Slowly the pile of trees grows

Trees for Trout Resurrects Christmas Trees

       Two front pockets, two rear pockets, one wide chest pocket and a small red notebook, are all tight with green needles. Inch-long hollow, pointy conifer calling cards poke my fingertips each time I push in my frozen hands as we wait for the next rooftop Christmas tree arrival. I am standing with dozens of Trout Unlimited volunteers and RI Department of Environmental Management’s Corey Pelletier’s staff, gathering trees for trout, an annual collection to resurrect unwanted holiday pines of all sizes, to be stored and resettled next summer. It’s true, Trout Unlimited is a conservation group and sometimes, their work starts with an old Christmas tree.

For seven years now, TU has asked people to bring their trees to a frozen gravel road in Rhode Island’s Arcadia Management Area, alongside a slow flowing, ice edged Wood River. Each driver receives a pamphlet highlighting TU’s mission and how we work with RIDEM to assist rivers and her fishes. For four frozen hours, volunteers carefully remove trees from car tops, trailer hitch luggage holders, Subaru backsides, minivan third row seating and a parade of new truck tailgates. Trees are unwound, unbagged, untied, unbuckled and a few times, forcibly dislodged. Like TU members, trees come in all shapes, sizes and colors: Blue spruce, White spruce, Eastern white pine, Douglas fir, Black spruce, Fraser fir, Balsam fir, all sorts of species, chopped down to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in some odd and relatively new ceremony of honoring a new life and pieces from all are in my pockets.

Trees are loaded onto trailers and when fully secured, Brian Thornton weaves and clunks his trusty rusty trailer down a scarred and lumpy Frosty Hollow Road, past a stenciled, “275-gallon disel tank,” alongside sagging and failing pine roofs carpeted with dense, velvet blankets of moss, then deftly steers between stubbornly independent oaks and with a quick reverse of a single half hitch, off they go.

“Sixteen,” says Brian, hefting a mall sized spruce.

“Seventeen,” says I, standing upright a pretty balsam, full and bright still, free of ornaments or ritual contraptions. Felled from this life by axe or saw, it stood, albeit unknowingly, for its next calling, one involving mummichogs and brook trout mingling amongst its thin arms. All these trees will have a winter’s rest in a sunny slice of forest, with ample quiet time to shed coats by springtime. Seasons of wind will tear away wispy tinsel strands as their bare woody bones become exposed above piles of old hollow needles, endlessly excavated by curious quick chipmunks and industrious squirrels. Come springtime, birds of all feathers will rest and reposition on their naked branches, adding life to dead trees. By summer, groups of a hundred or so trees will be lifted onto trailers again, for bumpy rides to edges and twists of a popular Wood River. These rough and ready groups will be branded conifer revetments by a legion of folks in fleece vests, waders and grins of pleasant participation.

Empty of Christmas trees, for now

Stacked, secured, anchored, pinned, and counted again, evergreens of all sorts will be braided into duty for erosion control from nature and boots, heavy rains and heavy traffic. Gathering leaves and twigs through many seasons of varying flows, sedentary assemblages of conifers will expand with outstretched arms to catch all a river might provide. Through low suns and high clouds, rains, winds and curious hikers, these spent living room decorations become revetments, barriers, providers and protectors of shelter and shade.

Trout Unlimited Resurrects Trees

As their arms become laden, this healthy association solidifies, encouraging waters to flow more quickly, to wash away silts and fines, to expose precious gravel. Faster flows bring additional leaves and needles, which fill gaps, supplying space for fry in cool waters critical to their survival. Rivers such as the Wood are more resilient with strong fish populations and cool pools. “Fighting thermal pollution,” the vests will say, in a nod to pockets of warm water, often restrained by irrelevant stone dams long past need or logic, where cold blooded trout cannot survive or migrate through.

By days end, my overalls were full of pointy green reminders of a windy winter Saturday where Trout Unlimited gathered with Corey and his team to help a river. We resurrected Christmas trees, cut by man, in a stretch of important water suffering under the weight of other men pursuing the very fish these trees will harbor and protect. We at TU are seasoned, we create conservation positives. We leave waters better than when we fished them, so it’s natural for TU members, warming hands in frosty January cars, to love that our volunteer spirit quite often sends us home with more than we came with.

Leaving with more than I came with