.png)
A Forest Older Than Michigan
Step into one of Michigan's last old-growth forests and discover what the state looked like before logging reshaped the landscape more than a century ago.
Two hundred years ago, dense primeval forests covered Michigan. In the southern half of the state, it was mostly hardwoods; maple, beech, oak, hickory, and ash. Up north, it was mostly softwoods such as white pine and hemlock. Check out this amazing resource about presettlement cover in Michigan from MSU: https://project.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/vegetation.html
In 1825, the Erie Canal opened and soon afterward, waves of European immigrants poured into Michigan and quickly exploited the state’s primeval forests. By 1895, these new settlers had logged off all the timber, mostly pine, in lower Michigan. By 1905, they had logged off all the timber in upper Michigan as well.
The loggers didn’t take everything. They left behind stumps, small trees, and dead branches — perfect fuel for wildfires. On October 8, 1871, after a long dry summer, three separate fires broke out in Michigan: the Manistee Fire, the Port Huron Fire, and the Holland Fire (together known as the Great Michigan Fire) that burned over 2.5 million acres and claimed hundreds of lives. Ten years later, a fire in Michigan’s Thumb burned another million acres and killed several hundred more people.
It’s now been over a century since our ancestors cut down Michigan’s original forests. About half of these forests have since regrown, but they are second-growth forests, quite different from the old-growth forests that met the first settlers. Second-growth trees tend to grow close together, so their canopies are closed, blocking out most of the sunlight and thus creating sparser understories with less dead organic matter and fewer habitat niches.
There are places in Michigan where you can still see old-growth trees that managed to escape the logger’s axe. In the upper peninsula, the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park encompasses 60,000 acres, more than half of which is old-growth forest, the Sylvania Wilderness encompasses 18,000 acres of wild terrain within the Ottawa National Forest, and the Estivant Pines Wilderness Nature Sanctuary near Copper Harbor is a privately managed sanctuary known for towering old-growth white pine. In the lower peninsula, the Hartwick Pines State Park contains the largest stand of old-growth trees left in southern Michigan, the Warren Woods National Natural Landmark contains southern Michigan’s the last known stand of virgin beech-maple forest, and within the AuSable State Forest is a 34-acre tract of virgin pine as old as 200 years.
Last month, I found myself back at Estivant Pines in the U.P. of Michigan; one of several visits over the years. Even knowing what awaited me, the first few steps onto the trail always feel the same. The forest opens around you instead of closing in. The trees stand impossibly tall and surprisingly far apart, leaving room for shafts of sunlight, fallen logs softened by moss, and a rich understory that's largely missing from most of Michigan's younger forests.
​
It's easy to understand why these woods feel different. They were never clear-cut. Many of these white pines were already centuries old before Michigan became a state, spared largely because the rugged landscape made them difficult to reach. While most of the state began over as second-growth forest, this small pocket simply kept growing.
​
Every visit leaves me wondering how many places in Michigan once looked like this. Estivant Pines isn't just beautiful because the trees are big. It's beautiful because it offers a rare chance to see the forest our earliest residents would have known. Standing beneath those towering pines, it's hard not to feel a little grateful that this small corner of the Northwoods escaped the saws, preserving a glimpse of a Michigan that almost disappeared.
