Forest Journal, as published in the NH Sunday News Jan. 23, 2011

A Century of Weeks: How the White Mountain National Forest Came to Be

By Jack Savage

We often take the White Mountain National Forest for granted. It’s easy to assume that an 800,000-acre swath across New Hampshire and into Maine must have been under federal ownership for centuries.  When we view ridgelines of trees from a scenic lookout, one could be forgiven for thinking that these might be the same trees a visitor would have looked out over hundreds of years ago.

But just 100 years ago there were no national forests east of the Mississippi River. While the federal government had begun setting aside multi-use forests and parks in the West where land was already under federal ownership, it was unclear that Congress had the authority to buy back lands already in private hands back East.

And in many cases, those private landowners of a century ago were busy laying waste to their landscape. The same railroads that brought tourists from New York and Boston also made it possible to cut and haul millions of board feet of pulp and lumber out of the mountains with no thought to future resources or the damaging consequences of drastic overcutting.

In response, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests was founded in 1901 (February 6 marks our 110^th anniversary), and our first president/forester, Philip Ayres, described it thusly:  Trees old and young, large and small, down to six inches in diameter are used. On the high slopes where spruce grows unmixed with other species and all of the trees are small, everything is cut, and those under six inches diameter (sometimes two-thirds of the standing forest) are left to rot upon the ground. This is the most wasteful and destructive method of lumbering that it is possible to imagine, practiced on the high slopes by all of the operating companies without exception. Fire follows almost invariably in the debris.

Small wonder, then, that the Forest Society’s 1904 mission statement calls for ‘wise use’ of the forest.  Sustainable harvesting has been our mantra for more than a century.

Meanwhile, the effects of the desecration of large tracts in the White Mountains were fueling public concern. In 1903 alone 84,000 acres of cutover land burned.  Steep slopes stripped of tree cover fostered erosion of the headwaters, and soon after mill owners along the lower Merrimack River couldn’t help but note the growing inconsistency of water flow; floods and droughts. People began to understand the connection between a healthy, well-managed forest and the water quality of the streams and rivers that flowed from it.

Outcry over the misuse of the Whites led to a big idea—it was in everyone’s interest to protect those forests, and that the federal government was uniquely positioned to do so. We needed eastern National Forests.

Enter John W. Weeks, native of Lancaster, New Hampshire, who by 1910 was a Congressman from Massachusetts. It fell to Weeks to usher through Washington what we know today as Weeks Law, or the Weeks Act, which extends Congress’s authority over navigable rivers and rivers to purchasing the lands that protect those waters. Today’s 49 eastern National Forests were born when the Weeks Act was signed in to law March 1, 2011.

Six million visitors head for the White Hills each year, and while some may stop and shop for cheap liquor and faux bargains along the way, it is the scenic landscape that draws them. Thanks to the remarkable restorative capacity of the forest, the White Mountain National Forest is a key part of our forest products industry, demonstrating how the local wood can be used wisely. The water in our streams is still a precious public resource.

You’ll hear more about the 100^th anniversary of the Weeks Act throughout 2011. The Forest Society and other groups like the Appalachian Mountain Club (which played a large role in the passage of the Weeks Act), will be joining forces with the WMNF to sponsor events and remind the public that we should not take our National Forest for granted.

For more information about Weeks Act events, visit www.forestsociety.org. Jack Savage is the editor of Forest Notes: New Hampshire’s Conservation Magazine published by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. He can be reached at [email protected].