Constructive Destruction

From an early age I have been an advocate for maintaining a sustainable relationship with nature.  For my 6th birthday my grandmother gave me a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine. This magazine arrived every month and I eagerly awaited every issue. They always came just in time as the previous one would fall apart from my constant flipping back and forth through the pages.  I did all the puzzles, read all the articles and absorbed and reabsorbed all I could of insects, trees, ecosystems and human’s relationship to nature. “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute” was a mantra and Woody the Owl an idol. Old National Geographic back issues did more than the threat of the lash to keep me completely silent in waiting rooms, and watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom narrated by Marty Stouffer was a special and savored treat.  These outside influences, paired with my proximity to forests over my young years, served to create a budding young naturalist. Now here I am many years later at odds with nature, hacking and sawing my way through trees that were saplings when I was reading all about protecting forests and natural habitats.


When I stand among the trees on this sliver of West Virginia mountainside with chainsaw, axe and drawknife, I feel the spirit of this place looking on.  Does it shake its head with disapproval and sadness?  Am I the burning, felling threat humans so often have become?  I would like to think that I am working towards restoration and benevolent management.  When those trees fell and when I attack the fallen timbers and brush with blades and chains, I can’t help but feel like I’m destroying the very spirit that I’ve always fought to protect and respect. No matter how much good you do, the sound of a chainsaw explodes the wonder and silence of forest at peace.

Peeling bark with a drawknife

The bark of a tree is its skin. It is the barrier which separates its inner core from the outside world. It is armor against weather, infestation, distress, and abrasion. When a tree has fallen the bark works in quite the opposite way. It traps moisture next to the wood, creates havens for bugs, and increases the speed of decomposition. These are no good if the wood is to be used for any sort of long term building application.  I have to remove the bark for proper drying, rot prevention, insect discouragement, and of course, aesthetic appeal. To make a protection for myself from the elements I must first destroy the trees’ version of the same.
Now we’ve got conflict. I need the bark off. The tree doesn’t want to give it up.  The tree has spent years, its whole life in fact, growing thicker and thicker bark and it is quite attached. It is a formidable defense system that is none too easy to penetrate, but I have opposable thumbs, steel tools, and a stubborn streak that rivals an oak.

To build the cabin I need a minimum of 40 logs. The cabin is a simple one room affair 16’x12’. I’ll need logs of those dimensions plus 7 logs 20’ long. These larger logs will serve as the foundation logs, eave logs, purlins, and a ridge log for the top.  That will give me 192 square feet of floor space, a loft for sleeping and a 4’x12’ covered porch out front.  Last autumn I felled enough trees to produce the required building logs and left them over winter to dry and cure. You can build a cabin with “green” or uncured logs, but over time they’ll shrink as they dry creating lots of work chinking and sealing the spaces that the shrinkage leaves. Now comes the battle. Armed with a small camp axe and a drawknife I went to work peeling logs. The work seemed easy at first as the drawknife cut quickly through the outer bark. I thought it would take approximately 15 minutes per log. Only later did I realize that the toughest layers lay deeper in and I was nowhere close to being done. As it happens, I’m spending almost an hour per log carefully working the bark off in strips.

Some peeled logs

Each log seems to be an individual. Some release their bark almost willingly, the head of my axe sliding between the wood and the fibrous membrane with ease and large long strip peeling away to reveal the white wet wood beneath. Some, on the other hand, fight every inch of the way and leave my hands, back, arms and shoulders sore with effort.  I feel sometimes as though I’ve lost as much skin as the logs have. The sound of a good strip peeling away is a satisfying “zip” that leaves a long flexible strap of bark and a smile of accomplishment!


Along with peeling the logs is a possibly more challenging feat. I have to skid them from their resting places on the side of the mountain, deep in forested territory, to the building site that I’ve (somewhat) cleared.  The grade of the land is steep and it is completely covered in small to large trees along with underbrush.  As luck would have it, the largest of the logs were situated the farthest from the building site. I worked and worked with chain and come-along and could move those monsters about 6 inches! I needed to get them about 200 yards up the mountain.  A come-along just isn’t the tool for this job.  

Skidding with the Arctic Cat

With the power of a Jeep Rubicon, an Arctic Cat 500 with a winch, and Dale’s help we managed to grab and skid 7 of these monster timbers up above the site and stack em.  It still took us all day to do that amount of work.  When they were stacked, we were exhausted, the winch worn out and road had been turned into mud pit. No, a come-along isn’t the tool for this job.  The job is by no means done. I’ve got 15-20 logs to skid to the site still. Then I’ll have to arrange them and get situated to start the stacking! I can’t express how eager I am to get those logs down and watch those walls rise!


I want to work with this land. The stars know I can’t work against it. My vision for this land is one of mutual benefit, diverse landscapes and micro-ecosystems, and sadly, that involves what amounts to clear cutting much of the timber that currently makes its home on these slopes.  I can only reconcile these by using every last scrap of brush, log, and root.  I’ll need it for compost, construction, and fencing.  I can only hope that this meager justification calms the child in me that can’t help but disapprove of the destruction that must occur before the building and healing can begin.