10 years ago this week — 2014

In 2013, Oregon’s timber harvest rose to 4.2 billion board feet, marking four consecutive years of increase from the recession low of 2.172 billion board feet in 2009 and the first time since 2006 that harvesting surpassed 4 billion board feet.

Clatsop County harvested the fifth most board feet of timber in Oregon, with more than 284 million board feet in 2013, based on the Scribner Log Rule, developed around 1846 to quantify timber volume in terms of the lumber it will create.

“This was the first harvest above 4 billion board feet in seven years and represents a 12% increase over the 2012 harvest of 3.75 board feet,” said Oregon Department of Forestry principal economist Brandon Kaetzel.

Approximately 49%, or 30.2 million acres, of Oregon is forested. Federal forestlands account for 60% of these forestlands; industrial forestlands for 19%; family forestland owners own 15%; state-owned forests comprise 3%; and all other forestland owners (counties, tribal, etc.) account for a combined 3% percent.

WARRENTON — Not many can say they’ve spent a night in the Fort Clatsop replica much like the Corps of Discovery would have in the original fort on those rainy winter nights from 1805 to 1806.

But by the end of this week, fourth- through sixth-graders can claim the experience as their own, albeit under warmer conditions.

The overnight stay at the fort is the culmination of a week of exploring the park’s landscape, keeping camp journals, boating on Coffenbury Lake and hiking the Fort to Sea Trail.

Lewis and Clark National Historical Park began holding its first of two summer camps this week. The Nature Adventure Camp is geared toward elementary schoolchildren, while the next week’s Nature Survival Camp welcomes seventh graders.

Each year, Pacific County South District Court clerks receive a couple of letters from drivers complaining about a ticket they got from a sheriff’s deputy. There might be a handful about the Washington State Patrol and the Long Beach Police Department. But every year, without fail, there are hundreds of letters about the tickets people get from rangers at Cape Disappointment State Park.

A rising tide of letters start coming in after Memorial Day, riding the first wave of summer visitors, and they don’t let up for the next four months.

The letters are, for the most part, confused out-of-town tourists who forgot their pass, bought the wrong pass or didn’t realize they needed to buy the Discover Pass, the annual or day-use pass required for access to state park and recreation lands since 2011. They pay the ticket or write a letter to the judge, buy a pass, move on.

The sounds of forges and metal striking metal clanged through town Saturday as local and regional metal artisans came out in force to support the new blacksmithing course at Clatsop Community College.

The event raised about $600, according to Dave Curl of Solstice Forge in Naselle, Washington.

“The event was a good collaboration between the artists, with a lot of good connections made with the community,” he said.

50 years ago — 1974

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Yocona returned to Astoria last week flying a broom from its rigging, signifying “a clean sweep” in training and competition in San Diego.

“My orders are to hoist it up and leave it there till it rots or blows away,” Cmdr. Robert Johnson says.

The clean sweep was the top overall award for excellence in a 2 1/2-week award-training exercise, during which the crew and ship were inspected an observed in operation.

They were graded on such skills as navigation, communication, weapons and seamanship, electronics and engineering. An excellent rating in any one area earns the ship an “E” to display on the area of the ship which won the rating.

But the overall rating wins a special insignia, which the crew will paint on the ship’s superstructure.

CANNON BEACH — “OK everyone. All aboard the Cannon Beach North Coast Limited now leaving on track nine for Haystack Rock and back.”

The three-car miniature train, packed with kids from five to 50, lurches forward out of the sand lot onto S. Hemlock Avenue.

With Uncle Jay as the engineer, Cannon Beach’s answer to the Cannonball Express snakes its way to the south of town onto the beach.

Uncle Jay Schwehr explains how his little train came to be.

“When the energy crisis came up I thought they needed something to promote Cannon Beach so I purchased this from a Jaycee organization in Portland,” he says.

“I bought it to use in all parades and whatnot,” says Schwehr. This past weekend the North Coast Limited got a full workout. Schwehr took it to Seaside Saturday for the Miss Oregon pageant parade, then Sunday he choo-chooed his way through Cannon Beach in the Sand Castle Parade.

JEWELL — Oregon Army National Guardsmen have a Jewell of a project.

More than 750 guardsmen will be training in Clatsop County for most of the next two weeks. More than 600 guardsmen stationed near Jewell began service projects today for the Oregon Department of Forestry and Oregon Wildlife Commission.

While the 606 men of the 1249th Combat Engineer Battalion undertake construction projects near Jewell, another 150 guardsmen who make up the 162nd Engineers from Astoria, Tillamook and St. Helens will be training at Camp Rilea.

The 162nd Engineers will train in such classes as demolition, mine warfare, building and dismantling bridges, field fortifications and bunkers and machine gun firing.

There are some things even a serious governmental body can’t take seriously.

For example, the Astoria City Council couldn’t resist having a little fun Monday night at the expense of the Clatsop Emergency Services Council, before rejecting a request for $356.40.

The Emergency Services Council wants the money to help pay for printing a brochure called “Your Plan for Survival,” which tells what to do in case of a major emergency.

“This is similar to many things that have been put out in the last 20 years,” remarked City Manager Dale Curry, once a civil defense director for a Midwest city.

It tells such things as how to build a bomb shelter, react to earthquakes and put out fires.

“Communication through the air and the newspapers at a time of crisis will take care of the situation in an emergency,” Curry said with a twinkling glance at the press table.

“You’d be better to buy 300 transistor radios and hand them out quickly when there’s an emergency,” Curry proposed.

75 years ago — 1949

It was 16 years ago this August that the first puff of smoke rose out of Gales Creek Canyon to signal the start of the great Tillamook fire.

In the next 11 days, fire roared through Oregon’s finest stand of remaining virgin timber and blackened about 300,000 acres.

For 10 days, 3,000 men grimly fought and contained the fire to 40,000 acres. Then within a space of 20 hours on Aug. 24 and Aug. 25, the fire “blew up” and roared over 27,000 additional acres.

Chickens went to roost as the dense smoke darkened the sky and ashes fell on ships 500 miles at sea.

More than 12,500,000,000 feet of green timber were destroyed — valued today at $100 million.

Today, in the heart of the vast Tillamook Burn, Gov. Douglas McKay formally launched a $10 million reforestation program for more than 725,000 acres of Oregon state forestlands. Much of the regeneration work will be done in the Tillamook Burn.

Astoria tuna fishermen, who were still in port today, were busily engaged in last-minute preparations as reports from boats at sea indicated the albacore were appearing in larger numbers over the weekend.

Fishermen and other sources from Astoria’s waterfront reported hearing radio reports that several boats had 100 of the fish aboard Sunday and one got 110.

The weekend catches are the first major takes reported of tuna this year, although a few were delivered to Astoria packers in the early part of last week.

Three carloads of wheat, the first grain to arrive for storage and shipment at the Astoria port terminals under the North Pacific Grain Growers Co. projects here, rolled into Astoria Tuesday afternoon on the SP&S train.

Barley is expected to start coming in by rail very soon, for holding at the grain elevator until ready for sea shipment.

City and school officials of Hammond were almost the only people to show interest in the fate of Fort Stevens military reservation at a public hearing conducted by assets administration officials here Tuesday afternoon.

E.B. Herron, an official from Seattle, Washington, who has charge of disposal of the 1,900-acre reservation, including post headquarters and several other buildings, had little in the way of suggestion for proper utilization of the area.

Herron said his office is still eager to get suggestions regarding use of the property and will await them until September, when procedure for disposal of the property will be started.

A full schedule of events including everything from P-51 maneuvers to crop-spraying demonstrations is planned for the “Clatsop Air Day” at the Clatsop County Airport Sunday from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m., according to Evelyn Whitmaker of the State Board of Aeronautics.