Your schools are in financial trouble, your county services bare bones, and everywhere you look is the answer to your problem….The Forest.

But you can’t touch much of it.

Welcome to Skamania County Washington.

On one side, you have the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area; on the other, the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

And on top of that Federal Timber land set aside for the Spotted Owl.

There’s not much farmland, Skamania County Washington is rural but mostly mountains. 

There’s tourism, but those are NOT family-wage jobs.

Light manufacturing? Maybe but not a lot of hope there, either. 

This is the story of hard-working people hanging on barely.