Portland: Undergoing new growth in the old world of forests

A talking douglas fir has stood as the centerpiece of Portland's World Forestry Center for almost 30 years, cheerily telling visitors in five languages how a tree's roots absorb nutrients, its wood holds moisture and its needles turn sunlight to energy.

Glen Gilbert, the center's dynamo president for about two years now, wants it to do much more.

"I want to put a spotted owl up there," he says, referring to the bird whose protection ended most logging on public lands in the Northwest.

It's nowhere near Gilbert's first step shaking up an institution seen by some as a stodgy front for the timber industry.

But it's a revealing one: No point shying away from the bird whose story should be told head-on, engaging visitors who want to see why forests are so vital, vibrant — and places of contention.

"Let's stick it in the place where people think we might not want to put it, because it's such an icon of everything the Northwest has gone through," he said.

A new vision

Such is Gilbert's vision for revitalizing the vast wooden hall that rises across from the Oregon Zoo and next to the Children's Museum, but attracts so few visitors — about 35,000 to the zoo's 1.3 million — that he's a bit embarrassed by the number.

He and the center's board of directors are determined to change that.

They officially changed the center's name on Jan. 1. It went from the World Forestry Center to the Forest Discovery Center, reflecting its modernized mission as a world-class window on forests and the issues that surround them.

"I believe the need is greater today than it has ever been to provide a balanced understanding in the eyes of the public," said board member John Hampton, chairman of Portland timber company Hampton Affiliates.

The center is also riding the wave of an exhibit Gilbert organized last year to mark what would have been the 100th birthday of nature photographer Ansel Adams. The show of 50 original, locally owned photos has proven more popular than any other event in memory, bringing as many people in the door in the past two months as had visited in the eight months before. The show has been extended through February.

"We open the doors at 10 in the morning and people are waiting to come in," Gilbert said. "It's such a wonderful feeling."

There are more plans to draw more visitors:

• Late this year a historic carousel of hand-carved wooden animals will move from a California shopping mall to a new rotunda next to the center, aiming to lure families that might otherwise pass the center by.

• Wildfires like those that stormed through Oregon last summer will take the spotlight in a new exhibit to open by May.

• About $6.3 million in donations has been committed toward a $7 million makeover of the center and its exhibits, including the talking tree — and, possibly, a new outdoor "canopy walk" that will lead visitors through nearby treetops.

• Workers are overhauling and building a new shelter for Peggy, a 93-year-old locomotive that hauled a billion board feet of logs in the forests of Washington and Oregon and also serves as an important draw for families.

Changing strategies

What was then called the Western Forestry Center opened in 1971. Its even-handed displays today address conflicts such as the decline of the northern spotted owl and value of old-growth trees, and include a Smithsonian Institution exhibit on tropical forests. But new knowledge of forests and increasingly interactive museum exhibits elsewhere have left the center dated and yearning for visitors.

It may be known as much for its timber conferences as for the talking tree.

"When we did market research, we found people perceived it as something to do with industry, but nothing to do with them," Gilbert said.

Which is roughly where he comes in.

The 41-year-old lawyer had just led a $35 million fund drive for a new public library in Berkeley, Calif., when the forestry center's board hired him. They told him to raise its profile while raising enough money to give it a long-overdue facelift.

"Certainly to appeal to today's audiences we need to put things in that are technologically up to date," said board member Hal Salwasser, dean of the School of Forestry at Oregon State University. "We need to address new thinking, like the idea that managing forests sustainably is not just what foresters do in the woods, it's also about how each of us uses wood products and whether we use them wisely."

But the first challenge is to bring visitors in the door — the center is shooting for 150,000 five years from now. The historic carousel is a big, friendly attraction that should help meet the challenge, while giving the center a chance to tell the story of the wood that went into its giraffes, dragons and other elaborate figures.

It will be housed in an airy new rotunda with walls that can be opened in good weather.

The Ansel Adams show may be something of a symbolic step for the center. Not only did it create an entirely new draw that Gilbert hopes to repeat with other rotating exhibits, but it also embraced a photographer known as an icon of the environmental movement — a rather clear sign that the center is not beholden to Northwest logging.

"I think it's helping change people's image and awareness of what it is we do," Gilbert said. "Ultimately this place is going to be about finding a balance. Some places in nature should be left as they are."

If you go

Permanent exhibits include "Tropical Rain Forests: A Disappearing Treasure," developed by the Smithsonian Institution; the hands-on Forest Discovery Lab for young children; and an educational exhibit on "Old Growth Forests: Treasure In Transition."

Forest Discovery Center: 4033 S.W. Canyon Road (Exit 72 from Highway 26), Portland. Open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; $5 admission; 62 and older $4; students 5-18 $3.50; 503-228-1367, www.worldforestry.org

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