‘Cathedral of Pines’ Evokes An Era Before Logging

There’s a place in Oconto County where travelers can still experience the Wisconsin that existed before the logging era.

In the Cathedral of Pines, under a canopy of old growth forest, all you can hear is the wind and the birds.

According to Andrea Schneider of Racine, she and Josh Kultgen of Waukesha made the trip “to escape the city life and reality for a while, turn off our phones and walk through the forest.”

Said Kultgen, “It got up to the point where our phones are no longer useful. We had to rely on maps.”

This remote area in the Nicolet National Forest is a trip back to the Wisconsin that existed before loggers cut down the ancient pines. In the early 1900s, Lucy Ramsey Holt pleaded with her husband, a lumberman, to spare this spiritual place that reminded her of a cathedral.

As Andrea Schneider and Josh Kultgen walk its winding trails, they can hear the great blue heron rookery before they can see it. The heron nests are at the very top of the pine canopy, more than 100 feet in the air.

“When we’re sitting in the city there’s not a whole lot of nature around,” said Kultgen.

Added Schneider, “it’s peaceful and you remember to slow down and look at things along the way, and just enjoy where you are in the moment.”

The Cathedral of the Pines is on a dirt road off of Highway 32 near the city of Mountain.