Consider this your advance notice: next Saturday, September 26, is National Public Lands Day.
For the uninitiated, National Public Lands Day (NPLD) is a day for volunteer service on public lands across the country. Events are scheduled on national forests, national parks, state parks, and more. Many are set to occur across Minnesota, but let’s table that for a moment. First, it seems prudent to revisit our public lands from the 30,000-foot view.
Some of the lands we call “public” are owned by the American people, held in trust and managed by the federal government. Classifications are many, including but not limited to national forests, national parks and monuments, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holdings, and waterfowl production areas.
You could drive up to the middle of Superior National Forest this fall, take a look around and say, “this is all mine,” and you’d be right. Same goes for the floor of Yosemite Valley, or a sage-covered BLM parcel in the middle of Montana.
Of course, there is a parallel set of land types on the state level. What that looks like can vary greatly from state to state. Here, we have it pretty good; Minnesotans are public-land rich. We have state parks, state forests, wildlife management areas, and scientific and natural areas—and lots of each.
Why would I bother pointing any of this out, you ask? Because so much happens there. Public lands are where most people go to hunt, at least some of the time. If you want to hike, you almost certainly have to “go public” in order to have enough room to roam.
And then there’s camping, foraging, fishing, bird watching, canoe tripping, horseback riding, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, and skiing. And I know that’s not all, but I have to keep this to a reasonable word count.
Of course, recreation is top of mind for most people when it comes to public lands. What most don’t realize, however, is how important public lands are for research. Government agencies conduct research of all kinds on public lands. So do universities and other entities. I’ve been privileged to see it firsthand.
Eight years ago, I volunteered to help with a DNR woodpecker survey. For a day, my kids and I searched for woodpecker nest trees on Mille Lacs WMA. The results of that survey will not only contribute to forest management and understanding the needs of woodpeckers, but also to forest ecology as a whole.
In late 2022, my family and I toured an incredible research facility north of Grand Rapids, in Chippewa National Forest. The SPRUCE experiment was just winding down at the time; to my knowledge it has since ended. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, its purpose was “to assess the response of northern peatland ecosystems to increases in temperature and exposures to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations.” The multi-faceted project brought hundreds of collaborators, some from outside the U.S.
Beyond recreation and research, the quiet, indispensable work of public lands is conservation.
For one thing, it’s easy to imagine that public lands play host to all kinds of insects, reptiles, mammals, plants, etc. But having habitat available in perpetuity allows for management of specific species. Examples that come to mind include dwarf trout lilies, rusty patch bumblebees, and prairie chickens.
Public lands can also offer oases of valuable habitat for groups of species. This was impressed on me a few years back, when speaking with a DNR wildlife manager in western Minnesota about the use of prescribed burning. Time and again he came back to pollinators and other insects. They feed the entire food chain, of course, and perform other ecological duties. Many depend on healthy prairie habitats, and without burning—or public lands—whole landscapes could be deprived of their benefits.
As if that wasn’t enough, public lands are important for ensuring clean surface and ground water. And clean air, too, if that’s important to you.
So that brings us back to a day for public lands. Because we take care of things that are important to us.
As mentioned at the outset, there are many NPLD events planned for next weekend. For the ambitious, the Minnesota chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers will hold a weekend for volunteer work in Beltrami Island State Forest (a good grouse hunting destination, I happen to know). Naturally, they will be camping out.
Pipestone National Monument is hoping to attract volunteers to help collect prairie seeds and remove invasive species.
The Minnesota Master Naturalist program has a long list of NPLD volunteer opportunities on its website. Closer to home, there are events in Faribault, Henderson, and at Minneopa State Park.
Obviously, not everybody will be able to commit to hard labor. If nothing else, consider simply turning out to do something on our public lands. Around here, it could mean a short hunt on a WMA, or an overnight camping trip at a state park.
I have a vision of so many people showing up to the bison prairie next Saturday that they clog the road, then fill every picnic table over at the falls. What a show of support that would be for Minneopa and that incredible resource.
Whatever you come up with, just do it. You have a whole week to make your plans.
Roy Heilman is a Minnesota writer, outdoorsman, and public land appreciator. Keep up with his adventures at neveragoosechase.com.