Lighting the Arizona Capitol Christmas tree has been a longstanding tradition. Last year, for the first time ever, an Arizona tribe gifted the state a tree for the occasion. But with each passing holiday season, it’s becoming more commonplace.
Formal tree talks began with state forester Tom Torres over the summer while the San Carlos Apache Tribe battled the destructive Watch Fire.
“From there, we needed to get approval from the chairman,” said San Carlos Apache Tribe forest manager Cassie Moses, who tasked inventory forester Paul Curtis to find three trees. “Curtis was behind the whole planning of getting the governor’s team out here to see which tree would be best.”
But there were restrictions, though.
“They needed a crane and a lowboy tow truck to haul the tree out, so that kind of limited us to our main, good roads,” Curtis said. “A few of them didn’t meet the size class, just because they would been too tall, I guess, for the office.”
That didn’t stop them, either.
“Once I told them what we were looking for and who was for,” he added, “they jumped out of the truck, started looking at every single decent Ponderosa pine Christmas tree out there.”
They ended up picking out a 40-foot-tall ponderosa pine for Gov. Katie Hobbs, but it will be trimmed down to 20 feet. It came from the Point of Pines, just east of Globe. Last year’s Capitol tree was a 30-foot blue spruce handpicked by the White Mountain Apache Tribe from the Fort Apache Reservation.
“This is the second year in a row a tribal government has gifted a tree to Gov. Hobbs and the Arizona citizens,” said Torres, who also oversees the Department of Forestry and Fire Management. “So it’s a big deal, and we would like to make it a trend.”
Arizona is also home to the world’s largest contiguous Ponderosa pine forest, spanning 2.6 million acres from the New Mexico state line to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, including the White Mountains, Mogollon Rim and Coconino Plateau.
In a statement, San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler referred to this forest that also traverses across a portion of the tribe’s 1.8-million-acre reservation as a “spiritual and cultural reprieve” for members, adding the gifted tree will “spread holiday warmth and cheer” but also “serve as a reminder of the natural beauty that exists within our great state and the deep roots the San Carlos Apache have in this region.”
Although Torres doesn’t consider it “a typical Christmas tree,” he’s admittedly “really happy to see that the we do have a ponderosa pine in the Executive Tower.”
Gifting a Christmas tree may seem like a small gesture, but it means a lot.
“It’s just one part of a larger relationship,” added Torres, “that we want to have with the tribal governments across the state to help each other manage the resources across the big state of Arizona.”
A tree lighting ceremony is scheduled for Mon., Dec. 2 in Phoenix.
