Free Correcting the Landscape by Marjorie Kowalski Cole

but it has to be more subtle.”
    â€œNo, what a cynic you’ve become. I don’t completely agree.”
    â€œWood is in short supply, it’s become a limited resource, I think. If we have something here that big companies want, they will find a way to get it when they really need it.”
    â€œWood is in short supply,” I repeated. “That’s an interesting idea. No one else is saying that, are they. The daily, the folks down in Juneau…they’re all talking about the forest like it’s endless.”
    â€œAs endless as the plains and the buffalo,” said Noreen.
    â€œSo Felix, why don’t you give us a sidebar on that idea. How does Alaska’s chunk of northern forest stack up, to what’s left worldwide?”
    â€œCircumpolar,” said Noreen. “Say circumpolar, not northern.”
    I looked around, proud of my staff, and saw Gayle gazing over my shoulder, frowning, looking a little sad.
    â€œGayle?” I said, and then thought: don’t bark at her, Gus, damn it. You don’t own these guys. You’re not paying them a living wage. Her quietness—I always rushed in too soon.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “I can’t figure it out. Maybe, likeyou said, there are too many angles. This is real hard to understand.”
    I waited a minute before saying, “What do you mean, Gayle? What are we missing?”
    â€œSeems to me,” she said, “a few years ago when we were harvesting mushrooms and spruce cones and things, working with people who didn’t have any capital at all, the forest still provided a living. When I was growing up, it was the best part. It’s a mystery to me that people could consider selling it off—selling their own home. It’s been providing a living to my family for generations, and it—it works. The forest itself, works beautifully. Of course,” she added, “my own Native corporation is already logging.”
    We sat silent for a minute, slightly uncomfortable. What do you do with such a comment? It occurred to me that there had to be a wealth of knowledge about this forest, even scientific knowledge, imbedded in the Athabascan language and in the soft speech and odd timing of the Athabascan villagers. How do we include it in the legislative debate? It’s not possible, is it? Most often bringing up something labeled Native ways of knowing means that other people in the room turn off their ears, head out for popcorn, or go to the bathroom. It’s time to stop listening, because Native ways of knowing—that’s treated as halftime entertainment, up here. It is not the main ball game. These thoughts came to me in the silence that followed Gayle’s remark.
    We had to bring it into the main ball game. That’s what we should do. That’s what the Mercury could do. Somehow.
    â€œGayle,” I said, “when you’re at the public hearings and listening to the testimony, listen for the different points of view. Go after a few people and talk to them. It doesn’t seem like enough, does it?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I’ll call the senator from Rampart, too. I know she’s opposed to it.”
    As the weeks went by, we covered the issue from so many angles, week by week, that I began to dream of a Pulitzer, or at least an Alaska Press Club citation. I selected quotes from citizen testimony to highlight and box throughout the news pages. I noticed, however, that we did not get nearly as many letters to the editor as the daily, and that bothered me. It seemed to indicate a thinner readership, a lack of involvement, even though newsstands sold out and subscriptions went up.
    When I went over the books I found that our income was not going up by a substantial amount, either. Not enough to cover the increased delivery expenses, my low-budget trip to Juneau, long distance charges, too much art on the inside pages. That would have