The Northern Woodshed Project: Working Forest Workshop
The Northern Woodshed Project is an interdisciplinary initiative on campus that is working to examine the feasibility of transitioning from fossil fuels to locally harvested woodchips at the Ripley Plant. As part of this initiative, we invite students to participate in a Working Forest Workshop, co-led by our partners at The Nature Conservancy.
On Friday, October 17, we will travel to the Slate River Forest in Baraga County to learn about different forest management practices, including harvesting to produce old growth characteristics, coppicing of aspen stands for pulp markets, traditional hardwood cuts for saw timber, managing forests for their carbon potential, “land back” initiatives with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and more.
We will depart in vans from NMU at 8:30 am, explore the Slate River Forest from 10-12, eat a free lunch by a waterfall, with more field experiences in the afternoon. We will return to campus around 4:30 that afternoon. It will be a full day, but an amazing experience on some very special land! We hope you will join us to learn about forest management as NMU considers woody biomass as an alternative to heat campus.
We need to cap this field experience to 34 participants.
Please be sure to register and let us know your lunch preferences using this form by 5pm on Friday, October 3.
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Sarah Mittlefehldt at smittlef@nmu.edu.