Two Harbors tree giveaway helps Lake County forests recover

Ten thousand native tree seedlings passed through Burlington Station in Two Harbors, giving Lake County residents a concrete way to respond to a fire season that felt uncomfortably close. Let’s Plant Trees said it distributed the seedlings locally as part of a broader effort that put more than 14,000 trees into community hands across the region, with support from North Shore Federal Credit Union, Grandma’s Marathon, the Two Harbors Area Community Fund and The Carolyn Foundation.

The timing mattered. The giveaway came just days after the Stewart Trail Fire was fully contained on May 19. MPR News reported the fire damaged or destroyed 34 structures, including eight primary structures, and later said it burned more than 350 acres after a downed power line ignited dry, windy conditions. The fire also prompted evacuations and Highway 61 closures northeast of Two Harbors, making forest loss and wildfire risk feel immediate in Lake County rather than abstract.

Let’s Plant Trees says it was founded in 2023 in Lutsen by Carrie and Mike Nicklow. The group started with 500 seedlings in 2023, then grew to more than 20,000 distributed in 2025. It is now projecting 50,000 seedlings in 2026 and 100,000 in 2027, a scale-up that shows the effort is no longer a one-off gesture but a regional restoration network. The organization says it gives free native Minnesota seedlings to property owners and coordinates volunteer tree-planting projects, with guidance on where and how to plant them.

The Two Harbors stop also fit into a wider distribution map. Let’s Plant Trees’ 2026 schedule includes giveaway sites in Bemidji, Virginia, Ely, Grand Marais, Lutsen and Grand Rapids, signaling that the Lake County pickup was part of a statewide effort rather than a single community event. The group has also linked its work to Grandma’s Marathon through the Young Athletes Foundation, which is partnering with Let’s Plant Trees in a 2026 sustainability initiative that lets participants choose to plant a tree instead of receiving a shirt at each event.

That connection matters in a county where spruce budworm damage has already weakened spruce and balsam forests, and where dead standing timber can raise wildfire risk. Minnesota DNR says escaped debris fires are the leading cause of wildfires in Minnesota, and the agency’s fire-protection mission covers more than 45 million acres of public and private lands. In that context, a free seedling giveaway is more than symbolic. It is a small, distributed form of recovery that asks residents to help shape what Lake County’s forests become next.