Tree permit demand surges as Manitobans head to the woods for that 'Charlie Brown' Christmas tree
A 10-fold jump in requests since permits became available online during pandemic
Yvette Brault's nerves and patience wear a little thin as the mercury drops and the sun sinks below the treeline of a snow-encrusted forest east of Winnipeg late Monday afternoon.
Brault's husband, Dave Reede, 69, asked her to wait on a trail as he ventured into the dense woods in search of the perfect, bushy balsam fir tree.
She calls out "Dave" repeatedly. It's been a while since Reede called back.
"We're looking for my husband who is in the middle of nowhere trying to find his tree, our Christmas tree," Brault said. "Let's hope he gets here safely … maybe this will be the best tree yet."
Eventually, a sweat-covered Reede thrashes out of a thicket with a big grin and eight-foot-tall balsam fir in tow.
"I actually got lost in the bush for like two or three hours. I found the tree — the exact tree — except … I lost my saw," he said. "My wife worries about me because I had bypass surgery a while ago … but I am still pretty fit."
The couple has been chopping down their own evergreens for 35 years. Their past seven have come from Ste. Rita, about 50 kilometres east of the city — one of a dozen or so patches of Crown land where you can legally harvest a Christmas tree with a permit during December.
The permits, which go for just under $10, are becoming more popular.
WATCH | How Dave got lost in a Manitoba forest in search of the perfect Christmas tree:
Between 2010 and 2019, Manitoba's forestry branch sold about 500 permits on average per year. That average has jumped tenfold to 5,000 annually since 2020, when online licensing was introduced.
The online option emerged during widespread pandemic closures of government facilities in 2020. Formerly, Manitobans had to go to a forestry district office in person to buy a permit.
"Shutdowns for COVID are passed, but now what we're seeing is that people have created these family traditions and so they're still purchasing the permits and going out," said Michael Doig, manager of the forest services section of Manitoba's forestry branch.
"While a tree from a Christmas tree-grower is more expensive than a Crown land permit tree, they do have nice full coverage and they're shaped nicely … You have to pay for that."
Doig said foresters with the provincial service monitor the designated plots of Crown land. Once a plot has become picked over — this might take years — the province designates another area for public use and members of the forestry service begin seeding and regeneration efforts.
Conservation and forestry officials also monitor the illegal harvest of Christmas trees.
Last year, a man was charged with illegally harvesting black spruce trees from a Manitoba government plantation and then selling them from a business in Steinbach.
Some 187 black spruce trees across nearly a hectare of land were chopped down, leading to a fine of $8,000 earlier this year, Doig said. Even chopping down a single tree for personal use can net fines in the $175 to $300 range, he said.
As far as the debate over real or fake Christmas trees, Doig is partial to the latter, despite admitting he and other family have "moved to the dark side" due to travel over the holiday season that makes it hard to care for a live one.
"They're a little bit more cost effective for families to have a tree that they can reuse year after year, but there is a footprint that comes along with those artificial trees," he said.
"I think about the footprint of harvesting a tree … to me that's a smaller footprint per year than having an artificial tree."
Andrew Tomasson and his family favour the real thing, too, but they're also looking for ways to save during what can be the most expensive time of the year.
WATCH | Tomasson tries out Crown land Christmas tree program for 1st time:
"We normally go to a tree farm, but we looked it up this year and it got quite expensive, almost double the amount," said Tomasson, an evergreen strapped to the top of his vehicle at the Crown land site in Ste. Rita.
"Being able to come out here and still cut down your own tree at a reasonable price is definitely sort of the influence behind it."
Rob Knodel says it took him about 20 minutes to find a tree in Ste. Rita, chop it down and haul it back to his vehicle.
"We used to go to tree farms and whatnot, and we decided to try something different and so we came out here a couple years ago and we liked it," he said. "It's a good place to come out and let the dog run around a little bit and find your Charlie Brown Christmas tree."
As for Reede's perfect balsam fir, it was looking a little worse for wear after being dragged out of the bush.
"It's all scraped up, but that will be a story to tell," he said.
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