WHAT A SHAME

A PICTURESQUE CENTURY OLD WHITE PINE

HUNDREDS OF OLD GROWTH TREES...

...CUT DOWN TO "IMPROVE" HWY. 13...

...TREES LIKE THIS 150 YEAR OLD PINE

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  16 degrees F at the ferry dock, 14 on the back porch.  Wind NE, very gusty.  The sky is mostly cloudy and overcast after a 1" snowfall last night,. The humidity is 69%, the barometer is rising, now at 30.68". The skies will be mixed through the weekend, with highs in the low 20's today and tomorrow, then warming to around 30 Saturday and Sunday.  Winter is settling in early.
   It began in June, 2015, someone testing what they could get away with; cutting down several dozen ancient pine and oak trees along Hwy 13 between Washburn and Bayfield.  Trees that had stood for more than a century, bothering no one, never hit by a vehicle.  There was an outcry by many, but the culprit...not some itinerant log thief, but the Wisconsin Department of Transportation...paid no attention.  WIDOT is a bureaucracy so large and so dense that it is only accountable to itself, plays by its own rules, and it is virtually impossible to deal with.  It was obvious at that time that WIDOT intended to clear all trees within its right of way, regardless of size, condition, or esthetic value.  It is difficult to understand the why of it at all, except that WIDOT follows their own rule book, which of course is unavailable to the general public (ask for it and see what happens). 
   So the tree clearing resumed this summer and fall, until there is not a tree of any size or character left along the roadway. So who cares?  Only the naturalists, the poets, and the artists among us. Those who understand and respect history, nature, beauty, and the character that defies tempest and time.  In short, many of us, perhaps if we look deep enough into our own souls, most of us.
   The 17th Century philosophical concepts of "The Beautiful, the Picturesque and the Sublime,"much used in historic American schools of painting and other arts, come into play here, since what has been destroyed along Scenic Wisconsin Highway 13 was beautiful and picturesque at least, and evoked primary components of American art, such as the Hudson River School,  followed by the great 19th Century art of Western scenery depicted by painters such as Cole, Church, Moran and Bierstadt.  Anyone who has viewed their work has glimpsed the very heart and soul of young America; its awesome beauty, its deep strength, and the character which forged our nation.
   The trees so thoughtlessly destroyed had the power to promote emotions of wonder, beauty  and patriotism in all who took the time to actually see them as the natural art objects that they were. 
   What a shame.

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