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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
City of Duluth Communications Office
411 West First Street • Duluth, Minnesota 55802 • www.duluthmn.gov
For more information, please call 218-730-5309
DATE: 8/11/2026
SUBJECT: City of Duluth to conduct forest management work along Mission Creek
BY: Kelli Latuska, Public Information Officer

City of Duluth to conduct forest management work along Mission Creek

 

 

 

[DULUTH, MN] The City of Duluth will be cutting brush, felling trees, planting trees, and removing and treating invasive plant species along Mission Creek beginning this week.

This work is being funded by the state’s Outdoor Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Land Trust. The purpose of this work is to increase long-lived native tree species such as White Pine, White Cedar, Red Oak and Yellow Birch in the Mission Forest.

The Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa will perform the work. Staff will use ATVs on some trails to access restoration sites. Bikers, hikers, and other visitors may hear chainsaws and see small groups of people working in the forest intermittently.

Some of the forest management work will be conducted on slumps along the creek and some work will be done on the floodplain, where natural tree regeneration is weak.

To avoid having tubes and cages left in the forest, the City is trying a new technique to keep deer from eating tree seedlings. This technique, called a debris fence, involves using strategically-felled trees as a protective “fence” around new plantings.

 

Mission Forest management work is expected to continue for a few years, with work periods occurring mostly during summers.

  

 

 

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