Wolsfeld Woods Scientific and Natural Area

Designated in 1978, Wolsfeld Woods was among the first of Minnesota's Scientific and Natural Areas. It was acquired to protect one the best remaining examples of the Big Woods forest community in the state. The site's hilly topography can be credited at least in part with the survival of the forest here. Early homesteaders found it impractical to till for farming, opting instead to establish a maple syrup operation that continued from the 1880s into the 1940s.

Mature maple-basswood forest dominates the SNA, with some of the state's largest individual sugar maple trees. The site also hosts areas of oak forest and emergent marsh. Permanent and intermittent streams have carved meandering valleys through the rolling terrain.

All but the northwest corner of 35-acre Wolsfeld Lake lies within the SNA. Researchers have used lakebed sediments (including pollen) to reconstruct the area's environmental history. Studies by U of MN researcher Eric Grimm and colleagues indicate that 12,000 years ago this site was characterized by spruce forest. As the climate grew warmer and drier, conifers were gradually replaced by deciduous forest and then by prairie. Prairie persisted until about 5000 years ago, when a return to cooler/wetter climate fostered a transition to oak savanna and oak forest. This, in turn, was replaced by maple-basswood forest within the last 500 years.