Last night I toured the Naturescape by Lake Nokomis with Julia Vanatta from the Wild Ones, learning about the history of the area, and the plant life found here pre settlement through today. It was amazing, and I’d hoped to share the tour here as a downloadable recording and gps map of where we were at each point in the recording, but alas, technology failed me. . . so here’s a [10 minute teaser] of what you can look forward to when she gives another tour in August.
I took pictures of the plants as she was telling us about them, to illustrate the walking tour, but since most of the tour is missing due to technical difficulties, you get the plants, without explination for many. : (
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- Prairie Smoke
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- Brown Eyed Susan
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- Common Milkweed
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- Grey Headed Coneflower
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- Prairie Coreopsis
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- Wild Ginger
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- Wild Geranium
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- Wild Bergamont
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- Solomon’s Seal
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- Lead Plant
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- Prairie Dropseed
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- Wild Bergamont
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- Wild Bergamont
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- Wild Lettuce–Invasive, removed on sight.
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- Cup Plant
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- Purple Coneflower
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- Purple Coneflower
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- Butterfly Weed (milkweed)
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- Coneflower
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- Monarch Info Station
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- Black Eyed Susan
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- Fleabane (Annual)
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- Purple Coneflower
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- Prairie Phlox
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- Sneezeweed
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- Naturescape, Julia V.
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- Solomon’s Seal
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- Solomon’s Seal
Maps she uses to illustrate some of the history:
http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/mpls&CISOPTR=310&CISOBOX=1&REC=2 1896 Map showing elevation of lake and surrounding area pre dredging.
http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/mpls&CISOPTR=323&CISOBOX=1&REC=4 Map of Minneapolis in 1900, pre dredging of Lake Amelia (Lake Nokomis)
http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/mpls&CISOPTR=281&CISOBOX=1&REC=18 1913 Map detailing planned improvements to Lake Nokomis
The Minneapolis Park Board hired a historian to put together a history of the parks, and the section on Lake Nokomis is particularily facinating. Here’s where he discusses the modification of the existing body of water into what we know as the lake today:
Wirth proposed a radical alteration of the landscape around Lake Nokomis. He would reduce the water area of the lake from 300 acres to 200acres and deepen the lake to an average depth of fifteen feet from its natural average depth of five to twelve feet. Wirth also proposed creating an island near the northwest shore of the lake to add visual interest. At the same time, Wirth recommended straightening Minnehaha Creek to reduce the amount of water needed to provide sufficient flow over Minnehaha Falls and diverting the creek into Lake Nokomis. He also recommended eventually filling Rice Lake (Hiawatha), noting that a dry meadow there would look better than that swampy lake. While Wirth’s basic plan to reshape the lake was eventually implemented, plans for an island in the lake, the diversion of the creek, and the filling of Lake Hiawatha were all scrapped. . .
It wasn’t until 1914 that work began in earnest at Lake Nokomis when the first dredges set to work scooping muck form the lake bottom to deposit in the northwest corner of the park. The dredges worked nearly continuously for four years, completing the shaping of the lake in 1917. A total of 2.5 million cubic yards of earth were moved to reduce the water area from 300 acres to just over 200 acres and achieve an average depth of fifteen feet in the lake that remained.
When dredging was done the park board allowed the fill to settle for five years before it began grading the area. Even with that wait, the fill continued to settle over the years and additional grading work was done through federal work relief programs in the 1930s.
In the end the lake was on average somewhat deeper than planned because when the dredges found sand on the bottom of the lake, they dug deeper to collect that sand for the beach being created on the northwestern shore of the lake.” – Parks Lakes Trails, and So Much More by David C. Smith
This is a USGS Quad Map, showing current elevations, and lake depths. Screen shot from the DNR’s Landview application: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/landview.html Crazy to compare the elevatons now, compared to the elevations pre development.
Info on Lake Nokomis from the DNR: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/results.html?lake=27001900
