Logger Has Horse Sense Nostalgic Methods Are Paying Off For Timber Industry And The Environment

Harold Freels’ black Belgians move eagerly through the trees, hooves falling delicately on the forest floor.

Freels trails them, jumping nimbly over the log they are pulling.

In worn jeans and a plaid shirt, Freels could grace a photo album of early loggers in the Blue Mountains. The Belgians also look the part, with the exception of their nylon harness.

But there’s more than a pioneer demonstration under way at this timber sale. Freels, a 42-year-old logger from Enterprise, Ore., is using nostalgic forestry methods to achieve results of the future.

Freels and his team will leave little evidence of logging in the Umatilla National Forest. Horses are gentler on the ground than machines. They don’t scar the surface or compact the soil, which makes regrowth of trees easier.

Freels also cuts off the stumps at ground level so the horses don’t trip. That’s a public relations plus, as far as Forest Service sales administrator Dan Kinney is concerned. The sale is visible from Oregon Highway 204, and the land is used by skiers at nearby Spout Springs Ski Resort. When the Forest Service wanted to remove dead trees from the site, “We don’t want it to look like it had ever been logged,” Kinney said.

A small, wiry man, Freels moves easily among the big animals. The team works in rhythm to his commands. “Turn around boys, back her up. Move, Kane. Whoooooooa.”

Freels calls the log the horses are pulling a “match stick … There’s nothing here that even strains them,” he says proudly.

The Belgians, Jack and Kane, are massive, with muscles a body builder would envy. “Babies,” Freels calls them affectionately. Standing 16 hands (64 inches) and weighing 1,850 pounds apiece, they’re a full hand shorter and 450 pounds lighter than his other pair of draft horses.

Jack and Kane have worked together for three years, and they share an affectionate bond. When Jack was injured last year, it took Kane a week to adjust to working with another horse. His communication to Freels: “Hey, this isn’t my partner!”

Freels grew up on a ranch and worked for 15 years in a Boise Cascade lumber mill in Joseph. He started horse logging as a hobby, and it grew into a full-time job five years ago.

“I don’t think of it as work. I consider it pure recreation,” Freels says.

Freels lives a gypsy lifestyle, traveling through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana for work. The horses and a passel of dogs are his family.

“They’ll work their hearts out for a person. They aim to please,” says Freels, who spends four to six months training each team.

About half of Freels’ work comes from the Forest Service. Small landowners make up the rest.

Horse logging fills a specialized niche, says Kinney of the Forest Service. About 1 percent of the timber logged on the Walla Walla Ranger District is done with horses. Often the volume of timber offered in horse sales is too small to allow conventional loggers to turn a profit, Kinney says.

Freels also contracts with private woodlot owners who want their trees thinned, or dead or diseased timber removed. “They want to leave it manicured, not trashed,” he says.

Horse logging evokes a certain nostalgia, says Bill Pickell, general manager of Washington Contract Loggers Association, which counts three horse loggers among its 720 members.

“There is a comforting feeling when you see a horse pulling a log, as opposed to a diesel-belching machine,” Pickell said.