End of an era: last logs towed out of La Conner

The surreal became all too real last Wednesday as a few locals watched from both sides of the Swinomish Channel and the Rainbow Bridge, witnessing what for decades has been an everyday occurrence here.

With cell phones and cameras in hand, they captured images that morning of Dunlap Towing skipper Tom Zimmerman bringing a log tow south past town, Swinomish Village, and Shelter Bay to storage off nearby Goat Island---a familiar scene that has played out for as long as most locals can remember.

But for Zimmerman and Port Susan deckhand and engineer Kurt Bassford, it was no ordinary day at their office on the water.

It was the last log tow out of La Conner, truly the end of an era.

While long associated with full-service log hauling, an integral part of the Pacific Northwest’s historic forest products industry, the company has kept pace with changes in the region’s economy dating from its founding by Gene Dunlap in 1925.

As Jim Dunlap, at the helm of the company for 35 years, has noted, there was a time when Dunlap Towing hauled straw to chicken farmers on Bainbridge Island and used to deliver freight and cargo around Seattle.

Like most ventures, the water transportation business is no stranger to transition.

But Dunlap Towing’s literal roots in timber transport and storage is such a part of La Conner history that relatives and friends were drawn to the waterfront March 16 for one last look at the Port Susan plying Swinomish Channel with a log raft in tow.

It was, as some said, a sight that was simultaneously awesome and sad.

Among those catching a glimpse of that history in real time was four generations of Zimmerman’s family---including his dad, Dunlap Towing retiree Jim Zimmerman---collectively representing seven decades with the company.

One of Tom Zimmerman’s daughters, Kelsey Stevens, found a prime vantage point on the bridge. Stevens was joined by her son, Landon, whom she took out of school to see the last local log tow.

Stevens said her dad has been with the company since he was 16 and will soon turn a youthful 70.

Zimmerman is one of many long-term employees of Dunlap Towing, which over time has maintained its family atmosphere as it expanded into freight barging to Alaska and Hawaii while expanding to ports in Seattle, Olympia, and Everett.

The end of log tows here is tied to its closing its westside log yard on Swinomish Reservation.

Last Wednesday it was a local audience that gathered on an overcast mid-week morning. Zimmerman nudged his tow at a no wake speed to the end of the boardwalk. He increased the throttle a bit as the boat passed under the bridge and his family shortly after 9:30 a.m.