tracts. One stand is in the Hartwick Pines State Park 
near Grayling, the other not far from Interlochen. 
   In the span of one man's life the harvest of the pine 
 was finished. The first sun of the new century, rolling 
 above the eastern rim of the pinelands on the morning of 
 January 1, 1900, reddened 12,000,000 acres of desolation 
 where the pine had stood, 12,000,000 acres of fire-charred 
 stumps, dotted here and there with the crumbling sills of 
 ghost towns. County after county in the pine country 
 was bankrupt, whether it knew it or not. 
   On the heels of the logging crews fires had run un- 
checked summer after summer through the tangled, sun- 
dried pine slashings. They "burned Michigan over" an- 
nually in those years, until the scant fertility that lay at 
the surface of the sandy land was gone. When the job 
was done millions of acres were left naked of any mer- 
chantable crop for a half century to come. 
  Only within the last decade or two has sane manage- 
ment of this vast area of idle land-coupled with a lusty 
young recreational industry that is founded on the com- 
bination of forests and water and that now trails second 
only to the automotive industry on the list of Michigan's 
wealth producers-begun to take up the economic slack 
and relieve the destitution that resulted. 
  It's an incredible story, the story of the pine harvest. 
But it happened, and it can happen again. What's more 
significant, apparently it's going to. 
  Today the largest tract of virgin hardwood forest re- 
maining in the United States is located within the bor- 
ders of the same state that once had enough white pine 
to last the world forever. That's sort of surprising in 
itself. But it's true. The biggest block of virgin hard- 
wood left within our borders, according to the United 
States Forest Service, lies on the south shore of Lake 
Superior, in the western end of the Upper Peninsula of 
Michigan, just east of the Wisconsin border. It blankets 
the Porcupine Mountains and considerable wild and 
tumbled country around them. 
  And unless something is done about it, and done soon, 
this tract of hardwood is destined to go the way the pine 
went seventy-five years ago--down to the hungry mills 
to the last stick, with never a thought for the generation 
that will live among the stumps or for how it shall make 
its living. 
  The Porcupine Mountains, where this forest grows, 
are the highest range between the Black Hills of Dakota 
and the Adirondacks of New York. They shoulder their 
way abruptly up from the Lake Superior shore in rug- 
ged, tangled terraces. Their blue-hazed peaks rise 2,023 
feet above sea level, 1,421 feet above the broad plain of 
Superior, mightiest of the world's fresh-water seas. And 
their slopes are clad, mile upon mile, ridge upon ridge, 
valley after valley, with open parklike forests that have 
never known ax or fire. Maple and beech, birch and 
hemlock, some oak and here and there a scattered growth 
of lofty, green-crowned pine. 
  The Porcupine country is today as it was in the be- 
ginning, an untouched roadless wilderness. And it has 
more than trees. It has beauty to take your breath 
away. Lonely lakes lie hidden in the deep-walled val- 
leys, lakes that do not know the dip of a paddle blade 
from one year's end to another. Brawling mountain 
rivers, wild, dark and rock-shattered, go roaring down 
to Lake Superior through steep-walled gorges, drop- 
ping over ledges in countless mist-hung waterfalls. 
  Take the Black River of Gogebie County, for exam- 
ple. The valley of the Black lies at the western fringe 
of the Porcupine forest, in the shadow of the long ridge 
known as Copper Peak. Highways end at the Black. 
A county road winds down its valley, through the vir- 
 
 
gin hardwood, dropping steadily as the river drops on 
its way from the rugged uplands down to Lake Su- 
perior. At the mouth of the Black the road ends. From 
that point to Lake of the Clouds, twenty-five miles to 
the east along the Superior shore, no highway comes 
within a dozen miles of Superior. The virgin forest 
runs back from the lake like a lush green carpet laid 
down on the rugged Porcupine ranges. Travelers who 
penetrate that wilderness must go afoot. The rivers 
are too wild and rock-broken for canoe travel. 
  In its last ten miles the Black plunges over four 
ledges to form a series of the most beautiful waterfalls 
along the south shore of Lake Superior. At the first 
falls, the Great Conglomerate, a rocky island splits the 
river into two channels and the dark water goes ham- 
mering down through two long chutes, one on either 
side. At the second falls the river makes an abrupt 
drop of thirty or forty feet into a pool where it boils 
and eddies under a curtain of rainbow-decked spray, 
finally surging out between pine-crowned walls that let 
no more than a couple of hours of sunlight touch the 
water at midday. That is Gorge Falls. The third and 
fourth falls, Sandstone and Rainbow, are less spectacu- 
lar but hardly less beautiful. 
  Between the four falls and above and below them the 
Black plunges and roars down its bed in a thundering 
succession of steps and rock-shattered rapids. And on 
either side the gorge soars up into the sky, decked with 
dark pines and hemlocks. The road parallels the river 
all the way down the gorge at a distance of a quarter 
mile to a half mile, and well developed trails lead down 
from the road to each of the waterfalls. On the op- 
posite side of the road Copper Peak frowns down, the 
highest hill in the district west of the Porcupines, a 
lofty landmark that looms, smoke-blue with distance, on 
the western skyline for visitors who stand above Lake 
of the Clouds in the heart of the Porcupine ranges, 
twenty-five miles away. 
  Whatever claims the Black may make to wild beauty, 
however, it is no more than a curtain raiser for the 
mighty Presque Isle that thunders into Lake Superior 
five miles to the east. 
  The Presque Isle was named by the early French ex- 
plorers who voyaged along the south shore of Lake Su- 
perior. The name translates out of their language "almost 
an island." The visitor who lands at the mouth of this 
wild and lonely river quickly discovers the reason for 
the picturesque name. 
  A small timbered island blocks the Presque Isle at 
its mouth, dividing it into two channels. But it isn't 
an island the year around. Once the freshets of spring 
have thundered down their rocky chutes into Superior 
and the river has receded to its normal summer levels 
and its more tranquil summer ways, the eastern chan- 
nel becomes a dry bed and the visitor can cross over on 
a ledge of smooth rock that has been worn and pol- 
ished by the waters of countless springs. It is only in 
the flood time of April, May and early June that the 
bit of land in midriver becomes a true island. 
  For many miles above its mouth the river comes 
down a steep-walled canyon, raging through endless 
rapids, plunging over beautiful falls, swirling and foam- 
ing around tables, shelves and steps of red sandstone. It 
cuts through the heart of the roadless forest along the 
western shoulders of the Porcupines, and because its 
valley is roadless few persons have ever followed it the 
last ten or twelve miles of its wild way to Superior. 
  It's no canoe road, the Presque Isle. Its bed is floored 
with rock and it comes down from the uplands in a 
welter in which no canoe could hope to live.