Planting Roots: Why We’re Partnering With Tentree This Earth Month
Updated April 4, 2026
Our forests took a hit. This Earth Month, we're helping restore them.
Every April, Earth Day gives us a moment to pause and ask whether the choices we're making—as individuals, as businesses, as a community—actually add up to something real. This year, that question hit home closer than usual. Many of us felt the weight of Northern Michigan's 2025 ice storm firsthand—watching the forests we ride, hike, and live among take a hit that reminded us just how irreplaceable they are. The hardwood roots that ripple beneath your tires on a familiar trail, the white pines wide enough to throw real shade worth stopping for—these aren't just scenery. They're the heart of this place.
So this year, we didn't want to just acknowledge Earth Day. We wanted to do something about it. That's why we're partnering with tentree, one of the most mission-driven brands in outdoor apparel. Every tentree purchase at Boyne Country Sports this Earth Week contributes to real reforestation efforts around the world, including right here in Northern Michigan, which has just been added as an official planting site for the very first time.
Who is tentree?
tentree was founded on a premise that sounds almost too simple: for every item purchased, 10 trees are planted. But behind that simple promise is a brand built from the ground up—literally—by people who believe that business can be a force for ecological restoration.
The founders weren't marketers or fashion executives. They were tree planters. Before tentree existed, co-founders Kalen and Derrick Emsley were teenagers in Saskatchewan planting trees for carbon credit contracts, learning firsthand what it means to restore land that's been worn down. That ethos never left them. When they launched tentree, tree planting wasn't a marketing add-on—it was the entire point. As Derrick has said, "We didn't found tentree because we wanted to create a clothing brand. We founded tentree because we wanted to create a positive impact on the world."
To date, tentree has funded the planting of over 115 million trees across 13 countries—Madagascar, Haiti, Nepal, Senegal, Indonesia, and more—to reach one billion trees by 2030. They're a certified B Corporation, use organic and recycled materials throughout their line, and their supply chain is audited annually. This is not greenwashing. This is the whole business model.
A Storm That Hit Home
On March 28, 2025, a storm rolled through Northern Michigan that made a big impact—and national news. Freezing rain fell for over 60 hours straight, coating everything in over an inch of ice and snapping trees and power poles across the region in one of the most extreme ice storms in over a century. The storm was declared a state of emergency and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes which lasted up to two weeks for some, interrupted cell service, and made tree-fallen roads impossible to travel.
For our Northern Michigan Resorts, the damage was deeply personal. The Highlands, one of the Midwest's largest ski destinations, was directly in the zone of extreme impact, with 90% of its red pine plantation damaged, looking like a war zone. “Every corner had an incredible number of limbs and trees down,” said general manager Mike Chumbler. “The first 24 to 36 hours, we had to be mostly aware of the imminent danger of trees and limbs coming down, and it really made the working environment hazardous.”
Despite the challenges the resort faced once power resumed in 3 days, they were able to offer beds, showers, and hot meals to 50 staff members and over 115 linemen. Boyne Mountain, one of the few places in the area that didn’t lose power, opened its doors to those who did and offered rooms to utility crews who worked tirelessly to restore service back to community members. The remediation effort was months-long, with over 15,000 man-hours of labor dedicated to storm cleanup alone.
The broader region fared no better. Nearly one million acres of DNR-managed land fell within the impacted zone, affecting 19 state parks, 54 forest campgrounds, and over 3,200 miles of managed trails. Nearly a year later, many residents are still feeling the storm's impact — visible in piles of brush, damaged homes, and the lingering weight of loss. In many communities like Boyne Falls, the eerie quiet of thinned-out woods where road noise now carries through in ways it never did before. Decades of old-growth forest were gone in just a weekend.
New Growth: Michigan Planting Site
When you buy a tentree product, the 10 trees that get planted don't just disappear into a vague promise. That's thanks in large part to veritree—a company co-founded by the same team behind tentree, built specifically to bring transparency and accountability to reforestation. veritree is the organization doing the actual planting, tracking every tree with verified data so that stores, brands, and customers can see exactly where trees are going, what species are being planted, and how those sites are performing over time.
And as of this past summer, one of veritree's 15 active planting sites around the world is right here in the northern portion of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. veritree's efforts in Michigan state forests focus on replanting red pine, a key species that supports diverse wildlife habitats dependent on pinecones and conifer canopies—particularly for birds like the red crossbill and pine warbler. To date, 31,326 trees have already been planted in our backyard with an estimated 90% survivability rate. In a region still healing from the devastation of the 2025 ice storm, that number isn't just a statistic. It's a new beginning.
Want to see the impact of thosetreestaking root? Visit veritree's site to explore the real impact being made right here in Michigan and across the globe.
How You Can Help This Earth Week
Shop tentree In Store & Get A Sapling to Plant
Come into our Novi, Traverse City, and Boyne Mountain locations during Earth Week to shop our tentree selection and receive a live tree sapling as a gift with purchase that you can plant at home—but hurry while trees last. When you stop into these stores and you'll also spot our Boyne Country Sports tentree Tree Planting Tracker. (To date Boyne Country Sports has helped plant 55,880 trees!)
Shop tentree Online
We're carrying a selection of tentree products online in which every piece carries that same promise: ten trees planted per purchase, with some of those trees going right back into the ground here in Northern Michigan.
This Earth Week, the forest isn't just something we're shopping for. It's something we're building together. Shop tentree at Boyne Country Sports — in store and online during Earth Week.