I’ve spent more than 20 years in Minnesota, and I’ve explored all corners of the state. Part of the reason I wanted to take a fellowship for a year of study was my fascination with the state’s forests, and particularly the piney woods of the Arrowhead Region, which is mostly made up of Superior National Forest. It’s an area roughly equal in size to Vermont (which says a lot about how big Minnesota is). SNF includes the biggest Wilderness Area in the Lower 48 (the Boundary Waters) and it includes thousands and thousands more acres that are available for a wider range of uses, from mining to logging to fishing and hunting. I’ve spent a lot of the last semester at the University of Colorado studying the history of the laws that govern the country’s public lands, and I’m going to spend a lot of the next semester focused on researching the history, present and future of Minnesota’s public lands. The nation’s forests are undergoing rapid change. In Colorado and the mountain states to the north and west of it, lodgepole pines are being wiped out by mountain pine beetle. Aspen trees, another iconic trait of Colorado’s landscape, are also struggling mightily with warmer weather and nastier pests. In the East, western hemlock is being wiped out by a tiny Asian bug with no natural predators in North America. Moving from the east, the ash borer is leveling groves of ash trees across the country. Some of these phenomena are linked directly to climate change, while others have more to do with human manipulation of the landscape. In Colorado, biologists blame a variety of factors for the downfall of the lodgepole pines. Climate change may be part of the equation, but the larger issues have to do with overcrowding of trees, and that is linked to suppression of fire. As I move into the next phase of my research, I’ll be updating you on what I find in Minnesota’s forests, but I’m also wanting to hear what you’re seeing and observing. I’ve noticed more burr oak saplings in Voyageurs National Park for example. Are you aware of proposed mine claims? (They’re coming.) New trails? Midnight rule changes? The next months will tell much about the future uses of our public land in Minnesota.