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Is the Last Remaining Wilderness on the Mississippi River Endangered?

Minnesota is famous for a number of natural features: the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, North Shore of Lake Superior, the land of 10,000 lakes, our parks and public lands, and much more. Here in Bemidji, Park Rapids, Walker, and Grand Rapids we too have a unique natural feature that gives all Minnesota geographic recognition, and that is “Headwaters Country” – the birthplace of the Mississippi River – one of the great rivers of the world. Some of us are well acquainted with the Headwaters and others less so, but regardless of our intimacy, it is a part of the fabric of our lives, culture, and history.  

When seeking the most pristine and undisturbed parts of any river, you go as far upstream as you can. Here, in the land where we live, we are as far upstream as you can go on this great river.

This infant Mississippi is not an easy river to traverse. There are some lengthy stretches of rocky riffles that can challenge any paddler in high water and create obstacles when in low water - and three large wetlands where even the most experienced wilderness traveler can find him or herself lost. The river alternates between these straight fast segments of river within boreal forests of pine and fir and vast open marshlands of bog, fen, cane grass, cattails, and wild rice where the channel can completely disappear.

You do not have to go too far downstream from the Headwaters before development increases. From the Twin Cities south the river is no longer a free flowing stream but a series of pools between locks and dams. The river has been exploited for every possible use we can think of, commercial fishing, button industry, transportation, waste and sewage disposal, drinking water, recreation, toxic waste dumping, and more. One writer referred to it not as the “great river” but the “great sewer.”

New Threat to the Mississippi Headwaters

Now we are facing a threat to this relatively pristine, infant river within the Mississippi Headwaters State Forest. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, along with Beltrami, Hubbard, and Clearwater Counties are currently developing an Off Highway Vehicle Plan (ATV’s, dirt bikes, and ORV’s/mudder trucks) for this forest.

Although we believe there are places in state forests for OHV trails when appropriately placed, contained, enforced, and maintained, we believe that in Mississippi Headwaters State Forest this is not the case. We believe that motorized recreation is inappropriate here due to the highly erodable soils, proximity to wetlands (60% is within 1000 ft of a river or stream) and also for cultural, historical, economic reasons and the well being of this river and this last remaining wilderness on the Mississippi. We believe this is not asking too much to protect such a small segment in the overall magnitude when considering man’s impact on this river.

The Solution to the Problem

We believe that the regional MN DNR staff has the best interest of the river in mind and we hope and believe that they will give serious consideration to closing this forest to OHV use, but Beltrami and Clearwater Counties (Hubbard not known) have made it clear that they plan on keeping all roads and trails open to OHV use. Bear in mind that in a “closed” forest people will still be able to drive their ATVs through the forest in county road ditches and township road surfaces in order to get to neighbors or to access the forest. It will be forest roads and trails that will be closed to OHV use.

For the most part, the Mississippi Headwaters is a narrow corridor only two or three miles wide, and licensed highway vehicles will still be able to cross and access this forest on “forest system roads.” The forest will not be made inaccessible to all motorized access. It is the “forest system” and “minimum maintenance” roads and trails that are sustaining heavy OHV damage that will be closed. This closure to OHV’s will not affect snowmobile trails within this forest.

How Serious Is the Problem?

Beltrami County, and possibly others, are proposing to keep all their roads and trails in the MHSF “open unless restricted” to off highway vehicles. This means that an illegally created trail today is a legal trail tomorrow unless it is posted/signed closed. They also have few, if any, off road restrictions for ATV’s to ride off trail. This is not acceptable to those of us here who know and love this region’s beauty and cultural importance. It should not be acceptable to people elsewhere in the state and nation.

The damage from illegal ATV use now is rampant and extreme. Areas receiving extreme damage include

• Coffee Pot
  

  ATV’s are illegally entering this nonmotorized area by crossing the river to avoid the large boulder before the bridge that the DNR placed to try to stop the damage in this area.  Once around the boulder, ATV’s have caused bad rutting due to hill climbing in the campground and are illegally riding a GIA snowmobile trail.

• Stumphges Rapids
  

  The area is being badly damaged by riders breaking down the bank and riding into the river. Trucks and ATV’s mudding on an adjacent road in the Stumphges area has caused erosion and a washout into the river itself. Riding in the river itself is becoming common place.

  Bear in mind that there are no more Conservation Officers today than there were prior to WWII and then there were not jet skis, ATV’s, dirt bikes, and the multitude of resource issues we have now. The truth is that whether it’s 2% or 70% of OHV riders breaking the law, it’s becoming a state of near anarchy with far too great a negative impact on our precious public lands.

Why Do We Need To Protect the Mississippi Headwaters State Forest?

This forest contains incredible diversity, including plants and animals of threatened, endangered, or special concern. DNR inventory has identified

• Resident Timber Wolves
• Trumpeter Swans nests in Beltrami County (protected specie)
• Bald Eagle nests
• Virginia Rail (specie of special concern)
• Bog Adders Mouth (endangered specie in Iron Springs Bog in Clearwater County)
• Hump Bladderwort (rare)
• Ramshead Orchid (a threatened specie in Hubbard County)
• Creek Heel Splitter and Black Sand Shell Mussels (mussels of concern)
• Clustered Burr Reed (rare)

A geologic feature unique to this area and vulnerable to ATV damage is the LaSalle Tunnel Valley. The prolific wetlands here are home to a plethora of wetland species such as the Virginia Rail and a wide variety of ducks and other waterfowl. Aside from the rare and unusual plant and animal species found here, there are sought-after fur bearers such as beaver, muskrat, fisher, and otter. Deer and duck hunting are excellent. Blueberry picking and wild rice harvesting are second to none.

Reading this list of threatened species, you may be asking yourself, what are these seemingly obscure critters good for anyhow? Ask first, what good are we doing here, while these critters are filtering water, stabilizing the river bed or shoreline, being part of the food chain, and often giving us memorable and breath-taking human experiences, none of which are compatible with off-highway vehicles.

America’s Cultural Heritage at Risk

Many specific sites and camps along this stretch of river have names that resonate with our history here: Wanigan, Coffee Pot, Bear Den, Fox Trap, and Pine Point.

Here a long history of American Indian cultures thrived. These people preceded whites by 12,000 years in Headwaters Country. Whites are relative new-comers as evident at the Itasca Bison Kill Site 7,000 to 8,000 old. Names connected forever to the Headwaters are Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, Oziwindib, Pike, Cass, Bonga, Schoolcraft, and Giacomo Beltrami.

From 1541 when de Soto first laid eyes on the river at the Gulf of Mexico to 1832 when Schoolcraft reached the Headwaters (long occupied by American Indians and frequently visited by white fur traders), the river has too many fascinating stories to told here.

If We Don’t Act to Protect the Forest, We Will Lose It

What all this means is that maintaining protection as a semi-wild river, without the damage and noise of OHV trails, has far more importance to the region’s economy and character rather than does appeasing a small minority of off-road enthusiasts. There is more potential in protecting this area for us, both economically and environmentally, by closing this state forest to OHV’s rather than developing trails.

We who live here in Headwaters Country are its landlords and hence its stewards, not only for ourselves, but on behalf of everyone else in the state and nation. It behooves us to carefully consider what we do now to this last remaining wilderness on the Mississippi.

The saying is, “you never know what you had till it’s gone.” If we lose this special place to OHVs, we will not only have lost something of environmental significance, but we will also have lost something as a people and a nation. We are losing unique places like this much too fast in our country. Once they are gone, that’s it – they are gone forever.

We are asking county commissioners, the DNR, and state legislators, for a stay of execution here.

Access, not Excess

There are many other places to ride OHV’s in our state. Every state forest doesn’t need to have ATV trails. If there is a state forest that doesn’t, Mississippi Headwaters State Forest is it!

We are not against access. This is about how we access. We want these lands to be open to hunting, trapping, berry picking, canoeing, snowmobiling, and skiing.

We, as Minnesota citizens and residents of Headwaters Country, will only get one crack at getting this right. County Commissioners have made it clear that they want every trail open in this forest. They will not change unless we bring political pressure to bear.

This is NOT a Democrat or Republican thing. This is an American thing. These public lands belong to us, the public; these are our commons, to use prudently.

When I look at the great river on a map of Minnesota, it looks like a giant shepherd’s staff, and Headwaters Country lies within the crook of that staff. Let’s be good shepherds of this country and demonstrate good stewardship of it and protect the last remaining wilderness of the Mississippi River.

To flush the great trumpeter swans from canoe, to hear the wolves, to see a rare orchid, to fill a bucket of blue berries on a peaceful summer day with only the wind soughing through the jack pine needles, to experience all these things and more as humans have for thousands of years ago seems to some of us to be an inalienable right.

This is a special place on earth, and it’s in our backyard.

Barry W. Babcock
Laporte, MN
(218) 224-2358