Preserving Natural Landscapes

Impression 1: Blomberg Lake State Natural Area, Burnett County, Wisconsin

Early summer, late afternoon, my friend John and I are looking for orchids to photograph. On foot, we forge into rich green grass. A depression filled with cattails stands between us and the wet woods beyond. John steps in and plunges into thigh-deep mud. I gingerly hop across cattail clumps, but on my third step, I punch through into cold water. We clamber across the moat and into the trees. I notice flecks of mud on John’s legs and am surprised to see them move. They are not mud, in fact, but wood ticks, dozens of them. I look down at my own legs and discover the same. We pause to remove the ticks, and I pull my socks over my pant cuffs before continuing into a floating forest of alder, tamarack, black spruce, and maple. The forest floor here is thick sphagnum moss, and the trees grow from it on a floating carpet. Walking across it is like walking on a waterbed. On the moss grow white-blooming calla lilies and starry Solomon’s seal, and thousands of pink lady’s slippers. Near the lakeshore, someone has cut a door-sized opening into the moss. I find a stick and probe the black water. The bottom is deeper than the stick is long. When I return to the floating forest in July, the lady’s slippers have gone to seed, and the blaze of color on the sphagnum floor comes from the searing magenta blooms of grass-pink orchids.

Such scenes are hard to come by and are a prime example of why State Natural Areas (SNAs) exist. Both Minnesota and Wisconsin have dozens of State Natural Areas (SNAs), which are, according to the Minnesota DNR, “public lands open to recreational activities that do not disturb natural conditions, such as birdwatching, nature photography, and hiking. SNAs are established for their outstanding ecological features, which we want people to enjoy.” Minnesota has 169 State Natural Areas covering 192,000 acres. On a similar note, the Wisconsin DNR describes SNAs as “outstanding examples of Wisconsin’s native landscape of natural communities, significant geological formations, and archeological sites. They also provide some of the last refuges for rare plants and animals.” Wisconsin has nearly 700 SNAs covering 406,000 acres.

They range from the Chiwaukee Prairie on Lake Michigan and the Illinois border, 400 miles to the Pokegama Wetlands on the Lake Superior Estuary.

Josh Mayer, from the Madison area, started visiting Wisconsin SNAs in 2009 on a lark that blossomed into an obsession. Since then, he has explored 681 Wisconsin SNAs. That’s all of them except for six. What differentiates a SNA from a state park, Mayer says, is: “With state parks, it’s like, ‘we’re going camping or going on the lake, and there’s trails and restrooms.’ State parks are meant to be consumed by a wider swath of the public. SNAs are meant to preserve and protect areas of the state that represent how the state was before we ruined it,” he says with a chuckle. “State Natural Areas represent how Wisconsin used to be through different ecosystems and communities. Some are literally just a block of land to protect a rare plant or animal. Others represent imperiled natural communities, like wet prairie or oak savanna.”

SNAs highlight the diversity of ecosystems and landscapes across states. In Minnesota, a nature buff can visit places like Bonanza Prairie in the grassy hills over Big Stone Lake, across which South Dakota unrolls. A place like this, with rippling prairie grass, parched hills, and gnarly oaks in the draws, is evocative of a lost Minnesota, where bison and grizzly bear roamed vast prairies. It’s a stark cry from Butterwort Cliffs SNA on the North Shore of Lake Superior, which is a refuge for arctic plants surviving since the last ice age in the Gitchee Gummi refrigerator effect. (Butterwort Cliffs is closed to visitation between April 1st and July 15th to protect nesting peregrine falcons.)

Some SNAs in both states are closed to the public, but the vast majority are open for exploration. More restrictive rules, however, apply to other state lands. Each state has its own rules (sometimes even varying between individual SNAs), but rock climbing, fires, camping, geocaching, the use of drones, and plant collecting are prohibited. Many SNAs lack official trails and amenities like restrooms or drinking water. Parking lots are often rough and unplowed in winter. For some, the lack of amenities is an asset.

Impression 2: St. Croix Savanna SNA Washington County, Minnesota

In spring, the DNR had run a prescribed fire up this steep hill over the St. Croix River and into the oak woods above. Fingers of flame left black shadows against tree trunks. The fire removed thatch and fertilized the soil with ash, and summer growth came prolific. By August, a clump of big bluestem grass towers seven feet tall and dangles distinctive turkey-foot tridents of ripening seeds. I’d parked my car alongside the road below and hiked in looking for endangered kittentails, a delicate plant clinging to life in sunny openings along the St. Croix River not yet overgrown with buckthorn or developed into luxury housing. Sunset is nearing, but I don’t want to leave, so I sit near the tall clump of grass near the bluff edge with my back against the base of a solitary red oak. A breeze wafts upriver, swaying the big bluestem and quavering the distant blue of river, visible through openings in the lush foliage of riparian maples. The sun sets, and the riverboat, plodding its way upriver to Stillwater, turns on its lights.

When asked to name his favorite SNA, Josh Mayer says, “There are so many that it almost gives me paralysis. There’s everything: prairies, forests, swamps, bogs, islands, bat hibernacula, and a few archaeological sites. It really runs the gamut. One of my favorites is Muralt Bluff in Green County. It’s dry prairie. Then there’s Pleasant Valley Conservancy, one of the most intensely managed SNAs. It’s got dry prairie, oak savanna, woodland, wetlands, a really good variety.” Both Muralt Bluff and Pleasant Valley are partly owned by a nonprofit land trust called The Prairie Enthusiasts. Pleasant Valley is famous among prairie geeks for having a thriving mesic oak savanna. Mesic is a fancy way of saying the savanna gets a fair amount of water, rather than being dry. Mesic oak savannas are exceedingly rare. Less than one one-hundredth of one percent of Wisconsin’s 5.5 million acres of mesic oak savanna remain, and Pleasant Valley is a prime example of what’s left. “Before European settlers, Native Americans used fire to control habitats, and that’s how we ended up with a lot of prairie and savanna. Then the Europeans stopped doing that, and the trees took over,” Mayer says. Wisconsin is at the epicenter of the restoration of prescribed fire practices. Aldo Leopold is often credited with doing some of the first modern prescribed burns at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.

“You’ve got everything from dry to wet,” Mayer says. “With bogs, like Beulah Bog in the Kettle Moraine area. I love going to Beulah Bog. It’s pretty easy to get there—you don’t have to stomp through a swamp for three miles. There’s a nice boardwalk. It has half a dozen species of insect-eating plants. I was showing my kids photos the other day, and they were amazed that there are plants that eat insects. Then there’s Kissick Bog, near Hayward. You can walk around the whole thing. There are dozens of orchid species there. Another favorite is Moonlight Bay Bedrock Beach in Door County. It has a New England coastal ocean vibe when I go there.”

This summer, Mayer plans on renting a boat in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore to visit the last six SNAs he hasn’t seen, which are all located on the islands. Even after he visits them all, Mayer has no plans of stopping. “There’s always more to see. I like visiting at different times of year. It’s never the same thing twice,” he says over the phone. Before he hangs up, Mayer mentions, “I might run out to Goose Lake Drumlins SNA this afternoon to see what ephemerals are out there in the woods.”