Sensational Sundays: Champion Trees of Bismarck – Their History and Stories

For a prairie city, Bismarck has a magnificent urban forest. Most of the trees in the city limits, except for those adjacent to the Missouri River bottoms, have been planted and then watered and maintained. Susan Wefald and Nancy Willis, volunteers with the Bismarck Forestry Department, started to identify Champion Trees in Bismarck in January 2021. A champion tree is a tree that is the largest of its species. Learn when the first shade trees were planted in Bismarck, about roving cattle attacking trees in Bismarck’s early days, where to find the champion trees in Bismarck, and more.