Spacem.en becoine Woodsm.en Four pursue the wily 'Wapiti on the Millicoma Tree Farm Ouie Coleman outlines the first day's hunt on Friday night by the light of a gas lantern in one of the camp tents.

Rocks rattled in the clearing be­ rifle, trying to "put horns" on at ELK WERE EDGY low, and everyone's pulse jumped. least one of the animals. The rattle of rocks grew louder Stu Roosa and Ovie Coleman, For just because it was legal as the herd, seeming to sense it was rifles ready, tip-toed carefully to shooting time on the opening day of being observed, started moving to­ the edge of the steep bank and elk season that didn't mean there ward a stand of old-growth timber searched the brush in a clearing was enough light to see. nearby. below for what had to be elk on the T ents on an oW landing were home for three days. In the picture on the move. right, Harry Morgan (left) , senior vice president- wood products, and Coos The sky was overcast, and it was Bay area manager Oscar W eed laugh at one of many camp jokes. still so dark one would have had trouble reading. Fog drifted back and forth through the valley, fur­ ther obscuring sight. Then the fog parted briefly and they could be seen, a herd of eight or 10 elk, their brown sides visible against the surrounding brush. Stu, one of America's astronauts, whose eyesight is superior to most, put his binoculars to his eyes but even with those, it was impossible to see if any of the animals had antlers. Ovie, logging foreman for Weyerhaeuser at Coos Bay, and a long-time elk hunter, peered in­ tently through the scope of his

4 Merlin Freeman ( by pickup) slips a clip into his rifle as one part of the group gets ready to head into the woods. Others ( left to right) are Charlie Duke, Rex Allison and .

Without a word, Stu and Ovie light of dawn in the Western Ore­ disappeared into the timber. The slipped over the side of the steep, gon brush is not easy, for the season was only minutes old and wooded hillside into the thick brush ground is covered with twigs and the hunt was a success. in an attempt to get closer for a branches. It's also easy to slip and For with 210,000 acres of the better look. slide noisily or kick loose a rock as Millicoma Tree Farm being combed Trying to keep quiet in the dim the elk were doing. thoroughly by something like 5,000 hunters, any hunting party consid­ STALK CONTINUES ers the trip a success if only one Ovie and Stu continued stalking member brings down an elk. the herd, which was getting more As they moved through the brush restless with each passing moment. to their prize, Stu remarked, "This There's a lot of blind luck in an is amazing. Shooting an elk before elk hunt. If the animals zig one daylight. I just can't get over it." way, the man on the left gets the P ART Y S U CCESSF UL shot; if they move the other way, a hunter on the right gets the good But this hunting party was to be view. As luck would have it, when even more of a success- in every­ the elk were only a few steps from thing that makes hunting one of the the tall timber, they took the turn toughest yet most satisfying sports. which put them in front of Ovie The party itself centered around and at the same time he saw the four of America's astronauts, who spike. had been invited to the Coos Bay area by two Coos Bay businessmen. OVIE BAGS ELK The astronauts, in addition to Stu "I knew Stu couldn't get a Roosa, were Charlie Duke, Joe shot," Ovie said. H e fired and down Engle and Gordon Cooper. the elk went as the rest of the herd Gordon has been out into space

Weyerhaeuser Magazine/ December Several of the group examine a herd of elk on a distant hillside looking for a bull. Left to right, Charli.e Duke, Merlin Freeman, Rex Alli­ son and Gordon Cooper.

local 3-261 of the International Woodworkers of America; and Rex Allison, forest engineer.

ELK HUNTERS ARE AVID Elk hunting is a rugged sport. The hunting conditions, the diffi­ culty of outsmarting an elk in its own habitat, plus the value of the prize when the hunter wins, are some of the things that make elk hunters so rabid about their sport. "This is one thing that made us all so excited about taking some of the astronauts out," said Rex Alli­ twice, piloting MA-9 spacecraft on acquaintance of several of these son. "Elk hunting is a tremendous a 22-orbit mission in 1963 and was younger men who were so much challenge. It's the type of thing command pilot for Gemini V in like them in their outlook on life. that men such as the astronauts 1965. This was followed by the Coos would take on." Stu, J oe and Cha rlie were amon g Bay businessmen taking the astro­ the 19 astronauts selected by NASA nau ls on waterfowl hunts in the OVIE ORGANIZED HUNT in April, 1966. Klamath Falls, Ore., a rea, a hunt in Ovie was given the job of organ­ CURRENT MISSION - ELK Eastern Oregon, and finally the izing the hunt. expedition after elk on the Milli­ "Now there's a five-point bull up To them, just about the greatest coma Tree Fa rm. this draw," Ovie had said Friday thing in the world will be the day night as several of the group when they blast off on one of this SPECIAL CAPE GUEST gathered around one of the com­ country's missions into space. But Just prior to the hunt, Bob had pany's hunter maps by the light of for three days on the company's returned from Cape K ennedy, the gasoline lantern. Millicoma Tree Farm, the big sub­ where he had been a guest at this "There's a herd of about a dozen ject was elk and how to get a shot coun try's latest space shot. The with two spike bulls over here," at one. letter inviting him to the Cape was he said, making a series of circles, The C'oos Bay businessmen who sign ed by Wally chirra, Walter lines and dots on the map. set up the trip were Bob P erkins Cunningham and D on Eisele. and Phil Waters. Bob owns the ELK WERE LOCATED Since Weyerhaeuser's Millicoma Timber Inn R estaurant and Phil Tree Farm has one of the largest As logging foreman, he travels owns radio station KYNG. The two herds of Roosevelt elk on the Pa­ the roads of the tree farm every have several things in common, in­ cific Coast, it was natural for the day. In anticipation of the hunt, he cluding a great curiosity about the two businessmen to con tact the had made special notes where elk world and a tremendous zest for company. had been seen. living. "During the year, the elk get so Several years ago when a number GUIDES SECURED used to the logging trucks they of the astronauts were going through don't even look up when one goes Area ma na~er Oscar Weed work­ simulated scape walking on by," Ovie said. ing with area woods manager Jack some rugged lava beds in Central So all hands paid close attention Wolff handled the job of getting Oregon, Bob and Phil decided to go to the battle plans, for the entire four "guides" or partners to go over and see what was happening. tree farm is open each year to the along. public; and come shooting hours in SIMILAR PERSONALITIES Each partner-guide was an ex­ the morning, they knew competi­ perienced elk hunter and even more This same curiosity, a zest for tion would be intense. living and the desire and willing­ important, knew the Millicoma ness to take on the toughest of jobs about as well as his own back yard. ASTRONAUTS HAD are part of the basic makeup of the In addition to Ovie Coleman, COMPETITION type who become astronauts. So it they were John Eggers, woods Nor did the astronauts and their wasn't a bit surprising that before safety engineer; M erlin Freeman, a four partner-guides have too big a long Bob and Phil had made the shovel loader and also president of jump on many of the 5,000 other

6 hunters who would be out on the LOTS OF LAUGHS living down his timing after Satur­ tree farm come opening morning. Harry responded with his own day morning when he roused every­ For a hundred or more were Wey­ share of stories and friendly insults one out at 3:30 a.m., since no one erhaeuser woods employes on the as laughter boomed out across the left camp until 6. Millicoma who also knew where hills from the old logging landing The shock of the early reveille many of the elk were. where camp was set up. Charlie was eased as soon as anyone The group left camp at six a.m. Bingham, manager of areas, took stepped into the cook tent. There in pitch black darkness and drove his share of abuse and countered in was a choice of several kinds of carefully to the area where the hunt kind. juice or fruit, blueberry hotcakes, was to begin. The last half-mile was Others on hand were Don Dils, link sausage, eggs cooked to order, without lights over the rutted, area public relations manager for hash brown potatoes, doughnuts, muddy logging roads. the company, Jerry Baron, news maple rolls, toast, milk and a All four pairs of hunters were to editor of the Coos Bay World, Jack monstrous camp-style pot of steam­ start within several miles of each Wolff, area woods manager for ing coffee. other, surrounding an area where Weyerhaeuser and Herb Williams, two of these big old loner bulls had editor of Weyerhaeuser Magazine. Steep hills, huge blow-downs and been seen. Ed Troyer of KCBY-TV was on thick brush make the going tough hand Saturday to shoot some film. at times ( upper) . The hunter is ANOTHER HUNTER ARRIVES Rex Allison. The rugged terrain is REVEILLE WAS EARLY reflected in the sweat on the faces All were in position, with it still Bob Perkins was in charge of the of astronauts Gordon Cooper ( left) too dark to see, when another car reveille detail but had a hard time and Charlie Duke. came quietly along and stopped in the middle of the area which was bracketed by the astronauts and their guides. As luck would have it, the man in that car nailed the five-point bull up the draw not far from John Egg­ ers and Joe Engle on one side and Merlin Freeman and Charlie Duke on the other. But that's part of the sport.

GROUP WAS CONGENIAL The hunt was an outstanding success in another way. As Gordon Cooper said two days later, "I don't know when I've been in a better hunting camp. Everyone got along so well together." He added that often when a large group gets to­ gether for a hunt, there's apt to be someone who doesn't fit in. The first night in camp de­ veloped into a story-telling spree; and probably every elk for several miles around wondered what all the noise was, as the laughter boomed out of the cook and chow tent.

MANY STORIES TOLD The astronauts proved them­ selves accomplished story tellers and also completely capable of tak­ ing the kind of ribbing that men in a hunting camp can hand out. Harry Morgan, vice president of Timberlands for the company took a ribbing from the Coos Bay busi­ nessmen about stepping on Douglas fir seedlings, and the astronauts followed suit.

Weyerhaeuser Magazine /December Serving up this feast- which was stowed away in amazing quan­ tities-was head cook Dean Shel­ don, owner of Jensen Music Co. in Coos Bay. Dean also took top honors as story teller before the weekend was over. Helping him was Harry Fenne­ man, owner of the Timber Inn Motel. Bob Perkins and Phil Wat­ ers also pitched in with the cooking.

HAD LAST LAUGH All agreed that Bob should have his clock taken away from him, but on Sunday morning no one else re­ membered to set an alarm and the sky was light in the east when all hands rolled out of their sleeping bags. Bob had the last laugh be­ cause he bagged the second elk in one of those situations which make such good telling in later years around a campfire. It happened shortly before noon on Saturday, when everyone had come back to camp, ready for chow.

ELK STROLLED INTO VIEW The camp was on a big landing with a precipitous hillside on one side dropping off several hundred feet to a clear-cut flat. John Eggers and Dean Sheldon were standing near the edge of this cliff when a big, spike bull strolled out of the woods into the clear cut. It was like a scramble for an air raid alert as they grabbed their rifles. A downhill shot at 200-300 yards is one of the hardest of all, and the two hunters missed with a barrage of more than a dozen shots. The elk kept strolling through the flat, obviously confused by all the noise but unable to tell where the echoing shots were coming from.

PERKINS DROPS ELK Both men had emptied their guns, and it looked as if the elk was going to stroll on into some dense timber, when Bob Perkins came running out of the cook tent with his rifle and dropped the elk with three shots. That episode was good for at least a half hour of charge, counter charge and banter that evening over the chow table. As Dean Shel­ Rex Allison is dwarfed by the huge Douglas fir trees in this old-growth don said, "It was such an easy tar­ forest, seen here as it was before the coming of the white man. get walking along slowly, I thought

8 if I would put a few rounds near take a lone man several hours and AGE NOT PHYSICAL him, he would start running and once it's dark it's usually safer to In commenting on physical con­ make a decent, sporting target." build a fire and stay in the woods dition and age, he said he believed than try to come out at night. But age was more mental and psycho­ PERKINS WAS CASUAL all astronauts go throu gh some of logical than it was an actual num­ Bob Perkins countered with a the world's most intense survival ber of years a person has lived. His long statement about how he finally training, and a night in the woods condition certainly bore this out, came out to see what was going on would have been no problem . for at age 43 he could scramble and with a great deal of a plomb There's always the chance that a through those woods with agility casually shot the elk. man could have turned an ankle or that would put many men in their The elk were oft en found in the broken a leg, so the joking had over­ early twenties to shame. open on the first day of the hunt. tones of concern. The astronauts saw more than But they wised up in a hurry and LIKE A CATTLE HERD elk hunting, for they were able to moved into the dense, old-growth It was a pproaching darkness see first hand how modern indus­ timber. This changed the style of when Gordo finally came out. " It t rial tree fa rming works. hunting on the second day. looked like a herd of cattle had TREE FARMING VIEWED VISIBILITY IS LOW gone through at times in fron t of me," he said. "I could hear the It's on e thing to explain to a man In the deep woods, the senses whistling of the bull several times, how timber can go to waste in an of hearing and smell become highly but I never got close enough to see industrial forest if it is allowed to important for sometimes visibility them." die or blow down and rot upon the is cut to 25 or 50 feet by deep brush Such a chase through this precipi­ ground. But when a man is scram­ or trees. tous country with its dense brush bling over a blown-down tree which It was in some of this deep and blown-down trees would leave is five feet in diameter, the facts timber on Sunday that Gordon many men exhausted . But Gordo are back-breakingly obvious. Cooper came upon that rank, pun­ like the other astronauts, is in mag­ Also, it is possible to explain how gent smell which said elk had nificent physical condition. elk can damage reforested areas; passed tha t way only recently. To a person like Gordo (as his fellow astronauts call him) who has hunted elk in other parts of the United S tates, no urging was needed.

GORDO STARTS PURSUIT He moved as quietly as possible after the herd. H e was some dis­ tance from his partner-guide and Rex didn't rPalize at the time that Gordo had veered off in a dif­ ferent direction. Several hours la ter as darkness began to settle in the deep woods, all hands were a t the agreed-on meeting spot except Gordo. In the vast, unlogged sections, hunters in the past have become confused late at night and not found their way out until morning. In most hunting parties, the ab­ sence of a hunter at dusk would cause alarm. But not this group. The other three astronauts were joking about Gordo having to stay in the woods that night.

A NIGHT OUT POSSIBLE That was a definite possibility, fo r had he downed a big elk at dusk, he would have dressed and Ovie Coleman, chief guide ( left), and Stu R oosa examine the possibly skinned it out. This can elk Ovie downed on the opening morning of the hunt.

W e yerhae use r Magazine / Decembe r but its much easier when one can look at D ouglas fir trees which are five or six years old but are still less than a foot high because they have been browsed continually by elk. LOGGING FASCINATED JOE J oe Engle said, "This logging fascinates me. I'd like to come back when things are operating and see how it happens." H e was taken up on the spot by his guide John E ggers who said, "Just let me know when you can come out here again, and I'll see that you get a complete tour." It was impossible to see a logging show during the hunt, for the com­ pany's woods crews took one of their weeks of vacation during the elk season. Thus the tree farm could remain open for nine straight days for the public to hunt. E LK H E RDS GROW Elk are a product of the forest The company plane 'flew the astronauts from Portland to the Coos Bay­ just as trees are. A healthy herd North B end airport. From left to right, Charlie Duke, Gordon Cooper, such as that roaming the Milli­ Stu Roosa, chief pilot Bill Gilbert, pilot Don Booth and Joe Engle. coma, can increase 10 per cent a year if nothing is done to crop off G OOD S I D E EFFECT by a large segment of the American the excess. public. If this should happen- as it has The hunt had another big side In some of the bull sessions happened in areas where hunting effect, as Rex Allison pointed out. around the campfire and in the chow is not allowed- the elk multiply "This hunt brcught many types of tent, the con versation strayed beyond the ability of the land to people together with a common from huntin g or the inevitable talk furnish food and soon are going goal. I sit across t he bargaining about the things astronauts do in hungry. Then they start succumb­ table from Merlin (M erlin Free­ their training or the experiences ing to malnutrition and disease. man is President of the IWA local for Weyerhaeuser's Coos Bay oper­ they have when a loft, to what's CAN DAMAGE RANGE ation) , a nd we ha ve some real happening in America today. In the process, they overgraze arguments. But we were drawn to­ UNIFYIN G F O RCE their range, damaging it so that it gether by the same thing on this can't grow as much food as before. hunt." The astronauts are deeply con­ Soon there are less elk than before, Oscar Weed, area manager for cerned about the United States; and what was once good range can Weyerhaeuser at Coos Bay had and one stated that the country's suffer from erosion. similar thoughts. space program, rising as it does This damage is also the biggest H e pointed out that he and above partisan politics or philo­ problem the Company faces on the H arry M organ, for instance, nor­ sophic differences, could be a great, Millicoma in reforesting logged mally meet each other only in the unifying force. areas. For when elk overgraze an pressure-laden atmosphere of a H e's probably right, for as four area, fir seedings are a main victim. highly competitive business. Out in astronauts were the focal point for By grazing off the tender tops of the hunting camp they traded an elk hunt, bringing people with different backgrounds together with young trees, elk can delay refores­ jokes, banter and hilarious insults one purpose, so the space program tation for many years and in the with the freedom of a college dor­ process cost the Company thousands mitory. could have the same effect on a of dollars. national scale. So hunting, as regulated by the A LL HAD S AME G OAL This by-product of America's Oregon Game Commission on the These and the other people in space program as seen in miniature Millicoma, is good for the elk herd, the hunting party were all brought in this hunting party could possibly helping keep it healthy, and also together with one goal in mind- to be as important as many of the helping in reforestation. The elk provide a first rate hunting trip for scientific facts which are being dis­ herd also offers stimulating outdoor U. S. astronauts, men who are covered every time another man recreation for some 5,000 hunters. looked up to and almost idolized blasts off into space. * 10