Northwood, N.D., officials have asked sightseers to stay away, and so I haven't been there to look at tornado damage. I've seen the pictures, though - spectacular pictures taken by Herald photographers - and they make me cry for the trees.
Northwood was a shady place last Sunday afternoon. The next day, it was exposed to the sun and this winter, it will be buffeted by wind. Because so many of its trees are gone.
To me, Northwood represents the best of Scandinavian resolve. It's a neat, well-kept town, and it had many big, old trees. Certainly some of these were planted by the Norwegian immigrants who created the town - planted in hope, which of course is faith projected into the future.
Generations now have benefited from their plans and planting.
Northwood will have a difficult road to recovery. That's the nature of it, as we learned in Grand Forks after the Flood of '97 and, on a smaller scale, after a windstorm tore through the city.
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That storm took down a lot of trees, including many of those planted along University Avenue by people who imagined a wide, tree-lined thoroughfare joining the campus and downtown.
Driving around North Dakota, you often find evidence of the special regard that the homesteaders had for trees. Many rural churches were located in groves of trees. If there were no trees, trees were quickly planted, so that today, churchyards, cemeteries and shade seem intimately linked.
Trees give comfort.
They provide shelter and shade, of course. The breeze in the trees is pleasant. The wind in the trees reminds all hearers of nature's power. Trees define the landscape, giving it both dimension and cotour that it wouldn't have without the trees.
In the days before settlement and widespread tree planting, trees themselves were landmarks. Trees defined the course of rivers and the presence of lakes or, in some cases, of low spots wet enough to hold off fire and allow a tree to grow. One such cottonwood, already old and hollow, served as a post office in Blooming Township, just northwest of Grand Forks, because it could be seen for miles.
Homesteads sometimes marked the borders of their properties with trees, as well, and most planted at least a few trees around the buildings. There was a marked difference in how settlers of differing nationalities used trees. Norwegians seemed to want to be surrounded by them. Germans from Russia often planted a single tree by the door. In rural Pembina County, there are trees on the south and east, the prevailing direction of the wind in parts of Iceland - but not much shelter in a North Dakota winter, when the wind comes from another quarter all together.
Our affinity for trees may be bred in us. Humans originated on the African savanna, a landscape of scattered trees and open spaces - different from the Red River Valley in its randomness but not in its combination of trees, grass and open space.
Perhaps we consciously try to replicate this landscape in our city parks and farmyards.
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Trees are important to us for other reasons, too, of course. The economic importance of trees can hardly be overestimated. Wood is the basis of our material culture, providing the raw material for items as diverse as shingles and salad forks.
This has been a bad year for trees. Northwood lost its trees in last Sunday's tornado. Greece lost trees in an inferno of forest fires. Same in Montana. Smoke from those fires reached the Red River Valley, reddening the sunset and reminding us all of the vulnerability of the natural landscape.
It's getting harder and harder for trees to survive, with increasing urbanization, advancing agriculture and various industrial threats, including acid rain.
Yet trees provide the means of our survival. They are the great lungs that scrub carbon dioxide out of the air and replace it with oxygen, offering a little relief, at least, from global warming.
Shade and comfort can only grow more vital as the years roll along, and so we need to have concern for our trees. We ought to be planting many more of them.
Northwood will be a good place to start.
