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U T O U T T COAST PRODUCTIONS-PO BOXUU CANNONBENCH OR TWO • 503~436~Z7J5
It’s not the years
.it’s the mileage.
Indiana Jones
Merve Wilkinson’s Forest Farm
By Dodi Morrison
Ah, yes, the mileage. We feature a likeness of
Peter “Spud” Siegel on the front page because his
birthday is in June and because he puts in a great deal
of mileage, and has, for all the years we’ve known
him. And besides it’s our paper and we can do
anything we want. Don’t you wish you had a paper?
Peter is also listed on the masthead as our
Music/Wildlife Editor. That is because he truly loves
the wild living things of this earth and is an excellent
musician. No, make that an exceptionally excellent
musician. Spud plays the mandolin, guitar, fiddle,
piano, trumpet and most anything he can get his
hands on. And he plays all the time. Not just al ter
work, or at gigs; all the time. In the summer it is not
unusual for him to have three gigs in one day. There
is no w ay to make a non-musician understand w hat
that means. We were once told that a Rock and Roll
drummer expends more energy than an NFL
lineman. Yeah, it’s like three football games in one
day, playing not watching. Peter does that all
summer. Mileage. He doesn t make much money
for his work. Folks might think he’s rich because he
regularly spends part of the winter in the Caribbean.
He plays music there so he can eat, just like here.
Our constant readers will remember that Sally’s
celebrated Wildlife on the Edge (soon to be in
bookstores near you!) was originally Spud’s Wildlife
Column; he would come back from the beach or the
woods, and tell Sally what he had seen, and she
would draw it. It used to be a joke around here to
count how many times Spud’s picture appeared on
the Music page. The record was eleven. Which
means that he had at least eleven gigs that month,
probably a lot more. He is up for the title of The
Hardest Working Man in Show Business.
Okay, we like Spud; shall we cut to the chase:
he’s got a new CD/tape out. It’s called Friends and
Legends, and it features Turtle VanDcmarr, Kevin
Healy, Roland White, Theresa Baker, Kate Powers,
Ron Nagy, Lauren Shchan, Michael Rush, and Jon
Lendahl. It’s also got two guys named Jim Ydstie
and Jim Wilkins, on Bass and Guitar. And it has
some guv called Billy Hulks playing washboard on a
few cuts" You can get one at Jupiter’s Rare and
Used Books in Cannon Beach, and wherever else
Spud’s got them for sale. Or you can write the Edge
and we’ 11 send you one for $ 15 plus postage.
Happy Birthday Spud!
S teve ’ s M aintenance
S pecializing in E nvironmentally F riendly
W indow C leaning
S tev e L a m o n t a g n e
(503)436-0942
( L icensed )
l’.O. Box 6 69
C annon B each , OR
97110
There is n o th in g w hich can better d eserve
our patron age than the prom otion o f scien ce
and literatu re.
K now ledge is in every
cou n try th e su rest basis o f public
happ iness.
Geo. W ashington
The sign at Crane Road, leading off Yellow Point
Road, near Ladysmith, Vancouver Island, was
marked Wildwood Farm. We turned into the shaded
side-road, driving a short distance to a gate which we
carefully closed behind us, as directed.
Almost immediately we saw tents of various
shapes and sizes under the trees, and a spot laid out
for cooking around a campfire. We stayed on the
road, which curv ed and climbed and dipped and
rattled our old v an, until f inally the house came in
sight, charmingly situated close to Quennell Lake.
No one answered our knock — though w e had talked
to Merve Wilkinson a day earlier and had come at the
appointed time to see him.
Walking rather aimlessly through the orchards
towards the lake, w e met a young man who assured
us that “Merve couldn’t be far away. Probably
talking to some of the students you saw camping.
Sure enough, as we retraced the trail we lound him
in earnest conversation with a group. We trailed
along, as I took notes as fast as possible. Keeping
up the pace was not easy. Eighty-two years of age
he might be, but the ability to carry out a brisk walk
over uneven ground while talking steadily about the
forest he loves has not left Merve Wilkinson. Slight
and wiry, bright-eyed and youthful, he might easily
be twenty years y ounger.
As we walked, he pointed out the areas that have
been “harv ested” over the years since he started his
selective logging business in 1945. Later he told us
the story of that start. Weary of indoor work, he had
purchased 136 acres of land, in the area w here he
had been raised. He decided to study Agriculture at
U.B.C. One of the professors, whom Wilkinson
still speaks of with great affection, was Dr. Paul
Boving. When this know ledgeable man visited
Wildwood Farm, he became excited. “You must
study forestry , not farming, for this,” he told his
new pupil. “Go to Europe to study!” Wilkinson
explained the impossibility of such a move. Three
day s later Dr. Bov ing produced the forestry course
he had taught in Sweden. “I’ll translate”, he said.
“You'll be a forester when I finish with you!”
“When 1 heard his price,” said Wilkinson, “I told
him he had a customer.”
“It was a lot of work,” he says now. “But I had
the U.B.C. endowment lands and my own place to
use for practicums.” When the time came, he wrote
“final exams”. He could not graduate from a faculty
that did not exist, but Dr. Boving’s wife, who was
an artist, created a beautiful diploma. Sadly, this
cherished diploma was lost in the fire that burned
down the Wilkinson home in 1963.
“Meanwhile,” says Wilkinson, “I had the tools to
become a forester. I had the know-how, but I’ve
been learning ever since.” His land was not large
enough to become his full living, though he has
worked it as one-third of his income, “for twenty
percent of my time”, he says. He had teamed stone-
masonry, and that furnished the rest of his
livelihood. He became know n for his fire-places and
stone walls. In 1992 he built his last retention wall,
150 feet long. He studied carpentry too, and built
his own “designer home,” overlooking peaceful
Quennell Lake. He has kept his farm status, hav ing
planted an orchard and grown vegetables; poultry
provides meat and eggs. He uses scrap wood tor
fuel, and does, indeed, “live lightly on the land” with
his charming second wife, Anne.
In 1995 he completed the tenth cut on this
sustainable, selectively logged land, and has, by
careful calculation, more wood now than w hen he
started. Yet in spite of the on-going cuts, Wildwood
Farm is still the most attractive piece of forest. The
trails he has used for the skidder ov er the years look
more like British footpaths than logging roads The
thick natural undergrow th is healthily lush, and in
places the moss is inches deep. Wilkinson is caref ul
to leave sufficient waste from each tree as it is
extracted, as he knows this w ill replenish the soil and
keep the forest healthy. It is good to sec a “nurse
tree” lying comfortably in the green grow th, with
new small trees and bushes gaining nourishment
from its decay.
ConL.nut^ On p j a 5
CORRECTED FOR PACIFIC BEACH TIDES
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time
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BASEBALL
BASEBALL BASICS #1
A pitcher’s job is to throw the ball
to the catcher, and to make sure that
the catcher can, in fact, catch it. That
is the catcher’s job. Failing this, the
pitcher should throw the ball to make
sure that the batter is unable to hit the
ball any where but where the fielders
have an opportunity to catch the ball.
That is the fielder’s job. The batter’s
jo b is, o f course, just the opposite.
“ It’s a simple game, you throw the
ball, you hit the ball, vou catch the
ball.”
Running is another story.
Go Cubbies!!
L ukofuu S tyli
fett, {
Hums-
-»Box 21 T—
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