A Plan Blooms In Darrington -- Timber Town's New Wildflower Festival Part Of Survival Bid

DARRINGTON, Snohomish County - Call it a sign of the times.

This logging town of 1,200, which depended for decades on old-growth timber from the surrounding mountains, now is promoting a different forest product: wildflowers.

Darrington will stage a wildflower festival June 19, with guided walks, displays, bluegrass music, barbecue and a Native American workshop on traditional uses of native plants.

Town leaders hope you'll come, and spend some money while you're here. Darrington is trying to wean itself from timber, and tourism is a big part of that campaign.

"We've walked past the flowers up here for years, and didn't know the jewel we had," says Laurence Larsen, who owns the hardware store and heads the town's economic advisory board. "We're trying to capitalize on it now."

From Forks, Wash., to Fort Bragg, Calif., timber towns are searching for ways to diversify their economies and generate new jobs.

They have little choice. Court injunctions have put most old growth on national forests off limits to loggers. Harvest levels have plummeted. Mills have closed.

Industry blames the spotted owl. Environmentalists say the downturn is the inevitable outcome of decades of shortsighted federal policy.

You can argue about the cause, but not the effect. In the Darrington Ranger District of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, for example, the volume of timber cut annually has dropped more than 80 percent in just five years.

At the conclusion of his forest conference in Portland April 2, President Clinton ordered his Cabinet to report back with a plan for resolving the Northwest's forest fight by today. That deadline apparently has slipped, a reflection of just how thorny this issue is.

One administration team is looking at ways to help displaced workers and towns like Darrington. But Clinton warned them in Portland that "I cannot repeal the laws of change." Larsen, a Darrington native, understands. He doesn't expect Clinton to return King Timber to the throne.

Logging levels on national-forest lands remained high - perhaps too high - throughout the 1980s, even as Congress set aside more land as wilderness, he says. "It was bound to slow down. This has been coming for a long, long time," Larsen says.

Darrington probably hasn't suffered as much from the downturn as some timber towns. Summit Timber, which employs 400 and is an economic mainstay, has converted its mill to cut second-growth timber, mostly from state and private lands. It's still going strong.

But the number of small logging contractors has dropped from more than a dozen to three. Larsen no longer stocks supplies for them at his hardware store.

One logging company put 20 out of work when it closed in 1991. Kathy Kerkvliet, the economic advisory board's coordinator, knows of at least two who still haven't found jobs. "They just kinda live at the fire hall," she says.

At Darrington High School, home of the Loggers, Principal Dan Smith says half the graduating class three years ago went to work in the woods. Just one of the 25 members of the class of 1993 has similar plans.

"The job isn't there like it was for their parents," Smith says. "The handwriting is on the wall."

The economic advisory board Larsen heads was formed three years ago to guide and promote Darrington's transition to a new economic order. It has won grants, authorized studies, sponsored workshops, held countless meetings.

Thanks in part to its efforts, Darrington has started to change.

New signs welcome visitors to town. Street trees have been planted, downtown storefronts spruced up. A new flier and video pitch the town's attractions to both tourists and potential new businesses.

Darrington's first licensed day-care center opened several months ago after a community-wide effort, and was full within weeks. Lyla Boyd, town clerk/treasurer, says it provides a place for unemployed loggers to put their children when they go job-hunting, return to school or find employment in another city.

The Forest Service has joined forces with the town to promote its tourism and recreation potential. Darrington is the gateway to three wilderness areas. A federally designated wild-and-scenic river, the Sauk, runs right past town.

Forest Service employees have written new brochures touting those and other attractions. "We've got so much here," says Fred Harnisch, the Darrington district ranger. Harnisch's staff is exploring prospects for a mountain bike course on Gold Hill. Applications have been filed with the state to name two areas winter recreation "Sno Parks," a designation that could mean regular snowplowing, expanded parking and publicity.

Last month, the Forest Service organized a meeting between Sauk River whitewater-rafting guides and townspeople to explore ways more tourist dollars could be spent in Darrington. There's talk of trying to bring the 1996 Olympic kayaking trials to town.

Larsen is enthusiastic about those ventures, and the jobs they might generate. But tourism jobs usually don't pay well, he says, so "it's pretty hard to sell the community on that as a livelihood."

Darrington is exploring other opportunities. Local residents make everything from toys and dolls to brooms and log houses. The economic advisory board works with them to find new markets.

It's also considering developing an industrial park for new businesses employing anywhere from three to 30. To attract them, town leaders say, State Highway 530, the narrow, winding road that leads 31 miles to Interstate 5, probably must be improved.

Darrington also needs a sewer system to draw new business, they say. "It's probably our No. 1 need right now," says Harnisch. A state grant is paying for preliminary studies.

Larsen admits the economic-diversification campaign hasn't moved as quickly as he would have liked. It's been frustrating at times dealing with government bureaucracies and their seemingly bottomless appetite for more studies and paperwork, he says.

He hopes Clinton's package will include more money for the Forest Service to develop and promote recreation on its lands. He also hopes it will provide some financial support for diversification efforts like Darrington's.

There's one immediate need. The state grant that pays the salary of Kerkvliet, the economic advisory board's coordinator, expires June 15. Without her full-time efforts, Larsen says, the economic advisory board wouldn't have accomplished nearly as much.

"We need some help," Larsen says, "but people up here are very innovative. They really want to make things work."

Smith, the high-school principal, concurs. "It's not a community that's going to just die and wither away," he says.

The symbol of Darrington's spirit and hope? A quilt.

Its 25 squares depict 25 local wildflowers. A hundred townspeople, ages 4 to 90, helped make it last year.

Since then it has traveled throughout the Northwest and to the office of the chief of the Forest Service in Washington, D.C. The quilt will be on display at the wildflower festival this month.

"It's all good exposure for Darrington; publicity we need if we are going to find a new way to support ourselves and our community," Judy Cox, the temporary Forest Service employee who came up with the idea, wrote of her project.

"We have a beautiful setting here, with mountains and forests and meadows full of wildflowers. We would like to invite people to visit us and share it all.

"The quilt is helping invite them."

----------------------------------------------------- Wildflower Festival

The Darrington Wildflower Festival will be from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. June 19 at the school complex. All activities are free. Information: (206) 436-1155.