Rainforest Justice

[The plot and characters in this story are fictional. There is no Juneau Paper Company or Arctic Cape Native Corporation. However, although the exact numbers and definitions may vary depending on which agency you ask, the facts stated here about Tongass National Forest logging are true, as corroborated by SEACC (Southeast Alaska Conservation Council), National Geographic magazine (July 2007 issue), and US Forest Service publications. See also my article “Timber Wars in the Tongass” (E Magazine, July, 1997).

The criminal justice scenario portrayed is also exactly the way it happens all too often in real life, as any criminal defense lawyer (or prosecutor, if they are being honest) can tell you, and as I personally experienced in my years as an attorney.]

At the north end of Ketchikan, Alaska, a gravel road snakes and rises through the shredded remains of the Tongass National Forest, in the largest remaining temperate rainforest in the world. A lone car with a kayak strapped to the roof dodges the ruts and loose stones. The windshield darkens as needled boughs filter a dance of sunlight through the trees. The passengers bump and slide in their seats in a chaotic rhythm eerily choreographed with the crunch and snap of gravel beneath the tires. For several minutes they continue through the mossy green tunnel. Then suddenly the world transforms. They are slammed by the bright open sunlight of a clearcut that stretches to the ridge line. Stumps and tree rubble litter the landscape seemingly to the horizon. The young man in the passenger seat straightens up and holds his breath, his eyes wide in horror. Juniper Rose looks over with a small smile. She slaloms some potholes, sending her companion against the door.

“This all belongs to Arctic Cape; that’s our native corporation,” she says, continuing the history lesson she had started when they left town. “In 1971, a federal Native Claims Act gave native corporations first pick out of Alaska’s national forests. I was only 8 then, but I remember my father and the others talking about what they should take.  I think a lot of people assumed they would choose historic tribal lands. But it was their first rush of power after all those years of being cast out, and they wanted their birthright. Who could blame them? They were no fools; they chose the best timber, the oldest trees.”

“I remember walking through the forest with my grandfather. There was so much of it, it was everywhere, it was impossible to imagine that it could ever be gone. But the money won, and they began cutting them down and selling them to Japan as fast as they could. We were so happy. Everyone got new cars and had parties. I shouldn’t complain, it paid for my college education.”

The car galumphed through a pothole. “Not everyone is so happy now. The biggest trees in the tribal forests are almost all gone. My grandfather and I have to go far now to find the big old ones.  He shakes his head and says, ‘it went so fast.'” Juniper blows a sad sigh lightly through her lips, staring blankly for a second forgetting to breathe, but never taking her eyes from the road. Then it is over, and with a deep inhale she straightens her back and continues to drive, perhaps with a bit more determination in her gaze.

Eventually the clearcut ends and the forest closes back around them. They ride slowly in silence, a mossy carpet undulating from the rutted road into the shaded depths between the trees, covering frost-heaved rocks and rotting treefalls. Juniper’s passenger, Jerry, is surprised at how far he can see through the open understory, so different than the impermeable vines and brush of his native Florida.

After a time, an overgrown turnoff exposes a small lake. Juniper pulls off the road, turns off the car, and sits for a minute enjoying the quiet of the insects buzzing and chirping in the breeze. “Here’s our put-in,” she smiles at Jerry. They gaze over the water, surrounded by woodlands so thick with life, exhaling in unconscious relief as the shocking contrast to the clearcut devastation sinks in. They get out and move swiftly and busily about the business of unloading the kayak and gear.

“This is where Arctic Cape land ends and the National Forest begins,” Juniper says.  They place the boat at water’s edge. Jerry gets in front, then pushes off with his paddle to swivel the bow out until only the stern remains grounded. Juniper lifts the stern off the rock and walks it in ankle-deep. Steadying the boat with one hand and leaning on her paddle for balance with the other, she slides into her own spray skirt, settling and arranging her day bags in her lap and the elastic straps on the deck. “Ready?” she says, and with a nod from Jerry, she pushes her paddle tip into the rocky bottom, swooshing them into the smooth frigid water.

No one ever paddles off the shore; just a push, a glide, a moment of silence, buoyed by the water, feeling your balance; suddenly you are free, floating, on your own. It is a moment to savor.

They paddle quietly out into the lake. As the shoreline fades behind them, rising green hillsides emerge above the tree tops. In the far distance, from beyond the surrounding ridge lines, glimpses of snowy mountain peaks look down upon their domain. Juniper and Jerry rest their paddles to glide briefly, then sit in silence to soak in the breathtaking peace and majesty of this their personal amphitheater. So huge to the distant peaks, yet so small and shrinking a part of the planet’s natural world.

They paddle some more, watching for wildlife. Juniper points to a Great Blue Heron landing on a low branch, and then to a black cormorant standing on a log, wings raised and widespread for drying in the sun and breeze. At Juniper’s urging, Jerry points his binoculars to a water disturbance near the shore. “River otters,” Juniper says. “God I love them.” They sit for a minute more, then move on, paddling and gliding, scanning the shore with their binoculars. A zephyr circles and settles on the dark water, carrying an echo of bird song. “You can tell this is a rain-fed lake. If it was glacial runoff, it would be green from the rock flour.” A minute later, “See those white spots in the tree tops on the far shore?  Those are bald eagles.”

Juniper steers them towards a mossy opening in the understory. As they approach the shore, the boat glides up on to the shallow gravel of the shoreline. Juniper swings the stern until it scrapes bottom, and steps right into the cold water, unmindful in her rugged Gore‑Tex, then thoughtfully pulls the bow up onto dry land for her less adventurous companion in his new trail boots.  She ties off the bow, they get in their hiking gear, and start down a barely discernible pine needle path. Their muffled footfalls pass feathery cedar boughs near the water, then uphill into the darkness and quiet of the spruce and hemlock caverns beyond. Trunks rise like giant stalagmites. Thick green moss covers every surface like fur, like frozen rain after a winter ice storm, yet soft and alive, absorbing all sound.

No one speaks; there is no need. Ears pounding, breath shallow, eyes moving, Juniper and her tiptoeing friend have no will to disturb the ancient spirits in their hoary abode.  Only Juniper’s voice breaks the silence with the occasional “It’s okay bears, it’s only us!” shouted before rounding a bend. Surprising a grizzly could be fatal. This is what they have come to see; the cathedral forest of legend. They will follow the bear trails. They will make love on the mossy carpet. They will be gentle and affectionate and polite. It will be like making love in a church.

After a time, they sit up and snuggle, backs against ancient bark, treasuring the spectacle before them. “We’re lucky to be here,” Juniper says with something between excitement and despair. “Some of these trees are 1,000 years old. They get 200 feet tall and 10 feet across. The big old ones are the heart of the ecosystem — and the most valuable timber. Over a million acres of the original Tongass forest have already been clearcut, including almost half of the really big old ones. National Geographic reported estimates that 90% of the biggest — the ones over 10 feet across — are gone. Logged out of our supposedly National Forests. Where not only don’t the taxpayers get the profits, but we’ve paid millions to build their logging roads for them. And they haven’t stopped cutting yet.”

“Most people think that being in a National Forest means that the forest is protected. What a joke. National Forests were created for forestry, meaning the timber industry, not for forest ecosystems or habitat. Even now, most of the big stuff left is confined to some northern islands and places too steep or inaccessible for logging. It’s hard to find these babies, and it’s going to get harder.”

Tomorrow the work will begin.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

When Juniper gets home, Jerry is hovering busily at her printer. “Hey!” she says.  “What are you up to?”

Jerry looks up startled, and puts on a big smile. “Look what I did.” A button on his shirt proclaims, “Juneau Paper Company is killing your ancient forest.” He hands Juniper a leaflet from the top of a big stack. Large red letters read, “See the clearcuts? That’s American National Forest that Juneau Paper Company is selling to Japan….”

“What are you going to do with these?”

“Hit ’em where they live!  Go to the belly of the beast!”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m going down to the docks and handing these out to the cruise ship passengers when they get off the boat.”

The exuberance of youthful outrage is a rare and beautiful thing, not to be trod upon lightly. Juniper watches more than she listens as the young man paces her kitchen, railing about what would happen “if the people only knew.” It was just this passion for discovery and wonder that first drew her to Jerry when he was an eager undergraduate in the botany class she taught as a graduate student.

A smile dawns at the recollection of her own childhood playing in the old forest with her grandfather. As a tribal elder he knew lots of stories about hunting and trapping and living with the trees. Some of the stories were scary, and Juniper thinks to herself that maybe that is where she got her first respect for the magic of the forest. Her grandfather always talked about the forest as if it were a character in the story, with a life and power all its own. It was her secret place, and she gave names to the giant mushrooms and dead logs with their gnarly faces.

Her smile fades as she remembers coming home from college and finding her secret place gone. On that day the trees and plants in the forest changed forever from her playmates to her children. They were home and family to her people for 10,000 years, and she could no more abandon them than abandon her grandfather. A clearcut ancient forest was desecration of art.  The sacking of Rome. The burning of Cleopatra’s Scrolls.  How could humans have evolved with no sense of history? It seemed impossible that there would not be any genetic survival value in caring about future generations, but here it was, the human trademark: Mine. Today. Period.  Symbolized by the 10-foot tree stump.

Jerry is busy energetically outlining his plans for exposing the fiends. “Just wait until the tourists start complaining about those clearcuts. Imagine if we got the local tourist industry to fight the logging mills! People come here to see the forest-covered mountains. If people out there learn about how they’re chopping it all down to send to Japan, tourism will have to help us fight to save it!  We’ll turn their own capitalism against them!”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Juniper wants to tell him. “They’re not going to let you tell anyone anything, and even if you did, they wouldn’t care. They keep a veneer of forest in sight of the cruise ships, then over the first ridge it’s desolation row. Rainforest destruction has been in every newspaper and magazine since that famous Time cover story in 1970, and no amount of publicity has ever slowed the world-wide destruction of old growth for a minute. After that story, old growth logging actually increased for over 20 years. Big money is above public opinion because people are so easy to pacify with lies and distract with fear. Fear of communism, or drugs, or terrorism.  The economy will crash if we don’t cater to industry. It’s all bullshit, but it works, and it always has worked.  The best we can do is try to enjoy it while we can.”

That’s what Juniper wants to tell Jerry. But she doesn’t. Let someone else tell him.  Maybe it’s better if he never learns. What’s worse, a life of anger with hope, or a life of serenity in acceptance? I’m a lover, not a fighter, she thinks. Let him decide for himself. Jerry looks up at her expectantly. “Well,” she says, “do us both a favor and try not to tell them where you are staying when they arrest you.”

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

“Lieutenant, it’s Art Young from the Visitor’s Bureau. Seems we got some kid passing out leaflets on the cruise dock. Telling everyone about how Juneau Paper Company is killing all the eagles.”

“I’ll take it here.” Lieutenant Walker Wesley, just up from the academy, liked Ketchikan.  With one main road 30 miles long ending in mountains on both ends, and no way out except by boat — even the air strip was across the channel — most crimes were of alcohol or of passion, and car theft was practically unknown. Folks tended to stay polite; hell, with so many having guns, they had to. But he hated local politics. Timber and tourism. Both thought the town couldn’t live without them. And both thought the purpose of the law was to make their lives easier.

Wesley takes the call from the KVB man. “Well, is he blocking anyone, or harassing anyone?”

“No, actually, I believe he is being pretty polite. Unless you call talking to people harassment.”

“Well then, it’s a public dock, and he’s allowed to talk to people and hand out his leaflets.  It’s in the constitution. Right. Well, you let me know if he starts bothering anyone.”

Two minutes later the phone rings again. “Lieutenant, it’s Trevor Whiting, the public relations man from Juneau Paper Company on the line.” Lt. Wesley tells Trevor the same thing he told Art Young.

“Damn it, Lieutenant, we’ve got lobbying going on in Washington right now. The last thing we need is a bunch of tourists calling up.”

“Sorry, Mr. Whiting, the law’s the law.”

“Would you mind putting me through to the captain?” With a silent shake of his head, Wesley does as he is told. At least he could pass the political shit up the line.

“Captain Steuber here. Uh huh. I see. Don’t worry Trevor, we’ll take care of it.” Unlike Lieutenant Wesley, the captain likes local politics. Keeping the city commissioners and their friends happy is what has kept him his job for these 14 years.  He gets on the intercom and calls in Hike Conover.  Hike Conover played center in front of Steuber at Ketchikan High School and still runs interference for him as the highest-paid sergeant on the force. “Some wise‑ass kid is handing out pamphlets about JPC on the cruise dock. KVB and JPC don’t like it. If he’s breaking one comma in the code book, I want him in here.”

“Don’t worry, sir.”

“And Sergeant,” the captain pauses, “make sure you don’t violate anyone’s constitutional rights, now, understand?”

The sergeant smiles.  “Yes, sir.”

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

“Yes, ma’am, both the wolf and the goshawk are endangered in the Tongass now because of the amount of logging they have allowed in the National Forest, and they’re still selling the last remaining biggest and oldest trees for the cheapest prices in the country.” Jerry’s audience departs suddenly as Sgt. Conover approaches.

“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave, son.”

“Why?  Can’t I stand here and talk to people?”

“Well, for starters, you’re picketing without a permit.”

“I’m not picketing.”

“That big badge you’re wearing qualifies as a sign, and so you’re picketing, and you need a permit for that.”

“Well, how do I get a permit?”

“I believe there’s a procedure for applying with the City Manager, but then I’m not allowed to give you legal advice.”

Jerry takes off his badge and sticks it in his bag of leaflets.  “Okay, I don’t have a sign.  Can I talk to people, now?”

Sgt. Conover looks over his shoulder and smiles at no one in particular.  “Looks like we got ourselves a wise guy.”  He turns back to Jerry. “Boy, I’m not gonna let you stand here and bother these tourists.  They pay good money to enjoy this fine town.”

“I’m not bothering them, I’m talking to them.”

“This is your last warning.  If I see you bothering anyone, I’m gonna have to arrest you.”

The sergeant walks away. He nods briefly to two burly looking men who have been standing nearby.  As Jerry starts for a group of tourists, the two men edge closer.

“Whatcha got there?” one of the men says casually as the other reaches for his bag of leaflets. A brief flurry of grabbing and jostling later, and the bag’s contents are on the ground.  The men back off and glare, daring a reprisal.

From behind Jerry, a vice clamps his arms. “Hey, what are you doing?” Jerry yells.

“I told you not to bother anyone, and now you’re under arrest.” Sergeant Conover’s voice, close to his ear.

“Arrest!? For what?”

“For littering and assault.”

“What???  Those guys attacked me!”

“It looked to me like you got mad when those fine gentlemen wouldn’t talk to you, so you swung your bag at them and that stuff fell out. And there it is, right on the ground. Now you’re under arrest.” Jerry tries to pull away. The sergeant grabs him hard, twisting his arms even more. “Go ahead and fight me, boy, I wouldn’t like nothing better than to give you something to remember your little stay with us by.” Jerry freezes, finally silent, and Sgt. Conover handcuffs him and takes him away.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

The next morning the Public Defender visits the cell of one unhappy camper. “Thank god, someone sensible to talk to. I’ve had no food, no blanket, no sleep, and had to listen to those drunks screaming all night. I can’t bend my arms, and they didn’t even give me a phone call.  And I didn’t even do anything wrong. What’s going on around here?”

“Sit down.  Let me see that.”  The PD, a young man in a tie and a blond crew cut, looks at Jerry’s arms. “You’ll be alright. We have a first appearance in fifteen minutes, so I think we ought to talk about your charges. You’re charged with assault, battery, littering, and blocking pedestrian right of way on a public thoroughfare.”

“What?  That’s crazy!  We’ll just tell them what happened, and they’ll see that I didn’t do anything.  I’ve got it all figured out. First we ask them where we were standing, and which way I was facing…”

The PD interrupts. “No, no, no, forget all that, you don’t understand. They’re going to testify that you yelled at them and pushed them and hit them with your bag.”

“But they can’t say that, it’s not true!  That’s perjury!”

The PD laughs. “They’ve signed statements. You have two foremen from the mill and a police officer as witnesses.  Believe me, that’s how they’ll testify. You go in there and try to cross examine them, you’ll lose.”

“But lots of people on the dock must have seen what happened. We’ll prove it’s a lie.”

“If anyone saw anything, they are long gone on their cruise ships. It would take you weeks just to get the passenger lists, if you could get them at all. There is a photo of the leaflets on the ground, with you next to them, glaring at the foremen, and several tourist bureau workers saw you trying to give them to people. I hate to say it, but to them you are just another crazy radical, and I doubt you’ll find a judge or a jury in this town that’ll listen to you for one minute.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“It gets worse. You’re also charged with resisting arrest with violence; that’s a 5-year felony.”

“What???”

“Says here you pushed Sgt. Conover and tried to run away when he went to put hand cuffs on you.”

“That’s crazy! I wasn’t doing anything wrong and he started twisting my arms. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he’d love to beat me up. And I get arrested for that?? HE should be the one arrested!”

“If you make any physical movement against an officer when he is trying to arrest you it’s a felony. That’s the law.”

“Five years? They can’t do that. I’m innocent. Don’t I get a trial?”

“Well, it’s your word against a police officer and two respected members of the community. And the judge always believes the police officer. Are you sure you want a trial?”

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

“Listen, let me tell you how it works.” Through a haze of disbelief, Jerry barely heard his Public Defender’s voice. “When the police pull some chincy little half‑assed arrest, they always throw in a resisting arrest charge. Then they offer to drop the felony in return for a plea to one of the minor charges, and a quick release from jail. They know you have to take it, since it’s your word against theirs, and your alternative is sitting in jail until you raise bond, and then risking a trial you could easily lose. This way they get you out of their hair, don’t have a bad arrest on their record, and can’t be sued for roughing you up.” Pause. “I don’t like it any better than you do, and you have the right to a trial if you want one, but unless you’ve got a rich daddy who can import a bunch of private investigators from Seattle, I can’t promise you a very good chance of winning.”

“So I have to say I did something I didn’t do?  I can’t do that, I’d be lying.”

“Not only that, but you have to get out of town.”

“What! Is that legal?”

“No, it’s not. They won’t put it on the record. But if we don’t promise them that you’re leaving town, they won’t make the plea offer. And if those cops see you, you can bet they’ll find a reason to arrest you again, and next time they’ll leave you in jail for a while.” Pause. “So you just let me know what you want to do.”

*    *    *    *    *    *

“Now let me see if I understand this correctly, Judge. They take a beautiful forest coastline, full of seals and eagles and waterfalls. Then they cut down the trees, bulldoze the mountainside, pour about a million tons of concrete and steel and asphalt over the whole thing for piers and roads and buildings, and run car fumes and diesel fuel over it for 50 years, and then they arrest ME for littering for throwing paper on the ground??? The place has already been trashed; that little piece of paper isn’t gonna change that! But that doesn’t matter because I’m innocent, Judge; I didn’t throw any paper anywhere. Those two thugs from the paper mill grabbed my leaflets, and then that Sergeant twisted my arm and threatened to beat my brains out, just for talking to people, and called it resisting arrest. And now my lawyer tells me that if I don’t plead guilty and leave town, I’ll get held in jail and prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison, and there’s nothing I can do about it because in the courtroom everyone always believes whatever the police say. Sound familiar, Judge? It does to me, because that’s the way they always told us it was in Russia. ‘Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Russia?’ That’s what they told us in grade school. ‘Look how lucky we are we don’t live in Russia,’ they said. ‘In Russia, they arrest anyone they want to for no reason, and have a make-believe trial where they make them confess to crimes against the state, just because they want to shut them up and don’t like the way they think. And if they don’t shut up, they send them to Siberia.’ Sound familiar, Judge?  I’m SURE GLAD I’m not in Russia, Judge.” Jerry sits down.

“Feel better now?” Juniper says from her kitchen chair where she has been watching the performance.

“That’s what I should have said.”

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

Hidden by the midnight breeze, a kayak slips silently across Ketchikan Inlet. The lone paddler broods with dark intensity over the history of this place, its future, and most of all, its present. Piercing eyes scan for leathery humpbacks against the gloom. First one appears, then another, then another, until the hazy starlit horizon is filled with rolling mounds of sunken monsters.  Sitka spruce, red cedar, western hemlock, the pride of the ancient forest, grandfathers stripped from the reaches of the realms they had ruled for a thousand years. Their homes ravaged, left in rubble; their children slashed and scattered; their once proud bodies now stacked and chained in floating bundles to be sawed and chipped and pulped, nameless morsels sacrificed to the insatiable gluttony of the corporate stockholder.

“We will not go quietly, my friend.” With one last kiss on the rough cheek of the bark‑shrouded corpse, the paddler pulls out a cordless drill and makes the first long, thin pilot hole. A ten-inch porcelain rod, impervious to metal detectors, is tapped snugly home, deep into the ageless rings. The operators in the sawmill will not see it coming as they sit behind safety glass in steel booths, running their laser‑guided assembly line; no one will be hurt. But the teeth of the sawmill blade will know, and will never eat again. A dab of brown caulk and piece of bark to hide the incision complete the operation. And Juniper Rose, shivering but not cold, glides on to place the next spike.

© 2024 by Henry Lee Morgenstern