…the Forest for the Trees

…the Forest for the Trees. . , "Bayfield is settling down to its regular winter's business... cord wood, pine logs, oak timber, steamboat wood and fish are the staple products, and the supply is unlimited." , - Bayfield County Press, November 28, 1877 , Changing values... , For centuries regional forests supported the traditional lifeways of indigenous people. In the treaties of 1837 and 1842, the U.S. government obtained rights from the region's Chippewa tribes to commercially harvest the forests of northern Wisconsin. The relative ease of transporting logs on Lake Superior attracted loggers to the Apostle Islands region by the 1850s. Over the next 75 years, wood from the Apostle Islands helped build Midwestern cities, lined shafts in the region's iron mines, and provided millions of cross ties for the nation's railroads. Area logging camps and mills employed hundreds of people...but at what cost? , Unlimited supply? , Most large lumber companies closed by the late 1920s as the area's "unlimited supply" of forest products dwindled after decades of logging and fires. , "Practically all the large timber on the Peninsula...has been cut and but a few remaining logs in the slip are yet to be sawed up…Millions of feet of the best North Wisconsin pine, hemlock, and hardwood timber have passed over the great chain to the log deck of the mill during the years of operation here,.. We will miss the familiar sound of the big whistle at morning, noon, and night, and the familiar hum of the whirring saws as they cut their way through the logs." , - Bayfield County Press announces closing of the Wachsmuth Company's Bayfield mill, August 27, 1924 , "a tale of hope." , After the large companies closed, small logging operations continued to harvest hardwoods for furniture and pulpwood for paper. Families like the Hokensons operated small sawmills. Five generations of logging shaped regional culture and dramatically changed the landscape. And yet.. , ..forests are growing back. Trees once viewed primarily as lumber slowly gained value as scenery and habitat. Island forests may be different than they were before logging, but by 1970, the islands recovered sufficiently to earn national lakeshore designation. , "Nature was back...That places like the Apostle Islands can undergo... "re-wilding, " even after extensive human modification, should be taken as a tale of hope." , - historian William Cronon , Captions: , White River Lumber Company Logging Camp, 1887 , Old oak in a 're-wilding' landscape. , The last log through the Bayfield mill, September 9, 1924.