While hiking through the PA Wilds’ Allegheny National Forest & Surrounds over the years I cannot remember how many times I have come upon a stack of ancient foundation stones or old lumber in the middle of nowhere and wondered, “What’s the story with this, what was this, why is it here?”
Somehow, somewhere, there must be somebody who knows something about these little mysteries. Meet Forest County’s Terry Janosik who has investigated at least 40 of them.
Image: Terry Janosik, creator of Forest County Outback
Terry unravels mysteries of old roads, trails, abandoned oil boom towns, cemeteries, isolated family plots, old churches, and schoolhouses on his YouTube channel, “Forest County Outback”, a series of homegrown historical videos.
An avid researcher with an insatiable curiosity and hunger for history, he scours the Valley in search of forgotten farmsteads, ancient logging and hunting camps, charcoal kilns, rock shelters, and stone quarries.
Image: Forest County Outback, discovering more ancient ruins
Terry travels to places few people have ever heard of and places even fewer know much about in Forest County’s Tionesta Creek Valley, an area so radically different today from a century ago.
Born and raised in Beaver County, Terry’s love for the outdoors was nurtured by his parents with family vacations and weekend camping trips to Cook Forest and Clear Creek State Park. “I did a lot of exploring and had an interest in history since childhood, and over time I learned quite a lot,” he explained.
Moving to Forest County was a no-brainer. After graduation from Penn State Dubois, Terry spent two years as a seasonal Ranger at Tionesta Lake, setting up permanent residence in Forest County a few years later. “I fell in love with this area. I knew the first day I arrived here that this was a special place.”
Image: Some snowy ruins and historical spots in Forest County that Terry has explored
And Terry never looked back. He and his wife began raising their family in the Forest.
“I am fortunate to have a wife with the same dream, she wanted to live here. We have the last house on a dead-end road surrounded by a National Forest,” said Terry, “We have hiked, backpacked, and canoed all over the area. Our children grew up here to appreciate the outdoors and have made their careers out of it. This has been our home, and we would not trade it for anything. We are living the dream”.
Eyeing retirement a few years ago, he knew being a snowbird and golfing was not his thing. Then it dawned on him, “I had watched some YouTube videos of other folks doing local history and thought I could combine my interest in that local history and exploring while doing some education.”
He began shooting videos in 2020 when COVID hit, beginning on a Facebook page and then going to YouTube with the Forest County Outback channel in late 2022.
Image: Another Outback Forest County subject
Terry started doing Forest County Outback because he says there is so much to learn and precious little time to get it before it is gone forever. He must get the story from the people who lived it.
“When I first came here, there were still men and women who remembered and were part of the era of logging the old-growth forest. They had been in the logging camps, they had floated rafts and barges to Pittsburgh and worked on the logging railroads and old steam-powered sawmills.” He talked to as many of them as he could find.
When he isn’t researching and shooting videos, he is talking history at the Forest County Historical Society in Tionesta and speaks at the Sarah Bovard Library there. In an upcoming library appearance, he will explain the story of Forest County’s mostly forgotten boat-building industry that flourished from the 1880s until the 1920s. Boat building yards lined the Allegheny, the Clarion and Tionesta Creek, turning out wooden coal barges, flatboats, bulk boats (the world’s first oil tankers), and small steamer hulls.
Image: Boat building on the Allegheny – courtesy of The Forest County Historical Society
“When it comes to local history, most people know something about Tionesta and Marienville and that’s about it,” explained Terry, “But they don’t know about all the other stories hidden out in the woods and fields. That is what I focus on. I do the Outback of Forest County.”
At last count, the Forest County Outback YouTube series has more than 40 chapters and while the subscriber numbers are not huge by YouTube metrics, it is growing in popularity and Terry admits he is surprised by how fast it is catching on. “Considering it is a locally focused channel, the audience will always be limited, but one thing I did not expect was its reach.”
He said there are viewers all across the United States and around the world. “Forest County Outback has viewers in Canada, Europe, and especially in the UK,” he said, “We also have viewers in Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Thailand.”
The videos are not only bringing him global viewership but also national acclaim.
At the urging of a friend and professional archeologist, Terry entered one of his Outback videos in a documentary film competition, The Arkhaios Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Film Festival, which is an annual national film competition with entries from all over the world. It is intended to showcase cultural heritage and encourage filmmakers to apply their art to history.
He had a tight deadline, with only two weeks before the entry deadline to select a suitable archaeological subject, (“The Initial Cave” #27) research it, write it, shoot it, and edit it.
“After I sent it off, I thought to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ because it was up against films made by masters and doctoral candidates working with professional filmmakers,” said Terry. “I thought as long as it didn’t become the designated laughingstock of the competition, I’d be happy.”
As it turned out, his entry didn’t win the top award, but it was one of 18 films chosen for screening from over 100 submissions! “I felt honored,” said Terry, “It was very rewarding because it was chosen, not because of any Hollywood production values like the other entries, but for its message,” said Terry.
That message is delivered in a down-home, folksy manner and he guarantees that the Forest County Outback channel will never become some slick YouTube spectacle. “I have gotten so much ‘free advice’ on things I ‘should do’ to get more ‘clicks,’ but it isn’t about the ‘clicks’. I don’t do clickbait stories or supernatural stuff. No aliens, no ghosts, no bigfoot, just honest history. I do the kind of videos that I would want to watch.”
He gives a shout-out to those who help him tell the history of this part of the PA Wilds, “I could never have navigated the YouTube setup without the continuing assistance of Josh Kline from Oil Region Tech and a local singer/songwriter, Glenn Basil Jr., who wrote and performed several short tunes for the channel.”
Image: Terry, researching the next Outback video
With his “over-the-top passion” for this Forest County valley and its history, he once again grabs his notes, hops in his truck, and sets out in search of his next YouTube subject, living the dream that is the envy of so many these days, “I love that when I want to hunt, I just walk out the door. If I want to fish, I can be on the creek in 15 minutes. When we had horses, we could ride in the forest all day and never see another person. It is so nice to think that somebody who lives five miles away is still my neighbor.”
Want to watch Terry’s videos and see these fantastic places yourself? Check out his YouTube channel, “Forest County Outback.”
Author: Ed Byers
A retired radio and TV newscaster, newspaper writer and corporate communications/media relations manager, Ed Byers is past President of the Associated Press Radio-TV Broadcasters Association and The Press Club of Cleveland. He is a former Forest County resident and current seasonal resident in the nearby Allegheny National Forest.