The Old Maples of Old
Mission
by Bob
Russell
In the fall of 1992 the state highway department started cutting down all the old historic Sugar Maples along Center road on the Old Mission Peninsula. The bureaucrats at Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) apparently decided these trees were a hazard. Being old, they could drop a limb in the way of an oncoming auto or just simple topple onto one. And they were going to die soon anyway so why not get rid of them all?
John Wunch, local musician and environmental activist, didn't share that opinion with MDOT. He got their attention with the help of lawyers and other outraged citizens on the Old Mission Peninsula. A compromise was reached between the tree savers and the tree cutters. MDOT would allow John with other to assess the trees that need to be either cut down or trimmed and mark them. Only marked trees would be cut or trimmed by MDOT workers.
The marking of the trees is done every 2 years, and this is a marking year. So John called up the folks who had helped him stop the trees' earlier death in 1992, who have been on the tree marking team ever since. Clarence Kroupa, Walter Johnson, John Wunch and I meet for our biannual tree determination. Clarence and Walter are the elders of the team, both grew up on the Old Mission Peninsula. Walter still lives on the peninsula and Clarence lives just west of Traverse City now.
It was a hot breezy day and we could catch a whiff of tar as we walked the edge of the road, stopping at various old giant Sugar Maple trees. We would gather around the various old tree souls and talk as if they couldn't really hear us.
"That one is pretty sparse all the way to the top. . . "
". . . the trunks got a lot of rot on this one…"
". . . this one needs to go, its almost dead already. . . "
". . . sure is a big old tree, sorry to see it go. . . "
"that ones got a dangerous limb that could fall in the road, it better go"
". . . its been a very stressful year. Lets leave it and see if it can recover if next summer is better. . . "
John and I took turns spraying orange dots on the trees that we all decided needed to be cut down. We didn't spray a dot until we all agreed that it should go. Sometimes it was pretty obvious, others we discussed for a while --walking around the tree, looking at it from different angles, picking at the bark on the trunk, looking at the tree's nearest neighbor to see if it might do better if it were cut down. Each time I sprayed a dot I whispered to the tree, "I'm sorry."
There is a replanting program underway to replace these old trees. Many were planted this year, but with the mid-summer drought a fair number didn't make it. More will be planted to replace the ones we dotted for death this year. That was one of the excuses we used to dot ones we were unsure of.
I wonder if some day the new trees will be marked with dots around the year 2130? The ones we are marking now were planted in late 1800's and have lived a good long life. But the environment is not as healthy for trees now. Pavement and salt create a harsh environment which is further degraded by global warming. Although from the late 1800s to the early 1900s the Peninsula was even less tree friendly as most trees were clear-cut, now we and the trees are both threatened by the effects of human activity. It is unclear who will still be around and healthy in 2130.