Taken from article in the Long Praire Leader

by Sue Farmer

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Henry Schoolcraft State Park

There aren’t many places one can take an unfettered stroll along the Mississippi River in Minnesota, but Henry Rowe Schoolcraft State Park provides just such an opportunity. Located a few miles from Grand Rapids off Minnesota Highway 6, the park encompasses a linear strip of undeveloped land along the Mississippi and Vermillion rivers.

The park preserves pine trees that witnessed Schoolcraft’s journey up the Mississippi as he was searching for the river’s headwaters. School- craft, led by the Anishinabe guide Ozawindib, is credited with pinpointing the source of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, a lake Schoolcraft named and the focal point for Minnesota’s most magnificent state park.

If the 500,000 or so visitors at Itasca State Park are a little overwhelming, a small scale version of the park can be found in Schoolcraft State Park. The river is broader here, but remains in a pristine, natural state. The park preserves 295 acres of river shoreline and virgin pine forest. Two miles of hiking trails give visitors access to the forest and a glimpse of many 300 year old pines. A white pine forest is regenerating itself in the park with help from the DNR. The area includes many varieties of pine, including red, white and jack pine. The park also has many spruce and fir trees.

Sweet Serenity

Peace and quiet and the pungent, sweet scent of pine is what this park has to offer. Song birds flit from branch to branch, filling the air with their relaxing tunes. The river bank is the perfect spot to sit and watch the sunset. The sun’s deep red rays reflect off the water as the reeds, cattails and wild rice glow amber and red in the backlight. This is an excellent place to reflect on the beauty of the summer and the bounty of nature.

The Mississippi River in this area is calm and gentle and is a great spot for canoeing or fishing. A boat launch provides easy access to the river. Some of the trails traverse the river’s shoreline, giving hikers the opportunity to enjoy the river’s casual lullaby and watch the abundant waterfowl. White and yellow water lilies dot the park’s wetland area, islands of color in a green sea of marsh grasses and wild rice.

The usual Minnesota critters make their home in the park, including white-tailed deer, otters and raccoon. This park can easily be explored in a day, but there are 28 camp sites for those who want to spend a little more time in the area. All the sites are rustic and registration is self-serve. There is one canoe-in site and one group camp site, and the park has a nice picnic area in a clearing surrounded by the tall pines.

Most of the tall pines growing in this area in the early 1900’s were logged off and sent down the Mississippi River to saw mills. At Schoolcraft, one can see what the forest looked like before the logging frenzy.

Forest History Center

The Minnesota Historical Society has preserved the human history of this area in the Forest History Center, which is located 2.5 miles southwest of Grand Rapids on County Road 76. There is an admission fee for the center, which includes a replica of a working turn-of-the century logging camp complete with interpreters portraying the camp blacksmith, saw filer, clerk, cook and lumberjacks.
Events at the center include:

• log rolling
• sleigh loading
• cooking demonstrations
• exhibits
• storytelling

Visitors may also climb a 100-foot fire tower. Nature trails wind through the woods along the Mississippi River.

It is hard to imagine the vastness of northern Minnesota’s pine forests prior to the arrival of men with band saws, draft horses and steam engines. In 1900, some 2.3 billion board feet of white pine were harvested. The lumber could have built over 600,000 two-story homes. The harvest continued at that pace through 1910, until the pine forests people thought were endless were nearly barren.

The lumber from Minnesota’s northern forests fueled the industrial growth of America at the beginning of the 20th Century. The timber industry provided jobs for more than 60,000 people in northern Minnesota–lumberjacks, saw mill operators and workers in wood-production factories.

Clear cutting and several devastating forest fires ended the “glory” days of Minnesota logging, but forestry remains a strong industry and tradition in the state. The economic engine of the town of Grand Rapids is fired by the paper/pulp industry.

Always on the earth, there is a trade off of human and environmental needs, but just a touch of common sense and conservation in Minnesota’s virgin pine forests in the early 1900’s could have created wealth for hundreds of years while maintaining a healthy eco-system for wildlife and humans. Hindsight makes it easy to see what should have been done. Foresight could have saved the forests for future generations.

Information for this article was provided by the DNR, the Minnesota Historical Society and through personal observation.