Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary is a nature sanctuary in

Keweenaw County Keweenaw County (, ; , ) is a county in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, the state's northernmost county. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 2,046, making it Michigan's least populous county. It is also the ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. It is maintained and preserved by the

Michigan Nature Association Michigan Nature Association is a nonprofit conservation organization established in 1952. It has 176 nature sanctuaries in 58 counties throughout Michigan under its jurisdiction. History In 1951, a bird study group in the Macomb County Mac ...

Big white pine (Pinus strobus) in the Estivant Pines Sanctuary

The area was originally part of a 2,400-acre tract of land owned by Edward Estivant of Paris, who sold it to Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in 1947. Universal Oil acquired the area in 1968, and soon logged 300 acres of nearby forest. A fund-raising campaign by the Michigan Nature Association lead in 1973 to the purchase of 200 acres from Universal Oil. Three subsequent acquisitions, between 1989 and 2005, have expanded the sanctuary to 510 acres. The area protects one of the last old-growth white pine ('' Pinus strobus'') stands in Michigan. Two connected loop trails are in the sanctuary, the one-mile Cathedral Grove loop and the 1.2 mile Bertha Daubendiek trail. The Sanctuary includes some white pines growing more than 125 feet tall and dating back over 300 years, having established after a fire in about 1695. The forest predominantly consists of sugar maple ('' Acer saccharum'') and balsam fir (''

Abies balsamea ''Abies balsamea'' or balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada ( Newfoundland west to central Alberta) and the northeastern United States (Minnesota east to Maine, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to ...

''), with the white pines appearing as emergent stems above the maple/fir canopy. There are a few understory white pine saplings, but these face competition with many other tree species before they can enter the canopy; it remains to be seen whether gap dynamics will allow this to occur. More than 85 bird species have been inventoried in the sanctuary, including woodpeckers, hawks, and red crossbills. Despite thin soil and boreal climate, several wildflowers grow, such as asters, ''Clintonia'', baneberry, and violets. A wide variety of ferns, like maidenhair, spleenwort, and holly fern, blanket the

forest floor The forest floor, also called detritus, duff and the O horizon, is one of the most distinctive features of a forest ecosystem. It mainly consists of shed vegetative parts, such as leaves, branches, bark, and stems, existing in various stages ...

References

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External links

Michigan Nature Association
Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary
MichiganDNR.com
Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary
uptrails.com
Pictures of Estivant Pines from Google Images
Protected areas of Keweenaw County, Michigan Nature reserves in Michigan 1973 establishments in Michigan Protected areas established in 1973