Today the Colville reservation took us out on a forestry day and we got to meet three of their workers Rob Millery, Lance, and Clinton. On our way to meet them I noticed just how large the Colville reservation is and how beautiful their forest are with incredible lakes, it is really nice. I was just wondering why of all of the places this reservation could have welcome us they choose to set us up on a barren wasteland. I feel that we were not so welcome here because if they really wanted to demonstrate a good impression on us they would have welcomed us to a better place. But the three gentlemen we met today were just really good people. They showed us around their forest and how they maintain them by taking out running fuels out of the forest, running fuels are the plants and dry wood that can catch on fire really fast. They sure keep their forest really clean because usually there is a lot of weeds and dead trees that one cannot even manage to see inside of it, but the Coleville’s actually clean up their forest and protected from wildfires. I was impressed by how efficient they are with their money and their resources. When they clean up their forest instead of having a hand crew working there for three months they hire a one-man excavator to do the work and it is more efficient for the job and their wallet.
They protect their forest because they are a timber tribe, they live from that natural resource and depend on it. The reservation is the most forested in North West Washington ranging around 3.4 million acres. What was most interesting about this reservation is that they have an open reservation, unlike the Yakamas, where they have their own private roads and locations, Colville hardly has any restrictions when it comes to their tribal lands. During the tour, I was surprised to hear that the Colville’s welcome fire as a form to care for their forest. Clinton the wildland firefighter explained to me that fire is a natural phenomenon that is part of nature, which some areas need to burn. He expresses his concerns for how the government and the people that do not know their tribe's old tradition with fire have a saying in their forest. He states that it is really hard to convince officials to do burning on areas of the forest. I feel like the government has been too controlling with Native Americans from in the past and now. In all the reservation that we have visited on this trip, it seems like the government has affected those tribes the most than any environmental problems.
Something new that I learned during the tour was when Rob Milery showed one of his tools known as an increment borer tool. This tool drills inside the trees roughly all the way through it, or as deep as possible. When Rob took the tool out it had collected a sample of the tree, it looked like a small branch with a lot of rings around it. Each of the rings represents a year of age of the tree, Jessica made us guess how hold we the tree Caleb drilled was. I guess 55 years old but it turns out that tree was 95 years old. During the presentation of the tool, Mr. Clinton fell off a log that he was sitting on that was about 4 feet high. I felt bad for him but I saw it all, especially how he landed, it was just funny because lately everyone has been tired and serious. It was actually nice to see Mr. Clinton laugh, lately, he has been isolating himself and just looks really down. On our way back to camp the firefighter Clinton cut some firewood for our group and even gave us Gatorade and waters from his truck. Overall this tour was really enjoyable for me, but I would have like things with the Colvilles to start off better than what it did.
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