Les Joslin | |
---|---|
Born | Chelsea, Massachusetts, US | April 15, 1943
Occupation | Military officer and author |
Education | San Jose State University; University of Colorado; University of London |
Genre | History |
Subject | United States Forest Service |
Notable works | Toiyabe Patrol; Uncle Sam's Cabins; Legendary Locals of Bend |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | United States Navy |
Years of service | 1967–1988 |
Rank | Commander |
Leslie Allen Joslin (born April 15, 1943) is an American retired naval officer, natural resource manager, educator, and author. After serving twenty-two years in the United States Navy, Joslin retired in Oregon where he worked for the United States Forest Service. He also taught college courses at Central Oregon Community College and Oregon State University. Joslin has written or edited eleven books, most of them related in some way to the Forest Service or the state of Oregon. He is also a well-known lecturer on forest resources and central Oregon history topics.
Joslin was born on April 15, 1943, in the United States naval hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts. His parents were Leslie H. Joslin and Emma (Mogford) Joslin. His father was a career navy officer who served in both World War II and the Korean War. Because of his father's military career, Joslin attended a number of grade schools and then four different high schools in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and California. [1] [2] [3]
Joslin attended San Jose College, graduating in 1966 with a bachelor's degree in geography and a minor in natural resources conservation. [2] [4] [5] During the summers from 1962 through 1966, he worked for the United States Forest Service as a seasonal firefighter and fire prevention office assigned to the Toiyabe National Forest's Bridgeport Ranger District in eastern California and western Nevada. During his first year on the district, Joslin work from a small one-room office at the Bridgeport ranger station. [1] [6] [7] [8]
In 1967, Joslin was commissioned as a United States Navy officer after completing Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida. Following additional training at Pensacola, the Navy sent him to the military's joint air intelligence officer school at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado. After he finished his training in 1968, Joslin was assigned as an air intelligence officer in an A-6 Intruder squadron at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia. He was then deployed aboard the USS Saratoga. [2] [9]
In 1970, Joslin married Patricia King. Together, they had two daughters. In addition, Joslin earned two advanced degrees while serving in the Navy. In 1974, he received a Master of Arts in political science from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He was awarded a Master of Philosophy degree in geography from the University of London in 1984. [1] [2] [5] [10]
Joslin served as a navy intelligence officer for 22 years. [2] [6] [7] Over the course of his career, his assignments included an extended tour at sea on the USS Kitty Hawk and multiple shore postings around the world. These included assignments as an intelligence analyst in Washington and an intelligence liaison officer in London. [11] Joslin also served a tour on the faculty of the Defense Intelligence College (now the National Intelligence University) and was an intelligence officer at the Center for Naval Analyses. [1] [9] His duties as an intelligence analyst, especially his three-year tour in Washington, helped him develop a clear and concise writing style. [12] Joslin retired from the navy in 1988 as a commander. [2] [6]
After retiring from the Navy, Joslin moved to Sunriver in Central Oregon. In 1989, he began teaching geography courses at Central Oregon Community College. He later taught political science classes there as well. In 2001, he became an adjunct instructor at Oregon State University, teaching a wilderness management course on-line and at Oregon State's central Oregon campus. He left the community college faculty in 2005, but continued teaching at the university through 2011. [2] [4]
In 1990, Joslin resumed working with the Forest Service. He performed seasonal patrols in the Three Sisters Wilderness and worked in public information and education capacities for the Deschutes National Forest for 14 years. He then took a full-time position leading the recreation, heritage, and wilderness resources team for the forest's Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District. Joslin left the Forest Service in 2005. [2] [4]
Working with central Oregon's High Desert Museum, Joslin helped develop a Forest Service centennial exhibit for that museum in 2005. After that project, he worked with the museum to relocate the old one-room Bridgeport ranger station office which had been moved to Nevada and then abandoned by the Forest Service. This was the same ranger's cabin that Joslin worked from in 1962. The cabin was successfully moved to the High Desert Museum in 2008. Once the cabin was relocated, it was restored and opened to the public as a permanent exhibit in 2009. [2] [6] [8] [13] Joslin also helped restore the historic Elk Lake Guard Station located along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway in the Deschutes National Forest. The guard station now serves as a Forest Service visitor center and interpretive site. [6] [14]
After Joslin retired from teaching and the Forest Service, he focused on writing and volunteer work. He is a fellow of the High Desert Museum and has served as president of the Deschutes County Historical Society's board of directors. [1] [2] [6] [15] He has also written six articles for The Oregon Encyclopedia . [14] In 2017, Joslin joined the board of directors for the Waterston Desert Writing Prize, an annual literary prize that recognizes excellent non-fiction writing that highlights aspects of the high desert environment. [16] [17] That same year, the Oregon Cultural Trust and the Deschutes Cultural Coalition recognized Joslin with the Ben Westlund Memorial Award for his work highlighting and preserving Oregon's forest resources. [18] [19] In 2018, Joslin completed 13 years as editor of the quarterly Old Smokeys Newsletter published by the Pacific Northwest Forest Service Association. [5] [12]
Today, Joslin lives with his wife in Bend, Oregon. [1] [17] From his home base in Bend, Joslin continues to write and remains a well-known lecturer on forest resources and local history topics. [12] [20] [21] [22]
As of 2018, Joslin has written or edited eleven books, almost all of them about Oregon or the Forest Service. His two most recent books, plus one other, were published by Arcadia Publishing. [12] His autobiography was published by Xlibris Publishing. [23] In addition, one book was published by the United States Forest Service. [24] The rest of his books were published by Wilderness Associates, a small specialty publishing house located in Bend, Oregon. [12]
Joslin's first book, Toiyabe Patrol: Five U.S. Forest Service Summers, was initially published in 1993. It is the story of Joslin's summers work as a Forest Service firefighter and fire prevention officer in the Toiyabe National Forest. He later revised and retitled the book. The revised edition was published in 2006 under the title Toiyabe Patrol: Five U.S. Forest Service Summers of the High Sierra in the 1960s. [1] [7] Joslin's second book was published in 1995. Uncle Sam's Cabins: A Visitor's Guide to Historic U.S. Forest Service Ranger Stations of the West, combines Forest Service history with architectural details about seventy-five ranger stations located across twelve western United States. A revised version of the book was published in 2012. [1] [6] [7] [8] In 1999, Joslin published his third book. It told the story of Walt Perry, an early-era forest ranger who served in Oregon and New Mexico. [1] [25]
Joslin's next four books explored various aspects of forestry and forest history. The Wilderness Concept and the Three Sisters Wilderness: Deschutes and Willamette National Forests, Oregon was published in 2000. A revised edition was published in 2005. [1] Seventeen Summers at Paulina Lake Guard Station was published in 2006. It was co-authored with Dick and Dave Robins. [26] The following year, Ponderosa Promise: A History of U.S. Forest Service Research in Central Oregon was published by the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station. Ponderosa Promise traces the history of forest research east of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington from 1897 through the founding of the Forest Service's modern silviculture laboratory and experimental forest in the mid-1990s. [1] [24] In 2008, Joslin prepared a new edition of a 1936 book by John Riis called Ranger Trails: The Life And Times of a Pioneer U.S. Forest Service Ranger in the West on the La Sal, Santa Barbara, Cache, and Deschutes National Forests, 1907–1913. [27]
Bend: 100 Years of History was written by a Deschutes County Historical Society committee and published in 2005. In 2009, Joslin revised the book and it was republished under the title Images of America: Bend. The revised version retained the historical society authorship. [12] [28] Five years later, Joslin published an autobiography, titled Life & Duty: An American Adventure. That book records Joslin's life story including his early life, naval career, and subsequent pursuits. Joslin's next book was Legendary Locals of Bend, published in 2016. Legendary Locals highlights remarkable people associated in some way with Bend, Oregon. The book includes 120 short biographies including stories about fur trapper Peter Skene Ogden, explorer John Charles Fremont, Bend's founder Alexander M. Drake, publisher George Palmer Putnam, Olympic gold medalist Ashton Eaton, and many other interesting people. [5] [10] [12] In 2017, Joslin published a book about the Deschutes National Forest. His book Deschutes National Forest documents the history of one of eastern Oregon's largest national forests. [15]
Here is a list of books Joslin has written or edited as of 2018:
Bend is a city in Central Oregon and the county seat of Deschutes County, Oregon, United States. It is located to the east of the Cascade Range, on the Deschutes River.
Bly is an unincorporated community in Klamath County, Oregon, United States. By highway, it is about 50 miles (80 km) east of Klamath Falls. As of 2020, the population was 207.
The Willamette National Forest is a National Forest located in the central portion of the Cascade Range of the U.S. state of Oregon. It comprises 1,678,031 acres (6,790.75 km2). Over 380,000 acres are designated wilderness which include seven major mountain peaks. There are also several National Wild and Scenic Rivers within the forest. The forest is named for the Willamette River, which has its headwaters in the forest. The forest's headquarters are located in the city of Springfield. There are local ranger district offices in McKenzie Bridge, Detroit, Sweet Home, and Westfir.
The Ochoco National Forest is located in the Ochoco Mountains in Central Oregon in the United States, north and east of the city of Prineville, location of the national forest headquarters. It encompasses 850,000 acres (3,440 km2) of rimrock, canyons, geologic oddities, dense pine forests, and high desert terrain, as well as the headwaters of the North Fork Crooked River. A 1993 Forest Service study estimated that the extent of old growth in the forest was 95,000 acres (38,000 ha).
The Malheur National Forest is a National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon. It contains more than 1.4 million acres (5,700 km2) in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. The forest consists of high desert grasslands, sage, juniper, pine, fir, and other tree species. Elevations vary from about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) to the 9,038-foot (2,755 m) peak of Strawberry Mountain. The Strawberry Mountains extend east to west through the center of the forest. U.S. Route 395 runs south to north through the forest, while U.S. Route 26 runs east to west.
Broken Top is a glacially eroded complex stratovolcano. It lies in the Cascade Volcanic Arc, part of the extensive Cascade Range in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located southeast of the Three Sisters peaks, the volcano, residing within the Three Sisters Wilderness, is 20 miles (32 km) west of Bend, Oregon in Deschutes County. Eruptive activity stopped roughly 100,000 years ago, and erosion by glaciers has since reduced the volcano's cone to where its contents are exposed. There are two named glaciers on the peak, Bend and Crook Glacier.
Central Oregon is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Oregon and is traditionally considered to be made up of Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. Other definitions include larger areas, often encompassing areas to the north towards the Columbia River, eastward towards Burns, or south towards Klamath Falls. These three counties have a combined population of 200,431 as of the 2010 census, with Deschutes the largest of the three counties, having approximately four times the population of the other two counties combined. As of 2015, the most populous city in the region is Bend, with an estimated 87,014 residents. As defined by the three county definition, Central Oregon covers 7,833 square miles (20,290 km2) of land. Central Oregon has had 3 record tourism years beginning in 2012. Over 2.2 million people visited Central Oregon in 2012 and again in 2013.
The Three Sisters are closely spaced volcanic peaks in the U.S. state of Oregon. They are part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Cascade Range in western North America extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. Each over 10,000 feet in elevation, they are the third-, fourth- and fifth-highest peaks in Oregon. Located in the Three Sisters Wilderness at the boundary of Lane and Deschutes counties and the Willamette and Deschutes national forests, they are about 10 miles south of the nearest town, Sisters. Diverse species of flora and fauna inhabit the area, which is subject to frequent snowfall, occasional rain, and extreme temperature variation between seasons. The mountains, particularly South Sister, are popular destinations for climbing and scrambling.
Diamond Peak is a volcano in Klamath and Lane counties of central Oregon in the United States. It is a shield volcano, though it might also be considered a modest stratocone. Diamond Peak forms part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Cascade Range in western North America extending from southern British Columbia through Oregon to Northern California. Reaching an elevation of 8,748 feet (2,666 m), the mountain is located near Willamette Pass in the Diamond Peak Wilderness within the Deschutes and Willamette national forests. Surrounded by coniferous forest and visible in the skyline from foothills near Eugene, Diamond Peak offers a few climbing routes and can be scrambled. Diamond Peak is one of Oregon's Matterhorns.
The Deschutes National Forest is a United States national forest (NF) located in Central Oregon, in parts of Deschutes, Klamath, Lake, and Jefferson counties. It was established in 1908, with border changes following in 1911 and 1915. The forest now encompasses almost 1.6 million acres (6,500 km2) along the east side of the Cascade Range. The forest is bordered to the south by the Fremont–Winema NF, to the southwest by the Umpqua NF, and to the west by the Willamette NF.
Black Crater is a shield volcano in the Western Cascades in Deschutes County, Oregon. Located near McKenzie Pass, the volcano has a broad conical shape with gentle slopes. The volcano likely formed during the Pleistocene and has not been active within the last 50,000 years. Eruptive activity at the volcano produced mafic lava flows made of basaltic andesite and olivine basalt; it also formed a number of cinder cones. A normal fault occurs on the western side of the volcano, trending north–south. The volcano has been eroded by glaciers, which carved a large cirque into the northeastern flank of the mountain, forming its current crater.
Robert Dale Maxwell was a United States Army combat soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration for valor—the Medal of Honor—for his heroism in France during World War II.
The Cabin Lake Guard Station is a Forest Service compound consisting of six simple rustic buildings located in the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon. It was originally built as a district ranger station for the Fort Rock Ranger District. It was later converted to a summer guard station. The guard station is now closed, but the adjacent campground is open. While still very remote, it is a popular location for bird watching and nature photography. The Cabin Lake Guard Station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Allison Guard Station is a Forest Service compound consisting of eight rustic buildings located in the Malheur National Forest in the Ochoco Mountains of eastern Oregon. It was originally built as a district ranger station for the Snow Mountain Ranger District. It was later converted to a summer guard station. Today, it is an active Forest Service guard station with a crew of twelve fire fighters on station during the summer fire season. The station's oldest building, the Donnelly Cabin, is currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the "Allison Ranger Station". Most of the other buildings at the Allison Guard Station are eligible for historic designation, but are not yet listed on the National Register.
The Oregon Badlands Wilderness is a 29,301-acre (11,858 ha) wilderness area located east of Bend in Deschutes and Crook counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. The wilderness is managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Landscape Conservation System and was created by the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on 30 March 2009.
The Paulina Lake Guard Station is a Forest Service building located in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in Central Oregon. The guard station was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps to house the seasonal assistant ranger responsible for patrolling the forest around Paulina Lake. Because of its rustic architecture, the guard station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
The Gasquet Ranger Station Historic District comprises a compound of buildings associated with the Gasquet Ranger District of Six Rivers National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service complex is located along the Smith River on U.S. Route 199 in Del Norte County, California, within Smith River National Recreation Area. Most of the buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1939. Seven buildings and a rock wall remain of the CCC-built structures. The district office, the assistant district ranger's residence, a warehouse, two garages and a fuel house were built in the Forest Service rustic style that prevailed at the time. The style is reflected in distinctive detailing, including a recurring pine tree cut-out logo that appears on gables and shutters.
The Elk Lake Guard Station is a United States Forest Service cabin located in the Deschutes National Forest southwest of Bend, Oregon. The guard station was built in 1929 on the north shore of Elk Lake. It was used as a home base for Forest Service personnel who protected forest resources, maintained facilities, and aided summer visitors in the Cascade Lakes area of Central Oregon. After decades of use, the cabin was renovated in the late 1990s. Today, the historic guard station serves as a Forest Service visitor information center along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. The Elk Lake Guard Station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Lava Lake murders refers to a triple murder that occurred near Little Lava Lake in the Deschutes National Forest in Deschutes County, Oregon, United States, in January 1924. The victims were Edward Nickols (50), Roy Wilson (35), and Dewey Morris (25), all of whom were working as fur trappers in the Deschutes National Forest in the winter of 1923–1924. Their bodies were discovered in Little Lava Lake in April 1924, where they had been deposited under the surface ice. Each of the men had been murdered via gunshot and blunt force trauma. Though police identified a potential suspect, Charles Kimzey, no one was ever convicted of the crime.
The Milli Fire was a wildfire that burned over 24,000 acres (97 km2) of Oregon forest land during the summer of 2017. The fire began in the Deschutes National Forest on 11 August 2017, the result of a lightning strike. The fire consumed thick forest vegetation southwest of Sisters, Oregon. Most of the burned area was public lands administered by the United States Forest Service, much of it in the Three Sisters Wilderness. Firefighters battled the blaze for over a month. At the peak of the firefighting effort, there were 675 firefighters working on the Milli Fire.