WILLIAM ALEXANDER LANGILLE
(1868-1956)
The Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve was created late in 1902, but
management of the reserve was slow in developing. Langille made some examination of
the reserve in the spring and summer of 1903 and in the summer of 1904, but not until
1905 did it come under any real management. For the first six years of its management,
the story of the Alexander Archipelago and of the Tongass national forests is essentially
the story of one man—William Alexander Langille.
Langille came from a family that played an important part in the history of forestry
and conservation in Oregon. He was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, in 1868. His family
moved to Hood River, Oregon, in 1880. The Langille family became interested in
mountaineering. Will and his younger brother, Harold Douglas Langille, made winter
trips to the north side of Mount Hood on skis, dispelling the myth that the winter climate
at timberline could not be endured. Their father, James Langille, helped construct Cloud
Cap Inn, and in 1891 the Langille family took over its management. At that time it was
one of the most attractive alpine inns in the country.
Will and Harold became guides on the mountain, taking part in such patriotic rituals
as illuminating the summit with red fire on the night of the Fourth of July. They
pioneered many new routes to the top of the mountain, were charter members of the
Mazamas (the first mountaineering organization on the Pacific Coast), played a part in
the creation of the Cascade Range Forest Reserve, and guided the Forestry Commission
when it visited the Mount Hood area in 1896.
At Cloud Cap Inn, the Langilles became acquainted with professors and scientists
who visited the area, including William H. Brewer, Henry Gannett, J. G. Lemmon,
Frederick V. Coville, and C. S. Sargent. Years later, Will Langille wrote, "These men
were the inspiration that awakened better things in our young lives.”
In 1897 Will joined the gold rush for the Klondike. He summarized his Alaskan
experience as follows:
Left Cloud Cap Inn July 23, 1897. Left Portland on S.S. G. W. Elder
July 27, 1897. Left Lake Bennett for Dawson Sept. 11, down Yukon in an
open boat. Arrived at Dawson Sept. 25, 1897. Left Dawson for Nome Jan.,
1900, with dog team. Arrived Nome March 26, 321/2 hours travel time.
Left Nome Nov. 10, 1902. Left Washington D.C. for Ketchikan April 6,
1903. Left Washington D.C. April 1, 1904. To Nome July 1904 via Prince
William Sound and Dutch Harbor. Left Seward January 1905 to Fairbanks
via Matanuska Pass & Mt. McKinley region.
Left Fairbanks May 10 walked to Circle City arrived May14. Then to
Dawson, Juneau & Wrangell. Left Alaska September 1911.
Thus, briefly, Langille summarized a northern career with enough adventure in it
to fill a book. In the Klondike, he shared a cabin with Jack London and became
acquainted with the dog "Buck," the hero of London's story, The Call of the Wild. He
hunted game for the market on the Stewart River, cooked in a restaurant in Dawson, and
later became night man for the Alaska Commercial Company. Finally, feeling his "string
had played out," he traveled over the winter ice to the black sands of Nome. He was
prospecting there in 1902 when he received word that Pinchot wanted him to work in
Alaskan forestry. Langille went to Washington to confer with Roosevelt and Pinchot on
the Alaskan forests.
Pinchot employed Langille as a forest expert. In April of 1903, Langille returned
to Alaska to report on the administrative needs of the forests. There he made his
headquarters at Yes Bay, a cannery settlement near Ketchikan. He traveled up the Stikine
River by canoe to the Canadian boundary, visited mills on or near the reserve, and sailed
up Portland Canal, the southern boundary with British Columbia, to investigate timber
theft by Nass Indians on the American side. He returned to the states in the fall. Early in
1904, he examined and reported on a proposed addition to the Sierra (North) National
Forest in California. Then in April he made a long reconnaissance from Juneau to the
Controller Bay and Prince William Sound areas and thence north to Norton Bay. He
returned to Valdez in the fall and spent most of the season and early winter making an
examination of the Kenai Peninsula and writing up reports. Between January and March
of 1905, Langille traveled by dog team from Seward to Fairbanks to examine the forests
of the interior. He then returned to Ketchikan to take on new duties as forest supervisor of
the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve.
Langille was a man of magnificent physique, an accomplished mountaineer, and a
skilled hunter. On his long overland reconnaissance trips, he lived off the land on rabbits
and ptarmigan shot with his .22 rifle or grayling caught with improvised flies. He was a
good field botanist and mammologist, an expert on mining law in Canada and the United
States, and an able cartographer. His skill as a photographer dated back to his Oregon
days when he took many scenic views of Mount Hood. He had a bluff, hearty manner,
highly acceptable to most Alaskans. He was utterly honest and carried out his work in the
face of attempted intimidation. His letters to reserve users were blunt, forceful, and at
times undiplomatic. A perfectionist, he was impatient of shortcomings in others, found it
hard to delegate authority, and at times seemed to his subordinates to be overbearing.
Like his brother Harold, he was an accomplished writer, having a keen sensitivity to
natural beauty coupled with a somewhat sardonic sense of humor. His reports are the best
sources available for an accurate picture of forestry in a unique setting.
In Alaska, he had as many duties as Pooh-Bah of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado. "I
can tell you of the travels of Langille and Wernstedt," wrote Melvin L. Merritt; "these
stories read almost like those of the early explorers, as indeed they were." Langille
traversed and mapped boundaries for the reserves, traced down timber trespass, made
timber sales, acted as disbursing agent, examined mining claims, made out special
occupancy permits, enforced game laws, and did cooperative work with such federal
agencies as the Biological Survey, the Fish Commission, and the Geological Survey. He
kept a meticulous set of books and records under the most difficult of circumstances. In
addition, he explained to the Alaskans the purposes and uses of the reserve, and he kept
the Washington Office informed of its needs-all on the magnificent salary of $1,800 to
$2,000 per year.
Langille first set up headquarters at Wrangell, but he soon moved to Ketchikan,
which was a larger trade center and where the mail boats stopped more often. He shared
offices with a customs collector at first but within a month wrote, "Quarters are scarce,
but I have secured a good isolated place built on pilings for twenty dollars a month, heat
light water and caretaker furnished."
His main problem was to secure a boat for travel around the islands and to use as
an office afloat. Much of the correspondence between Langille and the Washington
Office dealt with the need of a boat and its specifications, but not until 1909 was one
obtained. Meanwhile, Will improvised. Records show that he traveled by mail boat a
good deal and at times chartered boats at $10 per day. During the Olmsted inspection trip
of 1905, he rented a launch, the Walrus. For much of his work he chartered a sloop, the
Columbia, from Peter Makinon, a Nova Scotian, at $5 per day; it had no engine. Langille
was often stormbound and sometimes he and Makinon had to row the vessel for long
distances because of adverse winds and tides. In 1908, however, a large gasoline launch,
the Tahn, was built to Langille's specifications; it was put into service the following year.
Langille at Cloud Cap (c. 1895). Moody-McKeown Collection, Oregon Historical Society
William Langille is regarded by many as the father of forestry in Alaska. During
his time there he mapped boundaries for the forest reserves, traced down timber trespass,
made timber sales, acted as disbursing agent, examined mining claims, made out special
occupancy permits, enforced game laws, and did cooperative work with such federal
agencies as the Biological Survey, the Fish Commission, and the Geological Survey.
Langille kept a meticulous set of books and records under the most difficult of
circumstances. In addition, he explained to Alaskans the purposes and uses of the new
reserves, and he kept the Washington Office informed of its needs.
These unique written records can be seen in the following pages, which are digital
scans of selected pages from one of Langille’s journals. The nine pages previewed below
are from a 226 page volume of Langille’s handwritten journal entries and financial
transactions during the time period from 1905 to 1907. The volume also includes records
of timber sales and other business dealings in Alaska, as well as notes on timber trespass
cases.
The National Archives at Seattle houses four bound volumes containing Langille’s
journal entries, copies of letters, and various business transactions. The books cover the
period from 1903 to 1907 during which time Langille was working throughout Alaska
for the Bureau of Forestry and The U.S. Forest Service. Digital scans also exist of the
complete Langille journal from 1905 to 1907.