• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

C HAPTER 6. The Northern Rocky Mountain Station, 1926-1953 ildland fire was a major research projection. The same report also claimed Warea for the Northern Rocky mountain pine beetle control was being Mountain Station throughout its history. done for 5 cents per acre, but didn’t At the Station’s inception, fire did more indicate its effectiveness. than pose difficult scientific questions. Progress was made in several Its very presence interfered with the administrative areas. The trail system at research program. Priest River almost reached completion, A disastrous fire season in 1926 and the University of Idaho started the seriously interrupted research field work Idaho Forest Experiment Station. The in northern Idaho and western Montana. Harry Gisborne speaking to University Northern Rocky Mountain Station also Forest Service policy at the time was to of Montana Forestry School seniors in began to look at the possibilities of give fire fighting top priority, and that 1940 at the Priest River clearcut inflam- creating additional experimental forests. meant researchers were shifted from mability station. Priest River was a place District 1 changed the name of its their normal duties to the fire lines as for natural resource students to learn Investigative Committee to Investigative needed. Although current policy calls for from its earliest days as a research and Council and expanded its membership research personnel to continue with their demonstration area. outside the Forest Service for the first research assignments except for serious time. Members were concerned that emergency situations, the old policy some projects being submitted to the was understandable because the Stations was undertaken with the University of council really were not research items. continued to be units of the National Idaho, University of Montana, the Forest Forest System Districts. Products Lab, the Bureau of Entomology The council undertook, apparently for The Northern Rocky Mountain and the Bureau of Plant Industry. Of the first time in District 1, to define Station annual report for the preceding course, the extent of cooperation varied the terms “research,” “investigation,” year stated, “Although it is questionable with the organizations involved. “study,” and “experiment.” They identi- whether the highest efficiency is served Cooperation with the University of fied 63 categories of research, including, by keeping research men on fire lines Idaho went beyond research activity. for example, “nursery practices” and for protracted periods of a normal fire The Idaho School of Forestry began to “wood chemistry.” season, as was done for nearly four man- hold a field session at Priest River cover- months in 1925, there is no doubt that in ing investigative work and timber sale such a grave emergency as last summer practices as taught by the staff of the Experimental Areas— the research man should be mobilized.” Kaniksu National Forest (Wellner1976). The northern Rockies have a short Although the idea of Priest River as a Establishment and field season, and the field assistants, who model sustained-yield forest had been Disestablishment were mainly forestry students, returned discarded, the demonstration forest to their universities in September. Thus, concept was very much in effect to show a bad fire season was a significant foresters and lumbermen a variety of Despite continued meager funding, impediment to research progress. Harry things without the small research staff the Station began expansion plans to Gisborne was out on so many fires in having to travel over a wide area. have three experimental forests for the summer of 1926 that he planned on Other USDA agencies were studying western white pine, and one in each of no research getting done. But, in spite mountain pine beetle control in lodge- the lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, and of the bad fire season, the energetic pole and ponderosa pine stands, along larch-fir types. Priest River and Bernice Gisborne was able to prepare a manu- with Ribes ecology and chemical control in Montana already existed, and an script, Measuring Forest Fire Danger in of white pine blister rust. Early estimates experimental forest at Coram, Montana, Northern Idaho. were that it would take 15 years to con- was approved. Priest River and Bernice As a means to expand the Station’s trol blister rust in the northern Rockies. had been earmarked much earlier for research program, cooperative research This turned out to be a wildly optimistic research purposes, but their use as – experimental forests was not confirmed bring a “friendly lawsuit” against Idaho Regional Forester of the approval to use with an official designation until 1931. to recover the lands. This was done, and it as a research area. Two years later, Deception Creek the Supreme Court decreed that owner- Bailey also said that a “Fort gained formal recognition as an ship would be returned to the United Missoula Experimental Range” of 40 experimental forest. At about the same States. acres had been established in 1949 by time, the Station concentrated its range Other problems with land titles in “informal agreement” with the Regional research at what was known initially as the Benton and Canyon Creek drainages Forester on land transferred from the the U.S. Range Livestock Experiment were gradually solved without recourse War Department to the Bureau of Land Station at Fort Keough, Montana. to the highest court in the land. But it Management. The report noted that the Before the 1930s, the Forest Service was 20 years from the time Priest River area was reserved for research use by did not have mechanisms to make was established until the Chief of the the Forest Service, although no studies meaningful designations of experimental Forest Service signed an order making it had been started there, and the newly forests and ranges. New regulations official in 1931. Some other ownership formed Agricultural Research Service administered by the Secretary of changes followed, and another 30 years might want to use it for revegetation Agriculture changed that (Regulation passed before Public Land Order 2377 research. L-20 was usually the authority for withdrew the final 6,368-acre experi- Bernice and Priest River were establishing experimental areas). The mental forest. Even then, the order had formally designated, but their use and change was important in preserving the the acreage wrong! development were much different. areas for their intended purposes. When The specter of severe disruption of Although subject to big swings in an experimental forest or range was research studies by mining activities and funding, research generally grew and designated officially, it also was with- questionable land ownership, such as diversified at Priest River over the years. drawn by the Department of the Interior that at Priest River, evidentally caused It never really got going at Bernice. from mining entry. If this was not done, Forest Service Research to start a pro- Station administrative files contain mining law (until 1994) allowed private gram to formalize designations. Getting a chart titled “Bernice Experimental parties to prospect for valuable deposits, everything in order took a long time. In Forest,” with data from a timber inven- stake a claim, and take title to the land a 1955 letter to the Chief, Reed Bailey, tory made in 1914. Bernice included should the claim produce commercial director of the newly merged Northern 2,909 acres in the Deerlodge National quantities of ore. Even if the claim did Rocky Mountain and Intermountain Forest near Basin, about 30 miles from not change title by being “patented,” Stations, reported progress, but also Butte. Most of the area was covered by the miner could occupy and work the listed several actions still to be taken timber, and 70 percent of the trees were land by paying small annual fees and (Bailey 1955). Two areas in the old lodgepole pine. demonstrating that some development Northern Rocky Mountain Station terri- Because Butte was booming at the work had been done. This apparently did tory never achieved formal status. time as a center of the mining industry, not happen within experimental areas in Bailey’s report listed a 5,000-acre and the mines needed large numbers of the Station territory, but it surely could “Piquette Creek Experimental Forest” timbers, it was thought there would be have, especially in heavily mineralized on National Forest land near Darby, a ready market for Bernice timber. This parts of Montana and central Idaho. Montana, that was “established Dec. situation, and the presence of a local At Priest River, a different kind 20, 1939 by administrative approval of charcoal burner that used small-diameter of problem took 17 years to unravel [the] Regional Forester.” In the remarks wood, fit into the District 1 plans for ex- (Wellner 1976). At the time the ex- section, Bailey listed “none.” All or periments at Bernice. Early documents perimental forest was being established, part of this tract may have been used said the area was “teeming with deer officials of the State of Idaho and USDA for research in an informal way for and elk,” so studies of effects of various were reaching an agreement to convey years. Ultimately, the Lick Creek habitat alterations on big game also were lands to the State to compensate for Ecosystem Management/Research envisioned. sections within National Forest boundar- Demonstration Area was established in The master plan was to make a ies. This would have removed all of the this part of Montana by a cooperative variety of selection, strip, and clear experimental forest lands from Federal agreement between the Intermountain cuts on a regular, sustained-yield basis ownership. Station and Bitterroot National Forest to gain experimental data and conduct The State and the Forest Service in 1991 (see “The Ecosystem Approach management demonstrations. To trans- agreed that ownership of the Priest River Comes to Lick Creek,” chapter 11).

Load more

  22

Copy Link