DEATH OF AN INSTITUTION Last whitewater sawlog drive

HE great whitewater sawlog drives, a colorful, excit. ing chapter in American history, will probably end for all time when Potlatch Forests, Inc., completes its 197I log drive down the turbulent North Fork and main Clearwater Rivers to Lewiston" Idaho.

Doomed by the impending completion of the giant Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater, the Iast drive got underway recently when Potlatch drive crews entered the upper reaches of the North Fork behind some 5I million board feet of prime Idaho logs. It was expected to end in early June, depending on river conditions. However, low water and large numbers of jams have been known to extend the drive well into the summer months.

The last Potlatch drive, the 40th to be held on the Clearwater since the first drive was organized in 1928, brings footage totals to more than one billion, 774 milr lion board feet of logs delivered in the mill pond at Lewiston.

Led by Charles "Red" McCollister, bull of the woods and a veteran of 2l years on the river, the Potlatch drive crews follow the logs downriver, breaking up jams and forcing stranded logs back into the main current. Armed with the lumberjack's traditional pike pole or peavey hook the 34 members o{ the drive crews will work, eat, and sleep on the river until the drive is completed.

Their horne for the duration o{ the drive is a floatine "wanigan" comprised of two bunkhouses and a cook-. house, all mounted on huge, air-filled rubber pontoons. More than Il5 feet long and 26 Ieet wide, the wanigan precedes the drive crews downstream, usually tieing up at a difierent, and sometimes two or three sites each day.

With the completion of Dworshak Dam marking the end of the log drives, trucks and trains will take up the job of hauling the logs to the Potlatch mills, where they will be processed into a variety of products, including finished lumber, laminated beams and decking, plywood, tissue paper and paperboard.