Our National Forests Are Under Attack, and Nobody is Even Talking About It!

You read that headline correctly. Our National Forests are under attack by forces that seek to dissolve the US Forest Service that manages them, and sell off our precious Public Lands to private interests that would seek to pillage them for their valuable resources, and/or limit access to those who can afford to pay their access fees. If you think I am deluded, pay attention, because while social media is full of pleas to save our national parks, nobody is paying attention to the National Forests. Although it has escaped media attention that the Park Service has regained multiple thousands of positions, the US Forest Service has lost 10,000 jobs, and is being told to eliminate another 7000 with little or no regard for its effects on families, homes, and the  economy or the communities and states they live in. Make no mistake about it, a cabal of primarily Western state senators and representatives, emboldened by the election of President Trump and his DOGE program under Elon Musk, are quietly clearcutting the caretakers of over one hundred and eighty-eight million acres of Public Land. OUR Public Lands.

Nobody is arguing that our national parks, the sanctuaries of our most unique natural, cultural, and historical lands, aren’t important, however it takes a lot more to shut down a national park than to do so with National Forest lands. To eliminate as much as thirty percent of the Forest Service workforce will place Irreparable harm on an agency that was already short-staffed before they were ordered to eliminate 7500 primarily seasonal positions last fall, followed by a 3000-employee cut on Valentine’s Day. This is being done behind our backs, folks. While your attention is being focused justifiably and intentionally on things like USAID, Social Security, DEI, and National Parks, the Forest Service is being reduced to a force that cannot possibly keep up with the demands of managing the Public Lands in their care. Those trying to destroy the agency will seize this opportunity to say, “Look, we told you so! They can’t manage it so let’s transfer it to the states.” Then, when the states can’t afford to manage it, they’ll be forced to sell the lands off to the highest bidder. That is the endgame. If you don’t think this threat is real, witness that in January the Supreme Court ruled against a Utah-based attempt to seize federal lands in that state, just one in a string of attempts to wrest control of federal lands managed for us under the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in primarily, but not exclusively Western states.

While I certainly agree that government at all levels, but particularly at the federal level, has become bloated and rift with corruption and special interests that need to be eliminated, and a budget and massive deficit that need to be reduced, the US Forest Service is one of the best managers of both the taxpayer’s dollars entrusted to them and the land that it is their mission to manage. Selling off our Public Lands at fire sale prices will not effectively reduce the budget or the deficit. Selling off the timber on those lands while laying off the trained, educated, professional employees whose job it is to manage sustainable forests is both shortsighted and ultimately counterproductive. One of the Forest Service’s biggest problems is its historic inability to promote and lobby for itself. Many people in this country don’t even recognize the difference between a National Park and a National Forest, or that they are under two different, separate departments of the federal government with vastly different missions.

Unfortunately, the days of representative government are receding rapidly in our rearview mirrors. Party leaders on both sides of the aisle demand that senators and representatives vote their party line whether or not it is what the people who elected those representatives want or believe in. Both sides believe we, who sent them to Washington in the first place, are not smart enough to know what’s best for us. There needs to be a new way to reinforce the fact that the people we elect are there to represent us and our interests, not those of their biggest donors. Because of this, contacting your legislators may be only partially effective. But letter writing, emails, and phone calls have worked to restore over 3000 positions with the National Park Service. There is more to be done, but we need to get at it because there is the deadline of March 13th for the Forest Service to produce 7000 more cuts. Write, call, post, email. Make a ruckus. Let your and my elected representatives know that this has to stop. Tell them to end the attack on OUR Public Lands, OUR National Forests, before it’s too late to save them!

 

Backcountry Snowshoeing and Skiing: The 10 Essentials of Winter

Preparation for hiking is crucial in all seasons, but especially in cold and unpredictable winter. The Backcountry Trail Patrol recommends the “10 Essentials” for any hike: nutrition, hydration, insulation, illumination, navigation, first aid supplies, fire, repair kit, emergency shelter, and sun protection. Here’s how to make this list work for you in winter conditions, along with some tips from the Old Ranger.

Nutrition: Bring plenty of food! Winter hiking burns a lot of calories. Pack extra bars or trail mix in case you’re out longer than expected. Pro tip: Some energy bars may be prone to freezing, so think about bite-size snacks like trail mix. Carrying bars close to your body will help, too.

Hydration: Two liters of water is probably adequate for most day hikes. Pro tip: Insulate with an old sock, and carry the bottle upside down to keep the cap from freezing (the highest water freezes first).

Insulation: In addition to synthetic base layers, warm middle layers, and a waterproof outer layer, be sure to pack spare clothing layers. Pro tip: You haven’t packed enough unless there’s a layer left that you never needed to use!

Illumination: Bring a head lamp (to keep your hands free) with spare batteries, even if you’re only planning a day hike. If you can’t easily change batteries in the dark with cold fingers (try it at home), an extra light will be better than spare batteries. Pro tip: Lithium batteries last much longer than alkaline batteries in the cold.

Navigation aids: Cell phone batteries can die quickly in the cold, so a paper map, compass, and GPS are far more reliable. Pro tip: Practice using them until it’s easy! You can find videos online or participate in a workshop.

First Aid Supplies: Everyone in your group should carry a complete first aid kit in case you get separated. Pro tip: Sign up for a Wilderness First Aid class to gain confidence in backcountry emergencies!

Fire: Waterproof matches, lighter or flint. Don’t assume you can start a fire with ice-coated and snowy wood until you’ve done it a few times. Pro tip: Pack some Vaseline-covered cotton in a prescription bottle for a fire starter. Also, a couple of "Fast-Fire" fire starter blocks (Available at Fleet Farm, Cub, etc.) can save your life!

Repair kit: Multi-tool, or knife and duct tape. Pro tip: Use your hiking pole as the core to make a small roll of duct tape so it’s always handy.

Emergency Shelter: Pack a tarp, tent, or bivy sack, even for day hikes. Pro tip: A large contractor trash bag is an inexpensive option in a pinch.

Sun Protection: Sunglasses and sunscreen are all the more important in cold temps. Winter sun reflecting from snow can cause sunburn and snow blindness, and you’re unlikely to notice an incoming sunburn. 

Join the Fight to Save Our National Forests!

My name is Hans Erdman, and I am a retired park ranger, Patrol Chief Emeritus of the Minnesota and Wisconsin volunteer Backcountry Trail Patrol Association, host of the Old Ranger’s Backcountry podcast and a number of blogs, pages, and other conservation related presence across social media. I am also a proud United States Forest Service volunteer and have been for the past thirty-five years, even while working as a career park ranger for other agencies.

Today, February 1st, is the 120^th anniversary of the establishment of the United States Forest Service under the Department of Agriculture, by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. I am posting this short message today, not just because of the Forest Service anniversary, but because this year, possibly more than any year since, our national forests, grasslands, and even our national parks are under attack. They are under attack from the same forces that Teddy Roosevelt and it's first Chief, Gifford Pinchot sought to protect our public lands from in 1905.

I am a life-long conservative, by every definition of the word. I am not a Republican nor a Democrat, but I will always vote for the person, regardless of affiliation, who most closely supports the things that I believe in. Do not even dare to accuse me of being anything but conservative. I was supporting Ronald Reagan when most of today’s legislators were still in diapers back in 1968. But I am also a conservationist and have been so even longer, when I decided my goal in life was to become the career that I lived and loved for twenty-six years as a Ranger. And I also believe that our government at both the state and federal level has become too big, too unwieldy, and too intrusive in our daily lives. It has also become too expensive for its own system to support. That much I can agree on with those who were attacking our public lands, however there is a group in Congress that is using the new administration’s push to reduce government spending as justification to gut our land management partners, specifically the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. During the first Trump administration, the same representatives from Utah and other Western states attempted to eliminate the division of law enforcement and investigations within the Forest Service, and even in the past month the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against another Utah-based lawsuit that tried to force the BLM to transfer the lands it manages in the beehive state to state control. These attacks have continued, and they always seem to originate with the Utah and Nevada delegations.

Our public lands in the United States are a unique and incredibly special heritage. No other country in the world has lands that are owned by us, the public, and allows access to those lands like our country does. Our national forests and grasslands comprise of 193 million acres that contribute over thirteen billion dollars to the national economy every year from forest visitors alone. Over 20 percent of our nation’s clean water supply comes from the more than 400,000 lakes and 60,000 miles of rivers and streams on national forest land. Most of those nearly 200 million acres are open to hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, bicycling, ATV riding, horseback riding, and myriads of other recreational opportunities. The Forest Service provides, excuse me, provided 7400 seasonal jobs that contributed to the local economy until last year when Congress drastically cut funding for seasonal employment. This argument of trimming the budget is a thinly veiled disguise. Their real intent is to eliminate both our public lands, and the agencies that manage so that they can be supposedly managed better by the respective, and most frequently western, states. Of course, those states do not have the budget, the manpower, or in many cases the training or desire to do so, and failing that, they would be forced to sell to the highest bidder. That is who these champions of budget reduction actually represent, those “highest bidders.”

Representative Emmer, for twenty-six years I worked as a park ranger in your district. Representative Stauber, I live in your district and have voted for you every time you’ve run for Congress, but if you choose to take sides with those who would steal our public lands and our unique American Heritage of wild and public places from us, I will add my voice to those who oppose you. In 1984 I stood toe to toe with Governor Mario Cuomo when he tried to cut New York State’s Forest Ranger force, which I believe is one of the finest forest protection agencies in the world, in half because his downstate advisors told him they weren’t needed anymore. We won that battle, and, now as then, we’ll win this one.

I leave you with my favorite quote from one of my conservation heroes, the first chief of the United States Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot; “Where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question shall always be answered from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”

We are the greatest number. Contact your members of Congress, contact your senators. As the song says, “This land is your land, this land is my land, this land was made for you and me.” Without your help, this land won’t be yours or mine or our grandchildren’s in the long run, if we don’t act now.

To paraphrase Smokey Bear, “Only you can protect our forests!”

Coming Soon! "The Ranger: Winter Tales"

 With KDP's decision to shut down Kindle Vella, I have decided to move my episodic stories, Sam Foureyes, Lordess Tarabet, and Starduster to Royal Road as Vella fades into the past. But, for Christmas this year, my first RR story comes from the Northwoods I grew up in. Stay tuned here for the release date and giveaways!

The Legend of the Lost Sand Dunes Gold

I am going to break with my tradition of only posting to this blog in winter (of which we had very little this year) to tell you a story. But first, let me give the reader some context:

From 2003 to 2015, almost half of my Park Ranger career, I was the "boots-on-the-ground" ranger at Sand Dunes State Forest Recreation Area near Zimmerman, Minnesota. I have a lot of stories from then and my years, paid and volunteer, with the National Park Service, the Anoka County Park Rangers, and the U.S. Forest Service, which I have recently been convinced to put into book form after I finish the rewrite of “Truthbearer.” To paraphrase Robert W. Service, “The Northern Lights have seen strange sights, but the strangest they’ve ever seen…” But that’s another story for another day.

One of my first projects when I was assigned to Sand Dunes was to complete construction of the Bob Dunn Equestrian Campground with the assistance of the Wright and Sherburne County Sheriff’s Department Sentenced to Serve (STS) crews. STS is a state-sponsored program that allows non-violent jail inmates to reduce their sentence through being part of a community service work crew. The DNR had already established the campground from an old shooting range, and installed a roadway, campsites, built two new vault latrines, a handicapped accessible ramp, and day-use parking. Our job would be to install the site number posts, fencing, pickets, and parking area borders. That requires a lot of holes to be dug. A LOT of holes. It was tedious, hot, labor intensive, and boring work. The crew chief and I needed some incentive, something that would inspire the crew to dig. Then, a coworker told me the Legend of the Lost Sand Dunes Gold. Now I am going to tell it to you.

The story goes, that back during the Dakota Indian Uprising in 1862, a unit of Army Cavalry were transporting $16,000.00 in gold payroll (worth $6.4 Million today) from Fort Snelling near St. Paul, to Fort Ripley, north of Brainerd along the old stage road that ran through the Orrock area, near what is now Sand Dunes State Forest. Depending on which version of the story you are told, they were either set upon by a Native war party, or received orders to report immediately to the Mankato area to assist in efforts there. In either case, the paymaster was directed to bury the leather saddlebags containing the gold in an identifiable place, and either head to Mankato or return to Fort Snelling and the gold would be retrieved later. The paymaster and one trooper, who would be the only ones who knew the exact location, buried the bags near “a big oak tree” under cover of darkness, and to distract their attackers, sent one horse off in the direction of Fort Ripley, and headed to Mankato or Fort Snelling quietly. Unfortunately, the paymaster and the trooper were killed in the conflict before either could reveal the exact whereabouts of the gold, and when the Army returned to the area, they found that a massive wildfire had swept through the area and obliterated any recognizable landmarks. The gold was never located, and presumably is still there, somewhere.

Then there is a second story, probably closer to verifiable fact than legend, about “Old Sherburne’s Gold.”

Around 1857 there was a man known as "Old Sherburne" who lived in the area that is now part of the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Sherburne County. (I’m not sure of Old Sherburne took his name from the county, or the county took its name from Old Sherburne.) He was regarded locally as a hermit but not like more famous hermits such as Minnesota’s Dorothy Molter, New York’s Noah John Rondeau, or California’s John “Grizzly” Adams. Old Sherburne was said to be friendly, sociable, and generous with the money he had gained from the sale of his part of the family business back east. Shortly before he passed away in 1882, Old Sherburne sent a telegram to his brother in Indiana saying that he knew his time was short, and he would bury his remaining money, about $40,000.00 in gold (worth $16 Million today) in the Blue Hill moraine near his home. Blue Hill is a well-known landmark on the Wildlife Refuge, and was and is still the highest point of land in the area. By the time the brother arrived from Indiana, Old Sherburne has walked on to his final reward. The brother searched for several weeks and never was able to find the buried gold, so it may be, as far as anyone can tell, somewhere on Blue Hill to this very day.

Well, if you want a bunch of jail inmates to dig holes, tell them about the legendary buried gold in the area. (Even if Blue Hill is 11 miles away.) "If we find it, do we get to keep it?" was the big question. We told them, "Let's find it first." The whole team got to work, and the work got done in record time. Now you know why.

 

Wishing Everyone a Very Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year!

 

From the Backcountry to You, Wishing Everyone a Very Merry, Blessed (and hopefully, White) Christmas. Come to the Forest where the other you lives!

My Country by Gilles Vigneault

 MY COUNTRY

My country’s not a country, it’s winter,
my garden’s not a garden, it’s a vast plain,
my road is no road – it’s the snow!
My country’s not a country – it’s winter!

A ceremony all in white
where snow marries wind,
in this blizzard-land

my father built a house
and I’m going to honour
his ways, his example…
My guest room will be where
you return, season by season
and you’ll build too – right beside it.

My country’s not a country, it’s winter,
My refrain’s no refrain, it’s a gust of wind,
My house isn’t mine – it’s the winter chill’s!

My country’s not a country – it’s winter!

All around my solitary land

I cry out before the silence,

to everyone on earth:
My house is yours, too.
Inside four walls of ice
with time and space
I make the fire, and a place
for People of the Horizon
– and these people are of my people.

My country’s not a country, it’s winter,
my garden’s not a garden, it’s the vast plain,
my road is no road – it’s  the snow!
My country’s not a country – it’s winter!

My country’s no country but the contrary
of country – neither land nor nation,
my song’s not a song – it’s my life!
And for you I wish to master these winters!