Islands of Minnesota - Myre-Big Island State Park, Pike Island, Nicollet Island, Bear Island, Mille Lacs National Wildlife Refuge (Paperback)

Chapters: Myre-Big Island State Park, Pike Island, Nicollet Island, Bear Island, Mille Lacs National Wildlife Refuge, Garden Island State Recreation Area, Oak Island, Malkerson Island, Valhalla Island. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 28. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Myre-Big Island State Park - The park is situated on the Bemis Moraine, which marks the southern extent of a glacial lobe during the Wisconsin glaciation 10,000 years ago. As the glacier retreated, the moraine caused the meltwater to back up behind it. Albert Lea Lake was created as a moraine-dammed lake and today covers 2,600 acres (11 km ). The park also contains an esker, a sinuous ridge of sand and gravel dropped by a stream running under the glacier. The mainland is primarily vegetated in oak savanna with several wetlands. Restoration ecology projects, including controlled burning and water retention strategies, are ongoing to maintain and improve these habitats. Big Island, protected from the wildfires that suppressed tree growth in the savannas and prairie of southern Minnesota, bears an old growth hardwood forest. It comprises maple, basswood, elm, green ash, ironwood, and red oak, with willows along the lakeshore. Albert Lea Lake is highly eutrophic. Moraine dammed lakes typically fill in, but this process has been exacerbated by agricultural runoff. Myre-Big Island State Park is known for its birdwatching opportunities, especially during the spring and fall migration. One particularly notable species is the white pelicans which congregate on Albert Lea Lake. Artifacts, many of them collected by a local amateur archaeologist named Owen Johnson in the mid-1940s, reveal that humans have been living around the area's lakes for 9,000 years. Johnson became an advocate for protecting Big Island as a state park...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=3261538