Wisconsin and Minnesota Communities Come Together to Preserve History

Communities are trying to make the St. Croix River watershed a National Heritage Area

GORDON, Wis.- Communities in Wisconsin and Minnesota are working to preserve the history of the St. Croix River watershed.

“A heritage area brings together all those arts and history and cultural organizations and couples them with chambers of commerce and economic development organizations,” North Woods and Waters St. Croix Heritage Area chair Marty Harding said.

The St. Croix watershed is an area dating back 12 thousand years to founding tribes like the Dakota and Ojibwa people.

“The St. Croix watershed is about eight thousand square miles of amazing, natural beauty and cultural and historic resources,” Harding said.

North Woods and Waters is a nonprofit who’ve been researching the watershed since 2009 to see if it would be a valuable addition to the nation’s 54 other heritage areas.

“If you’ve been in one national heritage area, you’ve been in one because they are all so different from each other,” Harding said.

Like the Silos and Smokestacks heritage area in Iowa, who Superior resident Jane Anklam has experienced first hand.

“To be able to put those two together and see these people here are taking the time out to celebrate their place and tell their story to the rest of the country. Not to keep it a secret, but to share it with other people,” Anklam said.

Some at the event say legislators have concerns that the heritage area is a way of controlling land, which is why it hasn’t been passed by congress.

“We’re hoping that all of our legislators from both sides of the river will come together in a bipartisan effort to say this is a national heritage area,” Harding said.

The North Woods and Waters organization says they have no interest in controlling land. They just want the area’s history preserved.

“To know that that’s possibility in a place that I love and think is so spectacular is really intriguing,” Anklam said.