Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. McCrum. Yes, I'm a 10-year resident of Boundary County and operate a small farm and construction business. And for the past 6 years, I've also operated a portable sawmill operation in the area. I would simply like to resuggest to you, Senator, that you in your consideration for any wilderness proposal take a whole realm of subjective values be presented by the different persons here today in as great an importance as any empiric or economic considerations being aired here at the same time. You yourself, Senator, I believe, have indicated in one of your recent issue of dates that one of the—or two of the primary guidelines for wilderness designation, if I may quote, are 'lands designated as wilderness generally possess uncommon beauty and/or unique recreational value.' I would like to say the Long Canyon is an area of very uncommon beauty precisely because of the old growth timber within there today. I don't know of any other drainage left in the northern panhandle which possesses such a wide sampling of old growth systems. For beauty and recreational value, there is certainly no comparison between the Long Canyon trail and any other roaded drainage in this end of the State. The older people within our community speak with a great deal of pride about how it was when they first came here to a virgin country to make a home and a living for themselves. And we younger people tend to listen with a great deal of envy when they talk about having to pack in 20 or more miles just to fish in the high lakes. I would like to say this, though, that we're preserved Long Canyon as touchstone, if you will, not only for the intrinsic beauty and wonder of the place itself but also for a very tangible sense of continuity with the land and with the people to whom the land has lent a part of its greadness.