Staff photos/Rhonda Silence The Gunflint Ranger District Open House on Friday, June 19 offered insight into the many activities taking place in the Superior National Forest—now and for the last 100 years. A number of Forest Service firefighters were on hand to demonstrate the equipment used fighting forest fires—with their buddy, Smokey Bear. (L-R) Aaron Betcher, Shawn Miller, Eric Cardinal, Henyo Jeantete, Smokey, Luke Fosness, Dave Snyder, Sarah Holtzer.
Top: Isabella Marsden and her dad, Steve Marsden, of Lakeville, MN, were among the many Centennial visitors who checked out the firefighting equipment, taking a turn on the hose. Above: Wilderness Ranger Betsy Kurtz oversaw a logsawing demonstration. Luke Johnson and Claire LaVigne from the Cooperation Station Explorer’s Club took a turn on the saw.
Forest Service surveyor Harvey Sobieck offered glimpses through the surveyor’s lens—and the chance to touch a piece of history. The aged wood he is holding is a bearing tree marker from a survey done off the Greenwood Road sometime in the 1880s. The stamp on the old jack pine denoted “angle point #4 in Section 12.”
Gunflint District Ranger Dennis Neitzke, in 1950s Ranger garb, checks out some modern Forest Service technology. Dean Zeitz explained the workings of a portable weather station.
Baby Chloe Hazelton, with her dad Vance Hazelton, wasn’t sure what to think of the friendly Forest Service mascot, Smokey Bear.
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