Forest History Association of British Columbia Speaker Series

Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country

Tuesday – 15 October 2024 – 7:00-8:00 pm PST – Zoom

Steven Beda (Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Oregon)

Online ZOOM presentation to be followed by discussion

THOUGH OFTEN CAST AS VILLAINS in the Northwest’s environmental conflicts, timber workers in fact have long cared about and stewarded the region’s forests. In this talk, Steven Beda explores how and why people from timber-working communities concerned themselves with the health and the future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place among workers, their families, and their communities. That sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists—or the desires of their employers. But always, timber workers in the Northwest have fought not just to protect their livelihood, but the forests they considered their homes.

STEVEN C. BEDA is associate professor of history at the University of Oregon, where he teaches Pacific Northwest History, labor history, and environmental history. He is author of Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country. Additionally, his writing has appeared in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, and the Washington Post. When not teaching or working on his next book, he can most likely be found on one of the Northwest’s rivers, fishing for steelhead.

Feature Image: Logging scene in British Columbia. Credit: Geological Survey of Canada / Library and Archives Canada / PA-051361.