Margaret Elley Felt’s autobiographical Gyppo Logger, originally published in 1963, tells a story almost universally overlooked in the history of the logging industry: the emergence of family-based, independent contract or "gyppo" loggers in the post-World War II timber economy, and the crucial role of women within that economy. For seven years Margaret Felt was her husband’s partner in their logging business — driving truck, keeping the wage rolls, and jawboning her way into more credit at the supply stores. Margaret Elley Felt is the author of thirteen books in addition to Gyppo Logger. She has contributed to popular magazines including National Wildlife and Parents Magazine, and was an editor and public information officer for several Washington State agencies.

It has often been said that natural resource and environmental problems cannot be solved without solving human problems. In this book, Matthew Carroll examines the economic and social circumstances of northwestern U.S. loggers in the face of shifts in environmental politics, dramatic reductions in timber harvest levels on federal lands, and changing technology and market forces—among other factors that are rapidly transforming their industry, their livelihoods, and their communities. Drawing upon sociological fieldwork in logging communities that he conducted at various times over a period of nearly a decade and using the spotted owl-old growth controversy as a case study, Carroll provides a rich and detailed picture of life among northwestern loggers. He lays out the human dimensions and dilemmas of the timber crisis. Expanding it from the oversimplified owl-versus- logger confrontation, he puts these issues in a historical and policy context and suggests parallels to other controversies such as public grazing and federal or state river protection. Carrol’s work revives the concept of occupational community and shows ways it can be used to understand the dynamics of rural occupations linked to resource extraction.

Scott Prudham investigates a region that has in recent years seen more environmental conflict than perhaps anywhere else in the country--the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. Prudham employs a political economic approach to explain the social and economic conflicts arising from the timber industry's presence in the region. As well, he provides a thorough accounting of the timber industry itself, tracing its motivations, practices, and labor relations.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1966.

#1 BC bestselling book of 2017 Winner of the 2018 BC Book Prizes' Bill Duthie Booksellers Choice Award A collection of stories chronicling the characters and dramas that capture life in small coastal communities. In this story collection, Pat Carney follows the rhythms of day-to-day life in coastal BC. Featuring a revolving cast of characters—the newly retired couple, the church warden, the musician, the small-town girl with big city dreams—Carney’s keen observations of the personalities and dramas of coastal life are instantly recognizable to readers who are familiar with life in a small community. With her narrative of dock fights, pet shows, family feuds, logging camps and the ever-present tension between islanders and property-owning “off-islanders,” Carney’s witty and perceptive voice describes how the islanders weather the storms of coastal life. Carney writes evocatively of the magical landscape of the British Columbia coast, where she has lived and worked for five decades. At the same time, she addresses the less-idyllic moments that can also characterize coastal life: power outages, winter storms, isolation. On Island brings the West Coast landscape—human and natural—to life, and gives islanders and mainland dwellers alike a taste of what it means to be “on island.”

These are the stories of the twentieth century on Grays Harbor. Based on two decades of research by the staff of The Daily World, "On the Harbor" is a unique narrative of local history, with separate chapters on the fourteen top stories of the past hundred years and biographies of Citizens of the Century. Also included are a first-hand account by a veteran Wobbly on the free-speech fight of 1911, Ed Van Syckle on sailing with legendary Capt. Ralph E. Peasley, and Murray Morgan on working for the Grays Harbor Washingtonian in Hoquiam during the Depression. With more than a hundred photographs from the archives of the Daily World and the Jones Historical Collection and nearly 200 sidebars on what to read, how to speak like a native and who's who in Harbor history, this book is a suitable for everyone from the casual reader to the ardent scholar, for the coffee table or the school library. Come along and read a century's worth of stories about life on gritty old Grays Harbor.