Native Tree Society BBS

ENTS:

My recent trip to the Porcupine Mountains yielded some good pictures that show how the regeneration niche of hemlock works.

First, notice that in areas with high winter deer density, all hemlock seedlings are eaten, and there are no young hemlocks to replace old ones that die, as shown in this photo of a 500 year hemlock that fell several weeks ago (same tree as in the earlier post a week ago, but from a different perspective), notice that several saplings near the base of the old hemlock are maples (photo by George Schlaghamersky).
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This picture of a severely browsed hemlock seedling, which still has some live foliage, was taken during May 2011. A picture of the same seedling appeared in a paper I published in 1985, Current and predicted long-term effects of deer browsing in hemlock forests in Michigan USA, Biological Conservation 34: 99-120. Unfortunately, the pdf of these older papers are very low quality, so I can't show you the 1985 picture--but I believe the live part is actually a few inches shorter now than it was in 1985--a slowly shrinking bonsai created by deer. The live part is the light green foliage in the center of the photo (photo by George S.).
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Next, is a picture of a hemlock tree that died in 1981, and I took a slab from it in 1982, when the log was still solid, and it had 513 rings, about 15 feet above the ground. We estimated that the tree was around 540 years old(moss-covered log on the ground, photo by George S.). The trees in the gap that formed in 1981 in the background of the picture are now pole-sized trees, but they are all maple, which shows that the deer have been preventing hemlock from replacing itself at least that long--in fact we know from this type of reconstruction that hemlock has not replaced itself since the 1940s when Aldo Leopold wrote an article about the irruption of deer populations in the area. Picture14.jpg

However, a visit to nearby areas without deer in the winter, shows that even without deer, hemlock seedlings still only survive in a certain small subset of the forest floor. Germinating hemlock seedlings cannot grow on thick duff or compete with large herbs, so they occur on rocky terrain, tip up mounds and rotting wood.

Hemlock saplings growing on talus at base of cliff (photo by George S.).
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Hemlock seedlings growing on mineral soil of a tip up mound (photo by George S.)
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Hemlock seedling growing on rotted conifer log (they rarely appear on rotted hardwood logs, photo by Kristi Teppo).
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Lee

NTS-

Today I revisited an area I first reported on in April 2010. This area is a floodplain forest along the Vermilion River in Lorain County, composed mainly of sycamores, walnuts, and cottonwoods. When I first reported on the site I found a big pin oak which is now even bigger---123.4' tall with a 14' 6'' girth, an increase of 1' in height and 4'' in girth.
pin oak 124,4' x 14' 6'' trunk.jpg pin oak 124,4' x 14' 6'' top.jpg
Another nice tree was a sycamore at 123' by 13': sycamore 123' x 13' trunk.jpg sycamore 123' x 13' top.jpg
Other finds include a hackberry at 95' by 8' 10'' ; hackberry 95' x 8' 10''.jpg hackberry 95' x 8' 10'' top.jpg a sassafras at 86' by 9' 4''; sassafras 9'4'' x 86' trunk.jpg sassafras 9'4'' x 86' top.jpg and a walnut at 113.2' by 10' 6''; walnut113,2' x 10' 6'' trunk.jpg walnut113,2' x 10' 6'' top.jpg

Other notable trees included a boxelder at 13' 4'' girth and a honeylocust ay 9' 1'' girth.

More details of the site are here: http://alpha.treesdb.org/Browse/Sites/885/Details

Steve

I found this interesting amateur (I think) video about the importance of creating a National Park or at the very least a Wilderness in the northern Maine woods - a highly undeveloped part of the state, devoted mostly to logging. It seems like a relatively easy thing to do, why hasn't it happened? (There is only one Wilderness that I know of - The Allagash River Waterway, and one State Park - Baxter.

Also, found an interesting series of videos on some history of northern Maine by the Maine Woods Consortium. http://vimeo.com/user1441486

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O52PcXmtkSU


http://vimeo.com/3819339

On August 22, Lee Frelich and I visited numerous sites across northern Wisconsin. Our last stop was a site that was described by Forest Stearn in an article in the April 1951 Journal of Ecology, Volume 32 Number 2 entitled "The Composition of the Sugar Maple-Hemlock-Yellow Birch Association in Northern Wisconsin." I had read it many years ago and visited it once at dusk but could not make out much in the twilight. It is far west of my normal travels in the Chequamegon National Forest, so I haven't had a chance to revisit it until now. It was recently declared the Drummond Woods State Natural Area and dedicated to the memory of Forest Stearns, one of the driving forces of Wisconsin's State Natural Area program. It is located on the northwest side of US Highway 63 where the North Country Trail intersects the highway and is at an elevation of approximately 1270-1280 feet above sea level. Approximately one mile north of Drummond in southwestern Bayfield County on US 63, there is a small parking lot and trailhead within site of US 63 on Chequamegon National Forest Road 235 (Old US Highway 63.) This location is approximately 18 miles north of the Uhrenholdt Memorial Forest pines that Lee occasionally visits at US 63 and County Highway OO in Seeley, WI. I have no pictures since I had forgotten my camera and my old camera phone takes poor pictures.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/sna/index.asp?SNA=427

The Drummond Woods was set aside by the Rust-Owen Lumber Company in the 1880's when it's workers requested that some virgin pine forest be saved for their families' recreation in the nearby company-owned mill town of Drummond, WI. Most of the grove stands to this day. It suffered some wind damage in 1941 and by 1951, only three large pine stumps showed signs of early logging. Here is a picture of the nearby area from past, although likely not of the Drummond Woods site:
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One tree, called the King Pine, was struck by lightning in 1967 and suffered wind damage in 1977, then died in 1978. It was cut down and estimated to have provided 2500 board feet of lumber from it's 43 inch DBH and 110 foot height. One fourteen foot log scaled 700 board feet. It's rings were counted to 265 years at a height of 7 feet. The rotting stump remains to this day and is marked with a sign along the trail.

As we entered the trail, we were immediately welcomed by a large, topped American Basswood with a girth of 126 inches or 10.5 feet, or 40 inch DBH. It had a minimally tapering column shaped trunk that was topped at about 50 feet and had sprouted back up to around 70' tall.

A large diameter white pine is obvious along the west side of the trail near the top of the hill. It had a 134 inch or 11.2' girth, nearly 43 inch DBH. The height was measured at 118 feet. This is pretty close to the size of the grove's previously documented King Pine.

The largest diameter white pine is visible just east of the trail with beautiful gray bark when sunlit. It stands out among the others with it's 140 inch or 11.7' girth, nearly 45 inch DBH. The height was measured at 119 feet. This tree clearly surpasses the size of the grove's previous King Pine.

Another large white pine is west of the first pine near the bottom of the hill. It was also 119 feet tall but had a girth of 118 inches or 9.8 feet.

Other shorter pines exceeded a height of 100 feet, but none of the hemlock passed 100 feet. It was a nice hike to finish the weekend.

On September 4, 2010, my wife, my son, and I visited the Cathedral Pines grove in the Nicolet National Forest near Lakewood in northeastern Wisconsin's Oconto County. I intended to remeasure the two tallest known eastern white pine trees in the grove. The area is a virgin grove that was set aside by the Holt and Balcom Logging Company around 1880 when Lucy Rumsey Holt, the wife of W.A. Holt, the company president, asked that the tract be spared so that she could continue to conduct bible study classes with her children there. Pines are now reported in the 200-400 year old range.

The grove is a part of a larger State Natural Area and has a popular hiking trail looping through it. It is the largest dense white pine grove in Wisconsin and is dominated by eastern white pine with many in the range of 9-10 feet in girth and 125-135 feet tall. There are some red pine to 90-100 feet tall and many hemlocks under 100 feet. The forest also contains a significant beech-maple-yellow birch component along with some red oak, aspen, as well as some other trees. The entire approximately 22 acre virgin pine grove is at an elevation of approximately 1340 feet, plus or minus 10 feet. With over 100 nests, a great blue heron rookery's droppings are killing off the taller trees on the highest ground but make for an enhanced experience during visits in May and June before the fledgelings leave the nests in early July. It is a nesting site for ovenbirds, blackburnian, magnolia, and pine warblers, The best time to visit for tall tree hunting is mid-October through the first week of May when the deciduous sub-canopy is not a visual obstacle. On the coldest winter days, visitors are virtually nonexistent while the grove effectively tames light winds so that the bitter temperatures are more tolerable.
http://dnr.wi.gov/Org/land/er/sna/index.asp?SNA=496
http://wpt.org/inwisconsin/onthetrail.cfm
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I had spent a few days in December of 1999 scouring this grove for it's tallest trees. During that visit, overnight lows approached -30 F with highs around -10 F with fresh unbroken knee-high snow on the ground. With no other visitors, I was able to use GPS, compass, and my footprints in the snow to walk a near perfect grid throughout the entire grove and then the surrounding forest. After finding dozens of trees in the 130-140 foot range, I then started ignoring trees that were under 140'. In the northwestern part of the grove, I found the only two trees whose tops I could reach with laser that exceeded 140 feet in height. One was 145.4 feet tall with a 112 inch girth and other one was 149.6 feet tall with a girth of 127 inches. With a little more searching, I was able to get a height of 150.2' on the bigger one. This proved to be the only tree in Wisconsin that I have measured over 150 feet tall until Lee and I hit 165 feet on a 13 foot girth white pine in the Menominee Tribal Enterprises private reservation forest about 20 miles southwest of the Cathedral Pines. In 1999, I was measuring pine girths at 4.5 feet above the highest contact point with the earth. Unfortunately, on the biggest tree there was some taper, so my incorrectly high point of measure reduced it's girth considerably from what would be expected. Additionally, I misread my original notes. The tree was not 127 inches but was 12' 7", with my notes showing a faint dent where the pencil lead had broken when making the foot mark, '. Soon after, I was tutored by ENTS on ignoring earth upheaved by centuries of root growth and instead examine the immediate surrounding terrain for the expected point from which the seed would have sprouted.

On this trip, I took the direct route to these trees. We headed downhill along the road from the Cathedral Pines trailhead parking lot. When the road hit it's lowest point in the immediate drainage, we headed to the north following the lower limit of the drainage and walked it up right to the trees where the dense underbrush opens up to an open forest floor under a dense hemlock canopy with a white pine supercanopy. We found a dense 100 square foot patch of spotted coralroot orchids that had just finished blooming. I noticed that a trail had been cut to within about 40 yards of the trees that was a short loop extension leading to the groves "Cathedral" area somewhat to the southeast of these trees. The main loop on the hill in the grove had been graveled over. I hope that there is no limestone content in that gravel, but, unfortunately, I am a poor geologist.

This time, using girth measurements to proper ENTS standards, I was pleasantly surprised by the numbers that were obtained. Now, the thicker tree had a height of 154.3 feet and a girth of 158" = 13.2 feet or over 50 inches DBH. This is the largest girth of a single stemmed tree measured by ENTS in Wisconsin that is still living. The height measurement was from the place of the lower previous measurement since the sub-canopy obscures the top from the other place of measurement at this time of the year. This showed a height increase of 4.7 feet over 11 growing seasons. The thinner tree is about 10-15 yards west-northwest of the thicker pine. The thinner tree had a height of 154.8 feet and a girth of 124 inches = 10.3 feet. This is a height increase of 9.4 feet in 11 growing seasons on the younger, thinner tree.

These are the two tallest white pines in Wisconsin outside of the Menominee Indian Reservation. The next time that I return to the Cathedral Pines, I might try to relocate a 7.5 foot growth white pine that had bent over from heavy snow and had a curving trunk length of about 160'. Also, there are some other pines near the two that I measured that are now probably over 140'.

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After graduating with a pre-Forestry degree in 1968 from our community college in the Southern San Joaquin Valley in mid-California, I drove up to Arcata, California where my prospective college experience loomed ahead of me that Fall. On my way to my first summer job away from home, all the trappings of adventure were there. I was off to check out my future, to be shaped by Humboldt State College (HSC) Forestry Department.

I recall driving along the Trinity River on Hiway 299, which amounted to a three hour drive through some of the finest scenery I had seen (still quite worthy!). The last thirty miles was a very steep and very curvy stretch of two lane road, loaded with logging trucks, loud with their engine brakes, big with their heavy, one-log loads (some only 8', few longer than 16'). So steep it was, the trucks had reservoirs of water that were gravity-fed through hoses to the big, finned brake drums to cool them, in their long descent into Humboldt Bay. My car, large by today's standards, seemed rather small in their presence.

Loggers and logging truck drivers and contractors in support of the numerous timber operations, all depended on the uninterrupted supply of big redwoods. It had been their source of income, way of life for many decades, generations even, and woe unto anyone who would disturb their way of life.

Well, outside of Humboldt County, and for that matter, the Southern San Joaquin Valley, the era we now know as "The Sixties" had begun. Many things the "Sixties" were, but my focus here is that of the protest movements that came with them. By the late 60's, a fair number of HSC students (most of whom came from outside the County, often urban areas where parents were looking for a safe haven for their kids) had been exposed to some of the movements going on across the US. Awed by the redwood forests they had driven through to get to HSC, they were dismayed at the number of logging trucks, and the redwoods transported by them.

Protests became common (whether for wars, or what have you), and certainly the cessation of harvesting redwoods in and around a presciently created Redwood Park was brought about by such protests as they gathered national force.

Decades have passed since I last was a Humboldt County resident, but just recently it became apparent that The Sixties are still alive and well in Humboldt County, as witnessed by the scene below in Richardson Grove, where CalTrans had plans of doing some curve-widening along tight stretches of Hiway 101, near the Avenue of the Giants (Eureka Times Standard):

Richardson Grove Protest.jpg

This is not my photo. I probably shouldn't re-post it here and may remove it soon (it was publicly posted by the taker though elsewhere). I had had some thoughts there might be something good in this area from a few vague comments on some hiking reports over the years and from satellite pics. The area of larger trees is probably not so large, but it looks quite promising. These look like they may well be bigger than the 170 year trees in my other post and both are growing in the same region. I also saw another shot showing another section near hear that appeared to show some trees that I bet have to be at least as old as the 170 year old area patch.

The beech doesn't look too bad and that one back to the right simply looks immense. Hopefully I am not getting tricked by the shot, I don't know the focal length or camera type it was taken with. I could swear that back right trees looks awfully big though. I know on the far side of this area, a mile away or so, is at least one verified old-growth oak and possible a small area of old-growth.

(This site is a bit of a walk and not quite yet up to it yet due to unfortunate reasons but perhaps in another year I will check it out. There actually is a way to get very close without much of a walk but you'd need to drive into a huge gated community and they have a 24hr guard house and you'd have to drive into the farthest depths of the community. Actually I just realized they built a hideous huge extension to another development that was a horror story to an unfragmented part of the highlands which actually gets somewhat close, bit of a wild rocky bushwack scramble down and up from there but a lot shorter than the 7 mile or so roundtrip starting from the hiking trailhead, more like 2 miles from there I think. Anyway I haven't seen it yet myself.)


I came across this photo and it got me pretty excited, it looks very promising.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8199/8201574025_25383a63fc_b.jpg

Looks like it was a popular area for people to hike out to and hang around back in the mid-70s to mid-80s judging by the carvings.

Recognising indigenous “sacred areas” could double amount of protected land worldwide

http://blog.cifor.org/11200/recognising-indigenous-sacred-areas-could-double-the-amount-of-protected-land-worldwide/#.UIYfs668qSp

http://blog.cifor.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/shaman1-500x375.jpg

HYDERABAD, India (23 October, 2012)_Recognising areas conserved by indigenous peoples could double the amount of land designated as protected worldwide, said representatives attending the Convention on Biological Diversity conference last week, as international policymakers gathering nearby puzzled over ways to bump the global area of conserved land from 12 to 17 percent within the next eight years.

Whether a grove in the Khasi hills of Northeast India from which nothing can be removed, or an Ethiopian gudo boulder surrounded by forest where shamans can summon or stop the rain, sacred areas are not only rich in biodiversity but vital to keeping communities intact.

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Chief Seattle's Speech

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One of the considerations facing us as a society is how we deal with the culture of native Americans and their history. The native American tribes and peoples had rich and diverse cultures and histories. They were however a preliterate society and these cultural attributes were passed down from one generation to the next in the form of traditions, oral histories, and stories. Oral histories are subject to revisons to make them more meaningful to the current generation and are therefore are mutable over time. This is not a criticism, but an observation.

In European history, even with the ability to write the histories of events as they occurred, changed over time. The concept of history as a representation of truth was foreign to most historians as they saw history as a form of entertainment and a source for teaching parables and lessons. Heroditus, a Greek scholar was the first to try to present history as a representation of truth in a nine voluem history of the world in the fifth century BC. Even his works incorporates myths and tales. The concept of hisory as truth never really caught on until late in the Roman Empire.

Back to native American stories and histories. Without a written language the earliest acounts we have of many native American stories and histories are those written by European explorers, settlers, and military men. These were written as interpereted through their own understanding of the language being spoken and throguh the veil of tehir own predjudices and beliefs. Later versions were retelling of these accounts by other European - Americans, or an occasional account by a native American writer. Certainly these later accounts have been affected by the events that took place since the settlement of the continent by non-native peoples. that is part of the tradition.

In modern film and literature native Americans have been both demonized and idolized depending on the mood of teh popular culture at the time and of the poitical perspective and goals of the authors. This brings us to the story of a famous speech made by Chief Seattle. In 1851 the Suquamish and other Indian tribes around Washington's Puget Sound were faced with a proposed treaty which in part persuaded them to sell two million acres of land for $150,000. The speech has been cited by some as an icon of the ecological movement and a demonstration of the prescience of Chief Seattle and of the native American views on the natural world.

However the speech as commonly cited is not a transcript of any speech given by Seattle in 1851, but one of modern origin that had been attributed to him from a movie. Some of these discussions are presented in a Wilkipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Seattle

Here is a copy of the oration attributed to Chief Seattle: to Isaac Ingalls Stevens, governor of the Washington Territory, in the year 1854 or 1855, at the site of the present metropolis of Seattle http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1985/spring/chief-seattle.html :

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon our fathers for centuries untold. . . . The son of the White Chief says his father sends us greetings of friendship and good will. This is kind of him, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return because his people are many. They are like the grass that covers the vast prairies, while my people are few: they resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. . . . There was a time when our people covered the whole land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea covers its shell-paved floor, but that time has long since passed away with the greatness of tribes almost forgotten. . . . When the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white man, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your childrens' children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. . . . The White Men will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless— Dead— I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds.

In addition, Chief Seattle allegedly wrote the following letter to President Franklin Pierce in 1855:

The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. . . . But we will consider your offer, for we know if we do not . . . the white man may come with guns and take our lands. . . . How can you buy or sell the sky— the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. . . . Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. . . . When the buffaloes are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the views of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
Here is a nice presentation of these words form youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys2NKTCE4pg&feature=related


These are not the words spoken by Seattle at that time. The earliest account of the speech are a version written in an article in a Seattle newspaper from 1887 in which a Dr. Henry A. Smith reconstructed a speech by the Duwamish Chief on the occasion "When Governor Stevens first arrived in Seattle and told the natives that he had been appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory," an event dated by Rich as December 1854. This account was based upon notes taken by another translater who attended the event some 28 years earlier.

Here is an account of a investigation of the content of the speach made by Seatle from Youtube.

Chief Seattle's Speech
by conradleviston

An account of my encounters with Chief Seattle's speech, and what I think it means to the way we approach history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B83ZO34yliU&NR=1


Again an excellent accont of the overall context of these words is found here:

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1985/spring/chief-seattle.html


Overall, this has been an interesting personal investigation of the Chief Seattle speech

Edward Frank