Let's Make This Cultural Remnant "Pretty"

Is it possible not to destroy our few remaining Shawano forest remnants? 

A friend of mine and I launched a 15’ aluminum open fishing boat on the Wolf River below the Hwy 22 bridge in Shawano and rowed to Oshkosh. It took 7 days. The first half mile we had to walk alongside the boat as the water was barely 6” deep in places.  Imagine, at one time ferry boats steamed up to Shawano on the Wolf River from Black Creek. What had happen from those days to the time we launched?  For one thing millions of acres of forest were logged off and the resulting sedimentary runoff filled in the river bottom making the navigation of the larger water craft impossible.

Within the City of Shawano a few small remnants our expansive forests remain to our time.  But will they survive our deep cultural and traditional activities or will they be left alone to continue to regenerate?

Brener Woods is an example of one of those tiny remnants.  Collectively owned by the citizens of Shawano, it is presently being slowly transformed from an urban forest to ‘a lawn with trees’, its ecology and microbial soil composition permanently altered.  

It appears someone, one of us, had complained:  The walking trails are too narrow, they have now been over time widened to where a truck could be driven through  them.

There is too much brush, it looks ‘untidy’ (necessary forest ground growth and valuable understory that enables future regeneration).  One of us complained: Some students are hiding there doing who knows what!  Solutions for these: The forest is being systematically brushed out. 

A tree or limb could fall on someone.  Solution: The dead and dying trees are being removed.  For generations the aging trees and limbs were ‘allowed’ to naturally return soil, they were homes for certain birds, animals and plants and generally rejuvenated the soil.  Cut and hauled away, much of the nutrients from the soil are taken, further weakening the ability of the forest to regenerate.  These standing dead trunks are called by the derogatory name ‘snags’ but really so valuable that in our National Forests it is now illegal to cut them. 

If we cannot get ourselves to stop, the entire woods as time progresses will continue to be degraded: The trees will age and will be cut and removed with no hope of regenerating because the grown cover and understory will continued to be removed. Even the stumps may be removed furtherr removing nutrients. Perhaps one of us in the future may suggest paving the trails, perhaps one of us will want a pavilion built and later one of us may suggest cutting the trees away from the pavilion to prevent damage.  There is no mechanism in place to stop this.

But perhaps one of us will suggest leaving it alone.  If we cannot control our behavior within a woods, perhaps one of us will suggest building a protective fence around it.  Perhaps one of us will suggest the unthinkable, though not unreasonable:  delineating areas of the overabundant open grass around the forest so these tiny remnants may naturally expand and in the future those areas could be even expanded more.

But our deep cultural traditions, if not questioned and altered may prevent this remnant’s ability to survive beyond our own generation.

1st Step Present Conversion Activity from Natural Forest to a Treed Lawn 

Tiny Urban Woods, still a Natural Forest, Surrounded by Manicured Lawn

The Glorious, Worthy of Praise Hybrid Dwarf Crab Apple Tree

March 19, 2017: Clintonville Wisconsin, the day before the old trees that line Main St. are to be removed.

Clintonville yards were once thick with green, lush, moist.  (Some still are.)  Understory and ground growth along the lot borders were left in place, perhaps you could see your neighbor’s roof but certainly not your neighbor.  Push mowers kept the British grasses low.

Foreign to our land and Americanize (Kentucky Blue), these grasses had become a part of that dark green richness. This is still before the time when people became obsessed about other plants growing in a lawn or with even a single tree leaf that may have fallen on it.  Before the fallen leaf was considered litter, trash… when the trees that lined our streets were homegrown, strong, fruit-seed-nut bearing forest giants.

On Clintonville’s Main St the giant’s canopies once formed a green tunnel and in fall a short-lived tunnel of brilliant colors that could never be taken for granted. Then Monarch Butterfly cocoons and bird nests frequented the architecture.  Two species of forest birds might be seen lighting out of the canopy to engage in a tug of war over a discarded piece of string. A young boy might be hit with a bird dropping and would imagine one of the forest birds had landed on his shoulder without him knowing it.

In late summer Beechnuts, Butternuts, Walnuts, American Chestnuts would begin to rain down covering portions of the road and sidewalks.  Gray Squirrels were employed full time burying them one by one, never to be retrieved.  This further enriched the soil. In another time, if ever left alone these seeds would regenerate the forest after the giants fell. 

Rich growth of shrubs surrounded many of the houses, helping the homes stay warm or cool depending on the season. But somehow it was  passed to those people and then to us, to you, that this was all a nuisance: the falling leaves, the animals, too many birds, the roof moss, the insects, that it was all a mess.  So we went about “cleaning up” the outside, it seemed it had to be sanitized like the inside of a house.  Trees and shrubs were cut back, removed further from the structures or just removed.  Then more and more ground growth and the remaining forest understory were cleaned up leaving more room for the smooth tamable British grasses.  Lush greenery began to diminish and the views of green were replaced with that of neighbor’s homes and lawn. With decades of diligent ‘cleaning’: raking and removal of leaves, nuts, hulks, seeds, droppings, brush, weeds, trimmings, snags, nesting cavities and trees themselves, the soil weakened. 

Somehow, now generations off the farm, the idea crept in that the soils were eternal, bio-renewable and despite removing, removing, removing, they would renew themselves out of thin air.  In fact it became an unspoken cultural norm to believe we could cut and cut the plants and wood without consequence. The greenery was named renewable energy as if each time we removed the growth the soil would remain eternally strong!  But in tens of thousands of towns and cities, after 100 years of raking, trimming, cutting, gleaning and cleaning the litter, the trees began to weaken.   The more they weakened, the more they became diseased and the more they were perceived as garbage, trash, litter, nuisances and hazards.  So they were further cleaned up: trimmed, cut away, cut down and even the ‘unsightly’ stumps were removed as they were seen as blight on the expanding and expansive lawn, that perfect ground cover with no rival. If desired, not a single tree leaf may lie and decay back into the weakened soil.

The giants that shaded our homes and protected them as windshields in the cold months were being taken down. Our exhaled air, the CO2, the life gas of everything green, our lush heritage, was labeled a pollutant. Too much of it they said.  Cars, like those that once drove through Main Street’s green tunnel were also spewing too much of it.  A call went out:  Ride a bike instead.  Tomorrow, the first day of Spring,  the majority of the remaining oxygen-making giants, some weak and diseased, and many majestically strong, will be cut down and hauled away, so that a one mile long bicycle path can be added to Main St., mandated by the Dept. of Transportation. For those who choose to believe that this is done because CO2 is a danger, the CO2 converting giants will be gone;  the homes will need to more energy for heating and cooling. The birds of 100 generations can move somewhere else, can’t they?   The remarkable green tunnel will never have a chance to appear again.

As time progresses we can tell our kids, grand kids, nieces and nephews the story of why our streets are dotted with pretty hybrid dwarf crab apple trees.

Comments by life long residents:

"I can't remember the last time I saw a bike ride up Main Street"

"Clinton St runs parallel to that section of Main Street. For $100 the DOT could put up a bike route sign"