White Pine From The 1770's

Today the local chapter of Master Naturalists met at the Cloquet Forestry Center. The forester there gave us a talk about the indigenous way of tending the forest. Forest management sounds too controlling and he prefers tending. He spoke about the use of fire. In dry regions lightening sparked forest fires. In a wet area such as Minnesota lightening doesn't work as well. Indigenous people used fire to make travel easier, increasing the breezes to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and to be able to forage more food. Although It doesn't look like it, I am wearing my snow shoes in this picture. The snow pack out here is more than four feet in depth. After we spent 5 minutes getting to know another member of the group we went out into the forest and spent 5 minutes getting to know a tree. We were supposed to let the tree speak to us instead of us speaking to the tree.

This tree would not tell me it's name.

I liked the arch.

The temperature now is just above 32 degrees F.

The red pine just right of the white pine is almost dead. The right side of the white pine is very bare. Why? He said this white pine could have emerged from the soil in the 1770's. Wow, this pine has seen a great deal of history.

A forestry center building is low and in the distance.