'Every Tree Tells a Tale': Niche products put Alaska timber to creative uses.

• Author: Erickson, Nancy

Rising from the sawdust of its past prime, Alaska's timber industry is focusing on value-added products made in Alaska with locally grown wood. The 400 jobs the sector currently supports is a pale shadow of the industry in the early '90s, when ten times as many Alaskans worked in the business.

In fact, the forest sector was Alaska's second-largest industry in the 70s, but large-scale logging and milling are gone. In its place, smaller operators turn Alaska's remaining wood harvests into niche products.

"Wood and wood products are ubiquitous," says Tessa Axelson, executive director of the Alaska Forest Association. "Wood is used in a variety of products that our members provide supply for. Much of the high-end musical instruments produced internationally, sailboat masts, cultural logs used for panels and totems, and high-end beams and custom finish carpentry products are made from wood that comes from the Tongass National Forest."

Alaska Specialty Woods (ASW) salvages tonewood from old-growth Sitka spruce and cedar from the Tongass on Prince of Wales Island. "Woods for the world's music, in harmony with the land," is part of the company's mission statement.

"Responsible stewardship is the essence of our process," says ASW founder Brent Cole Sr., who owns and operates the business with his wife Annette and two sons. "The future of music and its cultural significance depends on the forest, and it is our responsibility to make the best use of it. Salvage is key in sustaining the Tongass old growth for future generations to appreciate and experience while supplying the world with quality soundboards."

The family started the company in 1997, and ASW now annually supplies more than 50,000 guitar tops made of Sitka spruce, western red cedar, and Alaska yellow cedar to tonewood users such as custom luthiers, manufacturers, and other builders of acoustic instruments.

"Every guitar maker has their own distinct shape and design," says Cole. "We manufacture hundreds of products, from ukulele tops to double bass fronts. Soundboards--the top or board that vibrates, moving air that creates sound, arguably the most important piece of any acoustic instrument--are our specialty."

The Living Edge

While Cole's wood speaks through music, Reid Harris of Aleph Designs gives his a voice through design.

The 39-year-old Juneau resident was on an Alaska Airlines flight a decade ago when a magazine article featuring a stunning live-edge table caught his eye. Instead of...