The nation’s Christmas tree was in Helena Saturday night, kept under wraps yet still on display outside the Montana Historical Society.

With holiday music by Jack Gladstone playing in the background, a few hundred Helenans stopped by to sign the semi-truck carting the 77-foot-tall tree on it’s way to Washington, D.C., where it will be displayed at the Capitol building.

“Take a whiff of that — it’s the smell of Christmas,” Chuck Oliver, a district ranger for the Bitterroot National Forest, said to one woman standing at the cut-out section of the semi where people could peep inside and see the tip of the tree, wrapped in a cord of glowing white lights.

Oliver is one of about a dozen people who are escorting the tree from Montana to D.C. The 80-foot, 140-year-old subalpine fir was cut Nov. 1 in Oliver’s Darby Ranger District and had to be shortened a bit to fit into the semi, he said. Looking at information passed out by the Bitterroot Forest, this so-called “People’s Tree” is among the tallest to grace the Capitol grounds.

The tree is on tour as it winds its way through 22 cities in Montana, noted Nan Christianson, Bitterroot public information officer. It will pass through Butte today, White Sulphur Springs, Harlowton and Big Timber on Monday, then onto Billings on Tuesday. By Dec. 2, the tree will have traveled through seven more states and arrived in Washington

It’s followed by a truck holding about 70 “companion trees” that will grace other offices in the Capitol.

“We estimate that close to 5,000 people will turnout to celebrate the tree,” Christianson said, as she handed out magic markers, encouraging people to sign their names and write a brief note on the side of the semi.

Brittany Wrzesinski, 11, and her brother Justice, 7, were two who took Christianson up on the offer.

Snacking on Dilly Bars with their great-aunt Ann Black, the two kids said they were excited to see the tree and sent it on its way.

Click here to track the national Christmas tree on its trip to Washington, D.C.

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com