Northern Woodlands

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The World Without Us

Written by award-winning science journalist Alan Weisman, The World Without Us is an imaginative blend of science and fiction. One early reviewer dubbed it “an audacious intellectual adventure.” Anyone who reads this book in the usual sequence, from beginning to end, might be suspicious of its scientific validity. I recommend reading the Acknowledgments at the end of the book first. The amazing array of people and sites Weisman visited throughout the world is convincing evidence of the audacious journalism and sound science behind his remarkable adventure

Weisman’s thesis is simple. Most of us, he claims, have an “obstinate reluctance” to believe that our world could be headed toward a grim and catastrophic end. He suggests that we try to “picture a world from which we all suddenly vanish. Tomorrow.” Then he takes us on a journey through time to see what would happen. Will the planet be better off? Or, he asks, “is it possible that the world without us would miss us?”

The book is divided into five parts, with 19 chapters. Chapter one is a visit to a primeval forest in Poland – a temperate Eden – for a glimpse of the world before we arrived. Then, abruptly, in a chapter titled “The City Without Us,” Weisman imagines a mind-boggling scenario where humans have disappeared from New York City. From then on you’ll be hooked for the next 300 pages.

In the next few chapters, Weisman takes us to unfamiliar landscapes in present-day Africa and even more unfamiliar landscapes in the Americas prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens. A scientist he interviews claims that, if we had never come here, “North America would have three times as many animals [weighing] over one ton as Africa does today.” The reasoning behind this claim becomes a key piece in the argument Weisman weaves for his predictions of what will happen when we “vanish.”

Much of Part Two is almost overwhelming with details and storylines. We’re shown: how abandoned urban centers fall apart, the likely fate of elaborate underground cities in Turkey, the global impact of discarded plastic debris and tires, the ten-million square mile “Gyre” – a gyrating dump in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where much of the world’s debris retires.

Readers of Northern Woodlands will be especially interested in the chapter, “The World Without Farms.” Here, Weisman traces the historical impacts on the land as humans spread across the North American landscape. He then asks what might happen without us: “Would those lands return to their former, pre-agro-pastoral state? Do we even know what that was?” Here he draws on New Englanders William Cronon and David Foster for his past forest explorations.

Part Three explores the fates of the ancient and modern “Wonders of the World,” (such as the Panama Canal), the likely impacts of war and nuclear power on the future, wildlife extinctions, and the disappearance of the Mayan civilization. Here he cites archaeologist Arthur Demarest: “The balance between ecology and society is exquisitely delicate. If something throws that off, it can all end.”

The use of Demarest’s statement just before his concluding chapters in Part Four – some 50 rather dark and ominous pages – revealed for me Weisman’s hidden agenda in this finely crafted book. As he takes us around the world in a fascinating search for what would happen if we disappeared, he has subtly made us take a deeper look into what is happening as a result of the myriad environmental threats we too often ignore or deny: global warming, air and water pollution, soil degradation, over-population, over-consumption, deforestation, genetic manipulation, and on and on. Rather than berate us over all the damage we’ve wrought on the planet, he simply gives us a glimpse into the future if we continue on our present path. And, most importantly, he reminds us vividly of what’s at stake.

Carl Reidel

© 2008 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.

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From Logs to Lumber: A History of People & Rule Making in New England

Tom Whalen, of Marshfield Hills, Massachusetts, and Whitefield, New Hampshire, and his mentor of 25 years, Dale Butterworth of Cumberland, Maine, have parlayed their long-time interest in collecting tools into a wonderfully readable book that looks at a facet of the logging industry that may not be well known to those outside the field. From Logs to Lumber: A History of People & Rule Making in New England is an in-depth look at log rules and calipers – tools that are used to measure the amount of wood in a log.

Whalen and Butterworth have put together an outstanding history of these early logging tools, which includes information on the well known rule makers, as well as those less famous. The book is chockfull of photos of old tools, many of which bear their maker’s mark, along with a nice selection of vintage photos of the men who used the tools. The anecdotes the authors collected and the old timers they were able to interview are what make the book truly appealing, even to someone not affiliated with the wood industry.

Whalen and Butterworth have documented 42 New England log-rule makers, who plied their trade – some full-time, some only in the off seasons – in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

The log rule makers were a varied bunch that included carpenters, cabinetmakers, farmers, log scalers and even a woman violinist. Through constant trial and error, they perfected these tools that served as the early computers of their day.

Bangor, Maine, carpenter Asa Norton introduced the first commercial log rule in the 1840s. By 1861, the Asa Norton Log Rule had been approved by the state legislature to be used throughout the Penosbscot River Region. As the thirst for wood from the huge forests of northern New England continued, peaking from 1865 to 1910, many more men turned their hands to developing better methods of measuring the amount of lumber that a log would yield.

The craft of making log rules and calipers continued well into the second half of the 20th century, but the use of these tools has declined of late. Dave Thompson, of Lincoln, New Hampshire, continues to make log rules and calipers but suggests that most of their days are now behind us. “With more saw mills closing every day, and with the forest industry’s measuring methods changing to laser scaling and buying logs by weight, the days of the log scaler are surely numbered,” he says.

As such, the book is both an important historical reference and a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in tools or logging.

Eileen Alexander

© 2009 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.

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Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks

Whether you know the Adirondacks as home, second home, vacation destination, spot on the map, or not at all, you’ll certainly have a deeper understanding of the place after reading Philip G. Terrie’s: Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks. This is the second edition of this book, updated 11 years after it was originally published. Judging by the myriad bitter disputes that mark this beautiful region, it’s painfully clear that this latest version will most assuredly not be the last.

And while the subjects of such disputes may have shifted from logging practices to private land regulation, motorized vehicle access, and big box retailers, the core question remains: who decides what’s best for the Adirondacks and its people? Those who depend on, and in some instances profit from, its natural resources? Those who visit to hike its peaks and bask on its lakes and rivers? Politicians and lobbyists? Or the people who live and work here?

It’s a question with which the Adirondack Park may never come to terms. But in order to try to do so, an understanding of how this place came to be in its current state is a must. And for that reason, Terrie’s book is, and will continue to be, an invaluable resource.

Terrie is able to frame Adirondack history with an eye toward the present, while not losing sight of its gritty past. Terrie’s use of diary entries from some of the Adirondacks’ first homesteaders, as well as newspaper articles, editorials, and even New York state legislative correspondence and committee reports, flesh out the Adirondacks more revealingly than other historical treatments have.

The Adirondacks have been many things to many different people over the years: a dark, mysterious and seemingly impenetrable wild land, a romanticized ideal of a wilderness getaway, an artists’ retreat, a playground for the Northeast’s wealthy industrialists, a land of seemingly limitless lumber, and a middle-class vacationland, to name a few. Today, the Adirondacks are a place where communities are shrinking. Local economies, many of which are increasingly dependent on tourism dollars, are drying up. The very notion that this can be a place where people both work and play is in question.

Terrie is adept at examining this question, often through the lens of native versus outsider, a motif that has served as the backdrop to most conflicts in the region. Terrie also demonstrates remarkable skill at first explaining, and then examining, the New York state constitutional framework of the Adirondack Park, subsequent revisions of that framework, and the roles (whether perceived as necessary or not) of state agencies in determining how the more than six million acres of the Park should be used, protected, or developed.

If there’s a fault to be found in Terrie’s work, it would have to be in the second edition’s final chapter, which is an add-on to the first edition and feels like it. In a broad stroke, Terrie attempts to cover a wide range of controversies that have yet to fully play out: all terrain vehicle (ATV) and snowmobile access; the impacts of acid rain and invasive species on the health and vitality of Adirondack lakes, rivers, and wildlife; the massive tracts of land being purchased for protection by the state and land conservation organizations; affordable housing; the divisive economic effects of big-box retailers, like Wal-Mart, wanting to set up shop in Saranac Lake; and the huge proposed development in Tupper Lake.

In his defense, none of those issues are even close to being resolved in any legitimate manner, but in addressing them, his final chapter lays the groundwork for what is sure to be a 21st century of contested terrain. It seems as though Terrie will have a job, and a willing audience, to continue to examine the story of the Adirondacks for the foreseeable future.

Andrew Bates

© 2009 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.