THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021 • THE BULLETIN
GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 7
LOCAL LITERARY HIGHLIGHTS
bendbulletin.com/goread
Les Joslin tells wild history
in ‘Three Sisters Wilderness’
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
B
end author and historian Les Joslin is back with “Three Sisters Wilderness: A History.” From the introduction’s
first sentence, Joslin makes clear that the 175-page book you hold in your hands is a wilderness guide of a
different stripe: “There are many excellent hiking and backpacking guides to the Three Sisters Wilderness, but
this is not one of them,” he writes. “This book, instead, is a brief guide to a more profound wilderness experience.” It won’t
give you the lowdown on how to hike from Moraine Lake to Doris Lake, per se, but if you want an in-depth history of
Three Sisters Wilderness — the efforts of citizens from Bend and Eugene and the Wilderness Act of 1964 among them —
this is the one for you.
“I was hoping to provide an under-
standable background history for the citi-
zen-owners of the National Forest System,
and this component of the National Forest
System,” Joslin said. “There are lots of de-
mands on people’s attention in our society.
A lot of people, just think, ‘I’m going up to
the wilderness,’ and they don’t know when
they’re in congressionally designated Wil-
derness, which has specific standards that
have to be maintained under the law, and
when they’re just out in ‘the wilderness.’
“There’s a difference between a de facto
wilderness, which is anyplace that it not
developed, and de jure wilderness, which
is congressionally designated wilderness,”
Joslin continued. “I wanted (readers) to un-
derstand the history of this particular unit
of the National Wilderness Preservation
System.”
If there’s anyone fit to write such a book,
it’s Joslin, who spent the latter portion of his
career working for the U.S. Forest Service in
Three Sisters Wilderness.
“It was sort of a second or third career,”
explained Joslin, who can’t be blamed for
losing count. His first stint working for the
Forest Service was as a fire fighter in Toiyabe
National Forest when he was in college.
After graduating, Joslin joined the Navy,
where he was a commander. Somewhere in
there, he earned two master’s degrees, from
the University of Colorado and the Univer-
sity of London. He was still in his mid-40s
“I was hoping to provide an
understandable background history
for the citizen-owners of the National
Forest System, and this component of
the National Forest System. There are
lots of demands on people’s attention
in our society. A lot of people, just
think, ‘I’m going up to the wilderness,’
and they don’t know when they’re in
congressionally designated Wilderness,
which has specific standards that have
to be maintained under the law, and
when they’re just out in ‘the wilderness.’”
— Les Joslin, Bend author and historian
when he retired and moved from Washing-
ton, D.C. to Central Oregon in 1988.
“I found a niche where I could serve in
the Three Sisters Wilderness,” said Joslin,
who celebrated his 78th birthday a week
ago. “I worked 14 summers as a wilderness
ranger.”
During that time, he developed an in-
timacy with the Three Sisters Wilderness
as he spent the first couple of years study-
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