- Hey there!

Today, we are up north.

And that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

But for us, today that means we're gonna be biking on the Paul Bunyan State Trail with park ranger Pete Harrison, and our artist Biff Ulm, and that crew over there.

And I hear there's a pretty cool bog at the end.

I'm looking forward to it.

Let's go, Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - All right, well, here we go.

We're on our way.

We're leaving the little bustling town of Bemidji and we're heading out on the trail.

It's pretty hot and sticky out today.

And I think cotton for a tee shirt was maybe not the best choice, but we'll see.

It's nice to feel the breeze right now.

How's it going, Pete?

- Doing good.

- [Brenda] Good.

- Good start to our ride.

- [Brenda] All right, we are pulling up over the top of the Mississippi River.

We've got a whole bunch of bridges here.

Is this the first town that we come to on the Mississippi from its headwaters?

- [Pete] Yes, Bemidji, the first city on the Mississippi.

- [Brenda] Okay.

(easygoing) Pete, tell me where we're at right now.

- Well, we are on the inlet to the, out of the Mississippi to Lake Bemidji.

So we have Lake Irving over here to our south, and Lake Bemidji here to our north.

- [Brenda] Okay.

There's a lot of traffic right here.

What's up with that?

- (laughs) It's a city.

There's traffic.

- Okay.

- There are people going everywhere.

- Okay so, but we're biking to a state park.

So where, like how far is the state park from the city?

- Well, it depends on which way you go.

The direction we're going, we're gonna be about 10 miles away, so it's gonna be a nice casual ride and take us a good couple hours probably to get there.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- But actually you can probably see, here, you can see the country club in that kind of open area up there.

- [Brenda] Yep.

- And then to the east of that there's Rocky Point, which is the highest point on Lake Bemidji, part of the state park.

- [Brenda] Okay, very nice.

So wait, what's Rocky Point?

- [Pete] It's a high point on the lake.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Pete] It's actually a glacial moraine that was caused by the recession of the glaciers back many thousands of years ago.

- [Brenda] So were these lakes actually caused by Paul Bunyan or glaciers, then?

- (laughs) Hmm, I guess that's up to interpretation.

- Nice.

Alright, cool.

There's our crew.

So far, so good.

All right.

(easygoing music) We're gonna carry on.

Is this our speed limit right here?

Is this like 10 miles an hour?

Really?

Oh, wow.

This is gonna be challenging.

I want to go faster.

Hi!

- Probably the cyclist that I'm always most nervous with is anyone who's a triathlete.

- Oh, cause they're like gung-ho?

- They're just lone dogs, and it's like, they're racers.

(laughs) - They're in it to win it.

- Yeah.

(easygoing music) - [Brenda] All right.

We're coming up on the bridge that goes over one of the main highways, and stop and have a little bird's eye view of the town.

So tell me, Pete, where are we right now?

- Well, we're on the 197 overpass going over state highway 197.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- And we're venturing on our way, now on the Paul Bunyan State Trail.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- So if we went that way, we can go 123 miles to Crow Wing State Park.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- Or if we want to go this way, which is what we'll do, we'll take this north up to Lake Bemidji State Park and get on the east side of Lake Bemidji.

- Very nice.

- Yeah.

(bike gears spin) (easygoing music) - [Brenda] Hey, guys, look at this.

(Brenda laughs) What are we looking at?

- Well, this is kind of the leftover of some of the lumber companies back at the turn of the century.

As you can imagine, this was all a lot of virgin pine around the Bemidji area.

So they set up lumber mills on the south side of the lake here to help process the lumber, the wood, as it came off the land.

And this whole area, really stretching from where we left over at Paul and Babe, all the way on the south side here was lumber mills and processing plants.

So it's been, it's a big change since back then.

- [Brenda] Yeah, cause, so lumber probably was like one of the main industries here, right, back in the day?

- [Pete] Correct, yeah.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Pete] Yeah, and there's sections of the Lake Bemidji State Park that were set aside to keep some of that old growth, now old growth pine intact, keep it from being harvested so that future generations can enjoy it.

- [Brenda] Very nice.

Can't resist the urge to explore.

(upbeat music) I would go through there, except for there's a giant spider web right there.

Look, here's a ancient picnic table.

A relic of the past.

(laughs) Yeah, little bit of graffiti.

- [Becky] Actually, it'd be a good swimming spot.

- Oh wow, yeah.

- You could glide in.

(rustic music) - [Brenda] So yeah, we were Wikipediaing Paul Bunyan this morning during breakfast, and we're reading how he basically comes from the folklore of loggers, the American logger.

- [Pete] Correct, yeah.

- [Brenda] Yeah.

Well, I didn't realize that he's nationwide.

- [Pete] But the only true Paul Bunyan is Bemidji.

- [Brenda] Portland, yeah.

Apparently the most popular statue of him is in Portland.

- I saw him in Idaho on a billboard.

- Really?

(laughs) - Yeah.

- [Brenda] Really, what is he doing here?

- Yeah, exactly.

- Go home.

(laughs) - He was so far from home.

- (laughs) That's so funny.

He's a big guy, though, he travels fast.

(upbeat music) So I think we're coming up on a beach here right in front of us.

That water is clear, and it probably feels really good.

In fact, I might have to jump in it later.

- I'm Pete Harrison, I'm the park manager at Lake Bemidji State Park.

I have now been there for nine years.

And, which definitely doesn't seem that long.

- [Brenda] So has there been a lot of growth in Bemidji in the past few years, that there's all this development, or is the tourism growing, or what's causing that boom of development?

- Yeah, I think it's just opportunities coming about, definitely as there's been growth in Bemidji and a lot of concentration on tourism and bringing events, conventions, and other things to the area.

(easygoing music) - Tell me a little bit about the ecology of the state park.

- Well, the main focus and kind of the highlight for everybody at Lake Bemidji State Park is our bog boardwalk.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- And that's a 1,100, 100 foot raised boardwalk above a spruce conifer bog, which provides access that you normally wouldn't get because of the wet conditions, because of the sensitive nature of the ecosystem and all the species that inhabit it.

So it provides access for all of us to get out there and see kind of the changes of the bog over the course of the year.

So really no matter what time of year you come, you'll be able to see something.

- [Brenda] Excellent.

That's if you can keep your eyes and mouth open while you're biking with all these gnats on the trail.

(Pete laughs) - I'm never gonna guarantee a bug free experience (Brenda laughs) because I know once I do that, - [Brenda] Yeah, that seems like a bad idea.

- it'll be a bad year.

- Minnesota is home to several species of owls.

We're not gonna see them out right now because they're nocturnal, but Clarissa Schrooten of Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo is lucky enough to know one personally.

Check it out.

(upbeat music) - Barred owls are found all across the state of Minnesota.

They're most common in the state next to the great horned owl.

When you look at a barred owl, they have the very barring that goes down on their breasts of their feathers.

And that's where they get the name the barred owl.

And when you look at a barred owl, so you notice that their eyes are very large.

Those large eyes allow them to take in light from anything that's out in the environment, so whether it's stars or maybe the moon.

Now the barred owl is also known for their call that they do.

They're the, "Who cooks for you?"

"Who cooks for you all" call, which actually sounds more like this.

(hoots like an owl) So, they're saying, "Hey, I'm over here."

And the other one's going, "Hey, I'm over here."

And that then allows them to find each other so they can get together.

I'm Clarissa Schrooten from Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo, and I encourage everyone to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

(easygoing music) - [Brenda] All right, we're coming up on another bridge.

I believe this is the outlet of the Mississippi from Lake Bemidji.

And we're still about four miles from Bemidji State Park or so.

There she goes, the Mississippi on her way to the Gulf.

Hey guys, I think we're just gonna stop here for a minute.

Look at everybody's in such a nice little line.

This is like, your elementary schools would be very proud of you right now.

Yeah.

(bikers laugh) Nice.

So where are we?

Pete, tell me where we are.

- This is the outlet of the Mississippi from Lake Bemidji.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- So there's the big lake.

- Oh, hey, check out this.

Kayakers.

- Got some paddlers coming.

- Ah, next up, kayaking.

It looks refreshing.

- Some folks do tube along the river.

Not sure if it's above or below that power dam.

- Both.

- Both, okay.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Pete] Well Brenda, if you look hard enough, - [Brenda] Yeah?

- downstream, you can see that most northern point on Lake, or on the Mississippi River.

- Oh really?

- I did not know that.

- Yeah.

- Oh neat.

- [Pete] From there, it's gonna flow south and east.

- [Brenda] Okay, very cool, I like that.

- As you guys probably figured out, it travels north from Itasca State Park to Lake Bemidji.

And as it exits out the east side of Lake Bemidji, it actually travels a little bit farther north.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- And then from there it bends south and eastward on its voyage.

- Okay.

Yes, all the way to the mighty Gulf.

Yeah.

(easygoing music) - I'm not a specialist in anything that I do.

So like I have these visions, and then I go out and I learn how to do them and that type of stuff.

So there's a lot of equipment and hobbies that I've picked up.

And there's kind of like that carnage in the spare parts left behind.

But cycling is one of the consistents in my life that I've never given up, so yeah.

- Wow, that seems like a really good segue into, tell me what kind of art you do.

(laughs) - (laughs) That's a great segue.

- Cause it seems like those two things might tie together.

- Yeah, they might tie together.

So I'm gonna blame my mom for this a little bit, because she didn't allow us to have coloring books as a kid.

And she, yeah.

- What?

- So we just got- - That's just wrong!

- No, well we got blank sheets of paper cause she didn't want us to be coloring inside the lines or be bound by lines.

- Oh, I like that.

- I believe everyone's creative.

So like, I think that sometimes just finding that path, you have to be willing to take risks and be adventurous with it.

- [Brenda] Yeah.

- I a lot of times learn things in order to create a vision.

So I'm not, I'm not a special- - What do you mean by that?

- I'm not a specialist, you know, where some people pick watercoloring as their trait.

I love watercoloring, but I'm not afraid to pick up some wood chisels or to pick up- - Okay, so when you say learn something, you just like explore - I love, - various kinds of crafts and just like kind of getting dirty and messy and just like jumping in.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some of the stuff I make is really inexpensive.

But the process with which I make it from is kind of where you would approach it as a serious artist, you know, like watercolor, I like to do block carving or that type of thing.

And then I'll reproduce it in just a really approachable art.

I have a retail store, and I create work for me and I throw it out there and just see if people like it.

And if they like it, awesome, and if they don't, like, there's like no skin off of my nose, really on that side of things.

- Right.

- I'm still creatively happy with what I'm creating and that type of thing.

(easygoing music) - We're in Nisswa, Minnesota.

This is really the heart of the Lake Country.

And this is the true up north for me.

So it's wilderness.

There's a lot of nature, there's wildlife, and specifically where my timber frame is here, there's tons of birds.

My name is Biff Ulm.

I am a mixed media creator.

My mom, this is really where it started.

She never allowed us to have coloring books.

We had, and today even my favorite medium is a number two pencil and a stack of paper.

So I always enjoyed art.

And I walked into an Ansel Adams exhibit, of all things, and I was just fascinated with photography.

And I'm like, I think I can do that.

There were other mediums that kind of pulled at me at the time, but nothing, it just, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

So I really, really, really dove into that world of photography.

There was just a point where I was giving a lot of myself, and that was a gift that I was able to do, but I wasn't returning that to my family.

I didn't pick up a camera again for almost three years.

I believe we all have creative outlets.

And if you're not feeding that, something stirs within you to feed it.

So that was where the natural evolution was.

All of a sudden I started playing with other mediums.

And what I discovered was I really, really, really loved mediums that I couldn't control as much as photography.

But I had those cameras sitting around, and I'm like, I'm gonna build a photo booth.

And there wasn't, even when like those ideas, you can't just Google, because a lot of people haven't even done what you want to do.

So those are the things that are the most rewarding to me.

The art that I'm creating right now, there's not a lot of information on it.

So it's that failure is a big part of it.

And there's a lot of exploration that happens in failure.

Paul and Babe are like one of my favorite subjects.

We were kind of a bunch of strangers put together.

And then there was a lot of just, the talking onto the bike part.

And that's one of my favorite things about riding in a group, is there's stories that are shared.

And you can shear up a friendship really fast riding bike together.

One thing in business for me, the middle ground is the most dangerous place to be.

So if we're trying to copy other people, you can only ever be second best if you're trying to copy them.

So embracing our idiosyncrasies, our quirkiness, it usually always pays dividends.

And it took me a while to learn that, but really in the last 10 to 15 years, like that's what, I embrace it.

I'm quirky, I'm weird.

I wasn't the popular kid.

I was an art geek.

But yeah, my parents raised us in a way to just be, you know, be yourself.

And that's what I try to do.

(easygoing music) - We are off our bikes, and our reward for biking the trail is dipping our toes on this very lovely, expansive beach that we have in front of us here at Bemidji State Park.

It's gonna be hard not to just like jump all the way in.

(laughs) Ooh, yeah.

That sand is hot.

That's really hot.

- [Pete] Oh, it feels so good though.

- [Brenda] Any snapping turtles?

- [Pete] Yes, snapping turtles and muskie.

- And muskie?

- Yeah.

- Do muskie bite?

- They could, yeah.

- I mean, toes?

(laughs) - Not just bait on hooks.

- Especially freshly painted toes with bright, bright colors.

- They're not freshly painted.

(bikers laugh) So I'm safe.

Oh hey, guys, it's Christa.

- [Pete] Hi Christa.

- Bonjour, hello.

- [Brenda] Hello.

Is it time for the bog?

- Absolutely.

- Excellent.

Come on guys, let's go to the bog!

(laughs) (upbeat music) All right, we're on our way to the bog.

I'm actually really excited to see the bog.

I'm super excited to see the bog.

I already had a chance to go on one when I was young at camp, onto a walking bog, and it's been quite a long time since I've bog walked, so looking forward to it.

Christa, where are we right now?

- We are about to enter the trail that goes into our bog walk.

And I guess a fun thing I wanted to say is that I try to incorporate like Anishinaabe, which is also known as Ojibwe language, into the programming that I do.

And that's because, you know, there's a lot of local tribal communities around here, like Leech Lake, White Earth, Red Lake as well.

And so, yeah, so the Anishinaabe word for bog is mashkiig, and their name for medicine is mashkiki.

And you can kind of see a similar word root there, and that's because there are many medicinal plants that grow in bogs.

- [Brenda] So why is this an acidic bog?

- Well, because there's a plant called sphagnum moss that grows in bogs, and it's kind of a feedback loop.

It likes an acidic environment, so thus it produces an acidic environment.

And what Sphagnum moss does is it takes up magnesium and calcium from the soil and the water around it.

And it releases hydrogen.

And hydrogen will then thus mix with the water and produce an acid.

- [Brenda] Okay.

So tell me again, how is that different than a swamp?

- Well, if you ever walked by a swamp and smelled it.

- [Brenda] Yeah.

- Yeah, so in a swamp, plant material is actually decaying.

- Okay.

- But in bogs, plant material doesn't actually decay very quickly at all.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- Because it's low acidity and low oxygen.

And so bacteria don't have that oxygen they need in order to decompose the plant material.

- [Brenda] Wow, yeah, that's really fascinating.

I actually had no idea.

- So this, the pitcher plant, also known as frog leggings and also omakiki iwidaasan, which means frogs leggings, which is a cute word.

This is actually one of the carnivorous plants that grows in bogs.

The reason it's carnivorous is because there's so low nutrients in the bog that it needs to absorb nutrients from insects in order to produce seeds and flowers.

And what happens is that in these little pitchers, they collect rainwater, and an insect will fall in there, get stuck, and that leaf will produce a digestive acid to digest that insect, to get the minerals out of it.

So there are two tree species that grow very well in bogs.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Christa] This one here, this is black spruce.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Christa] It has the very short needles on it.

You will always see those in bogs.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- And then the other one, there's a little baby one right here.

This is the Tamarack.

This is the only deciduous conifer that we have in Minnesota.

It actually loses its needles every single year.

And they turn, in the fall, they turn this gorgeous, bright, golden yellow color.

- [Brenda] Cool.

- [Christa] There's not many berries that are ready yet, but these, this is a dewberry.

These are actually, they bloom in kind of mid spring.

And so they're all ready to go.

- I can't get that.

- Oh, yep.

- [Christa] Those are edible.

There's blueberries out here.

They're not quite ready yet.

They're kind of late this year.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Christa] Right before we got on the trail, there's blackberries, there's some raspberries, which is kind of exciting.

So this plant right here is common in bogs and wet environments.

This is called horsetail.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- It's actually a very ancient plant.

It was actually around when the dinosaurs were here, they actually were as tall as pine trees.

So you can imagine a forest of horsetails.

That'd be pretty fascinating.

- [Brenda] That would be.

- And it's kind of interesting.

Each of these, the pieces can actually be pulled apart.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- [Christa] I remember actually doing that when I was a kid at my grandfather's house.

- [Brenda] Huh.

- That's probably - So they're like, - why I'm a naturalist.

- actually like little tubes?

- Yeah, they're little tubes.

- [Brenda] So it's pretty warm here.

- It is very warm.

Actually the temperature underneath the bog is actually much cooler than the air is.

And at the end here we have a thermometer that will actually tell us what that difference is.

And actually, bogs kind of act like refrigerators.

And over in Ireland they found like old clay pots filled with butter buried in the bogs.

And so that's how people used to refrigerate their things in Ireland.

- [Brenda] Oh, very cool.

Right here is our other carnivorous plant.

This is the sundew right out here.

- [Brenda] With like the little berries on it?

- [Christa] Little guy right here.

It's actually leaves.

- Oh, right there.

- [Christa] Those leaves have sticky spikes on them.

And then, so when an insect lands on it, it gets stuck.

And basically that leaf'll close up like a catcher's mitt and eventually digest that insect.

So here's, right here on this, it says air temperature is 82.4 and the bog temperature is 50.2.

- [Brenda] Wow.

- [Christa] So it's quite a bit of difference underneath.

- [Brenda] So how far underneath is that?

Like where's the?

- [Christa] 10 inches below the surface.

- The cool bog, not as in like hip, but like actually cool.

(upbeat music) Hey there, Minnesota.

Thanks for joining us today.

From the bustling center of a northern city to the quiet and peaceful mystery of a unique wetland ecology, Minnesota once again shows us that it has much to discover.

Until next time, let's go, Minnesota.

What kind of owls are in the area?

- [Pete] Yeah, so we definitely have barred owl in the park, even just this spring and early summer we had, we've had two that were calling back and forth to each other, that you could hear between the campground and the office building.

- [Brenda] Okay, what kind of sound do they make?

- [Pete] You know, the who cooks for you?

- [Brenda] Who cooks for you?

(laughs) Just like that, I'm sure.

Yeah.

(Pete laughs) - I hesitate - No one cooks for me, - trying to mimic it myself, - unfortunately - cause I know I'll butcher it, but.

- [Brenda] That's okay, cause this is a comedy show.

(Pete laughs) Shoot, what happened?

- Thought I was filming, but I wasn't.

- Oh, (laughs) those details.

- This is like a therapy session now.

(laughs) - [Brenda] Yeah, I just love it.

- So my parents were, I say this lovingly, but they were truly hippies.

- [Brenda] Okay.

- So there are pictures of me as a young kid with Maharishi.

- [Brenda] Oh look, there's a camera guy in the lake.

Weird.

Where'd he come from?

Any sharks?

- [Pete] No, this is a, from what I hear, it's a shark free lake.

- [Brenda] Shark free?

- [Brenda] Hang on a second.

Was I actually recording all that?

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music)