Mike Mattocks
Walk for Wind 2006:
Not just a post-burrito stroll anymore!
by Mike Mattocks
I have volunteered for Sierra Club in the past, but I only recently became a member, after moving out to Minnesota from Washington last fall for graduate school. In my volunteer work in Washington State I worked to protect old growth forest from logging, and in my volunteer work here in Minnesota I learned about the proposed Big Stone II expansion and helped with efforts to pass legislation to regulate mercury from such plants. We had great success and one of the strongest mercury reduction bills in the country was recently passed. However, mercury pollution is just one of many problems with coal-fired power plants. I decided to go on the first outing of the Walk for Wind series (the first of five outings during weekends throughout late May and June) because it was a great way to raise awareness about the many shortcomings of plants like Big Stone II as energy sources, and about the benefits of wind power as a clean, renewable alternative. An added bonus was the opportunity to see the beautiful countryside of my new state, and to have a fun camping trip with great people.
On our first day we headed west, quickly leaving behind the city and the surrounding suburbs with their identical little lawns and driveways and entering the further suburbs with larger lawns and wider driveways. Finally we left all that behind and our horizons opened upon the lush green grasses of the very largest suburbs with the very widest driveways and the most spacious lots, all freshly carved from the plains. And then where the suburbs left off we found countryside, trembling with foreboding.
It is a long way to Montevideo. I'm not going to lie. It is a very long drive. Yeah sure, you betcha. It's no trip to St. Paul, let me just say that. Unless of course you live very far from St. Paul, as many people do. But luckily we had great tunes, great people and lots of laughs, and the sun smiled on wide plots of black earth, wide plots newly planted (corn, I'm guessing), tall green trees and little towns with funny names. Aside from a disappointing attempt to find a Culver's and gorge ourselves, the trip out was entirely successful.
Happy campers at Lac qui Parle State Park
A highlight for me, being new to the state, was at the first campsite where we saw a "violation courtesy box" for people to voluntarily pay a fine and quietly scold themselves if they are late leaving the campground, or early entering the campground, or otherwise naughty, and which could not exist in any state but Minnesota. At Lac Qui Parle State Park we checked in at the office where they have a really quality exhibit on the Canada Goose and other birds of the area. Pelicans are native to the region, which I think none of us realized. Things like this might be one reason we kept getting ribbed for being city folk, despite the fact that most of us grew up in small towns. If you're looking for a display of pelicans, eagles, herons, geese, as well as some of the creatures that try to eat those birds' young, all stuffed and mounted behind glass, and if you're looking for only the highest quality, this is the place to go. The office and the upper campground overlook the large Lac Qui Parle, a French translation of the original Dakota name, "The Lake That Speaks." After several hours driving across western Minnesota it will speak to any traveler and say quite clearly: "I'm different. I'm not flat. I'm not farmland. Camp here." And we did.
Down in the lake basin we found site number two, arguably the best site in Lac Qui Parle State Park, though not at its prime due to state budget cuts. I set up my famous, partly-invisible REI Taj tent with special customized camo tarp in place of a missing rain-fly. Other, less glorious tents were also set up, and then we headed up out of the basin to Milan, which the Italians will be surprised to learn is actually pronounced "MY-lun." We had cheesy pizza at Jake's Pizza and took in a folk concert across the street, loaded up with necessities like chocolate and chips, and headed back down into our lake basin where we celebrated and attempted unsuccessfully to guard our campfire from suicidal June bugs long into the night.
`Saturday at eleven in Milan, the site of a spirited Norwegian heritage festival called Syttende Mai, we set up our humble Sierra Club table alongside the booths selling crafts and buttery foods. We had a great few hours talking with people about wind power. As it turned out, that town shares with several other nearby towns a high school which is partly powered by wind energy. We were privileged to Norwegian music, Norwegian dancing, conversation with lots of old and young Milanians, and sunshine. The basic idea here was just to educate people about how the proposed expansion of the Big Stone II coal plant would affect them, as well as the rest of the state, and about the opportunity that their windy land has for generating electricity from renewable wind power. People were knowledgeable and receptive, clearly because they know first hand that such projects would not only reduce pollution but also bring revenue to their area. We were warmly welcomed to tea at the local church, and announced as "the Wind People here to visit us."
Minnesota River at Upper Sioux Agency State Park
Upper Sioux Agency State Park - old agency building
At two o'clock we met several other folks at Upper Sioux Agency State Park in Granite Falls for the walking portion of our walk for wind outing. I thought the Lac Qui Parle was gorgeous; this spot was truly epic. It is no wonder this place is a sacred area for the Dakota people. We were privileged to have the company of the Upper Sioux Indian Community's Tribal Chair, who graciously took the time to speak to us about the history of the place and his people, and join us in our walk. Also joining us were his wife and young daughter (who knew more about plants and wildlife than all of us combined), as well as a family from the area. We walked along the spine of a grassy ridge situated just above the confluence of the Minnesota and Yellow Medicine Rivers, as our guide explained the history of this important spot. It had been the site of the Yellow Medicine Agency, created to carry out the terms of the Treaty of Traverse Des Sioux of 1851. The all too familiar story is that the party entering the agreement at a bargaining disadvantage left it with a whole lot less land, and even that treaty was later violated. Ancestors of our guide had lived in that spot for many thousands of years, and after his people were dispersed even from that small remaining sliver of land they later returned to the area and faced it becoming a state park.
Confluence of the Minnesota and Yellow Medicine Rivers
I'm going out on a limb here, but arguably dinosaurs once walked upon that very site. Glaciers definitely crushed it. After the glaciers receded, humans lived as fisherman and hunters on that land for thousands of years. Our guide's ancestors had lived and died and might even be buried there. A European farm settlement had worked the soil for some seventy years. Industrialization later turned the rivers into repositories for waste and industrial pollution. 21st century technology has now allowed for cleaner methods of energy production, yet as we looked down upon the prairie that day, the permitting process was moving forward on Big Stone II, and even more pollution for this fragile area was in the works.
That night we attended a gathering put on by the local group Clean Up the River Environment, or CURE: A large bonfire, several speakers discussing the history of the area and conservation efforts, much bratwurst and delightful music. Later that night we feasted on s'mores and chocolate-stuffed bananas, a little-known tropical cousin to the s'more. Although we'd prepared 100% for the 20% chance of thunderstorms we had only clear skies, packed from one horizon to the other with stars. In the morning we walked through the prairie beside the campground to the very tip of the peninsula between rivers. It sounds silly but the grasses really are very beautiful the way they move, like ripples on a lake. It was as mesmerizing as campfire embers. And darting around above those grasses were many brightly colored birds we had the honor of naming — such fine specimens as the Yellow-Rumped Grass Cruiser, the Mostly-Blue People Bomber, or the White-Wattled Prairie Thrasher, all of them frolicking and winning the war on bugs in the tall, flowing grasses of Upper Sioux Agency State Park.
Granite Falls - walk to rivers
Our ride home was slightly less successful than the ride out, but only because our standards were higher: We weren't just trying to make it home, we set ourselves upon a quest for the holy ball of twine. We had heard tell of the world's largest ball of twine, located somewhere upon the vasty plains of southern Minnesota, and we sought it out with much asking of locals who didn't know what we were talking about. It turns out we were on the wrong highway. The giant twiny ball is in Darwin, on highway 12. This conquest will have to await the next of our many Walk for Wind expeditions.
Who knew that learning about clean energy in Western Minnesota could be so much fun? Be part of the next Walk for Wind story! Check out the schedule and sign up! Whether you do it for the ice caps, for the camping, or for the twine, your support will make a real difference in the effort to protect our delicate environment.
Walk for Wind - Granite Falls - We're solar powered!