2025 Year in Review for the Cloquet Forestry Center & Hubachek Wilderness Research Center
Overview
Greetings from the Director’s desk,
What is one of your most memorable learning experiences?
This has been the question that has been sitting with me for the past year. When I get to hear people’s responses, they tend to share a learning experience that was active and immersive.
One of my most memorable learning experiences took place at the Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) as a student in the Autumn 2004 Forest Resources major’s orientation course weekend field trip. I was at the beginning of my undergraduate program but thought I knew a thing or two about Minnesota’s northern forest tree species, having been a wilderness guide in the BWCAW. And while I did, I had plenty more to learn. I remember seeing a large pine down the trail and being curious about why the bark was more orange and flaky than I expected. Was it a pathogen, beetle, porcupine or woodpecker impact? I asked Ron Severs, retired CFC Director and Forest Manager and the leader of our time in the woods, “What’s going on with that red pine?” He graciously responded, “Well, that’s not a red pine but a Scots pine.” While I was a little embarrassed by my mistake, I learned both a new-to-me species and a few key life lessons.
Those lessons include 1. In education and life, curiosity is one of our greatest assets and skills. 2. It is important to foster spaces where everyone feels welcomed to explore and voice their curiosities. 3. It is always crucial to respond with openness and kindness, even when someone might be incorrect according to a certain knowledge system. And 4. Immersive experiential learning moments often stick with us.
Immersive, experiential, place- and action-based learning is at the core of why the CFC and Hubachek Wilderness Research Center (HWRC) exist. Getting people into the woods for these learning experiences is why our shared mission is to connect people and ideas to build understanding of northern forest ecosystems. We were happy to see both new courses, such as the CFANS First Year Experience course (featured in our banner image), and returning courses.
In the View From the Woods annual newsletter below, you’ll find a further highlight of Experiential Education at CFC and HWRC in 2025, a brief UMN-FDL relationship update, and highlights about how our incredible team worked in 2025 to meet our research, education, outreach, and land stewardship mission.
Thanks for reading and being curious about what’s been going on across our research and teaching forests. Feel free to stop by to check things out in person or send us any followup questions you might have.
Sincerely,
Kyle Gill
CFC & HWRC Director of Operations and Forest Stewardship
Director's Notes
Undergraduate Experiential Education
2025 was another strong year of undergraduate education courses using our teaching forests. We had our returning Forestry and Natural Resources Management (FNRM) and Earth & Environmental Science (ESci) students and added a CFANS First Year Experience course and an Environmental Science Policy and Management (ESPM) capstone course digging into climate change readiness at HWRC.
- New experiential course offerings
- First-year Experience courses are a CFANS initiative designed to help incoming students feel connected, engaged, and set up for academic success. The Cultivating Minnesota First Year Experience course, taught by UMN faculty members Amy Smith and Mary Rogers, explored agricultural systems up close during a weekend trip based at the CFC. Their service-learning project at CFC supported one of our prescribed burn units by clearing downed material to prepare it for unobstructed blueberry growth and harvesting over the next few growing seasons.
- ESPM’s 4041 Senior Capstone course was tasked with assessing climate vulnerability at HWRC as part of the UMN’s system-wide Climate Action Planning efforts. See the HWRC section for additional details.
- Returning field sessions
- The Advanced Field Session students were at the CFC for two weeks in May. They undertook a land stewardship plan on the Elstad Land, which is an 80-acre parcel in rural Carlton County that was the generous bequest of Greg Elstad, UMN Forestry alum. Their work helps set the stage for our CFC FMR team to build upon the stewardship work that Greg had been doing for 30 years.
- The FNRM Introductory Field Session students were here for three weeks in August learning about botany, forest ecology, and forest measurements.
- The FNRM Park and Protected Area Management Field Studies based their 10-day field experience out of HWRC to learn about park and wilderness management, indigenous stewardship, environmental policy and tribal treaty rights.
The Earth & Environmental Science Advanced Field Geology spent two weeks of their three-week intensive course based at HWRC and using the region as their field-based classroom.
University and Fond du Lac Relationship
The relationship building between the University and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (FDL) regarding the CFC on Nagaajiwanaang continues to move in a good direction. I’ll share a brief highlight here but please refer to the background intentions for the full publicly-available details.
The University and FDL reached an agreement in principle in spring 2025 that allows the University to continue operations on the CFC property in close collaboration with the Band, to be executed upon the transfer of the Cloquet Forestry Center property from the University to FDL. Specifically, the University will continue to operate and maintain the CFC grounds for research, education and outreach purposes consistent with the University’s mission and in cooperation with FDL. The University will not be required to pay rent under the arrangement. The shared work with the Minnesota legislature to make the land transfer intentions a reality will again be taken up in spring 2026.
People
Our incredible team is what makes the CFC and HWRC able to meet our mission. And while we had less transition in 2025 than in 2024, we still had some.
Stephanie Oberg, Facilities Coordinator, retired in July with an outstanding record of service to our thousands of users. It was an honor to be able to work with her over the years and send her off to enjoy time with her young grandchild. Thank you for your service Steph!
Rylee Cyr started as our new Facilities Coordinator in early October. She’s become an invaluable member of our team in just her first three months. Touch base with her for all of your lodging and event/meeting space needs. A huge thanks goes to Denise Volk, our Administrator, for taking on the facilities coordinating duties while we were between Steph and Rylee.
The rest of the CFC and HWRC team diligently conducted themselves with their usual high-level of service and dedication to the land, facilities, and users of each.
Looking Forward to 2026
Looking forward to 2026, we’ll continue to prioritize our mission of connecting people and ideas related to northern US forest ecosystems through place-based research, education, and outreach. We already have research and teaching projects that are planning to initiate or continue their work across the forests.
For facilities users, we have moved forward with rate increases for our event and lodging spaces (check our websites for updated rates). Our rates at CFC hadn’t been updated since 2010 and at HWRC since 2013 so we were way overdue. We’ll be doing more regular assessments of our rates moving forward. All of our locally-produced revenue goes directly back into covering our costs of making the spaces available and cleaning, maintaining, and, hopefully, improving spaces.
Forest Management, Research, & Education
2025 Experimental Forests Projects Summary
In 2025, we had a total of 89 active research, education, monitoring, and/or stewardship projects across the Experimental Forests landbase. The 89 projects utilized three of our sites (CFC, HWRC, and Elstad) and had 46 different project leaders from 12 different institutions or groups. The University of Minnesota, one of the 12 institutions, had project leadership from 12 different departments, centers, or units. The UMN’s Forest Resources Department, Sustainable Forests Education Cooperative, and Extension continue to provide some of our most regular project leadership. The Forest Management and Research (FMR) team supports and leads various projects and is tasked with tracking all of these project-based uses.
Our largest type of active projects were the 31 research-focused projects. Research projects might vary widely in subject matter, scale, and depth but they all have a primary expected output of reporting their results in a peer-reviewed publication or graduate dissertation/thesis and are typically led by UMN faculty members or graduate students. The landbase hosted a mix of new projects, such as Grant Rothrock and Dr. Chad Babcock’s project exploring fuel-loading in fire dependent forests using Terrestrial Lidar Scanning (TLS), and projects building upon years of prior work, such as Boreal Forest Warming at an Ecotone in Danger (B4WarmED), led by Dr. Rebecca Montgomery, conducting their 17th year of field work at both CFC and HWRC exploring the extent to which boreal and temperate species may adapt to climate change. Check out our Experimental Forests publication database to see a full list of results and reports from the past 115 years of work.
In addition to research-focused projects, there were 23 education-focused projects, 23 demonstration/case-study/monitoring focused, nine that were land stewardship focused, and three with a primary purpose of “Other”. Below are a few highlights from specific projects.
Ecocultural Prescribed Fire Restoration & Miinan
Ecocultural fire restoration continued to be a major focus throughout 2025 with burn unit preparation, data collection, and burning taking place across 165 acres of our fire dependent ecological communities. This work relied on collaboration with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (FDL), Bureau of Indian Affairs, The Nature Conservancy, and University of Minnesota (UMN) Silviculture research lab group. In addition, the FMR team was able to host multiple groups for pile burning demonstrations as weather permitted in spring, summer, and fall. Slight expansions to the restoration occurred in a Miinan restoration project (see below)
The Miinan restoration project had the FMR team supporting and collaborating with staff from FDL Agriculture Division, FDL Forestry, and The Nature Conservancy. The work culminated in hosting a hands-on prescribed fire experience in early October for FDL Agriculture Division staff and FDL community members. We are excited to see how this site responds in 2026 and 2027 following the brushing and burning that occurred in 2025 and how it can help to support the restoration of traditional Indigenous gathering practices.
Conservation Education Days
The 57th year of Carlton County Conservation Education Days (Con Ed) was held on September 24-25th. We were graced with a stretch of beautiful autumn weather. We had 415 5th graders and 76 teachers and chaperones travel to CFC from eight school districts across Carlton County to learn about a range of conservation and sustainability topics. Nineteen instructors from Carlton County Land Department, Carlton County SWCD, Cloquet Forestry Center, the Ferguson Family sawmill, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, Louisiana Pacific, Minnesota DNR, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Northeast Minnesota Beekeepers Association offered their expertise and time to create a memorable field day for an energetic, yet respectful, group of students. We are grateful to all the instructors that make this annual education event a priority and for the continued leadership of Rachael Olesiak with Carlton County Land Department in her coordination role.
Hubachek Wilderness Research Center
We had both continuation of ongoing work and new happenings at HWRC in 2025 and expect more of the same in 2026.
In the winter and spring, we conducted a first ever bi-annual competitive call for research proposals. This was the process decided on by Director Gill and Dr. Joleen Hadrich, Associate Dean for the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station and CFANS Research & Outreach Centers, for the annual distribution of HWRC research funds. The researchers invited to submit proposals needed to be UMN researchers conducting work that aligned with the goal of the fund, which is to support work on protecting and perpetuating northern forest ecosystems and wilderness character and values. Of the eight researchers that submitted project proposals, we were able to support the following four.
- Dr. Rebecca Montgomery, “Boreal Forest Warming at an Ecotone in Danger (B4WarmED)” at both HWRC and CFC, exploring how boreal and temperate forest species and communities may or may not adapt to climate change.
- Dr. Marcella Windmuller-Campione, “Pagami Creek Fire Remeasurement”, exploring continued vegetation responses to the 2011 Pagami Creek Fire.
- Dr. Danielle Ignace, “Soil Health Impacts of the Pagami Creek Fire,” reassessing forest soils in response to the Pagami Creek fire.
- Dr. Emily Fairfax, “Disturbance & Resilience in the Northwoods: mapping relationships between beavers, wildfires, and wilderness”, exploring how interactions between beavers, forests, and wildfire shape ecological communities across the Quetico-Superior region.
In the spring, two long term projects returned to HWRC: the UMN’s aforementioned B4WarmED climate change study and the Institute of Bird Populations' Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) project. In addition to this, we conducted our first prescribed fires - small patch burns - on campus in May. This work aims to both restore fire to portions of a fire dependent ecological community and support Firewise, reduced-fuel forest structure conditions around our buildings and grounds.
During the summer, we had both returning and new groups. Our perennial UMN field classes, ESci’s Advanced Field Geology and FR’s Park and Protected Area Management Studies were here in July and August. We also had two pre-college aged youth groups for the first time this summer: Mobilize Green Youth Conservation, and the 1854 Treaty Authority's tribal youth natural resources career Camp Nenda. Each of the groups brought us a near full-house and great energy. We were also very thankful to those that demonstrated great personal adaptability when a lightning strike took out our main well pump for a couple weeks.
Another interesting, new-to-HWRC group was a combined MN Mycological Society and MN Master Naturalists group. They conducted a fungus and lichen foray/survey of HWRC in early October. They found hundreds of species and their results are shared in iNaturalist.
During the Fall semester, HWRC’s facilities, energy sources, and biodiversity were under study for student capstone projects in the UMN Environmental Science, Policy and Management class: Problem Solving for Environmental Change. The team of ESPM seniors separated into three groups to assess the potential climate risks of our infrastructure, present greenhouse gas usage rates, and the biodiversity across our landbase. Each group was able to visit HWRC at least once for data collection and to better understand the place and the user experience. Their work gives us a baseline from which to set some goals - such as installing electric vehicle chargers - and to monitor progress on tracking biological diversity.
Sustainable Forests Education Cooperative
The Sustainable Forests Education Cooperative, based at the CFC, has 52 public and private organizational members that employ most Minnesota’s foresters, wildlife managers, and other natural resources professionals. We’re pleased to have the opportunity to bring these people and organizations together at the CFC to discuss visions and solutions to some of Minnesota’s most pressing environmental problems. Our events address forest stewardship practices to produce renewable natural resources, improve wildlife habitat, and meet human needs.
In 2025 we offered 29 events that were attended by 822 people. A big highlight from was the return of our Ecosystem Silviculture course, a deep-dive into ecosystem-based forest stewardship. 16 people from county land departments, the DNR, tribal natural resources agencies, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and other organizations presented their capstone projects for the year-long course in November.
We’re excited to grow our programming in 2026 and continue to convene important conversations about the care and stewardship of Minnesota’s public and professionally managed forests.
CFC Facilities and Users
Our CFC and HWRC facilities supported knowledge gain and exchange for many local, regional, and national groups. We had a total of 217 user groups using the CFC (172 groups) and/or HWRC (45). We had a total of 6072 users as a part of those groups. When we multiply the number of users by the time they spent on site, a metric we call “user days”, we find that we had a total of 10,117 user days at CFC, which is pretty consistent when compared with prior years, and 1,308 at HWRC, which is almost double when compared with 2024. While the core of our users are University of Minnesota classes, departments, researchers, and Extension offerings, we feel grateful to be able to serve a large diversity of groups.
On top of their regular buildings and grounds maintenance duties, the CFC Buildings & Grounds team was able to spruce up a number of areas in 2025. They were instrumental in supporting an air quality renewal project in the basement of the Cloquet Regional Extension building. They gave facelifts to both the bathrooms and all four bedrooms in the White House. And they also took on a siding renewal project across the entire north side of the Classroom Administration Building. The team does a phenomenal job of maintaining and improving our grounds and facilities.