The 500-year-old tree from which the new Duwamish story pole at Admiral Viewpoint was carved was nearly chopped into thousands of shakes and shingles and sold for drug money.
The western red cedar was poached from state-owned land on the Olympic Peninsula last fall. It was discovered about 50 feet off a forest road shortly after being felled, said Al Vaughan, state lands manager for the Forks region of the Washington Department of Natural Resources.
"We don't know if they (the poachers) got scared off or if they just left and planned to come back later," he said. "I can almost guarantee that tree would have been made into shingles."
Cutting down old-growth trees is illegal but, as Vaughan said, it's a common occurrence. Usually the motive is to get money to buy methamphetamine or "meth," he said.
The fine old timber often doesn't end up as story poles, living-room furniture or even support beams. Such big trees are difficult to move without proper equipment and many mills cannot handle their girth, Vaughan said. That's why most poached old-growth timber is cut into 24- or 30-inch sections and then sliced into shingles.
