New Growth in an Old Growth Forest
On a recent weekend, that was on the back edge of
October and the front edge of November my wife Michelle and I went to Door
County and hiked to the edge of the little peninsula that juts a mile or so out
into Lake Michigan to form the northern rim of Bailey’s Harbor. It’s a place called Toft’s Point.
It was a level and easy hike in. Up high you could hear a strong steady wind
tearing through the tree tops, but the thick evergreen forest protected
hikers. Down at trail level it was calm.
We came into a clearing with a large rock with a
plaque affixed that explains the history of this land. It was purchased in the 1800’s by Thomas Toft
who had come to the area from lower Michigan to quarry limestone. The plaque explains that Thomas and his wife
purchased the land and built their home and raised their children in this
place; they were happy here. The plaque
explains that the Tofts wanted to preserve the area and refused to cut any of
the virgin timber – the huge white pines that supported Door County’s lucrative,
but short-lived, timber harvest era. Eventually, one of the daughters donated the
land to the public so that it could continue to be preserved and enjoyed by us all. Nowadays it is managed by the University of
Wisconsin at Green Bay.
After reading the plaque we hiked out to the shoreline
and stepped out of the protection of the trees and into the full force of the
strong off-lake wind. Seven- foot
whitecaps curled and crashed against the limestone edge of Toft’s Point. We watched a bald eagle really struggling to
stay aloft. Twice he came so close to
the waves that it seemed like the water was going to pull him in, but both
times he regained altitude. The last we
saw him he was climbing higher and appeared to be headed for a safer fishing
spot.
One of the interesting things that I noticed as we
hiked around Toft’s Point was the fact that while the Tofts wanted to preserve
the big white pines, there really are very few that remain. In fact, we saw more chunks of what remained
of white pines either still standing gray, barkless, and broken or laying prone
on the forest floor - moss covered and slowly melting back into the earth. There were only a few still standing and
alive. The area is still heavily wooded, but the vast majority of the trees these days are hemlocks and cedar.
I recalled a talk I had attended years ago with the
head forester of the Menominee Reservation who told me about how angry the
locals would get when they would harvest stands of the big pine on tribal
land. But he explained that the white pine
needed to be cut back to allow adequate sunshine to the forest floor. Otherwise, the large trees would kill off the
understory, so that when they finally toppled over it was the faster growing
trees like aspen and maple that would spring up in their place. Ironically, to keep the pines healthy there
had to be some harvest. On the Menominee
Reservation they use mainly selective harvest, but at times they do clear cut
some acreage. Without that harvest the
white pine forest eventually kills itself.
At Toft’s Point, because the poor soil conditions it was the hemlocks
and cedars that replaced the big pines that the Tofts loved so dearly.
Our minds and our souls are like that. Our loves are like that. We can’t just rope them off like a museum display and keep them
just as they are. We have to keep
working at it. We have to continually open up new
spaces to let God’s light in.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
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