News this week out of the Trump Administration in Washington is that there are plans to relocate the headquarters of the U.S. Forest Service from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah. Along with this there are plans to downsize the staffing of the forest service, downsize reseach offices from 57 to 19, and open up more of the federally owned forest lands to logging and other operations. There is also likely the plan to downsize or even eliminate national forests in specific areas as well.

Thic commentary focuses mostly on an article in Bridge Michigan, an online magazine about public affairs in Michigan that centers on the planned closure of all four of the Forest Service research offices in Michigan and how that may effect our forests. This however will affect all of our region as the same will happen in Minnesota and Wisconsin as well. It may also indirectly affect Ontario and the rest of Canada.

Bridge Michigan article:

House, Kelly."Trump administration plans closure of 4 Michigan forestry research centers." April 3, 2026 bridgemichigan.com/michigan-environment-watch/trump-administration-plans-closure-of-4-michigan-forestry-research-centers/

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In honor of Women's History Month, this week's guest Emily Macgillivray (The Outdoors Historian) joins the podcast to share the story of Ozhaawashkodwekwe, also known as Susan Johnston, an Ojibwe woman born in the Chequamegon Bay region of Lake Superior (Wisconsin), married to an Irish fur trader and a leader of her tribal clan in Bawating (Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan) where she owned a large sugar bush on nearby Sugar Island in the St. Mary's River.

Maple Sugar was an important food source and commodity for the indigenous people of the Great Lakes. It was an important part of the diet in the early Spring before other food was available. It was used for food preservation, similar to salt, and could be bartered for other food, exchanged for trade goods, and more.

Emily also touches a bit on the indigenous experience in the fur trade and also the importance of re-learning indigenous history in the 21st century as compared to how it was traditionally taught in the past in both Canada and the United States.

Emily Macgillivray is a historian and writer who lives in the Chequamegon Bay area of northwestern Wisconsin. She has worked as an educator focusing on histories of the Great Lakes, United States, and Canada, fo over fifteen years. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan and was an assistant professor at Northland College, where she also taught field courses focused on the Lake Superior watershed. She has also worked in both large and small museums focusing on Indigenous and Black historys. Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, Emily has also lived and worked in Kingston, Ontario, Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois. She currently works in land use development for her municipal government. In her free time she combines her love of the outdoors and history in her wrting on Substack as The Outdoors Historian.

You can follow Emily on Substack at substack.com/@theoutdoorshistorian

Check out Emily's website at theoutdoorshistorian.com

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When the University of Michigan's School of Forestry was created in 1903, it was understood that an experimental forest was needed where forestry students could learn their trade. Saginaw, Michigan lumberman and University of Michigan Regent Arthur Hill stepped in and purchased an 80 acre tract of worn out farm land just east of the city of Ann Arbor for the program to develop the "Saginaw Forestry Farm" as Hill asked the University to name it.

The Saginaw Forest, as it officially became known in 1919 served as a training ground for future professional foresters for many years. As the School of Forestry transformed into the School of Natural Resources, studies at Saginaw Forest expanded into the flora and fauna of the forest and the aquatic life in Third Sister Lake and nearby wetlands. The Saginaw Forest is now part of the School of the Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) where it continues to be a laboratory for students studying the environmental sciences and related fields.

Episode Sources:

Arthur Hill, Saginaw County Hall of Fame. https://saginawcountyhalloffame.org/arthur-hill

Saginaw Forest website. https://seas.umich.edu/about/field-properties/saginaw-forest

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Sportsmen and sportswomen have come to the Pigeon River Country for more than a century to recreate in the forest. Hunting and fishing have been the primary choices for outdoor recreation for many, but the state forest is also a prime spot for morel mushroom hunting, wild berry picking, camping, hiking and backpacking, horseback riding, and more. In 1986, one such visitor was former President of the United States Jimmy Carter.

I first came across the fact that Jimmy Carter came to the Pigeon River in October 1986 to go Ruffed Grouse hunting from an article written by Dianna Stampfler in the September/October 2024 issue of Michigan History magazine. The article, "The Big Wild, Jimmy Carter in Michigan's Pigeon River Country" sparked my interest to dig deeper into this story. It also led me to Jimmy Carter's own account of this hunt in his 1988 book , "An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections." He shares this story in the chapter Ruffed Grouse, From Georgia to Michigan.

Piggybacking on the story of Jimmy Carter's Pigeon River Grouse hunt is an explantion of the various types of recreation available in the Pigeon River Country State Forest. If you love the outdoors, there is likely something in the PRC for you to enjoy.

Episode Resources:

Carter, Jimmy. An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1988.

Stampfler, Dianna. "The Big Wild, Jimmy Carter in Michigan's Pigeon River Country. Michigan History magazine. Lansing, MI: The Historical Society of Michigan, Vol. 108, No. 5. September/October 2024.

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Among the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota in the 1930s was the development of Gooseberry Falls State Park, one of Minnesota's most popular state parks along the north shore of Lake Superior. In 1934 the CCC arrived to build a camp on a bend of the Gooseberry River where it descends to Lake Superior. The work that Company 2710 would do at Gooseberry Falls for the next seven years included the construction of numerous stone buildings and other structures that have become some of the best examples of stone and log construction that were popular in both national and state parks during the Great Depression.

In August 2025, as part of my 2025 Podcast Tour, I visited Gooseberry Falls State Park and camped overnight to explore the history and architecture of the park. I will share that with you in this episode.

Episode Sources:

Benson, David R. Stories in Log and Stone: The Legacy of the New Deal in Minnesota State Parks. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 2002.

Gooseberry Falls State Park interpretive panels text. Circa 1996. No authorship given.

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Conservationist and Forest Advocate P.S. Lovejoy called the Pigeon River Forest "The Big Wild." It is one of the largest contiguous forest lands in Michigan at now over 118,000 acres. Like much of the forests of the Great Lakes, it has had its rebirth in the 20th century after the success of the 19th century lumber industry and the subsequent wildfires that followed.

Ernest Hemingway summered with his family in Northern Michigan while he was growing up. Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1898, Young Ernest Hemingway and his family traveled to Petoskey every summer where they had a cottage on nearby Walloon Lake. Ernest loved fishing and his fishing adventures took him as far a field as "the pine barrens" east of Vanderbilt that was the home of the Black, Pigeon, and Sturgeon rivers, along with fishing trips in the Upper Peninsula. The pine barrens were the cutover and burned over land that had once hosted great forests of white pine and hardwood and would soon become the Pigeon River Country State Forest.

Another visitor to the area was P.S. Lovejoy, a forester and conservationist, who would first see the land in 1919. Although it was still recovering from logging, fire, and failed attempts at afgriculture, he saw in his mind "The Big Wild," a roadless area of forests hosting a wide variety of wildife, including the newly reintroduced Rocky Mountain Elk. His idea was for a wildland that contained no conveniences for visitors. It was wilderness in it's truest form. While his idea was not matched by reality, it became the basis for one of Michigan's unique state forest lands. What began as a 6,500 acre forest reserve (like Higgins Lake and Houghton Lake Forest Reserves), grew over the next century to 110,000 acres.

In December, 2025, a new land purchase of the 8,500 acre Black River Ranch grew the forest to now more than 118,000 acres.

This episode of the North Country History with Rob Burg podcast shares some of the history of the creation of this state forest and covers the newest addition to the forest in the 21st century.

Resources used for this episode:

Franz, Dale Clarke. Pigeon River Country. University of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 1985/revised edition 2007.

Heckman, Kerry. Showcasing the DNR: A Landmark Investment in Public Land. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Lansing, Michigan. December 10, 2025. https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIDNR/bulletins/3ff3542

Kates, James. Planning a Wilderness: Regenerating the Great Lakes Cutover Region. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 2001.

Websites with Further Information:

Official Michigan Department of Natural Resources website: https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/places/state-forests/prc

Website for the Pigeon River Country Association, the non-profit 501c3 organization that partners with the DNR, and the Pigeon River Country Discovery Center, and educational and visitor center housed in the historic former forest supervisor's home: https://pigeonriverdiscoverycenter.org/

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In honor of Black History Month, I want to introduce a unique story in Michigan History to my listeners, the story of Frank W. May, a man who was born into enslavement in Kentucky prior to the American Civil War, and after emancipation raised himself to the ownership of a sawmill in Detroit and a lumberman owning a modest logging operation in Otsego County in the Northern Lower Peninsula in the 1890s.

In 2017 I had an article about Frank May published in Chronicle, the membership magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, title "Frank W. May's Spirit of Enterprise." It was based on research that I conducted in 2016 mostly through the Detroit Public Library's Burton Historical Collections. I don't quite remember how I came across Frank May and his connection to the Michigan lumber industry, but I knew that it was a story that needed to be shared with a wider audience. In this episode I am casting that net further and I go back to that article and sharing it with the listeners of the podcast.

The article that I wrote:

Burg, Rob. "Frank W. May's Spirit of Enterprise." Chronicle, Membership Magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan. Vol. 40, No. 2. pp. 20-22. hsmichigan.org

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In this special episode that both celebrates the one year anniversay of the North Country History with Rob Burg podcast and celbrates the Christmas Holiday season, I share 19th Century writer John W. Fitzmaurice recounting of the celebration of Christmas in a Northern Michigan Logging Camp in 1883. Read from his book "The Shanty Boy.": Or, Life in a Lumber Camp, which recounts his experiences of traveling through the Northwoods and visiting logging camps in the 1880s while working as a hospital agent and drummer. He published his book, using a bit of dramatic liscense, in 1889 and is a good depiction of what the life in the camps was like for the shanty boys.

Source Material

Fitzmaurice, John W. "The Shanty Boy: Or Life in a Lumber Camp." Cheboygan, Michigan: The Democrat Steam Print Co. 1889.

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