Live Free and Draw

Here’s a comic to celebrate the Weeks Act Centennial, drawn at the intersection of environmental science, government policy, activism, & private industry…

ALSO SEE: The Weeks Act Music Video! >>

DOWNLOAD: printable 2-page PDF >>

ALSO SEE: The Weeks Act Music Video! >>

REFERENCE IMAGES:

The starting point for my research was the text of the Weeks Act itself:

• (The official descriptive title & text of the so-called “Weeks Act of 1911!”, courtesy of LOC.gov…)

While the text of the Weeks Act did eventually inspire a song, it didn’t exactly tell a story…

To draw out a story, I based this comic on archival photographs from Plymouth State University’s online collection, “Protecting the Forests: The Weeks Act of 1911.”  These images tell a stark story of environmental collapse & conservation:

First, we see the arrival of the loggers in search of lumber:

This train ascends the Woodstock and Thornton Logging Railroad full of loggers, & descends full of logs:

… leaving behind a denuded, eroded hillside:

Here’s Mt. Larabee, clearcut along an entire face:

A Mad River log drive:

… floating logs down to the mills below:

Jefferson, NH (1885) after multiple cuts:

Leftover “slash,” Upper Sabba Day Falls (1915) — a serious fire hazard!:

The Owl’s Head Fire of 1907:

An abandoned hill farm:

Enter John Wingate Weeks & his Weeks Act of 1911!:

ALSO:

• 
  House Speaker Cannon >>, who (supposedly) said, “Not one cent for scenery!”