SANGER – Community members can usher in the holiday season with a trip up to Kings Canyon National Park and the General Grant Tree — also known as the Nation’s Christmas Tree — this December.
Sponsored by the Sanger Chamber of Commerce, the 99th annual “Trek to the Tree” is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 8 and, among other festivities, will feature a keynote speech from California State Sen. Shannon Grove. Free to attend, the Trek to the Tree ceremony offers locals and visitors alike a chance to participate in a tradition hallowed by the Nation’s Christmas Tree City.
“People can expect a beautiful ceremony, which has not only speakers from our community here, but it is a partnership between the city of Sanger, the chamber of commerce and the National Park Service,” Chamber CEO and President Karen Pearson said.
At the base of the tree that stands 267 feet tall in Kings Canyon’s Grant Grove, residents will gather alongside Sanger and Valley dignitaries, veterans and members of the National Park Service (NPS) to celebrate the holiday season and the region’s history. According to the chamber of commerce, the Christmas service will mark 100 years since Sanger resident and then-president of the chamber, R.J. Senior, stood in Grant Grove and saw a young girl remark “what a lovely Christmas tree that would be.”
It was the next year, in 1925, that Senior and then-secretary of the chamber Charles E. Lee returned to the grove to hold the first Christmas service at the General Grant Tree. Following the service, Lee wrote a letter to President Calvin Coolidge, who later designated the tree as the Nation’s Christmas Tree. Every year since, an annual service has paid tribute to the “wonder of nature” that is the tree, according to the Sanger Chamber of Commerce.
“(The tree) is also the only living shrine dedicated to our nation’s fallen, and Sanger has the honor of being the guardians of this tree, so that’s why we’ve been doing it all these years,” Pearson said.
On Nov. 11, 1956, the tree was dedicated as a perpetual shrine to those who have died while serving in the military. Up until last year, Pearson said that while the Sanger community would host its own part of the ceremony, the NPS would follow its own tradition of laying a wreath on the base of the tree to honor the country’s fallen soldiers.
“Last year we decided we were going to do this as a partnership and not as two individual ceremonies,” Pearson said. “They (NPS) asked us if one of our city officials was a veteran and if they would like to hold one side of the wreath and lay it alongside someone from NPS, and that was a special time.”
Entrance to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park will be free on Dec. 8 to allow anyone in the community to participate in the Trek to the Tree. Visitors traveling to the park should prepare for winter weather and check advisories from NPS ahead of time. Pearson said that of the three times the Trek to the Tree has been cancelled, two of those times were because of major snow storms; in the event of snow, vehicles without snow chains will be turned away from the park.
The Sanger Chamber of Commerce recommends visitors participate in its chartered bus service for the ceremony because of limited parking space and heavy traffic in the park for the ceremony. One “inclusive bus brunch tour” is being offered by the chamber this year, with 50 seats available. The bus tour begins at 8:30 a.m. and includes a stop for holiday brunch and speciality cocktails at Two Ravens Brewery. Tickets cost $150 per person and can be purchased online or in person at the chamber office.
