I grew up in Wisconsin. Dad taught at the University of Wisconsin, and there was always a copy of A Sand County Almanac somewhere in our house. Dad bought a worked out farm in south west Wisconsin when I was a kid and yes, I helped him plant thousands of trees there. So this wonderful story is very familiar to me! Thanks. Watching this reminded me so much of my Dad, who's been gone now for some years.
wonderful story. My parents will leave a legacy of 30 acres now fully treed on a peninsula that went from a dry, treeless, dusty fly blown and smelly cattle land with high winds and no rain, to a rather humid, treed and thoroughly green fertile region with plenty of rain enjoyed by all the community. Sending leafy love from Perth, Australia.
Aldo Leopold was also central to helping our sandhill crane population in this area. He became fascinated with the sandhill cranes and was concerned about the threat of extinction. I've been in Baraboo, Wisconsin several times and have gone to the International Crane Foundation. He was quite a visionary with regard to the environment, all of it.
I have unfortunately never heard of Aldo Leopold before watching this video - I'm really glad to have seen this. His story is very inspiring and I will be reading his book soon. It's simply incredible what kind of change can be created by a dedicated individual (and his family of course too). Thanks for sharing this story and so many of the other great interviews you have put together as well! Keep up the great work.
Incredible documentary film making. I've been a cameraman since 1987. I love the look of available light and handheld on the fly shooting. You are a master of the craft.
"A Sand County Almanac" is one of my very favorite books...EVER. Aldo Leopold is one of my favorite conservationists of the period as well. Thank you for highlighting this little corner of the upper Midwest and an amazing man and author.
One thing I was really heartened by, was the Time Lapse aspects of the video, in that unlike most such filmed and photoed histories of an area, you see nature growing and building up an Ecosystem, ( with humans helping and being part of that ecosystem ) instead of the usual destruction of natural ecosystems as the progress of a city or urban area gets filmed or photoed over time. I hope it serves as an example that this can be done.
This is a fantastic film Kirsten! I live in Northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior and we vacationed every summer in Baraboo when I was a kid with my family from outside Chicago. Really fascinating to see parts of it like this. Wisconsin is really a treasure. Thanks!
This is an incredible story about a very dedicated family who turned the land into a beautiful sanctuary for themselves as well as wildlife too.Its a big dream and it’s an incredibly beautiful dream.What fun the children must have had here....Love this one 😀
I amazed at the shape the shack is still in 😳 Such an awesome story... I would say a success too. You have to be pretty determined to do such a thing... I mean , you don't even get to fully see the fruits of your labor! Simply a stunning story and place... Thanks for sharing with us
Thank you so much for this post. I have slowly over the years come to understand the importance of what Aldo Leopold did for humanity in general and conservation and environmentalism specifically, and I hope to visit that area this year, 2022
Waw...... "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.” I totally agree with him.... This really blew my mind. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Fascinating man was Aldo Leopold. I share his views on Man's place in the natural world He was a gifted philosopher and essayist. I'd like to have his book. The house looks wonderful in this setting. I've never seen plain weathered wood planks with such class.
My Gramma/Uncles live in Galeville NY, just over the border from Syracuse... a city of 144k. My Mom & her 4 Sisters, 3 Brothers... were all raised in a 130 year old farmhouse, next to which my Great Grandfather built a two story home for my Great Grandmother & himself. Down the block there was the garage he built for his trucks. In between was a large chicken coup: www.google.com/maps/@43.0871544,-76.1755417,3a,16.7y,238.93h,87.15t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sb_6LnUqXyeTwohEHoGkwJQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 I think it's more common than we may realize!
Thank You for sharing this! I remember as a child in the late 70's and early 80's riding my bike with some neighbor kids on the paths and up to the shack. I never realized that area was so barren until recently.
VERY educational, Kirsten! I so agree with this man Aldo Leopold! I too have always wanted to live on my own land and live off it as much as I can without spoiling it. Living in harmony with it as much I can. But I would want to have more modern commodities in my home too. One day, I hope to achieve all of that!... And thank you very much for all the wonderful tips one can pick up from others in your videos!
What a wonderful piece of thought provoking videography you have here. I grew up in Michigan where the Virgin Pine Forests were depleted to build Chicago and points westward and then Farms sprang up on very similar, easily depleted soil which, by the Depression, were in trouble. The CCC replanted these Pine Forests all throughout Michigan in much the same way that Dr. Leopold did. Today the forests are restored and the soil is better. I don't recall very many efforts to restore the native "prairie" grasses but they came back on their own. Dr. Leopold's writings were well known here in Michigan. He was greatly respected for his work.
whammond511 my gpa Louis was in the ccc camp in the u.p ☺️ I was blessed to be able to take a trip up there with him, and we stopped at were the camp was.. it was nothing but a foundation now ( but I've seen pics of it, him on the roof in winter, shoveling it) I could see in my gpas face the memories the place stirred. He told us a lot of stories about it, but I was so young and forgot many... It's interesting because as I watched this vid, memories of my gpa came up, of him at the ccc camp
Leopold proves that humans can work WITH Nature to make Nature, herself, even better. A human can see a strangler vine on a living tree and rearrange it around a rock without hurting it but helping the tree it was strangling. You might even imagine the slow joy of the tree bursting to life after you saved it. And yes. I plagiarized that from a story about a Druid.
It's really nice to one of the few of these were the people are actually planting trees and not only cutting them down to build their houses. Of which I've seen quite a few on this channel.
Mass-produced goods are a boon to those would live in better balance. But the only thing government mass produces is weapons, and only by hiring private contractors.
No one is an island. Leopold had family to help. Thoreau had women who cooked for him, and picked up and washed his laundry for him. Leopold's health gradually failed later in life, tragically. He and E.O. Wilson are my heroes... I've been a wildlife rehabilitator for 35 years.
Kirsten, How do you find so many cool, interesting, mind bending stuff... A story on you would be very interesting.. I see you go with your family in a few videos and you are all over the world .. how do u do that - how do u find such stories and people.. How do you do it.. its so fascinating .. Big Fan of Yours.. BFY AL
Wisconsin beckons me. How soon we forget that our job is not to destroy but to treasure, cultivate and to be one with the land. Thank you Aldo and thank you Kirsten.
awesome beautiful place..with impressive history...man can destroy but there allways are the ones that built and restore in the love for nature and simple. thanks for share 🌳🌲🌱🌿☘🍃🍂🍁🌲
Kirsten, I would appreciate a short exchange with you concerning tree planting (bare root, containerized, or 6' specimens). I live in the TX, and we(my Dad started practicing forest management in 1970). Daddy handed me a well worn copy of Sand County Almanac, when I brought it back he handed me a hardcover copy of Walden. He is still my hero, I am in my 40s. He has grown our own arboretum, and I have started mine.
what he says about how we use and abuse land from 11:03 to 11:40 ...The values European colonists disregarded when they settled on African and first nation lands..... It is refreshing to see someone who listened.
*_Thank you for producing this timeless documentary while living lessons Aldo had planted still survive in order to pass on to Future generations!_* Chicago Treestorian & volunteer Treekeeper Scott Carlini. AKA, Scotty Ash Tree seed... Once again ecology poet Leopold proving he was a hundred years ahead of his time. Planted mixed species of pines and hardwoods in random locations. Compared to how conservation corps back then replanted using monoculture pines installed in long even rows, today resulting in Baron understory growth. Which would make it easier for industrial harvesting of CCC regrown woodlands producing straight tall trunks for lumber. Wild scattered trees Revealed in the early photos had primarily been wild open grown White Oak family type producing low multi trunked crowns without Forest competition. Wild prairie fires kept in check by humans allowed such trees to grow without being naturally burned out during Oaks younger stages. Unfortunately hardly any Burr or white Oaks have regenerated since the 1880s, so fully maturing ones we still see today will be the last of their kind. Plus hardly any human planted white type Oaks ever survive over 35 years unless planted by seed, since their species only produce taproot over first two years making them virtually impossible to replant from 3 years of age or older nursery produced stock. Number of wild growing present-day trees are from the hickory family, especially shagbark.
The solution I recommend is this: start a seed campaign to try and rejuvinate the California white oak population. Contact the native plant society in your region and get involved in their efforts to save the tree from extinction. Human intervention CAN prevail so that those remaining trees are NOT the last of their kind. As long as you have seed.... you have potential. Get as many people to plant them as possible, throughout your region. From seed.
A forested area protects nearby fields from being swept away by wind. It also holds more moisture in the ground. If the trees are replanted, the forest can be a source of renewable fire wood. Proper land management.
![KSI - Dirty [Official Visualiser]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VoDh1h1dPUE/mqdefault.jpg)
I grew up in Wisconsin. Dad taught at the University of Wisconsin, and there was always a copy of A Sand County Almanac somewhere in our house. Dad bought a worked out farm in south west Wisconsin when I was a kid and yes, I helped him plant thousands of trees there. So this wonderful story is very familiar to me! Thanks. Watching this reminded me so much of my Dad, who's been gone now for some years.
wonderful story. My parents will leave a legacy of 30 acres now fully treed on a peninsula that went from a dry, treeless, dusty fly blown and smelly cattle land with high winds and no rain, to a rather humid, treed and thoroughly green fertile region with plenty of rain enjoyed by all the community. Sending leafy love from Perth, Australia.
What an amazing video!!!
I have been there. It is unbelievable how small that cabin is to have housed so many people. They evidently had great times there.
Aldo Leopold was also central to helping our sandhill crane population in this area. He became fascinated with the sandhill cranes and was concerned about the threat of extinction. I've been in Baraboo, Wisconsin several times and have gone to the International Crane Foundation. He was quite a visionary with regard to the environment, all of it.
A family that Grew a building.........love that.
I have unfortunately never heard of Aldo Leopold before watching this video - I'm really glad to have seen this. His story is very inspiring and I will be reading his book soon. It's simply incredible what kind of change can be created by a dedicated individual (and his family of course too).
Thanks for sharing this story and so many of the other great interviews you have put together as well! Keep up the great work.
A master class in exemplary family values right there.
This may be the most beautiful video you've ever put out, Kirsten. The juxtaposition of old photos with the current state of the land is breathtaking.
What a HUGE difference they made, compared to the old pictures! Impressive work! And working WITH nature, what impressive improvements.
One man/family that have left their mark on the land, in a positive way.
How beautiful everything. The poetry, the landscape, the old pictures, the history. Thanks for sharing.
If you can imagine...This was the impact ONE family chose to have in ONE piece of land!
If we all chose to plant trees on our properties, just imagine what could be!
Incredible documentary film making. I've been a cameraman since 1987. I love the look of available light and handheld on the fly shooting. You are a master of the craft.
Amazing resilient people were back then... I wish they could hear our Thank You :)
What an amazing story!
"A Sand County Almanac" is one of my very favorite books...EVER. Aldo Leopold is one of my favorite conservationists of the period as well. Thank you for highlighting this little corner of the upper Midwest and an amazing man and author.
One thing I was really heartened by, was the Time Lapse aspects of the video, in that unlike most such filmed and photoed histories of an area, you see nature growing and building up an Ecosystem, ( with humans helping and being part of that ecosystem ) instead of the usual destruction of natural ecosystems as the progress of a city or urban area gets filmed or photoed over time. I hope it serves as an example that this can be done.
This is a fantastic film Kirsten! I live in Northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior and we vacationed every summer in Baraboo when I was a kid with my family from outside Chicago. Really fascinating to see parts of it like this. Wisconsin is really a treasure. Thanks!
This is an incredible story about a very dedicated family who turned the land into a beautiful sanctuary for themselves as well as wildlife too.Its a big dream and it’s an incredibly beautiful dream.What fun the children must have had here....Love this one 😀
Confluence of two favourite things: your channel and the life of Aldo Leopold.
Thanks for making and sharing this
Thank you for this. Aldo Leopoldo has always been someone I've admired.
Watching it right now. What an amazing piece of history. Enjoy your work Kirsten!
I amazed at the shape the shack is still in 😳
Such an awesome story... I would say a success too.
You have to be pretty determined to do such a thing... I mean , you don't even get to fully see the fruits of your labor!
Simply a stunning story and place...
Thanks for sharing with us
Aldo is one of my favorite naturalist. Such a beautiful way of teaching! Thanks for an opportunity to see a bit of important history!
Kristen, thanks for sharing this beautiful story. Beautiful video. Really well done.
This is unbelievable!!! Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for this post. I have slowly over the years come to understand the importance of what Aldo Leopold did for humanity in general and conservation and environmentalism specifically, and I hope to visit that area this year, 2022
What a wonderful piece of history and genealogy for the Leopold family!! I love it. Thank you.
One of your best. Thank you! More like this please :)
Waw...... "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.” I totally agree with him.... This really blew my mind. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Fascinating man was Aldo Leopold. I share his views on Man's place in the natural world He was a gifted philosopher and essayist. I'd like to have his book. The house looks wonderful in this setting. I've never seen plain weathered wood planks with such class.
So awesome and uplifting. Thank you for all the inspiring videos you produce.
Thank you Kirsten for bringing this story to us.
Stunning photography here. i quite enjoyed the direction of this video - beautiful message about environmental ethics. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful story, very inspiring! Thank you for sharing!
Beautiful! Great inspiration. Thanks for sharing Leopolds story.
Kristen...your posts are fabulous. Thank you.
A friend of a friend did a coup to house conversion over 20 years now. I was impressed. And, they had several children, too!
My Gramma/Uncles live in Galeville NY, just over the border from Syracuse... a city of 144k. My Mom & her 4 Sisters, 3 Brothers... were all raised in a 130 year old farmhouse, next to which my Great Grandfather built a two story home for my Great Grandmother & himself. Down the block there was the garage he built for his trucks.
In between was a large chicken coup:
www.google.com/maps/@43.0871544,-76.1755417,3a,16.7y,238.93h,87.15t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sb_6LnUqXyeTwohEHoGkwJQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
I think it's more common than we may realize!
Beautiful video. Thanks Kristan.
I love walking through woods in a gentle rain, it's so meditative and soothing.
Thank you Aldo for your love of nature and the teaching of others. I'm sure you live on in the trees that flurish today.
Thank You for sharing this! I remember as a child in the late 70's and early 80's riding my bike with some neighbor kids on the paths and up to the shack. I never realized that area was so barren until recently.
Love , respect, admire your work. Thanks for sharing your talents …😊
Truly an enjoyable way of learning something new. Thank you.
VERY educational, Kirsten! I so agree with this man Aldo Leopold! I too have always wanted to live on my own land and live off it as much as I can without spoiling it. Living in harmony with it as much I can. But I would want to have more modern commodities in my home too. One day, I hope to achieve all of that!... And thank you very much for all the wonderful tips one can pick up from others in your videos!
What a wonderful piece of thought provoking videography you have here. I grew up in Michigan where the Virgin Pine Forests were depleted to build Chicago and points westward and then Farms sprang up on very similar, easily depleted soil which, by the Depression, were in trouble.
The CCC replanted these Pine Forests all throughout Michigan in much the same way that Dr. Leopold did. Today the forests are restored and the soil is better. I don't recall very many efforts to restore the native "prairie" grasses but they came back on their own.
Dr. Leopold's writings were well known here in Michigan. He was greatly respected for his work.
whammond511 my gpa Louis was in the ccc camp in the u.p ☺️
I was blessed to be able to take a trip up there with him, and we stopped at were the camp was.. it was nothing but a foundation now ( but I've seen pics of it, him on the roof in winter, shoveling it)
I could see in my gpas face the memories the place stirred.
He told us a lot of stories about it, but I was so young and forgot many...
It's interesting because as I watched this vid, memories of my gpa came up, of him at the ccc camp
I was just their all day Saturday in Baraboo! So beautiful I live like half an hour away
This is like Gesell story, a man that with imagination and effort made a forest out of dunes , sand and wind. I love this episode.
Leopold proves that humans can work WITH Nature to make Nature, herself, even better. A human can see a strangler vine on a living tree and rearrange it around a rock without hurting it but helping the tree it was strangling. You might even imagine the slow joy of the tree bursting to life after you saved it. And yes. I plagiarized that from a story about a Druid.
Wow, what a pioneer. Thanks for sharing.
In Marquette County, Montello area, there is Observation Hill and Enis Lake which were John Muir's beginnings.
The last of the Romantics? Thank you for this beautiful story, for introducing me to Aldo Leopold
Your videos never ceases to amaze me!
It's really nice to one of the few of these were the people are actually planting trees and not only cutting them down to build their houses. Of which I've seen quite a few on this channel.
Hard to imagine the dust bowl in a rainstorm. Cute little place!
So beautiful! Amazing what a single family can rescue from a mass producing government! This is what we should be teaching our children!
Mass-produced goods are a boon to those would live in better balance. But the only thing government mass produces is weapons, and only by hiring private contractors.
Fantastic video, so informative and well researched.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful, erudite history.
Excellent interview! Thank you.❤️
Çocukluk anılarının yıkılmaması ne güzeel..çoook duygulandım.
Thanks for sharing this inspiring story.
Beautiful story. Well done!
Thanks for the introduction to this author. Great video. Cheers.
What an interesting story. I really enjoyed it.Thank you for sharing.
Everyone commenting positively on here......... are my friends....... in spirit. We need our own country w/ this ethos
No one is an island. Leopold had family to help. Thoreau had women who cooked for him, and picked up and washed his laundry for him. Leopold's health gradually failed later in life, tragically. He and E.O. Wilson are my heroes... I've been a wildlife rehabilitator for 35 years.
This is a refreshing video. Thank you.
Kirsten, How do you find so many cool, interesting, mind bending stuff... A story on you would be very interesting.. I see you go with your family in a few videos and you are all over the world .. how do u do that - how do u find such stories and people.. How do you do it.. its so fascinating .. Big Fan of Yours.. BFY AL
I believe, people contact her. I'm sure her channel is financed by the commercials that run here.
She ha to start somewhere ❤️
Wonderful video, thank you Kirsten.
Breathtaking 💝 my dream home and land
Wisconsin beckons me. How soon we forget that our job is not to destroy but to treasure, cultivate and to be one with the land. Thank you Aldo and thank you Kirsten.
Wonderful.I enjoyed this video sooo much!
How beautiful.
Très joli, j'aime beaucoup ! C'est incroyable comme la nature c'est densifiée avec le temps c'est superbe ce havre de paix.
awesome beautiful place..with impressive history...man can destroy but there allways are the ones that built and restore in the love for nature and simple.
thanks for share 🌳🌲🌱🌿☘🍃🍂🍁🌲
Restoration of nature by dedication and such hard work.
Really enjoyed this one thank you
Reminds me of the house on Little House On The Prairie, it's all they needed
So beautiful!!! Thank you, I'm buying the book😉
Maurice Powers yup! This is going on my list right now..
Fascinating story.
Not gonna lie...I cried a little. ❤👌
me too!
Kirsten, I would appreciate a short exchange with you concerning tree planting (bare root, containerized, or 6' specimens). I live in the TX, and we(my Dad started practicing forest management in 1970). Daddy handed me a well worn copy of Sand County Almanac, when I brought it back he handed me a hardcover copy of Walden. He is still my hero, I am in my 40s. He has grown our own arboretum, and I have started mine.
Great video, thanks for sharing this nice story.
what he says about how we use and abuse land from 11:03 to 11:40 ...The values European colonists disregarded when they settled on African and first nation lands..... It is refreshing to see someone who listened.
Thanks for the upload and description :)
Amazing to see this. Leopold's "land ethic" in practice.
Love it. Thanks for this video.
Wow what a legacy!
I hope someday we get a glimpse of the Dirksen family's living situation
What a great story💝
I read A Sand County Almanac years ago! This was really interesting
Thanks for showing my state☺You guys were here! I love this place. What did you think?
*_Thank you for producing this timeless documentary while living lessons Aldo had planted still survive in order to pass on to Future generations!_* Chicago Treestorian & volunteer Treekeeper Scott Carlini. AKA, Scotty Ash Tree seed...
Once again ecology poet Leopold proving he was a hundred years ahead of his time. Planted mixed species of pines and hardwoods in random locations.
Compared to how conservation corps back then replanted using monoculture pines installed in long even rows, today resulting in Baron understory growth. Which would make it easier for industrial harvesting of CCC regrown woodlands producing straight tall trunks for lumber.
Wild scattered trees Revealed in the early photos had primarily been wild open grown White Oak family type producing low multi trunked crowns without Forest competition. Wild prairie fires kept in check by humans allowed such trees to grow without being naturally burned out during Oaks younger stages. Unfortunately hardly any Burr or white Oaks have regenerated since the 1880s, so fully maturing ones we still see today will be the last of their kind. Plus hardly any human planted white type Oaks ever survive over 35 years unless planted by seed, since their species only produce taproot over first two years making them virtually impossible to replant from 3 years of age or older nursery produced stock.
Number of wild growing present-day trees are from the hickory family, especially shagbark.
The solution I recommend is this: start a seed campaign to try and rejuvinate the California white oak population. Contact the native plant society in your region and get involved in their efforts to save the tree from extinction. Human intervention CAN prevail so that those remaining trees are NOT the last of their kind. As long as you have seed.... you have potential. Get as many people to plant them as possible, throughout your region. From seed.
Worked in Baraboo and drove through there all summer. Must have just missed you there!
Ooo, I hope you guys went to house on the rock while you were in Wisconsin, that place is magical.
Those chickens 🐔 lived large!!!
A forested area protects nearby fields from being swept away by wind. It also holds more moisture in the ground. If the trees are replanted, the forest can be a source of renewable fire wood. Proper land management.
A beautiful story.
thank you for this
Beautiful place...
Just amazing!!!
Beautiful! 👏🏾👏🏾👍🏾👍🏾😀😀
beautiful story