Forestry at Michigan Tech had an interesting, if belated, genesis. Its progenitor was Ubald "Bert" Noblet, a gifted and colorful individual. After graduating from Gladstone High School, Noblet served as an aerial gunners mate in WWI. Afterwards he enrolled at Michigan State (MAC), graduating with a degree in forestry in 1922 (he later earned a Masters from the University of Minnesota). Noblet went to Houghton to coach hockey at then Michigan College of Mining and Technology. He had attended State on an athletics scholarship, starring in three sports, and played in the first hockey game held there, in 1921, against Notre Dame, on Red Cedar River Ice!

Noblet married Gladys Nebel of Munising, and bought an old logging camp on Dana Lake, some miles south of town in 1930. He opened it up as a boys camp (for about 12 kids each summer) and also invited numerous friends and even military cronies for visits, especially during the deer hunting season. (A report stating that Noblet used this property to train his forestry students was not confirmed, although some of them no doubt occasionally did go there.)

An abandoned CCC facility, Camp Pori, near Mass City in the western U.P., served to train forest technicians and Michigan Technological University forestry undergraduates from 1946 to 1950. Program director "Hammer" Steinhilb (center, smoking pipe) stands in front of his mentor Bert Noblet (in dark fedora), who began the MTU forestry school in 1936. (Michigan Tech Forestry Department)

In a humorous aside, one fall Noblet entertained some military buddies from Selfridge Field near Detroit including Curtis LeMay and Claire Chennault, both of whom became famous Air Corps generals in WWII. They flew up in double-cockpit biplanes with pontoons, which enabled them to land on Dana Lake. The men reportedly spent most of their time drinking and telling lies, and didn't do much hunting. Once in a while they would shoot at targets across the lake with a .30 caliber machine gun borrowed from the plane! Evidently they never hit anything.

After the war, Noblet traded "fortys" with the Forest Service in order to acquire the abandoned CCC property, Camp Pori, near Mass City in the U.P. The place had served as a prisoner-of-war internment facility housing German troops and was still in reasonably good condition in 1946. The camp was used by MTU to instruct aspiring forestry technicians during a 33-week course, in such basic subjects as land surveying, timber cruising, lumber grading, etc. (Periodically they also battled forest fires or planted trees for the Forest Service.) This school was directed by Helmuth "Hammer" Steinhilb, a graduate of the first Michigan Tech forestry class, who joined the faculty in 1945. He was charged with developing a ranger program much like the one taught at the Wyman School. Graduates from Steinhilb's program were highly skilled in their craft, so had no trouble getting good jobs in their chosen field after graduating. Camp Pori also was used as a summer school for regular forestry students through 1950.

Thereafter the mandatory summer session was shifted to the Ford Forestry Center at Alberta, a wide spot in the road east of L'Anse. This sawmill and homes for workers had been built in 1935 by the Ford Motor Car Company (as 1 of 5 in the U.P.) to supply wooden frames and panels for station wagons, plus spokes, steering wheels, etc., for various car models manufactured during that early era. (Did you know, for instance, that 250 board feet of high-quality hardwood lumber was used to make a Ford Model T, the infamous Tin Lizzy?) This steam-driven plant had a daily output of between 18,000 b.f. of hardwood lumber to 23,000 b.f. of hemlock - which, for the uninitiated, is a lot of wood.

With a little "inside help" from a prominent alumnus, Noblet talked the Ford people into deeding this no longer needed property to MTU. The gift included three sections of prime selectively-cut northern hardwood timberland nearby. These stands have been used ever since for research on proper silvicultural management of this important forest type.

When Noblet retired in 1962, he was succeeded by Gene Hesterberg, a specialist in forest pathology turned administrator. Ten years after Noblet retired, friends and students tried to get the new forestry facility named for him. However, the University had a policy of not so honoring living notables. Several years after his death (age 87), the name of this edifice was changed to the U. J. Noblet Forestry and Wood Products Building for this esteemed personage. (He helped found the Michigan-Wisconsin Timber Producers Association, was inducted into the Michigan Forestry Hall of Fame in Manistee, and is enshrined in the U.P. Sports Hall of Fame at Northern Michigan University, Marquette.)

I once was interviewed by Noblet for a newly authorized position teaching wildlife science to his students. I'd like to think I didn't get this plum job because my salary demands were outrageously high for academe!

From its anemic beginning, by the 1970s MTU's forestry enrollment reached 700. Today the school has over 190 students, including an impressive total of doctoral candidates. The faculty, of course, had grown commensurately, and is deeply involved in research. It seems noteworthy that, following the trend in vogue at other institutions of higher learning, more than one-quarter of Michigan Tech's forestry enrollment presently consists of women. Alas, when I was a student at MSU there were no scholarly co-eds majoring in forestry (nor in wildlife management, for that matter) to add some sparkle to our often drab/dull classes.