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Leech Lake DRM sends Christmas tree to Smithsonian

By Allan Olson, Cass Lake Times

Cutting trees is nothing new for the hard-working crew at the Leech Lake DRM
Forestry department, but cutting a tree for the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington, D.C., is not an everyday occurrence, or even every decade.

The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe was asked to provide a tree for the National
Museum of the American Indian-Smithsonian, in our nation’s capital.

According to Forester Keith Karnes, “We did some searching for the Capitol
Tree, and then about a month ago we were asked to provide a smaller tree for
the museum, too. We had some ideas from trees that we had found that were
all too small for the Capitol Tree, so we started with those.”

The museum tree came from the Ball Club area. It was discovered by BJ
Gotchie, who also got the honors of felling the tree on Friday, October 30.
A full crew was present to assist in the clearing process as well as
felling, wrapping and transporting this special tree as carefully as
possible. “This might not be the Capitol Tree, but it’s still an honor to
harvest this special tree,” Karnes said. “This is very likely a once in a
lifetime opportunity.”

Division of Resource Management
(218) 335-7400