VEGETATION MANAGEMENT PLAN

LADY SLIPPER SCENIC BYWAY

BY

GEORGE-ANN MAXSON

CONSULTING BOTANIST

BEMIDJI, MN

AUGUST 2010

For

LADY SLIPPER SCENIC BYWAY COMMITTEE

CHIPPEWA NATIONAL FOREST, US FOREST SERVICE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

I. Geological, Historical, and Ecological Setting of the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway

Soils………………………………………………………………….1

Vegetation…………………………………………………………....1

History……………………………………………………………….3

Landscape…………………………………………………………....4

II. Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management Plan for the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway

Overview……………………………………………………………. 9

Recommendations for Reconstruction of the Byway………………..9

Vegetation Management within theROW…..………………………10

Seed Mixtures……………………………………….………..11

Maintenance of Seed Mixtures……………………………….14

Orchid Management……………………………………………..….16

Other Management Considerations………………………………....18

Future Maintenance of the Byway………………………………….20

Visual Quality Management………………………………………..21

Resources for Private Landowners…………………………………23

III. Noteworthy Features of the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway

Interpretive Pullouts, Rest Facilities…………………………………23

Seasonal Highlights…………………………………………………..24

Conclusion

IV. Resources pages 26-28

Agencies and Organizations

Websites

Publications and Reports

Appendix A

Descriptions and Crosswalk for Native Communities,

Ecological Landtype Phases, Forest Cover Types, Wetland Types 6 pages

Appendix B

Native MN Trees and Shrubs Appropriate for Roadside Planting 6 pages

Appendix C

Milepost Descriptions of the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway 2 pages

Section 1 Knutson Dam to US 2, Miles 0 to 5 5 pages

Section 2 Pennington to Knutson Dam, Miles 5 to 8 5 pages

Section 3 Pimushe Access to Pennington & Power Dam Road 7 pages

Section 4 Benjamin Lake to Pimushe Access, Miles 13 to 20 9 pages

Section 5 Blackduck to Benjamin Lake, Miles 20 to 26.6 6 pages

Introduction

Charge from the 2005 Corridor Management Plan for the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway:

“Develop a comprehensive corridor vegetation management plan for the Scenic Highway corridor involving agencies and private land owners that own or manage land along the byway to create visual and habitat variety.”

“Maintain and enhance the mix of open and closed tree canopy along the Scenic Highway.”

Three years later, a successful grant application to the National Scenic Byways Program titled “Vegetation Plan & Ladyslipper Transplant Program” (March 2008) stated that:

“This project will create a vegetative management plan that would focus on strategies to conserve and manage vegetation within a 200 foot corridor along the byway including the showy lady’s slipper. The lady’s slipper is the State Flower, adopted in 1902. The Chippewa NF and state are concerned with protection and management because lady’s slippers grow slowly; taking up to 16 years to produce their first flowers and its habitat is in bogs, swamps and damp woods. The flowers are also the brand for the byway and an attraction for travelers. The completed plan would identify specific measures to maintain the scenic, vegetative and biologic values important to the byway traveler.”

This vegetation management plan offers recommendations and resources for preserving and enhancing the special natural qualities of the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway.

The foremost goal is to maintain the flourishing populations of Showy Lady Slippers, the state flower of Minnesota. Much of the Byway supports large numbers of Lady Slippers in the road right of way and adjacent wetlands.

Another goal is to retain the Northwoods character along the roadside as the phased road reconstruction proceeds.

A third goal is to develop the Byway’s resources for an enjoyable and memorable visitor experience.

I express deep appreciation to the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway Committee and to the staff of the Chippewa National Forest for their support of the project.

Lady Slipper Scenic Byway Vegetation Management Plan

I. Geological, Historical, and Ecological Setting of the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway

Underneath a blanket of glacial gravel, sand, silt, and clay, lies the basement foundation of northern MN, the roots of the ancient Laurentian mountain range. Over two billion years ago a lofty range as high as the Rocky Mountains towered over northern MN and southern Canada. All mountains eventually erode to grains of sand and are washed to the sea, and in this case even the remaining basement rock has disappeared under glacial deposits and is only visible along the Canadian border and northeastern MN. After the latest period of glaciation, the landscape between Blackduck and Cass Lake resembled the debris piles left after snow banks melt in the spring. It was a bleak, cold and empty landscape, a blank canvas for and animals to colonize over the following 10,000 years.

Soils Soils develop over thousands of years in a complex interaction among the original glacial deposits, the successive plant communities that colonized the sand, silt, and clays, and the life forms within the soil, ranging from bacteria to fungi to nematodes to pocket gophers and tiger salamanders. The soils along the Byway range from excessively drained sands and gravel south of the Mississippi River and northwest of Gilstad Lake to sandy loams north of Lookout Tower Rd and between the Mississippi River and CCC Camp Rabideau to poorly drained muck underlying the Nushka sedge fen and the many shallow wetlands adjacent to the road. The Chippewa National Forest (CNF) has mapped the soil units into “phases” which recognize the association between a plant community and a particular soil type. (Appendix A)

Vegetation Pollen cores taken from bogs and wetlands in northern MN indicate the successive forest types that developed on the post glacial terrain. Pioneering spruces, willows, lichens and mosses began to cover the freshly deposited sands and gravels in the cold, arctic-like open vistas of kames, eskers, and vast wetlands. Moderating climate fostered establishment of pines and aspen. During the subsequent 10,000 years, warm dry spells favored oaks while intermittent cool moist periods encouraged conifers. For the past thousand years, mesic mixed forests of northern hardwoods and boreal conifers have dominated this region. Conditions were ideal for growth of large red and white pines that sprouted after fires. Decades of forest growth were periodically interrupted by catastrophic forest fires and more frequent light spring burns that reduced litter accumulation. Windstorm events created sunlit gaps that allowed understory saplings to reach canopy height.

Pre-European Vegetation Management Native Americans have been an integral element of this landscape since the glacial ice melted. We know that they routinely initiated fires to clear the forest understory, invigorate fruit bearing shrubs like cherries and plums, and perhaps to maintain forest openings in order to concentrate deer and elk. As the Ojibwe expanded into MN in the 1700s, they seeded lakes and river backwaters with wild rice.

European Settlement and Changes in Vegetation Northern MN was settled rather late, compared to the other Midwestern states. The Public Land Survey didn’t begin in Beltrami County until the mid 1870s. The first landholders were the timber companies which immediately claimed the pine stands and began harvesting the large old growth white pines. Both short railroad spurs and horse-drawn sleds hauled out millions of board feet of timber to the network of

1 lakes and rivers or to major railroads, transporting the timber to mills in Bemidji, Brainerd, Little Falls, Grand Rapids and down to the Twin Cities.

By the 1920s, the initial logging had petered out and homesteaders settled in the forest. With handsaws and horsepower the settlers cleared fields in the forest for livestock and crops. The open fields visible along the Byway date from this era. Post-logging fires cleared even more of the landscape, to the extent that most of the forest we see today is less than 100 years old. Dominant tree species are early to mid- successional species like trembling aspen, balsam fir, paper birch, and sugar maples and basswoods. Durable, charred stumps of the old growth white pines hint at the grandeur of the presettlement forest.

Construction of Highway 39/10 The Scenic Highway is one of the oldest roads in the county. Deep beneath the bumpy stretches through wetlands you’ll find the original corduroy road bed constructed on timbers laid crosswise. Major reconstruction of the Byway began in the 1950s, with regular surface maintenance continuing to the present.

From Scenic Highway EA 2007:

“FH 3 was originally completed in 1939. This project consisted of grading, culverts, and aggregate surfacing. In 1955 and 1956, sand and aggregate was placed on the original aggregate and a 2-inch bituminous pavement was added.”

During the CCC era in the 1930s part of the Byway was realigned in the vicinity of Camp Rabideau, and the road bed was shifted from the west side of Benjamin Lake to the east side. The Byway’s other original 90 degree corners that followed section lines were also realigned into the curves we drive today.

Powerline and Telephone Right of Way Construction Rural Beltrami County was fully electrified by the late 1940s. Power poles were planted down the middle of cleared right-of-ways, paralleling the roads, within the 66 foot road corridor. Telephone lines, television cable, and fiber optic cable followed, usually as underground installations.

History of Byway

Historic 1000 Mile Auto Route Beginning in 1917, the Scenic Byway was featured as part of the “Great Motor Highway of One Thousand Miles Connecting One Hundred Cities and towns of the State.” Picture a procession of high clearance Model T automobiles chugging along the Byway, rattling over the corduroy sections, raising clouds of dust in summer, churning through mud in the spring. The scenery witnessed by these early tourists wasn’t much different from what we can see today: forest, bogs, and open fields.

A recent archeological survey examined sites along the Byway for their historic values. The report listed churches, town halls and other buildings of historical interest. Of the several pre WW II buildings, only two, the Mooselake Town Hall (formerly the Mooselake School) and the Pennington Community Church (formerly the Pennington School) were considered eligible for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

[Above information taken from the Historic Structures Reconnaissance Survey, URS Group, Inc, for the Chippewa National Forest, 2006].

2 Lady Slipper Scenic Byway Committee, Byway Designations, CNF Environmental Assessments

In 2003 the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway Committee formed as a group of citizens wishing to promote the scenic values of the Byway’s significant orchid populations. Beltrami County planned a major reconstruction of the Byway and the committee wanted to ensure that the numerous Showy Lady Slippers would continue to thrive along the Byway after work was completed. They successfully applied for grants to survey and salvage some of the thousands of Showy Lady Slippers growing in the ditches along the byway.

Beltrami County, in recognition of the Byway’s scenic significance, designated it as a Natural Preservation Route, thus enabling flexibility in designing the reconstructed highway.

The road was named a Minnesota State Scenic Byway in 1999.

The Chippewa National Forest designated it a National Forest Scenic Byway in 1990, meaning that visual quality considerations would receive high priority when planning timber management activities along the route. This action helped to insure preservation of the Byway’s scenic qualities since the CNF owns about half of the land along the Byway.

The Lady Slipper Byway Committee and the CNF commissioned a Corridor Management Plan in 2005. This document lists the assets of the Byway, opportunities for developing tourism, and recommendations for agencies and landowners with property next to the Byway.

The Chippewa National Forest published a Forest Highway 3 Project Planning Study and Environmental Assessment of the Byway in 2007. The 142 pages supplemented and expanded upon information presented in the Corridor Management Plan. The EA describes the natural features and how they might be impacted by the road’s reconstruction. The plan concludes with a list of recommendations to be incorporated into the final design specifications. I refer to the plan as “Byway EA 2007” in this report.

The only project in The Kitchi Resource Management Plan EA (2009) within the Byway corridor is a proposed thinning of the red pine stand immediately north of the Pennington Scientific and Natural Area. Any timber management occurring adjacent to the SNA should carefully consider possible negative impacts on the SNA’s sensitive orchid species.

The Continental Divide Resource Management EA (2009) drafted by the Chippewa National Forest covers forest management activities planned over the next 10 years. It’s a comprehensive document that specifies harvest schedules, road and trail improvements and closings, and provisions for wildlife protection for the area between Blackduck and Pimushe Lake. A major concern that developed after public input was protection for the Ram’s-Head Lady Slippers in the vicinity of Barott Bog. I discovered an additional population in spring 2010 within the Byway corridor that merits further inventory and mapping. It appears to be an extension of known populations, but is located on the west side of the Byway.

The Continental Divide EA was revised in May 2009 to incorporate the comments received. Three white cedar stands were deferred from the harvest list, pending further investigation of the Ram’s-Head Lady Slipper populations.

3

Landscape Setting of the Lady Slipper Byway Minnesota contains 4 major biomes: the Laurentian Mixed Forest, the Eastern Broadleaf Forest, the Prairie Parkland, and the Tallgrass Aspen Parkland. The Byway lies within the Laurentian Mixed Forest, meaning that the plant communities have a mix of boreal conifers and deciduous trees typical of the Great Lakes region.

The following descriptions and figures come from the MN DNR website that describes the Ecological Classification System. http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/ecs/index.html

Laurentian Mixed Forest from DNR website “The Laurentian Mixed Forest (LMF) Province traverses northern Minnesota, , and , southern , and the less mountainous portions of New England. In Minnesota, the LMF Province covers a little more than 23 million acres (9.3 million ha) of the northeastern part of the state. In Minnesota, the Province is characterized by broad areas of conifer forest, mixed hardwood and conifer forests, and conifer bogs and swamps. The landscape ranges from rugged lake-dotted terrain with thin glacial deposits over bedrock, to hummocky or undulating plains with deep glacial drift, to large, flat, poorly drained peatlands. Precipitation ranges from about 21 inches (53 cm) annually along the western border of the Province to about 32 inches (81 cm) at its eastern edge in Minnesota. Normal annual temperatures are about 34°F (1°C) along the northern part of the Province in Minnesota, rising to 40°F (4°C) at its southern extreme. Under influence of climate, the overall pattern of vegetation change across the Province in Minnesota is from warm and dry habitats in the southwest to cooler and moister ones in the northeast. Linked to climate are several other factors with southwest to northeast gradients that have important influence on vegetation and species ranges. Most notable are growing-degree days, evapotranspiration, and the depth and duration of snow cover.”

The byway lies within the Northern Minnesota Drift & Lake Plains Section of the Laurentian Mixed Forest. The following description comes from the DNR website.

Northern Minnesota Drift and Lake Plains Section 212N

The Northern Minnesota Drift and Lake Plains Section (MDL) covers the center of northern Minnesota. The MDL has complex surface geology, formed over many episodes of glaciation. It is characterized by deep (200- 600ft) glacial deposits in outwash plains, lake plains, till plains, outwash channels, moraines, and drumlin fields. The patterns of vegetation in the MDL reflect the complex and patchy distribution of these glacial deposits. Mesic forests of sugar maple, basswood, paper birch, aspen, and northern red oak are widespread. They occur mostly on moraines or till plains characterized by rough topography, fine-textured parent material, or soils with subhorizons that perch snowmelt and rainfall. Historically, forests and woodlands of and red pine were very common. These fire-dependent communities occur on the sandy outwash plains formed by glacial meltwater. Sandy and gravelly deposits that cap many of the major moraines in the western part of the MDL provide habitat for mixed forests of pine and boreal hardwood species such as quaking aspen and paper birch. Sedge meadows and alder and willow swamps occur along the sluggish streams draining the flat lake plains and along the Mississippi and Leech Lake rivers.”

4

The Northern Minnesota Drift and Lake Plains Section is further divided into several subsections. The Byway lies entirely within the Chippewa Plains Subsection. The following description is from the DNR website.

Chippewa Plains Subsection 212Na

The southern boundary is Leech Lake and the moraines south of the lake. The northern boundary is the southern shore of Glacial Lake Agassiz. On the east side, the boundary of the subsection is a series of end moraines (Rainy Lobe in origin, but later covered by the St. Louis Sublobe). The west side is framed by the Alexandria Moraine Complex.

Level to gently rolling lake plains and till plains characterize this subsection. Three large, heavily used lakes are found here. These include Leech Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, and Cass Lake. Conifers dominated the sandier portions of the subsection before settlement. Aspen-birch, sugar maple, basswood, northern red oak, and bur oak were common components on more productive sites. Present day land use is recreation and forestry.

Landform

The primary landforms are ground moraines, a lake plain, stagnation moraines, and an outwash plain. All are associated with the Des Moines lobe or the Wadena lobe (middle to late Wisconsin glaciation period). The ground moraines are characterized by gently rolling topography and have calcareous loamy parent material. The stagnation moraines have gently rolling to hilly topography and have calcareous, loamy parent materials. The outwash plain has level to gently rolling topography and has fine to medium sandy parent material.

Bedrock geology

Thick glacial drift covers bedrock over most of the subsection. Drift thicknesses range from 200 to over 600 f