On Day 2, 14 of us joined Joshua to take the field portion of the survey training in the proposed ‘Baker’s Dozen’ legacy timber sale in Port Angeles, WA. With Joshua’s help, we discovered an example of a rare plant community made up of Western Red Cedar / Grand Fir / Sword Fern (Thuja plicata – Abies grandis / Polystichum munitum). This plant community is considered globally critically imperiled (G1 conservation status)!

Joshua taught us how to do variable area plot sampling using a basal area factor (BAF) angle gauge to determine tree distribution and how to do point line intercept transect sampling for determining the makeup of the understory. Joshua also taught the group how to measure the diameter-at-breast-height (DBH) of trees using DBH tape.

Under DNR’s own policy and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) requirements, DNR cannot log rare plant communities. But, DNR often still includes these protected areas in timber sales. It’s been up to citizen surveyors to find these special places and bring them to DNR’s attention. Joshua and other experienced surveyors have found rare plant communities and as a result have saved several legacy forests in Clallam County, including Power Station, TCB23 and the legacy portion of ‘Dungeness and Dragons’. Our goal is to increase the number of local community members that can act as citizen surveyors, in order to discover and save these rare plant communities before they are wiped out by logging!

Photos by Scott McGee / Forest2Sea.com

Guest Post by Annie Hartnett.

They gathered at the locked gate of a logging road outside Port Angeles, Washington. While most were local, some had traveled from as far away as Seattle and Olympia. They wore hiking gear, backpacks, flannels and fleeces, puffy jackets, concert t-shirts, jeans, and beanies in muted colors. Many wore either masks or bandanas to cover their features. Facing off against them on the other side of the locked gate stood three DNR police officers, stances wide, their vehicles lined up behind. They warned the group that anyone who breached their police line would be arrested for trespassing. After a brief standoff and despite the warning, protestors began to filter over, under, and around the gate. They were intent on ascending the logging road to where a group calling themselves the Olympic Forest Defenders had erected a barricade to prevent logging crews from clear-cutting the roughly 85 acres of older growth forest beyond. Attached to the barricade was a platform mounted 80 to 100 feet (or 8 to 10 stories) up a towering Grand Fir, and upon the platform sat a 25-year-old named Fable.

 Photo credit: @sacredactionnorthwest

Fable’s 4’ x 8’ platform is attached by a pulley system to a barricade that blocks access to three units of the “Parched” timber sale. If the barricade is removed, the platform will crash to the ground, killing Fable. It is a strange and precarious feat of endurance and idealism undertaken by a young person who is sometimes referred to as “Steve Upthetree,” a play on the name of Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands, Dave Upthegrove, who has so far refused to cancel the “Parched” timber sale despite appeals from members of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, the city of Port Angeles, and various environmental groups. And it is to Upthegrove and the Washington Department of Natural Resources more generally that Fable and the Olympic Forest Defenders have issued three demands:

1. immediate cancellation of the “Parched” Timber Sale,
2. a pause on all logging in the Elwha watershed, and
3. a permanent ban on logging the remaining mature forests in Western Washington.

History

Tree-sitting as a form of civil disobedience to stop logging, mountain top removal, and the construction of oil pipelines has a relatively short history. The first documented treesit took place in New Zealand in 1978 and was intended to stop logging of the Pureora Forest, home to sacred totara trees and rare kōkako birds. In this first sit, activists lived in the tree canopy for about a week, succeeding in halting the logging of the forest. Subsequently, old growth forest protectors in the Pacific Northwest adopted and expanded the tactic by building platforms and setting up permanent encampments in the tree canopy, gambling that loggers and authorities would not intentionally harm them. Tree-sitting did not become widely known, however, until 1997 when Julia Butterfly Hill, age 23, climbed a thousand-year-old Redwood in California, where she lived for 738 days despite being tossed by fierce windstorms, harassed by loggers, and chilled by the coldest winter in California’s history. The story gained international media attention, and the tree that Hill mounted her protest in, known as Luna, was spared. Not all treesits have been so successful. Many sitters have been arrested and charged, and three have fallen to their deaths.

In some circles, treesitters and their supporters are considered misguided, radical, and even dangerous. In others, the level of commitment, risk, and sacrifice involved bestows on the sitter the mystique of a modern-day saint. In fact, when I saw Fable’s platform, I thought immediately of St. Simeon the Stylite and of other figures from mythology and folk tales.

Photo by Forest2Sea Photography

Mythology and Folklore

Treesits are a compelling form of civil disobedience because they are archetypal. The forest setting itself is the stuff of fairy tales—think Little Red Riding Hood. In fact, the forest is one of the most common fairy and folk tale settings, a wild and mysterious place where both danger and transformation await. In Western Washington where the treesit is located, indigenous people of speak of se’sxac, commonly known as Sasquatch, a large human-like creature believed to frequent remote forests. In Greek mythology, dryads were nature spirits who lived in trees and often took the form of a beautiful young woman. In Japan, tree spirits called Kodama are said to live in old trees in the deep forest. Kodama bless and steward the land, their life force bound together with the life of the trees they inhabit. If a Kodama dies, its host tree cannot survive and vice versa. In Japanese folklore, cutting down an ancient tree is a sin that calls down a powerful curse on the entire community. Likewise, Slavic mythology tells stories of a forest spirit named Leshy, a shape-shifter and trickster who protects and defends the forest. And Fable, too, is suitably archetypal, identifiable as either the Outlaw, a rebel bent on revolutionary change, or potentially the Hero, someone who makes a journey, faces trials, and achieves a goal or returns with a boon.

Image Credit: By Н. Н. Брут, Magazine «Leshy», Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15825323

Pilgrimage

Here in the United States where Christianity predominates, treesits recall sacrifices made by hermits, saints, and mystics like St. Simeon. A devout follower of Jesus, St. Simeon was a Syrian Christian hermit who practiced his faith by living atop high pillars. Having been kicked out of a monastery due to his extreme asceticism, Simeon lived on his last and final 50-foot pillar home for 37 years. Despite the fact that Simeon made every effort to avoid people, pilgrims sought him out for prayer, healing, and spiritual advice, bringing offerings of food and other necessities to the hermit. Compare this to the groups of supporters making pilgrimages to the treesit. Mostly young, they carry backpacks stuffed with supplies and signs that announce their ideology: Defend the Elwha Forest, Protect Elwha Watershed, Rage for the Forest, Upthegrove Don’t Cut the Grove, We Are All One. They gather at the logging road gate to pray, sing songs, and chant, and then some undertake the 3-4 mile hike up around 1,000 feet of elevation to approach the sitter. Once there, they wave and shout encouragement. Some stay to camp, ensuring support is always available should the sitter need assistance. Donations to the effort have included over 20K in cash; dried beans; gallon jugs of water; braids of sweetgrass; zines and books; homemade soup, bone broth, and bread; solar powered batteries and lanterns; fresh fruits and vegetables; and art supplies.

Purpose

Why go to all this trouble? Why risk arrest and, in the case of the sitter, death? I believe it is because the treesit offers a focal point for processing and potentially assuaging the guilt and anxiety many people feel about the climate crisis, as well as the opportunity to be a part of something larger and of existential significance. Forests capture large amounts of carbon–especially rainforests, which are routinely referred to as “the lungs of the planet.” The forests in Clallam County where the treesit is taking place, are classified as temperate rainforests. Of these rainforests, the legacy (naturally-regrown and biodiverse older forests) sequester significantly more carbon than plantation forests and more effectively reduce the risk of wildfire and soil erosion. Due to the very real threat of climate collapse and mass extinction, the effort to save one forest ultimately becomes an effort to save all forests—one at a time—and in turn to save humanity and all the other species with whom we share this planet.

Thus, the effort to save the “Parched” timber sale feeds into the battle for a livable planet being waged across the world from the temperate rainforests here in the Pacific Northwest to the Amazon to the boreal forests of Alaska and Canada. And as the Bible and myths and folktales from around the world demonstrate, human efforts to understand the world and find meaning and purpose are best conveyed through story. Like most myths and folktales, Fable’s story is a salvation story. What will the moral be? Although we don’t yet know how the story will end, it is clear that Fable and the Olympic Forest Defenders hope for a better future and are taking bold action to ensure it. At a time when so many are gripped by despair or have sunk into apathy, that is something to celebrate.

 Photo credit: @sacredactionnorthwest

To learn more or to donate to the Olympic Forest Defenders, go to this link: https://linktr.ee/olympicforestdefenders

SOURCES:

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/oddities/a-field-guide-to-washingtons-mysterious-monstrous-cryptids/

https://www.bfro.net/legends/salish.htm

https://elwhalegacyforests.org/parched/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_sitting

https://acoel.org/an-unexpected-journey-can-tree-sitting-drive-policy/

https://www.patagonia.com/stories/why-we-sit-in-trees/story-90685.html

https://yokai.com/kodama/?srsltid=AfmBOopJW0IZis4vgJOVtqkJZdOiSBWcG9nAlhCK7s_D8ohOcej2Chct

https://hyakumonogatari.com/2012/08/05/kodama-the-tree-spirit/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/leshy

Photos by Scott & Carolita McGee / Forest2Sea.com

Photos from the 2025 Equinox and International Day of Forests Indigenous Cinema Climate Showcase at Peninsula College Theater and Field Arts & Events Hall, Port Angeles WA

Photos by Lauren Beard

Photos from the 2025 World Water Day Water Blessing Ceremony with S’Klallam and Lummi tribal citizens at Hollywood Beach, and march to Pebble Beach, Port Angeles, WA

Photos by Scott McGee / Forest2Sea.com

Photo from the 2025 Community Hike in the former Power Plant timber sale to the former Lower Elwha Dam Site, Port Angeles, WA

Photo by Nina Sarmiento / Magic Forest Tours

Photos from the 2025 Community Hike through the Doc Holliday timber sale at Sadie Creek Recreation Area

Photos by Scott & Carolita McGee / Forest2Sea.com

Thursday March 20, 2025 – Spring Equinox ~ Theme: Renewal & Rebirth

Peninsula College Theater – Little Theater (PUB) – 1502 East Lauridsen Boulevard, Port Angeles WA

• 5:00 PM – Indigenous Cinema Climate Showcase ~ 6-films
• 6:15 PM – Filmmaker Q & A

Friday March 21, 2025 – International Day of Forests ~ Theme: Forests and Food

Indigenous Cinema Climate Showcase
Field Arts & Events Hall • 201 W Front St., Port Angeles WA

• 6:30 PM  Doors Open   
• 7:00 PM    Indigenous Climate Cinema Showcase
• 8:15 PM Filmmaker Q & A

Saturday March 22, 2025 – World Water Day ~ Theme: Glacier Preservation

• 11:00 AM Opening & Introductions ~ Hollywood Beach, Port Angeles WA
  Theme:  Interconnectivity with the forests, 
  Sacred Relationship w/Elwha River
• 11:30 AM Assemble Honorary Guests & Officiants
• 12:00 PM Water Blessing Ceremony
• 1:00 PM Peaceful Rally at the 101 Highway & Pebble Beach
• 2:00 PM Guided Forest Hikes
  Doc Holliday – Sadie Creek
  Power Plant – Elwha Lower Dam – Elwha River Dam Hike (Rain or Shine) – Meet at Colville MTB Trails Parking area

6 short films in 67 minutes, followed by Q&A with the filmmakers and film stars!

Call of the Orcas

Exploring the effort to recover endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales of the Pacific NW, researcher Ken Balcomb’s work over 50 years helped people see the Orcas as individuals, in family groups and led to a subspecies listing under the US Endangered Species Act.  

Directed by:  Jessica Plumb, 2023

Runtime:  10 minutes    |    Language:  English    |    Country:  United States

Climate Diaries:  Heather’s Story

Follows female geoduck diver Heather Purser of  the Suquamish tribe as she goes underwater exploring the personal, spiritual and economic impacts of the climate emergency in the Salish Sea.  

Directed by: Ali Scattergood & Berit Anderson, 2022

Runtime:  9 minutes    |    Language:  English    |    Country:  United States

Líť’sit yiká· xá·bil-ts:  Quillayute River Restoration

The Quileute Tribe of Washington State is on a mission to restore the river they depend on for their livelihoods, culture, and identity.  Directed by:  Jennifer Moslemi & Marita Davison, 2024

Runtime:  6 minutes    |    Language:  English    |    Country:  United States

Last Stand: Saving the Elwha River’s Legacy Forests

When an ecologically sensitive forest in the Elwha River Watershed was identified for harvest, the Earth Law Center, Keystone Species Alliance, and Center for Whale Research began using all legal means to halt the impending clear-cut.  Directed by:  Dan Herz, 2024

Runtime:  23 minutes    |    Language:  English    |    Country:  United States

All Our Relations:  Tribute to Orcas

This tribute to the Orcas is a moving 7-minute film drawing on footage from this event and other interviews.  It delivers powerful, somber and urgent narratives from regional Indigenous leaders.  Tribute to the Orca highlights Indigenous communities’ ancient kinship with orcas and salmon, and the importance of reciprocity in our relationship with our caretaker: Mother Nature.  This short film includes a special focus on the Southern Resident orcas whose survival, like the survival of Indigenous lifeways here in the Pacific Northwest, depends on scha’enexw (the Salmon People).  2024

Runtime:  7 minutes    |    Language:  English    |    Country:  United States

Facing the Storm:  An Indigenous Response to Climate Change

An episodic series highlighting Climate Justice leaders in the indigenous community who have been fighting to protect Mother Earth since time immemorial.  Directed by: Mikayla Gingrey, 2024

Runtime:  12 minutes    |    Language:  English    |    Country:  United States

Video of the event by John Gussman with Doubleclick Productions on Vimeo:

Video of the ceremony by John Gussman with Doubleclick Productions on Vimeo:

Photo gallery:

All images are ©Scott F McGee/Forest2Sea unless otherwise noted. Please contact us if you’d like to use any of these images to help save our legacy forests!

Units 1, 2 and 3 are next to the Sadie Creek Campground, which is home to an OHV trail system for bikes, motorbikes, ATVs and small 4x4s. Some of the trails go through the Doc Holliday timber sale.

Units 4 and 6 require a bit of hiking to get to, while Unit 5 is the largest and most spectacular forest, and is accessible from Highway 112. It is a complex forest with no trails, see the main page for Doc Holliday for photos of Unit 5 and a map of the various units.

If you’d like to join us on future community hikes in Clallam County and get involved, make sure to sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of the page!

This is such a beautiful portrayal of the pain and the value of this time and work. We need to realize that beyond what seems like one simple thing is ‘death by a thousand cuts’. May it go far and wide to further help people connect the dots that everything is sacred and has it’s important place in the tapestry of Life.

Thank you to those who shoot high for change…it happened, this is a part of it!

-Mary Minton