Forestry Expo is self-guided this year
<p>Youngster Ben Dalen was helping out at the Back Country Horsemen of the Flathead exhibit at an earlier Forestry Expo.</p>
The Family Forestry Expo is an annual event that offers hands-on exposure to the role forests play in our everyday lives. The Family Forestry Expo returns in 2021 after the large event was canceled last spring due to the pandemic. This year in place of the traditional all-day, in-person event, organizers have planned a self-guided experience for the weekends of May 7-8 and May 15-16.
Families are invited to visit the Expo site at the Trumbull Creek Educational Forest and take part in a short, self-guided forest walk to explore and learn about our area forests. The site is located about two miles north of the junction of US Highway 2 and Montana Highway 40, just west of Columbia Falls, Montana. At the trail entrance, visitors
can pick up a trail map with forest scavenger hunt activity and follow the marked stops along the half-mile wood chipped trail that follows Trumbull Creek.
Visitors are encouraged to bring their smartphone and tap into the posted QR codes, for a deeper dive into learning about the many parts of a forest, with videos about fisheries, wildlife, forest management, fire, backcountry camping ethics, archeology, riparian areas, plant identification, and logging operations. The videos can also be viewed on the Forestry Expo website or the Family Forestry Expo YouTube channel.
During their walk, families can discover the names of common forest plants, investigate the updated forestry and forest practices signs, do some in-depth exploring on how to camp in a low-impact way, get a unique view of Trumbull Creek, find and learn about forest birds, and walk the ‘riparian path’ along the creek.
Forestry Expo organizers ask that visitors ‘leave what they find’ and make sure to ‘packit- in, pack-it-out’. During these two weekends, organizers ask that you leave your dog at home.