Strib article this morning. I didn't quite get an exact location where this will be but it is somewhere within the "North Arm Trail" system off of burntside.

IMO these are some of if not the best hiking trails and woods in MN. You can even hike into the BWCA all the way to Cummings lake.

Logging north arm trails

Some of this area has already been logged in recent years. Mostly done along the road but some portions of the North Arm Trails have already been impacted. Great place to ski!

quote Grizzlyman: "Strib article this morning. I didn't quite get an exact location where this will be but it is somewhere within the "North Arm Trail" system off of burntside.

IMO these are some of if not the best hiking trails and woods in MN. You can even hike into the BWCA all the way to Cummings lake.


Logging north arm trails "

Yup, they are some of the best hiking trails, interesting that anyone would object to them being logged, AGAIN!!
Crab Lake Portage was an old logging road, and so are many others in the area including those in the Coxey Pond, Cummings, Buck, Western, Glenmore, Schlamn, Lunetta, Boulder, Phantom, and Little Crab area.
So if anyone was against logging way back when, these trails would not exist! :)

It would be nice to keep some old growth areas of Minnesota.

That entire area has been logged many years ago, before you were born!
Sheeesh!

Well, either let it burn (either under supervision or accidentally) or do systematic logging. That is part of our responsibility of managing forests.

Choose.

It seems that they are not proposing a clear cut, but instead a selective cut. As long as it is forestry management I think they should proceed. The DNR knows the resource better than I do, that's for sure.

quote The Great Outdoors: "Yup, they are some of the best hiking trails, interesting that anyone would object to them being logged, AGAIN!!
Crab Lake Portage was an old logging road, and so are many others in the area including those in the Coxey Pond, Cummings, Buck, Western, Glenmore, Schlamn, Lunetta, Boulder, Phantom, and Little Crab area.
So if anyone was against logging way back when, these trails would not exist! :)"

But that does not have much to do with the question of whether the logging should occur at this time.

What makes them "some of the best hiking trails"?
I actually do not know, I don't think I have hiked the area. I have however hiked all of the long trails in the BWCA, and for me, the best ones always have the oldest trees. The worst places to hike are the ones that have been logged. The start of the border route trail a few years ago had been logged, we couldn't find the trail at all. The end of the Kek trail had been recently logged and all the small trees they cut were difficult to walk through.

I understand that logging needs to increase with demand. Just too many humans.

The article has left out many facts, some may even cry fake news. The cutting on the North Arm has been going on for a few years to create a fire break for the residents of the area. I doubt it is cut for lumber but more like pulp or biomass. The forest service has been burning the forest up there for the past few years also. This spring they burnt more then 70 acres link-with-map .

Why no out cry when burning the forest, but out cry when selective cutting for fire safety?

Also I would like to add Forest fires release 44 tons of mercury into the air each year in North America HREF="fire-link" TARGET="_blank">link . This mercury also goes into our lakes, that's why we have to be careful about how many fish we eat.

quote ellahallely: "Also I would like to add Forest fires release 44 tons of mercury into the air each year in North America HREF="fire-link" TARGET="_blank">link . This mercury also goes into our lakes, that's why we have to be careful about how many fish we eat."

Wildfires have been occurring since the end of the last ice age, so I doubt that the mercury problem in our lakes has much to do with them. I'd look more to the burning of billions of tons of coal worldwide, every year, if you're worried about mercury...

There is a retired Minnesota DNR Forester from Aitkin who did the inventory and propose logging in the late 60's and early 70's in the Phantom-Crab and Slim-Burntside area. I knew him real well he talked about the Phantom lake logging in the BWCA and forestry had a proposal also to log much of the Slim lake and north arm of the Burntside area.

He did the inventory and looked at that area and he was the main person to say that old growth forest area which was not ever logged should be spared from logging. He fought it and the forestry department agreed it should not be allowed. He was very proud of that area not being allowed to be logged. Yes pretty much all directions around it was logged. Especially the Crab lake to Western lake than south of Phantom toward Burntside. A finge around much of Burntside was spared.

I use to go in from the Wolf lake trail and go up the Phantom lake road to deer-grouse hunt and camp. I can't remember if it was 1975 or 76 I was on the trail and the logger coming out said this was about the last load coming out before logging ends in there. Great grouse hunting there back than and great deer hunting until the fall 1969 super snowstorm during deer season and more later in 1969. Even to this day they never recovered to the numbers that existed than all around Ely to the north shore.

I don't know the complete plan,but if any logging takes place I think 30% removal as they talk about is too much in a short time. I also don't know if any storm damage exists in there at present.
I have zero problem with a good sustainable logging program. But so few area with 150-200 year old White pine exists. Leave them alone in that area.
If a very few selective logs were removed,maybe. They talk they want to do it to increase new pine growth. Also if they could selectively cut only aspen and spruce-go ahead.

quote arctic: "

quote ellahallely: "Also I would like to add Forest fires release 44 tons of mercury into the air each year in North America HREF="fire-link" TARGET="_blank">link . This mercury also goes into our lakes, that's why we have to be careful about how many fish we eat."

Wildfires have been occurring since the end of the last ice age, so I doubt that the mercury problem in our lakes has much to do with them. I'd look more to the burning of billions of tons of coal worldwide, every year, if you're worried about mercury..."

By chance I read a study just today talking about forest fires and mercury. The study said at least in that area fires did not contribute to mercury in lakes. I will have to read that article again.

July 2017:
Scientists have concluded that burning Boundary Waters forests does not contribute to more mercury contamination. Forest managers had been concerned that fires could “mobilize” mercury that had previously fallen to Earth, and allow it be washed into nearby waters.

The researchers from the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Minnesota, and Stockton University spent five years studying Thelma and Everett Lakes in the wilderness. They tested year-old yellow perch as reliable indicators of fish accumulation of mercury.

The Everett Lake watershed was the site of two fires during the study, one prescribed burn and the Ham Lake Fire of 2007. The Thelma Lake watershed has not seen a fire since 1875.

The researchers measured mercury level in forest soils and the young perch, which are known to quickly show changes in environmental mercury levels in their flesh, before and after the Everett Lake watershed’s fires.

While the level of mercury in the soil declined significantly after the fires, it did not increase in the fish, according to a paper published in the Journal of Environment Quality.

While the fires ignited plant and soil material that housed mercury, which travels long distances from its source in the air before settling to Earth, researcher Randy Kolka of the Forest Service’s Northern Research Center said the mercury from the fires the team studied must have been deposited downwind from the fires, but outside the lakes and watersheds.

“We found no direct effect,” Kolka told phys.org. “So we can’t point the finger at forest fires.”

The scientists say it’s possible more intense fires could cause contamination. They hope to measure mercury levels in the lakes if a severe wildfire ever burns in the area.

If it really is to promote the health of the forest in the area, why not take the financial incentive off the table. Donate the trees to the Y and have them get people to help them build a log cabin for y camp facilities?

quote 3Ball: "

quote The Great Outdoors: "Yup, they are some of the best hiking trails, interesting that anyone would object to them being logged, AGAIN!!
Crab Lake Portage was an old logging road, and so are many others in the area including those in the Coxey Pond, Cummings, Buck, Western, Glenmore, Schlamn, Lunetta, Boulder, Phantom, and Little Crab area.
So if anyone was against logging way back when, these trails would not exist! :)"

But that does not have much to do with the question of whether the logging should occur at this time."

If not now, when??
Trees grow back, so logging are the sustainable jobs that "Sustainable Ely" speaks of (or is it??) :)

Best I can tell is it's the dark green area outside of the bwca line.

perhaps this is part of the move by the DNR to create better habitat for moose?

quote The Great Outdoors: "

Trees grow back, so logging are the sustainable jobs that "Sustainable Ely" speaks of (or is it??) :)"

I would say that the first question is whether, not when.

I am all for sustainable logging but White pine trees forests areas are very rare, Maybe we should leave those areas alone until we actually get young white pine forests going again. Many of these trees are in the 200 year old range or more. Cut these and it might be 4 generations of people won't have a chance to see something like what is present at the North Arm. Its drawing card in the winter is its Pine Trees.


Where do white pines like to grow? White pines can live in a variety of habitats from dry sandy soils and rocky ridges, to sphagnum bogs. They grow best in a moist sandy soil. Historically white pine were found from Minnesota across the great lakes region and through out the northeastern United States. However, most of the white pine have been logged and now there are less than 1/10 of 1% of the original virgin white pine forests left. Luckily some of the last remaining old growth or virgin forests are found in the border country.

People thought that the forests white pines, 200 feet tall and stretching for miles, would last forever. Between 1776 and 1940 2.4 quadrillion board feet of white pine was logged. All of this wood stacked in a city block would stack 400 miles high! By the 1950’s all of the vast forests of white pines had been cut down. The only remaining stands were small pockets in very remote areas such as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

You read one of Bill Magies books and he talks about birch lake along the BWCA border had so many logs in the lake you couldn't even canoe the lake,you had to portage around it.

Now if you cutting aspen forest like every 50 years it will self generate on its own 10 fold over. Pine needs its seed trees and often fire.

In parts of Minnesota where white pines have been severely over harvested or regeneration is especially difficult, extra caution is required. With most of the white pines less than 120 years into a 400-year growth cycle, there should be no hurry to cut up future old-growth stands until more is known about regenerating white pines in such areas. With 98 percent of our white pine forests already gone, there are plenty of places to plant white pines without cutting more to make room. We don't have to cut them to save them, as we are often told. Cutting in such areas should initially be done only as part of limited experiments to determine the best regeneration practices.

Early on in the 1900's we pretty much cut everything and planted nothing. One of the big companies was asked even back than why don't you replant some of the areas you cut. The answer was we agree we should replant but it would cut into our profit margin.

Now that philosophy is long gone and foresters and loggers alike agree we have to replant or create a condition natural reproduction will occur.

You can go as far south as Little Falls in Minnesota and still see where remenants of the old pine forest exists around a old farmstead or something where the pine trees were left to stand.

Yes there are a few areas we can still harvest some Old Growth forest and be O'kay, but darn few.

Yes I still believe we can log much of Minnesota and it can make a healthy forest,but it doesn'thave to be 100%.

quote Soledad: "It would be nice to keep some old growth areas of Minnesota. "

Define what you mean by old growth.

Most of MN has been logged over several time.

Old growth is a fantasy of the anti logging crowd in 90 percent of the lower 48.

Amen, Bro!!!!! :)

quote Freeleo1: "If it really is to promote the health of the forest in the area, why not take the financial incentive off the table. Donate the trees to the Y and have them get people to help them build a log cabin for y camp facilities? "

Hilarious

old

To me some of that old growth is like Highway 2 little rest stop where some trees are before are Declaration of Independence pre 1776.

lost 40

A friend has some land close to this and says there is some really big trees there.

quote riverrunner: "

quote Soledad: "It would be nice to keep some old growth areas of Minnesota. "

Define what you mean by old growth.
Most of MN has been logged over several time.
Old growth is a fantasy of the anti logging crowd in 90 percent of the lower 48."

I'm not anti-logging. To say it is a fantasy would imply that old growth forests don't exist. Old trees do exist. Did you pull that 90% figure right out of your ass or do you have a link for it?

I understand that most of Minnesota was has been logged. Some trees were spared. My opinion is that if they are still there, then leave them again.

We don't have to destroy everything in our paths.

I ski and hike these trails regularly, probably more than any other living human. Much misinformation posted on this thread. The "logging" along the road egknuti refers to was not logging but a fuels reduction program to remove the dead and dying balsam in areas outside the BWCA. I'm wondering whether Great Outdoors has ever walked this area- if he had he would understand that there are areas of virgin (as in never logged timber) in the proposed area of logging (it would require getting out of your car and walking almost a half mile to hit the first grove). These are some of the finest classical ski trails in the state, possibly the nation for those who like rustic cross country skiing. In the last year I skied in Montana, Idaho and Sweden and my best skis of the year were all on the North Arm trails. It doesn't make sense for the DNR to tear up this well-used and well loved area for a relatively small area of harvest. Incredibly tone deaf for the DNR.

An example of old growth from the trails.

quote Banksiana:

An example of old growth from the trails.
"

"The sentinels":)

There are some monster red & white pines on these trails.

quote Grizzlyman: "

quote Banksiana:


An example of old growth from the trails.
"

"The sentinels":)


There are some monster red & white pines on these trails. "

Its a go to spot when cross country skiing.

I think that many are confusing "Virgin Timber" and "old growth" being one and the same.
When these areas were logged, new trees that began to grow and are now the old growth that people speak of.
Another 60-80 years or more from now, another group of old growth will be towering over the area.
The "ME" generation that seems to rule the world at this time do not want to see logging, but merely enjoy the results of what was done years ago.
And yes, banksiana, I have gotten out of the car, and walked the general area and points further west (Crab, Korb, Cummings, Buck, Western, Schlamn, Little Crab, Maxine, Geraldine, etc)!
I did this through the woods (not on any ski trails) while deer hunting, long before you ever heard of Ely Minnesota.
I am no longer able to do that because of arthritis, artificial joints, and old age.

This "ME" generation thinks a lot about keeping things intact for the next generations to come.

Like I said earlier there is less 1/10 of 1% of the Virgin White Pine left. If we want to call the north side of Burntside Virgin forest,that very small area would qualify. If we go with that label,once it is gone it is gone forever.
I am all for logging but not every single piece of timber. My grandpa logged around Ely in the early 1900's and later had one of if not the biggest sawmill in the Mille lacs-Brainerd area.
This small area has even much more future value and present value as it stands.

quote Soledad: "This "ME" generation thinks a lot about keeping things intact for the next generations to come."

They claim to, but not when it inconveniences them.
It isn't about the next generation, it's about the current "ME" generation!!
This entire area has been logged for the most part, and about 99% of the users have no idea that it was.
They didn't save a wilderness, they built one!
I didn't read about this, or attend a lecture from someone, I watched it happen! :)