MAPLE FALLS - There's a ghost on the second floor of Gerdrum Museum.

"Anybody can laugh if they want, but I've heard the footsteps," said Dawn Buckenmeyer, historian for the museum at Silver Lake Park. "Those footsteps don't sound the same as the creaks and groans in this old house."

Other volunteers and county park rangers have heard the footsteps, too. In fact, there's a group of young campers who will swear they saw the ghost. But that's another story.

Buckenmeyer said the ghost seems to walk after there has been high-energy activity in the building. She first heard the footsteps at the conclusion of the 2002 World of Wood Festival. This weekend, organizers of the fourth annual festival plan to wake the ghost again.

Education and fun

The purpose of the festival is forestry education, but organizers also want people to have fun. Museum volunteers will dress in period costumes. There will be high-country forest tours, demonstrations of timber equipment, chainsaw carvers, a wild animal show, a pie-eating contest, a Civil War re-enactment and a variety of craft and food vendors. Admission will be by donation except for the Black Mountain bus tours.

Phil Cloward, who spent 35 years in logging and now volunteers at the center, will lead some of the tours. "The reason we're here is to help people understand why things are done the way they are," he said.

Cloward said that tours of the mountain will cover reforestation, seed zones, stream site protection, and how forest managers decide whether to do a partial-cutting or a clear-cutting.

He explained that the recent clear-cut on Black Mountain, on property currently owned by Crown Pacific, was part of a long-term plan.

"On this tree farm, every site is replanted in the same year it is logged," he said. "That mountain has been owned by six different companies since man's history here. It's been a tree farm for 75 years, cut twice, and it's coming up on its third cutting."

Gerdrum Museum is the starting point of forestry center tours for visitors from all over the world. The museum is in the homestead house built from the wood of a single Western Red Cedar in 1892 to 1893 by Embert Gerdrum. It was home to Gerdrum, his wife, Nellie and their daughter, Hilda.

Historical photos and old farm tools, clothing and furniture have been arranged so that museum visitors feel like they've stepped back 100 years into a general store where the family lives on the premises and townsfolk come to get their mail. Old Maple Falls Post Office boxes are on one wall of the gift shop on the main floor of the house.

A pot of porridge might have been on the old kitchen stove in the back where customers might have been invited to warm their feet and have a cup of coffee. Upstairs there is an old bedroom set, a spinning wheel, desks from the Maple Falls school, and a 200- to 250-year-old Indian dugout canoe that was found on the bottom of Silver Lake. There is also a small forestry education display.

A look at the past

From the museum, visitors can explore the grounds to see logging equipment from the past, a sawmill, and exhibits that explain forestry management and show how huge numbers of products like toothpaste, soda pop, ice cream, and salad dressings are made from wood.

Buckenmeyer said visitors are especially surprised that a by-product from wood pulp is used to make tencil, a soft but durable fabric used in up-scale clothing. "The by-product is like cotton candy when it's dried," she said.

The forestry center hosts dozens of Mount Baker School District elementary classes during the school year.

"What I like is watching the kids and seeing the light go on in their eyes when they realize what life was like long ago," said Buckenmeyer. She added that children are amazed to learn how much wood must be put into the stove to bake cookies. Outreach is planned to offer other school districts the opportunity to teach children about Whatcom County history and the woods.

"I'd like this generation of children to redefine 'tree-hugger,'" Buckenmeyer said. She added that she'd like to see children grow to be "responsible tree-huggers who love and respect the forests, appreciate products that come from trees, and understand that for every tree we use, we have to plant some more."

But first, before school starts and the children come, Buckenmeyer and Cloward hope crowds of people will show up to set the museum walls abuzz with the fun of a summer festival.

As for the ghost? Well, it hasn't hurt anybody - yet.

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