The information in this book was gathered to show respect and recognition to the efforts and sacrifices of literally hundreds of men and women associated with the timber industry on the Olympic Peninsula during the 1930's and 1940's.

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton arrive in North Carolina to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains―but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any worker, overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together Serena and George ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall...

Weaving together investigative reporting, colorful characters, logging history, political analysis, and cutting-edge tree science, this gripping account reveals the complexity of the illegal timber market.

George and Serena Pemberton negotiate the terrain of love and betrayal in the mountainous wilderness of North Carolina, where they build a timber business; when Serena learns that she will not bear a child, she plots to murder the illegitimate son George previously fathered in the area.

In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a "seigneur," for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters -- barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi'kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless,...