of 1970. And this was where we utilized the students to help us, because there JM: The following year, I had retired, we both was a lot of tape measuring and so on. We had retired in the spring of 1970. So we really borrowed a computer at the university to try to concentrated on Big Beaver that summer. We run this off on because there were no hand spent, I think, 28 days up there over the period calculators in those days. And doing all the of the summer. Over the year we spent 58 mathematical formula by hand, it was… days in Big Beaver Valley, so we got to the point where we really knew it and we did a MM: Tedious. much more thorough study. And finally prepared a paper, “Preliminary Ecosystem JM: One heck of a job. Analysis of Big Beaver Valley” – quite an extensive document. We listed in that all the JM: We utilized the method that we found in various plants we had seen, and… various publications.

MM: And Joe mapped it. He mapped it. MM: We lived at the science library at the University of Washington, believe me. We JM: There were no topographic maps of the were trying our best to find out who else had valley at that time. They didn’t come out until done such a thing. So that’s where we got… several years later. I hadn’t realized that the State of Washington had terra incognita in it, JM: Well, anyway, as a result of these but as far as topographic maps, there were studies, which we made available generally, large blanks in it in the Cascades. So what we as well as to the Park Service, we became the worked with were aerial photos that the Forest so-called expert witnesses that the Service had flown in the past and a blueprint conservation movement relied on because that Seattle City Light had prepared of Valley they didn’t have the money to hire real ones. in its original construction back in the late We’re not really experts, because we lack the Thirties. So we were working with kind of poor academic credentials. material. And I made a map as best I could, showing the various tree types and things like MM: Well, Joe has his Bachelors. And I have that. And all this was done for the Park, for mine and I have a Masters. So we are not the Service. And I turned all my records over completely without a portfolio. We are literate, to them and we devised another study. The but … opposition, the proponents of the dam, claimed that the cedar stands in the lower Big JM: At these hearings we’d have these high- Beaver were insignificant compared to many powered lawyers questioning us, asking us other stands in and around the National Park. what our qualifications were. And so on, like And we decided to find out if this was really that. true. So in the summer of 1970 we spent a great deal of time going to the upper Baker MM: Now the only thing we could tell them to drainage, the upper Big Beaver drainage really shut them up was that we had spent ‘x’ and… number of days – at whatever time it was at the hearing held – that we had spent that MM: Little Beaver. many days in the valley doing the study. In other words, “Who have you got that spent JM: Little Beaver and conducting... that much time in the valley?” And that stopped them pretty much. MM: Chilliwack. JM: But it was a lot of fun. At one point I went JM: And the Chilliwack, that’s right… back to New York to talk to a convention of Conducting surveys of the cedar stands. I people interested in the cross-state… won’t go into the techniques used, but it was a method of running compass lines through the MM: The International Joint… stand and mapping and measuring all the trees and all the adjacent vegetation within

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JM: The International Joint Commission, and JM: It was incredible. had to write a speech on the way, on the plane, because Pat was supposed to go and MM: It was incredible. he had an emergency and I delivered my slide show. We had this slide show that … JM: But he ruled in favor of the City.

MM: We showed it… MM: of raising the dam... So I came home when we heard – got through with all of that – JM: 108 times. Different audiences. and cried. We really threw our heart and soul in it. MM: We would talk to any group. JM: But it was the Canadians that really JM: The Rotary, the Chambers of saved it. Commerce… MM: Pulled the chestnut out of the fire. We MM: Well these people hadn’t seen the valley. went up to B.C. We decided that, OK, what do They didn’t know how beautiful it was. They the Canadians care? They’re going to lose had no idea what the interesting things that ten miles of their property, do they know? And were in that valley. So we figured we had to we went up there and found out they’d never get out and talk to everybody and show them heard of it. They didn’t know anything about it. what it was they were going to lose. And so we, right away, we went first to the Sierra Club. They had a little tiny group. And JM: Well, I have most of the slides. I’ve they just exploded. And then they, in turn, turned most of our material over to North began rabble rousing and another people. Cascades. But I think I still have a lot of slides that are in the thing because I took a lot of JM: They formed this organization called pictures, believe me. ‘ROSS – Run Out Skagit Spoilers.’

MM: Well, we figured that was the only way to MM: Yes. show people. JM: And they held big campaigns, and they JM: And although I’ve taken my movie got Malvina Reynolds. camera in the Cascades, I never took any movie film up in there during this. But I went MM: To make a song... in with a film crew one time who were taking pictures in the winter time. That was one of JM: A famous folk singer to write a song the television stations here. Well, it was a about the Skagit. And, oh, it was terrific. And long brutal fight and it finally came to the when we finally had these FERC hearings in federal energy… Seattle, Federal Power Commission, excuse me, we insisted that they – that people be MM: Federal Power Commission. allowed to testify. And finally the old judge, he ruled that they could come down on a JM: Federal Power Commission, called Saturday and conduct a public hearing. And FERC. They had this judge come out to the Canadians sent swarms of people down Seattle and conduct these hearings. And... here, you know, and even had Malvina Reynolds sing her song at the thing. So this MM: He showed his intelligence the very first made a lot of good publicity. Well then, the thing. He said, “Mr. Miller, do you own any Canadians, they… there was so much property in this area?” And Joe just exploded. publicity up there that they got onto their …

JM: I said, “No, your Honor, everything up MM: their government. there belongs to the people of the United States.” JM: and insisted that something happen. What did happen? It took an act of Senate MM: He didn’t seem to know the concept of a to... National Park. He didn’t get that.

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MM: I can’t remember what their government MM: Well, we’re just discouraged because of procedure was. But, at any rate, they agreed. the political situation. I don’t know. I don’t know. Practically trying to destroy the Park JM: It was a treaty. It required a treaty. On Service and put it under contract. the International Joint Commission. And the treaty was that British Columbia would provide MM: Joe and I have always felt, like we said an equivalent amount of power to … before. If you got enjoyment out of a National Park, then you ought to be willing to work for MM: Seattle. them. Or if you enjoy the forest, the National Forest, then go work for them. We did, the JM: to Seattle for the same price it would cost National Forest. We just felt like that nothing’s to raise the dam. And that was what saved free, really, and if you feel strongly about the thing. Then I don’t know where the Skagit something, then put your shoulder to the Endowment Commission came in. I think that wheel and help them. So we have tried to do came about as a result of the re-license… that.

MM: re-licensing the dam, yes! Yes. That’s JM: The work that we did in Big Beaver and where that came from. on the Skagit, that was only a small portion of what we’ve done for the park. JM: and Seattle City light provided funding for the Skagit Environmental Endowment MM: Oh, my yes. Teeny, tiny. Commission. I never was active in the Commission. I was Treasurer of the JM: So we spent 25 years doing other Foundation, and I provided funding for various projects, primarily… the one that occupied purposes. And I, to this day, still am treasurer most of our time was trying to re-vegetate the for that Foundation. And paid the lawyers, beat up areas in the sub-alpine, at, like who mostly were gratis. So that’s where we Cascade Pass, and... are today, I guess. MM: Whatcom Pass. INT: One sense I have is that the time that you were involved both with the Park and with JM: Whatcom Pass, and places like that. We the dam controversy, was that this was really devised a technique of growing the plants a time of optimism. Your David to their down at lower elevation and getting them back Goliath, your 50,000 to their 500,000, the up there and into the ground, and restoring lawyers working for free. Was that your these areas that didn’t seem to want to come sense, too? back naturally.

JM: Oh, yeah. Absolutely, you know. Out MM: That was our passion, the last few years. there, slaying the giant with pebbles. It was We really wanted to get that going, and we got more fun writing in the Wild Cascades about it going. And they told us we couldn’t do it. this, you know. I did cartoons. Had a lot of And of course, that’s all you need to do, is tell fun, really. And Harvey Manning… you know us that you can’t do it. So we just kept trying who he is? different things and finally found a way to get them to grow back. We went… MM: Oh, yes. You have to get a hold of Harvey Manning. JM: The greenhouse at Marblemount is called the Joe and Margaret Miller Greenhouse. JM: He was a vicious in-fighter, the irate bird- We’ve had a lot of good friends up there. watcher. He lives right here in Bellevue. He That’s where our heart is. was the editor of the…

MM: Of the Wild Cascades, of the publication.

JM: Yea, those were hopeful days. Nowadays, it’s all gone down the tubes, that’s the way we feel.

71 Margaret and Joe Miller (May 5, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

From the Wild Cascades, North Cascades Conservation Council Newsletter, courtesy J. Miller.

Margaret and Joe Miller (May 5, 2003) 72 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Tom Perry (Interviewed May 13, 2003)

Tom Perry is a Vancouver physician and a lifelong conservationist. He served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the British Columbia Legislature (1989 – 1996), as Minister of Advanced Education, Training & Technology (1991 – 1993), and was recognized with the Roderick Haig Brown Award for his efforts to preserve the Skagit Valley; Rivers Canada board member.

I was an eighteen-year-old, starting university, essentially framed as Seattle City Light is at University of B.C. in 1969, when the Skagit trying to take our land away and ruin it, and suddenly came into public prominence. I we’ve got to do something to stop it. So I sort remember seeing on telephone poles or on of responded to that relatively low impulse of a university bulletin boards, black pamphlets, or flyer on the bulletin board somewhere and got leaflets decrying the impending rape of the interested in it. Skagit, probably put up by the Sierra Club, I think. Basically saying the Americans are Then it turned out that there was more trying to take this from us, we’ve got to stop information available, and one began to learn them. And that was a fairly petty period for that there was a very nice place at stake, Canadian nationalism in those days. Ironically which was really close to Vancouver. And I’d I was actually still in American citizenship, and grown up fishing and hiking all over B.C., and I was applying for Canadian citizenship, but I my dad had taken me past the entrance to the was as nationalistic a Canadian as they come Skagit Valley many, many times going to at that point. And that was really the first great Manning Park. Every Thanksgiving, every wave of the environmental movement in B.C. Canadian Thanksgiving, which is October, we and in North America. It was a very powerful would hike the Three Brothers, which are the combination of a nationalist issue for absolute headwaters of the Skagit River. And Canadians, and an environmental issue. It every summer we would drive past Silver

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Creek and Hope on the way up the Fraser put me to work studying the movement of little Canyon and pass the road entrance to the freshwater snails called placidium, in Petri Canadian Skagit. And somehow we never dishes. This involved taking the snails from knew of this beautiful fishing stream in there. I the mud at the bottom of a lake, putting them don’t know how it escaped my dad’s notice, into the Petri dish, and then using a derelict x- but it did, until the political issue came alive. ray machine to see where they were in the Ironically I got involved politically before I ever dish. The machine didn’t have any saw the place and realized how beautiful it instructions on how to use it. I was quite was. But I guess 1970 was the great Earth terrified of what it was doing to the lower part Day in the United States, and people like the of my body. And one day Ian Effort said, student who later became the Senator Gary “Look, maybe you’d like to do something else Hart, and later became almost presidential this summer? We’ve got a grant from the candidate Gary Hart, was in Colorado in those federal government for some students to work days starting out the Earth Day trend. on the Skagit Valley. And I thought that you might like to work on that instead.” So I Like so many things that came from the U.S., jumped into this thing and before I knew it, I it was picked up in Canada. And we had an was one of eight UBC students working for the Earth Day here in May 1970, and one of the summer of 1971 on a federal government big issues was the Skagit. By then a lot of funded project to try to understand the valleys people had heard about it. And the fishermen of the Canadian Skagit. And eventually we who had been fishing there for years, and the went in there and looked around. horse riders who’d been in there, and the naturalists like Dr. Bert Brink who’d been One of the lessons I learned from that is if going in there as early as the 1930’s began you’re studying an area, always go see it first. talking about it. We had a newspaper, the Don’t wait till the end of the project to go see Vancouver Sun, which was quite early an the area you’re studying. Somehow, we were advocate for conservation and for diligent students and we thought we should go environmental protection in the 1970s. There to the library first, when what we really should were some very progressive people on the have done was go spend a few weeks getting reporting staff of the Sun, and the editorial to know the place. But we did a pretty good staff, and a longtime fishing columnist named job. We attended hearings of the International Lee Straight who wrote columns about the Joint Commission that had been held that Skagit. I think some of the editors whose summer in both British Columbia and names one never saw in print, people like Washington. We did our bit to stir up public Patrick Nagel, who was a famous reporter, attendance at the hearings. And we took an and Moira Farrell was another reporter who optimistic view, that we might actually make a died prematurely. But they got the story into difference if we worked hard on this. We the front page of the Sun and they followed it produced a report called “The Future of the very vigorously. And there were a few radio Skagit Valley,” that was a rather reporters and even some television reporters comprehensive report on the botanical, who gave it legs. And lo and behold, by 1970, zoological, geographical, geological, the American conservationists had stirred up recreational, cultural values of the Skagit, and enough trouble in the City of Seattle at the turned this in to the International Joint Public Utility Commission hearings and at the Commission. Washington State Department of Ecology hearings, that there was something going on. And by that time I was sort of hooked. I There was citizen activism. And up here in discovered at the end of that summer there Canada people started fighting back in a very was extremely good fishing in the Skagit organized way. So I was really lucky. River, and my dad got quite excited about it. Even my mother went in there and camped, In the summer of 1971, my dad had been and the rest of our family. And I was just in taking a university sabbatical in Norway, and I love with the place then. And it sort of, it took was crazy enough to come back from Europe over a certain amount of my life after that, but for the summer to work. And I wanted to work in a very constructive, positive way. for an ecology professor named Ian Effort in the Department of Zoology at UBC. And he

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I was just an undergraduate student at UBC at the war was won. The Americans came into it that point. In due course I graduated and was a few days later, after Pearl Harbor, and yet at loose ends, not knowing what to do next. I the dam was never raised at that point. In had a job working for the federal government 1952, Seattle comes back to the British in Ottawa. And in the spring of 1974 I got a Columbia government, a brand new call from Ken Farquharson asking if I would government, a small town populist government come back and work on the Skagit for the called Social Credit, which became the summer. And by that point things had dominant political movement in B.C. in the progressed to… Well they had progressed in 1950s and ‘60s. And the Social Credit agreed a very odd way. We had in British Columbia - to allow, was on the verge of agreeing to allow to really understand this issue, one has to flooding of the Canadian Skagit. And then understand how political values have backed off and decided the amount of money changed. The original agreement to allow at stake, if I remember correctly, something Seattle to flood the Skagit Valley stems from like a quarter-million dollars, was not enough. December 1941. Specifically, if I remember, December 2, 1941. That’s a very significant And nothing then happened, until 1967. The date, because that is five days before Pearl same political dynasty, Social Credit, is still in Harbor. And at that point the United States is power, the huge Columbia River Dams, under a neutral country, assisting the British, and the Columbia River Treaty, have been built. maybe even thinking about assisting the The in northern British Columbia Russians. Concerned about the Nazi’s, but has now been dammed with a gigantic two basically neutral and stand-offish. And thousand megawatt dam. British Columbia is Canada is on the losing side in World War II at booming because it has cheap electrical this point. The French have been overrun. power. The government really, in certain ways The Russians have now been invaded. The had respect for parks. It had left quite a British are reeling, and Britain threatened with legacy of Provincial Parks, but it was not what being overrun by the Germans. Canada is a anyone would call an environmentalist loyal ally of the British and is sending 500,000 government, quite the contrary. And Seattle troops who are imperiled; Britain not even able now comes back and says, ‘we’re ready to to get onto the continent of Europe yet. And raise the dam, we’d like to do it. And let’s the Americans ask for permission to dam the sign.’ At that point the British Columbia Skagit in order to have power for the government of W.A.C. Bennett Premiere had aluminum industry in Seattle, in the Boeing signed for the notorious $35,000 a year, for plant. power that was ultimately thought to be worth maybe four million U.S. dollars in savings to If you think back, was Canada going to put the City of Seattle, annually. And it was a any obstacles in the way of this? Of course crazy deal. It was something like Seattle not. There was the British Columbia Game getting 99 percent of the benefit, British Commissioner, who was familiar with the Columbia getting one percent of the benefit valley, and went down to Seattle to the old and all the disadvantages. Olympic Hotel to the International Joint Commission hearings and said, ‘you know this I wondered for many, many years how the is a wonderful area you’re going to flood. Isn’t price was set. And I never really found a it a shame to flood that?’ And the Canadian satisfactory answer. The closest I ever got to Federal Government Representatives actually that was a television interview I did live with said - if you look at the testimony from that Ray Williston, who was the Minister of Lands, hearing – ‘we don’t actually know where this Forests, and Water Resources in 1967 who place is. We don’t actually have any maps of signed the deal. And sometime around the the Canadian Skagit, but if you’re going to get mid 1970s, Mr. Williston and I were on famous electrical power out of it, it’s fine with us.’ That T.V. interview show by Jack Webster, a was basically the federal government position. notorious bulldog journalist. And I had the And if you understand what was happening in chance to ask him, you know, ‘Mr. Williston, the War, it makes sense. why did you sign for $35,000?’ And his answer on live television was, ‘That’s not what However, the dam was never built then. The I did. I signed for fifty percent of the benefits, Boeing plant made lots of military airplanes, in accordance with the principle established in

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the Columbia River Treaty.’ Now, that was, So the stalling done by the American depending how you look at it an out and out conservation activists in the Seattle City lie, or he mis-remembered, or had Council hearings, or Public Utilities misunderstood what he had done. It certainly Committee, then the Washington State wasn’t correct. I thought at the time that he Department of Ecology, and finally the Federal was lying on television. The journalist running Power Commission, which became the the interview believed Mr. Williston, not me. In Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, that retrospect, later on, I think maybe he just provided us the time to start working. Now we didn’t understand literally what he was doing. come to 1973, suddenly the government has And particularly once I served in the B.C. commenced a legal action challenging the Cabinet and realized how many decision legality of the original IJC order, way back to politicians make without understanding what 1941. The Order is January 1942. The the hell they’re doing, it dawned on me maybe hearing is December 1941. And the legal it wasn’t evil intent. Maybe it was just sheer status is questionable in 1973, but there are incompetence, that somebody had advised still ongoing Federal Power Commission him, or he thought he was doing one thing and proceedings in the U.S., and the dam cannot wasn’t careful. be built.

The context that’s important to understand is There began to be a mechanism for a much that the government was essentially pro- more organized fight back. And with a friendly industry. The Frontier Society motto of British Provincial government, we now had in Ottawa Columbia was “splendor sine occasu” – a Liberal government which was kind of riding Never-ending Splendor. You know, we can the wave of Environmentalism, had created keep taking from the forest, we can harvest as the first federal Minister of Environment, much as 93 million cubic meters of timber per ironically an engineer named Jack Davis, who year, even if the sustainable yield is only fifty had been a proponent of huge dams. Earlier or sixty million. And we can mine anywhere in his career Jack Davis had been a proponent we want, and we keep damming rivers. And of NAWAPA, which was the North American look at the prosperity we’re building! And that Water and Power Alliance, that proposed to was definitely the dominant ethos until maybe dam the entire Rocky Mountain Trench from the late Sixties. But something changed Montana up to the Yukon; flood the entire radically. Nineteen-seventy-two we had an thing and ship the water, via diversions to the election in British Columbia where roughly Columbia and the Fraser, and south to forty, forty-three percent of the people voted in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada. But a Social Democratic government that had very the same Jack Davis in the 1970s became different values. And the NDP, the New Minister for Environment, and it was in his Democratic Party, the Social Democrats had interest to promote what would seem to be an come to power amongst other things pledged environmentally sensitive policy. And he to oppose the giveaway of the Skagit Valley. ended up hiring me on a contract in 1974, when I had finished my undergraduate degree, It was an environmental issue, and it was a to come back and work for the ROSS very potent nationalist political issue that had Committee, the Run Out Skagit Spoilers appealed to the NDP, and it was a very good Committee, as the consultant or organizer to way to attack the Social Credit, because they an American lawyer named Roger Leed, who had gotten us into this ridiculous deal. So represented the ROSS Committee before the when the NDP came to power, it had promised Federal Power Commission. to save the Skagit, but had an extremely difficult challenge. Because there was an One of the very strange things of history is that apparently legally binding agreement, by that point I was an American, a Canadian sanctioned by the International Joint citizen, but by that point the Viet Nam War Commission, signed off by the previous was still going on. I had been born in the U.S. Minister, Ray Williston, and Seattle was I wasn’t sure if it was safe for me to cross the moving ahead to build the dam, and merely border, so I had to sign onto a job assisting had these American regulatory barriers to the American lawyer on condition I wouldn’t be pass. required to cross the border. I’d work in Vancouver.

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could have testified on both sides of that And there are a number of other ironies about question at that point, but I didn’t have expert that process, the Federal Power Commission status, because I didn’t have a degree in process. For example, while I had canoed the recreation, unlike the consultants who said it Skagit River many times, and in the summer was impossible. of 1974 one of the strategies we took was to organize a protest disguised as a fun event - it I had done it. And I even got a canoe with a really was a fun event - called the First Annual Viking sail down the river. A square Viking sail Skagit Valley International Canoe-In. It pretty much obscures your view from the happened to be a very late spring, and high stern. I managed to get the darn thing with water year. Water conditions were unusually striped sail and tassels flying from the mast dangerous in late July 1974, but we put down the whole Skagit River without accident. together a team of frogmen with scuba diving gear on the log jams, expert canoeists from We put in at what’s now called Strawberry the canoeing clubs, portage banners slung Flats, which is about six kilometers above the across the river indicating where people had to reservoir. And the idea was that the inexpert take out. Parks branch people were canoeists would run the first kilometer, which absolutely freaked out by this, but we was very safe and had no serious obstacles, managed to get people down safely, escorted. And then they would take their miraculously, and by the skin of our teeth. canoes out. And they were all warned about And hold this large demonstration in there, this in advance. We had an official safety and tie it in with the British Columbia ceremony before anyone departed. All of the government officially declaring the Skagit a boats were escorted in groups of five by recreation area. In B.C. the Provincial Park experienced canoeists. And, of course, after has a very high conservation status, and a the first kilometer looked so easy, everyone Recreation Area does not. In a Recreation carried on, even some of them three people in Area it could be legal to construct a dam, but a twelve-foot canoe that’s hopelessly not in a Provincial Park. We wanted our NDP inadequate. And the first tight corner they got government to declare the Skagit a Provincial to, they capsized and were stuck in, we would Park, and to hell with the Americans. They, say maybe eight degree Celsius water, for whatever their own legal reasons, decided something like 48 degree Fahrenheit water, to declare the Skagit a Recreation Area, so we and going around and around in the staged this large demonstration on July 28, whirlpools, unable to get out, and having to be 1974, where we held a large party, unveiled a rescued by the expert canoeists and kayakers. sign, a government sign, creating the Fortunately the frogmen never did have to go Recreation Area. The Cabinet Ministers were in under a logjam and get somebody out. there and we took them all down the river by canoe, along with a lot of media. At the very end of the day, the last thing that happened after an exhausting day was right And I was saying one of the strange things at, I guess we stopped at what became known about the Federal Power Commission process as the Chittenden Bridge, just above the was that rather like a litigation in the U.S., in reservoir. We had finished up for the day, order to be an expert witness, one has to when the last canoe came around the corner establish credentials. So a few days after the and managed to sink itself and wedge itself Skagit Canoe-In, which was covered as under a log near Chittenden Bridge in about second front-page news in Vancouver, and a five or six feet of water. And we had to get in, major television news item, it made the Seattle in deep cold water, and get this boat out at the papers as well. A few days later the end of the day. It was an interesting recreation expert consultants for the City of experience because we brought hundreds of Seattle, who were being paid millions of people in, as a show of force, similar to what dollars, testified before the Federal Power had been done by the ROSS Committee and Commission that it was impossible to canoe SPEC, one of the original environmental the Skagit River. And as the guy who groups here in 1970, in the Fall, in a famous organized the canoe-in and rescued multiple rally that Ken Farquharson helped organize. people out of the whirlpools, I didn’t have status to say whether it was safe or not safe. I

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In this case it was summer, and we showed And I was going to say, a couple of things I people how beautiful the area was. And the learned that summer – to be interviewed by Cabinet Ministers from the B.C. government the Vancouver Province and asked, “What do who canoed the river with us were really sold, you think of how the Federal Government and finally. They had not seen this area before. the British Columbia government are handling And the most powerful guy, Bob Williams, who this?” And to find that on day two of my job had succeed Ray Williston, who signed the that I was quoted as saying the Federal silly deal, Williams I think was so convinced by Minister of Environment is a jackass, or has no what he saw that he determined this place idea what he’s doing, when he’s just hired me would never get flooded. And a year later an to come back and do this job. One learns early election had been called. The NDP had rapidly how media can distort things. And been defeated, and the ‘Soc Creds’ were back you’re never quite the same after an in power. But, they stuck with the change in experience like that. policy. And it was Ben Marr that worked with them as Deputy Minister, who worked for And the other great thing I learned was that in many years trying to see the British Columbia those days at least, university, many university government through to some solution. professors had an ethic that they were working, they were paid to be independent, Anyway, I finished that summer of ’74, and intellectually honest, public servants, in a went to medical school in Montreal. And sense. I think the values were very different somebody else had to take over from me in from the commercialization of the university working with the American Federal Power today. And at least what I see in Faculties of Commission. Medicine around North America. As a young guy with a bachelor’s degree, I was able to go It was the Federal Environment Ministry that to professors who had taught me at the paid me to provide some technical support to University of BC, and also the professors at the ROSS Committee and its attorney. They Simon Fraser University, and say to them: we paid me $5 an hour in 1974, which was sort of need your help as an expert witness. We’re all right for a university grad. It was better not in a position to pay you anything for this. than McDonald’s, but I think the minimum The opposition, Seattle City Light, is paying, I wage then was about $3. It was not big think eventually two million dollars U.S. in money. It was just a great chance to do every consulting fees, which was an unbelievable citizen activist dream of working on a project amount of money in those days. They have like this. I became a very good typist. We - bought their consultants to say anything they those were the early days of the IBM Selectric want. And you know if the consultants are told II, that had a self-correcting tape. And I really to say that in Canada summer occurs in learned my keyboarding that summer. December, you know they’ll pretty much say that. And we need your help. And we were Ken Farquharson and I had a wonderful media able to obtain the leading fish and wildlife lesson that summer, too. You know the way… biologists in British Columbia from the the tricks one learns. There’s no way to learn universities on a completely free basis, not these things except experience. I had no only to prepare, but to also spend their time in sooner been brought back from Ottawa, hired a quasi-judicial proceeding where they were on a contract. The contract was officially with cross-examined. It was a really gratifying the British Columbia Wildlife Federation, to experience. I still think people don’t do that produce a report on fish and wildlife values in enough. That there are still plenty of the Skagit Valley. That was the Federal academics who, when asked to do something Government’s way of hiring me to work with that’s in the public interest, would be happy to Roger Leed, the Seattle lawyer. And why they do it. did it that way, I don’t know. Just, it was ministerial discretion, and legal to do that. So But it’s sad now because it’s so at the end of the summer I did prepare a commercialized, and people are used to report on fish and wildlife values in the Skagit, thinking that everything that academics do turned that in to fulfill the terms of the contract. now is motivated by another pecuniary But the real job was being an activist. interest. And the people who are coming through the university now have no idea how

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much more altruistic it was then. I could reel because he said he was running for the NDP. off the names of people. Professor Crajina, And I didn’t know who else to call. I called up who was the founder of the Ecological Doug Kelley. And Doug Kelley was a back- Reserves in B.C., and had been in the Czech bencher in the government, in other words, in Resistance in World War II, and you know a the Canadian system, somebody with founding giant of geographic ecology in North absolutely no power, not in the Cabinet, one of America, was a witness. Dr. Brink was a the people necessary to command a majority witness. A fisheries biologist named Art Totts in the Legislature, but a nobody in the view of was a witness. Many other people. the government. So he had time on his hands. And when I called him up he said, well In those days also the British Columbia yes, I’ll come over. If you’re willing to drive government was still dicey. We didn’t have me in, show me around, I’ll come over. So Freedom of Information. Under the Social Doug Kelley went in with me, contacted the Credit government it had been impossible to then Minister, Bob Williams, and managed to get access to the views of the official Wildlife get some kind of control on the logging that and Fisheries Biologists. Under the NDP it was being done under the apparently pro- became possible. And we had a number of conservation government. fish and wildlife biologists who came and testified at the Federal Power Commission That was sort the limit of my political skills, hearings, with government permission to do and yet the naïveté actually worked, in a way. so. Basically, the government was giving And the naïveté of calling up the government them permission to tell the truth, at least as and saying, Look, we want to hold a they saw it, which was kind of a radical idea in demonstration. And it’s a chance for you to Canada in 1974. But that was a very exciting declare right out in public that you’re not going period. to allow this area to be flooded. We want you to put some capital facilities there, like build a The ROSS Committee was not actually able to campground right in the way of the sit in on the political process. The political floodwaters. And put up some big signs, and process in Canada was still extremely closed. you know, put your reputation at stake. Well, In those ways, it actually often still is. I think we never persuaded them to build the capital for the NDP, if one was a trade union one facility, but even if it was some fire rings right might have had access. And in the Social at the Ross Reservoir, which would be in the Credit, if one was a powerful businessman way of the rising waters. But at least they put there was always access in the back rooms. I up the sign. They put up the sign outside of think for people like us, certainly someone like the reservoir basin, but at least it was in the me, as a completely naïve young guy aged 23, Skagit Valley. And we got them to go in there I wouldn’t have had the foggiest idea how to and then to come down the river. approach politicians. So I did a couple of successful things. There was one period, I And I think that’s another lesson I learned, that think 1973, when the NDP had first come to at least in Canada - and I think in Seattle, at power and I discovered, I went in with some the local level, the local politicians the university friends on a march to the Skagit and Washington State Legislature behaved in a I found they were logging on the floor of the similar way, from what I could see - it’s a great valley. I couldn’t believe it. We were holding mistake to assume that they’re all jerks, and off Seattle City Light from flooding it, and here that they’re automatically the enemy. It is a somebody was allowing loggers to get into the much smarter thing to be optimistic and insist old-growth trees, and even taking cottonwood on your rights, and if you think you’re right, go trees right from the banks of the river. And I for it. And that was the American in me. I was just hit the roof. And my parents had met, a born in the States. I had inherited that kind of few summers earlier, or maybe the summer value. I couldn’t get it out. Even when I before, my parents had met a man who almost became a Canadian citizen, I couldn’t drum it accidentally got elected on the government out of my blood. That was not really traditional side to the Legislature from northern B.C. in Canada. We had a much more passive They had stayed at his lodge. A guy named political culture at that time, and were used to Doug Kelley. And they liked him, and they having things done to us. So I think for me must have given him a little bit of money one of the great lessons the public learned out

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of the Skagit issue was that we could actually in a while. But Ken was really handling that win. higher-level communication.

It took an optimistic strategy, and yet most For legal representation, we had John Fraser, people were not really very optimistic. I don’t who was a, basically a corporate lawyer, think my parents, for example, believed that connected in the Progressive, in those days this particular battle could be won. They never called the Conservative Party, now the opposed me or suggested I stop trying, but I Progressive Conservative Party. It was the think they were preparing themselves to see historical great founding party of Canada, of me crushed. our first Prime Minister. John was what they called a ‘Red Tory.’ He was socially Ken Farquharson can speak more directly progressive, fiscally conservative in that about working with our American counterparts. tradition. In the U.S. maybe he’d be He’s ten, fifteen years older than me. He had considered a flaming liberal democrat. In a much more mature approach to things. And Canada he was considered sort of on the it shows you another interesting lesson about sensible right wing of the political spectrum. A any kind of social activism, including very, you know a wonderful, humane guy and environmental activism. Ken is a professional a fisherman and a lover of the environment, engineer. You’ll find him more relaxed now, and he was one of the first great but in my family we called him the dour Scot, environmental politicians in Canada. And because he was very reserved in those days. perhaps the one who accomplished the most I was a bit afraid of him; you know he was during his career. But he is also a Canadian older than me, he was a professional nationalist, an internationalist. And he was engineer, he was my first boss in a sense the incensed by the idea of what was going to be first summer I worked on the Skagit, and he done to the Canadian Skagit, but in no way was my boss the second summer I worked. anti-American. He was looking for a practical And, I don’t know, I guess I was scared of solution in defending Canadian values. And engineers. They represented dams to me, he first questioned the legality of the and Ken had worked on the Mica Dam on the International Joint Commission decisions Columbia River. But he had the engineer’s going back to 1942, and urged a legal very practical approach, which was looking for strategy. And I think he urged that upon the a solution all along. You know I personally British Columbia government in a nonpartisan credit Ken Farquharson as the man who came way, regardless of who was the B.C. up with the idea for the final resolution of the government. He became a Member of Skagit issue: the raising of the Seven-Mile Parliament and eventually became Speaker of Dam on the Pend Oreille River in central B.C., the House of Commons, and became an and flooding back into the States. But all of extremely influential guy. But he was not that really stems from the engineer’s practical above, for example, allowing me to use his idea of how to find a solution. And Ken had photocopy machine in Parliament to run off taken a very practical approach of getting in propaganda pieces. touch with the North Cascades Conservation Council - Pat Goldsworthy, Tom Brucker, Rick He also knew something about activism. Arambaru, others active in Seattle. And they There was another great political activist were sort of keeping some kind of very amongst our legislators, a liberal. We had in informal, low key but ongoing strategy of those days we had a ‘rump’ party. Well, the working together. And again it was it was liberal party in B.C., which had been out of ultra-practical. I think they used a long power for years, sort of represented the distance telephone occasionally. It was independent, pro-business, but kind of expensive in those days. You didn’t phone as thinking, again what you might call a right-wing much in the late Sixties, early Seventies. I democrat in the U.S. Dave Brousson was also don’t think they went back and forth often. a professional engineer. I think the Skagit That was before faxes, video cameras, issues offended his nationalistic values and... computers, anything like that. And basically I never knew him well enough personally to they would occasionally call on the phone, and know exactly what drove him, but he was an exchange ideas, and maybe get together once extremely effective advocate. And as an engineer he normally confined himself to the

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facts. He had a respect for facts, but was not in my parents’ back yard, when I could have above the occasional bombast. He was a very been lying out in the sun or reading or down at effective politician. He knew how to make a the beach, it was because I really wanted to headline, for example, announcing that he was do it. And I was driven by the idea we actually going to go to Seattle and launch a lawsuit in could succeed. It was sort of like somebody the American courts, which is a way to get a going to the Klondike and looking for a mine. front-page headline in the Vancouver B.C. And a lot of that has changed with the newspapers. It probably did catch no notice in professionalization of the environmental Seattle, but was an effective way to keep a groups and, in this Province, the arrival of the story newsworthy. And he worked year after big American foundation money, and even year, very tirelessly in Victoria. And some Canadian foundation money suddenly unfortunately died prematurely, but he was converted groups that were absolutely another major political ally who probably dependent on volunteer labor into groups that talked behind the scenes in Victoria in his own no longer needed volunteers, and actually way, as well. didn’t have much use for them. In some cases they didn’t even want them. And then when One thing I was going to come back to. It’s the money is harder to find, or the political hard to realize now, especially sitting here in situation is less favorable to lobbying, we my garden talking in front of a video camera. found in B.C. we suddenly don’t have an The video camera did not exist, even at the active grass roots anymore. We would have a end of the Skagit fight. The first time I ever hell of a time right now winning a fight like the got my hands on a VHS camera was probably Skagit. about 1988. And small mini DV cameras are only available in the last five years to the We have a passive generation now who aren’t average person. Things would have been really used to doing things. And they’re used very different with a video camera, because it to maybe emailing and thinking that’s a way to would have been possible to show the beauty communicate. I don’t think it carries the same of the Skagit Valley. We did have cameras. resonance. In the Skagit for example, I’d been We had slides, which were extremely trying to get people interested in this without effective. But we didn’t have word processors, much luck. But I know from my personal so all of the typing I ever did was typed and re- experience how a powerful a tool it was to typed until it was perfect. The IBM Selectric hand out a steno, or even a photocopy, or was this wonderful new invention that could even an inexpensively printed leaflet on a correct. And I guess we had tape recorders, gravel bar to fly fishermen, because I did that. but one still would have had to transcribe. So the tape recorder wasn’t a huge advantage. And one of our greatest activists unfortunately And we had no email, no personal computer to died about ten years ago, Curley Chittenden, store information. And therefore, you know, who was a logger that logged all over British the advantages that one has with the Internet Columbia, all of the coast and in the lower now, did not exist. mainland of B.C., and retired, and had logged in the Skagit. And he refused to log the giant On the other hand, in some ways people were, trees in the way of the reservoir in the early in the 1970s, were a lot more activist, and Fifties. He just decided he didn’t think it was expected to have a role, and in Canada were right, and basically put down his tools. Curley, starting to really say look, we like some things when he retired became the archetypal activist about how the Americans do their politics. We who at a drop of a hat, a phone call, would want to be able to influence our government, say, yeah, ok, I’ll get in my truck, self- too. We’re tired of being told everything. And contained, got all my camping gear, my can of one doesn’t see as much of that now. chili or whatever in there, go out to the Skagit and hand out leaflets to people. We would go And the environmental groups also were quite in the fishing season, and even late in the fall, different. They were volunteer lead, volunteer- and just say, ‘Look, you’re fishing here. Right driven. All the work was volunteered. There where you’re standing could be under sixty weren’t executive directors and paid staff. feet of water. Just write a letter, please.’ It And one did it because one really loved it. was a very effective tactic, because the people You know, if I was typing something in the sun who we were talking to had a direct personal

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stake, and we weren’t asking a lot of them. most of the other municipalities for whatever And a phone call to their member of reason saw it the same way the bulk of the legislature, or a letter in those days actually public did, as a nationalist and environmental carried a lot of weight, because not very many issue. So we used to collect resolutions from people did it. the municipal councils as evidence that it wasn’t just wild-eyed environmentalists, or It is persuasive. We used these piddly little anti-Americans somehow that were doing this. low-tech technologies like a box on the And we solicited trade unions, who in those Twenty-Six Mile Bridge stocked with leaflets, days were more environmentally conscious with a small sign on it, “Please take one.” And than most of the business groups were. And oddly enough, I think even the Seattle City all political parties – we eventually got many of Light people and their hired hands, their the political parties, not, never the Social consultants, respected them. I was always Credit, to agree with our position, and outdoor afraid they would steal all the leaflets. But I groups, student societies, individual prominent don’t think that they did. And the Parks people, professors. And at the national level Branch took down one of the signs I erected we sort of attempted the same thing, but we that took me a day or two to paint and erect. never got quite so far. They came down immediately and confiscated it, which said, “Elevation 1725 feet. High Ross It was a lot of fun, and amazingly nonpartisan. Dam would flood to here.” That’s all it said. We even got the IWA, the International Had a little, wee index card with Saran wrap, Woodworkers of America in those days they or plastic over it saying, “This sign erected by were called, who are the major logging union. the ROSS Committee with volunteer labor. We even got the IWA local that would have Please don’t take it down.” And that didn’t had the logging contract if it were a union job, save it. There was no political message, just, to state publicly that they would not accept a “Elevation 1725. High Ross would flood to contract to log the Canadian Skagit. here.” But I think the ironic thing is that’s the way, as far as I can tell, most social activism, In retrospect, I think for them it was a or environmental activism that’s successful nationalist issue. The IWA, despite their has been fought, both in the U.S. and Canada, reputation as being roughneck or redneck and and most other countries. It’s people actually wanting to cut down all trees, is not totally anti- getting out off their butt and doing it. environmental, never has been. And in those days, the sky was the limit in logging, there At the time, there was relatively little were plenty of other trees, and they really connection between the ROSS Committee didn’t need it, I guess. Nowadays it would and the national environmental groups in probably be a harder thing to accomplish Canada. I used to write a little news column because there’s less wood to cut. But it was every six months or so for Nature Canada, still an unusual thing for a trade union to do, to which was a major magazine, and again it was say we would forego some jobs. It sure very low tech. It would be in the back of the carried a lot of weight for me. I never knew magazine with just plain newsprint story, whether Judge Alan Landy, who heard the updating people. But people actually paid Federal Power Commission hearings, could attention to things like that in those days. And have cared less about that or not. In Canada I think the tactic that we were taking, for it carried weight for other people, too. You example before the Federal Power know, what union gives up jobs? Commission, was to get anyone and everyone to support it. And that summer, 1974, and In 1981 we did the book, so in 1980 the legal again later when we went before the action commenced by the NDP government, International Joint Commission, we kept an old and then continued by the Social Credit fashioned list of our supporters. In British government. They had finally persuaded the Columbia it included most of the town or city International Joint Commission to review the councils in the Fraser Valley, from Vancouver issue, and acknowledged that they had looked up to but not including Hope. Hope, which is at it in 1971 with very, very limited terms of the nearest town, generally was in favor of the reference, which specifically stated we can flooding, because they saw it as creating jobs, look at the environmental consequences of and a new reservoir with summer tourists. But High Ross Dam, we consider, we are allowed

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to consider mitigation measures, but we you’re a very nice guy, and recommended me cannot possibly revisit our decision from 1942. to call you. I’m trying to get Prime Minister Well by 1980 things had changed enough the Trudeau’s attention to the Skagit, because I IJC was actually beginning to think, my God, know he’s a wilderness canoeist. If he ever this ruling from 1942 really is embarrassing, it saw this place he would understand why doesn’t fit late Twentieth Century we’ve been fighting so hard to see it.’ And I environmental standards. You know maybe also had a friend who was a good friend of we could. I assume - of course I never knew - Prime Minister Trudeau’s executive assistant. I assume that the Americans on the I had a few other connections… strange International Joint Commission would have connections, and just sort of went to work fairly steadfastly opposed that, and the trying to exploit them. And it was a very Canadians were obviously more sympathetic. peculiar experience because I eventually got But it would have been impossible to do an appointment at the Environment Ministry. unless there had been some American IJC This is the same Environment Ministry which cooperation. So they announced in, I believe, had hired me on contract six years earlier in September of 1980 that they would allow a 1974. And I brought with me a slide show of sixty-day period for public input, and then they the Skagit Valley and asked for permission to would hold hearings. And I was by now a show it. And the ten or fifteen officials I met doctor doing locums jobs, working rural said, look, you know, it’s late, it’s 3 p.m., we communities for brief periods. And I was in a don’t really want to see your slides. Can’t you position to just stop work and go back to work just tell us what you’re here for? I said, ‘I was for the ROSS Committee as a volunteer and hoping you’d be, if you haven’t seen, do you try to help organize this. know what the place looks like? Or do you all know where it is? I realize you’ve been I got it into my head that I should go down to following this issue now for ten or eleven Ottawa to lobby the federal government to get years, you know if you all know this I won’t them to take a more aggressive position waste your time. But I thought you might like supporting the British Columbia position, to see some pictures of the area.’ which was that the original IJC ruling of 1942 Begrudgingly, they admitted that they’d never was faulty and illegal and ought to be seen any pictures of the Skagit. These are the overturned. So I booked a ticket to Ottawa senior civil servants in the Department of and Toronto and showed up in Ottawa. And Environment in Ottawa responsible for John Fraser was at that time a Member of handling Canada’s position on this case. So I Parliament for the Opposition. But he was a think I was the first person ever to show them respected Member of Parliament, had an a picture of the Skagit Valley, and perhaps the office, welcomed me in it. John Fulton was an first ever to show them a map. NDP Member of Parliament for northern British Columbia, and an old friend of mine, And I then went to the External Affairs and welcomed me there. And I sort of used Department. And at External Affairs I their offices as space, and I had also a friend managed to get an appointment somehow from medical school whose nanny also was a with a man named Ken Mercklinger, who was former nanny to the Clerk of the Privy Council, an Undersecretary of State, or Assistant which is the highest civil servant in Canada - Deputy Minister in charge of Canada-U.S. the civil servant who reports directly to the relations. And he would have been similarly Prime Minister. I was staying with my friends, charged with this file since at least 1969, and and the nanny heard what the issue was and certainly 1971, when the IJC was first brought said, ‘Oh, you should phone Michael Pittfield - into the issue again. It’s now October 1980, so I think that was his name – he’d be very when I had the chance to meet him, I asked if interested in this. And you know, I know his he had he read the British Columbia legal brief home number. You should just call him up.’ to the IJC which had set in motion this She’s giving me the home telephone number process. And what did he think of it. of the Senior Civil Servant in Canada, and an introduction. You know, what have I got to And he said, ‘No. I don’t think we’ve seen that lose? I was naïve enough to just try it and brief.’ phone and say, ‘You know, Mr. Pittfield, you’ve never heard of me but your nanny says

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And then, ‘What position did Canada intend to federal government not support B.C.?’ He take before the IJC by November 17th, said, ‘Well you know really it’s a provincial whatever the deadline was. problem.’ I had a chance, as just a lay citizen, with no political experience, to look him in the ‘Well, I’m not sure we’re going to be taking any eye and say, “Come on, Mr. Simmons. We’re position. We haven’t really considered that.’ Canadians, too. We count on you as our federal government to represent our interests. ‘So are you telling me then that the Do you seriously think that the United States government of Canada, which has for years Department of State will not be backing supported the conservation side, with Seattle City Light to the hilt? No. The beginning with the Honorable Jack Davis, in Americans are the most nationalistic country in the Trudeau government has said in 1970 had the world. The United States government said, ‘We will not allow the Skagit to be stands behind its municipal and state flooded.’ Are you seriously telling me that governments in international matters. And our when the IJC finally reopens the case, the government may not support British government of Canada does not intend to Columbia? I was just going to go home to intervene actively on the side of the Province B.C. then. ‘What do you expect me to say of B.C.?’ when I get back there, to my friends in the media?’ ‘Well I’m not saying that but we haven’t really considered what we might do yet.’ Well the amazing thing is, I did a little bit more work after that. I went to the Globe and Mail, ‘You know, are you familiar with how Canada which is a national newspaper, and spoke to was represented in 1941, when the original some reporters named Jeffery Stevens and decision was made? For example if you’ve Jeffery Simpson. The latter is a major national looked at that transcript, are you aware that correspondent for the Globe and Mail, and the representative of the dominion government basically told them about my meetings. John stated that he had no idea where the Skagit Fraser raised a question in the House of Valley was, on the record, and wherever it was Commons in the same day. It became news. they had no objection to a dam being built I was stopping in Toronto on the way home, I there? That’s the entire legal record of the went into McLean’s Magazine and I was so Government of Canada’s participation in this angry at that point I asked if I could write an case, up till now. And you’re going to let that op-ed for them, if they would look at it. And I stand?’ sat down with a nice Selectric, wrote an op-ed that basically began with the line, “Mad as hell. It… I don’t know how to describe this. Mr. I’m boiling mad.” And they printed it, criticizing Mercklinger had the slipperiest handshake I’ve the federal government for its stand-offish ever felt in my life, and the limpest one. And it approach. The Minister of External Affairs, was the most disillusioning meeting I think I’ve Mark Wiggin, who is a former Dean of Law at ever been at, bar one perhaps. Now my next University of Ontario, he was quite meeting was at the Parliamentary Secretary, embarrassed by this. And I guess they which is kind of a junior position to the Minister changed their position. The government of of Environment. I couldn’t meet the Minister. Canada did make a submission to the IJC, The Parliamentary Secretary was a man who plagiarizing virtually precisely the brief that I is now in fact the Canadian Consul in Seattle, had left them. I could see paragraph for Roger Simmons. He was a member of the paragraph my own words in the formal Liberal party representing Newfoundland in submission of the government of Canada. those days, subsequently convicted of a tax And I had one other meeting there, which was fraud or tax evasion, now the Canadian with the Privy Counsel Office Staff. I met a Consul. Very friendly nice guy. But when I lawyer who worked in the Privy Office, thanks asked him, ‘What about your government? to having called Mr. Pittfield on his nanny’s You’re a member of the Liberal Government. advice, and met a lawyer who had a precise Are you going to stand by and watch B.C. go and accurate chronology of the entire Skagit down? You know you’re from the other end of case in the Privy Counsel Office. So I learned the country, Newfoundland. Newfoundlanders that there are people in Ottawa who know are very patriotic Canadians. How can the what they’re doing. Our federal government

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actually is capable of rational and informed seen in the Skagit Valley, Roosevelt Elk.’ action. And I never figured out exactly how They live on Vancouver Island and the things transpired, but I ended up drawing the Olympic Peninsula. It’s not implausible that conclusion if I hadn’t gone down to Ottawa, there were elk here. In fact what’s implausible probably the federal government never would is that there aren’t elk here anymore. Same have backed B.C., and who knows what would with the grizzlies and so on. But it’s… I’m have happened next. And to think that one telling that to illustrate that I had grown up in could do that without any political skills, no what I thought was a fairly liberal atmosphere. advice on lobbying technique, just walk into My parents certainly were very alarmed about the offices and ask for an appointment. It’s the condition of native Indians, and the really the most amazing testimony to poverty, and illiteracy. My dad had visited, democracy in Canada. It’s not supposed to doing bio-chemical research on inborn errors happen, but it did. A real lesson from that is, of metabolism, he had visited homes of native well, you know, it still can happen. We’re an people in the Sixties and been shocked by the amazingly open society that way. And you absence of books from their houses. I can just have to have a little bit of idealism, some remember him telling me the stories. But it had smarts, bit of politeness, and some kind of a still never penetrated to us that there were suit, or at least a jacket and tie. people speaking their own languages, living here in villages numbering in the thousands, I was basically taught, ‘you can’t do that. and even having an imposing military force Nobody can succeed.’ I just didn’t believe it. that frightened Simon Fraser when he came And I think plenty of other people have done down the Fraser River. And I actually got out that throughout all of our Canadian-American his journal and read it for myself, and read his history. That’s how, from what I’ve seen all description of the Musqueam Village near social change happens in exactly that way. here, at the mouth of the Fraser, and realized It’s just, it’s too bad it’s not more people. that, my God, yes. He describes a village of thousands of people where he was...had a lot First Nations were not involved in any way of trepidation about landing in there. And you with activities involving the Skagit. We didn’t go back to the Seventies, it literally would not even know about the First Nations then. I have occurred to us to try to involve the native mean really, I think the notion that British people. Even though at the same time, 1969, Columbia had been inhabited by native people 1970, I tried to walk from here to Hope twice when the white man came here, or when the for the old Indian and Eskimo Association of Chinese came here for that matter in the Canada fundraising Moccasin Miles Walk, Nineteenth Century, it was… It might seem raising money for Indians and Eskimos as we incredibly stupid but we literally didn’t realize called them then. It wasn’t that I was that. I can honestly sit here and tell you when deliberately prejudiced, I was just completely I was elected to represent this very area in the ignorant and so was everybody else here. So B.C. Legislature in 1989, I had some of the it’s amazing to think back, in the year 2003, it’s local Native people come to me and say, ‘This really about the mid 1980s that people in is actually our land. This is where we used to mainstream society began to understand that. live. And right where your house is, there used to be giant cedar trees, and grizzly When I was elected to Legislature I went up, bears, and elk, and wolves.’ And I sort of because there was a big local conservation laughed and said, ‘Of course there were, sure. issue Dr. Brink and others were involved in, ‘ And then I thought about it a little bit longer and I in a minor way, to save a forest which is and realized yes, there were. In fact I have now called Pacific Spirit Park. And our kind of even seen the remains of giant stumps digging anti-conservation Premier Bill Vanderzalm as in this yard. That’s a long time ago. This one of his last acts created the park, only to house was built 1920 or thereabouts. But of have the local native people say, “Nah-uh. course it’s true. And what actually got through Uh-uh. It’s not yours. It’s ours.” And I was to me was an anthropologist named Leona the newly elected MLA to whom they came, Sparrow saying, ‘You know, the other day representing this area, saying we want you to down the Musqueam Reserve, we dug up support us, that you can’t just steal this land some elk bones.’ It dawned on me, ‘Oh yes, I from us. There’s nothing like being an elected remember making the case that elk had been

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person to suddenly make you open your mind that had only once ever elected a Social to different perspectives. Democrat before. But then we were in the great conservation government in B.C. We And one of the things I did was after I listened doubled the parks and wilderness. to their lawyer outline their case, I went up to the Special Collections at UBC, or I asked the We finally got the Park created. It had been a librarian there to look up some information for Recreation Area for years. And it stayed me, or maybe it was the Legislative Library. I Recreation Area even after the Skagit Treaty think the Legislative Library in Victoria found in was signed, rather than Provincial Park, the Special Collections at UBC, a map basically because there were some mining prepared by Franz Boas of Pointe Gray claims, and unresolved possible timber Peninsula. It shows the line running pretty harvesting. And we managed to resolve that much along Sixteenth Avenue, a few streets by getting a tiny area left out where there’s a up from my house, between the Squamish large potential copper mine, at the headwaters Territory in which we sit now, and the of Silver Daisy Creek, very close to Highway Musqueam Territory a few block south of here. 3. And by leaving that out and designating the You know one of them is pink and the other rest as Provincial Park, we left a very small one is purple on this map, printed in Germany Recreation Area, and a theoretical possibility 1887. And I have that framed somewhere that a mine worth two billion dollars could because it suddenly represented, my God, this potentially be developed, if the price of copper actually is real. Here’s somebody else - from ever goes up. And by that point I was willing Germany - saying these were their territories. to compromise. I was getting long in the tooth. How am I going to deny that? Happens to be I was prepared to compromise and take the a very pretty multi-colored map. chance that they’ll have a one hell of a time building a mining road up to that place. If it’s What made me stand for office? Somebody really a two billion dollar mine, who knows, phoned me up. In this riding, Kim Campbell, maybe it’s worth it. If it’s not, it’ll never get who was MLA, quit to enter Parliament, built and the public will stop it. And you know, ultimately became very briefly the Prime let them have the illusion they can still build Minister of Canada. There was a by-election their mine if they want. And I guess that to replace her, and somebody called me up happened around 1995 or something. Just and said, ‘We need someone to run. And we not long before I left the Legislature. wondered if you’d run.’ It was at a low point in my scientific career. The experiments weren’t What I guess a lot of other people have working, and it was dawning on me I wasn’t worked hard at trying to save some place that going to get a tenure track at UBC. What the they’re fond of, must have had the same hell? What have I got to lose? I think if I run I notion of, oh my god, now what if we succeed would win. I asked one of my patients, who do in protecting this place? What’s going to you think is going to win the by-election in happen to it now? Well, it’ll be overrun with Vancouver Pointe Gray? And they said, well people, and there will be a natural desire of the NDP will. I thought, that’s a better public people interested in jobs to promote tourism. opinion poll than what you’d get from And will we destroy what we were trying to thousands of dollars. It’s two people, English save? One of the neat things about the Skagit immigrants, probably fairly conservative. in on the Canadian side is it still doesn’t have They’re probably an extremely good all that many people going in there. There are barometer of public opinion. If I run, I’ll win. enough mosquitoes in the summer that not Question is, do I want to be an MLA or not? everybody wants to be there and get eaten So. I decided well, for maximum of two-and- alive. We’ve been able to stave off crazy, half years I didn’t have that much to lose. nutty ecological attempts to get rid of mosquitoes. I don’t know what we’ll do now I served the full two-and-a-half years, because that we’ve got West Nile Virus amongst us. Vanderzalm held on until the bitter end here, But basically the B.C Parks Branch, and the before calling a general election. Then I got Skagit Commission have not messed it up too re-elected in a different riding. There was a much. And the river, if you sneak in there and redistribution, and I actually performed a canoe, even where you’re not supposed to, is miracle of getting re-elected in another riding still pretty much the same river. If you fish it’s

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the same. There now is catch and release school teacher in Mt. Vernon who brought a fishery only, but it’s still a very high quality class to the Washington State Ecology fishery. And most people have moved on to Commission hearings. You know who point that if they put the fish back, they don’t remembers that now? I remember because in really care that much if they eat it. And you 1971 I read through all those hearing know the fishing culture has changed that proceedings. We had copies of them and I way. just remember I would have been twenty- years-old then and I was reading words of I find that one of the really gratifying things is thirteen and fourteen and twelve-year-old kids to go in there and think, wow. It’s actually and being impressed and moved by it. And looks better than when I first went in there. you know, think of the teacher who got those Some of the old roads have been put to bed students to show up. And there were little old and have grown in. Some of the trees are ladies, like Francis Thomas of Hope, who was actually bigger now. And it still is a wonderful a housewife – hopefully still is a housewife in place. You know, thank heavens so many Hope. Absolutely no pretensions. Her hundreds of people both sides of the border husband was a local RCMP police officer, and worked to save it. And it is an amazing she just came to hearing after hearing and feeling. said… I can remember her quoting Will Rogers saying, you know, “The earth is mighty You know the other thing, the other thing I precious real estate. God isn’t making any really like to get across about that issue is, to more of it.” And basically, simply you know me there are there are certainly dozens and brought a little bit of poetic, simple wisdom to probably hundreds without whom that issue the International Joint Committee. And you would not have been won. And to me there’s see these hard-bitten old politicians, and big- a big myth in the conservation movement, a shot American oligarchy – Christian J. Herder sort of a David-Brower-type myth that there Jr., whose father is Christian J. Herder Sr., are giants who are responsible for major whoever the hell that is – sitting there chairing conservation victories. I think there is a grain the American section of the Commission. You of truth in it. There are people who provide a know I think he responded probably to that lot of leadership, and inspiration to others. But kind of homily. And you know, that didn’t mostly it’s a lie. I think most of the real come from a university professor, or some big activism comes from grass roots, from shot environmentalist. It just came from an individual people who see a personal stake in individual woman who lived near the Skagit issues, and – who see a personal idealistic Valley, and liked it, and wanted to have her stake, you know, like the Millers, and people say. And I feel absolutely certain in my heart who bring particular skills like the Millers in and in my brain, that hundreds of people their botanizing, and their willingness to contributed, and really more like thousands of actually go out and walk around and explore people. And I think that lesson is often lost, and find that the cedars in the Big Beaver particularly on young people that if you want to Valley were perhaps the largest in Washington accomplish something, whether it’s State. Or Dr. Brink, who took umpteen nature environmental or social activism, you have to expeditions into the Skagit Valley, really for start as individuals. the sheer pleasure of introducing people to natural history. You know he’s, he has You form alliances with people, and you work political views as well, but I don’t think his slowly and steadily. And you never know primary motive was ever, ‘I want to proselytize exactly what the impact of one thing you’re these people so they will help save the Skagit.’ doing is going to be. It’s all organic. That’s His real motive was he wanted them to enjoy the really wonderful thing about it. That you nature and see a beautiful place. If they would can’t tell what working on the Skagit Valley will turn around and help, so much the better. Or do for some other environmental issue in Ken Farquharson who provided a kind of Washington State, or British Columbia, or strategic direction all along, year after year, elsewhere in Canada, or some place else in year in and year out. Never had any financial the world. And that’s what to me is the most reward for that; significant cost, but he just significant lesson of the Skagit case, it was really believed in it. Or all these people who really the just about the first time we ever showed up for hearings. It could be a high turned around the British Columbia

87 Tom Perry (May 14, 2003) SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

government. And because so many people were involved in that, it really empowered a lot of different people to realize they could have impact on other things. And we ended up then with an extremely powerful, influential environmental movement that ultimately could bring us the preservation of through civil disobedience, where nine hundred and fifty, or nine hundred and sixty people actually got arrested. And they were from all over the political spectrum, those people. I represented some of them. I was in the Legislature of the government that was arresting them. And some of them had not only voted for me, they worked on my campaign. And there was, I think, mutual respect. I think they realized that I didn’t hate them. And it pained me a lot to see them arrested. I admired them a lot for having the guts to do it. And yet you could think, gee. I bet some of my activism on the Skagit stimulated some of them to do this, and make my life miserable as an MLA.

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Bob Royer (Interviewed May 08, 2003)

Bob Royer is Director of Communications and Public Affairs for Seattle City Light. He was Seattle’s Deputy Mayor while his brother Charles was Mayor (1977-1989), and headed the Seattle negotiating team in settling the High Ross controversy.

My brother decided to run for mayor of Seattle called ‘Energy 1990.’ And that was because in 1976 and I was, at the time, interviewing for the load forecast and everything else went to a job in Minneapolis. He called me up and 1990. This was in 1977 when this was being said that he had decided to do it. So there done. So, ‘Energy 1990,’ in addition to was no way I was going to stay in Minneapolis establishing a conservation program, also when my brother’s running for mayor. I came assumed certain resources to be resources in back, quit my job and I ran my brother’s the future, among those was High Ross Dam, campaign, and we won. Charlie hired me as which would have raised the level of Ross his Deputy Mayor. Dam from its current level 122 feet higher, which would have in turn flooded about eight And when he took office, then I had miles of Canadian land. It’s a very low valley responsibility (for City Light) because I’d had at the end of current Ross Lake. some interest in some work in the energy area. I became engaged with Seattle City There would have been considerable flooding Light issues at the time, and they were pretty in the valley. High Ross Dam was part of our hot. Just the previous year, the City Council energy policy. But we hadn’t yet raised the had overridden a City Light recommendation dam. We’d received permission to do so in, I that we invest in two nuclear power plants, believe 19 – I can’t remember the date – but I one in Eastern Washington and one in believe in 1941, we had received permission Western Washington. And the Council and International Joint Commission approval decided not to do that and instead, they to raise the dam. We did not raise the dam at decided to gain the electricity that we needed the time because there wasn’t enough money, through a number of measures, including and the demand for power wasn’t what had starting the Nation’s first honest-to-god been anticipated. The dam remained at its conservation program in 1977. This was current level, which is about 1602 feet above

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sea level. And that flooded, actually it did a headline, you could always be seen as being flood a little bit of Canada under certain tough on the Yanks if you would assail Seattle circumstances, which became a problem later. City Light, and the State of Washington, and the U.S. government for trying to flood the So we set about trying to fulfill city policy, citizens of British Columbia. So it had its own which was to raise Ross Dam. Canada, in the political life. But in addition to the United meantime, had gone from a position of States, and particularly the State of approving the dam and actually signing an Washington and Seattle City Light, it also agreement, to actively opposing the dam. represented a threat to one of the big, There was a big rush of environmental venerable treaties that the United States have, sensitivity in Canada. The area - the Skagit which is the Boundary Waters Act, the flats area - which would have been flooded in Boundary Waters Treaty, under which is 1941, seemed a long way from Vancouver, created and outfit called the International Joint British Columbia. And in 1978, it seemed Commission, which resolves disputes, water pretty close. Of course, by then there was disputes between the two. more recreation taking place in that area. And then, additionally, there was also kind of a rise There are several ongoing disputes, some of Canadian nationalism. There’s always much, much bigger than the Ross Dam been some friction. And while it’s an dispute. But the problem was, it was kind of a ‘unguarded border,’ and all of that stuff, it is burr under the saddle of the IJC to have a also a border that has a lot of different valid order that the holder of the order, Seattle disputes, particularly water disputes, because City Light, could not exercise. And there are we have rivers that start in Canada and much bigger fish to fry. There are lake levels conclude in the United States. We have some on the Great Lakes that are dropping or rivers that start in Canada, go into the United raising in some places - much greater impact States and go back up into Canada. We also than here, but how can those really important have, we also share ocean waters where orders that you have in place on really big Canadians put their sewage in the ocean, and problems … those are all threatened by our we don’t like that. So we have lots and lots of little problem out here in the Pacific Northwest. boundary disputes and this was one of them. It just happened to be one of the oldest of them. So, everybody had some kind of an interest. And for some reason, it developed a kind of a We wanted the power. British Columbia didn’t life of its own. It became symbolic. It’s really want the flooding. The IJC wanted its rules a relatively small project. It’s about 40 kept. So there were several incentives for average megawatts of electricity, that’s maybe getting some progress made. And for a 32,000 homes that one could supply for a year collection of reasons beginning in 1978 or ’79, with that electricity. It’s a relatively small it began to heat up. It was always thought of project. But it had a big importance. From the as a kind of a tar baby issue. You know, this point of view of the City, we’d said, “We’re not is one of those insolvable problems that’s sixty gonna buy into these two nuclear plants. But, years old, or however many years old it is. by God, we’re going to get the clean energy And it’s just not gonna get solved, you’re that we have a right to, from the Skagit.” gonna get dirty trying to solve it. And so, a lot of institutions had written it off. There were a From the Canadian point of view, it’s small number of people who I think very, fairly something that was made long ago, in the bad early on, saw that this was an opportunity to old days when we really didn’t care about how make a deal and were, thank God, left alone much we flooded. And it became an ‘us by the State Department and by the U.S. versus them,’ ‘them’ being the United States, government and by other states and others and Seattle City Light. We also had, because who may have a little stake in this thing. it became symbolic, it became political. Because they felt that, you know, this effort, like all the others would fail. Dixie Lee Ray, Governor Ray, who was a Governor in 1976 to 1980, went up and raised If the State Department would have had hell with the Canadians for being interest, if the Ministry of External Affairs in obstructionist, and that had great political Canada would have had an interest, then weight down here. And you could always get nothing would have happened. But if all the

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sudden they’re presented with a deal, then it nuclear plants that were never finished. One becomes just the opposite, you can’t say ‘no.’ is operating currently. Plant number two is So it was institutionally a very interesting time. operating. But at that time there was this sense that the nuclear building program was That was the beginning of my involvement. At the future. some point in, I think, our second year in office, we began to focus on Ross Dam And there was a Bonneville Power because our first energy job in that time was to administrator who - at the time ‘Energy 1990’ take care, to implement the Council resolution, was passed, we were assuming that the ‘Energy 1990.’ So we implemented energy that we would get from our percentage conservation program on the residential level. share of the two nukes, that energy would be We implemented a commercial building code, taken up by conservation, High Ross Dam, which was right in front of a big building boom. and a couple of other things - he said at the So we had a lot on our energy agenda. time, that all of the cost effective conservation in the region would set back the schedule for Remember, 1974 - 75 was the energy crisis, one nuclear plant for six months. It was a where OPEC prices had gone up. The price preposterous thing to say, but at the time, it of crude oil had gone up because OPEC had was not. shrunk the amount of oil they were pumping. That was, there was still fallout, considerable There was a tremendous momentum and only fallout from that, particularly the concept of two utilities did not enter in, of all the regional energy independence. You know - that we utilities, did not enter into plants four and five would not be in a position again to be because we were participants. In Bonneville, dependent upon somebody in Saudi Arabia for we, by default, were in plants One, Two, and whether or not we do some economic activity Three. here. There were a couple of other nuclear efforts The other thing that was happening in the going on. At one time, in the ‘60’s, Snohomish hydro system in the Pacific Northwest was the PUD and Seattle City Light discussed, and culmination of what was called the actually bought property, to build a nuclear hydrothermal program, which actually started plant on Kikit Island, just off the Skagit River. in the mid-60’s. And the concept was really At the same time, too, in fact, I now recall, pretty breathtaking. The idea was to Puget was trying to build two plants in the essentially take the Columbia River and turn it Skagit. They were called Skagit One and into a peaking resource. In other words, turn it Two, and among the people who were not on and off as you needed it, and supply all of enamored of the nuclear program, they the base energy with a whole series of thermal referred to them as Skagit Aught and Skagit plants: I think about four coal plants, and Aught Aught. But they were also building… about 14 or so nuclear plants. It was there was a tremendous amount of activity tremendously ambitious idea. And that going on that was, that seemed to be moving program resulted in the beginning of what we beyond our traditional hydroelectric call, what we refer to in shorthand as the operations, and the traditional ways of “Whoops crisis.” ‘WPPSS’ was the operating the river, which is really, which Washington Public Power Supply System and would have been really remarkably different. it was a joint operating agency of public and So that was all going on during this period of private utilities that were to build all of these time. I think there was probably a little bit of, thermal plants and operate the river in quite a you know, are you politically, you know, are different way. By the time, at the end of the you really brave enough to build anything or ‘70s, there were five nuclear plants under are you just going to sit here and get construction. One of which, ultimately was steamrolled by the ‘enviros,’ right. And I think finished. And they were headed to a that’s probably one of the reasons why the catastrophe, which up until recently was one raising of Ross Dam was in that original of the biggest defaults in the history of the ‘Energy 1990’ resolution. Because they country. This region defaulted on I think $4 wanted to have, you know, a bricks and mortar billion or three and a half billion dollars of energy policy or part of their energy policy. investment bonds that had been sold to build

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We had a fair amount of negotiation up until thinking this energy is going to be less then. I don’t think it really got really ripe until because somebody’s calling an election. So maybe 1980, 1981. I think at that time we we wanted to... if we’re actually going to have were meeting. It was wonderful, it was a a “Paper Dam,” then we want paper behind it. wonderful way to meet people because we We began work on a treaty obligation that were meeting in Vancouver B.C, Victoria B.C., created then the entrance of the State Seattle, or often we’d meet in between at La Department on our side, and the Ministry of Conner, at the Blue Heron Inn in La Conner. Foreign Affairs on the Canadian side. It’s a great place to have a meeting. We got so that we were spending a tremendous BR: My counterpart was a guy named Ben amount of time with these people, sitting Marr, who was the Deputy Minister of the around, and eating together, and you know, Environment. I was the Deputy Mayor. There doing things together, as well as working was a guy who worked in our office of Policy together – negotiating. I think that also tended Planning, a real brilliant economist, named to help play a role - I mean we were kind of John Gibson. There was a lawyer who was a isolated and had some ideas and were contract lawyer for a while, and then a lawyer ignored by everybody. from the City’s legal office, Art Lane, on our side. And then the Power Manager from I can’t remember whose line this is, but “There Seattle City Light. That was our team. It comes a time in the day when the children are varied sometimes when we needed additional done with playing cowboys and Indians, when expertise. they return to their room to torture the cat.” So we were kind of ‘torturing the cat.’ We were Theirs was Ben Marr, a guy named Robin left alone and had an opportunity to do that Round… I can’t remember. He was really an together. So in 1981 we had a basic outline of advocate for it, I found out later. And a guy the deal, probably, which was that we would named ‘Gardy’ Gardham, who was the not build the dam. We would build the, quote, Attorney General of British Columbia, who “Paper Dam.” We would receive the power later became the Queen’s Representative in from the dam, we’d pay the amount of money British Columbia. He’s the official that we would have to build the dam, but we representative of the Crown. So Gardy was would receive the power from British Columbia part of that, a big, ruddy-faced, huge guy. And as from their system, rather than raising the then there was also a fellow who was Gardy’s dam, and we would pay them as we would pay deputy. When you got close to maybe signing off the bonds, had we built the dam. So, that something or initialing something, then the deal was kind of starting to come into place political types would come in. My brother probably early, yeah, early 1981 sounds right. would come to a meeting, or – there was a But then there were other things. British guy who was very close to the Premier – who Columbia had made a deal before. And would sometimes come to meetings if there abandoned the deal, abrogated the deal. So, had to be, you know, a representative of the we began to insist on a treaty, that the political authority there. obligations of the Province… You know, the provincial politics are significantly more violent We did not have Council approval of the detail. in British Columbia then they are in It had to approved ultimately. So it was Washington State. something we had to have together, to bring to the Council. To that extent, we didn’t have They do things much more dramatically. ultimate political authority. And there was They’re more of a parliamentary form. So the some opposition on the Council. There were Socialists come in at one time and all hell some people who felt that we should not give breaks loose. The Conservatives come in at up the raising of Ross Dam because it was another time and services are cut and parks such an icon for a lot of people. You know, are abandoned, as is occurring now. So we Ross Dam, J.D. Ross was the founder of were concerned about the sort of fluctuating Seattle City Light, died during the construction nature of the political system in British of Ross Dam. You know, there were a lot Columbia. But we were also - we also wanted reasons why some people felt it was really to create a guarantee. If we’re actually going important. And a couple of Council members to count on the energy, we don’t want to be had close relationships with Seattle City Light.

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One by marriage, one by inclination – they had past flooding is to create this institution which relationships with people over there. And City creates a fund for investments and improves Light was of two minds. City Light was, on the the environment and recreational opportunities one hand, “Let’s do it,” on the other hand, in the above Ross Dam. “Why give up control?” So there was… We were fractured in that sense. We began to look at some - I think also we were beginning to suffer a little bit the sin of This was a time where the national, the federal pride, that maybe we could look at doing environmental laws, on the U.S. side at least, something else here that’s really cool. And so had been in place for perhaps a decade. This we began to look at Campobello Island Park was a Federal project, so it was exempt from and Nova Scotia. It’s a jointly-operated U.S. our State Environmental Policy Act. I can’t park in memory of Franklin Roosevelt. We recall why - when the Commission was began to look at Glacier Park, where boats created there was a checklist created under can go back and forth on the Skagit. There NEPA for – we didn’t do an environmental are some anomalies there where people can impact statement, we just did a checklist. I’m launch their boats and come into American not sure why it was exempt, I think because it water on the Canadian side on Ross Lake. pre-dated, probably because the order Fish that reside in the lake, on the U.S. side, establishing a right was pre-dated the National go into Canada to spawn. There’s a lot of Environmental Policy Act. back and forth, and I think we were interested in that concept, particularly the recreational The Canadian line was that the justification for concept. And further, there were a number of the order in the early 1940’s had everything to mining claims in that area that we were do with the war effort at that point – that there interested in not having come to fruition. was a need for electric power directly related There are also some historic trails – the to war production, that sort of thing. And this Dudeney Trail – and some historic trapping, was a basis then, for discounting its need later and other kind of trade went on with British on. Our line was that it was part of a Columbia, pre-road. So we were interested in progression of power policy that went way all those things, and ultimately the notion that back. Ruby Dam - which was Ross Dam the idea that to compensate for past flooding before it was before J.D. Ross died - Ruby we would do this Commission became an Dam was the third and the final dam site on idea. And further, I think another notion of the the Skagit. And it was going to be built in two arrangement is if you could do something like levels. It was already described back in the this – engage British Columbia financially in Thirties when it stated as “First level at 1602.5 the outcome, as well as engage us, it would above sea level” and then the second level be a more stable deal. We then worked on 122 feet above that. And then it was affirmed that and developed the idea of the in ‘Energy 1990,’ when we dropped our Commission and put that in the agreement. options on buying into the nuclear plant. Our line was this was an energy policy that we’ve During this time, there were negotiations with relied on. So… you know, war time doesn’t on the treaty element. And this is one where, really play into that. particularly on the Canadian side, it was pretty risky because the West and the East of I think we had something that seemed like a Canada are at odds. Certainly at that time deal, but there were some problems to be they were at odds, because you had a sorted out. We had this guarantee problem, government that was, it was the Bennett the treaty problem. We also had past flooding. government, Bennett-the-Younger We had flooded British Columbia for many Government. And they had no connection at years, without any compensation. And so, all, they had no representative. (John) Fraser how do we do compensation? The way they was a representative, I think, one of only two figured out compensation was based on an representatives in the National in British acre-foot concept. But what about this Columbia, for crying out loud. So bringing in flooding that we had inadvertently - or hadn’t the Feds was like, you know, bringing in a bad really noticed? And so that was one of germs cold, from the Canadian point of view. And we for the Skagit Environmental Endowment Fund were also asking them to guarantee the Commission – that the way to compensate for obligation of a province. So there were issues

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there. But those were negotiated, in large British Columbia. And we did it down here as part, in the federal side. well, we did an announcement in both places. And then – it must have been like year later – It was the presence of this Keith Bulen that we had the treaty. Senator Gorton was a enabled us to develop the treaty, I’m sponsor. And we had a great event at the convinced. Keith was a major political player Canadian Ambassador’s house, which was who did not have the opportunity, I think very cool. somewhere in Keith’s political background he was chairman of the Ways and Means in the In Canada we did some real good work, I Indiana legislature, he was the Northeastern think, trying not to mess with Canadian states coordinator for Ronald Reagan in the politics. I think we were concerned about campaign, I mean, he was a dude. So, Keith, meddling. But we had some good friends who and the Secretary of State then was … helped us talk to the Canadian environmental Reagan’s first Secretary of State… anyway, groups. On this side, nobody… ‘enviros’ were he was a political... you know, the kind of with us in the development of the deal. In the round guy? Looks like… George Schulz, start of the Endowment, I think we developed Bulen knew him. So I think he was able to some real interest. Because you know, the make that happen on the U.S. side. Skagit is a long way away, especially the upper Skagit, it a long, long way away from There was also a Bonneville problem. The here. It’s only 180 miles, but it just seems, Secretary of Energy was the same guy who psychically, like a very long way away. And said, “the cost effective conservation will only on our side, about 80% of it, about 90% of it is set back a nuclear plant…” The Bonneville federally owned. So there aren’t a lot of little guy (Donald Hodel) was now the Secretary of groups, you know towns, and smelters, or stuff Energy in the Reagan administration, and like that up there. It’s just land. When the Keith knew him. Both of them were active in Commission started operating, there was their respective Republican parties. A DOE some real opportunity for some groups to guy in Oregon, and Bulen in Indiana. And engage and find new money. Government is then finally Bulen was a mentor of almost always old money - it’s being used for Ruckelshaus. And Ruckelshaus was out here, other purposes. So new money coming in, as he was at Weyerhaeuser at the time. And Bill it was here, was a great opportunity. I think Ruckelshaus and Keith Bulen were friends. the North Cascades Conservation Council So on the federal side, on our side, Bulen was were very active and starting some studies. a big, big factor. There were problems. British Columbia saw the use of money on their side primarily at the From Washington’s Congressional outset for recreation. We tended to see ours, delegation’s point of view, that is was a on this side, primarily for environmental winner. You know, this is something that’s purposes: buying up some mining rights, doing going to be good. The fellow who was the some studies. We did some fishery studies congressman from Bellingham, in whose among everything else. district the dam is, was very much engaged in energy policy. There was another major Something I wrote back in the late 1980’s negotiation going on at this same time, which about the Commission talked about it as an was the development of the Pacific Northwest elegant addition to this international Power Planning and Conservation Act, which agreement. But the Commission was just started the power council, the Northwest getting started then. With the benefit of Power Planning Council, among other things. another decade of hindsight, I think they’ve So, he was engaged in, very much involved in had to invent themselves a couple of times. energy and very significant for us and the City One, they had to invent themselves at the of Seattle. So we had a deal. And we did a outset. I mean there was some stuff that we real big deal, before we had the treaty, in have written down. I went to the first meeting, British Columbia. you know, and here are these people there saying, “What in the hell do they mean with By ‘big deal,’ I mean, there was tremendous that?” What are supposed to do here? So coverage, and they struck a deal on the tar they had to invent themselves off the top. And baby issue and we had a wonderful time in they had some stress because here, British

Bob Royer (May 8, 2003) 94 SKAGIT ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Columbia really has this point of view of the recreation investments. They had a camp down at the end of Canada, just right as the lake ends, there’s that kind of trailer camp thing. You know, I think a lot of the commissioners on our side were much more mountaineer types, and didn’t really like the four-wheel vehicles there. You know, much more hiker, mountaineer types.

And now the question is what do they want to do, how much further do they want to go with just recreation. I mean isn’t there something more? Also, I think on the British Columbia side, they’ve had tremendous cuts. Their government is abandoning some parks. One of the goals we had for this is maybe connecting Manning Provincial Park with the North Cascades Park. I still think that’s a great thing to do, but it hasn’t been done.

It’s a terrific little institution and it not only solved a specific problem – this past flooding issue - but it also creates an opportunity to do something in a little defined geography of the world and, you know, make it neater. You know, what better human experience than to meet somebody you don’t know from another country, and together do something better.

95 Bob Royer (May 8, 2003)