Remembering Jerry Gorsline, Environmental Champion & Activist

On March 29, 2021 our world lost a champion. Jerry Gorsline, naturalist, conservationist, historian, writer, and mentor to many current activists passed away at his home from pulmonary fibrosis. We have asked several local environmentalists who were mentored by Jerry to pay tribute to such a giant.

Tim McNulty, Olympic Park Advocates

In the early 1970s, an unlikely band of scruffy woods rats, tree planters, and poets were trying to slow the pace of forest service road building and clearcutting in wild and remote parts of the Olympics.  We loved the ancient forests, wrote letters, and complained to local officials, all to little avail.  When Jerry moved to the peninsula, he gamely threw in with our fledgling conservation efforts – and gave us all an education in the process.  Jerry introduced us to the pioneering old-growth research Jerry Franklin and his team was publishing from the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.  He shared scientific papers on the effects of clearcutting on watersheds, soils, fish and wildlife.  He loaned us books by Aldo Leopold and Carl Sauer, Scientific American reprints, and his own essays on bioregional philosophy.  His generosity was remarkable.  Most of us were liberal arts kids who had shunned the hard sciences in college.  Jerry, who never attended college, showed us the error of our ways.  When Olympic National Forest announced land use planning for the east slope of the Olympics, we were ready.

A small group of us pooled our efforts, ground-truthed backcountry areas, and put together a detailed wilderness proposal for the East Olympics.  Jerry and I wrote and produced a large brochure with Steve Johnson’s stunning photographs and shopped the proposal around to Seattle-based conservation organizations.  A dozen regional and national groups endorsed our proposal, and the forest service was soon swamped with letters.  The congressional campaign carried on for several more years, of course, but today’s Buckhorn, Brothers, Mt. Skokomish, and Wonder Mountain wilderness areas had their origins in that early, backwoods effort.  It would not have been nearly as effective without Jerry’s guidance.  Jerry continued to work for protections for Pat’s Prairie, Cranberry Bog, and other botanically unique areas in Olympic National Forest.  He once joked that our role as citizen advocates was to put forest service managers in touch with their own agency’s research.  I had to agree.  Later, Jerry did years of yeoman service field examining problematic timber sales as Washington Environmental Council’s Timber Fish and Wildlife forester.  And he shared his writing and editing talents in several books for Empty Bowl Press and the Jefferson County Historical Association and contributed to a raft of publications. 

My friendship with Jerry and our collaborations came at a pivotal time in my life.  He gave me a solid nudge along my path of grass-roots environmental work and natural history writing, and I know he influenced a number of friends in similar ways.  Our last outing together was a walk last fall on the Elwha River with his wife Beth and my wife Mary.  Chinook salmon had ascended past the former Elwha Dam site and were spawning in the river just below the road.  I was happy to share that moment of restoration and renewal with my old friend.  I’ll carry it with me.

Darlene Schanfald, Chair, North Olympic Sierra Club

When Save Our State Park (SOSP) and Protect the Peninsula’s Future collaborated to fight the state to keep parkland on Miller Peninsula, keeping it from a Planned Recreational Community, Jerry helped identify the native plants on the Miller Peninsula.  A funny story: Jerry led some of us, including WDFW biologists, on a hike in the parkland, then took off up a hill and didn’t come back.  The rest of us were lost!  After a long time, somehow, we found our way and met up with him.  He wondered what took us so long!

During our attempts to save the parkland, Jerry led a hike, including on the Diamond Point beach, where he identified a rare Lilly and pine tree on the beach.  When he co-led a hike for The Nature Conservancy, one of the hikers identified for him another rare plant.  

Jerry gave native plant presentations at SOSP fundraisers and we always had his book there for sale – Shadows of Our Ancestors.

Stephen Grace, Tides & Trails (the following are excerpts from Stephen’s tribute to Jerry)

Just before Jerry Gorsline died he loaned me a book: “Black Brant: Sea Goose of the Pacific Coast.” We had exchanged stories about this bird through email; Jerry was eager to get the book into my hands. When I went to his home to pick it up, he was having difficulty breathing.

Though Jerry’s physical health was poor, two of his core attributes remained intact: his deep appreciation for the natural world, and his generosity. Despite his suffering, he was determined to share the book, and stories of a bird he loved, with me. He spoke of the striking plumage of this small sea goose, the soft cronk of its voice, the eelgrass it grazes at the ocean’s edge.

I first met Jerry when I was launching an effort to preserve an old-growth forest. I had heard he’d led some successful conservation efforts and was excited to get to know him. With his eyeglasses and plaid shirt, he looked woodsy and studious. As we chatted in his home surrounded by books and views of Discovery Bay, his voice hardly rose above a hoarse whisper, and he seemed painfully thin. His health was deteriorating, but I imagined him lean and soft-spoken as a young man, eager to share natural history knowledge with fellow tree planters in the forest, eager to get books into their hands as they hiked through the wilds.

One day when I was feeling particularly daunted, I went to visit Jerry. He placed in my hands his increment borer—a long drill used to core trees and count their growth rings. I felt like an apprentice knight being presented his first sword, or Luke Skywalker receiving Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber. Along with the increment borer, Jerry handed me his D-tape, or diameter tape, a tape measure for quantifying tree diameter. This tool was holstered in a leather pouch rubbed smooth from years of use.

When I visited Jerry to pick up the book about brant geese, I told him what I’d witnessed the day before: a gray whale feeding in the mudflats of Discovery Bay, and one of the most prolific feeding frenzies I’d ever watched—rhinoceros auklets, pigeon guillemots, cormorants, mergansers, grebes, gulls, eagles, seals, porpoises all corralling bait balls of silvery forage fish. Jerry told me that years ago the bay had been a “biological desert.” Nature is resilient, we agreed, and given a helping hand from us humans, places we have damaged can regenerate with remarkable vigor.

As I shared with Jerry all the life I’d encountered on the bay below the bluff on which he’d built his home, he said, “That’s so wonderful to hear.” Between sips of oxygen delivered from a machine, he asked me if I’d seen a western grebe on the water, one of his favorite birds. His phone rang. It was time for me to go. He died that night.   

The tools Jerry gifted me are among my most prized possessions. But I am only their temporary keeper. I’m getting too old to be among the “new guard” of conservationists on the Olympic Peninsula. One of the last things I told Jerry was that in my work as a naturalist and educator I meet so many young people who are determined to make a difference—they give me hope that this planet can be healed. Soon I will be placing Jerry’s increment borer in their hands.

When I pass Jerry’s forestry tools to the next generation, I will tell them about a man who so loved the natural world, and was so determined to share this love with others, that he summoned me to his home when he was dying to give me a book about geese, and to tell me about the beauty of these birds. Jerry is survived by his wife, Beth MacBarron, who has also inspired many people to preserve the natural heritage of the Olympic Peninsula.

Jill Silver, Ten Thousand Years Institute / OFCO Board Member

Jerry was a dear friend and mentor of nearly 30 years, beginning when he was on staff at Washington Environmental Council, and I was starting as the Hoh Tribe’s habitat biologist. We came to work together as I worked to protect forested wetlands and bogs from timber harvest and road construction; Jerry would come out to the Hoh watershed to participate in Interdisciplinary Team Meetings (ID Teams). His grace with woods-walking and negotiating were inspirational and combined with his deep knowledge of native plants, he taught me much. He was ever polite and courteous, calm and direct, even when angry over pending or extant damage to rare ecosystems. In recent years, we shared observations and love of birds, native plants, and the shifting climate – and he and Beth were constant sources of botanical and historical knowledge. I am ever grateful. The planet has lost ‘a mensch’ – a person of deep integrity and honor – yet for me, he remains closer than ever – in my heart – and everywhere in nature.

Jude Rubin, Northwest Watershed Institute

Jerry Gorsline was true naturalist and one of our region’s preeminent anthropologists, whose writings helped codified the history of Native American culture and European colonization on the eastern Olympic Peninsula.

 Jerry was an early and sincere supporter of my thesis study — co-authored with Peter Bahls — a deep history of Chimacum Creek Watershed coho salmon habitat. His book Shadows of Our Ancestors and his personal reflections provided invaluable insights into the deep ecological history that has shaped our land and land use.  

Jerry inspired me – he was never afraid to speak the truth about environmental issues, even at the risk of taking an unpopular stance.  

In the first year of the Youth Environmental Stewards (YES!) Program for local teens, Jerry and his wife gifted Northwest Watershed Institute a dissecting microscope that had been owned by their botany teacher Nelsa Buckingham, author of Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest (1979). Jerry was that rare adult who trusted that today’s youth could be still connect with and advocate for nature. We will take good care of his precious dissecting scope, and do our best to empower youth in his memory. 

We will really miss Jerry, and are sorry not to have been able to say goodbye. I can say with some certainty that he would love the idea of students planting native trees in his honor, and offer upcoming this opportunity: On April 17 Northwest Watershed Institute is hosting a mini-Plant-A-Thon for the Pi High School Program to restore a beaver pond/wetland complex in the Tarboo Watershed. Trees planted in Jerry’s honor will support Chimacum Pi Program. Supporters receive a tree card to send to a friend.  https://plant-a-thon-for-pi-program.square.site/

Mike Ewing

I met Jerry in 1979. At that time he had helped to organize the local tree planting co-op Olympic Reforestation Inc. (ORI). Jerry recruited me to become a tree planter and the bookkeeping for ORI.

In the early 1980s, Jerry, as part of a community group concerned about herbicides used along county roads, approached Jefferson County Public Works to slash the plants as an alternative to spraying. The county contracted with ORI for several years to hand slash certain areas along county roads.

Jerry and I worked on a number of experiments with the county to demonstrate how to achieve their goals through the planting of certain low growing native plants that would crowd out problem plants. One example of these experiments was the planting of salal on several cut banks. Unfortunately the county did not want to continue funding these environmentally friendly ways of manage roadside vegetation.

At the same time we were working with the county, Jerry, committed to reducing the use of toxic spraying, approached the Washington State Department of Natural Resources about hand slashing alder in replanted timber plantations as an alternative to spraying. Later ORI also contracted with private timber companies to do the same work.

Jerry also co-founded the Blue Parrot Cafe, which became the Salal café, one of the most popular breakfast restaurants in Port Townsend. As a frequent customer, I always enjoyed talking with Jerry as he waited on tables.

Autumn Scott

My husband, Chuck, and I were deeply saddened by the passing of Jerry Gorsline on March 29, 2021. Jerry was an important leader in our Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society for many years, serving as Chair from 1986 through the mid-’90s. I met him in 1977 at Shi Shi beach, at the same time I met my husband and our friend, Tim McNulty. They had come out with a couple of other friends for a “Blue Moon in June” celebration at the beach. This was the beginning of a long friendship that developed over the years. As I learned more about Jerry, I grew to deeply respect and admire him, as did so many others.

Some of my favorite memories are of our field trips exploring the mountains, forests, seashores, lakes, and bogs of the Olympic Peninsula. For many years I led annual trips in early July up Mt. Townsend and along the rocky, alpine ridges of Welch Peaks where we found several endemics. Jerry had wanted to botanize Gray Wolf Ridge, and so he and Chuck took a multi-day backpacking trip from north of The Needles, ending up on the Maynard Burn Trail.

Jerry’s excellent research and communication skills and deep understanding of natural systems enabled him to be a very effective advocate for protecting our forests, plants, animals, and wild areas on the Peninsula. He played a major role in our efforts to preserve Kah Tai Prairie, a remnant prairie located in the rough of the former Spring Valley Golf Course (now The Pt. Townsend Golf Course). Kah Tai Prairie Preserve was formally designated by the City in 1987.

Jerry was involved in a number of environmental organizations and activities, and served as a board member for the WNPS State organization, as well as Chair of the Olympic Peninsula Chapter. He worked intensively on Forest Service issues and planning, and served on the Olympic National Forest Planning Committee, overseeing five wilderness areas. In 1990 Jerry conducted a wetland survey at Gibbs Lake so that the county could use the information in development planning for the area. He lived near Devils Lake bog when he first moved to the Peninsula, and several years later, he led field trips there and worked to protect Devils Lake and expand the boundaries. He served on a riparian advisory committee to the DNR, and gave a presentation on The Functions and Values of Riparian Vegetation in January, 1994. Jerry was a member of the Jefferson County Conservation Futures Committee, which works to maintain, preserve, and conserve open space lands. He was involved in preserving the native Opuntia fragilis (prickly pear cactus) population growing on the dry slopes above Beckett  Point. In 1990, Jerry began working for the Washington Environmental Council as a forester, and then as a habitat policy associate. He retired in 2005, but continued with many volunteer activities. Chuck called him Citizen Gorsline.

Jerry was knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, and he also cared deeply about poetry, jazz, classical music, and the arts. Books he’s written are “Rainshadow: Archibald Menzies and the Botanical Exploration of the Olympic Peninsula,” dedicated to our mentor, Nelsa M. Buckingham, “Shadows of Our Ancestors: Readings in the History of Klallam-White Relations,” and “Working the Woods, Working the Sea: An Anthology of Northwest Writings,” co-edited with Finn Wilcox.

Jerry’s generosity of spirit, his dedication and hard work, intelligence and integrity, high standards, meticulous research, eloquence, dignity, sincerity, self-effacing nature, and good judgment all came through in everything he did. He was very serious in his commitment to wild areas and nature, but generally maintained a personal warmth, sense of humor, courtesy, and the ability to work effectively with others. We can be very thankful that Jerry was deeply involved with our chapter for many years. He had a big influence in our community, and on the Olympic Peninsula, and his legacy will live on. I hope we can continue to be inspired by this remarkable man. I will miss him very much.