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Ten Mile Lake is located just 500 feet from the protected property and is one of Minnesota’s largest and deepest lakes. It was selected as a Sentinel Lake by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which means that it is monitored regularly to detect and better understand environmental stressors to provide data to guide management practices that sustain fisheries and water resources for future generations.
Ten Mile Lake is also designated by the DNR as a Lake of Outstanding Biological Significance and a Tullibee Refuge Lake. That means that despite the effects of climate change, Ten Mile Lake is expected to be able to continue to support tullibee several decades from now, which is critical for trout, walleye and other big gamefish species who feed on the smaller whitefish. 🐟
The Boy River is a 60-mile wild rice stream that connects several lakes in the region. It provides quality habitat for fish, insects, and other wildlife with its calm, clear water, and soft, mucky sediment.
Characteristic of the Mississippi Headwaters region, the protected landscape includes trees of the northern mesic hardwood community, with a dense canopy and relatively open understory. Here we find sugar maple, basswood, and the occasional northern red oak, bur oak, white spruce, balsam fir, and paper birch.🌲
There are also important wetlands on the property including open peatland composed primarily of mosses, graminoids, and forbs along the Boy River, a tamarack swamp, and a shrubby wetland region dominated by speckled alder.
Protecting the forest and wetlands here promotes high-quality habitat for wildlife species in greatest conservation need (SGCN), including the common tern, belted kingfisher, red-headed woodpecker, and veery, and residents of nearby Ten Mile Lake including the pugnose shiner, least darter, and northern sunfish.
Additionally, the property is estimated to sequester nearly 29 tons of carbon annually, offsetting emissions from an approximately 23 passenger vehicles driven for one year according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.
Congratulations again and thank you to everyone who championed this project and supports conservation in Minnesota, including Burton Wook and Bruce Carlson of UCC, our dedicated Minnesota Land Trust supporters, partner Northern Waters Land Trust and the Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Fund which provided funding to complete this project.
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