World War 1 started 100 years ago this month.
Central coastal Oregon, a continent and ocean away from the fighting, had soldiers camped there. They were logging Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), the lightest, strongest wood for its weight and was used to make airplane frames. It only grows along a four-mile (1.2-km) fog-shrouded band on the coast from northern California to Alaska. Before the war spruce was viewed as good for nothing but making fish boxes.
