Patty Loew:
Wisconsin's logging routes are some of the oldest traditions in the state. "In Wisconsin" reporter Jo Garrett introduces you to one logging family that's been working the woods for three generations but facing new challenges in the 21st century in Florence County.

Jo Garrett:
We're in a workplace. No kidding. Some work in the office, some work on a farm, some work in the woods. These woods are part of the Wild Rivers legacy forest. I sat down here with some loggers to talk with them about their work. The pressures and changes in the business of logging.

Man:
The young generation, there ain’t too many of them going into logging.

Jo Garrett:
These four part of a family business. This is Andrew Kubikowski, his brother Anthony.

Anthony Kubikowski:
We'd go up and pile the firewood and carry sticks.

Jo Garrett:
Their dad, Tom.

Tom Kubikowski:
I remember when I was a young tyke they had the horse and they did it with horses.

Jo Garrett:
And his dad, Ed.

Ed Kubikowski:
We logged with the horses in my days.

Jo Garrett:
Ed's dad was a logger. The Kubikowski Logging Company is now owned by Tom. Four generations of this family have made their living working in the woods. The decades have seen vast changes in the methods of harvesting timber. Horses and chainsaws are now a thing of the past.  A past that in Wisconsin has been shaped by logging. Many of the cities in this state grew up around saw mills and to this day, tens of thousands of jobs are dependent on the trees in our forests. But the business of logging faces pressures.

Tom Kubikowski:
Is there going to be money in it anymore? I don't know. That's a big ticket. Insurance, workman's comp insurance is through the roof. You can't offer your guys health insurance anymore because you have to cut. What do you do? Fuel keeps going up. It is a big impact. We used to buy oil for the saws. $1.25 a gallon. In the last four years I'm paying $4.25 a gallon now. And no more money to show for it. There is no one subsidizing us. Farmers get subsidies. We can’t get that. I have to borrow at 8.5 or 9%. We average about 70 hours a week.

Anthony Kubikowski:
 I was going to say 40 on the first two days.

Andrew Kubikowski:
Out of my graduating class I think I was the only one that went into logging.

Anthony Kubikowski:
All the kids that graduated from my high school, 60 kids. I can count three that went into the logging industry.        

Jo Garrett:
There is another issue these loggers face. An issue based on perceptions.

Tom Kubikowski:
People in the cities, Chicago and that, they come up here, you know, logger, oh, you're a butcher. They don't understand.

Jo Garrett:
Loggers in Wisconsin's past indiscriminately clear-cut the northern hardwoods forest. It was called the Big Cut-over and extreme clear cuts continue around the globe today. But that picture doesn't ring true here. In fact, this forest was the first sustainably harvested forest in all of Wisconsin. No clear cuts in these hardwoods. Only selected trees are harvested. It has been that way here since 1927. That kind of care, that standard of sustainable harvest is now the rule on much of the state's public and private lands. But that's not the picture people see.

Anthony Kubikowski:
You can't help but go on these websites and see how you are viewed. You think you're going out making a living for your family but you go home and see just pop up on youtube and you can start and you end up watching a logging video where they show us like we're killing everything and robbing the forest of it and taking. We're not clear-cutting forests. We're going in, selecting certain trees to be harvested so the overall growth can keep going and we can come back in here. It's not something that people are going and butchering. It's not what they see in
South America and not what they're seeing in Africa where they are going in and just taking, taking, taking.

Jo Garrett:
Because they log sustainably, is this family business in Wisconsin's northwoods at a competitive disadvantage in a global market? In a market flooded with cheaper clear-cut timber.

Anthony Kubikowski:
There are docks off loading Chinese or South American wood. People want that cheap stuff so it will keep flowing in. Until people stop and say hey, we're not doing this. This is not good for our economy.

Jo Garrett:
And all of us use wood products.

Anthony Kubikowski:
They hate logging but everything they have. Their wood floors come from the companies up here. They don't think about anything that they're walking on. Their chairs, sofas, recliner. They're made of wood wrapped with fabric. Their paper, everything they write on when they go to work. Their folders, everything that they use, paper cups.

Jo Garrett:
We use what these woods provide and managed well, these woods can continue to provide.

Anthony Kubikowski:
If we were to just go in there haphazardly and start cutting we wouldn't have anything to come back to.

Tom Kubikowski:
I’m hoping it will be here in 50 years, 100 years from now. If they manage it right it will be here.

Andrew Kubikowski:
I’d love to work in the woods the rest of my life.

Anthony Kubikowski:
I see myself retiring and my kids going into it and so on and so forth.

Patty Loew:
Tom Kubikowski says his family's business has been able to maintain but high fuel prices have been, in his words, a killer.