Save Our Yellowwood Forest
~ by Mark Blackwell
I
met a real nice gang of people the other day. They were camped out up at the end of Possum Trot Road about where it runs into Yellowwood State Forest. They are camped out to protest the sale and harvest of standing timber in the back country area of the forest. I had, until recently, lived in another part of Yellowwood and I thought I might go up and see what we might have in common.
I have had a long relationship with Yellowwood going back to 1972. I like Brown County and I like the State Park there but most of all, I like the State Forest. It didn’ t charge an entry fee. The camping was primitive, but cheap. And I could put my canoe in the lake any time I took a notion to. The forest there had a story and a history. I liked all of it.
I got a chance to get to know the forest a little better back in the bicentennial year of 1976. I had bounced around— doing this and that to distract the wolf that lived on my doorstep— when a friend told me about a federal jobs program that was hiring out at Yellowwood. So, I looked into it.
I found myself working with a crew to build trails for hiking and nature appreciation. We made rustic wooden signs that marked trails and boundaries. We maintained the shelter houses and campgrounds. We collected tree seeds for the state nursery. We collected modest fees for camping and boat rentals. I was happy with the work environment and the work itself had meaning and dignity. While many jobs required working as part of a crew,
“… in wildness is the preservation of the world. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the wild.”
— Henry David Thoreau
28 Our Brown County • Jan./ Feb. 2018
much of the work was done solo. And I fell in love with Yellowwood. But, things change. The job did not pay as well as I would have liked, the commute from Bloomington was long, and my wife and I had a baby on the way. I left my job in the forest and found work elsewhere.
Fast forward to the waning days of the last century. I found myself with children grown, a stable job, and a desire to live in the country. I had a friend who just happened to own and operate forty acres of reasonably unmanaged and unimproved timber inside Yellowwood State Forest. He offered to let me buy ten acres. In1998 I built a cabin out there. My new wife and I moved out to the woods a year before the new millennium. Life was good— at least for the first few years. I don’ t remember seeing much logging when I