Zach LaPerriere

“I grew up in a mill town, Ketchikan. The Tongass was having a quarter of a billion board feet logged a year at that point. One year I’d be in a bay, and it would be amazing, wild old growth. The next year it would be a logging camp and then it would just be a clearcut. I saw a fair bit of that growing up— and kids don’t question that much. So I experienced it, and by the time I was a teenager, I started thinking, ‘You know what, this doesn’t seem to be the best idea, to be cutting a thousand acres at a time.’ I saw my fair share of landslides, washed out rivers, that kind of thing. That’s where my interest in conservation started.

I’ve always been drawn to the forest, both to being in the forest, but also to working in the forest. I’m a salvage logger as well. It gets into my woodwork and my art. I just can’t imagine living anywhere else. As a person of European descent, I feel very fortunate to live on Lingít Aaní, native land, it’s just amazing. The forest is my inspiration, it feeds my family. If you’ve seen the Tongass, you know it’s pretty special.

Living in the forest has taught me so much. Growing up on boats I spent a lot of time in the forest, but actually living right in the forest, is just—words fail me. It’s profound. Everyone else is complaining about the snow and there might be a foot of snow on the ground and we have an inch in the forest because the trees buffer snow. People complain about the wind, we don’t have the wind because of the forest. Within a hundred yards of our cabin we pick up to 20 gallons of huckleberries every year. The forest is where it’s at, it’s really cool. The Tongass is where it’s at. I’m just so grateful.

There’s a quote from the Adventure Journal, 'The deeper you get, the deeper you get, and that’s really the truth, both in the Tongass and for me as a woodworker. I just can’t get enough of it.”

— Zach LaPerriere, Fine Woodworker

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