Confessions of a Tree Hugger

by Barry Babcock

I am lucky – I own and live on eighty acres of forested land with a diverse plant community. Living amidst these trees, shrubs, and herbs and forbs has given me a different perspective.

Living with and amongst trees makes me believe that they are undeniably the most important component in our lives; materially, economically, and spiritually. These same facets important to us are equally important to other life forms, from the micro-organisms that we cannot see in the soil to the birds in the trees.

Besides providing jobs in the logging/wood/paper industry, building materials for our homes, furniture, canoes, pharmaceuticals, recreation, and much more, consider some important but less often considered aspects that trees have in our lives:

The rugged pioneer specie, the Jack Pine which has a range extending from Maine to Alaska and is often viewed with second class status in the conifer world. Its resinous and serotinous cones germinate after fires, sprouting into thick “dog hair” stands of young trees. Examples of this are in the Huntersville/Badoura area in Hubbard and Wadena Counties, a result of the 1976 Huntersville Fire. Jack pines are arguably one the most under-rated tree species for wildlife habitat in the northwoods. In the Schoolcraft Game Refuge in Paul Bunyan State Forest, there are pure jack pine stands that provide wintering areas for deer. In Michigan, one of the rarest birds in North America, the Kirtland’s warbler, of which fewer than 300 breeding pairs remain, is found only in young jack pines in Michigan’s Huron National Forest.


The Sugar Maple, which finds in northern Minnesota, the northern limit of its range, is our ultimate hardwood climax forest, surviving under the shade of other hardwoods till the opportunity arises for it to develop a dense canopy shading out most other species except its own seedlings. Often unrecognized is the prolific crop of winged seeds produced by all species of maple which are a high source of food and nutrition to rodents, deer, bear, birds, and more. But the true treasure to humans and wildlife is the start of the sap run early in the spring. It is the North Country’s only feasible natural source of sugar. The Ojibway signaled the start of the sugar bush season as their ‘new year’ – the end of the long winter of want and depravation and renewing the covenant of life.

The abundant Hazel bush which so often is looked upon with no importance at all and has been referred to more than once as “tangle brush” is a specie of great importance. The abundant crop of hazelnuts are a very important food source, consisting of sixty percent fat and twenty-five percent protein and are very important to bears, deer, squirrels, jays, and more. This member of the Birch family has catkins like its bigger relatives which provide an abundant source of food for grouse, redpolls, goldfinches, and deer. The dense thickets are important as coverts for grouse, hares, and nesting sites for warblers, vireo’s, catbirds and many more. Without this important component of the northwoods, the effect on our wildlife would be as likely the same as if humans were to lose their daily bread.

A book could be written and maybe has on the wide array of benefits of trees to the world in which we live – for instance, leaf litter, especially hardwoods like basswood and maple, have high calcium content in their leaves which enrich the nutrients in the soil. Jack pines, red pines, and spruce are acidic and over thousands of years, leach out nitrogen and other nutrients in the soil yet, ironically, rather than finding these sterile sights void of plant communities, we find rare and spectacular species growing here that cannot compete in richer sights, such as the Moccasin flower or the endangered Ram’s Head Orchid. Finding such species are worth a second look.

But there are those intangible things that trees give us that are difficult to place value on; such as in a mature stand of red pine on a warm sunny day when the breeze soughs through the needles and whispers one into peaceful tranquility and the air is filled with the scent of sweet pine resin exuding from the ground and the wood. How does one put a dollar figure on this?

There are so many psychological values of trees. While on many wilderness canoe trips, especially while on portages, with the wind fluttering the aspen leaves, the sound created by this action after an extended time in the bush, has transformed the sound into that of children laughing. I often have thought that maybe the laughter could be traced to the Maymaygwayshi – the little trickster people of Ojibway story telling.

And did you know that the mysterious pictographs found throughout the Canadian Shield on rock cliffs were also found here in cliff less northcental Minnesota? Yes, Henry Schoolcraft wrote in his 1832 journal; “Markings and hieroglyphic characters were pointed out to us on the pines, some of which were said to be before the Ojibwais…” These were noted on the portage between Pike Bay and Leech Lake.

Trees have much more value in our lives than just commerce. Spiritual, psychological, sensual, a sense of memory and place – all of which are roles trees play. They are not just inanimate objects placed here in terms of board feet but can sweep us out of our sometimes hum-drum lives and allow us to escape into our primal past. John Muir when contemplating a storm in Douglas Firs in the Sierra’s climb one of these giants to experience the storm and wrote: “We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are little more than tree wavings—many of them not so much.”

I am fortunate enough to have a significant stand of mature red pine on the land I live on. If I were to lose them in some natural catastrophe, I’d be as devastated as the loss of a loved one. I am not alone in my emotions. Aldo Leopold expressed better than I when he stated: “It is in midwinter that I sometimes glean from my pines something more important than woodlot politics, and the news of wind and weather. This is especially likely to happen on some gloomy evening when the snow has buried all irrelevant detail, and the hush of elemental sadness lies heavy upon every living thing. Nevertheless, my pines, each with his burden of snow, are standing ramrod straight, rank upon rank, and in the dusk beyond I sense the presence of hundreds more. At such times I feel a curious transfusion of courage.” A “transfusion of courage,” I know what he means. Trees can help one continue on.


READER COMMENTS:


I appreciate your comments Barry.... hazel shrubs can be frustrating if only for there tendency to slow one's pace in the forest... -Paul

Eloquent, insightful, and true. Nothing beats a walk in the woods, especially through sugar maples in the fall. - David thorstad

Wonderful and eloquent! Thank you! - Sally Fineday

Barry,

Bill Menke forwarded your article on Confessions of a Tree hugger. Have to admit to being one too. I get to enjoy the woods and fields everyday and the songbirds that seranade daily. Your figures on Kirklands warbler can be updated. I don't know the exact figures but think we are up over 1000 pairs now. A great conservation success story. - Jim Bruce

Hazel shrubs really slow me down when their fruits are ripe. Having a multi-tool on your belt never seems more valuable than when you are making a slow trek through the hazel, cracking a shell and munching a nut with every step. - Harvey Tjader