UMN Cloquet Forestry Center

09/25/2026

Back in August, a group of forestry students enrolled in the Introductory Cloquet Field Session started their fall semesters early. Students spent 3 weeks at the CFC engaging in field-based learning about botany, field ecology, and forest measurements.

The Forest Management & Research team spent a morning out in the field with students in Dr. Chris Edgar’s Forest Measurements class to perform a tree felling demonstration. Students had an opportunity to understand the process of felling a tree safely, while also applying the skills they learned to calculate the volume of wood in a tree.

1: Students admire the "stump shot" after the tree was felled.
2, 3: Dr. Edgar instructs students on their exercise
4: The tree is prepped for the exercise--limbs are removed and the tree is bucked into 4' sections.

09/03/2026

Earlier this week, four staff members from the Forest Management & Research team worked together to supply red pine logs for our 59th annual Conservation Education Days.

Conservation Education Days is a collaborative event between Carlton County and the University of Minnesota. Each year in late September, roughly 500 5th graders across Carlton County visit the CFC to engage in field-based learning about their environment. Students rotate between 11 different stations to learn about a variety of topics, including macroinvertebrates, tree identification, and wildlife. These red pine logs will be used at a station to teach students how logs are turned into lumber using a sawmill.

Have you attended Conservation Education Days?

1: Two trees are flagged for felling
2: Our Director of Operations and Land Stewardship, Kyle Gill, completes his "back cut" to fell a red pine
3: Lane Johnson, Research Coordinator & Forester, drives the skidder to the site where the trees were felled
4: The logs are attached to the skidder using cables
5: The logs are skidded to the demonstration field where they will be cut into 8' sections
6: Using the skidsteer, Lane stacks the cut logs
7: The finished product

08/20/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for our annual open house! We enjoyed the opportunity to connect with all of you.

Weren't able to make it? Stay tuned! We'll be hosting a 5k run/walk on Tuesday, October 6th.

08/18/2026

Hey all,

Just a reminder that our annual open house is tomorrow from 5:00-7:30pm. Feel free to come out and see what we've been up to! We'll have a food truck on-site to simplify your dinner plans.

Want to see the agenda? Visit z.umn.edu/CFCopenhouse

See you there!

07/15/2026

Join us in the woods at the Cloquet Forestry Center for an evening of information exchange and community building!

We will have a community social hour which will include an alumni gathering. There will also be a variety of information tables from Extension, Fond du Lac Natural Resources, and Bemidji State University to name a few!

During this time Room at the Table will have their food truck on site ready to simplify your dinner plans. After the social hour we will host a few wagon tours showcasing some ongoing projects out in the forest, and presentations centered around climate ready woodlands. You are welcome to stick around until the end of the evening when we will draw our raffle prize winner, though you need not be present to win.

Learn more at: z.umn.edu/CFCopenhouse

05/12/2026

Researchers from the Fond Du Lac Band and 1854 Treaty Authority were recently featured on a segment with Northern News Now as they visited the denning site of the Otter Creek Pack. The group worked with local high school students to collar pups that were born this spring as a part of a larger effort to gain a deeper understanding of pup survival and mortality.

The Otter Creek pack’s territory encompasses roughly 18 square miles, with the heart of their territory located within the 3,400 acres of the Cloquet Forestry Center.

If you'd like to learn more about the FDL wolf monitoring program, please read this interactive storymap from 2020 that highlights the previous breeding pair and describes the purpose and process of monitoring wolves on the Fond du Lac reservation:
https://z.umn.edu/FDLWolfMonitoring

A team of researchers from the Fond du Lac Band and the 1854 Treaty Authority visited a wolf den near Cloquet on Wednesday to collar and measure a litter of pups.

01/07/2026

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.

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...

10/08/2025

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!

05/19/2025

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

01/21/2025

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 .

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