Michigan Tech’s Society of American Foresters Forestry Club’s annual tree sale is a long-standing tradition at Michigan Tech. Forestry Club secretary and forestry major Tristan Walk ’26 said the written record of the sale dates to the early 1980s, while the anecdotal record places the start of the tradition somewhere in the 1960s or 1970s. Club paperwork shows trees were bought wholesale from tree farms south of Chassell and in Iron River in the 1990s through the 2000s, although neither company offers bulk wholesale these days.
In recent years, the club has supplied their sale with wild-cut trees from Michigan Tech’s Wilkinson Tract. Students drive out into the woods and fan out on foot, assessing the types of trees they are looking for based on what is available in the area and what is best for the forest. Club members usually cut six- to eight-foot conifers as well as small “Charlie Brown” sapling trees, taking care to thin the area but not decimate the conifer population. They also seek out one larger 15- to 20-foot tree for the U. J. Noblet Forest Resources Building Atrium.
The club has regular customers for their sale—CFRES folks who aren’t expecting specimens fit for a Hallmark movie.
“One of the cooler things about this is that the trees are naturally grown. These are wild balsams, wild spruces that are out in the woods and so our faculty are very understanding that when they buy these trees they aren’t perfect,” said Walk.
In recent years the club has completed thinning conifers of the desired size within a reasonable walking distance of their parking spots in the Wilkinson Tract. Members are now seeking wild trees in the Prickett Dam Tract.
That property was recommended to the club by forestry faculty member Jim Schmierer. Though the Prickett property is also owned by Michigan Tech, it has not been as actively managed in the past decade. The trees students harvested are along old logging trails. The trails would need to be bulldozed at the next harvest cycle to allow access into the forest.
“It’s kind of like a fallow field. It regenerated and apparently there are a bunch of balsams and spruce that have regenerated way back in the woods,” Walk said, prior to the club’s tree-cutting trip,
“The problem is in order to get to those trees he (Schmierer) thinks we’re going to have to go through several hundred yards of saplings, so we’ll have to park our trailer and truck at the end of the road and then hike in and drag the trees back out with us. So it’s going to be kind of an adventure,” Walk said.
As part of their commitment to responsible forest stewardship, the club plants more trees than they cut each year. In the past they’ve planted the seedlings at the Ford Center, but that practice is expanding to make sure this long-standing tradition remains sustainable for both the forests, and the organization. This year members planted more than 50 balsam seedlings in the ash wetland off their wood-cutting site at the Tech Trails.
Planning a Stable and Continuing Program
The goal is to have a long-term tree farm to support the tree sale 15 or 20 from now. An active tree farm would give members the opportunity to participate in a more specific type of forest management.
Students are already gaining experience through trial and error with the planted saplings, and learning what level of maintenance is realistic for members already busy with coursework and other activities. It requires a generous amount of foresight for an organization whose members cycle through roughly every four years, but it’s part of the group’s larger commitment to growth.
Michigan Tech’s Forestry Club currently has about 45 dues-paying members. It holds events every other week in addition to biweekly meetings and frequent weekend events such as wood-splitting sales and tree fellings. Walk said the club hopes to attract additional members and hold more open events like axe-sharpening workshops and lumberjack-style games on Walker Lawn. To connect with students outside of their organization, this year’s sale will offer more small sapling “Charlie Brown” trees suitable for apartments and other small spaces.
The annual tree sale is Tuesday, Dec. 10 from 4-7 p.m. on parking lot 14 next to Walker Lawn and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion on the main campus. All sales support the Forestry Club, with funds allocated for equipment, trips, and experiences.
About the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science
Michigan Tech’s College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science brings students, faculty, and researchers together to measure, map, model, analyze, and deploy solutions. The College offers seven bachelor’s degrees in forestry, wildlife ecology and conservation, applied ecology and environmental science, natural resources management, sustainable bioproducts, and environmental science and sustainability, and environmental data science. We offer graduate degrees in applied ecology, forest ecology and management, forest molecular genetics and biotechnology, and forest science.
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