I was born in Bellingham on January 30, 1927 to Fred and Alta Wefer. My sister Harriet and my brother Norman and I grew up on the family 150 acre farm and forest land at Lake Samish.
I met Rosemary O'Rourke in Bellingham and we were married in 1951. Our two children, Wendy and Fred were raised at Lake Samish and remain residents of the Lake. Rosemary passed away after 49 years of marriage. My family includes Wendy (Paul) Clinton, Fred (Leah) Wefer, four grandchildren, Shane (Shannon) Wefer, Branden (Melissa)Wefer, Skyler Wefer, Kelsey Clinton and five great grandchildren all living in this area.
My education started in a one room schoolhouse at Lake Samish – (My Mother had been the teacher there years before). I attended Bellingham High School and left in my senior year to join the US Navy and served in the Pacific theatre. After discharge, I received my high school diploma. In 1947, I enrolled at Washington State College and graduated with a B.S. in Agriculture with a major in Forestry.
Living on the family farm, I had the experience of cutting fire wood for the kitchen stove and furnace, make fence posts and other wood products. My first paying job was as a member of the fire crew for the State of Washington's Division of Forestry during the fire season of 1943 and 1944. Our crew of 12 was stationed at the Fire Hall in Deming (currently the site of the Nooksack River Casino). We built foot trails, cut brush along the truck trails and old logging roads on state land, maintained telephone lines to lookouts and fought forest fires.
During the fire seasons of 1947 through 1953, I again worked for the State of Washington, Division of Forestry as a Fire Warden. My responsibilities included writing fire permits, inspecting logging operations, checking for the required fire tools in a sealed box, checking for fallen snags, watchman after hours of operation and also ran compass lines, worked with fire crews on projects in my area and served as sector boss on large forest fires in Western Washington.
In 1954, I applied for forestry work with Puget Sound Pulp and Timber Company. The Company had a pulp mill in Bellingham and numerous forest land holdings in Western Washington and British Columbia. When I was hired, the Chief Forester, Bill Catlow said, "Just because you have a sheepskin in your left hand, it doesn't mean you can't pick up an axe in your right hand". So, I joined the survey crew as an axe man with 2-1/2 pound Cruiser Axe. This was a blessing in disguise, I went to work with Dick Geoghegan, logging engineer, Bob Magnuson, Assistant Logging Engineer, and Harry Land, crew member. I had the book learning in me, now I needed to match that with on the ground application. Dick and Bob were very good at their work and explained to me why it was done a certain way. The survey crew's work included road location survey, cutting unit boundaries, property line surveys, bridge building, multi-plate culvert installation, slash burning, fire fighting, planting crew supervision among many other jobs. One of my best planting crew was a group of loggers from a cutting crew. They took as much care in planting the conifer seedlings as they did cutting down the trees that were to be logged.
After several years working on the survey crew, I was assigned other duties such as land exam of logged land for reproduction survey, cruise and report on timber or land offered to the Company, and compass man for contract timber cruisers. PSP&T had company logging and road building south of the Skagit River in Skagit County. Company timber tracts in other areas of Northwest Washington were logged by contract loggers. In 1958, the Company shut down logging operations and went to contract logging in all areas. The road building crew was kept on to build roads and to maintain the existing roads and as a fire fighting crew.
I then started to work with logging, road building and cutting contractors along with salvage contractors. Some of these men I had met when working as a Fire Warden. Logging contractors, road builders and cutting contractors are individuals who have definite ideas on how the job should be done. As the Logging Supervisor, I was there to see the end results were according to what the Company wanted done.
In 1963, Georgia Pacific bought out PSP&T. There were no major changes made in the woods operation. One advantage of the Georgia Pacific take over was the use of the Company helicopter. We could cover the Company operations in a couple of days instead of the five days
It would take by pickup truck. Sometimes we would fly the logging contractor over the site that was to be logged and he may change his plan to fit. Other times it may help in a direct way. In Glacier the contractor had moved his tower into a new landing. We offered to string the strawline up the hill to to a corner of the unit along with a coil of strawline. It worked great. The line was laid out from landing to corner in about a minute. It worked so good we offered to fly the corner block up to the unit corner. Away flew the new corner block. Upon arrival the pilot cut loose the block, down it went onto a big hemlock stump. That block broke into about six pieces going in all directions. The contractor said, "I don't think I can afford any more of your help". So much for a good deed.
Since its inception, I have participated on the 6th Grade School Conservation Tour for Whatcom County schools. This tour has been in operation for over 50 years. Also, I drive my pickup as the lead for the Women of the Woods Timber Tour which is held the day before the Deming Log Show.
Away from forestry, I helped organize the Whatcom County Fire District #9, known as the Lake Samish Fire District. I served as a volunteer fire fighter for 37 years and 53 years as a Fire Commissioner.
I retired in 1991 when Georgia Pacific Corporation sold their forest land. I now manage the Wefer Tree Farm located above I-5 at Lake Samish. I keep busy as a Fire Commissioner of the newly formed South Whatcom County Fire Authority. I am a member of the Society American Foresters, the Whatcom County Farm Forestry which includes a yearly tree sale and tree farm tours, and a member of the International Order of Hoo-Hoo.
My life as a forester has been rewarding. I am proud to be a part of the timber industry.
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