Tag Archives: Chrisman Family

Chrisman family completes 310 acre conservation easement on North Fork

Posted to Facebook on February 1, 2024 . . .

Montana Land Reliance (MLR) announces a forested property near Glacier National Park will forever be protected from development. MLR has completed a conservation easement on a 310-acre property north of Polebridge owned by the Chrisman family. Funded by the MLR Jeff Shryer Fund and the Heart of the Rockies Initiative, the easement property is located less than a half mile from Glacier National Park and bordered by Flathead National Forest. The Chrisman property includes a small tributary of the North Fork River and contains a diverse ecosystem with varied upland timber and riparian wetland habitats.

Deer, elk, moose, black and grizzly bear, lynx, gray wolves, wolverine, and bald eagle will forever thrive on the property – including the grizzly pictured here, taken on the family’s game camera. Many thanks to the Chrisman’s and Heart of the Rockies Initiative for partnering with us!

A walk through the Chrisman Family Forest

Chrisman Family - Tree Farmers of the Year 2016
Chrisman Family – Tree Farmers of the Year 2016

The Chrisman Family Forest gets some more ink, this time in the Fathead Beacon’s ‘Flathead Living’ magazine . . .

To accompany siblings Allen Chrisman and Kari Wiley in the Chrisman Family Forest is less of a nature walk than it is a meander through the woods to meet old friends.

In one section, Allen discussed the family’s logging work to promote growth of certain conifers, while in other areas, he pointed out fuel-reduction projects that have provided new lines of sight from the cabins and other structures on the property.

“You can’t keep trees from growing here — we have wonderful regeneration,” Allen said. “There are opportunities to manage our forest for whatever you want.”

Read more . . .

Chrisman Family named Tree Farmers of the Year

Chrisman Family - Tree Farmers of the Year 2016

Wow! First the Hoilands, now the Chrismans . . .

About 50 yards from the Chrisman family home up the North Fork, there’s a lodgepole pine tree. It isn’t doing very well, at least not compared to the trees near it. The bark is rubbed off in several spots and the tree, quite frankly, has seen better days.

But Allen Chrisman won’t cut it down, even though he runs a tree farm on the 300-plus acre spread, because the lodgepole pine is a special tree for the bears that roam through the place. About a dozen or so grizzlies have stopped by the lodgepole, for whatever bear reason, to rub their backs, shoulders and bellies on that tree. Black bears stop by and rub, too and every once in awhile a mountain lion or a wolf gives it a sniff.

Chrisman knows this because he set up a critter cam nearby, and has many of the encounters record.

Read more . . .