The White Pine: Michigan's Green Gold

In this episode, listeners are introduced to the Eastern White Pine (Pinus Strobus). This tree, once rising upwards of 200 feet or more towered over the forests of eastern North America with trunks of six feet diameter. The European settlers to these shores found this tree to have an excellent quality of lumber that was both lightweight to work with and was buoyant to be moved by water from forest to sawmill. Not only was the white pine a valuable economic product for the residents of the New England colonies, but was also valued greatly by the British Empire's Royal Navy for ships masts. In Maine and New Hampshire, the British government restricted use of white pines larger than 24 inches in diameter for use solely by the Royal Navy. This led to protests and riots that helped spur on the American Revolution.

In the 19th century the large amount of white pine found in the Great Lakes Region would contribute to the growth of the Midwest and create economic wealth and industry in the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. In Michigan alone, the white pine was valued greater than the gold in California by a two to one margin, thus being nicknamed Michigan's "Green Gold."

Besides the lumber industry, the Eastern White Pine has long been sacred to various indigenous people of eastern North America, has been home to wildlife that were important for the fur trade, and has figured prominently in the topics of environmental history with wildfires, reforestation, and climate change. All of these topics and more will be covered in future episodes of the North Country History with Rob Burg podcast.

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Episode Sources:
Ellis, Charles, "Among the Michigan Pines."  The Current. Chicago, 1885, Vol. III

Hotchkiss, "History of the Lumber and Forestry Industry of the Northwest." Chicago, 1898.

Hunt, Freeman. "Internal Commerce of the West: Its Condition and Wants, as Illustrated by the Commerce of Michigan, Present and Prospective." Hunt's Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review. New York, 1848, Volume Nineteen.

Vietze, Andrew. "White Pine: American History and the Tree that Made a Nation." Globe Pequot, Guilford, Connecticut, 2018.

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