Wall Street Journal
Nancy deWolf Smith
Just when you thought there could not possibly be room for another show about law enforcement in the U.S. boondocks—troopers chasing armed drunks and drug dealers in Alaska; deputies raiding meth labs in the mountains of North Carolina—along comes one with a satisfying twist. The fact that it takes place in the setting for the “Twilight” stories is another bonus.
“Dark Woods Justice” is filmed on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, which may be the most beautifully spooky place in the country. Between its eastern mountains and the Pacific coastline lie more than 2,000 square miles of forest. You could die on a rain-forest walk in there and never be found. You could be murdered on a managed-timber logging road and no one would ever hear the shots. Just a few sheriff’s deputies may patrol hundreds of thousands of acres. Sometimes a mushroom picker finds bones and shows police, but another tipper might disguise his identity and just phone in coordinates.
The stars of the show are trees—and the trees are also the victims. Poachers are especially greedy for the Bigleaf Maple, whose figured, or curly, wood is prized for things like guitar tops and can command $10,000 or more for each tree.
Jefferson County Deputy Adam Newman travels with many weapons because he needs to be able to hold his ground for two hours until backup arrives. On last Tuesday’s episode he found the crime scene of a felled tree whose freshly cut stump looked as tragic and horrifying as a corpse. When he rubbed an ax blade along the maple’s lovely wavy bark, it made a ringing noise like coins falling into a glass jar.
And here again, it’s all about drugs. The tree-killers want the maple income not to feed their families, but to get high, he says. They’re “turning the forest into their drug money.”
Makes you wish the Olympic Peninsula really were full of vampires.