Big Lonely Doug

Harley Rustad’s Big Lonely Doug is the story of one superlative tree spared from the saw by a forester who recognized its value. Later this tree was named Big Lonely Doug by members of the Ancient Forest Alliance, who hoped to use the 1,000-year-old Douglas fir to inspire a new initiative to preserve Vancouver Island’s remaining old growth forests.

Rustad covers the history of British colonial exploration, including the Scottish botanist named David Douglas. He also compares the development of timber extraction as the foundation of British Columbia’s economy and with the more recent growth of environmental activism trying to save isolated patches of virgin forest.

The author intends to give a complete picture of a complex situation without sentimentality. The reader understands from the start that Rustad sympathizes with the activists and treasures the ancient forests and giant trees. However, his treatment of the loggers is respectful. He represents the loggers’ sensibility as intimately knowledgeable about forests, and he accepts that trees are a resource to be harvested. Cutting down the forests provides jobs and supports communities. The corporate owners don’t get off so easily when Rustad reveals how local sawmills closed down while raw logs got exported and processed in Asia.

Reading about the virgin forests with giant, ancient Western red cedars, Douglas firs and Sitka spruce (Thuja plicata, Pseudotsuga menziesii and Picea sitchensis) made me nostalgic for the times in college when I hiked among equally giant and awe-inspiring redwoods on the Northern California coast. I’ve never understood why all the rare fragments of remaining old growth were not cherished by everyone and preserved in national parks. We know how to log sustainably without leaving a clear-cut wasteland behind, so why are clearcuts permitted?

Celebrity trees like Big Lonely Doug, saved by a logger, capture the public’s imagination. Activists learned over the decades how to harness that celebrity to generate support for increasingly protective logging regulations. And now ecotourism’s beneficial economic impact acts as a counterargument against the reasoning that logging equals jobs so logging must continue unchecked. Harley Rustad documents the story of one remarkable specimen while leaving readers feeling hopeful that ancient forests may finally gain some official appreciation and protection.

Published in the Leaflet for Scholars, July 2020, Vol. 7, Issue &.