PORT ANGELES — Otto and Jim, a pair of Belgian draft horse geldings, hauled a 16-foot log through a forest trail Sunday, prancing impatiently for onlookers at the 12th Annual North Olympic Land Trust StreamFest Experience.
The gentle giants hardly noticed the massive log as they pulled, driven by Greg Lange, 51, of Sequim, but everyone at StreamFest noticed the pair of golden horses as they pranced their way through the middle of the event.
Old techniques
Lange owns Draftworks Horse Logging, which uses old techniques to log small private forests where landowners want to avoid damage while thinning their property for health and safety.
“Working with horses makes you think about each tree,” Lange said.
Using the horses to drag logs out of forested areas with minimal damage to the forest floor, the loggers remove only sick or damaged trees, or those nearing the end of their natural lifespans, he said.
Lange, several assistants and his team of horses were on hand to demonstrate restorative forestry techniques, which includes the thinning and removal of trees.
With Heritage Millworks, the trees are converted to lumber, eventually producing a finished product.
Lange and his team of draft horses were at StreamFest for their first time SEmD and the last.
Final StreamFest
Sunday’s event was the final StreamFest to be held at the Ennis Arbor Farm in Port Angeles.
The organization does not keep attendance records, but it was estimated that the event attracted as many as 1,000 guests, she said.
“Attendance was as good as we’ve ever had,” said Robbie Mantooth, who owns Ennis Arbor Farm with her husband, Jim.
The estimate of the crowd was around 1,000 at one point, Robbie said.
As a fundraiser for the Olympic Land Trust, the event sold food and raised additional funds through an auction, she said.
The amount of money raised at the event was not available by Sunday evening.
While there will be no more StreamFest events, the Mantooths will continue to work with the trust to preserve natural habitat.
Ennis Arbor Farm will continue to be available for educational projects, Robbie said.
Robbie said she hoped that someone else would take over the event or create something similar, to continue the educational effort in future years, she said.
Plenty to do
More than 20 booths offered a sampling of programs, events and groups.
One popular booth housed a U.S. National Park Service scale model of the Elwha River Dam removal project, demonstrating the movement of sediment within the lakes and rivers as the dams are removed.
Two repeat visitors arrived from Hong Kong, spending much of the day at the Pond Critters booth, which was set up near a pond on the property.
Twins Ally and Austin Pelayo, 9, live in Hong Kong during the school year and visit their grandparents in Port Angeles each summer.
They have attended StreamFest for the last few years.
The energetic pair used nets to collect specimens from the pond to put in trays at the booth, where visitors could see tadpoles, small fish, plants, insects and other pond creatures.
“I especially like the frog creatures,” Ally said, referring to a polliwog that was nearing its final transformation to frog, with both legs and tail.
Both youngsters enjoyed the event, going from booth to booth with enthusiasm.
Living in one of the largest cities on Earth provides the twins with a different perspective on the natural bounty of the Olympic Peninsula.
“It’s pretty cool,” Austin said.
“I like the environment — there’s no real grass in Hong Kong,” he said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
