PSU Magazine Spring 1994

urpri e the bear, or acc identall y come between it and its cub." O n another day the expedition ra n into a swarm of hor eflie . omments about biblica l plague of locu t were bandied about. When the expedition members returned to the ship, they fo und it also was covered by the large, annoy ing insects. teen hardl y remembers that day. "I have an ab ility to fo rget bad days," says teen . "I tend to remember things that excite your spirit." S teen had hoped to document the exact location of uncut watersheds from th e a ir u ing his skills as an ae rial photographer. In fact, he got a repu tati n a a "techno- hound" fo r all the equipment he d ragged aboard . ("Do I have to admit that ?" ask Steen .) Unfo rtunately, due to ex tended periods of cloudy weather teen did not have an opportunity to fl y wi th the expedi – tion's chartered pilot. That' not to say Steen did not shoot. He went through 200 rolls of film, a tota l of about 7,200 slide . He tarted working even befo re reaching landfall , climbing all over the boat fo r the best angle. Using mounta inee ring equipment, Steen even climbed to the end of the bowsprit for the ultimate sa iling sho t. teen' shot of the forest have been publi hed by National Geographic and Audubon. The February is ue of Sie11"a included Steen 's photographs in a 12-image spread about the B.C. rain fo rest expedition . Some of his images are also part of a museum exhibit currentl y traveling internationa lly. Entitled " erpentine Lattice," this wide- creen mult i- image presentation he co-produced has been seen in A pen , ew York , and G ermany. It will be shown at the Dallas Museum of atura l History later this year. According to teen, th e work explores what has been done to the landscape , wa te rsheds, and ridges of our North Ameri can ra in fo re r-. Along with hi photo gear, teen brought equipment fo r recording info rmation about the fo re ts. He was often seen bo ring in ro trees and pulling out pencil-like ridged cores from which he counted the tree ' growth ring", thereby estimating th eir ages. O th er tools determined height and measured girth. "I wa - seeking in fo rmati on about the si:e of tree , the ir he ight, and the area of ground covered by them. And I wanted to find out how quickly the trees grow in th at region ," says S teen. "I was surprised by the large trees that were growing in th e limited areas of deep so il. More commonly the tree ' root ·y tems were d raped over rocky sub ·trate ." The le ·s favorab le oil condi t ion resulted in much smaller trees, according to teen . "I found tree 27 inche in di ameter that were nearly 600 yea rs old . They grow slowly up th ere despite the wet an i mild climate." teen says he was also amazed by the degree to which trees in much of the area had been "whittled away when– eve r wa ter was nearby." The biggest trees had been cut and pulled away long ago by hand -logge rs. itt ing around a campfire on the edge of Ellerslie Lake, Steen and othe r expedition members lea rned that many tree had gone to fu e l th e 19th century steamboats that plied the wa ters between San Franc i co, ca ttl e, and A laska. A t other times when he wa · not measuring the tree or photographing them, teen wa up to his elbow in green moss. He studi ed fu ngi and other organi ms at every turn . S teen says he was hea rtened to find so many marbl ed murrelets-a spec ie Expedition members saw Orea whales off Gilford Island. hea vily impacted in Oregon and Washington . "Until th e 1970s we didn 't even know where the murrelcts nested ," ays teen. "The ir numbers a re a fa ntastic indication of how we ll they can do in an undi turbed watershed of old growth temperate rain forest. We found a huge vari ety of pec ies li ving in an unharmed envi ronment. "It a ll po in t to the fragility and pec ial va lue of th region ," he recount ·. "The trip parked my interest and commitment to get back up th ere and do more erious scientific measure– men t work ." Hi next de tination . Perhaps it will be th e Kitlope, located fa rther north in B. . and considered the large t continguou temperate rain fo re t area in North America. For teen the summer trip enriched hi knowl edge of fo re t ecosy tems and how th ey are influenced by the ir en vironment. Di covering that fir tln nd wa · part of his personal mis ion. Pass ing on the lessons of this interconnectedness tO his students, th e publi , and gove rnment dec ision maker i· now his ta k at hand . 0 (S wart \Xlassemwn , a Portland-based writer and photographer, was on North tar with Steen las t summer.) PRING 1994 7