Chrisman Family | North Fork Preservation Association

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 . . .

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.