Back in the Good Ole' Days............................

California lumberjacks work on Redwoods. Thousands of tree rings in these ancient trees each over 1000+ years old or even much older..
such a shame - irreplaceable giants- national park treasures all gone but a few - what kind of men would do such a thing for over 100 years ---
Destroy something they cannot ever fix or replace for 2000 years?
It is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree living 1200–1800 years or more. ...An estimated 95% or more of the original old-growth redwood forest has been cut In 1850, old-growth redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres(8,100 acres by... 1968, by which time nearly 90% of the original redwood trees had been logged.

 

Wonder just how it burns??? Nice and slow, huh?

 

I can just imagine the "THUMP" when one of those hit the ground...........................I wanna see what the splitter looked like.........

 

Yeah, you could probably measure the landing impact on a Richter scale!!

 

Those logs in the last picture would scare my log splitter to death!

 

When I look at the pictures I always wonder about all the other wood that is left standing. Was redwood so desirable because of the properties of the wood itself, or was it just bigger is better mentality? I would think the logistics of getting that wood out would be staggering in the 1800s. I'd be going after those "measly" 3' DBH tress all day before trying to tackle one of the giants. Hell, today it would be a royal PITA dealing with those logs even with all our modern technologies and machines.

 

I can't imagine how physically and mentally tough those loggers had to be. Like RCBS says - why not pick on something a little smaller? Maybe they were paid by the tree and the boss marked the tree ?

 

There are slightly over 20 million btu in coastal redwood (per cord) about the same as white birch and cherry! compares to 26.5 for doug fir.

Just as any tree that is struck by lightening, it usually goes out.
The resistance to fires comes from the thickness of their bark-older tree, thicker bark.

Now it the redwood was struck by, lets say, a super cedar.....

 

We cannot just leave anything alone, no matter how magnificent, if there is a buck to be made. I was in California a while back and drove along the coast in the few remaining old growth Redwood stands. Magnificent is too understated. Also was on Vancouver Island and saw the valley of the giants Doug Firs. Thank God for John Muir and his legacy. We now mow down what is left of our forests after repeated over harvesting and then chew up our scrub forest for chips to make cheap construction sheathing. Not because its a good thing but - because we can. As an old forester who lived in the forests I remember what Canada's forests used to be. Its been a gradual change so few notice what is happening and there no little if any genuine concern. I have lobbied locally for specific protection areas but in the end to no avail. In our area an old growth over mature late stage maple/yellow birch/ hemlock stand that was beyond amazing was devastated over a two year period. The trees were 100 feet tall with a closed canopy. Like a cathedral underneath. All ages and a one of a kind stand like I had not seen before. The so called forest managers were polite and so forth but in the end it was cut heavily in what was termed a 'shelterwood cut.' Anyone who understands silviculture knows this is an oxymoron. I like progress but in some ways I prefer some of the things we had back in the day. Those Redwood pics speak volumes. Color me jaded!

 

The fact that pictures were taken proves they were doing something remarkable.
Pictures weren't invented when settlers first arrived on the east coast and large timber was common there as well

 

Good point. I wonder what a virgin stand of Eastern hardwoods looked like? We jest here sometimes that a squirrel in 1700 could cross our entire state without touching the ground.

 

What was remarkable about what they were doing? Are we to 'whack and stack' every tree just to have evidence in pictures that we can ... and then make a photo album? Please forgive me but I do not see a connection.

 

In my earlier post I mention just that ... there was until 5 years ago just such a hardwood forest here that the loggers had been drooling over it for decades and finally the stars aligned and ... now its but a memory no one can marvel at. I'd rather have a virgin forest here and there than a bunch of pictures.

 

I don't mean it was a "great thing" to cut down these trees.
You'd have to put yourself in the mindset of men conquering the west in the 1840's. they didn't have time to type comments on an internet forum

 

There is some debate that Native Americans used fire to change the landscape and the east coast forests weren't as untouched as we think, but surely there were some massive hardwood stands.
They knew that wild game prospered if the land was opened up

 

I lean towards conservation of our resources, but understand that we must also responsibly utilize them. The key word is responsibly. To me that means leaving some untouched stands for beauty, education and research no matter what their dollar value may be. Their intrinsic value should not be overlooked.

 

How many stick-built houses were built in all SF bay area (including Napa and other wine vallies) between 1860 and 1950?