Mount St. Helens Oral History Collection, 2015

Mount St. Helens is an active volcano located in the Cascade mountain range in southwest Washington state. For centuries a sacred space to the region's indigenous communities, the mountain became a popular site for recreation during the twentieth century, with many flocking in particular to Spirit Lake on its north side. In March 1980, a series of small earthquakes - followed by episodes of steam venting - indicated that the long dormant volcano was becoming geologically active again. On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens famously erupted in spectacular fashion, ultimately losing more than 1,300 feet in elevation from its peak, unleashing a fearsome landslide, and creating a cloud of ash that blanketed communities across the Pacific Northwest and eventually circulated around the world. At least fifty-seven people were killed by the explosion, with property damage estimates in the billions of dollars.

On August 26, 1982, an act of Congress designated the mountain and 110,000 acres that surrounded it as the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. This declaration restricted development activities within the monument to permit natural processes to "proceed substantially unimpeded" so that research could track responses of the land to the eruption. The resulting wealth of research findings have been conducted in part by the following individuals, who were interviewed for this collection in 2015.

Lynn Burditt has served in a variety of leadership positions in the National Forest System of the US Forest Service, including tenures as Ranger at the Blue River Ranger District on the Willamette National Forest and Deputy Forest Supervisor on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest where the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is located.

Charlie Crisafulli, an ecologist with the US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station and based at Mount St. Helens since the early 1980s, has conducted his own studies on a wide variety of topics, facilitated work of many others, spearheaded local and broader outreach programs, and advanced the field of volcano ecology globally.

Virginia Dale began studying Mount St. Helens while a graduate student at the University of Washington and continued during her career as a scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Focusing on vegetation in the debris avalanche, Dale was a contributing author and editor for two books providing overviews of ecological research at Mount St. Helens.

Jerry Franklin began his relationship with Mount St. Helens on family and Boy Scout camping trips, studied the vegetation as an early-career Forest Service scientist and later as a professor at the University of Washington, led Andrews Experimental Forest research program in the 1970s and early 1980s, and helped lead studies at Mount St. Helens.

Bob Parmenter was an ecology graduate at Utah State University when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. Soon thereafter, he began studies of animals in collaboration with Charlie Crisafulli and others that ran for decades over his career as an ecologist with the US Geological Survey.

Fred Swanson had a long career as a research geologist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, focusing in particular on the geology-ecology interface in ecosystem research groups at Mount St. Helens and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. His roles included conducting research, administration, and communications, including engagements of artists and creative writers in those places.