There are few places on earth more tranquil and serene than Minnesota's Boundary Waters. It's the place where the only sounds that break the silence, come from wildlife and water dripping from a paddle.
It's understandable that when storms flatten millions of trees, or fires sweep the landscape, people wonder about their next wilderness experience.
Dennis Neitzke, who is the District Ranger for the Superior National Forest, said the fires have always been part of the natural cycle.
"Since we have at least one good fire every 10, it wasn't a matter of if a fire was going to happen, but it was a matter of when," he said.
That "when" came May 5, 2007, on a remote campsite on Ham Lake, near the western end of the Gunflint Trail, when an out of control campfire turned the forest into an inferno.
It took hundreds of firefighters nearly three weeks to suppress what had blackened some 75,000 acres in Minnesota and Canada. Dozens of cabins, homes and structures were lost. The total cost in manpower and machines was more than $10 million.
For the third time in five years, fire had dramatically changed the face of the Boundary Waters and the western end of the Gunflint Trail.
To see first hand how nature recovers from fire, WCCO-TV toured the area with University of Minnesota Forestry Professor, Lee Frelich. On a high, rocky point overlooking Sea Gull Lake's southeastern shore, Frelich makes an observation.
"That was the Cavity Lake fire, this is the Ham Lake fire ... and over there was Three Mile Island, a prescribed burn," Frelich points out.
Frelich and two of his graduate students took WCCO-TV's Bill Hudson and Jose Pascual to the very edge of the Boundary Waters on Sea Gull Lake, to compare the recovery from the three separate fires. The lake's shores appear dead and blackened, in many areas right down to bare rock.
"Yup, this is as severe as a fire gets," said Frelich as he points to a burn from the 2006 Cavity Lake fire. "Some species have to spread from a live tree after the fire. And the question is, given the pattern of live trees remaining on this landscape, are their enough of them to bring those species back?"
That's a big concern for the 31,000 acres of last year's Cavity Lake fire.
"It was such an intense fire that it killed a lot of seeds in the soil and it can take several years longer to get vegetation to return," said Frelich.
Its barren, blackened terrain is a sharp contrast to this spring's Ham Lake fire. Many areas burned just three months ago are far ahead of last year's fire.
Acres in the Ham Lake fire are greening rapidly and reseeding with pines, birch and spruce. The University's research team points out the incredible variety of plants taking root.
"This just plant germinated this spring and look at how big it is," Frelich said as he points to the nearly waist high Bicknell's geranium. All around us are thick growths of big leaf aster, sarsaparilla, corydalis and liver wort.
One would have to get down on their hands and knees, and look closely to see that there is promise to the burned areas. What is found are some of the millions of tiny seedlings, barely an inch tall, sprouting from the cones of the Jack Pine.
Like the seeds of the black spruce, Jack Pine is known for its incredible fire recovery mechanism. The heat from a forest fire causes its cones to open and disperse the seeds onto the nutrient rich forest floor.
When the research team points to a rock outcrop on Three Mile Island, an area intentionally burned in 2002, the re-growth is obvious. There are white pines nearly three feet tall. Unlike the Jack Pine, these seedlings came from living cones on parent trees somewhere nearby. Researchers will inventory the forest to see where those trees still stand.
Besides millions of little pine seedlings the forest is a palate of color. Wildflowers like fireweed, geraniums and asters paint the black forest a rich purple.
Frelich finds one such area and admits, "I've never seen Big Leaf Aster bloom like this in such a massive profusion."
At Seagull Outfitters, paddlers are getting used to seeing the forest in a new way.
"I think it's also encouraging, because it's not like an eraser swept through, but rather you know you'll see a mix of things (to see) when you go out there," said Shira McDonald, who talks with countless customers at the store.
It's not just the flora they're seeing but also some rare fauna. One such discovery is a rare woodpecker that scavenges fire's deadfall.
"This is quite a rare species, an American 3-toed woodpecker it's called," said Dave Zumeta who points to the bird in a blackened Jack Pine.
The birds will move into a burned area to pick for insects under the fire loosened bark.
It will take decades of course before this scenic wilderness resembles anything near the tall timber of its past. However, what fire has taken away, nature is already hard at work, sowing her seeds of recovery. The natural cycle of the forest ecosystem is building a new forest, lush with the sights and sounds of wilderness.WCCO
