On Wednesday a crew of cutters came and cut down and removed eight of nine elm trees from the downtown area of Highway 61. The contract to cut the elms was awarded by MnDOT, who needed the trees to be taken down so infrastructure work could be done for the city of Grand Marais while Highway 61 is refurbished in 2021. Staff photo/ Brian Larsen
Jinsey Smith and her mother, Mary Hane, were figuring out how many clothes to wear. It was 6:30 a.m., and their protest signs were ready, now they had to make sure they could endure a day that started out colder than Hitler’s heart. They were dressing at Jim Hane’s house in downtown Grand Marais. He cautioned his daughter and granddaughter not to get arrested.
“Will try not to,” said Jinsey, laughing and struggling to put on another layer of clothing, or, as her mother, shaking her head, said, “She’s putting on everything but the kitchen sink.”
Mary and Jinsey left the house and headed a couple of blocks down the highway to Java Moose coffee shop, where several of the large elms grew that were slated to be cut down that day. Jinsey ducked in for some coffee, and Mary held a sign that read, “Most of the elms did not have to be cut. Thank your city government for this great decision.”
Meanwhile, four fire engine red Husqvarna chainsaws were being gassed and fired up. It was shortly after 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 6, and a crew from KJM contractors began taking down nine elm trees situated alongside Highway 61 in Grand Marais.
Take a last look at the elm trees by Java Moose. They were all cut down on Wednesday, November 6. Staff photos/Brian Larsen
The first three trees felled were situated on Buck’s Hardware Hank lot across the street from Buck’s.
Mary and Jinsey stood far back from the workers. “We don’t want to get in their way. It’s not their fault this is happening,” Jinsey said. The ladies held their signs high for motorists and snow buntings to see. They weren’t trying to stop the job, nine elms were going to be cut no matter what they did, but mother and daughter wanted people to know they weren’t happy with the decision to crash the trees from the Grand Marais skyline.
Jim Raml had gotten a late start, traveling from the end of the Gunflint Trail to town so he could join Jinsey and Mary. Jim has spent the last year and a half trying to see that the elms were spared from the chainsaw, but his efforts had come to no avail.
Mary Hane (L) and Jinsey Smith hold signs protesting the cutting of the elm trees.
The trees’ fate was sealed when a MnDOT arborist found the elms to be in ill-health and dying. With 2020-2021 Highway 61 roadwork scheduled to go through Grand Marais and the city asking to piggyback on the project and have some of its infrastructure repaired—it was decided the trees had to be cut. And when the work was finished, new trees would be replanted along the road.
Over the last year and a half, three other tree experts inspected the elms, and all of them found the trees to be in good health. That was made known to the city council and too late to MnDOT.
Raml and several dozen people asked the city council to see if the trees could be saved one more year. After all, they argued, the roadwork in town wouldn’t start until 2021. But MnDOT had let the contract to KJM, and in the end, it would take $4,600 for the contractor to reschedule the work for next November. A private donor came forth and offered to pay $5,000 to the contractor to hold off until 2020, said Raml, but the offer went to city hall late last week, and he wasn’t sure if KGM was made aware of it, or if the offer had come too late to make a difference.
Jim Raml stood in front of the last standing elm tree slated for cutting. He talked to a sheriff’s deputy and the crew cutting the trees, explaining why he didn’t want the tree cut. In the end, after more than 8 hours in the cold, Jim left, shaking hands with the deputy and a member of the crew, tears streaming down his face.
By noon it had warmed from 18F to 27F. Winds were blowing between 10 to 18 mph, and the humidity was 48 percent. The KGM workers’ faces were red. When the cutters went up in a bucket to limb the elms, they got especially cold. The elms were coming down limb-by-limb, section by-section.
Large chunks of the trees were saved so the city can have someone make park benches from them. Strange anyone would keep the wood, said Raml, noting that the trees had to come down because they were diseased and dying. Would diseased and dying trees make good wood for benches? He wondered.
By 4 p.m., the eight elms were cut, all but one tree was left and all of the debris removed. The KGM crew had done an excellent job. For some, progress had been made. For others, stumps and a dim skyline remained.
The crew of men worked diligently throughout the day, cleaning up debris and saving logs that will be made into benches for the city.
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