Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary is a nature sanctuary in

Keweenaw County Keweenaw County (, ) is a county in the western Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 2,046, making it Michigan's least populous county. It is also the state's largest county by total ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. 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 Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great ...

. 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 The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company was a major copper-mining company based within Michigan, Michigan's Copper Country. In the 19th century, the company paid out more than $72 million in shareholder dividends, more than any other 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 ''Pinus strobus'', commonly called the eastern white pine, northern white pine, white pine, Weymouth pine (British), and soft pine is a large pine native to eastern North America. It occurs from Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland, Canada, west ...

'') 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 ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the p ...

'') and balsam fir (''

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

''), 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 Gap dynamics refers to the pattern of plant growth that occurs following the creation of a forest gap, a local area of natural disturbance that results in an opening in the canopy of a forest. Gap dynamics are a typical characteristic of both temp ...

will allow this to occur. More than 85 bird species have been inventoried in the sanctuary, including woodpeckers, hawks, and

red crossbill The red crossbill or common crossbill (''Loxia curvirostra'') is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. Crossbills have distinctive mandibles, crossed at the tips, which enable them to extract seeds from conifer cones and other ...

s. 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 or wikt:duff#Noun 2, duff, is the part of a forest ecosystem that mediates between the living, aboveground portion of the forest and the mineral soil, principally composed of dead and decaying plant matter ...

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