Rebuilding “Memory Lane” – 2015 Keller Creek Restoration

By Sage Passi



Reflections along the banks of Keller Creek

When you descend the hill to Keller Creek from the Golfview Picnic access parking lot a view of something more remarkable than a golf course appears. All along the edge of this rambling creek is a panoramic “canvas” about to be transformed into a masterpiece.

By next summer the vibrant wildflowers, butterfly milkweed, blue eyed grass, prairie smoke, Midland shooting star, spiderwort and aromatic aster should be coming into their prime.

 

Rattlesnake master and native grasses, little bluestem, prairie dropseed and side oats grama will be dancing in the breeze along the upper banks.

 

Below the prairie, the wet meadow plants, cardinal flower, turtlehead, fox sedge and Joe Pyeweed will be calling out to the hummingbirds, monarchs, dragonflies and damselflies to visit their colorful blooms and seed heads.

 

The emergent plants along the water’s edge, with their feet under water and their vegetation looming above the surface, will inspire frogs, herons, egrets and spawning fish to seek out this restored habitat to spend their summers searching for food and raising their young. 

All these habitats are much better homes than the buckthorn and reed canary grass they have replaced, don’t you think?

Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)

An Apt Nickname for a Motley Creek

What’s a better nickname than “Memory Lane” for a place that several hundred kids had their first experience restoring a rich habitat of native plants? It seems like an apt epithet for a place that is reclaiming some of the essential qualities of Minnesota’s pre-settlement ecosystems.





Ann Nelson assists fifth graders in planting upland prairie
species along Keller Creek.



I met Ann Nelson, a creek volunteer, at a salon talk I was giving in March about water quality issues. She expressed interest in the project then and came back numerous times to help us work with classrooms that were planting. Here is what she had to say about the experience:
 
"Thank you for presenting information about the Watershed District's work at the salon conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you, your staff and the kids on the planting project. Please keep me in mind for other projects if I can help in any way. Thank you for your good work."
 
That's the kind of affirmation I like to hear!

 

Keller Creek is a place you want to come back to. People have been hiking, biking, paddling, driving, planting, picnicking, practicing archery and fishing along this corridor for generations. A group of inspired women back in the 1920’s nicknamed the grove they planted along its banks, “Memory Grove”. This grove of elms was located next to the spot where we dug our first trowels full of soil to begin the restoration. One lone tall elm tree is what remains below the hill but there is still an stone monument with remnants of a plaque on it that honored their efforts to recreate a forest. The City of Maplewood, with help from the University of Minnesota Forestry, recently did a core boring to count the rings of the tree and determined that it was close to 100 years old and within the age range of a tree that could have been planted during that era. 



Twelve classes were involved in the planting, including these students
 from Mounds Park Academy who engaged in the creek restoration.

Each day this spring, as I returned with a new group of students to assist with the restoration, energy was high and people were cheerful and happy to be there. It’s no small task coordinating all the scheduling with teachers, students and Master Gardeners who turn out to help us each year, but there was lots of enthusiasm for participating. I found it meaningful that our first volunteers this spring were three fifth grade classrooms from American Indian Magnet School. 

American Indian Magnet fifth graders learn how to plant at Keller Creek.

Simba Blood, Natural Resources Technician for the District,
explains the planting process.

 

In the early 1800’s the Dakota Tribe from the village of Kaposia would travel along this passageway coming from the Mississippi River through its marshes and wet meadows on their way up north to their summer hunting, fishing and ricing lakes. The Dakota guided their friend, French Canadian voyageur, Ben Gervais, along this creek to find a location to build a mill and farm on the banks of Gervais Lake and Gervais Creek to the north. If you follow the creek through the narrow culvert to the other side of Highway 61, you get to a spot where evidence of the Woodland Period (1000 BCE to 1000 CE) culture was uncovered when the construction of the road was in process in the 1974.This creek has been at the crossroads of a lot of activity for a long, long time!


Keller Creek flows out of Keller Lake at the south end. This
was the location where Woodland Period artifacts were found.

Some TLC for the Creek and for All of Us

The weir on Keller Creek

The creek has gone through many metamorphoses over its lifetime. It has been through-the-ringer, so to speak. It’s been dredged and dammed, armored and paddled. It was high time for some TLC if you ask me. I guess that’s what was the opinion of Bill Bartodziej, our Watershed biologist, when he initiated the restoration project. 

 

From mid-May to early June twelve classrooms from St. Paul, Maplewood and North St. Paul participated in the process of restoring native plants in about a 12,000 square foot area (1/3 of an acre) along the shoreline of Keller Creek.

A restoration project provides much more than your average planting experience for kids. Lessons about water quality issues, ecology, history and watershed geography that are built into classroom experiences prior to planting day culminate in a hands-on project that calls for teamwork, eye-hand coordination, physical effort, dexterity and attention to detail. The rewards are fresh air, a beautiful place to spend a spring morning or afternoon, a chance to interact with nature and do some environmental observations, a sense of accomplishment, an opportunity to make history and some happy memories. What more can you ask for?



Farnsworth Aerospace environmental science classes
investigate water quality in the creek.

 

David Barrett reveals the contents of a geocache he hid for
his students near the Frost Avenue Bridge over the creek.

David Barrett, aerospace instructor and environmental science teacher at Farnsworth, walked the area in advance of the planting to get his own bearings. He took some time to develop additional activities to complement the planting, hid some geocaches and then invited his long time geocaching buddy to join us on the day of the planting. He is the kind of educator who is committed to building high quality outdoor experiences that enhance skills and connect students to the nuances of a place. Despite the intermittent rain on their planting day, his students and his colleague, Hannah Scanlon’s class used this opportunity to measure the water quality of the stream, identify birds and apply GPS to find the geocaches Barrett hid in various locations.

In early June members of the District’s Citizen Advisory Commission and Landscape Ecology Award Program Team joined forces to lend their hands to the efforts. They made a night of it and filled in plants in the wet meadow zone and explored the newly reconstructed portage.


LEAP and CAC members assist Bill Bartodziej
(far right) with the planting.

Photo credit: Anita Jader

 
And Then There’s The Dirty Work……..

Coconut fiber logs help control erosion in areas along the creek
where grading was done along the shoreline.

I asked Simba Blood, the District’s Natural Resources Technician, to give me a quick low-down on some of the steps that went into getting the area ready for planting. Revisit her article "Connecting the Spots" in the February edition of the Ripple Effect for more details on the overall project. Also, check out "Three Creeks in One" in the April edition to learn more about the history of the creek.

One of the first questions students asked when arriving down at the creek is, “What are those rolls in the water?”

Simba answered,

“In places where we’ve moved soil, we use biologs along the shoreline. These are coconut fiber logs that are sturdy and act as erosion control measures where we have loose soil that could wash into the creek. In areas with cut banks where we didn’t disturb soil, we use brush bundles made from willow and buckthorn rolled up in an erosion blanket. They are cheaper and don’t function as erosion control, but they serve as a flow break in areas where they can buffer and allow some of the soil washing into the stream to accumulate instead of moving downstream.”

Brush bundles made by Youth Outdoors help
in buffering soil that washes into the creek.

“How did you prepare the area before planting?” I inquired.

 

“We treated the weeds and turf with herbicide and did a lot of invasive removal. There was a lot of poison ivy we needed to get rid of and we did some “spiking” of the burdock. We used a special shovel to cut the burdock root a couple inches underground. Before we covered the area with erosion control fabric, Bill seed drilled the planting areas to break up the soil so it would be easier to plant into. While we were out there working on the planting areas for this year, the Youth Outdoors groups assisted us in starting to work on next year’s restoration area on the other side of the creek. They took out 8-10 large garbage bags of garlic mustard. There’s lots more of it though so we will be busy getting that out of there next year.

There is one special part of the project that rises to the top and stands out as a major accomplishment. As any of you may know who have tried to canoe or kayak from Lake Phalen to Keller Lake, the weir in this area of the restoration, up until now, has always presented a major challenge when traveling up or downstream. Prior to the latest renovation, the “portages” next to the weir were very steep and cumbersome to climb with a canoe. 



Mike Goodnature, Ramsey County Parks,
Bill Bartodziej, RWMWD Natural Resources Manager, and
Randee Edmundson, RWMWD Citizen Advisory Commission,
converge at the creek.

On one of our first days at the creek, I asked Bill to tell me about the efforts of redesigning the portages. I'd missed seeing them be rebuilt, but I knew there had to be a story in it.

I caught up with him on the trail while he was talking to Mike Goodnature, Natural Resources Manager for Ramsey County Parks and Recreation, one of our partners in the project. At the time I was showing Randee Edmundson, a Citizens Advisory Committee member, the newly finished portage to get her nod of approval on the improvements before she headed off to South Africa for six months on a teaching gig. Randee is a veteran canoe guide who leads teams through the Canadian wilderness. I knew she would give me an honest reaction.



The north access point before the restoration was very difficult
to use as a portage because of its steepness and narrow "steps".

 

Here’s what Bill had to say about the re-creation of the portages.

One of the new "rebuilt" portages on Keller Lake

“The repositioning of the limestone slabs that made up the wall near the dam was very tricky. We had to bury the slabs several feet deep at the portage points in order to make the steps less steep for people carrying canoes and kayaks up and down the portage. Due to some limestone rock fragmentation upon relocation, we came up two rocks short in the southern access point construction. This type of limestone is very difficult to locate and quite expensive.

We urgently called City of St. Paul Staff, and they found two surplus limestone slabs left over from our Phalen restoration project in their yard. But when they tried to lift one, it was too large and heavy and impossible to bring to our site. In the process of trying to lift it, one of the limestone slabs dropped and broke into two pieces that just fit perfectly in the places we needed them. We really appreciate St. Paul’s willingness to donate them to the project. It was a pleasure too to work with Semple Excavating and their veteran operator who provided invaluable expertise with the access point construction.”

 

Needless to say, we were all quite excited about the improvements to the portage and from the evidence we’ve seen of people using it, not only for portaging, but also for fishing, since it’s been completed, the “nods” have it. 

Three generations fishing along the banks of Keller Creek.

Photo credit: Simba Blood



 
Thank you to those who worked on this project.

• A big thank you to Watershed staff and interns for their awesome support in engaging youth in projects like this. Their dedication to education and service learning is what makes our program strong.
• Thank you to Bill Bartodziej, Natural Resources Specialist, for his vision and expertise in directing this project and to Simba Blood and her interns for all their hard work and efforts to make this project come to life.
• Kudos to the Ramsey County Master Gardeners and several other volunteers who rose to the occasion and helped us out, including several of them who helped for multiple sessions and days. 
• Thanks to Rachel Katkar, from St. Paul Community Education, for coming to assist with her Youth Leadership Team and for providing funding for the buses for the St. Paul schools who were involved.
• And finally, a big thank you to the teachers, classes and parents from L’Etoile du Nord, Farnsworth, American Indian Magnet, St. Peter and Mounds Park Academy for their enthusiastic involvement and assistance!

Now, isn't it about time to take a trip down Memory Lane?

Portages on the creek now provide much easier access to navigate around the weir.

Photo credit: Anita Jader

 

Three Creeks in One - A Meandering Mirror of the Past

by Sage Passi

The "looking glass" of the new Frost Avenue Bridge over Keller Creek

Keller Creek, Gervais Creek, Phalen Creek ... One creek or three?

I often think of these three creeks as one flowing stream reflecting character names from the past.

The 1848 land survey map below shows a creek flowing through what is now called the Phalen Chain of Lakes. Lake names have been added to the map. Keller Lake is missing, Kohlman is identified as a wetland and Spoon is far south and really small. These bodies of water were originally large marshy areas connected by creeks. They occasionally held more water some years and dried up in others. They didn’t officially become lakes until they were dredged much later. The creeks are intimately connected to these lakes and their southern channel flowed directly into the Mississippi River. 

The story begins here with Keller Creek but the history of Gervais and Phalen Creeks will be told in a future article. Like the tenacious cat sitting by my keyboard staring up at me, they have had many lives and have a persistent habit of calling attention to themselves now and again.

 

  Chain of Lakes Map - 1848 

Given a creek with a split personality like this one, there’s got to be more to the story than meets the eye. Clues about Keller Creek are best discovered by strolling along its gnarly shoreline on a spring day with someone like Bob Jensen, the President of Maplewood Area Historical Society, who has a passion for the meandering “past life” of this shape-shifting channel.

Keller Creek has been altered many times with many
changes made to the nearby land and water bodies.

I met Bob in a parking lot at Keller Regional Park on one of those early balmy spring days when I’d have been amiss not to step out into the sunshine and set off on some fanciful expedition. For several weeks, Bob had been e-mailing me an array of old black and white photos, detailed chronologies, newspaper articles and newsletters. It was time to put a face and a place to those photos.

 

My last experience on Keller Creek was several years ago when I
led Farnsworth students on a tour about Dakota life in this area. I'll
tell the story of their connection to this area in the next installment.



Memorial Tree Groves by the Creek

Bob walks and kayaks Keller Creek quite often. He lives near this stretch of the creek, just west of Highway 61 and has been collecting stories and memorabilia about it for years. Joining us that day on our hike was Nicole DeGruzman, the Executive Director of the Maplewood Area Historical Society. She was getting her bearings for a walking tour guide she is writing about the memorial tree groves planted along the creek from 1927-1932 by a group of community-minded women.  

Maplewood Area Historical Society has been working with the University of Minnesota’s Forestry Department to determine if any of those trees still exist and locate the markers that identify each of the groves. Their research efforts will be brought to the public light during an Arbor Day celebration on Saturday May 16. CLICK HERE for details for that event titled The Case of the Missing Groves -- Who (or What) Done It? It’s billed as an event for families, history buffs, tree lovers, and wanna-be detectives.

As we strolled along the creek, Bob helped us get acquainted with the location of several of these memorial groves. There are big rocks (erratics) positioned in various places along the creek and in other locations that mark the efforts of the Minnesota Federation of Women’s Clubs to establish municipal forests in several plots of Keller Park to promote conservation and reforestation.

One of those areas, on the slope where the Frost Avenue Bridge crosses Keller Creek, was planted to celebrate the bicentennial of George Washington’s birthday of February 22, 1732. The photo below shows the unveiling of the large rock with a brass plaque. The three children were direct descendants of Augustine Washington, a half-brother of George Washington. Mrs. C.N. Akers, (far right) was the great-granddaughter of a chaplain who served in Washington’s army at Valley Forge. She helped lead the tree-planting committee along with Mrs. Russell E. Van Kirk (third from the right). (Information provided by Bob Jensen). At the Arbor Day celebration in May, this grove will be replanted and the rock returned to this location. The rock was found in the woods near the trail and brought to the public works office.

 

 

The George Washington Memorial Grove planting by a Minnesota Women's Club
was celebrated by the unveiling of a large rock marker in 1931.

 

Deciphering Keller Creek's Past

 

Bob Jensen stands near the Frost Avenue Bridge over Keller
Creek. The sign explains some of the changes that have
happened in this area in the past 150 years.

At our first stop along the trail, Bob, Nicole and I linger at a recently installed sign below the new Frost Avenue Bridge. Underneath one arch of the bridge, the creek still flows south to Round and Phalen Lakes. Under the other arch, where only a sidewalk now remains, a road once passed. Who built it and what happened to it? The story itself is a winding tale that can be traced back to the 1800’s when the city and park planners first started envisioning changes to this waterway.

 

Jensen’s Maple Leaves newsletter article for the Maplewood Area Historical Society from December 2012 outlines a sequence of actions that are connected to Keller Creek’s history.

“In 1869 the Minnesota legislature authorized the private St. Paul Water Company to construct open channels between Lake Gervais, Spoon Lake and Phalen Lake to improve the flow so water could be diverted from the south end of Phalen for drinking water for the city of St. Paul.”

  

Lake Phalen provided drinking water for the City of St. Paul from 1869 to 1913. Channels between the lakes in the chain were proposed to increase the flow of water for the drinking water supply.

Maplewood Area Historical Society


“By 1879 tourist guides were promoting Lake Phalen as a popular recreation area that included excursions around the lake on privately operated steam launches. By 1894 St. Paul was making plans to extend the park to include Spoon and Gervais Lakes, increasing the possibility for launches to travel the entire chain. They wanted to develop the Phalen Chain of lakes into “the most unique and beautiful aquatic park possessed by any considerable city in inland America.” (Board of Park Commissioners’ Annual Report 1895).

 

 

Maps like this one from 1900 highlighted proposed roads around the perimeter of these lakes and channels between the lakes that would connect these "jewels" in the Phalen Chain of Lakes.

 1897  Minnesota Historical Society

 

Note: The name Keller Lake was not applied to the lake until 1923, when the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners changed the name to recognize the contributions of Herbert P. Keller to its creation.

 

A local newspaper from this time period wrote, “Spoon (Keller) Lake between Lakes Phalen and Gervais, was a lake only in name. In fact it was what is known as a slough, too much water to make a meadow and not enough for boating. At high water, there was just enough of a channel, weed-grown though it was, for expert canoeists or rowboat-men to work their way through from Lake Phalen to Lake Gervais.”

 

Did this “slough,” as this derogatory term refers to it, look something like this back then?

Arrowhead and other emergent plants surround and line a waterway.
Is this what Keller Creek looked like in its earlier days?

Make Way for the Boats - Linking of the Lakes

As time went on, the land directly around Lake Phalen was “condemned” by the city so they could incorporate it into Phalen Park. By 1902 dredging began in Lake Phalen with a coal-fired dredge. In 1904 the St. Paul Park Board ran into opposition to their Linking of Lakes Project and had to appeal to Ramsey County’s authority to acquire more land outside the city limits. In 1909 the dredging of the canal north of Lake Phalen was begun but then delayed for the next few years while the project was turned over to the county and they could secure more land.

 

This early twentieth century dredge was used to clear and widen the channel through
the marshy area between Lake Phalen and "Spoon Lake".

Minnesota Historical Society

 
By 1913 the county had completed .75 of a mile of Keller Boulevard and dredged 1800 feet of channel connecting Phalen Lake with Spoon lake, making the channel an extra 14 feet wide. The next year dredging began in the location where Lake Keller is now and continued for several more years. In 1923 Spoon Lake was renamed Keller Lake in honor of Herbert P. Keller who initially introduced the linking of the lakes project. What had once been marshy land with water flowing through it was recreated into a shallow lake with several islands. Channels that had been dredged connected it to the lakes to the north and south of it.

Launches, first steam powered and then eventually gasoline-powered, operated by the Park Department continued to provide cruises that navigated up and down the channel through the Phalen Chain of Lakes into the 1930’s.

A Keller launch boat carries passengers through the Phalen Chain of Lakes in 1927
under the Highway 1 Bridge and along the creek. Low water prevented this in previous years.

Minnesota Historical Society



As we passed under the arch of the new Frost Avenue Bridge and then beneath an older version of it that still remains, Jensen reminded me that the path we were walking on was once the road that connected these lakes. I tried to visualize one of those model T Fords bouncing along happily as it traveled on this same promenade between the lakes that we were now exploring on foot. Frost Avenue was not fully surveyed until 1906 and became a major street in 1926 when it was first paved. The bridge over the creek on Frost Avenue provided access to the Gladstone area from Highway 61. 
 
Remember the famous Tourist Cabins located just down the road? Driving around the lakes then, like now, was a favorite pastime both for the community and visitors traveling from a distance.

 

Making the drive around the Phalen Chain of Lakes

 Minnesota Historical Society

Bridges, Dams and a Waterfall

There have been a number of different bridges built over the creek beside the Frost Avenue bridge including one built by the Wisconsin Central Railway in 1906. A WPA dam was built on the creek in 1937 and later rebuilt by the Watershed District in 1991 as part of a regional flood control project.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is seen here constructing a dam across Keller Creek.
Two hundred yards north of this spot, the old Highway 61 Bridge can be seen in the background.

Photo St. Paul Daily News - 1938 - Minnesota Historical Society

The WPA dam was rebuilt by the Watershed District
in 1991 to help regulate lake levels
and prevent flooding downstream.

Honeymoon Falls was constructed southwest of the intersection of Highway 61 and Keller Creek Boulevard in 1932. Water was pumped from an artesian well, cascaded over a rock ledge and flowed beneath a parking lot to Keller Creek to ensure an adequate water level for the excursion launches. It was removed in 1974 along with the parking lot and creekside roadway.

Honeymoon Falls was created to raise the water level in the creek. It was removed in 1974.

 Crossing the 45th Parallel

Keller Creek crosses the 45th parallel.
Is this a marker stone that marks the spot?

As we completed our journey up the creek, Bob pointed out a large stone located about five hundred yards south of the bridge where Highway 61 goes over the creek in Keller Park. He speculates that this is the marker stone for the 45th parallel. If it is indeed that, Keller Creek has the distinction of crossing a point halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. The creek shares this honor with several other scenic locations across the U.S. including Yellowstone National Park and Egg Harbor in Door County. 



The Restoration of Keller Creek circa 2015
 

A stretch of  Keller Creek that will be restored in 2015

Below the hill where the erratic stands is the upper stretch of the creek where the Watershed District is beginning a four year project of restoring Keller Creek. The first segment of the project involves the ecological restoration of over 31,000 square feet of shoreline that includes 1) a wooded slope, 2) a remnant patch of sedge and a few native wetland forbs, 3) an extensive wet meadow fringe, 4) a shrub prairie thicket, 5) an herbaceous edge and 6) a shrub-prairie edge.

 

Segment A (in yellow) on this restoration map is the area on the east side
of Keller Creek that will be done in 2015.

 

 

Twelve classrooms from St. Paul, North St. Paul and Maplewood will help transform its shoreline into a haven for birds, butterflies, and other creatures by planting native prairie and wet meadow species along its banks. See the March issue of the Ripple Effect for a short introductory article about this project.

Watch for future issues with more detail about this project in coming months. Once again Keller Creek is is becoming a shape-shifter and getting a face-lift, this time in the 21st century. 

Check out the history of its sister creeks, Gervais and Phalen, in next month's issue.

Keller Creek channel widens out as it flows down
toward Round and Phalen Lakes.

Thank you to Bob Jensen, President of the Maplewood Area Historical Society, for his awesome help in providing resources for this story.

Mystery of the Month - January

Have you been hiking a creek and noticed an orange slimy/oily goopy substance in the water?  If so, there is very good chance it is a form of iron-oxidizing bacteria.  These iron-oxidizing bacteria can generally be found in moist or saturated areas with a good amount of iron in the ground.  Generally, these ‘iron seeps’ tend to be found during the wetter months of the year, though if conditions are right they can be present year round.  A much more common place to find these bacteria is in toilets, backyard wells and other home water systems.  Iron-oxidizing bacteria are slightly different than most other bacteria because they do not require organic matter to feed; instead they flourish by combining dissolved iron with oxygen.  It is during this process that the ‘orange-slimy goop’ is made.

Are iron-oxidizing bacteria a health concern? The short answer is NO, iron bacteria are not a health concern.  However, iron bacteria can produce unpleasant tastes, stains and odors in your drinking water.  There are a couple ways to treat the bacteria.  The most common method used is physical extraction followed up by a "cleaning" treatment, with chemicals such as surfactants (soaps) or other disinfectants.  Generally, treatment is only needed in drinking water systems, to help remove unpleasant taste.

If you happen to come across any iron-oxidizing bacteria in the District (or anything else that does not look 'normal'), please call Dave Vlasin, Water Quality Technician at 651.792.7972.  He will run out, take a sample and try to figure out what it is.

David Vlasin
Water Quality Technician