A flake, a sheet or block, the Minnesota landscape is covered with ice crystals in winter and the Arboretum’s Lake Tamarack is full of icy wonder. Even the lake was created by a massive block of ice, embedded into a moraine left by retreating Wisconsin glaciers over two million years ago. The entrance to the former farmstead, now a natural area, gently slopes to the edge of the small, deep glacial lake. Fishing, on ice or otherwise, requires a current DNR fishing license.
A broken, six-sided ice crystal or snowflake melds into the landscape and a maple samara is encased in a block of ice on Lake Tamarack.
This easy-access site is free and open to the public and located west of the Arboretum’s main entrance on Highway 5. It features a complex prairie savanna with a pot-hole lake on a glacial moraine. The rich habitat provides food and winter cover for birds, mammals, amphibians and fish. The wide, gentle paths cut through all parts of the 80-acre complex, providing a quiet, reflective space to walk and rest.
There is a parking space at the lake's edge and an area to launch a canoe. The day I visited, there were ice-fishing huts on the frozen lake. Frogs, turtles and fish are cold-blooded and hibernate or slow down during the winter months. Some fish, such as northern pike and yellow perch, are active in warmer, deeper waters of the lake.
A wood duck house stands above the chaos of cattails in the marsh area near the edge of Lake Tamarack.
Cattails are a highly valued plant in traditional Native American culture, and almost every part of the plant has a useful application. A cattail stem has air pockets along its length and when stems are woven into mats, they provide insulation and warmth. Cattail pollen is rich in protein and the flowers provide fibers to pad traditional leather moccasins for warmth and comfort.
A cattail leaf writes a cryptic message.
Stands of native cattails are important components of a healthy watershed. In this instance, rain or snow runoff from surrounding areas is filtered by the cattails before entering Lake Tamarack. Water is drawn off from the lake for the adjacent University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center.
Rows of woody landscape plants line up in the research area.
American tamarack is a deciduous conifer, and you can find them here at the Lake Tamarack site, at the edge of the wetlands. Tamarack, or larch, have a brilliant yellow color in fall, just before they lose their annual needles. Soft, new needles glow bright green in the spring. Native Americans used the fine root hair of tamarack to sew birch bark for canoes. Algonquin Indians named the tamarack from a word that means “wood for snowshoes.”
Larch cones open up for bird‘s breakfast.
Staghorn sumac may not be the favorite landscape tree because it will send out runners from its root system and create a thicket of sumac. This variety is related to the Middle-eastern sumac used in Mediterranean cooking; it also has a stringent taste due to the high tannin content. Sumacs naturally put out runners, shed branches, and can live in poor, dry spaces.
Sumac berries are a bright spot in the winter landscape.
At the edge of the lake, in a perfect space is a colony of lichens that have been growing on a picnic table. Winter can be a perfect time for lichens to grow when they have clear access to sunlight after the leaves fall off the trees and the snow provides moisture for photosynthesis. These orange lichens are often associated with high-nitrogen-producing environments, such as this former farmstead.
Hooded sunburst and sulfur firedot lichens chilling on a picnic table.
This winter walk went from the top of the hill to the edge of the lake to take a closer look at trees in their natural elements. The smooth open paths of the Lake Tamarack site unfold and reveal wonder in this winter land of Minnesota.
Zan Tomko is an artist, horticulturist, Minnesota Master Naturalist Instructor and a co-founder of the iNaturalist Minnesota Lichen Map Project. Find more information about the Minnesota Master Naturalist program