the Pine barrens are not so barren

6/10/2018

Yesterday we drove up to the pine barrens, a wild and beautiful place in northern Burnett County that sand and fire helped create. When I see the barrens, I feel as though I'm looking into the past, and, of course, I also see a heavenly place for wildflowers.

Here's how "the barrens" began:

When the last glaciers were melting ten thousand years ago, rivers poured from them and dumped and sorted quartz sand over a million acres of northwestern Wisconsin. Today people call this million-acre swath of sand the Northwest Sands Ecological Area, or Northwest Sands for short. Today's pine barrens (and by the way, Lake 26) lie in the middle of this big swath of sand.

As the ice disappeared, trees like pines and oaks started to move in, but wildfires frequently swept across the land and the native Americans who eventually settled in the area probably also set fires to promote game and berry habitat. This created a savannah-type landscape in some areas. When federal government surveyors came through in the 1850s they described the landscape in northwestern Wisconsin (including the area around our lake) as "barrens," that is, relatively bare of trees.

Wildflowers love the barrens. Phlox (pink) and wood betony (yellow) were blooming this week.

The state of Wisconsin owns about 6,000 acres of pine barrens near the Namekagon River and maintains the brush prairie ecosystem with regular prescribed fires. Below is a photo of a patch the state burned a few years ago. The burned area is to the left of the road.

If you're interested in visiting the barrens, here are directions:

From Danbury, WI:

1. Hwy 35 north to Hwy 77; turn right or east on Hwy 77 to Namekagon Rd 13.6 miles

2. Turn left or north on Namekagon Trail Rd and cross the Namekagon River and drive up Namekagon Trail Rd to St. Croix Trail 5.9 miles

3. Turn right on St. Croix Trail

4. Turn left on Dry Landing Road and the barrens are to your right.

And here's a link to a map of the barrens:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxmbmJ3YXZlcjJ8Z3g6NGVmNGYxY2Y0YzJkMjk5NQ

For more information about the barrens, contact the Friends of the Namekagon Barrens Wildlife Area. Here's a link to their website: http://www.fnbwa.org/newhome

5 Comments

Spencer Knisely

7/4/2018 01:21:43 pm

This is very interesting. What's the explanation as to why the barrens remain so barren (of trees)? I may have missed that explanation, but it seems that native trees would eventually work their way back in?

mark s nupen

8/7/2020 04:41:28 pm

Ah, you stumbled on to the 'secret' and it is Fire! You are right. If you drive around the NBWA property boundaries you see commercial forests! Those trees are there because we suppress fires, but in the old days up to mid 1800s fire was a common event on the 'Barrens' which actually extended from west of Bayfield down to south of Grantsburg and this area is called 'Northwest Sands Country' and is defined by soil that is pure sand 100-600ft deep in this area. Some areas have more water and patches of more soils that permit swamps and other vegetation. This sandy soil around the NBWA will not hold any water, dries out easily andd catches fire naturally and also Native Americans would easily set fire to it to promote better blueberry harvists! The plants and animals are often ONLY found on the Barrens eg Sharptail Grouse and my favorite flower the Woodlilly. Now fires are safely regulated to 'preserve' the Barrens.

https://www.researchwritingkings.com/review-of-essayschief-com/ link

12/12/2019 06:57:27 pm

I do not want to be in a country who has this type of agricultural set back. I understand that we are not always gifted with great lands, but I do think that this is just insane. I want to live in a country where we can produce products that can help us improve our quality of life. I think that people just do not realize just how important agriculture is to our life. I hope that we change our way of thinking.

mark s nupen

8/7/2020 04:59:28 pm

Very good question, and the answer is still on the NBWA today. Back in the late 1800s early settlers built homes, wells, planted favorite flowers and plum trees etc in various parts of the NBWA! If you walk around you can still find the foundations and old pit cellars, sometimes with some old pots and barrel stays left over. You can see where these old farms were if you google Wisconsin 1938 aerial photos of Wisconsin. They were small fields as expected for that time but they were all abandoned because you CANNOT FARM THE BARRENS SANDS! They were not productive enough and by 1930s they were all abandoned. You can even see the school house foundation on St. Croix Trail just east of Dry Landing Road on the north unit of NBWA. It finally closed in 1930s. There is a cemetery just south of the school on 5 mile road and Dry Landing Rd.
As they say in agriculture, "it's the dirt" and of course water. That sandy soil will not even make a puddle after several inches of rain in a single day! So I hope you now understand why it failed agriculture, Except if you wanted to create a Tree Farm! Then you would destroy the habitat that is critical for Sharptail Grouse and many of the plants like my favorite, the Woodlilly. When I ask local residents of the area if they have ever seen that flower, their answer is always, "No?"
Tree farms or sustain a habitat which is one of the rarest in the world! My choice is preserve it, just like we preserved Yellowstone park and its geysers. Could have used the geysers for Geothermal Energy? What's your choice? Sometimes better to preserve beauty vs simply function!

Stuart Steidle

9/14/2021 10:44:31 pm

Hi ! May I use your photo of the phlox flowers in a research product of mine? Please let me know asap! Happy to share the final product with you! Thank you so much.

Wild About Sand

the Pine barrens are not so barren

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Author: Lisa Peters

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