Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

[Music] [Music] Welcome to Common Ground.

I'm producer director Randy Cadwell.

In this episode we take a road trip to Ottertail County.

First we'll visit a unique Veteran's Museum in Perham, Minnesota and then we get a great panoramic view in Ottertail County's highest point.

[Music] The day the air war started, they woke us up at 2:30 in the morning, got us into our BOP gear, not our masks or anything like that but our suits, brand new suits, never been used before, got us into those and they told us we're basically on alert.

The ship I was on along with four other destroyers was operating, we're patrolling between the Yucatan and Cuba.

This was after Castro came in and so forth.

The ITOW started with just interviews.

We have 310 interviews from gentlemen and women that were in World War II, Vietnam Nam, Korea and they've all been interviewed and it's all on tape and we have TVs throughout that have the interviews.

So, they can come in and watch their son or daughter or Grandpa and they'll actually feel like they're right at home with them.

Russia still was not up to speed as it was quickly becoming back then.

It was not a necessarily a factor.

The gentleman that started this was Sherman Mandt.

He lived in Perham.

He was a really history buff.

He loved anything to do with history and how we could preserve it.

He got a few people to come in and talk about their stories in World War II and Vietnam or whatever part of the service they were in.

It started out, it was just that, it was just a few walls with a couple tapes and TVs around.

We had 17 old computers that ran the old things.

His goal was to preserve Ottertail County and our boys that did their job for the service, that was his intent.

A lot of the people that did the stories were somebody that Sherman Mandt knew, that he could go put his arm around and say hey do me a favor come in and please do this, that's how it got started.

It wasn't that it was open to the public right away.

It was the good old boy club from Perham.

Honest to gosh that's what it started out to be.

We could never imagine what World War II and what happened with them and that's where Sherman Mandt got going and said here let's make this a museum.

The gentleman that went out Chris, that was one of our investigators kind of would go out and tape it and then we had two ladies that would go out and ask questions.

My buddies from school and we stayed in the service.

And a lot of these guys came to us at the end of their life, when they really did want the world to know what they went went through in France, what they went through in Italy again you and I never would have heard that but so when you listen to some of these tapes they're really scary because did our fathers really go through this?

Did my grandpa lost his hearing in World War II?

Where was he?

I didn't know then when I saw interviews I went wow he was there.

So, it brings back something that they were proud of.

I'm proud of that they got to do and and most of those people were not inducted into the service, they went into the service.

My brother Lyle was there and he said Mom he's going and she says no he's not and I said Mom I'm going you know and it was pretty hard to convince her.

What was it like to land on Omaha Beach and see all of these fallen men?

You didn't see stuff like that.

You just looked the other way.

[Music] [Music] They gave up their time, their lives, their wives, their kids to go over and fight for our country.

[Music] We start at the Civil War.

We have one little uniform and a story out there.

[Music] What used to be "no man's land" where over 1 million lives were lost and then they would go to World War I.

You walk through a bunker.

You get to see a movie on what World War I was like.

Arrived at Monsedea on October 12th Al Shasti and I pitched our tent right between three shell holes to keep out of the mud, did not get much to eat that day but some truck drivers gave us some bread and tomatoes so Al, Roman Bodenheimer and myself had a feed about midnight.

On November 9 and 10th and 11th the roar of the cannon was so loud we could hardly understand each other when talking and the ground was shaking all the time and that was the finish of the BOSH.

[Music] Then you step into World War II.

[Music] You'll see different parts of what the ladies did in the World War II, what the hospitals looked like in World War II and you walk through and it just gives you archives of different, the dimensions and time during World War II.

[Music] [Music] This is one of our examples here that we are very proud of.

This came to us from a family.

I'll just give you his first name his name was Don.

He was in World War II and this is his time capsule he gave us and it has a lot of products in that was in the service and this family was gracious enough to us to donate it and this was a story about this and it just takes a second to tell.

He got shot down and his plane got on fire and he got caught in the plane and he had to cut himself out with a saw and he lived to tell the story.

[Music] [Music] I've had a lot of calls that say my dad died last week and we're having the burial Tuesday.

I know he did your tape.

Can we come in and look at it?

Absolutely.

So, I set their tape up and in like a room like this and I put chairs out so all the grandkids kids and relatives after the service or even before they can come and watch the interview and I've had more compliments on how we've preserved time and we didn't do the time, they did it but we've got to preserve it so that grandpa will always be alive to them even though they have pictures grandpa's talking.

So, when I came in the first person that walked in was a gentleman that happened to be in World War II.

This was 10 years ago and he was still alive.

He came in with his great-grandson because his tape was in here.

He walked in and he went to his tape and about 5 minutes later this little boy came out and I was sitting in the front and I said to him I said you couldn't have gone through all that and he goes I don't read and it a bell went off.

So, I went to the VFW group the boys and I said in the back room you have lots of lots of archive stuff.

You have a lot of memorabilia.

Why isn't it out?

We don't know we've never been asked.

So, our museum kind of changed hands.

It went from just the reading and the interviews to be able to touch it, to look at it, sometimes even smell it.

You can almost smell the old.

You can smell, you know, you can.

[Music] A few people in our group volunteered and we brought out boxes and boxes and we walked through the thing and said what can we change?

What can we add?

We didn't really take anything down.

We just went from a lot of white walls to a lot of memorabilia.

[Music] Well, we'd like it to keep going.

We write grants and thanks to Ottertail County we get a fairly nice grant from them to keep our doors open which we will continue to write.

We do get a quite a few families that their families are in here that donate once a year to us to keep it going.

All of our staff except for one, we all come for free.

The museum now has turned into a nonprofit building.

Kenny Nelson was gracious enough to donate it to us and we have 11 nonprofits that use our building that don't have to pay rent that can come in and have their meetings which is a big deal for Perham because we didn't have places for these people to go.

You always have to go back to see before you can go forward and in here I feel like if kids could come in and see the heart and love and blood and soul that these gentlemen and women gave to keep our country the way it is.

They should be happy that we have free doors.

We can come and go.

So, to keep our doors open, to show what our people did in the past, I don't care if they what religion.

I don't care what color.

I don't care what creed.

You look at our walls, they don't matter either.

They are there.

They gave their time and you'll never say thank you enough to these people.

That's why our doors are open.

[Music] We're at Inspiration Peak State Wayside and it was originally set up to be a state park back in 1931 but today it continues on only as a State Wayside with only 80 acres here at Inspiration Peak.

There's not a lot of land for it to be a state park and there's not a lot of facilities here with camping and other shelters for them so we continue to manage it as a State Wayside for people to come and enjoy this beautiful overlook.

Inspiration Peak happens to be one of the tallest points in west central Minnesota and the highest point in Ottertail County.

Looking at the height of the hills, it's 1750 ft. and again it's 400 ft. above the surrounding landscape.

Inspiration Peak is part of a larger complex of very high hills.

At one point going back way back into geologic history, we're going 25,000 years ago, we're going back into time where with the hills in the Alexandria Moraine were probably much higher than they are today and then over the course of time this area was affected by glaciers of different sizes and different time periods and then the Des Moine Lobe came through and actually covered that Alexandria Moraine from 25,000 years ago and changed and reshaped and redeposited sediments and actually eroded away some of the Alexandria Moraine and once those ice sheets left, we are left with this complex of remaining hills and rolling countryside that we see today and so Inspiration Peak is about 1700 or just over 1700 ft. in elevation and it sits at the top almost 400 ft. higher than the surrounding countryside below you.

When folks come here to Inspiration Peak you're going to find a nice drive up, a small hill coming into a parking lot where you'll be able to then get out of your car, use the restroom facilities that are there.

And there wasn't leaves on the trees when we were here and then make the quarter mile climb to the top of the hill where you'll find a beautiful overlook of the surrounding landscape around you dotted with lakes, farm fields, rolling [Music] countryside.

On your way up the hill to the top to enjoy the view it is a paved trail with stops along the way and handrails, places to sit and take a break because while only a quarter mile, it is quite steep.

You are rising about two almost 200 ft. above the parking lot area where you started.

As you visit Inspiration Peak and you crest that quarter mile climb to the top of the hill you're going to find yourself literally on top of a bald for the most part hill, free of trees up on top and a Goat Prairie or Dry Prairie is the other way to look at it.

It's a Remnant Prairie.

It's free of plow, grazing and so that is original prairie up on top of there and because of that glacial, those glacial features it is sandy and almost gravely soil up on top so the prairie plants, the grasses, the forbes tend to be shorter than what we're used to in other parts of the state being more tall grass prairie.

This is a drier shorter prairie but very beautiful, full of life and flowers along the way and then it's surrounded by trees.

[Music] You're going to be able to look in three directions really at the top.

You'll be able to look to the east to the south and to the west and so when you're looking east you're looking towards Urbank, Parker's Prairie area ,looking south towards Alexandria, Garfield, Brandon we're talking 12 to 15 miles away as the crow flies and looking west we're looking towards Fergus Falls, Battle Lake area.

In Fall here at Inspiration Peak is probably the busiest time out of the year for us where folks are going to start coming here especially on weekends to take the quarter mile hike up to the top to really enjoy those panoramic views of the lakes and the countryside and those dotted hills that are covered in trees that provide some nice golden browns, oranges and occasional reds just to enjoy that view at the top.

It might be a dozen people on a day or on a busy day it might be hundreds of people filling the parking lot at the bottom.

If you're looking for a great adventure try getting to Inspiration Peak at low light conditions, when you're getting looking east to see a sunrise or my favorite time to venture is late afternoon to watch that sunset looking west in those low light conditions with that glowing color across the farm landscape and those fall colored trees is something to be seen.

[Music] Prairie ecosystems in Minnesota as many folks know are a disappearing and really rare endangered ecosystem and those Goat Prairies are no different and so there's a lot of management done with our regional resource team out of Bemidji and they're coming down on a pretty regular basis.

We've put a lot of effort in making sure that it doesn't become crowded over with woody stems and so the first thing that'll come in will be the Sumac and that's a native shrub but we really want to keep open grass up there so we've taken out the Sumac.

It's taken us a lot of years.

The next thing that we do is we try to go after the woody invasive species that are in the forested area like the Buckthorn.

We don't have such good control on that there but we work on it.

That's kind of an everlasting project because the woods surrounding the peak are full of Buckthorn and so it's just going to keep coming in but we try to keep it at bay.

Once grazing stopped on them a lot of shrubby stuff started and turned into trees so if you look closely at the peak the irregular fringy areas of the prairie on top of the peak is really an irregular area and it's following ridges.

So, if you look for that then on the edges of those ridges you can see where we've been mulching with the mulching head but you can also probably find a lot of cut stumps where we've taken out trees.

We really want people to follow the signs, enjoy the view, walk up to the railing, read the sign, take your photos but then stay on the trails.

There is some areas where folks have gone off trail up at the top and really ventured into some of that Remnant Goat Prairie and we're discouraging people to do do that because it's eroding those soils, the sand and gravel, makes it hard to get equipment up there and to manage and that is original prairie and it's a unique and neat ecosystem up there and we're doing a lot of work especially in the last couple years with our regional resource crew to maintain and enhance that area for folks.

And then you can take your way back down the hill, the quarter mile to the parking lot where you can enjoy a picnic in the mowed grass area before getting back into your vehicle.

Sinclair Lewis, born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota not too far east of here ventured here a few times and this was one of his spots that he found to be a gem himself used for relaxation, contemplation and to really kind of get himself grounded back into to his work into his [Music] life.

He mentioned the view much like you see it today and that's really what we're managing for is to be able to walk up there and see it kind of in the same light around that 1920 time frame of when you'd see what it looked like across the landscape and that view is not any different than it is today and those folks that when you get to the top you can kind of close your eyes and step back and envision and kind of close off what else is going on and really feel like you're seen it the way maybe Sinclair Lewis did.

Those dotted lakes of 50 or more like he mentions in his journal, you can still see that rolling farm landscape, you can still see and so it's not not changed all that much and so his hope was that we never build a parking lot or a road to the very top.

Luckily, we didn't do that but it's still a hidden gem just like he mentioned in his writing.

It's a secret little spot here in west central Minnesota.

[Music] [Music] The gates do close after the first significant snowfall in the winter and then they will remain closed until we have enough ice and snow melt off the roadway to allow safe passage up to the hill to the parking lot again but people still venture up here in the winter time.

The snowmobile trail cuts kind of across and along the road towards the top of the hill and then it's very popular among locals to park at the bottom at the gate and then snowshoe the extra distance up to the top to enjoy that winter [Music] view.

We're standing on top of hundreds of feet of glacial silt, sand, rock, gravel, [Music] boulders.

This is cool.

What we came for the exercise and then I knew it would be nice and breezy up here which I like.

It's beautiful.

Thank you for watching Common Ground.

If you have an idea for a Lakeland PBS production in north central Minnesota email us at legacy@lptv.org or call 1-800-292-0922.

To watch Lakeland PBS Productions online visit lptv.org or download the free PBS app.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the BemidjiRegional Airport , serving the region with daily flight to Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.