I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Nov. 21, 1999
By Devlyn Brooks
By the beginning of next year, 14 students in a Bemidji State University geography class will know the landscape of the Bemidji area better than most landowners.
The 14 students are producing a land use map of the six townships surrounding Bemidji and the one around the city of Blackduck. They are charged with the task of accounting for each piece of land down to 2.5-acre squares.
BSU geography professor Charlie Parson says that when they're finished they will have produced not only a practical educational assignment, but also a useful tool for the leaders of the seven townships.
A land use map, according to Parson, is a detailed map that shows how each piece of land is used in a particular area -- say a township, county or even a state. The students will eventually have a map of each of the seven townships showing where each house, pasture, field, forest and lake is.
Parson, whose classes produced a land use map for the entire Beltrami County in 1989, said he chose Grant Valley, Eckles, Northern, Bemidji, Frohn, Turtle River and Blackduck townships for two basic reasons. The first is that the class has made the assumption those townships surrounding the cities of Bemidji and Blackduck are the most populated in Beltrami County and should have changed the most since the 1989 map was completed.
The second reason is that the class hasn't received any funding for the project, and so the seven closest townships are the most economical for the students to map. Parson said when his classes mapped the entire county -- and Clearwater County -- in 1989 they had received a grant to do so.
To complete the new land use map, the students -- who have divided into groups of two per township -- will begin by comparing the 1989 land use map to a recent aerial infrared photograph of each township. the students will look for any change in the new map and mark them. For instance, if a house now stands where there once was forest, they'd mark it.
After marking all of the question spots, the students must then hop in a car and drive every road possible in a township to explore the changes on this aerial photograph and to look for any changes they missed.
"The bottom line is that we have to account for every piece of land," Parson said. "It's a lot of work."
When the students have finished driving the townships, they will then make the changes on a new land use map.
Kevin Morrissey, a BSU senior working on the project, said the biggest use of the maps will be for townships which will be the basis of their comprehensive land use plans.
"If your newest (land use map) is 10 years old, it's hard to do planning," Parson said.
In addition, Parson said that a good land use map will also help township officials project the changes in land use, which is also invaluable to planning.
Land use mapping began in Minnesota in the 1960s, according to Parson, when the state conducted the first study to map all of the lake shores in the state to determine how they were being used. That was in 1967.
Beltrami County produced its first land use map in 1969, and BSU students finished the second in 1989. Parson said it will be interesting to note the changes in the three maps, and they should also help predict what will happen around Bemidji in the next 10 years.
When the project is finished, Parson said BSU will make the maps available free to anyone who had the appropriate computer application.
For instance, the elementary and secondary schools in Bemidji and Blackduck could use the maps in class assignments as well.
Most importantly, when finished, the project will probably be used as a model in mapping the entire state's land uses. Parson said that the state's planning office plans to study whether BSU's mapping method is cost effective in mapping the state for a new, statewide land use map.
In fact, Parson said, he already has been invited to present the mapping method at a workshop for the state planning agency.
Parson says the students will need to have most of the project's driving completed before snow falls, and the rest of the work should be wrapped up in January.
"Making a call between pasture and crop land can be difficult under a foot of snow," Parson said with a smile.
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