VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK— When it comes to the big trees of the North Country, the jack pine rarely gets any respect. Forget the towering grace of a white pine or the massive girth of a 300-year-old red pine— the jack pine is “old” at 75, with a scraggly form and a stature that rarely warrants a second look.

But a jack pine not far from Namakan Lake just this side of the Canadian border, got a second look from a pair of wildlife researchers, Tom Gable and Austin Homkes, who happened upon the tree while studying wolf packs in the national park. Gable and Homkes later went back for a second look and they confirmed what they had already suspected— that the tree would likely set a new state record. It turns out, however, that it did even better that that. The tree recently made its debut on the list of the largest tree for each species in the entire United States, as documented by the American Forests National Champion Tree Registry.

America’s largest trees are determined by a point system, with points awarded for trunk circumference, height, and spread of the crown. In this case, the champion jack pine (pinus banksiana) measured in with 82 inches around the trunk, a height of 73 feet, and a crown spread of 39 feet for a total of 165 points.

It’s impressive… at least for a jack pine. The state record red pine, by contrast, tips the scale at 245 points, with a circumference of 115 inches and a total height of 120 feet. It’s found on Dora Lake in Itasca County. The state record white pine, found in far southern Minnesota, has a circumference of 214 inches and rises 103 feet with a crown spread of 84 feet, for a total of 338 points.

Gable said the big jack pine is located about 50 meters off the shoreline of Namakan Lake, but you’re not likely to notice it from the water. “For a jack pine, it’s a big one, but compared to other trees it doesn’t stand out against the rest of the forest,” he added. “The thing was just so robust, with a big crown. That’s what made it really stand out.”

While the jack pine may not be the stately symbol of the North Country to many, it’s probably a more apt symbol than its larger and more shapely cousins. Up here, we’re close to the northwestern edge of the range of both white and red pine. The jack pine, by contrast, is a true tree of the North Country, with a range that runs from Quebec to the Yukon. In the U.S., it’s really only found in Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and Michigan. Perhaps its somewhat bedraggled form is a more appropriate symbol for the hardscrabble nature of life in the cold North.