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Harvey Manning passed on to his reward in Seattle on November 12. He was 81, my vintage, and a friend -- a comrade-in-arms if not quite a bosom buddy. I respected and admired Harvey’s creativity as a writer and courage as an activist. He held principle high and stuck to it. The Seattle Times gave him a cheery sendoff, calling him “a dedicated and caring conservationist,” adding:
The North Cascades National Park, the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area and Cougar Mountain Regional Park all owe their existence to him…
“The Issaquah Alps were nameless foothills south of Interstate 90 before Mr. Manning christened them in 1976. He was one of the original advocates of the Mountains-to-Sound Greenway, now a publicly owned 100-mile corridor of woods along I-90.”
That is the least of it. Harvey’s legacy really is in the standard he set. More about Harvey presently, but first a few lines to apply that standard to a current issue involving watered-down pseudo-wilderness bills before Congress. Those bills concern public lands in Idaho, but they hold serious potential precedent for wild, natural areas everywhere.
On one hand, the Wilderness Society and Idaho Conservation League
support the Republican-sponsored legislation. On the other hand, a
coalition of more than 80 grassroots environmental organizations
published an open letter asking these two organizations to withdraw
their support because the bills include too many exemptions and
trade-offs in return for too little protection.
Craig Gehrke, the Wilderness Society's Idaho director, tried to defend
his organization: "You've got to go to the dance with the one who
brung you. We tell our DC office they can celebrate the Democrats'
victory, but remember we've worked for years with people who are not
Democrats; our sponsors are Republicans and we are going to respect
that."
But Rep. Nick Rahall, of West Virginia, who in January will become
chairman of House Resources Committee, had a better way of looking at
it: "I simply cannot support eroding protection in the Sawtooth
National Recreation Area, the transfer of public lands to developers,
or the payoffs to mining speculators to name but a few issues."
Personally, I think the Wilderness Society has become a shadow of
itself. I think it has lost its steam since the 1960s and 70s, when I
knew it best and found it always on the front line of issues. I’m sure
it would help if the people who run it now reviewed history and learned
from the attainments of Harvey Manning and others like him.
Harvey was a writer, more or less like me. After earning a degree in
English literature from the University of Washington, he worked in
public relations at the university and edited the alumni magazine. He
loved the outdoors and went on to write immensely popular guidebooks
for hikers and started Mountaineer Books. He was the Northwest hiker’s
hiker and scribe and might have acquired a degree of wealth. But
material wealth was not his measure of success.
When Harvey saw the North Cascades slashed, burned and roaded by
timbermen and foresters, he and others began the campaign for a
national park. He connected with David Brower of the Sierra Club, for
whom no mountain was too high to climb, no battle of principle too
tough to fight. In 1957 Brower helped a handful of Washington State
activists organize the North Cascades Conservation Council. “In the
early 1960s, as it grew obvious we locals had to ‘go national,’” Harvey
later recorded, “Dave’s leadership became paramount. He knew all
buttons of all the players in the national game. He pushed them. And
thus, in 1968 was created the North Cascades National Park.”
Shortly after I moved to Bellingham, Washington, in 1987, Harvey came to visit. He gave me a copy of his latest book, Walking the Beach to Bellingham,
published the year before. It was a charming work, filled with wisdom,
humor and surprises. He showed me on the back cover an excerpt from a
review I had written of it: “Harvey Manning not only has been through
many battles but has trampled all over the state’s backcountry. He
knows and loves it all and writes about it in his own idiomatic
manner…” Later we spoke together at an Earth Day program at the
University of Washington and I always looked forward to the newsletter
of the North Cascades Conservation Council, which he and Betty, his
wife, edited.
Everything about Harvey was idiomatic. In appearance, he looked like
Grandfather Santa Claus, but could not have cared less. Tracy Spring
wrote me the other day: “Yes, the mold broke after Harvey Manning. If
there’s a heaven, Harvey and Ira [Ira Spring, renowned photographer,
Harvey’s old partner, and Tracy’s uncle] continue their friendship and
their debates, on endless hikes in good weather through pristine
mountain wilderness.”
Harvey Manning left a legacy and a challenge to citizens who enjoy
nature the way God made it and who care about America the Beautiful and
about themselves. He tells us that we need to express our care and
concern with principle and vigilance. We need to stand up to be heard
-- loud and clear and strong enough to rally public support and to
shape it into effective public policy and practice. This is not exactly
easy, but it works, and it’s good for the soul.
Cheers and Happy Trails,
MICHAEL FROME
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- Various 
