Blueberries and Babe

Often overlooked by tourists, Paul Bunyan State Forest appeals to locals and other visitors in the know.

By Mary Kroll

Muted grays and yellows color the hills around us, much different from the grassy, brash green of true spring. We usually think of a visit up north as a summer or fall pursuit, not one squeezed between ice-out and emerging ticks. But, well, my family is an odd bunch, and the first April weekend that looked even moderately warm beckoned us to this place of hills and ravines -- Paul Bunyan State Forest.

Paul Bunyan mixes timber harvesting, tree planting, recreation, wildlife watching, hunting, and other uses. Wedged between some of Minnesota's most popular natural playgrounds, Paul Bunyan is best known regionally. Itasca State Park, that jewel of state parks, is just west of Paul Bunyan and lures far more tourists. So do Leech Lake and Chippewa National Forest, to the east. Indeed, most people don't think of state forests as places to play -- but that's where they're wrong.

The Really Big Guy

Paul Bunyan State Forest, created in 1935, lies just northeast of Park Rapids. The forest covers about 70,000 acres within a legislative boundary of 112,000 acres and consists of a north and a south unit, separated by a few miles and Highway 200.

These two parcels share the same name but are as different as fraternal twins. The south unit is hilly, with aspen forests and deep ponds created when glaciers left behind large, slowly melting chunks of ice. The north unit is flatter and has more pine forests.

We didn't really expect to see Paul Bunyan during our visit, although Ol' Paul would have loved this forest in the spring. Indeed, legend has it that as soon as the ice went out, the mythic giant lumberjack would get ready to drive his logs downriver. He'd train beavers to build dams to create ponds, one after another, that would float his logs downstream. This might explain the forest's plethora of wetlands and furry gnawing mammals, if one were looking for folklore to explain natural processes.

But on that fine April day, we didn't see Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, or even their tracks. Instead, we found smaller wonders.

We started our exploration of the south unit by car on Steamboat Forest Road. We absorbed the beauty of a fine morning, surrounded by hills and ridges of aspen dotted with spruce. From 1913 to 1926, a series of severe fires wiped out most of the red and white pines in the area. Today, more than 80 percent of the forest is aspen. We spotted many different ages of aspen -- dog-hair-thick young stands as well as older, heavy-trunked trees. A few giant white pines poked their crowns above the canopy, as if trying to get a better view of the landscape.

We had a difficult time trying to decide where to start our hike. Finally, we stopped at a landing -- a place where logs are stacked -- to explore a recent aspen harvest. Fresh tracks of white-tailed deer were everywhere. Later, while driving, we spotted one -- no, two, no, three -- whitetails.

As we perused the landing, my husband, Tom, and I pointed out to our children the tree species colonizing the site. Ben, our 14-year-old, ignored us, watching instead a broad-winged hawk soar overhead, then turning his binoculars to see a fleeing woodpecker. Nicholas, our 11-year-old, examined different cartridge casings dropped by hunters. Our love of examining the world's small dramas is a tie that binds us.

Although we explored Paul Bunyan by car, the forest roads also get plenty of use from all-terrain vehicles. Off-road vehicles are permitted in the forest on designated trails and roads. In fact, the forest hosts two motorcycle and two automobile races during a typical summer, attracting hundreds. According to Ron Norenberg, a forester with the Department of Natural Resources, the clubs that sponsor the races obtain permits that close the race loops to other uses for that day.

The rolling terrain and extensive trail system draw thousands of hard-riding recreationists each year. And their numbers increase every year, Norenberg says. But the forest also welcomes other users on its trails. Hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders, and others wander the area freely. At Mantrap and Gulch lakes, Paul Bunyan also attracts campers and picnickers, who may venture onto nearby nature trails.

Blueberry Fields Forever

We've always taught our children not to pick flowers or leaves from the forest because state lands belong to everyone. So, except for the occasional secreted shiny rock, we've left forests intact. Turns out we were a tad overzealous. Mushrooms, berries, and even many species of wildflowers may be gathered for personal use in state forests.

And it's a good thing too that we can pick and choose some of this north woods bounty. As we hiked trails in the northern unit, we noticed we were surrounded by pure blueberry habitat. How could we tell this, without seeing the berries themselves? Well, the flat north unit supported stands of young jack pine and red pine, 6 to 10 feet in height. These areas have dry, sandy soils and lots of sunlight -- a combination that creates perfect conditions for an invasive plant like the blueberry. Armed with mosquito juice and pails, we search this habitat up and down roads in northern Minnesota in late July, emerging after a few hours with our weight in berries.

Winding the Day Down

The day was one of treasures, big and small. On a recently harvested spot in the south unit, a stump spit forth a profusion of birch sprouts. Their bronze color told their age -- less than 7. Like Lipizzaner horses, they turn white as they emerge from their young years. The red-osier dogwoods showed signs of extensive deer browse. Everywhere, animal burrows were visible under logs and slash. Deeper, in the valley below the roadbed, lay darker shadows -- plantings of pine and spruce veined through the land. Dots of marshes were loaded with hooded mergansers, mallards, ring-necked ducks, and wood ducks. Painted turtles basked on logs. Frogs called from the wetlands. Orange butterflies landed on gravel roads, then fluttered away, as if playing tag with pebbles.

A 1996 report issued by the Recreation Roundtable, a Washington, D.C.-based group, said that adults who recreated outdoors in their youth are much more likely than others to play outside today. The report also indicated that people who participate in outdoor activities in adulthood and in their youth are more satisfied with virtually all aspects of their lives in the present. Could spending time searching for wood ducks, leopard frogs, and old remnant white pines be the key to happiness?

Works for us.

Mary Kroll is a free-lance environmental writer who has recently relocated to Long Prairie, to be closer to sandhill cranes and marsh-marigolds.

Bacon on Their Feet

Paul Bunyan grew up, wrote poet Carl Sandburg, "around the hot stoves of winter, among socks and mittens drying, in the smell of tobacco smoke and the roar of laughter mocking the outside weather." The tall tales told by lumberjacks in the camps of the late 1800s were first published by reporter James MacGillivray in the story "The Round River Drive," in the Detroit News, July 24, 1910. Minneapolis ad man William B. Laughead retold Paul Bunyan stories in a series of pamphlets, beginning in 1914, to promote the Red River Lumber Co.

As a baby, Paul was so big, the stories go, five storks delivered him. When he stepped from his cradle, he created a 70-foot tide in the Bay of Fundy. As a man, Paul ran the mightiest logging camp ever seen. His cook stove covered an acre. The cooks strapped bacon to their feet and skated to grease the griddle.

Like the lumbermen, Paul and his blue ox Babe moved westward, creating the Black Hills, and digging Puget Sound and the Grand Canyon.

 One year when it rained from St. Patrick's Day till the Fourth of July, Paul Bunyan got disgusted because his celebration on the Fourth was spoiled. He dived into Lake Superior and swam to where a solid pillar of water was coming down. He dived under this pillar, swam up into it and climbed with powerful swimming strokes, was gone about an hour, came splashing down, and as the rain stopped, he explained, "I turned the dam thing off." This is told in the Big North Woods and on the Great Lakes, with many particulars.