| Big Woods | |
|---|---|
 Trees in the Big Woods | |
| Geography | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Minnesota and Wisconsin |
| Rivers | Minnesota and Crow |
| Soil types | Thick glacial till of crushed limestone |
Big Woods refers to a type of temperate hardwood forest ecoregion found in western Wisconsin and south-central Minnesota. "Big Woods" is a direct translation of the name given to the region by French explorers: Grand Bois.
The dominant trees are American elm, basswood, sugar maple, and red oak. The understory is composed of ironwood, green ash, and aspen. The Big Woods would have once covered 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2) in a diagonal strip 100 miles (160 km) long and 40 miles (64 km) wide. Today most of this region has been cleared for agriculture and urban development. Remnant and secondary stands of Big Woods remain in parks and other protected areas. Native vegetation based on soils information (note the bright green color) from the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture shows the historic extent of oak savannas in the Big Woods region (See accompanying pie chart, below).
The soil of the Big Woods is thick glacial till of crushed limestone, deposited by the Des Moines lobe of the Wisconsin glaciation 10,000 years ago. [2] The landscape is characterized by round hills and numerous undrained lakes left by melting ice blocks. These hills and lakes suppressed fires that were instrumental forces on the prairie to the west and the oak savanna to the south and east. The Minnesota and Crow Rivers flow through the region, but many of the 100 or so lakes had no inlets or outlets.
The Big Woods have a growing season of about 145–150 days and an average annual precipitation of 30 inches (760 mm).
A fragment of the Big Woods in mostly pristine condition is preserved in Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park near Nerstrand, Minnesota. [3]
Little House in the Big Woods by American author Laura Ingalls Wilder takes place near her home town of Pepin, Wisconsin.
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east.
Stearns County is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 158,292. Its county seat and largest city is St. Cloud. The county was founded in 1855. It was originally named for Isaac Ingalls Stevens, then renamed for Charles Thomas Stearns.
Sherburne County is a county in Central Minnesota. At the 2020 United States Census, the population was 97,183. The county seat is Elk River.
Rice County is a county located in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 67,097. Its county seat is Faribault.
The Kankakee River is a tributary of the Illinois River, approximately 133 miles (214 km) long, in the Central Corn Belt Plains of northwestern Indiana and northeastern Illinois in the United States. At one time, the river drained one of the largest wetlands in North America and furnished a significant portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Significantly altered from its original channel, it flows through a primarily rural farming region of reclaimed cropland, south of Lake Michigan.
The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals, were historically agents of periodic disturbance, which regulates tree encroachment, recycles nutrients to the soil, and catalyzes some seed dispersal and germination processes. Prior to widespread use of the steel plow, which enabled large scale conversion to agricultural land use, tallgrass prairies extended throughout the American Midwest and smaller portions of southern central Canada, from the transitional ecotones out of eastern North American forests, west to a climatic threshold based on precipitation and soils, to the southern reaches of the Flint Hills in Oklahoma, to a transition into forest in Manitoba.
An oak savanna is a type of savanna-or lightly forested grassland- where oaks are the dominant trees, the term oakery or woodlands is also used commonly, though the former is more prevalent when referencing the Mediterranean area. These savannas were maintained historically through wildfires set by lightning, humans, grazing, low precipitation, and/or poor soil.
The Driftless Area, a region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. It was never covered by ice during the last ice age, and therefore lacks glacial deposits, also termed drift. Its landscape is characterized by steep hills, forested ridges, deeply carved river valleys, and karst geology with spring-fed waterfalls and cold-water trout streams. Ecologically, the Driftless Area's flora and fauna are more closely related to those of the Great Lakes region and New England than those of the broader Midwest and central Plains regions. The steep riverine landscape of both the Driftless Area proper and the surrounding Driftless-like region are the result of early glacial advances that forced preglacial rivers that flowed into the Great Lakes southward, causing them to carve a gorge across bedrock cuestas, thereby forming the modern incised upper Mississippi River valley. The region has elevations ranging from 603 to 1,719 feet at Blue Mound State Park, and together with the Driftless-like region, covers 24,000 square miles (62,200 km2).
Savanna Portage State Park is a state park of Minnesota, USA, established in 1961 to preserve the historic Savanna Portage, a difficult 6-mile (9.7 km) trail connecting the watersheds of the Mississippi River and Lake Superior. The portage trail crosses a drainage divide separating the West Savanna River, which drains to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, from the East Savanna River, which flows in an opposite direction to the Saint Louis River, Lake Superior and the Great Lakes, and the Saint Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean.
Zippel Bay State Park is a state park in Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota in the United States. It is on the white sand beach shoreline of the Lake of the Woods, near the United States border with Canada. The park is open for year-round recreation including camping, hiking, fishing and cross-country skiing.
Myre-Big Island State Park is a state park of Minnesota, USA, just outside the city of Albert Lea. It has an area of 1,578 acres (6.39 km2). The park protects 8 miles (13 km) of shoreline on Albert Lea Lake. The nucleus of the park is Big Island, a 117-acre (0.47 km2) island attached to the mainland by a causeway. In turn a causeway connects Big Island to Little Island. The park was formerly named Helmer Myre State Park after former Minnesota State Senator Helmer Myre.
Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park is a state park of Minnesota, US, northeast of Faribault just outside the small town of Nerstrand. The park derives its name from the Big Woods, a large, contiguous forested area covering much of southeast Minnesota prior to the arrival of European settlers. The park and its forest were an outlying 'woods' typical of and similar to the Big Woods proper, which were historically found on the more recent glacier deposits located west of the Cannon River 10 miles (16 km) to the west. Aside from a small waterfall, the outstanding natural feature of the park is the forest itself.
Rice Lake State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, just east of Owatonna. Park lands entirely surround Rice Lake, an important stopping point for migrating waterfowl. The lake covers 750 acres (300 ha) with an average depth of three feet (1 m).
St. Croix State Park is a state park in Pine County, Minnesota, USA. The park follows the shore of the St. Croix River for 21 miles (34 km) and contains the last 7 miles (11 km) of the Kettle River. At 33,895 acres (13,717 ha) it is the largest Minnesota state park. It was developed as a Recreational Demonstration Area in the 1930s, and is one of the finest surviving properties of this type in the nation. 164 structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration survive, the largest collection of New Deal projects in Minnesota. As a historic district they were listed on the National Register of Historic Places and proclaimed a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
Sakatah Lake State Park is an 842-acre (341 ha) state park of Minnesota, USA, on a natural widening of the Cannon River near the town of Waterville. The Dakota native to the area called it "Sakatah" which means "singing hills". To honor this native heritage, some of the trails in the park have been given Dakota names. The Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail, which connects Faribault and Mankato, runs through this park.
Minnesota is the northernmost state outside Alaska; its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods is the only part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel. Minnesota is in the U.S. region known as the Upper Midwest. The state shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and Wisconsin on the northeast; the remainder of the eastern border is with Wisconsin. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are west, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba are north. With 87,014 square miles (225,370 km2), or approximately 2.26% of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th largest state.
Wisconsin, a state in the Midwestern United States, can be generally divided into five geographic regions—Lake Superior Lowland, Northern Highland, Central Plain, Eastern Ridges & Lowlands, and Western Upland. It has a vast and diverse geography famous for its landforms created by glaciers during the Wisconsin glaciation 17 thousand years ago. The southwestern part of the state, which was not covered by glaciers during the most recent ice age, is known as the Driftless Area. The Wisconsin glaciation is responsible for the formation of the Wisconsin Dells, Devil's Lake, and the Baraboo Range. A number of areas are protected in the state, including Devil's Lake State Park, the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and the Chequamegon–Nicolet National Forest.
The Upper Midwest forest–savanna transition is a terrestrial ecoregion that is defined by the World Wildlife Fund. An oak savanna plant community located in the Upper Midwest region of the United States, it is an ecotone between the tallgrass prairies to the west and the temperate deciduous forests to the east. A part of the Upper Mississippi River basin, it is considered endangered with less than 5% of the original ecosystem remaining intact, due mostly to overgrazing and conversion to agriculture.
The Foot Hills State Forest is a state forest located in Cass, and Hubbard counties, Minnesota. The forest is a popular recreation spot due to its proximity to the greater Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area.
The Hill River State Forest is a state forest located in Aitkin County, Minnesota. It borders the Savanna State Forest to the east, and the Chippewa National Forest and the Land O'Lakes State Forest to the west. The majority of the forest is managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.