UMN Cloquet Forestry Center

Happy New Year from the Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) and Hubachek Wilderness Research Center (HWRC)!

We want to keep you informed on the work we do, so please take some time to read our View From The Woods annual year-in-review newsletter. You'll learn about how we connected people and ideas to build understanding of northern forest ecosystems through field-based research, education, and outreach in 2025.

View From the Woods 2025 | Cloquet Forestry Center 2025 Year in Review for the Cloquet Forestry Center & Hubachek Wilderness Research CenterOverview Greetings from the Director’s desk,What is one of your most memorable learning experiences?This has been the question that has been sitting with me for the past year. When I get to hear people’s res...

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for the 2025 UMN Forestry Center 5k! We had 62 participants join us for a beautiful evening. A shout out to Room at the Table for providing delicious rice bowls to fuel our runners and walkers!
Our 2026 5k is slated to take place next spring or fall. Stay tuned!

We’ve updated our forest trail system!

Last week we made the final push to put out new wayside trail markers. The biggest difference you’ll notice is that our “pink trail” is now the “green trail.” We’ve also simplified the signage in the inner loops of the trail system. You will now just see a single colored blaze along each route.

Didn’t know we had recreational trails here at Cloquet Forestry Center? Check out the Recreation page on our website to learn more about non-motorized use! You can access road and trail maps from the webpage sidebar.

https://cfc.cfans.umn.edu/forests-facilities/recreation

Is it cold enough out there for ya? If you're looking for indoor options, curl up with a warm beverage and spend some time with our annual View From The Woods year-in-review newsletter! Here we describe happenings from 2024 and anticipate the good things that 2025 will bring. The newsletter is available at: z.umn.edu/VFTW24 .

View From the Woods 2024 | Cloquet Forestry Center 2024 Year in Review for the Cloquet Forestry Center & Hubachek Wilderness Research CenterOverviewGreetings from the Director’s desk,

In late October, several U of M Board of Regents members toured through northeastern UMN research and outreach centers to get a better understanding of the U's presence and programming in the region.

You can read more about that tour on our website! https://cfc.cfans.umn.edu/news/bor-tour-october-2024

This year, we continued our work with industry and community partners to bring fire back to the CFC-managed lands as an ecological and cultural tool. We conducted two prescribed burns this year: the Otter Creek Unit in May and the Camp 8 Unit in September. Both burns were successful and put out by dampening rain the following days.

We conduct these prescribed burns to create and reinforce open pine woodland conditions that are necessary for culturally significant fire-dependent plants, like blueberries, and the eventual regeneration of red and jack pine stands.

This work was recently featured on CFANS with several cool photos from the burns! Check it out here: cfans.umn.edu/news/2024-cfc-burns

Thank you to our industry and community partners, whose expertise and support make these burns happen!
Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Forest Stewards Guild
and the University of Minnesota Silva Lab

Step inside a prescribed burn at the Cloquet Forestry Center | College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences Fire-loving forest ecosystem communities rely on fire as both a community member and disturbance process that supports their collective health, well-being, and vitality. For example, wild blueberry bushes yield more berries following a fire and certain pine trees regenerate their offspring best when...

CFANS Crashing the Classroom videos highlight unique UMN courses and the CFC was the site of the most recent video. Check it out!

The Introductory Cloquet Field Session takes place every August at the Cloquet Forestry Center—a 3,391 acre research and education forest located within the Fond du Lac Reservation. This field session comprises three courses over three weeks: FNRM 2101 — Identifying Forest Plants, FNRM 2102 — Northern Forests Field Ecology, and FNRM 2104 — Measuring Forest Resources. Students spend 80% of their time in the forests, learning and conducting research. Because students stay and eat on site, the Field Session creates strong bonds among the community of students. "There are no distractions. The woods are your classroom," said CFANS student Molly Hendrickson, who attended the session in August 2024. Rebecca Montgomery, PhD and Chris Edgar, PhD taught the course this past summer.

Need pine straw? We have some you can take for free!

A few pine needle piles have been created near the main parking lot and other paved roadways in the buildings & grounds area during annual clean-up efforts. If you're looking for pine straw for personal use, feel free to come collect from the piles at 175 University Road. They'll be out until around October 24.

Thanks to all the runners and speedy walkers that turned out for the 2024 Forestry Center 5k this past Tuesday evening. We had a beautiful night with 55 participants and a huddle of supporters at the finish. Campfire s'mores provided optimal nutrition for post-run recovery.

Our 2025 5k is already scheduled for Tuesday, October 7th. See you then!

Forest management is a lengthy and involved process, from seed to timber. Eli Sagor, quoted in this MPR article, is a familiar face at the CFC where he manages the Sustainable Forests Education Cooperative and serves as UMN Extension natural resources program leader.

To grow Minnesota’s future forests, an effort to collect seeds takes root There’s a surge of interest to plant millions more trees in Minnesota, but there’s a problem — there aren’t nearly enough seeds to plant those trees. Work is underway to change that.

This past Saturday, fire stewards from Fond du Lac, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, The Nature Conservancy, and the University of Minnesota conducted a successful prescribed burn of the Camp 8 Unit at the CFC. Thank you to the 14 stewards who helped conduct this burn!

Prescribed burns like this are part of a larger effort to return fire-maintained conditions to portions of the CFC land base in partnership with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe (FDL).

As can be expected from a growing-season burn, some areas burned really well and others not at all. CFC staff and fire stewards are monitoring where fires continue to smolder; they expect smoldering to continue for a few days before the fire is completely out.

As monitoring and clean up continues, the Blue Loop trail at CFC is closed to general recreation. Thank you for your patience and for staying off the trail while we monitor the recent burn.