Save the heritage apples

Winter apples ready for the picking.

It was daylight on the homestead.

Early as it was I was more than a little late for breakfast. The homestead cabin had been built in the 1890s by a pioneer.

The Homestead Law of 1862 was the coolest thing to ever hit this country, unless you were an Indian. At the time they were not considered U.S. Citizens. 

Indians were unable to file homestead claims on their own land. Everyone else just had to build a residence at least 12 feet square, cultivate a crop and live there five years. That gave you clear title to 160 acres of prime bottom land. 

The railroad was coming. The land rush was on. Homesteading was a family affair. Your wife could file a claim. Your kids could too once they were old enough. 

The prime bottom land was soon taken. What the Indians called “The Jimmy Come Latelys” were forced to move up into the thin soils of the foothills where farming got tougher. 

The homesteaders chopped and burned back the forest to plant potatoes and cabbage amid the stumps. These “stump ranchers” went to great lengths to clear enough land to grow enough food to eke out a living. 

By the Great Depression farming got even tougher than that. Many of these wilderness homes were deserted and taken by the government for back taxes.  

That's most probably how this cabin came to be abandoned by its family. Since then it was used as a haven in the wilderness for trappers, lost hunters and those that researched antiquity. 

In the 1980s the roof of the cabin collapsed in the snow. By the ’90s the 100-year-old homestead cabin was a pile of rotting wood buried in blackberry vines. 

The orchard in the meadow was the only sign of man ever being here. These few remaining pioneer orchards are more than just pioneer artifacts.  If it's true that we should consider the medicinal and food value of plants in the rain forest before we cut it down, it might be a good idea to save the seed of these fast disappearing heritage fruit trees. 

The diverse varieties of apples in pioneer orchards can ripen at any time between august and February. The flavor of these apples, particularly after a frost makes the genetically engineered mush ball that passes for an apple these days taste like the cardboard box it came in. 

I'm not the only one that likes these old orchards.  If you want one of these old time apples you're going to have to compete with the bears. 

You'll probably lose. 

These old fruit trees can grow to great heights and bears are just better climbers than we are. And if that last shiny red apple is a little too far out of reach, the bear can just break the branch off. 

The bears not only provide a valuable pruning service they are good at eliminating one of the unpleasant surprises you can find in an apple tree, the bald faced hornet's nest. 

Finding a hornets’ nest while picking apples can make you scamper down the tree like a squirrel.  Bear will just eat the hornet's nest and keep on picking apples. 

I've watched bears sitting over a pile of apples the size of soft balls, holding the apple between its paws, chopping them up in her jaws while sucking the cider out, a picture of pure enjoyment. 

I scared her off. I would have stolen her apples, if they hadn't landed in bear manure. 

My best advice would be to get your apples off the tree. 

The wolf problem

Erosion caused by elk feeding on saplings.

Do not be alarmed citizens.  There is no plan currently being proposed by any known government biologist to re-introduce wolves to the Olympic Peninsula. 

The howl of the wolf is a true symbol of the wilderness that has not been heard here since the wolves were bounty hunted to extinction back in the 1930s. It was a familiar scenario that was played out across the West. 

With the coming of the railroad the human population increased to the point where there was no room for wolves. They had to go. 

Since that time, many other species of fish and wildlife such as the 100-pound salmon and the Olympic Mountain moonshiner have become rare, endangered or just plain extinct due to the rising human population. Biologists are only now just beginning to explain how each of these individual creatures is vital to the health of the ecosystem. 

For example, I have long contended that the reason for the decline of our salmon runs are caused by “nylon pollution.” 

It is my own term for the fact that our salmon are being overfished throughout the extent of their range. I thought there is just too much nylon fishing gear in the water for the fish to survive their journey. 

Nylon pollution kills.

I was wrong. According to the biologists, it's not nylon that's killing the fish, it's the elk! 

Without the wolves to eat them there are so many elk along the Hoh River that they have killed off the trees, causing erosion, siltation and a rising water temperature, all of which is bad for fish.

According to biologists, if we could just get the wolves running the elk, trees would once again grow along the river, stopping erosion and shielding the water from the sun's harmful rays. 

People who may have seen the Hoh in flood stage, when giant spruce trees roll down the river scouring the gravel bars like freight trains, might doubt the elk have destroyed the river theory, but they're not biologists. 

The biologists know that any possibility of wolf reintroduction is still too controversial. So instead, the wolves will be “trans-located.”

You probably can't tell the difference, which once again shows why you're not a biologist. 

Rest assured that no Canadian wolves will be used in the trans-location effort. Only American wolves will be eligible for this program. 

Trans-location calls for moving the wolves from areas in Washington state where people want to get rid of them into places where people don't have wolves yet.  However the wolf is reintroduced or trans-located doesn't matter with the health of the ecosystem at stake. 

Any responsible wolf trans-location effort would have to include the restoration of the wolf habitat and a corresponding reduction of the human population. 

While no biologists is suggesting that people be forcibly removed from their homes for wolf habitat restoration, we would expect those who support the wolf trans-location to move voluntarily. 

Any reactionary anti-wolf obstructionists whose bourgeois sensibilities foster an unhealthy emotional attachment to their homes are liable to change their tune and become willing sellers once they are surrounded by howling packs of wolves. 

Ideally, the initial wolf trans-location effort would establish a healthy population of wolves where they would provide the most benefit to the ecosystem as a whole and provide optimum enjoyment to the people who want the wolves in the first place. 

That is why I would propose we first trans-locate the wolves to a place where people love them, our state capitol in Olympia. 

The Pacific flyway

The storms of autumn bring us one of the greatest gifts of nature, the Pacific flyway. 

For us sensitive bird-watching types, the North American continent is divided into three major flyways, the Atlantic, Central and Pacific. 

These are like highways in the sky for birds migrating from their summer homes before winter. The mass migration down the Pacific flyway represents one of the largest movements of life on the planet. OK, I made that up, but I once saw an incredible migration of whale birds that flew past LaPush in a solid line for three days.  

Just recently we saw a mass migration of buzzards that was creepy. 

You want to be careful when you're bird watching for buzzards. If they are circling your driveway, you may want to consider going to the dump more often. 

If you are fortunate enough to see a buzzard, be sure to keep moving. Don't fall asleep on a gravel bar while watching buzzards. 

Remember, buzzards find most of their rotten offal through their incredible sense of smell so you may want to consider bathing once in a while before watching these fascinating birds. 

Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world. The same autumn storms that caused the bird migration has brought the salmon back from their northern homes. 

The salmon wait for the rain to raise the river so it is safe to swim back up into the mountains. 

The harsh demands of salmon fishing often require you to sit and wait for the fish to swim by. Which can often cause our sleep-deprived angler who smells like the cross between a 3-day-old sardine and a tub full of rotten salmon eggs, to slump into a coma? 

The first rule of guiding is that you won't get paid if the buzzards get your clients still; it's sometimes preferable that they are asleep when a fish bites. That is because most people's first inclination upon getting a bite is to rear back and set the hook like they saw on a bass fishing show. 

Which can cause our angler to fall over backwards and severely injure me?  

I used to say you could tell when you got a fish on because that's when the screaming starts. Now I gently wake our angler with a cup of coffee, a smoked salmon croissantwich and a newspaper and ask them if it would be convenient for them to reel in the fish on their line, sometime today. 

This gives our angler an opportunity to adjust to their new surroundings and remember why they agreed to go fishing in the first place. Sometimes, by gently reeling in just enough to keep your line tight you have a better chance of landing the fish than if you jerk on the line and hurt the fish. 

This can enrage the salmon that has every rock and stick in the river memorized. Chances are that fish will jump around until they break you off.  You want to take your time playing a fish. This can take hours. 

You might as well be bird watching.

Many people enjoy bird watching until I tell them I charge $5 a bird and $2.50 for ever bird call I think I hear. Others enjoy viewing wildlife until I charge them $10 to see an otter, $20 for an elk herd and $100 for a Sasquatch sighting. 

Then there are the beautiful fall colors of the autumn leaves which are free for the viewing for a limited time offer. 

Meanwhile, you want to keep reeling in the slack. 

The buzzards are circling. It is good to be alive.  

Firewood: Feel the burn

Lately there was a sprinkling of fresh snow on Mount Olympus.

It’s not be the first sign that summer is over and fall is here.

The great flights of geese and sandhill cranes heading south are another clue that winter is on its way. Causing questions to be asked like, if the birds are leaving why are we staying here, to endure yet another winter in a frozen rainforest?

Be assured this winter will not be as hard as the last. This initial forecast is based on the incidence of spider webs and may require further research.

For that we’ll have to measure the fat on a big buck’s back. 

Skinning a buck to predict the weather is a long lost art that is misunderstood by many, including the game warden, so it we'll have to wait for deer season to open to collect more data.

If I had to bet on it though, I'd say this winter will be cold and wet and dark. You may need a big pile of wood to get through until spring.

There are few things I enjoy more than cutting firewood, especially if I don't have any.

In a perfect world we would all cut our wood in the spring so it would have time to dry in the summer to burn in the fall. Unfortunately this is not a perfect world.

I blame the government. They would rather let our public timber rot in the woods than let a taxpayer salvage some downed trees to heat their home. 

Toughest thing about getting firewood these days is finding some place to cut it. Whoever said, cutting firewood warms you twice, once in the cutting and once in the burning, was a real greenhorn.

Cutting firewood warms you in more ways than you can shake a stick at:

First, you must start your chain saw, if you have one. Those of us who have tried to cut a winter's worth of wood with a hand saw quickly find out why they are called misery whips.

Starting a chainsaw can be plenty miserable too.

There’s nothing like jerking a pull cord on a chainsaw to warm you up. After five or 10 minutes you may want to check for fuel. Got gas?

Then you may have to get creative. Take out the spark plug and give it a few pulls. Put the spark plug back in.

Continue pulling.

Drag the saw back to the road. Tangle in a mess of blackberry vines. Step into a mountain beaver hole and go down in a pile of limbs, land where a hidden stump catches you in the unmentionables.

You should be plenty warm by now. 

This is before you have cut even a single stick of firewood.

It's once you get your chainsaw started that the real fun starts. With a good sharp chain pulling into the wood, the sawdust pours out of the log like water from a hose. The smell of the pitch, the roar of the saw and the ache in the lower back takes me back to an earlier simpler time when loggers ruled the Earth.

Splitting, loading, unloading and stacking the wood to dry, allows you to become intimately familiar with each piece until you could almost name them all. These are often bad names, given after you bark your shin or smash your toe.

Toughen up, cutting firewood is a contact sport.

It is all worthwhile at the end of the day when you have your first chimney fire.

This is yet another one of the many ways that firewood can warm you. 

How to break a fishing rod

September steelhead

It was daylight on the river. The faint glimmer of an autumn sun hid behind the jagged peaks of Mount Olympus. 

As the sun rose the surface of the water was transformed into a shimmering reflection of red, gold and blue that mirrored the colors of the sunrise.  If, as the famous philosopher what's-his-name said, “Hell is other fishermen,” this was a fisherman's heaven, without another person in sight. 

Solitude is a rare thing.  

Every year hordes of anglers journey to the Olympic Peninsula in search of solitude. 

Until it's gotten so crowded you'd better pack your own rock to stand on if you want to fish near the water.  

Then there are so many boats on the rivers it's become more like a demolition derby than fishing. 

These days it may be a good idea to carry some extra boat bumpers or hang some old tires around your boat in case you are rammed. 

Rear-view mirrors on your river boat might come in handy just in case you don't have eyes in the back of your head. You never know what's coming down river behind you. 

It's generally bad trouble. Some of the boats carry potato guns and seal bombs so it might be a good idea to stow a tennis racket on board to ward off these impolite hazards to navigation. 

Not this morning. The river was mine.  

Wading to the water’s edge I hurled a spinner across the river where it dangled on a tree limb. What might seem like a bungling attempt by a casual onlooker is actually a technique it has taken years to perfect. 

You can argue with me but you cannot argue with modern science. Our native runs of salmon and steelhead have been evolving for millions of years which, according to Darwin's theory would explain why these fish are getting smarter every year.  

The fish have spent their entire lives watching people throw stuff at them. By the time a fish has reached adulthood they have pretty much seen every fancy cast there is. Except one, as a fishing guide who fishes more than 500 days a year on our local rivers, I was able to develop a cast the fish have almost never seen. 

Though difficult to master, my tree limb lure presentation simulates a mutant tree creature falling in the river, creating a feeding frenzy that can stimulate strikes in the most lock-jawed lunker. 

Rookies attempting this technique without expert instruction often make the mistake of trying to retrieve the lure from the tree limb. I have found it is much better to strip out line and lower the lure into the river. This allows you to fish water that would have been way out of range, if you hadn't cast into a tree. 

Slowly, I let out line until the lure just touched the surface of the water.  

Then it happened. There was flash of silver and a swirl in the water the size of a truck tire. 

The lure disappeared, the line ripped loose of the limb and took off downriver, peeling 200 yards of 20-pound mono-filament in the time it took you to read this. 

The great fish jumped four feet in the air, reflecting the colors of the sunrise on its silver sides. There was a sickening crack as my rod broke about a foot from the tip! 

That's what I told them back at the tackle shop where I got the rod anyway. It sounds better than the truth, “I slammed it in a car door.” 

Don't it?

Tale of 2 rivers: Elwha and Queets

Queets River

To study the effects of the Elwha dams removal it might be helpful to look at the Queets River. 

Fall on the Elwha River

The head waters of these rivers were known as “Terra Incognita” until the U.S. Army sent Lt. Joseph P. O’Neil and his mule trains to climb the Olympics and bring back a map.

A member of O’Neil’s expedition, Pvt. Harry Fisher became lost after climbing Mount Olympus on Sept. 20, 1890, and wandered down the Queets River. 

Fisher reported that the Queets was like “a camp in Barnum’s menagerie as far as sleep was concerned.”  Between the thrashing of the salmon in the river and the breaking of brush by the large animals hunting the salmon he had a hard time sleeping. 

On Sept. 26, Fisher was hailed by an Indian, also named Fisher who offered the lost private a canoe ride downriver. 

Fisher described floating the Queets in the cedar canoe watching his new friend hitting fish 20 or 30 feet away with a forked spear. After spearing six large salmon he quit fishing.  

Fisher describes his “staunch friend” watching the many splashing salmon with “Pride, as a farmer would his cattle.” 

He mentioned a weir that was built across the river to intercept the salmon. 

Queets silver salmon.

A recent float down the Queets River revealed a far different world than the one described by Pvt. Fisher. 

There are no homesteads or fish drying racks. There are no V-shaped ripples in water four feet deep made by giant king salmon swimming upriver in uncounted hordes. 

There were no dead spawners on the shore that used to feed the trees, the fish and birds. 

There is no dam on the Queets. Its pristine habitat is protected within a national park. 

What happened to the Queets salmon that made them as rare as the Elwhas? 

Maybe it’s the nylon. Nylon pollution can negatively affect fish through every portion of their lives.      

Salmon pair up to dig a nest in the gravel. The nest is called a redd.

The government loves to count redds as a way of predicting future imaginary fish runs.  Once identified as a shallow depression of freshly turned gravel, redd surveyors put nylon ribbons in the redds. 

Fish routinely abandon redds treated in this manner. Redd surveyors love flagging the streamside bushes with plastic ribbons. This provides a free streamside guide to any lowlife that wants to snag the spawners off their beds. 

Once the baby fish hatch they face many dangers in their life’s journey starting with, the smolt traps. A smolt is a baby fish that’s migrating downstream to the ocean. A smolt trap can block the entire width of a small stream. 

This stops the upstream spring migration of steelhead and sea-run cutthroat. It allows any fish migrating downstream to get into the smolt trap and eat the smolts. 

Otters and bears love smolt traps. Floods can wash the smolt traps up in the woods. If they survive the smolt trap, the fish have a chance to make their way to the open ocean where the real danger lies.

The bottom of the ocean has been plowed by the trawl fleet that kills the bait fish salmon need to survive. Then there are miles of drift nets, purse seine nets, ocean gill nets and landing nets of the sportsman and commercial trollers. 

The surviving fish that return to our rivers face more nylon, the maze of tribal gill nets. The fish that survive the gill nets are targeted by sport anglers who will fish them back upstream to their redds. 

I certainly hope someone is studying the problem. 

Dam party? No so fast

“Do you want to go to a party?” my fancy friend asked.

Of course, I want to rock ‘n‘ roll all night and party every day.

That's a job description for a wilderness gossip columnist.

Then I found out it was the dam removal party put on by the National Park Service.

Bummer.

In the course of my work I have been kicked out of Olympic National Park so many times I have a permanent stain on my trousers.

It's a bum rap.

In my own defense I can only say that no Olympic marmots have ever been harmed, electro-shocked or molested in the writing of this column. I’ve never transported Canadian fishers equipped with radio collars across county lines just to mess with the biologists tracking them. 

I have never been charged or convicted of impersonating an endangered species. 

I am a sensitive woodland creature trying to share my love of nature and the knowledge gained from 50 years of fishing. That is a blink of an eye in the life of a river but in that short amount of time, our rivers have been subjected to an environmental genocide that makes it seem unlikely the fish will survive another 50 years.

The Elwha dam removal project may be the biggest thing to hit Port Angeles since the coming of the railroad. Those were the good old days, when Port Angeles had a salmon fishing industry and a yearly salmon derby.

These days the salmon fishing industry has been replaced by the salmon restoration industry.

The dam removal celebrations will bring together celebrities, politicians and the best scientists money can buy in an attempt to restore the most pristine ecosystem in the continental United States. This is a risky undertaking where to quote another great American, former Vice President Dan Quayle, “If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

We are told that taking the dams out of the Elwha is a grand experiment since no one really knows what is going to happen to the sediments behind the dams or if the fish can still make it up the river.

The lower Elwha dam had a blowout shortly after it was built in 1913. They blasted 40,000 cubic yards of rock into the channel to plug the hole. It's still there. 

In the early '70s there was a landslide that blocked the Elwha up in Convolution Canyon. This is also called the Grand Canyon of the Elwha, located upstream from Hume's Ranch. The slide blocked the river and formed a small lake that was fantastic fishing until it was washed out by a flood.  Unfortunately this slide occurred deep within the National Park so there were no loggers to blame and it can happen again at any time.

The Elwha dam removal project is an experiment, like one of those old black and white horror movies where the scientists are out to lunch while the monster they created slowly comes back to life. 

It is a double blind study that will measure the unintended consequences of the placebo effect. It will test a theory that contends taking the dams out of the Elwha will bring the salmon back when rivers without dams don't have salmon either. I hope so.

We sincerely hope that the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe can do what no others have accomplished on the Olympic Peninsula, restore an historic run of fish on just one of our rivers.

We hope that despite the best efforts of scientists and politicians, salmon will be able to return to the Elwha anyway.

Until that happens it's too soon to party.