For many it was truly a life-changing experience compared to the urban areas in which they had been raised. Nephews, friends and relatives that visited the North Fork looked forward to their next trip. Horses rented for the summer expanded their exploration of the woods and honed their navigation skills. Allen and Kari learned to navigate through the timber, to identify tracks and sign, and picked up other woods skills, all the time viewing it as a big adventure. The Kintla Trail ran through the property making a foot highway north to neighbors a mile and a half away, or south to the old Kintla Ranch a mile away. Occasionally a black bear was seen, but very rarely was there any indication of grizzly bears except for the distinctive track in the snow during hunting season. Whitetail deer were constant visitors, along with the chipmunks and ground squirrels. The mysteries of the Montana woods became a learning experience for Allen and Kari and friends and family who visited. When the two story cabin was completed in 1965, the family settled in to enjoy the North Fork. Baird and Esther would bring nephews out each summer with the offer of room and board and some wage for work on the cabin. The focus then shifted to building a log cabin large enough to accommodate the growing family, as well as visitors. The one-room homestead cabin was made habitable in the first year as the family used that for cooking and meals, but slept in a travel trailer they pulled from Illinois. When Baird and Esther purchased the Monahan Homestead in 1958, they were seeking solitude and a place in the mountains to spend family vacations away from the heat and humidity of their native Illinois. As Allen says, “we grow grizzly bears, and harvest the occasional lodgepole pine sawlog.” The property is rich in wildlife and native vegetation, scenic views, recreation opportunities and draws friends and family from all over the country. The Chrisman Family Forest is an excellent example of management for multiple objectives. With a management plan written by Allen, the Chrisman property was accepted into the American Tree Farm System in 1997. Active forest management began with lodgepole pine salvage harvest in the late 1970s during a mountain pine beetle epidemic followed by commercial thinning, hazardous fuels projects, and extensive pre-commercial thinning. The time spent growing up on the North Fork led Allen to pursue a career in Forestry, and both he and Kari chose to attend the University of Montana in order to be closer to the North Fork. It was purchased as a family get-away to the mountains, far away from the corn and soybean fields and flatlands of their native Illinois. Baird and Esther’s son Allen and their daughter Kari (Chrisman) Wiley, grew up playing in the streams, forests and meadows of their family forest. The 310 acre property was purchased by Baird and Esther Chrisman in 1958 from the estate of Bart Monahan, the original homesteader who filed on the property in the 1920s. The Chrisman Family Forest is a remarkable Tree Farm in the North Fork of the Flathead River Valley in Montana, just west of Glacier National Park and five miles south of the Canadian Border.
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