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Looking Up to Champion Trees For inspiration and exercise, visit Minnesota’s grandest trees Minnesota Conservation Volunteer, November-December 2001 © by Gary Legwold Photography by Jane and Gary Legwold Walk to one of Minnesota’s champion trees. Do it especially when you are feeling low. Lean against the rough bark and feel the tree’s strength and quiet wisdom at your back. Look up—you cannot help it—into the magnificent canopy. It’s hard to feel down when your chin is up. I speak from experience. Last spring, after that long, arduous winter, I was down and sought arbor therapy to put inspiration back in my life. It worked. I made tracks to five of Minnesota’s 52 native champion trees, and when I was done, I was so uplifted I was cracking puns. Like … the experience will leaf you in awe. What drew me to this arbor therapy was a short article in this magazine, entitled: “Storm Topples Big Sweetie” (May-June 2000, page 10). The memorable storm of July 4, 1999, had felled the state’s largest recorded sugar maple, which was located in northern Cass County. This was not just another big tree that was 134 inches in circumference and more than 300 years old. This was a tree with character and charm, nicknamed “Big Sweetie” by the children of the former co-proprietor, Onnalee Graham, because it produced more than 20 gallons of syrup each season. I studied Graham’s painting of Big Sweetie, which ran with the article. The tree towered over all of life, it seemed. It was a living botanical and historical monument in its own right. The longer I looked at the painting, the easier it was to imagine Big Sweetie calling people to its protective canopy, “embracing” the family just as the family had embraced it each year when they huddled around its base and drew off its sweet sap. I was saddened to read that Big Sweetie was gone, and yet comforted by the notion that so many other of nature’s sentinels, these largest recorded trees, were still out there waiting to embrace an embracer like me. Minnesota’s Native Big Tree Registry I wanted to behold several of these superior trees before other storms and acts of nature (or humans) toppled them. So I made a few calls to the Department of Natural Resources and learned about programs for nominating and confirming what are called champion trees. Champions are the grandest of each species, as determined with points derived from a formula combining their height, trunk girth, and crown spread (see sidebar). There is a national list of champions, called the National Register of Big Trees. American Forests, the oldest (since 1875) national nonprofit citizen conservation organization, developed its National Register of Big Trees in 1940, when America was preparing for war and harvesting forests too recklessly for Tennessee forester Joseph Stearns. He wrote articles appealing to tree lovers to identify and protect the biggest specimens per species. The response produced a list of 100 champs, which grew to 355 in 1961 and 867 today. Almost every state has a national champion, but a few select states with climates that can support a wide variety of species have hogged more than half of the list. Florida has the most (170), followed by California (94), Texas (72), Arizona (69), and Virginia (56). Minnesota has three national champions: jack pine, red pine, and white spruce. These are listed, along with the rest of our state champions, in Minnesota’s Native Big Tree Registry. “To have that many national champions is pretty good,” says Meg Hanisch, the registry’s program manager. “Our growing season is shorter than in other states, our winters are harsh, and we are at the prairie’s edge, which is the border of the growing range for many trees.” Hanisch mailed me Minnesota’s Native Big Tree Registry, which the Department of Natural Resources first published in 1962. Hanisch says there was a national trend at the time for states to develop their own lists so that people could take pride in their local as well as national trees and forests. I used the registry to locate the Minnesota state champions I visited (for a copy, call toll-free 888-646-6367). The Leafless Look I study the registry and decide on two early spring trips. I’d miss the foliage this time of year, but I’d see the tree’s structure better without the camouflage of leaves. A tree’s character is in its stark profile, in the arches, stumps, twists, and scars that reveal its history of fires, storms, human confrontations, and encounters with critters and disease. Also, to witness without leafy interference the on-high dancing of branches—limbs miscast as stick stiff—as they awaken and clack to an early spring breeze is spectacular. It is as if the young shoots are tugging at the older trunks, coaxing them to snap out of winter’s stupor. “Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined,” wrote Alexander Pope. My southern trip begins with the black walnut, in Oronoco, about 10 miles north of Rochester. I had called landowner James Kern, an artist, for permission. Sure, he says, “but don’t touch it. You don’t touch art, and this tree is a piece of art.” From Minneapolis, I drive south on Highway 52 to Kern’s home. He greets me and points to the big tree standing alone in his back yard, about 30 yards from his back door. He really didn’t have to tell me which was the champion black walnut; even from a block away, I could tell. It possesses the size, of course, but, more importantly, a certain regal command that is soul-stirring. From the base of the trunk I look to the top, 89 feet up. With some imagination, the bark’s pattern appears to be serpent scales, as if a titanic timber rattler has reared up and is ready to lash out at lightning. I mention this to Kern. He shrugs but gives a response you’d expect from an artist. “The beauty of a tree,” he says, “is that it draws light through its roots.” Next stop is near Rochester for the bur oak, a gnarly tree fitting for the Hobbit books. I find that I like the anticipation that goes with the approach to these champions, in part because I like meeting the landowners (when the tree is on private land) and witnessing how they consider the champion to be family. I drive to the property of Mike and Joan Lind and I see smoke and fire. They are doing a controlled burn about 100 yards from the bur oak. They lead me around the burn area to the champion, which looks shaggy and a bit beat-up. To me, this champion has a tough old-geezer attitude, as if it is thumbing its nose to nature, saying: “I’ve taken your best shots, and I’m still standing.” The bur oak stands 82 feet tall and has a girth of 21 feet. The crown spread is 85 feet, and a few of the major branches don’t bother fighting gravity any longer as they droop to touch the earth. DNR forester Lance Sorenson estimates the champion to be 300 to 500 years old, perhaps making it the oldest in the state. No one knows which tree is oldest, but Sorenson says the life expectancy of bur oaks (about 400 years) is longer than most trees, and this is the champion bur oak. He says age estimates are determined by counting rings in core samplings. But counting rings has its limitations with a tree such as this one. As I discover when I climb the champion, this bur oak has heart rot, meaning its trunk is hollow. The center of very old trees becomes expendable because not much is happening there; vessels for conducting nutrients to the far reaches of the tree are in the outer rings of the trunk, where most of the structural strength also is. So, foresters are forced to make age estimates by counting rings per foot of the real core sampling and then using that figure to determine the approximate number of rings that would have been in the trunk had the hollowed out core been filled with wood. Climbing any tree is a kid-like kick, but to climb one as venerable as this feels kind of spooky, like I’m climbing in the attic of a very old, abandoned gothic house. I have a concern that I am standing on the border of more rot, which will give way any moment and send me plunging into the dark bowels of this bur oak. I’m thinking if Stephen King would take in this tree on a dark and stormy night, he would be inspired to spin off a real page-turner. Especially if he were to see the pet cemetery that I now see below me. The Linds assure me that it is indeed a pet cemetery. I climb down, grateful to be back to earth and out of my imagination. I walk a few steps to the pet cemetery and am reminded of how people like to make big old trees so personal. Of all the places to bury their faithful dogs and cutesy cats, the Linds find comfort in laying them to rest beneath their beloved bur oak. They care for this tree, drawing strength and inspiration in return. The inspiration even comes out in poetry. As am about to leave, Chad Lind, a son, offers a haiku he wrote in school: Its center hollow and rot Stands for centuries Puffing, But No Pills So far, getting to these champions has been a drive and a stroll. The silver maple turns things up a notch, requiring a one-fourth-mile hilly hike on the 400-acre dairy farm of Emma and Milford Landsom, near Spring Grove. Halfway into the hike, Milford points to the tree, which looks modest for a silver maple. As we walk, my eye is drawn to a huge, sprawling tree farther down the valley. “What kind of tree is that?” I ask. “That’s the silver maple,” says Milford. I had been looking at a poplar that was puny in comparison. The silver maple is almost 22 feet in girth and 90 feet tall. It has a crown spread of 118 feet, which covers an area more than a third of a football field. I imagine dairy cows lowing here on a hot August day. As we make the uphill return trip on this damp-cold day, I start puffing. Exercise feels good. I look at Milford, who is with me stride for stride. I ask how old he is.
No pills and not much puffing at age 78. Not many people can say that. Of course, Milford has the advantage with the not-much-puffing part; he walks his land most days and is rewarded with views of a champion silver maple. The Sweeper My northern trip includes a must-see: the national co-champion red pine (also called Norway pine) in Itasca State Park. The other co-champion is in Michigan; that tree has 263 points compared with 258 for Minnesota’s. But they are national co-champions, says Hanisch, because the policy of American Forests is that when two trees are separated by five points or less, they are close enough to be co-champs. Becky Marty, park resource manager, had told me that people do 15-mile bike or roller-blade loops from the Mississippi River’s headwaters, the park’s main attraction, to the champion red pine. “People like the awe,” said Marty. “They come to the park for the headwaters but come back for the trees—especially that one.” Forester Don Hanson and I drive to the Bison Kill Site, an area near the red pine where Native Americans used to drive bison into a narrow bog for killing. Hanson and I walk the one-fourth mile to the champion. The tree is magnificent with its thick trunk wrapped in dusty-pink flakes of bark. The trunk is branch-free for two-thirds of its 126-foot height. It tilts, reminding me of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. From the base, the trunk’s swerve is even more dramatic, and I wonder how the roots could possibly keep the tree’s weight upright through centuries of storms. “It has sweep to it,” Hanson admits. “It’s a character tree.” He adds that the sweep is probably due to a competing tree or trees that once grew beside the now champion, forcing it to tilt toward sunlight. At the champion’s base are “cat faces,” which are deep, triangular fissures in the tree trunk where fire has burned through the bark. Hanson explains bark protects the growing tissues from a passing fire. However, on the sheltered lee side of the trunk, fire lingers longer and burns a cat face. As the tree continues to grow, the burn heals but the cat face scar remains. As to why the scar is called a cat face, Hanson does not know. My guess is that some forester with a good imagination believed the vertical scar makes the base of the tree look like the upper lip of a cat. Hanson just smiles and shrugs. Hanson says a typical red pine experiences fire every 10 to 25 years. I find out later that this champion has survived six forest fires, which makes its survival even more astounding. Foresters know the fire history because they use a tool called an increment borer to extract a core sampling. They study the core and know there has been a fire in a particular year when the space between rings is darker and wider; the darkness is from the fire, and the increased width is probably related to the rebound in growth after a fire due to less competition and more nutrients in the ashes. My time with Hanson and the red pine champion is over, and we part. As I leave the park, I come upon Preachers Grove, a stand of mature red pines on a rise above Lake Itasca. A sign says a convention of preachers had camped there years ago, hence the name. I look up at the airy green canopy and see it is not unusual for red pines to have a little sweep, as trees bend to their spots in the sun. These sweepers look like cathedral arches. It is sunny and quiet, except for a whisper of wind. My imagination starts working again, and I feel as if I were a 50-year old boy among elders. They are telling me to “listen and learn.” The Workout The next day I drive east to the Cloquet Forestry Center and the champion tamarack. Ron Severs, senior scientist at the center, suggests bear paw snowshoes for the 3/4-mile trek to the tamarack. Snow cover is still a couple feet deep in early April. It is raining and foggy. Normally, snowshoeing in rain is not my cup of tea. But after our rough winter, it is wonderful to hear the hard splat of raindrops. And the weather makes for a great workout. Snowshoeing in good conditions can be as strenuous as cross-country skiing; a 170-pound person can burn 800-900 calories an hour. Snowshoeing in slop is even more rigorous. Sometimes the surface holds our weight, sometimes it doesn’t. Once a snowshoe plunges into the snow, we have to free the shoe from the heavy, wet slush and then take another step. Breaking trail is major work, and we travel in tandem, trading off the lead. The trip in takes 1½ hours. I had dressed light, anticipating the exercise, but am still soaked with sweat when I finish. The 76-foot tamarack is 12 feet taller than the national champion, but it lacks the girth and spread to be a national champ. Still, it is a grand and graceful tree, one I will return to some autumn when its golden needles compete with the surrounding red-leafed sugar maples. Then again, maybe I won’t. Severs says the trunk is hollowing, and vertical slash marks on the trunk weep sap—a sign of age and stress. He estimates the tamarack is 150 to 200 years old, and he takes a long look at it before leaving. “Each time I come, I half expect it to be the last time I see this tree standing,” he says. “But I have been saying that for 20 years. I would hate to see it go, maybe because it links me to something older. I have a basic respect for elders; they have been around and have wisdom. They have found a way to survive and become a champion. These trees have to struggle, and this one has done it exceedingly well.” The tamarack is my last stop on my champion-tree tour. I think about these champions I have seen and try to put words to why I like visiting them. Perhaps Deborah Gangloff, American Forests’ executive director, says it best. “Champion trees bring scale to people’s lives,” says Gangloff. “There is an appreciation that your grandfather could have brought you to this tree and that you may take your grandchild to it as well.” Home now, I think about Gangloff’s comment as I gaze out my home office window at a tamarack across the alley. It hasn’t achieved champion size yet, but it is my personal champion. I go to it for many of my musings. Each morning, I open the blinds and look east, taking in the sunrise through tamarack branches. As I write from my office, searching for the right word that will carry the sentence or paragraph, I often study the tamarack for any sort of clue. And at the end of busy days when I am too preoccupied to pay attention to the sunset, I get a second chance. I go to my back yard, lie in my hammock, and look to the top of the tamarack, which is still alight. And I let my imagination go. Gary Legwold is a free-lance writer who lives in Minneapolis, a city of remarkable trees. You Want to Nominate a Big Tree? (sidebar) If you have a big bubba in your back yard, nominate it for Minnesota’s Native Big Tree Registry. For more information and an application, call the DNR toll-free 1-888-646-6367. Champions are determined by points, calculated by adding the trunk circumference (in inches) at 4 1/2 feet from the ground, the height (in feet), and ¼ of its average crown spread (in feet). G.L. How Trees Help Us (sidebar) Trees improve the health of our communities and planet. They:
© Copyright 2004 Gary Legwold and Conrad Henry Press. All rights reserved. |
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