 If you watch Common Ground Online, consider becoming a member or making a donation at lptv.org. Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, a partnership for generations. Member, FDIC. Welcome to Common Ground, I'm your host, Scott Knudson. In this episode, walk the trails and bathe in nature at Wadena's Green Island Preserve. I'm Vicki Chipolas. I'm at Green Island, which is also my home and the home of my husband. I am Kent Shearer and this is the old family farm where I would visit when I was a child. My grandfather farmed this property through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. I would start coming here when I was probably a youngster in the mid 50s through 60s and when I had the opportunity to come here, I certainly jumped at that. This particular property was a standard old-fashioned farm. It was as practical as it could possibly be. It was as open as it could be. But about 40 years ago, this 60-acre piece of property started getting converted to green space. So there were very few trees. It was quite open right now. When you enter this property, it is sheltered, visually sheltered from the surrounding community by trees and shrubs. At that time, it was an open, flat landscape right out to the highway. You could sort of see forever. It was the leftover component of a family farm which at some point fairly early in the 1950s went idle and then it was simply left to sit. But it was a long time before my family and then I got around to filling it in to adding trees and changing the landscape and enriching the landscape. And in the last five years, we've converted it to a public space, a place with trails and picnic areas and gardens and just a place for people to come and find a little solace and quiet and peace. And that would be exactly what we were aiming for. We're looking for a green space that would enrich this community, also enrich perhaps tourism because we do have people that come through the area and will find their way in as they're passing by. The whole notion is that within the city limits of the little town of Wadena, we should take this space which is 60 acres and quite sizable and turn it into a green space that is rich in shrubs and perennials and annuals and trees. Once the vegetation is established, as it has been, the birds come in, the canines start to come and the whole idea is to create a space where especially youngsters and young families can come out, they can picnic, they can walk, they can walk the dog, the kids can look around, it's non-threatening. It's our hope that when someone comes to Green Island they're going to get a chance to reconnect in nature. Walk through the pines, hear the birds sing, see a bunny running across the path and also encounter a little artwork, beautiful flowers and also get tips on how important our earth is and how much we as human beings have the responsibility to care for it. We've become adopted by preschool in the general area. We have about four school districts that bring their preschool out for spring outings and in that way the kids are introduced to a non-threatening landscape where they feel very comfortable kind of running and tumbling and looking around. We have multiple intentions and multiple uses for our place here. I'm also very interested in establishing usable plants, medicinals and food resources which can be gleaned by the community down the road when they've matured. People could come out to pick berries to make jams and jellies. Another component of what we're after is a retreat. So we have a small kuti, a meditation building. It's actually sort of patterned after Southeast Asian meditation buildings in Thailand and this one is intended for people who just need space to write, to think, to pray, to meditate in a separate spot where you can be free of responsibilities, leave home, not have to worry about painting the house and not worry whether you left the stove on or the electricity is too costly. You get someplace else and you don't feel responsible for anything but the moment that you're in. When we see someone drive up, whether it's a single person in a car or a van full of kids, you know, we both kind of smile because it means that someone's coming out to just have a moment for themselves or just to enjoy, you know, being among the trees, being with each other and we just kind of let them be. We have signs along the way saying, we're going to be out mowing the lawns and planting the gardens and you feel completely comfortable to just come in and make this place your own. All we ask is that they be respectful of the property and treat each other with kindness while they're here. The oak trees that are here are pretty much the original inhabitants of this landscape. They're the one thing that has not been changed. From there we have a trail system that covers about a mile and a quarter which if a person strikes out in the trail system you'll pass by some outdoor sculpture, half a dozen pieces of major good size outdoor sculpture. We're going to be adding and removing those, changing them up a little bit. We have small orchards, like 10 and 12 apple trees at a time broken up into different small orchards. The trail system takes you out to an old hand pump that has a sand point on it. Kids are fascinated by being able to walk with the water and feel the nice cool comfort of that. So when the conditions are right when we haven't had too much rain that has made things soft which happens on our outer trails it can be a mile and a quarter walk and along the way there are benches that a person can sit at, take a break. There's a little magnetic poetry board. We have an actual slate blackboard that usually gets lots of John was here, Mary was here and that sort of thing on it. We had a very limited experience. We had no sense of what it should or should not be beyond just letting it evolve as to how it gets used and what people appreciate. Green Island was inspired by the fact that it was a big property 60 acres right in the heart of Wadena, Minnesota surrounded by commercial property but really just the place for two of us, my husband and myself and we thought that this was too good not to share with the public. We really thought that people yearned for a place like this in their lives and so we decided let's invite them here. So throughout the year we've got quiet activities that they can do and a lot of people have made this their home. We have people come out for regular picnics every spring we've got preschool kids buses of preschool kids that come and read stories along our trails on our story walk. We do poetry walks here plant swaps all kinds of activities but really basically it's just a place where people can drive in feel comfortable get out of their car walk the trails and just relax. And there are a number of factors that pulled together to bring us to this place this very sizable space 60 acres inside this small community it seemed very unfortunate that anybody would say this is mine no one may come here now that would be very typical but we said let's do just the opposite let's take a risk let's invite the community and let's invite outsiders to come to this place which we cherish and we spend a fair amount of time making it perfect just for ourselves we might as well make it perfect for others as well. On top of that there's an unusual reason I have at times been a meditator during my life and my feeling was if we could get people to step away from daily life come to a spot where they could sit on the grass where things would be less disruptive and there would be less to occupy their mind and perhaps use the little meditation hut that we have we might be able to refocus people back on the importance of the environment and I'm afraid that we have gotten far away from acknowledging the base that our experience has and the base that the quality of our life has in a rich and healthy environment my hope was that we could help to move people back to that realization and we could give people to value and be more alert to the way that we care for our surroundings now this worked out because the schools are coming and that's a very rewarding thing for us when these preschool kids come and they read a book and walk our trails and then they just trot and run and you can see them picking up pine cones and some of these little things that we overlook just a rock found here and there a little bit of a flower you know that they're starting that engagement that we want to see. When you're in the woods so to speak literally what you're breathing in is stuff that makes your brain function better makes your body healthier generally enhances your well-being and that's one of the things that you'll get to experience when you are on the trails of Green Island to get a chance to see flowers and unusual plants. Kent especially is one who loves to try new things. He'll import seeds from as far away as Siberia and northern Norway to try those northern growing plants here to see how they do. This is purely experimentation. This is something that's just interesting to me but the notion is that let's elaborate let's diversify and enrich this landscape so that it will have increased utility in the future and one of the most easy keeping ways to do that is just by putting the right plants on. You can create buildings and you can create bridges and those things all have to be maintained but typically if you establish plants here give them a year or two to settle in and they will look after themselves after that so they're easy keepers. So it's always an adventure to see what kind of plant is coming out of the ground at Green Island. In addition to that there's the birds and literally the bees and the butterflies and you know it's just a way to connect with nature. There is an unusual reason for the name that was chosen in the 1300s outside of Strasburg and either the Rhine or the Roan River which I can't remember but we're going to be close, either one of those. There was an island that was called Green Island and what was unusual about that we have to go back now think this is the 1300s. This was a spot where laymen and clerics came together in the worship of God so that typically the clerics were a separate group of people and you had your monks and your nuns and they were cloistered and they were kept separate. The priests had their own roles to perform but on Green Island outside of Strasburg there was a significant lay community and there were sort of freelance priests and monks that would hang out there also that they could simply dedicate themselves to worship and to contemplation of God. Well meditation has been important to me I thought that was a very charming concept and I also like the philosophical component of that so when it came time to giving a DBA or a doing business as name to what was the family farm just decided that something that had a little bit of a ring to it Green Island would be an interesting way to state it plus of course surrounded by commerce there's residential homes on the south side of us there's industry to the north of us there's shopping to the west of us so we really are an island green space right here. When you come here the one thing that you may encounter is our one or maybe both of our tricolor colleagues and Lassie in particular loves to welcome people and show them where the trail is and so she'll get you on the trail and now she's getting a little old so she may tend to go back to the house and lie in the shade but she has you on your way and as you go you're going to walk past artwork created by various artists from across the state of Minnesota down then some of it comes and some of it goes so you're kind of always seeing something a little different picnic areas unusual plants and flowers you know every season brings different color and different shapes to Green Island it's fun in a way that just feels enriching. It feels fairly essential to be able to share this space simply because of my outlook on the way humankind is moving and what we're doing with our relationship with nature I want to do some role perform some role in raising that awareness and turning in a different direction so when I sense that that is happening when I can see that happening in one form or another you know that feels pretty darn nice there are many activities that take place here that are sort of outside of our preview people have simply identified how they can use Green Island now that could be weddings we have a poetry walk and a book dedication coming up but one of the ones that has become really rewarding for me are the school outings in the spring we know that that's taking kids in a direction that I want them to at least get started so I can sense that my mission is being fulfilled when I see the buses pull in In October 2016 we held our annual plant swap this year in collaboration with the Wadena Garden Club we love to collaborate with community organizations so this was a fun one and we invited anyone who had plants to swap as well as things like honey from the local bees and lots of value added products like jams and jellies and those kinds of things people came and swapped with one another and it was really wonderful for anyone who was into nature and gardening and all things plants because horticulture is important to me and we know that anybody who gardens always ends up with surplus then the idea came out for example well maybe we can facilitate an exchange maybe based on an event that has taken place here earlier the Barter Fest that became an example of what could be done just by the idea of exchanging goods or services and materials but we put a focus on plant materials and horticultural goods tools and that sort of thing for this so it is simply the opportunity for gardeners to bring in anything that's surplus to look for the novelty that they really want to add to their garden to get rid of some things that are just too frequent we also had one or two farmers that came in brought in lots of old tools and that sort of thing we've had people that have brought in home produced gems and jellies anything that has to do with food stuffs is what the plant swap became you know to do something like the plant swap is like a lot of our other activities it just allows people to connect with one another which is so important to the I think mental, physical, emotional health of human beings and they have fun in the process I mean they get to know people they didn't know they get to take home some sort of plant slip that they're going to grow and remember I remember where that came from they're going to go on their shelf at home a jar of honey that somebody just down the road made from the bees that have been buzzing around flowers here and other places all summer long it's kind of magical to see people come together and that's ultimately you know why we love to do this actually I'm going to say that it has matured and moved beyond us which I think is a good thing we've had the plant swap here for about three years it's now going to be moving into downtown Wadena in a more central location where as people pass through who are not connected or did not come for it they're going to see the opportunity and can swing in and give it a try I'm at the Green Island Preserve Plant Swap and I've got some plants and I've got some honey from my hives that I'm swapping and selling today I think the plant swap is a great way for people to talk, learn about ideas and trade ideas and tricks of the trade and also hopefully get some great new things to plant in their garden we call it a garden swap although people can buy and purchase too for that matter but the garden club members got together a couple years ago and decided to do this in the spring and it was cold and rainy so this year we decided to do it in the fall so we could add produce and that kind of thing and invited some of the other clubs so you come you can buy you can swap the fun part is just visiting with other gardeners and learning new things one of the events that just kind of brings people together with the common interest basically is what it is garden garden yes and the beautiful Green Island Kent offered us this beautiful space he's got places where you can walk through the trails there's little places back there that you can meditate there's sculptures here and there some whimsical some education things we like to come out here and bring our dogs out here and go for a walk on a Sunday afternoon it's a beautiful place but he was so kindest to open this up for us just a fun time I think Green Island is a great place for people to get out of town and just find a nice calm place to get in touch listen to the birds see a frog jump across the path and just kind of enjoy that which is not paved and cemented well like I said there's a lot of different people who come to Green Island on a regular basis and one is especially close to my heart because when that van pulls up I know I'll always get a hug and out comes Mary with her guys the guys from the group home who come out at least once a week they'll have a picnic we hold a big patch of rhubarb for them every year so that John can get his rhubarb crisp and rhubarb cake they're a part of this place in a really special and wonderful way and just fill it with love and we love having them here so we do have a group of adult men who live in a group home situation who have rather adopted Green Island in that sense I would say that they come maybe twice a month or so as an outing the last time that we saw them they were here for a picnic they just sat up on our barn foundation and they had a picnic for about 20 minutes or 30 minutes but they tend to walk the trails and the woman who comes with them takes the time to point things out to bring things to their notice what has been very sweet about this is they have a variety of options as to where they can go and what they can do when they're doing an outing and it's become apparently common that they say well let's go to Green Island and so these guys have kind of adopted our place and it's fun to see the smiles on their face when they come strolling in and it's actually fun for us to be with them because they tend to be very calm, very engaging very sweet people so we spend a little time visiting with them when they're here Green Island is open any season of the year in fact you know one of my favorite times to be here is in the winter an opportunity to be outside on the snow breathing in that great cold-air winter and it's really a wonderful experience and the novelty of our Green Island is that we simply say anyone is welcome to visit during daylight hours so what that means is as you might find in some park situations there is no need to call ahead of course we don't have an overnight stay but here at Green Island just come rolling in or biking in if you're a local kid or walking in and you can just sit down and pull a book out or get your sandwich out, take the dog for a stroll there aren't any arrangements that need to be set before you do that we say that we're closed in the dark so we know that we have some private time for example but otherwise it is simply drive in, stroll in, bike in we're very proud of Story Walk that is something that has a national presence it's being done on a national level but we're sort of the permanent opportunity for it right here in this area Story Walk the idea behind Story Walk is to simply take a children's book with a lot of illustrations separate the pages so that they're mounted some place outdoors over a larger area so that anyone who reads that book needs to move through the environment, be outside feel the wind, encounter insects, see a gopher and we have actually a quarter of a mile long Story Walk quarter of a mile out, quarter of a mile coming back that's attracting local schools when they come they typically bring their lunch they might also do some games during that period of time and that's become a spring outing there is a great deal of groundskeeping involved because I want to make sure that the trails are easily walked that there aren't any pitfalls that are really sort of lingering so there's a good deal of mowing there's a good deal of weeding and I try to stay on top of it just for the security of the people that come out to take a stroll we're just hoping to stay on top of the property you know just doing the mowing and the planting and tending it so it's a well maintained place in the long term we welcome ideas from the public and really are interested in seeing how much the public is interested in maintaining this as a public space after the two of us are gone we're already seeing the result of a society that is leaving nature behind I'm hoping that we can make a turn away and move back in the correct direction because I think too much is at risk we already know about massive extinctions this is the new extinction period so many species are being lost and we know the endangerment of our waters and pollutions so my thought is once again the concept will be can we just reopen that door for the youngsters so that they are not entirely sitting on the carpet in their living room and have the opportunity to make the choice even and say oh I was out there and the trees and the squirrels were great fun I'm going to give that another try let's go to the park that's the way things will go because there is something inherent in humankind that says my place my space off you go and we're working in just the opposite direction from that thank you so much for watching join us again next time on Common Ground if you have an idea for Common Ground in North Central Minnesota email us at legacy at lptv.org or call 218-333-3014 for more information on Common Ground visit lptv.org and click local shows to order episodes or segments of Common Ground call 218-333-3020 Production funding of Common Ground was made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji continuing their second century of service to the community a partnership for generations member FDIC Common Ground is brought to you by the Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008 if you watch Common Ground online consider becoming a member or making a donation at lptv.org