Click to enter the gallery. In the far northwest corner of Montana, there is a scattered settlement of fewer than 150 families living in the woods of the Yaak Valley, often without electricity or plumbing. Their private parcels of land make up only 2 to 3 percent of what is otherwise a vast national forest: 500,000 acres of federal land where large-scale logging has occupied the area for generations. As new paved roads and an expanding utility grid attract more retirees, second-home owners, and others who want wooded retreats but not to live off the land, Yaak and other historically small, unorganized rural districts of the Kootenai National Forest face a significant period of transition. After decades of high-yield tree harvesting by international logging corporations, the pressure to address environmental recovery and sustainability is felt by vastly different constituencies, from Washington bureaucrats to fly fishermen. Conflicts over logging, forest use and access, and the perpetual issue of people's relationship to nature, have hotly divided many residents since the 1960s, when back-to-the landers, hippies, and others with environmentalist leanings began to settle here. The newcomers' support of the protection of endangered species, moratoriums on road-building, and cut-and-run logging practices threatened the livelihood of some loggers and others who saw restrictions and regulation as the first steps toward the loss of their jobs, their land, and their freedom. The realization that extreme positions are in fact held by very few is one of many positive results of local participation in Forest Stewardship, a community pilot program of the U.S. Forest Service. Creating a coalition to qualify for the program was a turbulent process, beginning with formation of the Yaak Valley Forest Council, an activist group that supports ecological diversity and forest protection, particularly the last remaining roadless areas in the Yaak. Although the group's leadership was ultimately rejected by the larger community in informal votes, its role as a catalyst for dialogue and new approaches is widely acknowledged. The issues and experiences of the valley and the struggle toward involving the community in government management of the land around them reveal the value and "messiness" of democracy.