Call me a grinch, but it’s been a while since I’ve embraced the holiday spirit.
Owing to a lifetime of deadline-driven discipline and a predilection for procrastination, I’ve rarely trimmed the Christmas tree prior to Dec. 24. The tardiness of my tradition isn’t a point of pride, nor something I’d recommend — although mainlining the yuletide magic just ahead of a rooftop landing by Kris Kringle’s reindeer sleigh packs an adrenaline buzz better than spiked eggnog.
I recognize that the countdown to Christmas is different for everyone, but the sight of wreaths, ornaments, lights and trees materializing in department stores and on neighbors’ front lawns before Thanksgiving has always made me queasy.
So, imagine my surprise when, a week before Thanksgiving, while navigating the narrow corridor along Whitefish Lake’s eastern shore on my way to run the dogs, a sedan the size of a lunch box trundled around the bend hauling a Griswoldian evergreen larger than a locomotive; instead of the sight evoking my default disdain, however, I squeezed over to the shoulder and watched this titan of a tree pass by with childlike wonder.
“Good for you,” I thought, my eyes twinkling.
During our morning hike, I viewed the world through emerald-tinted glasses; the entire forest was a decorative palette infecting me with holiday spirit. No sooner had Print the Supermutt lifted his leg on a fir tree than I was considering its dimensions and imagining it adorning my living room. Likewise, every pine, spruce and cedar struck me as an ideal source from which to harvest the acres of garland I’d unspool through the house, furnishing balusters and doorjambs and wreathing tabletops, upon which I envisioned centerpieces of snowberries, pinecones and bay leaves mounted to juniper branches and festooned in witch’s hair.
Intoxicated with Christmas cheer, I tried to locate the provenance of my adult-onset holiday spirit. Then I remembered a story I’d written nearly a decade ago for this magazine about Northwest Montana’s unlikely designation as “Christmas Tree Capital of the World.”
Beginning in 1924 and lasting for much of the 20th century, Northwest Montana led the American Christmas tree industry. The Tobacco Valley, in particular, provided a prime location for cutting and shipping trees, given its proximity to both the densely forested Kootenai River and the Great Northern railroad line.
Because Christmas trees are a second-generation forest product, few Christmas trees existed among Northwest Montana’s wild forests until the 1920s, by which time national forests east of the Mississippi were being heavily logged. Eastern and Midwestern markets were desperate for trees, and Northwest Montana, with its abundance of Douglas fir, which are known to hold their needles longer, began to feed the need.
Northwest Montana’s Christmas tree craze crested in 1956, when 4.2 million trees came out of Montana, about 80% of them harvested from Flathead and Lincoln counties. But since then, the region has still had occasion to show off its stuff on a national stage.
In 1958, for example, during the annual Christmas celebration on the White House Lawn, President Dwight D. Eisenhower hit the lights on a 75-foot Engelmann spruce felled on the Kootenai National Forest. In 1970, the U.S. Forest Service began the tradition of providing the U.S. Capitol’s annual Christmas tree; every year since, a different national forest has been chosen each year to provide the so-called “People’s Tree.” And Montana, with its sprawling forested parcels, has been a frequent source.
In 1989, to commemorate Montana’s centennial, a 60-foot Engelmann spruce from north of Libby was selected as the People’s Tree. In 2008, a 78-foot sub-alpine fir from the Bitterroot National Forest made the trip to the Washington. On Nov. 8, 2017, Northwest Montana regained its edge as the Christmas Tree Capitol of the World, when a 79-foot tall Engelmann Spruce was harvested in the Yaak and escorted through the cities of Troy and Libby before its delivery to the U.S. Capitol grounds on Nov. 27 (four days after Thanksgiving) following a 3,000-mile journey.
With that much holiday spirit percolating through our local forests, it’s hard to believe I’m so late to the party. But from here on out, I intend to celebrate early and often.
Best wishes and many thanks for reading,
Tristan Scott
Managing Editor | Flathead Living