Suck it up, tree huggers

Related note, something I find interesting.

Up here in Ely — a mining town to this day for more residents, notwithstanding the last mine (Pioneer) closing in the mid-seventies — there is a hostile sentiment, as you might expect, towards environmentalists.

If you comment to a crusty old-timer about the trees, the woods, the forest — perhaps you are up here camping for a few days, or maybe you own a cabin, or rent a time-share lodge — he will get a glean in his eye and eagerly assure you that all this land (here he sweeps his arm, pointing at the horizon) used to be clear-cut and barren as Mars. (He doesn't say Mars — added that part. But I exaggerate only a little).

Because all the mighty Old Growth forest got cut down to build lumber camps and sawmills and railroad ties and bridges and buildings and wharves and ships and so on during the 1800s (and into the 1900s, peaking 1920).

So suck it up, tree huggers. These trees here? There used to be Much Bigger Trees. Which the miners had no time to mourn, because they were in the mines all the time, digging that sweet, sweet Haematite. (Exceedingly pure veins of Haematite up here, interesting trace elements.)