The ATV Club’s May meeting will be held Monday, May 21 at 6 p.m. at 139 Bally Creek Road. All are welcome to join the club for a potluck dinner, then meeting. We are seeking board members and need help planning summer events! Join us for a great potluck and good conversation.

Call 387-9844 for directions or more information. ~ Happy trails!

Are you interested in public access to the forest around you here in Cook County? Have you considered what legal public right of way on old roads and trails you might have but may be denied access to by various government entities? Knowledge is power and protecting your rights is your responsibility.

The Cook County ATV Club has been researching these questions and would like to share the following information. The links attached below are good reading and perhaps helpful in trying to understand how to protect yourself and your rights.

Cook County will continue this research and its work to protect historic use of roads and trails. In Cook County, old right of ways that need access clarification can be grouped as follows:

*Old Township Roads

*Other Roads

* Historic Trails

Considerations as land owners and the ATV Club move forward are:

1. Roads that were pre-existing before the Forest Service or other public or private landowners acquired lands will have a stronger legal footing than those that came later.
2. Roads not formally abandoned by due legal process are  still public right of ways.
3. Travel management plans and such created by government entities may not have legal footing.
4. Treating motorized use with less respect than silent sports is discriminatory.

Click below for some interesting reading about this issue.

http://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/oldroads.php – Read how other areas of the country are dealing with this issue.

http://www.mntownships.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7BC6C0C674-971D-40AE-B9E4-50B8C7F2C0AD%7D – The Minnesota Association of Townships has a wealth of information about town roads—prescriptive easements; establishing or dedicating or abandoning town roads and much more.

http://www.township.guthrie.mn.us/Road_Bridge/Township%20Roads%20-%20An%20Overview%20TR14000.pdf – An interesting overview of township roads by the Minnesota Association Attorney.

In June 2009, about 50 Cook County outdoor enthusiasts rode their all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) into the Guinness Book of World Records. The folks on the four-wheelers were part of the All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota (ATVAM)’s successful attempt to break a Guinness World Record for the World’s Longest ATV Parade. Those 50 people were part of a record-breaking parade of 1,632 ATVs in the city of Silver Bay.

The title was short-lived, however. In the fall of 2010, the state of Utah broke the Minnesota record with 1,870 ATVs. So ATVAM plans to take back the world record and northland ATVers are once again invited to take part. ATVAM hopes to have more than 2,000 ATVs in the parade.

There will also be fun riding opportunities on the fabulous Silver Bay Moose Walk ATV trail system and other ATV-related activities. Sponsors of the ATV Parade will be hosting booths on-site for participants to see new products. Parade organizers will also be holding a contest for the most creatively decorated ATV. After the parade concludes Zup’s Foods will be hosting a buffet at the Silver Bay Union Hall.

Registration and the staging area for the parade will be one half mile north of Outer Drive and Highway 61 in the field in front of AmericInn Motel. There will be signs showing participants where to go. There will be ample parking on the streets and surrounding areas. The parade route will be a designated ATV trail for the day, so children can ride in the parade as long they meet all MN safety requirements. Side-by-side ATV’s and three-wheelers are welcome to come, but will not be counted by Guinness World Records™ towards the record breaking attempt.

Participants are also asked to bring a canned food item to donate to the Silver Bay
Food Shelf. A truck will be available to non-perishable food contributions at the parade site.

If you register by Friday, May 8, 2012, you will receive one free limited edition “World’s Longest ATV Parade” memorabilia t-shirt. For more information or to register please visit www.atvparade.org or call ATVAM at (800) 442-8826.

A field of 1,632 wait to ride into the Guinness Book of World Records!

Because so many people are unavailable for today (Apr. 24) cleanup, we are postponing the cleanup for a couple of weeks – we’ll send out a notice with the new date soon. We will “celebrate” Earth Day at a later date!

The 2012 Cook County Emergency Services Conference will be held April 27-28 at the Cook County Community Center. This is the 23rd annual conference for local and regional emergency response personnel. There are many exciting training opportunities, including a live burn simulation and advanced ATV training for emergency responders.

The ATV training is new this year. The Cook County ATV Club worked to get a qualified instructor for the conference because the club was econcerned about inexperienced people being called on to search for and/or transport patients with ATVs. “It would be terrible to have a rescuer injured in the midst of a rescue,” said ATV Club President Mickey Brazell.

ATV Club Secretary Rhonda Silence said, “We know that fire department and/or ambulance staff do not normally travel into the woods to get patients…but we also know that in emergency situations, people are called on to fill in wherever possible. So, we think this is great training for everyone in the ES service.”

Thanks to funding from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, the Emergency Services Conference has retained Steve Jacobson of St. Cloud, a retired (31-year) DNR Conservation Officer who teaches advanced conservation officer/law enforcement training. He has also been a DNR-certified youth ATV safety instructor since 1981, so he has taught all levels of ATV safety.

Jacobson is an “avid ATV enthusiast” who has logged over 80,000 miles of riding in all conditions from the Rocky Mountains to the Moab Desert to trails all over Minnesota and neighboring states. As a conservation officer, he was involved in a number of search and rescue operations that involved transporting patients, so he has had real-life experience in what he is teaching.

The training will be held in three sessions: Friday, April 27 from 1 – 5 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. and 1- 5 p.m. at Mickey Brazell’s property at 139 Bally Creek Road.

Anyone interested in participating in this training is asked to contact Emergency Management Director Jim Wiinanen at 387-3059.

This year’s sessions also include safety around electric cars and car crashes, regional and state threat assessment and state response teams and safety around medical helicopter operations, and also training in National Incident Management System and Incident Command System and the ARMER public safety radio system.

In addition to hands-on training participants also gain experience participating in tabletop exercises covering a variety of scenarios that might occur in our area.

The conference is the annual opportunity to acknowledge the Outstanding Emergency Service Provider and the Dolly Johnson Friend of Emergency Service from the previous year. A group of volunteers help plan and coordinate conference activities.

Community support makes this conference possible. Donations for the conference can be sent to the Law Enforcement Center: Emergency Services Conference, 143 Gunflint Trail, Grand Marais, MN 55604. For additional information contact Emergency Management Director Jim Wiinanen at 218-387-3059.

Registration is only available online at the Cook County website: http://www.co.cook.mn.us/index.php/esc-registration

It’s spring and that means it’s time to conduct our Highway 61 cleanup! Meet at the Hovland Town Hall at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 24. Trash bags & safety vests provided. Wear good walking shoes and gloves and join us. A prize for the most interesting piece of trash found. Gather at Chicago Bay Marketplace for pizza afterwards. Hope to see you there!

The April meeting of the Cook County ATV Club is tonight, April 16, at 6 p.m. at the Harbor Light Supper Club. Come and enjoy dinner and good conversation at the April meeting. All are welcome!

Public input on revised deer population goals in southwestern and north-central Minnesota is being collected through an online survey on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) website at www.mndnr.gov/deergoals.

Earlier this year, the DNR worked with three stakeholder teams to help re-determine deer population goals in 12 permit areas in the southwest and 10 permit areas in north-central Minnesota.

The teams represented such interests as deer hunters, landowners, businesses, counties and conservation/environmental groups, and met to recommend if deer populations should be increased, decreased or stabilized for each of the selected permit areas.

The online survey allows the public to react to team recommendations and inform the DNR on their point of view regarding deer populations. A similar process was used as a final step to gather public input in 2008.

This information, along with the stakeholder team recommendations, will be used to set the 2012 deer season. Deer population goals for the remainder of the state will be revaluated in the next year or two.

“Back in 2008, hundreds of people provided us input using the internet,” said Steve Merchant, DNR Wildlife Population Program manager. “This year we expect that level of public participation to increase even more.”

Public comment will be accepted through Monday, May 1. Once public input is complete and results are analyzed, a decision on deer populations will be made for each permit area and the 2012 deer season harvest strategies will be adjusted accordingly.

Written comments may be mailed to: Steve Merchant, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Box 20, 500 Lafayette Road, Saint Paul, MN 55155.

Hey Moms, Dads, aunts, uncles & grandparents – Be sure to get your kids signed up for the ATV Safety class! Get the CD from community ed and go through it with them. Grownups can learn something too! For the field test, the DNR & ATV Club provides ATV and helmets, so you don’t have to worry about that. If times are tough, the ATV Club will cover the $15 fee. We want ALL kids to have this safety training! Call Community Ed to register at 218-387-2000.

ATVers who are bear huters will be excited to learn that applications for this fall’s bear hunt will be accepted from Monday, April 2, through Friday, May 4, at any Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) license agent and online at www.mndnr.gov/buyalicense. They also are available at the DNR License Center in St. Paul or by phone at 888-665-4236. A total of 6,000 licenses are available in 11 permit areas. This year’s bear hunt will run from Sunday, Sept. 1, to Sunday, Oct. 14. Hunters selected in the annual lottery must purchase their licenses by Wednesday, Aug. 1, so licenses that aren’t purchased can be made available to other hunters. After this year’s Aug. 1 deadline, any eligible hunter may purchase any remaining licenses starting at noon, Monday, Aug. 6. In 2011, hunters purchased 5,684 licenses by the deadline. Those hunters were chosen from a pool of 19,170 applicants for the available 7,050 permit area licenses. The remaining 1,336 permits were sold after the deadline passed. Hunters harvested a total of 2,131 bears. Bear licenses cost $38 for residents and $200 for nonresidents. The bag limit is two bears in the no-quota area and one bear in all quota permit areas. Complete information on the fall bear hunt is available on the DNR website at www.mndnr.gov/hunting/bear.