The hunt is on to find U.S. Capitol Christmas tree in Tongass National Forest

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Christmas may be months away but the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree to adorn the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C. was in full swing this weekend in Southeast Alaska.

The tradition of selecting a Capitol Christmas Tree from one of the nation’s national forests dates back to 1970. In 2015 the Chugach National Forest provided the Capitol Tree. This year the honor will go to the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.

Jim Kaufmann is the Director of Capitol Grounds and is responsible for making the selection. Kaufmann journeyed to the Tongass along with Forest Service Employees to view seven candidates over the weekend that met the criteria for the Capitol Tree.

“It has to be a perfect Christmas tree, so just like in somebody’s living room it needs to look good, we want it looking good and showcased very well,” Kaufmann said. “The big difference is, it has to be perfect, 360 degrees.”

The tree selected must generally be 20 to 30 feet wide and between 65 to 80 feet tall. Thomas Roland, lead with the U.S. Forest Service’s Tree Team, said they used a measuring technology called LiDAR to evaluate trees on 1.7 million acres in the forest.

“For the aerial based LiDAR we were able to model individual characteristics for over 13.5 million trees and then filter those characteristics to provide ideas of where ideal candidates may be,” he said.

Roland said narrowing down the selection to just seven candidates took a lot of leg work by Forest Service employees. After days of stomping through the Tongass forest and even journeying by boat to reach islands in the National Forest, Kaufmann was impressed.

“Right now my head is spinning because there are so many good candidates out there,” he said.

Kaufmann is expected to make his final selection this week. Details on the tree will be shared with the public closer to the harvest date in October. The tree will be delivered to the nation’s capitol on November 22.

Alaskans are invited to participate in an effort to decorate the Capitol Christmas Tree as well as 45 companion trees. The U.S. Forest Service is looking for thousands of handmade ornaments as well as handmade tree skirts.