Vacation trip firewood questions

[willworkforwood]

Just got back from a vacation visiting my daughter in MI, with a long side trip sandwiched in the middle. Traveled from sw MI, via Chicago up to WI, then along a beautiful road from Prairie Du Chien to Prairie Du Sac. That was followed by a trip along the Mighty Miss on the MN side, up to Duluth, then along the West side of GitcheGumee, up to the Canadian border. The return trip went via the Twin Ciites, then South on lots of secondary roads in MN and Iowa. Finished up by taking 80/94 back to MI. We had always wanted to see some of this part of the country, and it was totally worth the huge amount of driving. I would have liked more time because there were lots of places we didn't have time to visit. You folks out there have a very nice place to live.
Watching the firewood situation everywhere we went (that doesn't take a vacation), I came back with a couple of questions for the folks living out there or familiar with these places.
1) The area around the West side of the Big Lake appeared to have at least 50% Birch, but that was just from the window of a moving vehicle. If that's correct, is Birch the primary firewood, or do folks in that area of MN try to find other stuff as much as possible?
2) Iowa had endless, fine fields of corn and soy, but very few trees. Maybe they were hiding somewhere we didn't go. So (for Oldspark and others from IA), where do you get the firewood?
For anyone considering a visit to these areas, it's well worth the trip.

 

[oldspark]

I live along the Little Sioux River Valley so plenty of wood here plus what I get off my acreage, the wooded areas here are mostly burr oak and not that many people burning in this area so plenty for me.

 

[quads]

My area of Wisconsin has predominantly white and black oak. In our woods it outnumbers the jackpine, white pine, and red pine. Other than the odd maple, some chokecherry, and a few cottonwood, that's all we have. I use almost exclusively oak for firewood.

 

[Jags]

When you came around the bottom of the pond and went North it doesn't take very long until you get to a latitude that hardwoods disappear. Then the pines, firs and birch start to be the dominate species. I am pretty close to the IL/WI border, and it is quite rare to see standing timber of softwoods. It is almost like you can draw a line from east/west where the change takes place.

 

[Battenkiller]

When you came around the bottom of the pond and went North it doesn't take very long until you get to a latitude that hardwoods disappear. Then the pines, firs and birch start to be the dominate species. I am pretty close to the IL/WI border, and it is quite rare to see standing timber of softwoods. It is almost like you can draw a line from east/west where the change takes place.

Jags, you might be interested in this USGS site. It has downloadable range maps in PDF form for just about every tree species in North America.

http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/data/atlas/little/

 

[Jags]

Man BK - that is one of the most extensive lists I have ever seen compiled. Interesting enough I went to White Oak (being very prolific in my area) and just as expected, you can almost draw a line north of Quads where its territory ends.

Thanks for the link. It is now part of my favorites.

 

[Battenkiller]

that is one of the most extensive lists I have ever seen compiled.

Regardless of the disdain some have for the government, it sure gathers a lot of great data. Still, it's pretty hard to figure out where to look for it. Over the years, I've amassed hundreds of bookmarks of stuff like this, but now it's even hard to find stuff in my bookmark folders. I really need to get better organized. :roll: :lol:

 

[fossil]

^ Ditto, BK...thanks for that link. Very cool. Rick

 

[CJRages]

Enjoyed the link as well! I do have a question though... All of the references are over 30 years old. Do you think the data have changed much since then?

 

[quads]

When you came around the bottom of the pond and went North it doesn't take very long until you get to a latitude that hardwoods disappear. Then the pines, firs and birch start to be the dominate species. I am pretty close to the IL/WI border, and it is quite rare to see standing timber of softwoods. It is almost like you can draw a line from east/west where the change takes place.

Jags, you might be interested in this USGS site. It has downloadable range maps in PDF form for just about every tree species in North America.

http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/data/atlas/little/

Very interesting! I've seen a map of all the types of trees together on it in different colors of just the state of Wisconsin. I believe it was in an old issue of the Natural Resources Magazine. (the DNR's mag)

 

[willworkforwood]

+1 on the link - lots of interesting stuff in there - thanks BK, and also to the other folks for their input.
Quads, with the amount of wood that you've posted in your pics, I was expecting WI to have nothing but a few willows left. So, the nice oak that I did see must just be the stuff you haven't gotten around to yet :lol:

 

[quads]

+1 on the link - lots of interesting stuff in there - thanks BK, and also to the other folks for their input.
Quads, with the amount of wood that you've posted in your pics, I was expecting WI to have nothing but a few willows left. So, the nice oak that I did see must just be the stuff you haven't gotten around to yet :lol:

Ha ha! Nope, I only cut the dead and fallen stuff. You won't see many oak trees laying on the ground in my part of Wisconsin!

 

[3fordasho]

+1 on the link - lots of interesting stuff in there - thanks BK, and also to the other folks for their input.
Quads, with the amount of wood that you've posted in your pics, I was expecting WI to have nothing but a few willows left. So, the nice oak that I did see must just be the stuff you haven't gotten around to yet :lol:

Ha ha! Nope, I only cut the dead and fallen stuff. You won't see many oak trees laying on the ground in my part of Wisconsin!

Spent a long weekend over in Warren, Wisconsin (took granddaughter to Jellystone). I was drooling at all the white and red oak in that area. If it was a hardwood tree (about 50%) it was an oak. They all looked in great shape too. We have them here, but not as many and not in as good of shape.

 

[purplereign]

In answer to a couple questions - check out the map of species from the link above. Try Acer saccharum (sugar maple) - you'll see a big swath along the west side of the Big Lake. Hard maple, in my humble opinion, one of the finest firewoods available. There is plenty of birch as well, an OK firewood in its own right, but the best bet of the savvy northerner is to haul loads of birch to the Twin Cities, where folks will pay 3X what it is worth just due to the pretty white bark and yule-log like look of the splits. That swath of sugar maple, by the way, is a great excuse to make the same trip in the fall - absolutely spectacular

 

[Medman]

In answer to a couple questions - check out the map of species from the link above. Try Acer saccharum (sugar maple) - you'll see a big swath along the west side of the Big Lake. Hard maple, in my humble opinion, one of the finest firewoods available. There is plenty of birch as well, an OK firewood in its own right, but the best bet of the savvy northerner is to haul loads of birch to the Twin Cities, where folks will pay 3X what it is worth just due to the pretty white bark and yule-log like look of the splits. That swath of sugar maple, by the way, is a great excuse to make the same trip in the fall - absolutely spectacular

+1 on both points! A local company has recently started cutting, drying, bagging and hauling white birch tops and small rounds, under 5", for sale in NYC, Conneticut and Vermont where rich and clueless consumers are willing to pay up to $60 per bag (about 4 cu.ft.) This was wood that they would previously left to rot after harvesting the rest of the timber and replanting the woodlot.

And yes the maple is spectacular - and starting to show its colors now!

 

[firefighterjake]

In answer to a couple questions - check out the map of species from the link above. Try Acer saccharum (sugar maple) - you'll see a big swath along the west side of the Big Lake. Hard maple, in my humble opinion, one of the finest firewoods available. There is plenty of birch as well, an OK firewood in its own right, but the best bet of the savvy northerner is to haul loads of birch to the Twin Cities, where folks will pay 3X what it is worth just due to the pretty white bark and yule-log like look of the splits. That swath of sugar maple, by the way, is a great excuse to make the same trip in the fall - absolutely spectacular

Well all the pictures of happy people wearing their LL Bean gear are in front of roaring fires with a stack of pretty white birch nearby . . . so this clearly must be the best wood to burn, right?