HISTORY
Just as most of Northern Michigan, the Pigeon River Country was logged between 1860 and 1910. All of its magnificent pines went first. Many were floated to mills on the Black or the Pigeon River, or the Sturgeon River just to the west. The area was later veined with logging railroads which made it possible to reach timber away from the rivers and to take the valuable and heavy hardwoods which could not be floated as was the pine.
The logging was followed, and in some areas preceded by disastrous, consuming forest fires that swept the slashings and invaded the remaining timber repeatedly, even as late as the early 1930's.
Mingled into this time-space were many efforts to convert the land to farming use. At first the farms were for the raising of work horses and oxen for the logging camps, and for raising pigs, fruit and vegetables to feed the hungry loggers. Hay fields and oat crops were grown for the work animals, used for both logging and farming.
But after the logging ended, the sawmills, mill towns and supporting farms died, for there were very few roads, no industries, and climate and soils were not suitable for profitable farming.
Farms were abandoned and forgotten, but their locations are marked where a few large, sod-bound fields can still be found. The land and waters were all given back to nature, to heal the wounds left by those who had come and gone, having conquered this wild land like a broncobuster breaks a horse, with sharp spurs and single purpose.
The timber was gone, The Pigeon River Country remained "off the beaten path", little noticed by the public while its forests and wildlife were recuperating and its waters returned to natural conditions.
Abandonment of mills and farms and neglect in paying taxes caused large parts of the Pigeon River Country area to return to State ownership. By 1919, the State had acquired 6,468 acres in the northeastern township of Otsego County, and in April of that year the Pigeon River State Forest was established with a resident custodian living in a farm house.
First planting of pine, as a forerunner of a major effort to reforest the denuded lands of the area, was made in 1920 when 81 acres were planted.
In 1924 the DNR designated the Otsego Wildlife Refuge Unit east of Vanderbilt, in part coincident with the Pigeon River State Forest. Elk, which had been released in 1918 were increasing rapidly by that tine, and the refuge was intended to protect both them and the scarce deer in the area. For a short time a resident game keeper was assigned here, but by 1926 the entire state ownership was again administered by the supervisor of Pigeon River Forest.
Most of the Otsego Refuge was leased or under permit from private owners until 1926 when 10,600 acres were purchased for $3.75 per acre with Game and Fish Protection Fund money and added to the original 2,720 acres of the Refuge.
Planting of pines and clearing lines for fire protection were both well established activities by this time, and each increased as did the land in State ownership. By mid-1928 the Pigeon River State Forest included 19,200 acres and extended into adjacent Cheboygan County. Large acreages were both purchased and acquired through tax reversion in the late '20's and '30's. Lands purchased in adjacent Cheboygan County were designated as the North Pigeon River Refuge, which was closed to all deer hunting in 1931. Both the refuges and intermingled State Forest lands were administered by the forest supervisor.
Except for young growth of spruce and cedar in the many narrow swamps and a thicket of hardwood saplings on some of the areas of upland which had escaped the most recent fires, the land was either barren hills or just sparse "brush" when a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was established on the old farm land next to Cornwall Lake in 1933.
Some of the lakes were the repositories for slab wood, sawdust, and deadhead logs left after early logging. The streams had been scoured by the log drives, flushed by the release of dammed-up waters spring after spring. Abandoned logging railroad grades reached in all directions, and cleared log-decking areas were visible at strategic points along the rivers and railroad grades. Broken logs, exposed and rotting ties, big pine stumps and burned snags made it as plain as the fence posts, lilac bushes and barbed wire at the old homesteads just what had happened here. Some of these can still be found. It was not long ago.
Obvious needs were dealt with by the vigorous youths of the CCC. Roads were built using the old railroad grades as foundations wherever possible. Almost one third of the bare lands were hand=planted to native pines and were protected from fires by construction of a grid of interlacing fire-breaks, cleared to road width every quarter mile in the pine areas.
CCC labor and spring thaws removed the worst of the debris in the streams and healed the eroding banks. Young seedlings and saplings, both natural and planted, grew in size and numbers.
The forests grew and began to close the old fields. With so few people living in or using the area, wildlife flourished. The elk thrived and multiplied on the plentiful food supply and solitude to occupy this and the surrounding countryside. .
By 1927, elk were estimated to number possibly as many as 5OO, not enough to allow hunting, but in 1929 the Pigeon River Refuge was opened to hunting of deer, which no longer needed protection. The adjacent Otsego Refuge was kept closed to protect the elk, but a study showed that the elk ranged onto nearby lightly hunted private hunting clubs which afforded them considerable safety, and in 1940 the Otsego Refuge was also opened for deer hunting.
In 1952 redistricting and renaming of state forest lands resulted in division of the original Pigeon River State Forest into four separate forests for administrative purposes. The division was on the county line between Otsego, Cheboygan and Montmorency Counties, and a northerly extension of the Otsego-Montmorency County line (the base meridian) northerly through Cheboygan County. It left the lands in Otsego County in the Pigeon River State Forest, but transferred the northwesterly portions to the Hardwood State Forest, the northeasterly portion into the Black Lake State Forest, and the small acreage in Montmorency County to the Thunder Bay River State Forest. Administration of these contiguous state-owned lands was then and until now [i.e., 1973] in four locations: Gaylord, Indian River, Atlanta, and Onaway, with no resident personnel or office within the original Pigeon River tract.
From 1952 on, the old headquarter buildings were used as a laboratory and office for fisheries research, no longer as either forestry headquarters or as residences for anyone except on temporary assignments.
Management during the first 20 years of State ownership consisted of forest fire protection, including building miles of firebreaks which are still very evident, protection of elk and deer from hunting, planting of pine, protection against timber thieves and squatters, and development of three campgrounds. After that, timber sales, limited at first by the immature forests and scarce markets, elk research, and fish planting and research came into the picture.
At this time (1973), 65 percent of the state-owned lands in the Pigeon River Country have been purchased by the use of money from the Game and Fish Protection Fund. The remainder was acquired almost entirely by reversion to the state after non-payment of taxes by the former owners.
By 1950 and at an accelerating pace since then, timber, fish, wildlife and people have demanded and received considerably increased attention. Demands are presently far beyond adequate means for response.
Oil was discovered at the edge of the Black River swamp in 1970. Much has changed since.
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~ The Pigeon River Country:
A Very Special Place ~
Background: The Pigeon River County, which repeatedly drew author Ernest Hemingway on hunting and trout fishing expeditions along the banks of the three rivers, the Sturgeon, the Pigeon, and the Black, whose combined watersheds form the major part of the area, remains a haven of peace and wildness in the midst of northern part of Michigan's lower peninsula. After years of sustained efforts to restore the area to its pristine condition after the ravages of the great pine logging era of the late 1800s and intensive cutting of hardwoods in the early 1900s, the area was again threatened by the expansion of oil and gas exploration and production in the 1970s. Long the home of the largest woodland elk herd east of the Mississippi, conservation-minded persons banded together with outdoor sports enthusiasts to form the Pigeon River County Association which consequently spearheaded the effort to save the area and led to its present status as a special management area within the Michigan State Forest system. This article, written in behalf of the Pigeon River Country Association, appeared in three parts in successive issues of The NorthWoods Call in the spring of 1998. This paper, a biweekly paper dedicated to conservation issues, is published in Charlevoix, Michigan.
Part I -- The Past
Almost a quarter of a century ago, in October of 1973, the Michigan Natural Resources Commission (NRC) at the recommendation of the Director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), created the special management unit to be known as the Pigeon River Country. It was formed out of state lands (now consisting of some 200 square miles) lying in four adjacent counties -- Otsego, Cheboygan, Presque Isle, and Montmorency and that had been formerly managed by four separate state forest administrations.
At the same time, the DNR Director also issued a document titled "A Concept of Management for the Pigeon River Country" as the official statement of policies and guidelines to be followed by the Forestry Division of the DNR in administering this new administrative unit. In doing this, the directive also announced the formation of an officially appointed Pigeon River Country Advisory Council whose task it would be to insure that the kind of citizen input that had done so much in the past would continue in years to come to protect this very special place.
And it is very special, in fact, up to now, entirely unique is several ways. For one, as the document notes, it is unique in being the largest undeveloped tract of land in Michigan's lower peninsula. Second, as the document goes on, it is "even more unique" it is at the center of the range of the only large, wild elk herd east of the Mississippi River. Finally, in the decade that followed, there was developed the "Pigeon River Country Hydrocarbon Development Plan" which set new higher standards for the oil and gas industry which even today remain unique in the United States and while now on the books, still remain to be fully implemented in the rest of the state of Michigan.
Finally, in order to protect this uniqueness, the Concept of Management clearly stated that:
"It will be the policy of the Department of Natural Resources to manage the Pigeon River Country to protect and maintain the natural beauty of its forests and waters, and to sustain a healthy elk herd and wildlife populations.
"The Department's objectives therefore, are to manage and control activities so that those activities which are permitted are in keeping with the unique and wild character of the Pigeon River Country: and to protect the area from overuse and over development."
The official document then went on to list seven means by which these objectives were to be realized. They were:
1. To improve and increase favorable habitat for elk;
2. To provide needed food, cover and seclusion for such wildlife as bears, bobcats and eagles, for such habitat is rapidly diminishing;
3. To provide recreational opportunities for people in keeping with the wild character of the area and to provide peace and quiet through control of disruptive activities;
4. To manage game species such as woodcock, grouse, deer and others for hunting and viewing opportunities:
5. To protect water quality and to manage the streams for a natural trout fishery and the lakes for trout or warm water game fish;
6. To manage, harvest, and use the timber and mineral resources of the area for the good of man;
7. To protect the Pigeon River Country from over-use and over- development which would destroy its wild character.
There are some, of course, who feel that the sixth item in the above list of management policies (besides not being stated in what is now politically-correct language) is at fundamental odds with the rest, or at least should be restated in a way that favors habitat improvement, particularly in view of the fact that the plan itself, when it comes to the section on forest cover management states that: "the primary objective of forest management will not be to produce a specific product, or products, such as saw-logs or pulpwood, but to achieve the forest conditions most suited to the stated objectives of the area." Five of those seven stated objectives have more to do with the protection of wildlife and most of all, the forest itself.
This was the plan. It was given full approval by the State of Michigan and its administrators, from the Governor on down, and became official policy. Yet, despite all this, the Pigeon River Country remains in jeopardy.
Part II -- The Present
We saw how the Pigeon River Country was set aside and formally dedicated as a special forest management unit with its own special set of rules designed to keep it as a unique and special place. So how is it that the Pigeon River Country, despite a long-standing and officially-approved "Concept of Management" with its explicitly stated policies and detailed guidelines, is still in jeopardy?
One answer to this question could be simply public ignorance -- that there are those who simply do not know of all the planning that went into the formation of the Pigeon as a special administrative unit years back.
But of course, there is the possibility that there are other persons who are quite aware of what happened and who still resent it. Either way, however, there seems to be at least four sources of or types of threats to the Pigeon remaining the special place that it has become and was meant to be.
First, there is the threat from business interests (not just oil and gas industry but other commercial interests as well) both from the private sector as well as within the state government whose philosophy seems to be that if any exploitable natural resources are present that they should be there for the taking. In their view, any claims to this forest being special or unique mean next to nothing compared to the profits to be made.
Second, there is the threat from particular (mostly outsider) interest groups, primarily recreational in nature, who would like to see the Pigeon River Country become their special playground -- even if it means excluding others from enjoyment of other sports.
Third, if not exactly a threat, there remains the problem of an interested local public that still seems split between wanting to keep this place more or less secret (for their own enjoyment) and those who so in love with the place that in their enthusiasm to tell the world about it, they would run the danger of "loving it to death."
Finally, there is the usual problem posed by the apathy or ignorance of those who have never heard that the Pigeon was meant to be a special place.
Yet, almost prophetically, all these conflicts were foreseen in the official Concept of Management and for the most part dealt with, first by clear statements of overall policy, and second, by a series of practical guidelines.
As far as overall policies were concerned, the plan recognized that "neither the Pigeon River Country nor any other local area of state lands can satisfy all the needs and wants of the public to whom it belongs." Thus the plan went on to state that "while the Pigeon River Country may be well-suited to satisfy many different objectives and needs, but to do so it is necessary to deny or restrict certain activities or uses which conflict with or seriously affect the uses planned." (Concept of Management, p. 39)
Among the uses the official plan mentions as being incompatible with the Pigeon River Country are any "heavy demands" for use of the upper reaches of the Pigeon or Black as canoeing rivers, and "off-road vehicle use of all kinds." While no explicit rules were then set to prevent canoe access, the Concept of Management did, however, explicitly rule out the use of ORVs, ATVs, motorcycles, and snowmobiles on all but the many county roads passing through the forest as governed by state or county law.
Thus, recent efforts to restrict snowmobiles to the county roads within the Pigeon River Country, similar to the DNR order that closed all service roads and trails (except those as marked as open) to vehicles back in 1991 were simply decisions to finally implement policies that were set by the official management plan back in 1973.
Of course, one could always attempt to argue that conditions have changed since 1973. But in which direction? If the people who drew up the plan for the management of the forest saw a problem with ATVs, ORVs, and snowmobiles back then, could we say there is any less of a problem now? If the intent was to ban them as incompatible with the purposes of the forest back then when they were a relatively new phenomenon, can they be said to be any less of a problem now that the numbers have increased almost exponentially?
A somewhat different kind of situation exists regarding some other types of recreational use. While the Concept of Management recognized the potential for greater horse-back riding usage and even authorized the construction of a new campground just for that use, no one anticipated the tremendous increase in the numbers of people bringing horses into the Pigeon -- now to the point where complaints about the horses and riders taking over are now among the most commonly heard, especially during the fall, during the elk "bugling season" when large numbers of riders flock to the forest with their vans and horse trailers, and motorists are cruising the forest roads to view the colors, and hunters are trying to find undisturbed areas for their sport -- all this at once.
To alleviate the congestion, two more special campgrounds for horseback-riders and their mounts were built outside the original forest boundaries, in hopes that traffic could be more spread out. But building more facilities seems to have only so far exacerbated the problem rather than relieved it. Would not provisions for special snowmobile routes, or for mountain-bike trails not also have the same result? So what is to be done?
Nevertheless, despite these present problems, what has taken place in the Pigeon (as well as what has not been allowed to take place) continues to make it very special -- an exemplar as to how public lands need to be managed not just for the good of the public, but most of all for the good of the land and its forests and wildlife itself.
Part III -- The Future
In the previous two parts of this article, we considered the question as to just how the Pigeon River Country came to be and how detailed management plans were drawn up by through the cooperation of many interested people working with the DNR, resulting in the issuance, by the NRC and the DNR back in 1973, of the official "Concept of Managagement for the Pigeon River Country" that was to be used as a blueprint for the future administration of the Pigeon.
While no plan or document is perfect, credit must be given to those farsighted people, both within the Department of Natural Resources, as well as those members of the public, especially those who banded together as members of organizations like the Pigeon River Country Association and others who had a special interest in preserving the wildness of the Pigeon and the quality of its habitat, without whom what we now have in the Pigeon would have been long-gone.
The final paragraphs of the Concept of Management for the Pigeon River Country saw the challenge yet to be faced very clearly:
Of great concern to people of the area is the possibility that any development or improvement will lead to great additional numbers of people using it. Increases have already occurred and more can be expected no matter what is done. This plan is intended to encourage only compatible and least damaging uses. To whatever extent it is possible to do so, development of similar potentials on other state lands at an early date will reduce this concentration of public attention on the Pigeon River Country.
A separate plan will be prepared dealing with development of oil; and gas... Every possible effort is being made to minimize the effects where oil and gas development may take place.
All this was written -- dare we say, "prophesied"? -- back in 1973. And practically all of it, including the special "Hydrocarbon Development Plan", has come to pass. Thanks largely to royalties from oil and gas development, which was confined largely to the south- eastern third of the forest, the actual management area has been increased from the original 82,785 acres to nearly 128,000. Nor has every restriction that was on the books as far as the plan goes been implemented on all this additional acreage -- the Green Timbers tract being the only notable exception. So in light of further demands being placed on the forest, much still has to be done.
But no plan, no matter how well-thought out, is perfect, or could be expected to foresee all the difficult decisions that would have to be made for the future protection of the forest. For that reason, one other special facet of these guidelines was the formation of an official Advisory Council that meets regularly with the forest administrator. This Council is made up of eighteen members, fifteen selected to represent various public interests, plus three ex-official DNR members, representing the forest, fisheries, and wildlife divisions. Their job is to help make sure that the administrator will be kept in touch with the public and its needs and to help serve as a conduit to the public for the benefit of the forest. Perhaps it has done a better job at the first part of the task than the second. Nevertheless they have tried hard to do both and we must give special credit to all those who have spent many long hours over the years in what must have seemed interminable meetings, discussing, debating, advising, and not infrequently pleading with the DNR administrators (especially those behind desks downstate) to live up to the plan that their predecessors committed the government to carry out.
While there were necessarily some gaps which the drafters of the original plan could not possibly have foreseen, on a whole, the degree of foresight and the spirit with which permeates the document is nothing short of remarkable. And it must be this "spirit", and not just a the letter of the law that guides the advisory council and the forest administrator in their interpretation of the policies and guidelines.
But again, just what is that spirit? It is, as I hoped to make clear from the onset, and as the Concept of Management made clear right to begin with, that the Pigeon was to be kept as a very special and unique place. But again, why should this be so?
Here one can only render an opinion, so I'll try to make mine clear. I believe a matter of philosophy -- or perhaps even of "theology" in the broadest sense of that word that has to do with the ultimate values we place on things. As I see it, what makes this quarter- century-long experiment in the Pigeon River Country so critical is that it is a matter of trying to reconcile or find a balance between two often conflicting points of view.
One view, which has for a long time dominated Western civilization, holds that this earth was given to the human race for exploitation or solely for our own benefit, that is, that "Man is the measure of all things". It is a view that has lead to technological mastery, but at the same time, to increased environmental disaster.
The other, and quite opposite view, one that has gained great popularity among contemporary environmentalists, is that humans are always to be considered (largely because so many of them hold the opposite view expressed above) as intruders upon nature, and must be kept apart from the places like the Pigeon lest its integrity be violated.
Is it possible, that instead of a heightened conflict between these two views that a third, a more integral view of ourselves in relationship to the rest of nature might be achieved? Instead of seeing ourselves as opposed to nature, either as exploiters or violators, might we not be able to see ourselves as part of nature, as part of an ecosystem that depends on a delicate balance between all species, between nature in the raw and human skillfulness, between soil and water and plants and animals who must follow their instincts, and humans who not only know about these things, but who must bear even greater responsibility in knowing that they know -- or at least can know better than to upset these balances if they are willing to look forward far enough?
This is what I believe, above all, that makes the Pigeon River Country such a special place. It is not because it is an untouched wilderness -- which it is certainly not. It is rather because, in a state where 20 million people, most of them within a few hours driving time, the Pigeon River Country remains a haven of wildness where those who wish to conduct themselves as a very responsible part of nature, can share -- but only so much as possible without destroying what they have come to experience -- what it means to be, even if for only a day or two, a part of an ecosystem where all things, all kinds of living creatures, from the tiniest shrew to the majestic elk, can find a home.
Richard W. Kropf
(past President, PRCA)