Dave Milarch‘s Ark of Champions

Nov. 9, 2005

You’ve got to love Dave Milarch, the founder of the Champion Tree Project. Based out of his nursery in Copemish, Dave and his sons Jared, Jake and other supporters have collected and cloned 125 species of the most majestic trees in America. History-making champions such as the world‘s oldest bristlecone pine tree -- 4,600 years old. Trees under which the patriots planned the American Revolution. Trees which sheltered the Native Americans on long-ago summer nights before Columbus was even a rumor.
He’s a virtual Noah of our country’s greatest trees, tracking down the oldest, biggest, and most noteworthy specimens over the past 10 years through swamp and forest, up hill and down dale, to save them from extinction in the ark of his replanting project. It‘s a project that includes sites such as the Pentagon Memorial Grove, where Milarch planted 12 champion red ash trees in memory of the the 9/11 attack.
Milarch has a new idea: he‘d like to establish an old-growth urban forest in Traverse City. He’d like to see a virtual Corridor of Champions running several miles along the city’s West Bay from the intersection of M-72, all the way to the college.
And then? The world.
“We’ve gathered genetic specimens of 25 of Michigan’s greatest old-growth trees and would like to build a model for the world of an old growth urban forest on the bay to clean up our water and the air,” he says. “It could be a model for the country and maybe the world on how to restore a watershed with a sustainable urban forest.”
Specifically, that would mean creating a boulevard with a different species planted every three blocks on either side of West Bayshore Drive in TC as well as in the median. It would mean starting out with 25 different species of trees that have been native to Northern Michigan for the past 10,000 years. The trees themselves would be planted as eight-foot-tall saplings.
We, in turn, would make a commitment to let them grow for hundreds of years.
Milarch has already collected the 25 species of the grandest trees to be found in Northern Michigan in a range from Grand Rapids to Munising. Those trees include a hitherto-unknown 600-year-old birch tree that is seven feet across at the base.
But isn’t an old growth forest defined by its age and biological characteristics?
“Well, 200 years is the benchmark for what we consider an old growth forest,” Milarch says. “But if you’ve already cloned the trees in the new forest, you’ve got those old growth champions. It’s like cloning Methuselah; the same molecules and DNA are still there from the old growth tree.”
And hopefully, the same genetic characteristics as well. Since cloning a tree involves nothing more than sprouting a graft or branch from the original, Milarch’s urban forest would include the aforementioned 600-year-old birch giant, carrying on with a new lease on life. Presumably, each tree in the proposed Corridor of Champions would be a living giant, preserved for all time.
Milarch hasn’t approached the Traverse City Commission with his idea; he’s hoping others will plant that seed. But he says his idea of planting champion trees has been embraced by the Grand Traverse Commons, Cherry Capital Airport and the Morgan Farms neighborhood development. He’d like to the the bayside and its vacated power plant site planted as an inspiration for urban forests.
Speaking of which, Milarch notes that certain tree species have the ability to cleanse the soil of heavy metals, and that trees collect and respirate rainwater, preventing groundwater runoff from polluting watersheds. Trees are like an aquarium filter, he says; without them, our environment fills up with pollution, turning stink-o. We can rely on trees to cleanse the soil, the air and the water. But only if we plant them.
Would you be in favor of your children’s, children’s, children strolling beneath the original towering giants that only the Native Americans knew 200 years ago? Champion trees, seven feet across at the base and 150 feet tall? Dave Milarch’s vision could make that happen.